{Britney Spears is being used as a secret weapon\u2026 to scare off Somali pirates. Her hits are blasted out to deter kidnap attacks, merchant navy officer Rachel Owens revealed.}<\/p>\n
Spears\u2019s chart-toppers Oops! I Did It Again and Baby One More Time have proved to be the most effective at keeping the bandits at bay.<\/p>\n
Second Officer Owens, who works on supertankers off the east coast of Africa, said: \u2018Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most.<\/p>\n
\u2018These guys can\u2019t stand Western culture or music, making Britney\u2019s hits perfect.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ships in the region are in constant danger from gun-toting pirates boarding and kidnapping crews for multi-million-pound ransoms.<\/p>\n
In 2011, there were 176 attacks on ships by gangs of bandits off the Horn of Africa. They are such a threat the Royal Navy has 1,500 sailors on 14 warships operating round-the-clock patrols in the area.<\/p>\n
Ms Owens, who regularly guides huge tankers through the waters, said the ship\u2019s speakers can be aimed solely at the pirates so as not to disturb the crew.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s so effective the ship\u2019s security rarely needs to resort to firing guns,\u2019 said the 34-year-old, from Gartmore, near Aberfoyle, Stirling.<\/p>\n
\u2018As soon as the pirates get a blast of Britney, they move on as quickly as they can.\u2019<\/p>\n
Steven Jones, of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, said: \u2018Pirates will go to any lengths to avoid or try to overcome the music.\u2019<\/p>\n
He added: I\u2019d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention.\u2019<\/p>\n
Metro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Britney Spears is being used as a secret weapon\u2026 to scare off Somali pirates. Her hits are blasted out to deter kidnap attacks, merchant navy officer Rachel Owens revealed.} Spears\u2019s chart-toppers Oops! I Did It Again and Baby One More Time have proved to be the most effective at keeping the bandits at bay. Second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000049039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-11187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000049039,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11187.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000049039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11187"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=11187"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=11187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}