Hijacking on the high seas [Africa Special Piracy]

Piracy in much of Africa is on the decline, yet on the continent´s west coast it seems to be getting worse. Solving this problem will take a concerted international effort in the fields of technology and social development. Last January, Somali crime lord Mohamed Abdi Hassan announced that he no longer wanted to be a pirate. After eight years of hijacking ships, stealing cargo and ransoming hostages in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, Hassan, or ´Big Mouth´ as he´s known, said he was giving it all up. Also, that he´d persuaded many of his pirate comrades to do the same.