Free Republic

Two crew members on an Italian-flagged ship were injured when the vessel was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Mexico, the Mexican navy said Tuesday. One crew member aboard the "Remas" had a bullet wound and the other suffered a concussion, officials told Reuters.

Freighter attacked in Gulf of Guinea, 9 crew kidnapped Mikhail Voytenko News November 2, 2019 12:15 pm Cargo ship was attacked early in the morning Nov 2 at Cotonou Anchorage, Benin Gulf of Guinea. 9 crew were reportedly, kidnapped. Ship’s name though identified, can’t yet be revealed, until information is confirmed.

One of the only things that can ruin hitting a home run is watching your ball fly over the fence and hit a car, but that made things even better for Milwaukee Brewer Mike Moustakas on Sunday. Moustakas slammed one into center field in the eighth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates that broke a 2-2 tie and landed on the roof of a Toyota Rav4. It wasn’t parked there by a clueless owner but was part of a promotion to give it away if a Brewer hit it with a ball, which Moustakas learned after the fact."I didn't know that I actually...

Migrants hijacked a cargo ship that rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea and forced the crew to put the Libya-bound vessel on a course north toward Europe, authorities in two European countries said. Italy's interior minister, Matteo Salvini, identified the ship as the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1. He said the tanker had rescued about 120 people and described what was happening as "the first act of piracy on the high seas with migrants" as alleged hijackers. The new route put the ship on a route to Italy's Lampedusa island and the island nation of Malta. The governments of...

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, France — There is disquiet along the cold, foggy quays of this major French fishing port facing Britain. Captain after captain, returning to Boulogne-sur-Mer in squat fishing boats with the day’s haul of crab and sole, has the same story: Their boats are being broken into. The suspected culprits, according to the fishermen and local officials? Smugglers, and their migrant clients, who are intent on reaching Britain and are looking for vessels to cross the forbidding waters of the English Channel. A few of the stolen boats have even been taken to sea. Since the start of Europe’s migration...

Luxury yacht owners have been warned of a surge in piracy in the southern Caribbean, as Venezuela's economic collapse spurs its penniless fishermen into banditry. According to a new global survey of global maritime security, 71 piracy incidents took place in the region last year, compared to just 21 the year before.

The twelve-hour hijacking of a cargo ship in the Thames Estuary by illegal migrants was brought to a dramatic end by a Special Boat Service (SBS) boarding, according to reports. Commandos from the elite Royal Navy unit, regarded as something of a sister unit to the British Army’s Special Air Service (SAS), abseiled onto the Grande Tema some time between 11 p.m. and midnight on Friday, The Sun reports The 236-metre Grimaldi shipping line vessel had been circling in the iconic Thames Estuary north-east of Margate, Kent, for hours, after a group of would-be illegal migrant stowaways who had been...

A TEXT message with a panting tongue emoji sent from Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush “panicked” a young actress who said she felt the actor was “unsafe”. Eryn Jean Norvill said she felt “bewildered” by the message from Mr Rush in which he also wrote: “I was thinking of you as I do more than is socially appropriate”. Ms Norvill told the Federal Court she “probably panicked” when she received the message “because I believed Geoffrey to be unsafe”. Mr Rush, 67, is suing The Daily Telegraph over a series of articles late in 2017 which reported that a young actress...

Johnny Depp has been dropped from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” according to the film franchise’s original scriptwriter Stuart Beattie. Disney Studios plans to reboot the billion-dollar franchise and will be axing Depp, Beattie told DailyMail TV at a recent red carpet event in Hollywood. The 55-year-old Depp had played Captain Jack Sparrow—a major role in the five “Pirates” movies over the past 15 years. “I think he’s had a great run. Obviously, he’s made that character his own and it’s become the character he’s most famous for now,” Beattie said. “And kids all over the world love him as that...

Disney is exploring a reboot of its billion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The studio has met with the writing team of Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and they are in early talks to write the script. Reese & Wernick are the writers behind the first two Deadpool blockbusters, and before that wrote Zombieland and its sequel, and 6 Underground, the action film that Michael Bay is directing for Netflix with Ryan Reynolds starring. Jerry Bruckheimer will continue to captain the ship as producer on Pirates of the Caribbean, but at this point it is too early to say...

igh above one of the most hotly contested regions in the world, CNN was given a rare look Friday at the Chinese government's rapidly expanding militarization of the South China Sea Aboard a US Navy P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane, CNN got a view from 16,500 feet of low-lying coral reefs turned into garrisons with five-story buildings, large radar installations, power plants and runways sturdy enough to carry large military aircraft. During the flight the crew received six separate warnings from the Chinese military, telling them they were inside Chinese territory and urging them to leave. "Leave immediately and keep out...

