10  theSun | WEDNESDAY APRIL 15 2009

news without borders

Somali pirates seize two more ships, attack third

ON BOARD NRP CORTE-REAL:
Somali pirates hijacked two more
cargo vessels and opened fire on a
third yesterday in attacks that showed
their determination to continue strik-
ing shipping in the area’s strategic
waterways.
The capture of the Greek-owned
MV Irene E.M. and Togo-flagged MV
Sea Horse were a clear sign the sea
gangs have not been deterred by two
raids in recent days in which US and
French special forces have killed five
pirates.
Nato Lieutenant Commander Alex-
andre Fernandes said the Portuguese
warship NRP Corte-Real had received
a pre-dawn distress call from the St
Vincent and the Grenadines-flagged
Irene E.M. as it travelled through the
Gulf of Aden.
“There was only three minutes
between the alarm and the hijack,”
Fernandes told Reuters aboard the
warship. “They attacked at night, which
was very unusual. They were using the
moonlight as it’s still quite bright.”
The Greek merchant marine minis-
try said the Irene E.M.’s 22 crew were
Filipinos. The East African Seafarers’
Assistance Programme, which tracks
piracy, said they were all unharmed.
The bulk carrier was sailing from
Jordan to India. Its Piraeus-based own-
ers were not immediately available for
comment. Hours later, Nato officials
on the NRP Corte-Real said a second
ship, the nearly 5,000-tonne MV Sea
Horse, had also been seized 143km off
Somalia.
They said it was hijacked by pirates
on board three or four skiffs, but they
had no other immediate details.
Separately, Nato officials said,
another gang fired automatic rifles
and rocket-propelled grenades at
the Liberian-flagged 21,887-tonne
Safmarine Asia. They said it managed
to escape and that there was no word
of any casualties.
Heavily armed gunmen from law-
less Somalia have run amok through
the busy Indian Ocean shipping lanes
and strategic Gulf of Aden, capturing
dozens of vessels, hundreds of hos-
tages and making off with millions of
dollars in ransoms.
Until there is political stability on-
shore, experts warn, attacks on ship-
ping will continue off its coast.
Nato officials said a Canadian war-
ship had sent a helicopter to scout
out what was happening on the Irene
E.M.
“There are hostages so now we will
shadow and monitor the situation,”
Fernandes said.
Foreign navies are patrolling the
seas off Somalia. But the pirates have
continued to evade capture, driving
up insurance costs and defying the
world’s most powerful militaries.
Snipers on a US Navy destroyer
freed an American ship captain on
Sunday by killing three Somali pirates
holding him hostage in a lifeboat,
ending a five-day standoff. Two more
pirates died on Friday when French
commandos stormed a yacht that had
been seized. A French hostage was
also killed.
Some fear the bloody assaults by
Washington and Paris to free their
hostages may raise the risk of future
bloodshed. The pirates have vowed
to take revenge on Us and French
citizens.
So far, the sea gangs have treated
captives well in the hope of fetching
big ransom payouts. – Reuters

The broken suspension

bridge in Coracora.

US lifts curbs on Cuban money

transfers and visits
WASHINGTON: US President with the White House saying it
“The president has directed the
secretaries of state, treasury and
commerce to carry out the actions
necessary to lift all restrictions on
the ability of individuals to visit
family members in Cuba and to
REUTERSPIX

Barack Obama on Monday made
a landmark gesture to communist
Cuba, lifting all curbs on travel and
money transfers by Cuban-Ameri-
cans to the island for the first time
was up to the Cuban government
whether Obama’s steps, which
were in line with his campaign
promises, would result in a thaw-
ing of chilled relations between the
send them remittances.”
In terms of improving strained
ties, “in many ways that depends
on the actions of the Cuban govern-
ment”, Gibbs said.

Peru bridge collapse Cubans

welcome
in three decades.
The White House said the move
was intended to encourage expand-
two sides.
“President Obama has directed
that a series of steps be taken to reach
“The president would like to
see greater freedom for the Cuban
people ... There are actions that he

kills nine, relatives

arriving from
the US at
ing democratic and political rights
in Cuba and called on Havana to
respond in kind to help ease dec-
out to the Cuban people to support
their desire to enjoy basic human
rights and to freely determine their
can and has taken today to open up
the flow of information to provide
some important steps to help that.

