This is the chilling moment a Mafia boss is gunned down by a hitman outside a bar.
Mario Bacio Terracino is first felled by a gunshot to the arm.
His attacker then stands over him and finishes him off with a single shot to the back of the head before strolling away.
Police in Naples, where the local Mafia are known as the Camorra, released the CCTV footage to try to catch the hitman.
They believe the killing of Terracino, 53, was part of a feud with a rival gang over the control of lucrative drug trafficking network.
Terracino was also known to police as a bank robber and was accused of a £1.8 million heist committed in 1991, but was never convicted.
His trademark was said to be entering buildings from below through the sewer network.
Police in Naples also revealed that Terracino had also been part of a Camorra gang that had kidnapped Italian Socialist politician Guido De Martino in 1977.
He was snatched of a street in Naples and held for six weeks before being freed after a one billion lire ransom was paid - £430.000.
Tarracino is seen smoking a cigarette outside a bar in the central Sanita neighborhood. The killer enters the bar, where there are at least six people, then emerges and shoots Tarracino at point blank range.
When Tarracino falls on the ground, the killer finishes him off with a bullet to the head.
None of the bystanders moves a finger, although it is hard to say if that is from genuine indifference or fear of retaliation.
A woman is seen rubbing off her scratch-and-win lottery card as Tarracino is killed in front of her. A cigarette-seller moves his stall a few meters down the road, while a man holding a toddler in his arms looks at the victim and walks away.
A woman counting change in her purse jumps in shock at the sound of the gunshot and turns to see the killer calmly walking away. He was even said to be smiling.
Today, police in Naples said: 'We are taking the unusal step of releasing this graphic footage in an attempt to catch his killer.
'His face although hidden is visible and someone out there must recognise him and we would appeal for them to come forward.'
So far this year, there have been more than 30 Camorra murders in Naples, many of which remain unsolved and many of them stem from feuds between rival clans.
In an attempt to control the extent of organised crime in the city the Italian government has flooded the area with troops, but with little effect.
One of the bloodiest hits was last September, when six Africans who tried to muscle into the drugs trade were shot dead outside a shop.
The Camorra is much more violent than the Sicilian Mafia and also has several branches in Britain. In 2006, Naples mobster Raffaele Caldarelli was arrested in Hackney, east London. ---------- RELATED POSTS:-
No you can't (eat my vegetables): Mrs Obama eyes an earthworm suspiciously during the harvest
Spud-tastic: The size of the sweet potatoes harvested yesterday certainly was impressive
As if the watching press corps weren't enough: Mrs Obama pauses from the work to pose for a mobile phone picture with some of the students
This could feed an army: Mrs Obama, centre, poses with the schoolchildren and the 223 pounds of produce they harvested yesterday
Don't mind us: Michelle Obama, left, speaks to a crowd of schoolchildren as they settle down at picnic tables for a peaceful afternoon... under the watchful eye of the White House press corps, inches away
The First Lady struck some difficult poses as she helped the pupils pulls vegetables from the ground
Autumn harvest: The First Lady helps schoolchildren pull 223 pounds of produce from the garden on the South Lawn of the White House yesterday
Mrs Obama puts a guiding hand on the wheelbarrow full of sweet potatoes as two children from the school cart them off
No you can't (eat my vegetables): Mrs Obama eyes an earthworm suspiciously during the harvest
Well done: Mrs Obama high fives a student from Washington's Bancroft Elementary School as they harvest vegetables from the garden
The amount of sweet potatoes harvested at the White House yesterday could feed an army, Michelle Obama observed.
Sadly, there was none to spare for the horde of photographers on hand to document the efforts of the First Lady and 30 schoolchildren as they pulled 223 pounds of vegetables from the garden on the South Lawn.
Cupboards at a soup kitchen near the White House will be spilling over for several days after a donation of the fresh produce harvested yesterday from Mrs Obama's vegetable garden.
The First Lady invited about 30 fifth-graders from two District of Columbia public elementary schools to help with the project. One of the schools, Bancroft Elementary, has helped with the garden since it began, preparing the soil, planting the crops and harvesting in the spring.
'Are you guys ready to do some work? Are you ready to work really hard? Are you ready to get dirty?' she asked them. "All right, let's go!'
The students were divided into groups of three and paired with an adult who showed them what to do. All told, they spent about a half-hour jabbing and digging at the plot on the South Lawn with pitchforks and other tools.
