KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA // Pirates have hijacked a Danish cargo ship with 13 crew members aboard near Somalia, a maritime official said today.
The vessel was en route from the Middle East to Asia in the Gulf of Aden when it was seized yesterday, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.
The ship flies a Bahamas flag but operates out of Denmark, Mr Choong said.
"Pirates are still attacking despite increased patrols. We have urged ships to take extra precaution when transiting in this busy waterway," he said.
No further details were immediately available.
Nato has sent three ships to the Gulf of Aden - one of the world's busiest shipping lanes - to help the US Navy in anti-piracy patrols and to escort cargo vessels.
The European Union has said at least four warships backed by aircraft will begin policing the dangerous waters in December.
The EU flotilla will eventually take over patrolling the area from Nato ships. Nevertheless, attacks have continued unabated off Somalia, which is caught up in an insurgency and has had no functioning government since 1991.
There have been 81 attacks this year in the African waters, with 32 ships hijacked. Eleven vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 200 crew, Mr Choong said.
*AP
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Analysis
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