Roop is an interesting soul, seems to dwell on misfortunes of...

Roop is an interesting soul, seems to dwell on misfortunes of others with a smile

Still to early to buy, but seems the authorities have got serious

This project is to critical to accept Pirates terms and those perpetrators took the bad option



http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/08/Somalia.kidnap.ap/

Briton kidnapped in Somalia freed in gunbattle

BOSSASO, Somalia (AP) -- A British oil worker was abducted in northern Somalia on Wednesday but security forces surrounded his kidnappers and freed him in a gunbattle, killing one bandit and wounding another, a government minister said.

The freed oil worker, a British citizen and not Pakistani as earlier reported, was unharmed, according to Energy and Minerals Ministry official Farah Abdi Hussein.

The man worked for Canada-based Africa Oil Corp. near the port city of Bossaso, a region that is a hotbed for abductions and piracy.

In southwestern Somalia, two Kenyan Agriculture Ministry officials and their Somali driver were abducted Monday near the border, but a Somali official said he only learned of the abduction Wednesday. The Somali driver was later released.

Foreigners are often targeted for ransoms in Somalia and off its lawless coast, where pirates are holding several ships, including a Ukrainian vessel laden with 33 tanks and other heavy weapons that was taken hostage September 25.

U.S. warships have surrounded the cargo ship MV Faina and prevented the pirates from offloading the weapons. The pirates had been demanding $20 million to free the ship, but one reportedly told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the ransom had been reduced to $8 million.

A man who answered the phone at the ship's operator Tomex Team in Odessa, Ukraine, declined to comment Wednesday on ransom negotiations, and Ukrainian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman from the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said the Navy has no information on when the Faina standoff will end, but added the U.S. will guard the cargo of the vessel and the welfare of the crew until then.

"Their appearance suggest they are doing well," Christensen said Wednesday of the Faina crew.

The U.S. Navy maintains daily contact with the ship, he said.

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991, when warlords ousted a longtime dictator and then turned on each other.

Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda have been battling Somalia's shaky transitional government and its Ethiopian allies since December 2006. Thousands of civilians have since been killed in near-daily barrages of mortar shells and gunfire.

Despite oil deposits, foreign companies have been reluctant to operate in Somalia, although there has been interest recently from China, Australia and Canada.

The separate problem of high seas piracy has drawn international attention. The hijacking of the MV Faina has shown how a handful of pirates can menace a key international shipping lane despite the deployment of warships by global powers.

On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council called on countries to send naval ships and military aircraft to confront the growing piracy off Somalia, where more than two dozens ships have been hijacked this year.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Wednesday that "3 million people are in danger of starving" because nearly 90 percent of the food that feeds them arrives by sea on World Food Program-contracted ships.

Somalia's government has given foreign powers the freedom to use force against the pirates, and a Russian frigate is heading to the area but is not expected for days