A special panel on piracy in the region of the Gulf of Aden will feature among other sensitive issues of the day, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of Iran's nuclear dossier and the West's opposition to it, and, of course, security in the Gulf.

The piracy panel was added to the agenda of the Manama Dialogue conference given the interest of the subject, Adam Ward, the Washington director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies told United Press International.

The IISS, one of the world's leading think tanks on intelligence, security and conflict, is holding the fifth Manama Dialogue meeting in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, Dec. 12-14. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Naval fleet operating in the area of the Persian Gulf. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to lead an important delegation to the 2008 edition of the Manama Dialogue.

Because of the presence of the U.S. Navy in the region, the United States has been involved in protecting cargo and passenger ships sailing through these troubled and dangerous waters, whenever it could.

The Bahrain Tribune, the country's English-language daily newspaper, reported Thursday that a cruise ship's 420 passengers and crew disembarked at an unscheduled port call in Hodeida, Yemen, Wednesday, in order to avoid sailing through the danger zone. The passengers and crew were flown on charter flights to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where they will rejoin the cruise.

Since the start of the year more than 120 vessels were attacked by pirates off the Somali coast, an area roughly three times the size of France. The pirates, equipped with modern technology such as global positioning systems, sophisticated scanning technology, satellite telephones and modern weaponry, prey on ships sailing in and out of the Red Sea, either on their way to or from transiting through the Suez Canal.

The latest news will not be well received in Egypt, which relies on the Canal as an important source of revenue. The canal earned Egypt $1.03 billion during the first quarter of 2007.

A number of shipping companies have decided to avoid using the Suez Canal altogether, ordering their ships to sail around the Cape of Good Hope near the southern tip of South Africa. In doing so, the ships of the 21st century would be following in the wake of Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias, who is believed to be the first European to circumnavigate the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488. Dias called it the Cape of Storms, but the name was later changed to Cape of Good Hope. Mariners call it simply The Cape.

The completion of the Suez Canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1869 marked a turning point in international shipping, shortening considerably the time it took to sail from European ports to India and the Far East. That, in turn, cut costs for the shipping companies, which in turn passed on the savings to the consumer.

Today, 139 years after the opening of the Suez Canal, ships once again are considering reverting back to the pre-canal old route, in exchange for greater safety. Coming in the middle of a worldwide financial crisis, this is perhaps the worst piece of news for Egypt, which will stand to lose billions of dollars per year unless a quick solution is found to the crisis. And as it is ultimately the consumer who ends up paying for all increases, this is hardly the time, in the middle of a worldwide recession.

Perhaps in part due to the recession, there has been a spike of pirate activity in recent weeks. Among the pirates' loot was a Saudi Arabian-owned supertanker with about $100 million worth of oil. The pirates also are holding a Ukrainian ship with a cargo of weapons worth more than $30 million, including grenade launchers and more than 30 Soviet-made tanks.

During the past year more than 120 ships, according to the World Maritime Union, have been attacked by pirates, and about 40 have been successfully hijacked.

On Monday the European Union established a special naval task force and launched Operation Atlanta, in which all 27 member nations of the EU will participate. This is the first naval mission of its kind. It will initially comprise six warships and three maritime patrol planes.

Britain and France have taken the lead in the fight against modern-day piracy and, along with Greece, a country where an important share of the world's merchant ships are registered, will aggressively go after the pirates.

Pirates, modern-day ones at least, are equipped with speedboats fitted with powerful outboard engines, often ones more powerful than those used by local authorities. Today's pirates come equipped with automatic weapons, light artillery and sophisticated navigational equipment. Additionally, according to Western intelligence sources, many of these pirates also have links with militant Islamist organizations, such as al-Qaida affiliates.

(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.)

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