They filled one wheelbarrow with huge sweet potatoes, and filled baskets and bowls with carrots, fennel, lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, turnips, eggplant, peppers, tomatillos and greens, for a total of 223 pounds, Mrs Obama's office said later in the day.
Most of the produce is being given to Miriam's Kitchen, a nearby soup kitchen, for the next days' meals. Mrs Obama helped serve lunch there earlier this year.
Before yesterday, the garden already had produced more than 740 pounds of food, Mrs Obama said, bringing the total for the year to more than 960 pounds.
Some has been served at White House events.
The first lady and her group first tackled sweet potatoes before moving on to carrots and big bulbs of fennel.
At one point, she held up one of the larger orange-coloured spuds and said: 'This can feed an army.'
The First Lady also high fived the students, practically did the splits as she yanked vegetables from the ground, and carefully examined a large earthworm she had found.
Before the harvesting began, she said she and daughters, Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, already had helped themselves to some sweet potatoes.
The harvest was the second for the garden. More than 70 pounds of lettuce and 12 pounds of peas came out of a springtime harvest of the 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped plot. After that, fall crops were planted, leading to yesterday's event.
Mrs Obama started the garden in March, saying she wanted to use it to talk about the importance of eating a nutritious diet and show what good, fresh food tastes like.
She said it cost about $180 to prepare the soil and plant the seeds and seedlings. --------- RELATED POSTS:-
Patricia Warren of Cleveland holds up a missing persons poster of her cousin Janice Webb, missing since June of this year, outside the home of Anthony Sowell on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in Cleveland. Police say officers who went to the home looking for a rape suspect found two decomposing bodies upstairs and what appeared to be a freshly dug grave in the basement.
A Cuyahoga County coroner van leaves Anthony Sowell's home on the east side of Cleveland, Oct. 30, 2009 carrying a victim discovered in the house. Police in Cleveland say officers who went to a home looking for a rape suspect found two decomposing bodies upstairs and what appeared to be a freshly dug grave in the basement.
This undated photo released by the Cleveland Police Department shows Anthony E. Sowell. Police in Cleveland have arrested Sowell, a convicted rapist after they found as many as six bodies at his house.
Cleveland police search the porch at the home of Anthony Sowell, where bodies have been discovered Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in Cleveland. Police in Cleveland say officers who went to a home looking for a rape suspect found two decomposing bodies upstairs and what appeared to be a freshly dug grave in the basement.
Six bodies were discovered in or around this house in Cleveland on Thursday.
Police arrested convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell, a suspect in six deaths at his house in Cleveland, Ohio.
Six women found dead at a Cleveland, Ohio, home appeared to have been strangled, and their decomposing bodies could have been lying there for "weeks, if not months or years," a coroner told CNN on Saturday.
Police discovered the bodies at the home of Anthony Sowell, a 50-year-old convicted rapist, after they tried to serve an arrest and search warrant for him related to a sexual assault investigation.
On Thursday, detectives from the department's sex-crimes unit and members of its SWAT team went to Sowell's home to execute the warrant and to arrest the suspect, but he was nowhere to be found, Cleveland Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said.
Five female victims were found inside the home, and another female body was discovered outside the home, said Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller III.
Miller's office had yet to identify the victims, who all died of "homicidal violence," he said.
"They were mostly strangled, it appears," he said.
Stacho said a tipster told officers of Sowell's whereabouts and police arrested him Saturday afternoon as he walked on a street near the 4th District Police Headquarters.
About a month ago, a woman accused Sowell of rape and felonious assault, Stacho said Friday.
"Once we were able to get the cooperation of the victim, we secured an arrest warrant for Mr. Sowell and subsequently a search warrant for his premises," Stacho said.
Officers serving the warrants Thursday discovered two badly decomposed bodies on the third floor of the house, Stacho said. A subsequent search revealed what appeared to be a freshly dug grave under the stairs in the basement, he said.
On Friday, investigators returned to the house, dug up the grave and found a third body, he said.
A further search of the house and property found two more bodies in a crawl space, and a sixth body was found in a shallow grave outside the home, Stacho said.
Five different burial methods were used on the victims, and the bodies were in varying states of decomposition, Miller said, making it difficult to determine the ages of the victims. He added that the states of the bodies made it hard to tell how long they had lain in the makeshift graves.
