Somali Pirates plants to Blow the Ship Oil for $ 20 million

Nairobi  Somali pirates on Wednesday threatened to blow up a ship hijacked the majors unless the ransom was paid $ 20 million, and hijack a Panamanian-flagged merchant ship. South Korea sent a destroyer to ambush dream Samho carrying two million barrels of crude oil with a crew that includes five South Koreans and 19 citizens of the Philippines, after the ship was seized this month.

“We are demanding $ 20 million ransom for the release of South Korean ship,” said Hashi, leader of the pirates that controlled the ship was owned by a Singapore company. “The ship and its crew safe. We know that a number of warships to attack plan, but told them that the ship will be detonated if they attack us,” said the pirate nest in Hobyo.

Meanwhile, Andrew Mwangura, officials of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme based in Kenya, said the Panamanian-flagged vessel MV VOC controlled pirate Daisy at dawn at the site some 190 kilometers southeast of the port Salalah in Oman. The ship was manned by 21 Filipinos.

He said the big ship sailing from the United Arab Emirates to a port that is not mentioned on the Suez Canal when it was hijacked. It is unclear what brought the ship of goods.

EU naval patrols in the area confirmed the hijacking of ships weighing 47,183 tons of it in the news site. Three hijacked Thai fishing vessel at the weekend and a series of failed attacks launched since then.

Pirates operating off the coast of Somalia to increase piracy attacks on ships in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden in recent months despite a foreign navy held off the coast of the Horn of Africa . The waters off the coast of Somalia is home to most piracy-prone world, and the International Maritime Bureau reporting 24 attacks in the region between April and June 2008 alone.

The pirates attacked more than 130 merchant ships in that year, an increase of more than 200 percent of the attacks in 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Pirate groups in Somalia, which operates in a strategic sea lane that connects Asia and Europe, making millions of dollars in ransoms from hijacking ships in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

Multinational naval patrols in the strategic sea route connecting Europe with Asia through the Gulf of Aden availability appears that only the bands of pirates operating expand their attacks deeper into the Indian Ocean.

Pirate the failed Horn of Africa country is currently holding a dozen ships and over 200 crew, including British couples ship hijacked off the Seychelles. Security Council has approved the operation of incursions into Somali territorial waters to fight piracy, but warships patrolling the area did not do much, according to Puntland Fisheries Minister Ahmed Saed Ali Nur.

the weak Somali transitional government, currently battling a bloody insurgency, is not able to stop the action of the pirates who hijack ships and demand ransom for the release of vessels and their crews. Pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, using speedboats to pursue their goal. Submerged Somalia since the lifting of energy and anarchism war commanders overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. In addition to piracy, kidnappings and deadly violence have also affected the country.( Reuters)

50,000 people who live alongside Kenya's railway lines could see their homes destroyed

Kenya An estimated 50,000 people who live alongside Kenya’s railway lines could see their homes destroyed after the government railway gave the squatters 30 days to move, prompting residents on Friday to threaten to resist violently.The government order has received sharp criticism from an international human rights group and from those affected, most of whom are slum dwellers in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The government order does not include a resettlement plan, and residents facing eviction say they don’t know where they will go.

“People have been living and working on these lands for years and a 30-day notice period is wholly inadequate,” said Justus Nyang’aya, director of Amnesty International in Kenya.The land in question is designated as a railway reserve for about 100 feet (30 meters) on either side of the tracks. Many of the slum dwellers, the city’s poorest residents, settled on the land to avoid paying rent.

The Kenya Railways Corporation said in a notice March 21 that squatters must leave in 30 days or be evicted to make way for a planned expansion of train services.A spokesman, George Tatache, the railway took note of the residents’ concerns but as of Friday had no plans to extend next week’s deadline. The railway does not plan to compensate people for their demolished structures, and violators could be prosecuted, he said.

Some residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, where a railway line connecting Kenya and Uganda winds through tens of thousands of iron-roofed shanties, threatened to resist violently if the railway does not relocate them.

Junk-seller Stephen Mutua Mutiso, 50, said he does not believe the corporation is serious about its expansion program because it gave similar a reason for evicting residents 15 years ago, but did not then expand the tracks.”The last time they came I did not resist but this time I will fight them off,” Mutiso said.Amnesty International said in a statement that Kenya will violate international human rights laws if it goes through with the evictions. Nyang’aya said that without proper safeguards the evictions will have a devastating impact on people’s access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could create a humanitarian emergency.

Sam Ouma, the chairman of the Railway Dwellers Federation, said the railway issued a prior eviction notice in 2004, but residents filed a suit against it, forcing the corporation to settle out of court.

Ouma said that he hopes a peaceful resolution will be found, but that if the evictions are forceful, officials will be met with fierce resistance.

Mutiso, the junk trader, said he had to start from scratch in 1995 after the corporation destroyed his home and business along the railway line. Mutiso said he had to take desperate measures and move with his six children and wife into a single-room house measuring 10 feet (3 meters) by 10 feet (3 meters).He said it took him a year to rebuild his business, which allowed him to rent a bigger house. Mutiso said during that eviction, two people he knew who had lost all their property committed suicide.(AP)