PIRACY on the high seas is finally being fought with modern technology. Faced
with rising numbers of raids on their cargo ships—mainly in the waters of
South-East Asia—Japanese shipping companies have decided that enough is
enough.
Maritime piracy has been a scourge since the days of the Roman Empire, and
the tools of the trade have hardly changed. The pirates’ usual modus operandi is
to pull alongside freighters at night and throw grappling hooks onto their deck
rails.
The countermeasures are not much more sophisticated. When the Japanese
icebreaker Shirase sailed for Antarctica last November, for example, its…
