Somalia Pirates

Somalia – or the Puntland part at least – seems to be tiring of pirate glamour, according to the BBC. Two things struck me about the article. The first is that UNICEF actually appears to make a difference by building schools and providing alternative lifestyles to the fading romanticism of piracy. But they are leaving.

The second is the statement by the President of Puntland. He named a price for which his government, and not the one that controls a few square blocks of Mogadishu, could eliminate piracy. It’s a lot less than what the military deployments cost or the ransom payments. So now we know what it will cost to control the pirates – even if paying him is sort of a ransom payment of its own.