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Pirates Of The Caribbean
Captain Jack would be proud. His modern-day equivalents are increasingly torturing ships and passengers and crew.
Robbery (and sometimes ransom and rape) is not confined to the West Indies. It is everywhere on the high seas.
Almost 90 per cent of the trade in this world goes across the oceans. For corsairs, cargo vessels are a favourite target.
These pirates are clever. They use speed boats and, frequently, AK-47s. They know that if they operate within 200 nautical miles of a national coast, they will be subject to local maritime inquisition.
But if a marauder does his business in international waters there is no authority that can, legally, stop them.
In the 19th century Britain's Royal Navy did the job of arresting pirates with reasonable success. But that was a long time ago.
It is estimated that seaborne piracy amounts to worldwide losses of between $13 billion and $16 billion. This is according to the International Maritime Bureau based in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Lloyd's Intelligence Unit based in London.
This correspondent was with a female friend on a cruise ship in the Moluccas Straits near Indonesia in the 1990s when we were hijacked. All jewellery was stolen. No one was hurt.
All we lost in the end was our sense of safety of travelling by sea.
