(source: Ananova, Wirtschaftsblatt & Slashdot)

Somali pirates - Image Courtesy: Apture

Select Russian ocean liners are offering  pirate hunting cruises on armed private yachts. £3,500 a day buys you a cruise close to the coast of Somalia and up to Kenya. The ships deliberately cruise close to the coast at a speed of just five nautical miles in an attempt to attract the interest of pirates.  When the ship is attacked, a squad of ex-special forces troops fights back with grenade launchers, machine guns, and rockets, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.

Passengers who want to earn their stripes can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo.

The yachts travel from Djibouti in Somalia to Mombasa in Kenya.

“They are worse than the pirates,” said Russian yachtsman Vladimir Mironov. “At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages, these people are just paying to commit murder,” he continued.

An editors note found at the bottom of this Wirtschaftsblatt article says “Goldman Morgenstern & Partners tells us, that “they believe”, this story is “satire”.

TransportGooru Musings:  Hope this is a hoax.  It is appalling to even think that any government will authorize “hunting” humans and conduct that as a business, just because the “hunted” ones are pirates.  Russian government as such as earned a bad reputation for its alleged human rights excess and for failing to rein in the xenophobic thugs that attack people of color.  If they happened to let such a business take place in their watch, it can be worth calling the UN Security Council (which, as  an apex body has not done anything good lately).