Somalian coin causes some need for concern | Adele Ferguson

I don’t want to alarm anybody but I’ve been a little apprehensive over what I found in the change kicked out by the till at one of the local stores the other day.
It was a 10-shillings coin from the Republic of Somalia dated 2002. It has a dromedary camel on one side and a coat of arms on the other.
No, I have never been to Somalia. All I really know about Somalia is that it is the home base of a gang of pirates who prey on the 18,000 ships that travel through the Gulf of Aden each year. And piracy is on the rise, according to the Wall Street Journal, which ran a report the other day from the London-based International Maritime Bureau, a group that tracks piracy. Worldwide, there were 293 piracy acts in 2008, to the point that maritime academies in this country are training merchant seamen on how to fend off attacks.
In the Gulf of Aden alone, IMB says, there were 50 attacks in the last three months of 2008. Biggest prize taken by the pirates so far was the tanker MV Biscaglia loaded with 25,000 tons of palm oil that belonged to Saudi Arabia. It was captured the day after Thanksgiving by five men in a speedboat with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.
No one was hurt. The pirates so far have emphasized that they are interested only in money, although if the intended prey puts up a fight, obviously some people may be killed or injured. These are fairly tame pirates, known to have engaged caterers to prepare homestyle food for foreign hostages...more..http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/pat/opinion/39511474.html