Security

U.N. Spies on Pirates from Space

The U.N. is staring down on the Somali pirates from space. UNOSAT, the international body’s satellite analysis wing, has produced a pair of reports, giving fresh views of the ships hijacked off the coast of east Africa, detailing their captors’ activities — and even snooping on the pirates’ home base. Using images taken from the […]

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The U.N. is staring down on the Somali pirates from space. UNOSAT, the international body's satellite analysis wing, has produced a pair of reports, giving fresh views of the ships hijacked off the coast of east Africa, detailing their captors' activities -- and even snooping on the pirates' home base.

Using images taken from the Quickbird commercial imaging satellite, the group is plotting out exactly where ships are being captured, and where the'yre being held.

There have been a total 84 reported pirate incidents in just the last three months, UNOSAT says. Half of them occurred in or around the shipping "corridor" sent up by the international community to protect commercial vessels. And that corridor didn't seem to do much to deter the pirates; their rate of successful attacks dipped only slightly (37 percent, versus 42 percent) inside the protected area. What the corridor did do was concentrate the pirate strikes. "The mean distance between reported attacks has fallen from 30.5km... to 24.6km after," UNOSAT says.

For an up-to-the-minute map of pirate incidents, check out the International Chamber of Commerce's site.

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