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Climate Scientists Ask For Help Fighting Somali Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the government-ninjas dept.

thebchuckster writes "Scientists are seeking the help of the Australian and US navies to repel Somali pirates who are threatening one of the world's key climate monitoring programs. They hope to deploy about 20 robotic instruments in a no-go area north of Mauritius. The instruments, which record ocean heat and salinity patterns, are programmed to submerge and eventually resurface to upload their data to satellites."

4 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. The real issue by gearloos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The real issue is in how the global security is executed. When these pirates are caught, it is up to the country of the vessel's home port to pay for extradition and prosecution. You may be surprised but in the majotrity of cases, the pirates are arrested and then days later released as the government of the vessels home country decides not to extradite as they don't want the expense of shipping tham, then housing them in prison. A solution? Well, go back to how we used to deal with pirates. Tried by a captain on ship and walk the plank into the water 300 miles off shore. Done. Problem solved.

    --
    "Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
    1. Re:The real issue by Anonymous+Cowpat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Royal Navy used to sail back into port with the pirates still swinging from the yardarm. Icky.

      But seriously, given that we're talking about a handful of people, the expense is trifling for any Western government - the problem is jurisdictional issues. Essentially, many of the European countries doubt that their constitutions would allow them to exercise jurisdiction; others doubt that a case could be proven beyond reasonable doubt; Kenya is fed up of being a dumping ground for sufficient numbers of pirates as actually do make them a financial burden and Somalia has no functioning government to do anything.

      --
      FGD 135
    2. Re:The real issue by asparagus · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The real issue is that once upon a time people in Somali could make a living fishing off their shores. Boats passing through the Suez canal dump their waste in international waters, which is roughly defined as "not the red sea or the mediterranean", which the end result of most of the ships dumping their pollutants into the Somali waters. The country has complained to the UN, who won't do anything about the issue unless oil rights are transferred from the Chinese to America as protection money. This has little chance of happening, and so when the people in the middle eventually take up arms against the international ships dumping in their waters they are labeled pirates and shot out of the water to satisfy the moralistic urges of people who like simple good versus bad qualifiers.

  2. Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why doesn't the govt give Somalis money for acting morally?

    Which government? The Somali government? It sounds like calling that a government is being charitable. Warlords might even be charitable. They just started allowing aid into the country for the worst drought in 60 years with 11 million people starving.

    The US? We're not really big on spending money overseas except if it's Israel or bombing someone. And, truth be told, we have a terrible record of giving money and aid to bad people only to have to kill them later on after they've killed a lot of innocent people. Though again, the situation is pretty bad already. If there were a way to make the situation worse, the US would be hard-pressed to find it.

    Anyone else? Not interested in Somalia or incapable of doing anything. Somalia has been a failed state for a while now.