Now at last I can hold my head up high on International Talk Like A PIrate Day, because it’s now official. Pirates from Serbia attack Bulgarian ships on the Danube:
About 40 unstaffed ship convoys were attacked and robbed in the past two years at the Serbian port of Smederevo, located to the east of Belgrade… Although the Serbian pirates’ attacks are not as spectacular as those taking place in Somalian or Indonesian waters, as the former usually don’t have any casualties, they nevertheless attack ships with armed men and steal cables and various goods, such as metals, coke, wheat, and sugar.
There’s a lot less glamour involved, obviously, but also less chance of having your vessel sunk by the Danish navy.
In other news, Prva Banka Crne Gore asked the Montenegrin government for a €40 million bail-out to get it through the financial crisis that the government insists isn’t a problem. Prva Banka is of course 30% owned by Aco Đukanović, who happens to be the older brother of Milo Đukanović, Prime Minister of the government that Prva Banka is asking for money from. Oh, and did I mention that Capital Invest – owned by Milo – has a 7% stake in Prva Banka as well? Hopefully the bail-out package will be approved and the Đukanović family’s long nightmare of financial insecurity will be over.
If all this news of pirates and financial crisis is getting you down, you could do a lot worse than buy a copy of Scurvy Dogs, a comic book about pirates in a financial crisis. Here the team face off against a posse of monkeys, “the pigeons of the seas”.
“Pain Tyme” indeed.