True … too much competition 🙂

I dont know why Brits could not follow aussie model.. but down here Woolies is the strongest grocer/super market in the land. In fact government is forcing them to stop expanding so they do not monopolise market.

I think success of Aussie woolies is the decision to focus on Food products.. as their logo here is “the fresh food people”… i mean you can still buy some other crap there like toileteries or hygine products.. but 80% is food.. and great variety of it, from most afordable to very expensive. This way they do not compete with kmart, BigW and Target for other cheap rubbish 🙂

REPO men from Bejing might cart away those shiny toys if the loans dont get payed 😛 *kidding*

No Egypt is hosting an emergency meeting… i bet its an emergency.. shipping trough suez could fall by 50% in the next year. EU is assembling a flotila of combat ships apparently. Like somebody above said Greece should be doing more, as should Turks.. they are the ones who depend on Suez traffic, Italy too.

Drug labs in Colombia are deliberately isolated. Not even the producers hang around them when they’re not working, which is only intermittently. Nor are training camps in Afghanistan at all comparable. You’re talking about towns, in which most of the people are not pirates, not closed military encampments.

And what in those coastal towns would you drop these guided munitions on? A PGM can only be as accurate as its targeting information. Remember, the towns house the captives. It’s unlikely anyone picking targets will know exactly which buildings they’re in – except that they’re buildings used by pirates, i.e. on any target list . . .

No not towns .. there are several mini harbors in Puntland used by pirates only, no civ population no fishermen, basically a pirate base. On Janes Security, last report on Somali piracy had a good article with maps and locations.

Now hostages are problem, that is a given… but at this rate pirates are winning.. for ever hostage bought out, 3 new one are captured. This cant go on forever. I think if some of those taken were say Israeli .. you would have seen by now a proper way to deal with kidnappers. SAS action against west side boys was a perfect example… from what i recall after that action several other groups choose to volunterily lay down arms after hearing of the incident.

PS: Jack, Egypt will be very concearned as more and more shipping companies choose to go long way around.. however they do not have capacity to get involved them self.. best they can do is champion the cause at the UN and push for tougher international action from naval powers.

So ignore clear example of international crime because “people might get hurt”… thats like saying we will ignore Mob and let them do what they want because people might get hurt. Well people are getting hurt .. when the Ukranian ship with T72s was taken two people died…

As far as buissines goes.. at least two major shipping companies are now rerouting their vessels around cape and will not be using suez canal … and more are sure to follow, as success of pirate raids increases and others are drawn in. If you ignore problem it will escalate and eventually it would have to be dealt with.

Regarding military strikes.. you do not have to go into somalia and try to fix the mess.. i think everybody in world accepted that some mess is not worth fixing. But what you can do quite easily is put the pirate ports out of commission and impose stricter armed patrols both in the air and surface over gulf of Aiden..

Due to pirates there is very little commercial activity in form of fisheries going on there.. and any smaller craft significantly away from coast are more than likely pirates or pirate scouts… they should be turned into target practice for naval aviators and together with leveling their harbors , will make problem go away.

The piracy around singapore few years ago was also getting out of control, until government became aware that it is not good effect on the world largest port… so they started doing something about it.