injures 53 children Havana’s

LIMA: A suspension bridge
packed with school children
snapped in Peru on Monday,
killing at least nine and injuring
dozens of others who plunged
into a deep ravine, the mayor of
the Andean mountain town of
Coracora said.
“A suspension bridge that
goes to a high school has fallen,
it has broken in two and we
have a large number of students
injured and dead,” Mayor Walter
Antayhua told RPP radio.
Most of the injured were
aged 10 and 13, and two of the
dead, teachers who were with
their students when the pedes-
trian bridge collapsed, the health
ministry said.
The bridge was 40m long and
stretched above a canyon that
is up to 98m deep, the mayor
said. The town is about 600km
southeast of Lima, the capital.
are dying,” Alfonso Paredes, a
town resident, said from the
poorly equipped hospital where
patients were being treated.
Helicopters were sent to
the town but could not land
because of foul weather, and the
government said it hoped to fly
in trauma surgeons.
At least 53 victims were
taken to the hospital, 14 of them
with serious injuries.
Suspension bridges woven
from ropes were built during the
Incan empire to move between
steep Andean hillsides laced
with canyons.
They are now often made of
metal cables lashed to cement
posts and are widely used in
remote mountain towns in
Peru.
Antayhua, the mayor of
Coracora, said repairs were
scheduled for the bridge last
Jose Marti
airport on
ades of fierce antipathy between
the bitter foes.
But the move left a longstanding
country’s future,” presidential
spokesman Robert Gibbs said at
the first bilingual press conference
But he’s not the only person in this
equation.”
Specifically, the White House
Monday. US trade embargo largely intact, given at the White House. called on Cuba to reduce charges it
levies on money transfers to family
members.
An estimated 1.5 million US
residents of Cuban descent still
have relatives in Cuba, and the
question of how to deal with the
Castro government has long been
an emotional one for the Cuban
exile community here.
And the 47-year-old US eco-
nomic embargo on Cuba will not
be immediately lifted.
But Obama will find support
for a new US policy toward Cuba
this week when he meets with
leaders from around the western
hemisphere at a summit of the
Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
“If President Obama is serious
about promoting change in Cuba,
this executive order must be part
of a larger shift away from the US’s
unilateral approach towards the
Cuban government,” Jose Miguel
REUTERSPIX

“We need a helicopter bec- week but it snapped before Vivanco, Americas director at
ause there are children who work could begin. – Reuters Human Rights Watch, said. – AFP

briefs
Music producer Spector
guilty of murder
LOS ANGELES: Legendary US music
producer Phil Spector on Monday was
found guilty of second degree murder in
the shooting death of an actress at his
mansion in Los Angeles six years ago.
Spector, 69, who created the famed
“Wall of Sound” recording technique
during the 1960s when he worked with
some of the biggest names in music,
stared glumly as the verdict was read
out.
The diminutive producer, who had
arrived at court to hear the verdict
in a trademark long jacket bearing a
lapel badge reading “Barack Obama
Rocks!”, could face up to 18 years
in prison when he is sentenced on
May 29. Despite protests from defence
attorneys, Judge Larry Paul Fidler
remanded Spector in custody until his
sentencing hearing. –AFP
Porn star Marilyn
Chambers found dead
LOS ANGELES: Famed adult film star
Marilyn Chambers has been found
dead in her home in Los Angeles,
authorities said on Monday.
Chambers, 56, was found dead
on Sunday at around 9pm (noon on
Monday in Malaysia). An autopsy
was pending to determine how she
died but coroner’s officers said foul
play was not suspected.
Chambers became one of the
porn industry’s early superstars
after she appeared in the 1972 film
Behind the Green Door, the first
pornographic film to receive a wide
release in the United States.
However her appearance in the
film ended her career as a model for
Procter and Gamble’s soap powder
“Ivory Snow” where she appeared on
the box. She had a small part in the
Barbra Streisand film The Owl and
the Pussycat in 1970 but remained
in adult entertainment after Behind
the Green Door, which was notable
for being one of the first films to
depict inter-racial sex. – AFP
Poland in mourning
after hostel blaze kills 21
KAMIEN POMORSKI (Poland):
Poland yesterday started three days of
mourning after the country’s worst fire
in nearly three decades tore through a
homeless shelter, claiming 21 lives and
forcing parents to toss children from
windows to rescuers.
Six children were among the dead
while 11 people were still unaccounted
for after firefighters searched the two-
storey building in the small northwest-
ern town of Kamien Pomorski, police
said.
Residents of Kamien Pomorski gath-
ered outside the gutted building early
yesterday, lighting candles and praying.
Dozens of people brought donations
of clothing, food and electrical items.
– AFP
Sunday school killer
shocks California town
SAN FRANCISCO: The identity of
a brutal killer who murdered an
eight-year-old-girl in the California
farming town of Tracy is shocking
local residents almost as much as
the murder itself.
Instead of a gruesome paedophile,
police on Friday arrested Melissa
Huckaby, 28, a church school teacher
and mother of the best friend of
victim Sandra Cantu.
Cantu’s body was found last week
stuffed into a suitcase in an irrigation
pond, just two fields over from the
mobile home park where she lived
close to her friend and her alleged
murderer.
Police have not said how Sandra
was killed or released a motive for
Huckaby’s crime. But local reports on
Monday said she had been fighting
depression. – dpa
Ship capsizes off Japan,
more than 10 missing
TOKYO: More than 10 fishermen were
reported missing yesterday after their
ship capsized off southern Japan in
heavy seas, the coast guard said.
The 135-tonne Daiei Maru No. 11
capsized off the southern Japan city of
Hirado, the local coast guard said.
“Twenty-two crew members were
on board. Nine or 10 men were rescued
by fishing boats operating nearby but
the rest are missing,” a search official
said. – AFP