2012版高中英语全程复习方略配套课件：Unit7《TheSea》(北师大版必修3).ppt

(B) Kenya wants to organize a major international conference to discuss how to fight piracy(海盗) off the coast of Somalia. The conference may also deal with ways to rescue Somalia from seventeen years of civil war. More than forty percent of its people depend on food aid. Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula says the world cannot end piracy and civil war without dealing with Somalia’s political problems. Somali pirates operate in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. The Gulf of Aden connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean by way of the Suez Canal. The pirates have fast boats, modern weapons and equipment like satellite phones and global positioning systems. Pirates hijacked the Sirius Star off the coast of Kenya and moved it to waters off Somalia. The tanker Sirius Star, at three hundred thirty meters long, is the biggest ship ever known to have been captured by pirates. It also happened farther south than most attacks, and farther out at sea — more than eight hundred kilometers from land. The ship was headed for the United States with two million barrels of oil, worth an estimated one hundred million dollars. A Saudi Arabian company owns the tanker. The pirates have reportedly demanded twenty-five million dollars in negotiations to release the ship and its crew of twenty-five. Somali pirates generally do not steal goods or kill hostages. They are believed to be holding seventeen ships with about three hundred crew members. Among the ships is a Ukrainian vessel hijacked(劫持) in September with a load of military weapons including tanks. The increase in piracy is raising the cost of insuring ships. Also, oil from the Middle East and exports from East Asia could take longer to arrive. Some of the world’s heaviest shipping traffic passes the Somali coast. But major shipping companies have begun to consider new routes. One of the world’s biggest shippers, A. P, Mo