Climate Scientists Ask For Help Fighting Somali Pirates

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."

Comments

The real issue

[gearloos]

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.

Re:The real issue

[Anonymous Cowpat]

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.