Chinese sailors backed up by international navies fought off Somali pirates trying to hijack their ship yesterday, one day after the UN authorized land operations against the increasingly bold bandits.
The dramatic high-seas encounter was among a fresh wave of attacks by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, where three other ships were hijacked on Tuesday, as China considered whether to send warships to the pirate-infested waters.
A band of pirates boarded the Chinese-owned vessel Zhenhua 4 yesterday, but the sailors prevented them from invading their crew accommodation for several hours — enough time to seek help from the coalition forces.
“I’m actually very surprised that the crew managed to hold back the pirates. I don’t know how they did it, but they did it,” said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.
“Because of this action, the military helicopters came and they managed to chase the pirates away. The pirates on board eventually left the ship and the master is proceeding on his course,” he said.
The rescue of the Chinese crew was the latest successful intervention from the newly created EU naval task force, which took over patrols off the Horn of Africa from NATO on Dec. 8.
But Somali pirates managed to capture three other ships in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program.
The pirates seized a yacht crewed by just two people and two commercial ships: a cargo vessel and a tug serving as an oil industry support ship, Mwangura said.
Choong also said pirates had hijacked a Turkish cargo ship, a Malaysian tug boat and attacked three other vessels in the Gulf of Aden in the past week.
Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister He Yafei (何亞非) said his country may also send warships to fight piracy off Somalia, in what would be an unprecedented display of naval power far from its shores.
“China is seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the near future,” He was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
The UN Security Council approved a resolution, cosponsored by Belgium, France, Greece, Liberia and South Korea, to give those nations already involved in battling pirates off Somalia a one-year mandate to act against them on land.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS