Nigeria: IMB Report Puts Country's Pirate Attacks in 2007 At 42 - AllAfrica.com

Teddy NwanunobiAbuja

An International Maritime Agency (IMB) study for 2007 have revealed that Nigerian Waters experienced an increased onslaught from plagiarists to as many as 42 times.

The figure, which was disclosed by the 'Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships', stands for a 12.6 per cent addition from the 12 violent onslaughts the nation's Waters witnessed in 2006.

According to the yearly report, which was published last January, "two mariners were killed - with tons more than than injured, taken surety or kidnapped - in Nigerian waters" last year.

IMB also said that it tracked 10 plagiarist onslaughts in the nation's Waters in the first one-fourth of this year.

It set the figure to stand for more than 20 per cent of the planetary total, and warned that more force was "spiralling out of control".

Although it blamed the South-south Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger River Delta (MEND) for being responsible for the addition in attacks, IMB's director, Captain Pottengal Mukundan, could not understand why the Nigerian Navy (NN) have been not able to "deal with this job effectively".

According to report, Mukundan, who blamed a "lack of proper law enforcement", said that there was "really no excuse" for the nation's Navy's failure.

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Last September, the NN had announced that it had seized 236 ships, jerk boats and flatboats during the preceding three years, as portion of a thrust to cut down illegal offshore activity that had resulted in an 80 per cent decrease in petroleum oil thefts.

In response to the up-to-the-minute statistics from the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Coverage Centre, the NN was reported to take a firm stand that it was doing its best with limited resources - in peculiar a deficiency of suitable vessels.

"It is a fact that the Nigerian Navy is experiencing an acute deficit of patrol boats for anti-piracy operations," Captain Henry Babalola, the NN's manager of information, was reported to have got said.

Acacia Technologies Licenses Credit Card Fraud Protection Technology to Jones Apparel Group

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:ACTG)(Nasdaq:CBMX) announced today
that Financial Systems Innovation LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Acacia Technologies group, a leader in technology licensing, has entered
into non-exclusive licenses covering a patent that applies to credit
card fraud protection technology with Jones Apparel Group.

The patented technology generally relates to a computerized system for
protecting retailers and consumers engaged in credit card, check card,
and debit transactions. The system includes an electronic card reader,
and the generation and use of a transaction number, which specifically
identifies each transaction processed within the system. As a result,
the retailer does not necessarily have to print detailed information
concerning the cardholder’s identity or
account number on the customer’s receipt.

ABOUT ACACIA RESEARCH CORPORATION

Acacia Research Corporation comprises two operating groups, Acacia
Technologies group and CombiMatrix group.

The Acacia Technologies group develops, acquires, and licenses patented
technologies. Acacia controls 68 patent portfolios covering technologies
used in a wide variety of industries including audio/video enhancement &
synchronization, broadcast data retrieval, computer memory cache
coherency, credit card fraud protection, database management, data
encryption & product activation, digital media transmission (DMT®),
digital video production, dynamic manufacturing modeling, enhanced
Internet navigation, image resolution enhancement, interactive data
sharing, interactive television, laptop docking station connectivity,
microprocessor enhancement, multi-dimensional bar codes, resource
scheduling, spreadsheet automation, and user activated Internet
advertising.

The CombiMatrix group is developing a platform technology to rapidly
produce customizable arrays, which are semiconductor-based tools for use
in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and
proteins. The CombiMatrix group's technology has a wide range of
potential applications in the areas of genomics, proteomics, biosensors,
drug discovery, drug development, diagnostics, combinatorial chemistry,
material sciences and nanotechnology.

Acacia Research-Acacia Technologies (Nasdaq:ACTG) and Acacia
Research-CombiMatrix (Nasdaq:CBMX) are both classes of common stock
issued by Acacia Research Corporation and are intended to reflect the
performance of the respective operating groups and are not issued by the
operating groups.

Information about the Acacia Technologies group and the CombiMatrix
group is available at .

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Reform Act of 1995

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the “safe harbor”
provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
statements are based upon our current expectations and speak only as of
the date hereof. Our actual results may differ materially and
adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a
result of various factors and uncertainties, including the recent
economic slowdown affecting technology companies, our ability to
successfully develop products, rapid technological change in our
markets, changes in demand for our future products, legislative,
regulatory and competitive developments and general economic conditions.
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, recent and forthcoming Quarterly
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