Japan seeks to help S-E Asia fight growing piracy threat

Tokyo

"ECHIGO and the pirates" sounds rather like the name of a Japanese children's tale. But it describes a real-life initiative by the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) to despatch the patrol vessel Echigo to South-east Asia this week to help counter pirate activities there.

This, at least, is the angle Japanese authorities are playing up as the sleek, white ship prepares to depart her home port of Nigata on Wednesday, bound first for exercises in the southern Philippine port of Davao and then on to Danang Port in Vietnam for similar exercises.