The South China Sea Is the Hot New Pirate Haven
Bad news, people who think pirates are entertaining from afar: global pirate attacks are down this year, thanks mostly to sharp reduction in the number of attacks off the coast of Somalia. Ironic "silver lining": the pirates have moved!
Turns out if you move a bunch of do-gooder Navy ships into the Gulf of Aden, pirate attacks there will fall (44 so far this year, compared to 100 by this time last year), but they'll go up elsewhere:
The number of attacks tripled to 30 in the South China Sea between January and September over the same period a year earlier, mainly because of pirates operating off Indonesia's coastline, according to data compiled by the London-based International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.
To be fair, these are probably not Somali pirates. But this global spread of knowledge would make a great Tom Friedman column.
