Bartamaha (Nairobi):- A U.S. Navy warship exchanged fire with suspected Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean early Thursday, the latest salvo in a growing international effort to curb piracy in one of the world’s most strategic shipping lanes.
Shortly after midnight, the suspected pirates fired on the USS Nicholas west of the Seychelles Islands in an apparent attempt to seize the ship and hold it for ransom. The 453-foot frigate returned fire, sinking one boat and seizing the mother ship, the Navy said in a statement. Five men were taken into custody on the Norfolk-based Nicholas.
Somali piracy has escalated in recent years as lawlessness gripped the country, whose central government collapsed in 1991. Pirates fired at a U.S. warship off Somalia last May and have also attacked French and Dutch naval vessels in the area.
Thursday’s attack came nearly a year after pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama and took its captain hostage, the first assault on a U.S.-registered ship off Africa in more than 200 years. A U.S. rescue operation ended when Navy snipers shot dead three pirates in a lifeboat, with the captain tied up a few feet away.
Last year, 406 incidents of piracy and armed robbery were reported, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Somalis accounted for more than half of those incidents.
– Sudarsan Raghavan
RUSSIA
New evidence found on WWII hero’s fate
New evidence from Russian archives suggests that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, was alive after Soviets reported that he had died in a Moscow prison, a Swedish magazine and U.S. researchers reported Thursday.
The fate of Wallenberg, whom the Soviet army arrested in Budapest in January 1945, has remained one of the great mysteries of World War II.
The Soviets claimed he was executed July 17, 1947, but never produced a reliable death certificate or his remains. Witnesses claim he was seen in Soviet prisons or labor camps many years later, although those accounts were never verified.
Now, the archives of the Russian Security Services say a man identified only as Prisoner No. 7, who was interrogated six days after the diplomat’s reported death, was “with great likelihood” Wallenberg.
– Associated Press
SUDAN
Opposition parties may boycott vote
Sudan’s major opposition parties on Thursday threatened a total boycott of the country’s first multiparty elections in decades, citing irregularities and bias.
Opposition leaders gave themselves 24 hours to consult with their parties before making a final decision. A boycott would shatter the credibility of the landmark contests, which are meant to stabilize the fractious country.
The brinkmanship came as the U.S. envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Gen. J. Scott Gration, arrived in Sudan and met with opposition leaders, apparently in a bid to ward off a crisis ahead of the vote.
– Associated Press
40 escape jail in southern Yemen: About 40 secessionists escaped from a jail in southern Yemen after a bomb blast, a local official and southern news media said. Recent months have seen violent clashes between separatists and security forces, and analysts say the government faces a sustained insurgency in the south unless it addresses grievances.
Nigeria abandons case against former anti-graft chief: Nigeria said it has dropped a legal case against respected former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu, potentially clearing the way for him to help the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, fight graft.
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Source:- Washington Post.
