What a voyage! Certainly I've had my fair share of challenges along the way but we have also had plenty of great successes (due largely to the hard work of those on my various teams), and a few tie scores as well.
As I look back over these past four years in particular, there were a number of solid accomplishments and a few stubborn difficulties -- but at the center of it all were wonderful human relationships.
The Somali pirates have become far more than a nuisance, and they are introducing billions of dollars worth of discontinuity into the global shipping grid and international defence budgets.
THE HAGUE, Netherland – Rear Adm. James Foggo, deputy commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, arrived in The Hague, Netherlands Dec. 14, to speak at a international workshop dedicated to the creation of a unified manual to use when investigating and prosecuting acts of maritime piracy.
LONDON — Nineteen crew members from a small Iranian cargo ship, SAAD 1 are now free from their pirate captors after being held for 5 months. Their release followed intervention by the Italian warship ITS Scirocco, one of five NATO warships operating in the region as part of NATO’s counter piracy mission, Operation Ocean Shield.
MANAMA, Bahrain — A UK flagged merchant vessel the MV Tortugas has successfully evaded a pirate attack by following industry recommended ‘best management practices.'
LONDON — The NATO flagship HDMS ABSALON undertook direct action to disrupt the piracy in the Somali Basin by scuttling a pirate mother skiff, one of the large, open boats that pirates use to transport and support their attack teams to offshore hunting areas, Feb. 28. 2010.