There is increased piracy in Somalia as many can see throughout the news in the past few years which has been building up since the civil war in the early 1990's. This in turn affects trade significantly and also the food reserves being sent to Somalia due to their extensive droughts and food shortages.

So what do we do about this situation? Some countries through NATO have giving naval assistance to provide protection. However, some these ships are too large to maneuver past their speedboats and come underarmed and thus are not effective.

Another option is to, not necessarily control arms sales but to at least hold the sellers accountable. Most arms transactions are reportedly made through Yemen. And even though at a cost of becoming pro-actively involved with Yemen it is debated whether or not applying pressure would have much effect if any at all...


Copyright BBC 2008


Copyright CNN 2008

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_pirate
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4584878.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/01/piracy.terror/index.html
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/09/mystery_surrounds_hi.php