The French navy has arrested nine suspected pirates and handed them over to authorities in the breakaway Somali region of Puntland, French officials said on Thursday.
French marines in the Gulf of Aden arrested the men when their patrol intercepted two boats on Wednesday in international waters about 185km off the Somali coast, Paris and local Puntland officials each said.
They found small arms and anti-tank weapons and equipment used to board ships on the vessels, said a statement from the French military in Paris. Puntland’s deputy fisheries minister Abdukadir Muse Yusuf said that “the pirates ... dropped all their weapons in the water before they were caught.” The French statement said nine suspects had been arrested, while Somali officials gave the number as eight.
PHOTO: EPA
SUSPECTS
The suspects were handed over to Somali authorities who said they would be prosecuted and would be treated according to international conventions, French officials said. France launched a rescue operation to free a French luxury yacht, Le Ponant, and its 30 crew on April 11, and last month dispatched commandos to release a French couple seized by pirates aboard their yacht.
Twelve suspected pirates are currently being held in custody by French authorities, although lawyers have argued that Paris has no jurisdiction to try their cases.
PHOTO: EPA
France’s latest military intervention — implicitly authorized by a UN Security Council resolution earlier this month — was welcomed by the authorities in Puntland, where in April a court sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment for piracy.
In a report released on Thursday, the International Maritime Bureau said 63 of the 199 piracy incidents recorded worldwide in the first nine months of this year occurred in the waters off the coast of war-ravaged Somalia.
IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said piracy in the Gulf of Aden — an important sea route for oil exports — was of particular concern.
“It is clear that pirates in the Gulf of Aden believe that they can operate with impunity in attacking vessels — some of which have included tankers and large bulk carriers,” Mukundan said.
PATROLS
Seven NATO ships including several frigates are set to start patrols off the coast of Somalia in the next few days to combat piracy and escort aid ships to the nation, an alliance spokesman said on Wednesday.
Aid agencies say at least 2.6 million people in Somalia are facing acute food shortages and warn that the figure could climb to 3.2 million by year-end.
The EU has also announced plans to send a dozen ships to the maritime region, which are intended to relieve the NATO contingent in December.
The UN Security Council on Oct. 7 urged states to commit naval and air assets to the fight against rampant piracy off lawless Somalia.
The 15-member Council unanimously adopted the French-drafted resolution under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which is invoked in cases of threats to international peace and security.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home