Tom Heneghan News

A Chinese navy ship handed over three suspected pirates to Somali authorities on Friday, police said, underscoring the determination of international naval forces to stamp out a resurgence of piracy this year. The pirates were involved in the attempted hijacking in April of the OS35, a Tuvalu-flagged cargo ship that was rescued by the Chinese navy after the crew sent a distress call. "A Chinese navy ship handed over three pirates to Puntland today," said Ahmed Saiid, the deputy director of maritime police forces in the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland.

More than 1,000 migrants were plucked from overcrowded boats and 16 bodies were recovered in the past two days, Italy's coastguard said on Monday, adding to the already record number of arrivals this year. Coastguard ships recovered some 800 migrants from nine different vessels on Sunday, the coastal service said, and coordinated the rescue of another 230 boat migrants on Monday. As of Dec. 1, Italy had taken in more than 173,000 boat migrants this year, beating the previous record of 170,000 set in 2014. In all, about a half million have come in the past three years. Italy has borne the brunt of new arrivals since the implementation in March of an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to curb the flow of migrants sailing for Greece.

Six people died in eastern Mexico on Saturday after they were buried in landslides caused by intense rainfall from the remnants of now-downgraded Tropical Storm Earl, an emergency services official said. The six deaths involved two separate families in eastern Veracruz state, emergency services spokesman Manuel Escalera said. He added that local authorities were continuing to monitor rising rivers and saturated soil that could trigger additional landslides. Earl's maximum wind speed dropped to 30 mph (48 kmh) by Saturday afternoon, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. It was located approximately 105 miles (169 km) east of Mexico City, after pounding portions of Central America and crossing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula over the past couple days.

Ecuador has paid $112 million to energy company Chevron Corp over a four-decade-old contract dispute, even though it remains in disagreement, the head of the central bank has said. A Hague arbitration court awarded the U.S. company $96 million in 2011 in a dispute stemming from a 1973 deal that called for Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, to develop fields in exchange for selling oil to Ecuador at below-market rates. Various appeals by Ecuador against the ruling failed. "We have today paid around $112 million," the central bank head Diego Martinez told a local radio station late on Friday. That amount represented the award plus interest. "We don't agree with how these international mechanisms work ...

Standing near Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier, the reputed source of the iceberg that sank the Titanic over a century ago, U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saw evidence of another looming catastrophe. Giant icebergs broken off from the glacier seemed to groan as they drifted behind him, signaling eventual rising oceans that scientists warn will submerge islands and populated coastal region. Briefed by researchers aboard a Royal Danish Navy patrol ship, Kerry appeared stunned by how fast the ice sheets are melting. He was struck by the more dire warnings he was hearing about the same process underway in Antarctica. "This has been a significant eye-opener for me and I have spent 25 years or engaged in this issue…

A migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean on Thursday and about 100 of its passengers have been rescued while the number of dead is unknown, officials said. It was the second shipwreck in two days as sea crossings accelerate amid good weather. Five people were confirmed to have died when a large fishing boat flipped over in the sea on Wednesday. Europe's worst immigration crisis since World War Two has led to more than 8,000 deaths in 2-1/2 years, the International Organization for Migration estimates. Boat arrivals in Italy have risen sharply this week amid warm weather and calm seas, and about 20 rescue operations are currently under way, a coastguard spokesman said.

NATO agreed on Thursday to broaden its operations in the Mediterranean to help the European Union stop criminals trafficking refugees from North Africa but will not act until the fate of rescued migrants is cleared up. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a meeting of NATO foreign ministers supported the wider role as Europe struggles with failing states on its fringes and said NATO should link up with the EU's "Sophia" naval mission in the area. This could be a step towards NATO helping stabilise Libya by patrolling coastal waters to uphold a U.N. arms embargo and counter the growing presence of Islamic State, a step that would likely need U.N. Security Council support, diplomats said.

