The International Maritime Bureau’s weekly piracy report makes a ripping good read. A recent example from the sea lanes of Mauritania:
13.05.2006 at 2125 LT in posn: 19:04N - 017:09W, Nouadhibou roads, Mauritania.
Pirates in an unlit boat approached a refrigerated cargo ship drifting 60 nm [nautical miles] off coast. Master raised alarm, took evasive manoeuvres, crew mustered and activated fire hoses. Unlit boat increased speed to 17 kts [knots] and continued to chase the ship. Master increase speed to maximum and found another boat tried to block the ship’s course. Boats pursued the ship for almost three hours and then aborted the chase. Master tried to contact local MRCC [Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre] but could not communicate due to language difficulties.
http://www.icc-ccs.org/prc/piracyreport.php
In the 2005 remake of King Kong, the tramp steamer Venture was shown to be registered in “Surabaya.” That is a slight oversight: the contemporary spelling in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) in the 1920s was “Soerabaja” — the “oe” in Dutch being pronounced as “u” (c.f., Soekarno/Sukarno).
“Lonely Planet is the bible in places like India,” Mark Ellingham, the founder of Rough Guides, the cheeky British series, says. “If they recommend the Resthouse Bangalore, then half the guesthouses there rename themselves Resthouse Bangalore.” The series’ authority is such that the team accompanying Jay Garner, the first American administrator of occupied Iraq, used “Lonely Planet Iraq” to draw up a list of historical sites that should not be bombed or looted. The writers Marianne Wiggins, Jilly Cooper, and Pico Iyer have used Lonely Planet guides to immerse themselves in the feel of a far-off locale for novels set in, respectively, Cameroon, Colombia, and Iran. And, in perhaps the greatest tribute, the Vietnamese have begun to manufacture ersatz Lonely Planet guides to complement their line of fake Rolexes.
More about the Lonely Planet guidebook empire and its founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, in the New Yorker piece, “The Parachute Artist: Have Tony Wheeler’s Guidebooks Travelled Too Far?”.
Pardon me for being stupid but how does 66 per cent of the popular vote translate to 98 per cent of the seats won in the Singapore parliament?
For further, see, for example, the BBC.
