“Boats are used to deliver relief goods, but pirates are a real concern off the west coast,” the U.N. Joint Logistics Center said in a report on tsunami relief operations in Indonesia. (Emphasis added.)

– ABC News
Yes, pirates still sail the seven seas. They especially like to cruise the Strait of Malacca, bordered by Malaysia and Singapore on one side, Indonesia on the other.

Pirates have plenty of opportunities to plunder the over 40,000 merchant ships travelling the ocean. These enormous ships worth millions of dollars carry almost all of the consumer goods and other raw materials that support the global economy. Now they have the chance to steal food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities from people who have nothing.

In Anarchy at Sea, a primer on ocean commerce and other ocean-related human activities, William Langewiesche wrote,


The sea is a domain increasingly beyond government control, vast and wild, where laws of nations mean little and secretive shipowners do as they please–and where the resilient pathogens of piracy and terrorism flourish.


I hope the crew of the tsunami relief ships shoot the pirates on sight.

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