The global airline and shipping industries appeared to win a symbolic reprieve from the growing global drive to reduce carbon emissions on Wednesday, cut from a new draft climate change pact being negotiated in Paris. As nearly 200 nations attempt to craft a breakthrough global deal to slow the rise in world temperatures, the reference to two of the world's fastest-growing emitters appeared to be one of the first significant changes in an agreement still riddled with much bigger, more contentious issues. A previous draft from Dec. 5 had included an optional paragraph that would have singled out the two sectors and encouraged nations to curb their carbon output "with a view to agreeing concrete measures addressing these emissions".

France has agreed to sell two Mistral helicopter carriers to Egypt for 950 million euros ($1.06 billion) after their sale to Russia was canceled in August, French officials said on Wednesday. Cairo has sought to boost its military power in the face of a two-year insurgency based across the Suez Canal in the Sinai peninsula and fears the conflict in neighbouring Libya could spill over. Egypt's allies are also keen to burnish its image in a region beset by turmoil. "We unwound the contract we had with Russia, on good terms, respectful of Russia and not suffering any penalty for France," Hollande told reporters on his arrival at an EU summit in Brussels.

A girl believed to be five years old died and as many as 13 migrants may be missing at sea off the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, the Greek coastguard said. Nikos Lagkadianos, a coastguard spokesman, said 11 people were rescued from the sea between Lesbos and Turkey and one swam ashore in the early hours. The survivors said they thought 13 of their number were missing. The girl was found unconscious and was declared dead later at hospital, Lagkadianos said. Tens of thousands of mainly Syrian refugees have braved rough seas this year to make the short but precarious journey from Turkey to Greece's eastern islands, mainly in flimsy and overcrowded inflatable boats.

Up to 40 African migrants were feared drowned after their inflatable boat sank near the Libyan coast, survivors told the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday after reaching Italy. "They said between 35 and 40 people died on Wednesday morning," said Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR spokeswoman for southern Europe. All the dead came from sub-Saharan countries such as Senegal, Mali and Benin. A team from the Save the Children charity that interviewed some of the survivors said up to 7 children, aged about 15 or 16, were also believed to have died in the incident. Sami said the boat they were travelling in started to disintegrate shortly after it put to sea from the Tripoli area.

Arctic sea ice has set a new winter record by freezing over the smallest extent since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, U.S. data showed on Thursday. The ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole reached its maximum annual extent of just 14.54 million square kms (5.61 million sq miles) on Feb. 25 - slightly bigger than Canada - and is now expected to shrink with a spring thaw. "This year's maximum ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record…

Ivory Coast abolished a state monopoly on passenger traffic on the lagoon surrounding the commercial capital Abidjan, the government announced on Wednesday, clearing the way for outside investors. Abidjan, a city of around 6 million inhabitants, straddles the Ebrie Lagoon. The SOTRA urban transportation company, majority-owned by the state with a minority interest held by Italian bus manufacturer Iveco, runs several water-taxi lines. Government spokesman Bruno Kone said the waterways had been under-utilized. "This will allow other entities to make major investments," Bruno said after a cabinet meeting. He also announced the approval of an agreement between the transportation ministry and Rainbow Ferry Lines…

The captain and first officer of a Kuwaiti container ship have been detained for four days after their ship collided with a fishing vessel in the Red Sea, killing 13 Egyptians, a public prosecutor said on Tuesday. The prosecutor said on Monday that initial enquiries showed the fishing boat had capsized following the collision with the Kuwaiti ship, which had just passed through the Suez Canal on its way south. The prosecutor is also questioning the rest of the container ship's crew about the collision, which occurred near Ras Ghareb about halfway down the Gulf of Suez. Egypt is currently expanding the Suez Canal to allow larger ships to pass through it at the same time.

Denmark has compensated nine Somalis suspected of trying to hijack a Danish ship in 2013 because they were detained too long before being brought before a judge, the public prosecutor's office said on Monday. Each defendant received $3,247 for the 13 days they were detained, a spokesman from the prosecutor in Copenhagen said. Official Somali figures show 43 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day. The nine Somalis were charged with piracy after an attempt to hijack the tanker vessel Torm Kansas, which had been chartered by shipping company Torm, in the western Indian Ocean on Nov 10, 2013. Danish Navy support ship…

Pirates have launched a spate of attacks in the creeks of Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region since last Thursday, killing three policemen and abducting at least nine people, security officials said. Most of those kidnapped were local workers in Africa's biggest oil industry, where piracy in the surrounding waterways and seas is on the rise again after a brief lull, bucking a global trend that has seen pirate attacks fall elsewhere. In the most recent attack, gunmen on a boat opened fire on police escorting a barge operated by Italian oil company ENI along the Santa Barbara River, killing three policeman. "Sea pirates attacked and killed three of our men. They were escorting an Agip (ENI) barge when they were attacked.