Baseball has been struggling to speed up the game. The poor fans are freezing (44 degrees) in Detroit and the game is now more than four and a half hours old. A replay just overturned the winning run in the tenth inning.

Forty-five years ago today, baseball fans woke up to the news that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ star outfielder Roberto Clemente had been killed in an airplane crash on December 31 on his way to Nicaragua to deliver disaster relief after an earthquake. A few months earlier, on September 30, 1972, Clemente had pulled a curveball from New York Met and Rookie of the Year Jon Matlack into the gap for a double. It was his 3,000th hit, and he had become only the 11th player in nearly a century of Major League Baseball to reach that milestone. It was also the...

Perhaps the greatest World Series game of all time. No DH, no batting gloves, no helmets. Just pure baseball. Today marks the anniversary. David vs Goliath is a valid comparison. Worth watching as this is the only recorded film. Bing Crosby, who was part owner of the Bucs, had this recorded privately and it was found after his death in storage.

This is like praising the 9/11 hijackers for increasing visibility in Manhattan. “Prince Charles hails PIRATES for an ’explosion’ in marine life due to scared fisherman,” by Joseph Carey, Express, October 6, 2017: PRINCE CHARLES has praised ocean pirates for scaring off fishermen that has led to a “fantastic explosion for bigger and better fish”. Speaking at an ocean conservation conference in Malta, the Prince of Wales stirred up controversy by praising Somalian pirates for scaring off trawler crews to create a greater wealth of marine life.

The proposal, conceived by a bunch of pointy-headed Parisian philosophes, sounded brilliant: A universal system of measurement, derived from decimal-based units and identified by a shared set of prefixes. It would end the era of merchants buying goods according to one unit, selling in another, and pocketing the ill-gotten profit. It would simplify scientific calculations and enable the free exchange of ideas around the world. It was an enlightened system for an enlightened time. If only the French scientists could persuade other countries to adopt it. But pirates have a way of ruining even the best-laid plans. In 1793, botanist...

[snip] An image posted to a Pentagon media site and tweeted by Scottish journalist Ian Keddie shows the USS Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class nuclear-powered submarine, returning to her home port in Washington Tuesday flying the American flag alongside the unmistakable pirate skull and crossed bones, known as the Jolly Roger.The 450-foot-long vessel is one of three in its class and is specially modified to conduct some of America’s most covert underwater operations. That fact alone — as Keddie points out — makes the appearance of the black and white flag significant. The Carter, according to photos posted in April, also...

1,900 passengers aboard a 104 day cruise around the world got an unsettling surprise after they departed from Sydney, Australia toward Dubai. For ten days, the passengers had to endure a mandatory dusk-to-dawn blackout for fear of pirate attacks. “No deck parties, no movies under the stars, no late-night outdoor bar hopping or pool dipping” were just some of the bans included in the blackout ordered by Captain Gennaro Arma, recalls Carolyn Jasinski, a passenger on the ship. The ship essentially become a ghost – all curtains were drawn, all lights were dimmed or turned off. Arma wanted to remind...

Disney will remove the infamous “bride auction” scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland next year, the company announced on Thursday. During the planned ride refurbishment, Disney will alter the roles of the auctioneer, the redhead woman and other characters participating in the “Auction: Take a Wench for a Bride” scene. In the current scene, the redhead character is the prize of the auction. According to Disney, the redhead is holding a rifle and will be a “plundering pirate” in the new scene. In the official announcement, Disney wrote: “…the redhead is...

The famous auctioneer scene that takes place on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland and Disney World is set to be overhauled, according to a press release from the Disney Parks blog. As of 2017, the attraction — which opened in 1967 in Disneyland and 1973 in the Magic Kingdom of Disney World — will no longer feature the famous auctioneer scene, in which a red-headed “wench” is auctioned off to a crowd of raucous and dirty pirates who wish to make her their bride. An artist’s rendering of the new scenes reveals that the pirates will now...