A Thai tanker has gone missing in Indonesian waters. Carrying automotive diesel fuel, the vessel with 14 Thai-crew, was last seen 27 May. Speculation veered towards hijack. Somali rebel group claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a Djibouti restaurant popular with tourists and Western security officials; aimed mainly at French personnel for complicity in the Central African Republic, but also for training/equipping Djiboutian troops now in Somalia. As many as three killed with at least 15 wounded. After the admission to not winning the war against oil thieves, Nigeria asserts it IS winning the war against pirates. Bayelsa State 's Central Command handed over several suspected oil thieves and 2 vessels for prosecution following arrest with stolen crude oil. Iranian naval forces are said to have intercepted a Somali tanker ship in the Strait of Hormuz attempting to smuggle diesel fuel from Iran to a Persian Gulf Arab state. Depending upon your viewpoint, China, or maybe its Vietnam, is tanking dangerous risks at sea over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat in the disputed waters in the South China Sea/East Vietnam Sea. The fishing boats' 10 crew were rescued in an area where a Chinese oil rig has been placed. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian navies staged exercises to simulate anti-piracy ops in the East China Sea. A UN team of inspectors were attacked in Syria. Initially reported as kidnapped, the six members are safe but were attacked twice it was later revealed. Libyan oil ports remain at risk of blockade as the protesters do not recognise the latest Prime Minister.
As the hunt for the owner of the Sewol ferry owner is stepped up with a reward offered, his daughter is arrested in Paris on an international warrant issued. Tragically, another diver is a casualty as the search for the remaining 16 bodies continues. The situation is not helped by the controversy suggesting divers were being paid "by the body".
The 'raw data' for flight MH370 was released for public consumption by Inmarsat and DCA Malaysia. Scientists welcome the decision to make all ocean depth data publicly available as confidence in the search was shaken by the questioning if the 'pings' detected were authentic.
In the Netherlands, a justice minister says Somali pirates serving jail sentences in the country should no longer qualify for early release if they request asylum. A man convicted of the kidnap of Judith Tebbutt and the murder of her husband in Kenya may walk free if an appeal by human rights lawyers is successful; they will argue that the judgement against him was based on evidence provided unlawfully.
The Italian marines case in India enters a new phase as attempts to steer the case towards international arbitration goes on.
Questions on the level of expense for sustaining the EU counter-piracy mission was raised. A decision on Op Atalanta is due next week but as piracy is drastically reduced off Somalia, a more durable response to create financial disincentives for the priacy business model is sought. The 'zero zero' target - zero pirate attacks, zero seafarer hostages, however, does not ensure the end of piracy.
Italian naval patrol picked up 435 people, including 234 children on a migrant boat from North Africa; traffickers in Yemen hold African migrants in detention camps, allegedly torturing them for payment from their families; in South America, around 400 illegal immigrants enter Brazil every week, most of them Haitian or African, due to criminal groups along the border regions.