Chinese President Xi Jinping began a visit to Sri Lanka on Tuesday agreeing to open bilateral negotiations for a free trade pact as Beijing tightened its embrace of the island nation along a vital shipping route. Sri Lanka, located just off the southern tip of India, has long had close ties with New Delhi, but China has stepped up its diplomacy in recent years, building ports and roads across the region in a strategy dubbed the String of Pearls. China and Sri Lanka completed a feasibility study in March on a free trade agreement, which is expected to give a boost to the island's top exports of tea and garments. Xi will also inaugurate a $1.5 billion project, the largest single direct foreign investment, to build a port city on reclaimed land in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

Poland's foreign minister urged France on Tuesday to cancel a 1.2 billion euro ($1.66 billion) contract to sell Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia, saying these would be used to threaten east European nations. The United States and some European partners have been urging Paris to reconsider its supply of high-tech military hardware to Moscow following Russian action in Ukraine, including its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March. Asked if France should deliver the two vessels, Radoslaw Sikorski told Le Monde newspaper: "No, because Russian generals have already said what these ships will be used for: to threaten Russia's neighbors in the Black Sea and that means Europe's partners.

NATO has decided to extend its Indian Ocean counter-piracy mission by two years to the end of 2016, judging that piracy remains a threat despite a sharp fall in attacks, the alliance said on Wednesday. The decision was taken by NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels. NATO ships have patrolled the waters off the Horn of Africa since 2009, as part of a broader international effort to crack down on Somali-based pirates who had caused havoc with world shipping. NATO's "Ocean Shield" operation as well as European Union and other counter-piracy missions have significantly reduced attacks.

Egypt has transferred the assets of the Al-Arish port in the Sinai Peninsula from a civilian-run agency to the armed forces, citing national security reasons in an area where militant attacks have increased in the past year. The decision was made last week by then-interim President Adly Mansour but only announced on Monday, a day after former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi - who ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last July - was sworn in as the new head of state. The move seemed likely to reinforce critics' concern that Egypt is returning to strongman rule three years after a popular uprising raised hopes of democracy free from military influence.

The bulk of the Costa Concordia cruise liner that capsised off the Tuscany coast in 2012, killing 32 people, will be demolished and scrapped in the port of Genoa, the Italian government decided on Monday. The decision for the work to be done in Genoa, in northern Italy, followed a choice last month by Costa Cruises for a consortium including oil services company Saipem and Genoa-based companies Mariotti and San Giorgio. A number of other ports in Italy and abroad had expressed interest in the contract.

The massive hulk of the Costa Concordia is nearly ready to be towed away from the Italian island where it struck a rock and capsized two-and-a-half years ago, killing 32 people, officials said on Sunday. The rusting prow of the once-gleaming white luxury liner was due to emerge fully from the water for the first time on Sunday, and the ship should be ready to tow on Monday, but the departure has been pushed back a day due to forecasts of rough seas. The 114,500-tonne Concordia has been slowly lifted from the sea floor since Monday, when salvagers began pumping air into 30 large metal boxes, or sponsons, attached around the hull. The air has forced water out of the sponsons…

Climate change is aiding shipping, fisheries and tourism in the Arctic but the economic gains fall short of a "cold rush" for an icy region where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the world average. A first cruise ship will travel the icy Northwest Passage north of Canada in 2016, Iceland has unilaterally set itself mackerel quotas as stocks shift north and Greenland is experimenting with crops such as tomatoes. Yet businesses, including oil and gas companies or mining firms looking north, face risks including that permafrost will thaw and ruin ice roads, buildings and pipelines.