"It's really very difficult to tell," Miller said. "It's been some time, I would say probably at least weeks, if not months or years."
Stacho said Sowell makes his living as a "scrapper."
"He walks around and picks up scrap metal and takes it to junkyards to make a few pennies."
Sowell was convicted for a 1989 rape for which he was imprisoned from 1990 to 2005, Stacho said.
A convicted rapist who fled before police arrived to arrest him on new rape charges was arrested Saturday in his inner-city neighborhood after police found as many as six bodies at his home.
Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said Anthony Sowell was walking down the street on the east side of Cleveland when authorities spotted him and took him into custody.
Sowell initially denied he was the man authorities were looking for but admitted his identity as officers began fingerprinting him, Stacho said. Charges against him on pending.
Officers found three bodies and believe they have discovered three more but are awaiting confirmation from the coroner, Stacho said.
The first two bodies were found Thursday night when police went to Sowell's home to arrest him on charges of felonious assault and rape. Police say he had spent 15 years in prison for a 1989 rape.
Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller identified two bodies as black females and said one had died of a violent death ruled a homicide. No race or gender was determined for the third.
The identities and matter of death for the three had not yet been determined. The decomposition of the bodies meant it would take awhile to determine how they died.
Police established a command post in the neighborhood to take missing-person reports and additional information on outstanding missing persons in the neighborhood.
Teresa Hicks, 48, was among the neighbors who said they were relieved about the arrest but left with a heightened fear of crime. She said she has known Sowell since high school.
"He was crazy," she said from her porch Saturday. "Sometimes he would just go off if he didn't have his way."
Darren Dunlap, 38, frequently visits the neighborhood to see his brother or friends. He said Sowell was known for borrowing money and looking for scrap metal to sell.
Hicks said she didn't think Sowell had a job but understood from conversations with him that he lived on a monthly check. She said she didn't know its source.
Police were checking crime reports to find matches for similarities to the 1989 rape or the most recent allegation against Sowell.
Minutes before the arrest was made, police Chief Michael McGrath tried to reassure parents that it was safe for their children to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood if they followed standard precautions like avoiding strangers and staying in a group.
Hicks said her daughter would not be trick-or-treating.
Detectives with a search warrant found two bodies Thursday on the third floor of a duplex and began checking a fresh grave dug in the basement. The bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting they'd been in the home a long time.
Police were checking missing-person reports back to June 2005, when Sowell was released from prison.
White House pastry chef Bill Yosses displays the Halloween White House cookie to be given to trick-or-treaters at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009.
Volunteers decorates the North Portico of the White House in Washington in preparation for Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.
Performers prepare their costumes, for the Halloween celebrations at the White House, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009, in Washington.
A volunteers decorates the North Portico of the White House in Washington in preparation for Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.
A volunteer decorates the North Portico of the White House in Washington in preparation for Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.
Volunteers carve pumpkins along the driveway to the North Portico of the White House in Washington in preparation for Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.
Performers in their Halloween costumes, march on the White House ground as they prepare for the Halloween celebrations at the White House, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009, in Washington.
A White House pastry chef decorates Halloween cookies with chocolate icing spiders hanging from orange White Houses in the pastry kitchen of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. The cookies will be given out to Halloween trick-or-treaters at the White House on Saturday.
More than 2,000 kids are getting the ultimate trick-or-treating treasure: Candy from President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House.
The Obamas smiled, chatted and passed out cellophane goody bags on Saturday night to parents and their children who came dressed in as superheroes, pirates, fairies and skeletons. Mrs. Obama wore furry cat ears.
The candy bags were loaded with items such as White House M&Ms with the president's signature imprinted on it and a sweet dough butter cookie made by White House pastry chef Bill Yosses.
Eleven-year-old Tiera Thomas of Washington D.C. said she was excited to get candy.
But she says the best part was the chance to meet the president, who touched her hand and said "Happy Halloween."
U.S. Coast Guard officers Lt. Josh Nelson, left, Capt. Tom Farris, center, and Rear Adm. Joseph Castillo, right, arrive to speak at a news conference held at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
U.S. Coast Guard divers board a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
This image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a Coast Guard aircrew member from Sector San Diego conducting search patterns east of San Clemente Island Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 to search for survivors of a mid-air collision that occurred Thursday. The collision occurred between a Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules and a Marine AH-1 Super Cobra
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Joseph Castillo, left, speaks at a news conference as Marine Corps Maj. Jay DeLaRosa, right, looks on at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
A U.S. Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off at the San Diego Coast Guard Station during a search effort Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, in San Diego.A Marine attack helicopter that collided with a Coast Guard search plane off Southern California was one of four helicopters flying in formation to deliver Marines to a training island. All nine crew members from the airplane and helicopter remain missing Friday.
