Somalia's Pirate Problem Grows More Rampant - Abukar Albadri and Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
Rampant piracy is the latest, strangest and by far the most lucrative survival technique employed by Somalia's desperate populace, which has struggled without a functioning government since 1991. Seizing boats on the high seas along this lawless Horn of Africa nation is turning once-quiet fishing villages such as Haradhere into Mafia-style dens of greed and vice.
As the men file out of the room, their wallets fat, they are swarmed by prostitutes, gin hawkers and peddlers of khat, a leaf that people chew for its amphetamine-like stimulant. Special bragging rights go to the young man who can blow through $2,000 in a single evening.
"One night I got $1,000 from a pirate," a prostitute from Djibouti said. "But the luckiest is to sleep with the group leader. You get $3,000."
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Somalia's Pirates Flourish in a Lawless Nation - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times
This is the story of Somalia's booming, not-so-underground pirate economy. The country is in chaos, countless children are starving and people are killing one another in the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, for a handful of grain.
But one particular line of work - piracy - seems to be benefiting quite openly from all this lawlessness and desperation. This year, Somali officials say, pirate profits are on track to reach a record $50 million, all of it tax free.
"These guys are making a killing," said Mohamud Muse Hirsi, the top Somali official in Boosaaso, who himself is widely suspected of working with the pirates, though he vigorously denies it.
More at The New York Times.