In an interview with Parade Magazine last week, Nicolas Cage said that he was headed to Africa for eight days, “but I don’t want to talk too much about it because it’s sort of about my new life in terms of what I want to do with the emphasis on action.” Yesterday Cage was photographed visiting jailed Somali Pirates in Kenya. He said that he hopes to learn more about the situation so that he can “actually make some sense when… I go talk to different U.N. councils and discuss the matter.” Cage’s interest in activism seems to coincide with his high profile financial problems, but good for him for doing something that makes a difference.

An AP article, below, notes that Cage is a “U.N. Goodwill Ambassador on Drugs and Crime,” but I did a search of Cage on the website for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and there’s only information about a UN event he attended in May of this year. It seems as if his ambassador appointment was recent.

MOMBASA, Kenya — Film star Nicolas Cage has visited a Kenyan prison holding suspected Somali pirates awaiting trial to highlight the problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean.
Inmates danced for the movie star and shook his hand as he toured the Shimo La Tewa prison in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa. The prison has become a model for other jails in the country because of the reform work of its chief warden, Wanini Kireri.

Cage, a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador on Drugs and Crime, told The Associated Press Television News on Tuesday that he wanted to meet with some of the suspected Somali pirates, hear their stories and understand what is fueling piracy off the Somali coast.

“Then I’m in a position where I can actually make some sense and talk about it when I go back to the States where I go talk to different U.N. councils and discuss the matter,” Cage said.

Cage also gave out awards during his Tuesday visit to wardens in recognition of their outstanding work. He left Kenya Wednesday.

Somali pirates are currently holding around a dozen ships and more than 200 crew, and attacks have increased in recent weeks as seasonal rains subsided.

On Wednesday, pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, but pirates continue to carry out attacks because of the millions of dollars that can be made from a successful hijacking.

[From The AP via Google]

Cage is turning over a new leaf by getting more personally involved in charity, and he also seems to have given up the ridiculous dark toupee. Starpulse has photos of Cage’s visit to Kenya, and he has thinning hair slicked back so that you can see his scalp. I don’t like the greasy hair, but he deserves some credit for giving up the wig. That’s got to be a tough decision and he’ll find a look that works for him.

In terms of piracy off the coast of Somalia, I don’t know much about the situation, but I read a very good editorial earlier this year in the Independant. It seems that big companies were dumping toxic waste and illegally fishing in the Indian Ocean. The Somalis were initially trying to deter ships that were plundering their waters and dumping waste that was making them sick. It turned into piracy and we got the impression through the media that these were ruthless criminals kidnapping innocent people. Some of them definitely were, but there’s much more to it than we might think. There’s extreme poverty and despair in the country, and that needs to be considered when trying to address piracy. That definitely doesn’t excuse kidnapping and killing people, though.