U.S. Marine Corps Major Jay DeLaRosa talks about the search effort during a news conference held at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
U.S. Coast Guard pilots taxi in a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter before taking off during a search mission at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
A U.S. Coast Guardsman boards a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
U.S. Coast Guard pilots prepare a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter before taking off on a search mission at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
A U.S. Coast Guardsman boards a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter at the San Diego Coast Guard Station Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 in San Diego. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
The U.S. Coast Guard has identified nine people feared dead at sea following an air collision between a Coast Guard aircraft and a Marine Corps helicopter.
The missing crew members from the Coast Guard C-130 are all stationed in Sacramento, Calif., where their aircraft was based. They are:
_ Lt. Cmdr. Che J. Barnes, 35, Capay, Calif., aircraft commander.
_ Lt. Adam W. Bryant, 28, Crewe, Va., co-pilot.
_ Chief Petty Officer John F. Seidman, 43, Stockton, Calif., flight engineer.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Carl P. Grigonis, 35, Mayfield Heights, Ohio, navigator.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Monica L. Beacham, 29, Decaturville, Tenn., radio operator.
_ Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason S. Moletzsky, 26, Norristown, Pa., air crew.
_ Petty Officer 3rd Class Danny R. Kreder II, 22, Elm Mott, Texas, drop master.
The missing crew members from the Marine Corps helicopter are:
_ Maj. Samuel Leigh, 35, Kennebec, Maine.
_ 1st Lt. Thomas Claiborne, 26, Douglas, Colo.
A flotilla of rescue vessels continued its search Saturday for nine people feared dead at sea following an air collision between a Coast Guard aircraft and a Marine Corps helicopter.
Six Coast Guard cutters, three Navy ships and multiple helicopters searched the ocean off Southern California. Rescuers had found several pieces of debris from both aircraft but there was no sign of the victims. No bodies have been found in the debris field, and the mission is still considered search and rescue, not search and recovery, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta Disco said Saturday morning.
Thursday's crash involved a Coast Guard C-130 with a seven-member crew and a Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra with two aboard as it flew in formation near the Navy's San Clemente Island, a site with training ranges for amphibious, air, surface and undersea warfare.
The collision occurred as the Coast Guard airplane was itself carrying out a search for a missing boatman.
Officials were collecting evidence and reviewing recordings of transmissions by the aircraft to try to determine how the collision occurred.
The Coast Guard on Saturday identified the nine missing crew members. All seven aboard the Coast Guard plane are stationed at the Coast Guard Air Station in Sacramento, Calif., where their aircraft was based.
Connie Seidman of Carmichael, Calif., whose 43-year-old son was aboard the plane, said he had been in the Coast Guard since he was 20 and loved to fly. Chief Petty Officer John Seidman of Stockton, Calif., last visited his family in February after returning from a posting in Hawaii, and they talked on the phone often.
Seidman said Saturday she was thinking about "all the things that we wanted to tell him that we can't."
"He was flying, just like he liked to," she said.
The aircraft commander, Lt. Cmdr. Che Barnes, 35, is from Capay, Calif. His co-pilot, Lt. Adam Bryant, 28, is from Crewe, Va.
The missing crew members from the Marine helicopter are Maj. Samuel Leigh, 35, of Kennebec, Maine, and 1st Lt. Thomas Claiborne, 26, of Douglas, Colo.
The accident happened at 7:10 p.m. in airspace uncontrolled by the FAA and inside a so-called military warning area, which is at times open to civilian aircraft and at times closed for military use, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. He did not know the status of the airspace at the time.
Capt. Tom Farris, commander of the Coast Guard's San Diego sector, said it's not unusual to have a high volume of military traffic working in training areas and pilots in the area are responsible for seeing other aircraft around them under a so-called "see-and-avoid principle."
Minutes before the collision, the FAA told the C-130 pilot to begin communicating with military controllers at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego Bay, but it was not known if the pilot did so, Gregor said.
The search covered 644 square miles of ocean but rescuers were concentrating on a debris field 50 miles off the San Diego coast.
