What does WIO stand for?

Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja said the Cabinet authorized the transport minister to sign the code of conduct concerning the repression of piracy in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

Such events are a phase in which the eastern Indian Ocean is cooler than usual while the western Indian Ocean is warmer than usual.

Areas with the highest levels of fully-exploited stocks are the northeast Atlantic, the western Indian Ocean and the northwest Pacific, the FAO said.

He said that includes more surveillance and a greater military presence in the western Indian Ocean.

The warships will be unable to provide any security in the other 99 percent of the million square miles of the western Indian Ocean.

So with a total deployment at any one time of between a dozen and twenty or more warships from nations contributing to Combined Task Force 151 and EU NAVFOR Somalia (Operation Atalanta), or operating independently, the total annual cost of fighting piracy with naval vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean may be at least [pounds]150-250 million, without considering the expense of commissioning and decommissioning, and the cost of shore-based support and reconnaissance aircraft.

This Djibouti code of conduct is the first regional agreement between Arab and African countries against acts of piracy against ships in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean," Koji Sekimizu, head of the IMO's maritime safety division, told an AFP reporter at the meeting.

During its positive phase, warmer waters in the western Indian Ocean bring heavy rains to East Africa and India, and colder waters bring drought to Southeast Asia.