President Barack Obama cleared the way Monday for the U.S. to arm and train Somali forces, taking a step toward normal relations with the East African nation as it works to build confidence in its newly recognized government. In a memo to Secretary of State John Kerry, Obama said he has determined that supplying defense…
A naval officer, who is a witness in one of the cases involving Somali pirates, has identified all the 28 accused. He was part of the rescue mission on Prantalaya 11, and also interrogated the pirates. In February and March 2011, the navy caught the pirates after the coast guard alerted it about the hijacked…
BBC News Two Italian marines, charged in India with the murder of two fishermen, will not be returning to India to face trial, Italy’s foreign ministry says. Rome says Delhi is violating international law by putting the marines on trial in India. India’s Supreme Court earlier allowed Massimilian Latorre and Salvatore Girone to go home…
The 13th and 14th escort taskforces under the Navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held an escort mission-handover ceremony in western waters of the Gulf of Aden on March 13, 2013, local time. Before the ceremony, the 14th Chinese naval escort taskforce had arrived at the Gulf of Aden and the waters…
Somalia’s president has offered an amnesty to young pirates amid a “drastic” fall in the number of attacks off East Africa. In an interview with the AFP news agency Wednesday, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said that he wanted to offer an “alternative means of earning a living” to young Somalis caught up in the lucrative…
Officials from the Somaliland and Puntland regions have agreed to co-operate on joint security measures to combat terrorism, piracy and organised crime, Somalia’s Garowe Online reported Thursday (March 21st). After ministry officials from the two regions held a series of private meetings in Nairobi this week with British, Swedish and American officials, the two delegations…
Britain says it has earmarked $3.56 million to support U.N. anti-piracy efforts that seek to build prisons and upgrade the justice system in Somalia. Most of the funding is targeted for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s Post Trial Transfer Program, which is helping to construct a new prison in Puntland designed to…
