African leaders will meet later this year in Togo to discuss drawing up a continental charter against maritime piracy, the country's authorities have announced. Foreign minister Robert DUSSEY said on Tuesday night that heads of state and government from the African Union would be in the capital Lome in November to discuss the problem. "The Lome summit aims at defining a common strategy against maritime insecurity in Africa," DUSSEY told reporters.
Up to a thousand ships flagged to the Cook Islands, Palau, Sierra Leone, and Togo will be targeted for safety, maintenance and seafarer welfare inspections across the Mediterranean Sea in the coming eight weeks by an army of inspectors from the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), seafarers' unions and port authorities.