Japan to send 2 destroyers in March to Somalia. and Ukrainian ship freed by pirates due in Kenyan port Wednesday

TOKYO: Japan plans to dispatch two destroyers near Somalia in early March to protect its commercial vessels from pirates, a media report said Sunday. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, attending a security conference in Germany on Saturday, told reporters of the planned deployment next month, according to Kyodo news agency. A government fact-finding team departed for the region Sunday ahead of the dispatch of the 4,650-ton Sazanami and the 4,550-ton Samidare, it said. A bill for the deployment is before Japan's parliament and expected to pass. Defense ministry officials were unavailable for comment Sunday. Somalia is located along the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest waterways, where pirates launched more than 100 attacks on ships last year and took millions of dollars in ransom...more..http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/08/news/Piracy.php
Ukrainian ship freed by pirates due in Kenyan port Wednesday
MOSCOW, February 9 (RIA Novosti) - The Ukrainian cargo ship released by Somali pirates last week will arrive in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on February 11, a Russian maritime news website editor said during a radio interview on Monday. The Faina was hijacked off the Horn of Africa on September 25, 2008, and released on Thursday after the pirates received a $3.2 million ransom. "The cargo will arrive at its destination on the evening of February 11," Mikhail Voitenko of the Sovfracht Maritime Bulletin, who has been involved in negotiations for freeing the ship, said in a live radio interview on Russia's Vesti-FM. A U.S. military frigate, the Mason, is escorting the cargo ship to Kenya. The crew of 17 Ukrainians, two Russians and one Latvian are all said to be in good health, but the body of the Russian captain, who died of a heart attack soon after the hijacking, will be sent home to St. Petersburg by the Russian Embassy in Nairobi.
Voitenko said the captain could have been saved, because for two weeks the ship's crew asked the Somali pirates to allow them to transfer Vladimir Kolobov to a U.S. ship in the area for medical treatment, but the hijackers refused. more...http://en.rian.ru/world/20090209/120047002.html