The Sacramento-based C-130 crew was looking for 50-year-old David Jines, who was reported missing after leaving Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island man in a 12-foot motorized skiff to reach a friend in high winds Tuesday, authorities said.
The four-engine plane was conducting its search from an altitude of 900 to 1,000 feet and visibility was 15 miles.
Jines' friend, Linda Jones, told The Associated Press that Jines boarded her disabled yacht and helped her maneuver to an area where they thought they had made anchor. After helping her, he set off to return to his sailboat, which was anchored at the Avalon harbor.
She reported Jines missing the next day when she returned to the harbor and couldn't find him.
"I didn't know Dave was in any kind of peril," she said.
n this undated photo made available by the family, shows Paul Chandler, who went missing with his wife Rachel when sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania after sending a distress signal on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, at an unknown location. The British navy on Thursday Oct. 29, 2009 found an empty yacht in international waters belonging to the missing British couple and a defense official said Somali pirates may have transferred them to another vessel. International naval forces have been searching for the couple for days. Paul and Rachel Chandler were heading to Tanzania in their yacht, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent last Friday.
In this undated photo made available by the family, Paul and Rachel Chandler, who went missing when sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania after sending a distress signal on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, are seen at an unknown location. The British navy on Thursday found an empty yacht in international waters belonging to the missing British couple and a defense official said Somali pirates may have transferred them to another vessel. International naval forces have been searching for the couple for days. Paul and Rachel Chandler were heading to Tanzania in their yacht, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent last Friday.
In this undated photo made available by the family, shows Paul Chandler, who went missing with his wife Rachel when sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania after sending a distress signal on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, at an unknown location. The British navy on Thursday Oct. 29, 2009 found an empty yacht in international waters belonging to the missing British couple and a defense official said Somali pirates may have transferred them to another vessel. International naval forces have been searching for the couple for days. Paul and Rachel Chandler were heading to Tanzania in their yacht, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent last Friday.
In this undated photo made available by the family, shows Paul Chandler, who went missing with his wife Rachel when sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania after sending a distress signal on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, at an unknown location. The British navy on Thursday Oct. 29, 2009 found an empty yacht in international waters belonging to the missing British couple and a defense official said Somali pirates may have transferred them to another vessel. International naval forces have been searching for the couple for days. Paul and Rachel Chandler were heading to Tanzania in their yacht, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent last Friday.
Somali pirates who are demanding $7 million in ransom for a British sailing couple say boats from other countries are "looting" Somalia's fish-rich waters.
Ahmed Gadaf, who says he's a spokesman for the pirates, says Western fishing vessels "harass" local fishermen and destroy their nets. Gadaf spoke to The Associated Press by satellite phone.
Gadaf says the British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, are safe and will not be harmed.
Illegal fishing off the coast of Somalia stirs strong passions in the country. The country's prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, said in a speech last week that many countries are fishing illegally in Somali waters and have pushed formerly profitable Somali fishermen into the pirate trade.
Somali pirates who are demanding $7 million in ransom for a British sailing couple say boats from other countries are plundering Somalia's fish-rich waters, a pirate spokesman said Saturday.
Ahmed Gadaf, who says he's a spokesman for the pirates, said the group holding the couple hostage off Somalia's coast was made up of "voluntary guards" — not pirates.
"The Western forces continue to loot our natural resources. They continue to harass local fishermen and destroy their fishing nets, so we want them to taste the consequence," Gadaf said by satellite phone from the coastal town of Haradhere.
The British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, are safe and will not be harmed, Gadaf said. They will be released once the ransom is paid, he said.
The Chandlers were headed to Tanzania in their boat, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent Oct. 23. The British navy found their empty yacht on Thursday, and both have been in sporadic contact with the British media since.
Illegal fishing off the coast of Somalia stirs strong passions in the country. The prime minister of Somalia's transitional government, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, said in a speech Wednesday that many pirates are former fishermen "responding to the loss and disappearance of their livelihoods."
"Many of these pirates were once profitable fisherman and would be so again given the chance," he said at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
"I shall not name names, but suffice to say many countries are fishing illegally in Somali waters," he said. "We estimate that the value of the fish being taken from our waters is perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.
"It is wholly unacceptable for these countries, many of whom claim they want to help Somalia, to turn a blind eye to this theft. Particularly when that theft robs thousands of Somali people of a way out of poverty and a way out of piracy," Sharmarke said.
