II. Translate into Russian the passage describing the actions taken by pirates against the ships and their crews.

III. Vocabulary Practice

Find an odd word.

1. commandeer, seize, hijack, repel;

2. appeal, demand, accuse, request;

3. precautionary, negligible, insignificant, unimportant;

4. steal, prowl, plunder, rob.

IV. Speech Practice

1. Explain in English what the following words and word-groups mean:

hijacker; to smuggle; law enforcement; mother ship; rival warlords.

2. Explain the underlined parts in your own words.

1. Once the vessels have entered these waters, the chance of any law enforcement is negligible.

2. Many of the warlords are believed to run gangs.

3. Answer the questions to the above text.

1. What area appears to be piracy-prone (подверженный)?

2. What happened to the ships and their crews after they had been attacked by pirates?

3. What kind of crew is supposed to run the mother ship?

4. What measures could help the ships to avoid being attacked?

5. Why have the Somali waters become a piracy hot spot?

4. Sum up the information from texts 1 and 2. Describe the situation off the Somali coast according to the plan of your own.

Text 3. Captain counts the cost of piracy

I. Read the text.

Make sure you understand the words below:

tale	story
to give up	to stop

2 February, 2006

Tales of pirates seizing ships on the high seas are children's stories – real piracy has a human and financial cost, as one captain knows only too well.

Capt Rodrigues took command of a small container ship after it was attacked en route from Australia to Singapore.

When the 10-men crew heard shots in the night most of them locked themselves in their cabins but the captain and chief officer were later found shot dead.

It is believed they were killed after the pirates demanded money. The unmanned ship continued on its course for an hour and a half before the crew came out to find their shipmates killed.

When Capt Rodrigues took over the helm he had a new crew as the other men were too traumatised to return.

"We agreed everyone was on piracy watch. I never had to force anyone to go out. They were always up on the bridge".

On first boarding the ship, he said: "I told myself lightning doesn't strike twice".

But he may have thought he had spoken too soon when one night a few months later the ship was approached by a couple of speedboats off the Indonesian islands, south of Singapore. They got out the search lights and sounded the alarms.

The measures worked as the speedboats gave up their pursuit.

But he later heard pirates had boarded another ship, tied up the chief engineer and ransacked the vessel.

Capt Rodrigues said the best way to avoid being taken by pirates was to keep them off the ship.

"Once they are on board they are armed and you lose control of the ship. You are defenceless", he said.

In Somalia, pirates are more concerned with getting a ransom rather than hijacking the ships for parts or cargo. Thirty five piracy incidents were reported in Somalia last year compared to just two in 2004.

Vocabulary

to seize	захватывать
to lock	запирать на ключ
to demand	требовать
to take over	принимать (должность, обязанности) от другого
to traumatise	травмировать
lightning	молния
search light	прожектор
pursuit	преследование; погоня
to ransack	ограбить
to keep off	держать в отдалении; не подпускать
defenceless	беззащитный, уязвимый
ransom	выкуп