Continuing Coverage: Pirates!

Following up on this post and this vote about Somali pirates, here's an article... About Somali pirates!

The UN has denied reports from local residents that pirates who seized a ship carrying tsunami aid to Somalia have started looting the food.

"Our contacts in the region assure us that the vast bulk... of rice aboard the MV Semlow has not been taken ashore," the UN's Robert Hausser said.

Weeks of talks have failed to secure the release of the ship and its crew.

Meanwhile, gunmen have seized three fishing vessels in the latest incident of piracy off the Somali coast.

Some 40 crew members were being held hostage, a local militia leader who is working to secure their release told the BBC.

Earlier this week the International Maritime Board warned of an alarming increase in piracy in Somali waters and has urged shipping to avoid the area.

We shouldn't get alarmed, though; surely, there's a United Nations negotiator that can calmly convince these rogues to give the ships back.

A deal was done two weeks ago, but last week the captors issued fresh demands, according to the director of the Mombasa-based Mokatu shipping agency, Karim Kudrati.

The hijackers had initially demanded $500,000 in ransom, but WFP - which chartered the ship - says no money was paid.

Allow me to explain a very simple truth of international security, ladies and gentlemen. You do not negotiate with terrorists, or in this case pirates. Once you start treating them as anything more than criminals and derelicts, they will get bolder and bolder. The solution to this situation is not negotiation; it is for the WFP to come out of their offices with their tails between their legs and beg the U.S. government to send in SEAL Team 6 so that they can recover hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars worth of Tsunami aid that your tax dollars paid for, that's currently being consumed... By Somali pirates!