New breed of pirates follow old handbook,.. Spanish navy captures pirates suspected of cruise attack

It's enough to give the 'pirate' trade a bad name.After an accused Somali piracy suspect made his way tearfully through a court in New York, his worried mother, late last week, pleaded for compassion in his case.Adar Abdirahman Hassan said her teenage son - a "talented boy" and "a good student" - is no scourge of the sea, but instead, a confused kid who was roped into taking part in the kidnapping of U.S. ship captain, Richard Phillips.But how does her eldest child, Abdiweli Muse, who may have been the ringleader of the gang which stormed Phillips's U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama on April 8, compare with those sea-dogs of yore, who once preyed upon slower boats and weaker men off Canada's East Coast?Do today's pirates hold a stolen candle to their bloodthirsty forefathers? And if they met on open water, how would the legendary likes of Captain Kidd and Black Bart view their modern heirs?Apparently, says one of Canada's most respected pirate experts, they would be embraced as following -remarkably closely - the age-old pirates' handbook."Black Bart would be proud," says Dan Conlin, curator at The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.Bart - Bartholomew Roberts - was the most skilled pirate of the golden age of his kind.During the early part of the 1700s, he captured more than 470 vessels, including in waters around Cape Breton and Newfoundland. It was fairly common for bandits to move up off Canada's shores every spring.Into the 1800s, their executed bodies were still displayed, decaying inside the clutches of gibbets, hung from posts in the Maritimes.Conlin, who will publish Piracy on the Atlantic - Robbery, Murder and Mayhem on Canada's East Coast this summer, says the high sea raiders of today and yesteryear are born from the same three ingredients - poverty, a weak local government and rich trade tempting them on the horizon...more..http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2009/04/27/9257861-sun.html
Spanish navy captures pirates suspected of cruise attack
MADRID (AFP) — A Spanish warship has intercepted a skiff carrying nine suspected Somali pirates believed to have attacked an Italian cruise ship at the weekend, the defence ministry said Monday.The Numancia frigate "intercepted a skiff with nine occupants who could be connected to the hijacking attempt of the Italian cruise ship which was eventually repelled by the boat," it said in a statement.The cruise liner Melody, carrying more than 1,500 people, was attacked on Saturday but Israeli security guards on board the ship responded to the pirates' gunfire and were able to repel them.After the hijacking attempt The Numancia, along with patrol planes from France and the Seychelles and an Indian navy ship, launched a high-seas hunt for the assailants.During the search, the naval mission found "two small boats with nine suspects on board very close to the scene of the attack against the cruise," the Spanish defence ministry said.The suspects abandoned one the boats and were later caught in the skiff. The Spanish navy handed over the suspects to a Seychelles ship since they were captured in the island nation's waters in the Indian Ocean...more..http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hG53oEZXtF6iHErxlqfb-kmEu0zg