Somalia
Tracking Pirates from Space
Space services are proving their utility in fighting international crime. In January 2009 the U.S. commercial remote sensing firm GeoEye reported that its IKONOS satellite had located and taken high-resolution pictures of the oil supertanker MV Sirius Star in the Indian Ocean after the ship had been hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia.
Coordinating Aid with GPS
Increasingly, United Nations and international nongovernmental workers dealing with humanitarian needs in war-torn countries, such as Iraq and Somalia, are relying on GPS technologies to coordinate aid remotely.