Rachel Chandler told her brother in a telephone call broadcast by ITV News on Friday that the pirates were "hospitable people," a message that Sharmarke underscored in his London remarks.
British officials held a meeting on the hostage situation Friday in the government's crisis briefing room. The Foreign Office said a team from across several government departments was involved. Both the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense declined to comment on whether any potential rescue was under consideration.
Pirate attacks have increased the last several weeks after the recent end of the monsoon season. An international armada is patrolling the region to try to stop the attacks.
In this Monday, Oct. 26, 2009 picture, Abdullah Abdullah, former Afghan foreign minister who ran against President Hamid Karzai in August's vote, gives a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan. Talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah have broken down, and Abdullah is likely to pull out of next week's presidential runoff, a person with knowledge of the talks said Friday, Oct. 30, 2009.
Afghan presidential challenger Abdullah Abdullah plans to boycott next week's runoff against incumbent Hamid Karzai following a breakdown in talks on how to fix the country's electoral crisis, two people familiar with the discussions said.
A boycott would severely undermine a vote intended to affirm the Afghan government's credibility. However, an Abdullah spokesman said no final decision had been made on the candidate's pullout, and it was possible that word of the boycott was a negotiating tactic by the Abdullah camp.
The political stalemate in Kabul comes as President Barack Obama has been meeting with his advisers to try to determine U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, including troop levels. A weakened Afghan government will make it harder for Obama to get public support for his efforts.
Abdullah, who was once Karzai's foreign minister, put forward several conditions this week to avoid a repeat of the massive fraud of the August presidential election, including the replacement of the top election official and the suspension of several ministers.
He set Saturday as the deadline for his demands to be met.
A Westerner close to talks between the two sides said their agenda also included a power-sharing proposal by the challenger and cited both Karzai and Abdullah as saying that talks broke down Friday, prompting Abdullah to decide on a boycott of the Nov. 7 runoff.
An Afghan figure close to Abdullah said Saturday that the boycott decision came after a contentious and fruitless meeting Thursday over Abdullah's conditions for a runoff.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity, saying that the announcement must come from Abdullah himself.
The Afghan said a boycott was certain, and that Abdullah would likely tell his supporters to simply stay home during the vote.
The Afghan constitution says that any vote cast for a candidate who withdraws will not be counted. However, it does not specifically address a candidate who does not formally withdraw but urges supporters to boycott the polls.
A spokesman for the Afghan election commission said that it is too late for Abdullah to officially withdraw and that a boycott will not prevent the runoff from going forward.
"The election will be held and all procedures will go as normal," Noor Mohammad Noor said.
A spokesman for the Abdullah campaign, Fazel Sancharaki, said no decision had been made on a boycott and that the candidate would wait until the end of Saturday to see if his demands are met before making any announcement, likely on Sunday.
The runoff election in Afghanistan became necessary after widespread fraud in the first round of voting in August resulted in thousands of Karzai's ballots being invalidated, pushing him below the required 50 percent margin to win. Concerns have been raised about a possible repetition of the ballot-box stuffing and distorted tallies in the second round.
Abdullah complained Monday that there were no assurances that the November vote would be fairer than the first balloting and demanded that the head of the Karzai-appointed Independent Election Commission, Azizullah Lodin, be fired.
Lodin has denied allegations of bias in favor of Karzai, and the election commission's spokesman has already said Lodin cannot be replaced by either side.
Abdullah's conditions also include the suspension of several ministers and for more safeguards around the actual vote.
In private discussions, Abdullah also pressed Karzai for a power-sharing agreement instead of a vote, but Karzai refused, insisting instead on a vote and then a power-sharing agreement, the Westerner close to the talks told The Associated Press.
Karzai officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Despite the massive fraud and rejected ballots, Karzai's vote in the first round was far higher than Abdullah's and he is widely expected to win the runoff.
This year's election — the first run by Afghans since the ouster of the Taliban — was supposed to affirm the government's credibility. Instead, the massive fraud raised questions about the Karzai administration just as U.S. officials are debating whether to send more troops.
The Taliban, who threatened voters during the August balloting, have warned Afghans that they risk further attacks if they do not stay away from the polls next week.
On Wednesday they targeted a U.N. guest house where 34 staff — including a number of U.N. election workers — were sleeping. Eight people were killed in the assault, five of them U.N. staff members.
