The former president of the Seychelles Islands is in New York to warn of increased piracy in the Indian Ocean along the Horn of Africa. James R. Mancham will speak at Columbia University and later at the Discovery Institute-sponsored World Russia Forum April 25-27 in Washington, D.C.

Piracy also was also discussed in Seattle last night at an appearance by Koshin Mohamed, a Somali-American who recently returned from combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mohamed, 31, a community leader in Seattle whose childhood was spent in Somalia, said that international military aid is needed to stop the pirates and drive out the Al Shabaab (al Qaeda linked) terrorists that control 80 percent of southern Somalia. The country also needs development of economic options for youth if the opportunist crime-wave of piracy is to be stopped. As is, Mohamed said, impoverished and uneducated young men are easy prey to ideological Islamist encouragement to defy international law and raid innocent trading ships far out to sea.

Koshin Mohamed spoke at Seattle Pacific University