Reporting live from Puntland

Al Jazeera's English-language series of reports on piracy called "Pirates' Haven" is one of the best in-depth account of Somali piracy that I have come across. Al Jazeera's East African correspondent Mohammed Adow travels to Bossasso and Eyl to interview pirates, governmental officials, and others in an effort to contextualize more fully the pirates that, as Adow notes, have been captured mainly in the headlines.

The first part takes a look at the Puntland region and the conditions that originally facilitated piracy as a business and continue to fuel it today:


Part 2 examines the system of hostages and ransom payments inherent in piracy, and Adow documents local reactions -- and objections to -- piracy in the town of Eyl.


BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding also visits Puntland to report on the fight against piracy in Somalia:


Meanwhile, anti-piracy efforts continue apace outside Somalia as well. Interpol is currently working on compiling a database of Somali pirate suspects:

"Without systematically collecting photographs, fingerprints and DNA profiles of arrested pirates and comparing them internationally, it is simply not possible to establish their true identity or to make connections which would otherwise be missed," Interpol's Executive Director of Police Services, Jean-Michel Louboutin, said in a statement released Wednesday at the agency's headquarters in Lyon, France.