Piracy still a bane to shipping

YET again we start the year by looking at statistics that shouldn't exist in the 21st Century.

Pirates killed four crew members, injured 13 and kidnapped nine from their vessels, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). Worldwide, 21 vessels were hijacked last year, 183 were boarded and 13 fired upon.

There was a time, when Somali pirates were hijacking vessels on an almost daily basis, that it was possible to see piracy as a problem that mainly happened a long way away.