The voice of a north wind.

An alley brings me in the sound of a waterfall, with a white water recalling the purpose and the flight of a swallow.

Francesco Sinibaldi

SOMALIA PIRACY REPORT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7746576.stm your own word for word transcription in a statement by a Somalia fisherman.: "We are fully aware of the consequences but the world has to realise the problems we are facing here. There has been no peace for 18 years. There is no life here. The last resource Somalias have is the sea but foreign fishing trawlers have come here to plunder our fish. How can they allow the Somalia people to die? It is not possible. This is what drove us to piracy. We have to do anything we can to survive. The lack of government casues problems. If we solved the problem of government everything would be solved."

COMMENT BY DONETTE READ KRUGER Editor, this merely is another example of exploitation of Africa by the rich capitalists of the west and they wonder why karma has now paid them a visit in the form of a credit crunch? Airlines pay for their aircraft to enter any country's flight space throughout the world when flying over land. (Some South Africa flights depart from Edinburgh and fly out over the sea thereby avoiding the UK flight space. Those flights are therefore cheaper because there is no invasion of UK air space.) If everyone paid for sea space, thus creating safe shipping lanes, it would be a form of insurance against piracy. Obviously then those countries which the ships sail past would ensure that no one interferred with any ships while in their sea space and the oil could be safely delivered. But no, the ship owners have resorted to steel nets instead which cost a fortune. These nets will apparently disable the props at the press of a button should any pirates board the ship. Can someone explain to me how will they undo the nets themselves? Its a vicious circle and all because no one wants to pay the Somalians for sailing past their country. If they were shipwrecked I am sure its the Somalia fishermen who would come to their rescue. When the tsunami hit Asia and flooded Somalia after 26th December, no one paid any compensation to those Somalia families who lost their husbands and brothers and sons in that tsunami. Those families lost their breadwinners but who gave a damn? Later rumours were that the donations were still rotting in the UK because of bad management! It is all one-sided because Somalia is thousands of miles away and no one cares. When civil war raged throughout Mozambique foreign ships inundated the Mozambique channel with giant suction mechanisms on board. Their purpose? To raid the lobster beds and crab fields and rich fishing grounds off Mozambique and who cared? No one, they were too busy making deals with sophisticated restaurants in Rome, New York, London and Moscow to serve up these delicacies which they took for FREE!

That about sums up the excuse every criminal gives... "I'm poor, so it's not my fault." Maybe if the criminals would man up and stop claiming it's always someone else's fault, they wouldn't be so poor.

This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.

Some 'stoopid' SOMALI pirates, huh??? Should have taken 'lifesaving/swimming' courses at the local Y. THESE 'PIRATES' WENT DOWN FASTER THAN THE GIRLIES AT SCORES!!!