Summary
KIDNAP - Millions of people live, travel, and work in areas with significant kidnap risks, yet kidnaps of foreign workers, local VIPs, and tourists are surprisingly rare and the vast majority of abductions are peacefully resolved. Anja Shortland, Reader in Political Economy, King's College London, explores this lucrative but tricky business. Also, Jatin Dua, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, examines the upsurge in maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia, taking us inside pirate communities in Somalia. In what ways are modern day pirates connected to longer histories of trade and disputes over protection?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.6 | This is a podcast for BBC Radio Force thinking aloud. |
| 0:41.0 | How is it that a few men can take over an oil tanker the length of a football pitch and |
| 0:46.2 | negotiate a huge payout in return for its crew and cargo? |
| 0:51.4 | And how and why is it that in the vast majority of kidnapping for ransom cases, the victim |
| 0:57.8 | returns home safely. Piracy and kidnapping, all here on thinking aloud. |
| 1:07.0 | Hello, this is Benjamin Britain's dramatic rendering of the power of the scene. |
| 1:20.0 | As a kid growing up in Liverpool, no such storms ever troubled by walks along the sometimes |
| 1:26.2 | straggy beaches alongside the Mersey or on the sixpenny ferry rides from Pierhead to |
| 1:32.1 | Seaclem and New Brighton. |
| 1:34.0 | But a sense of the power and significance of the sea beyond the Crosby Lightship was always |
| 1:39.4 | at hand. |
| 1:40.4 | Anyone who travelled on the docklands overhead railway could see the amazing size of the ocean-going ships as they slumped naked in the dry docks. |
| 1:48.0 | And almost every family I knew seemed to have one member at sea, someone who'd thrown over domestic obligations |
| 1:55.2 | in order to join the Merchant Navy in search of real adventures. |
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