rakontur links for November 19th:

• Somali pirates transform villages into boomtowns (AP) - Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury cars, marrying beautiful women — even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style food for their hostages. And in an impoverished country where every public institution has crumbled, they have become heroes in the steamy coastal dens they operate from because they are the only real business in town.


• A Stripper, a Mobster, and a Murder (Miami New Times) - The body belonged to 22-year-old Jeanette Smith, a stripper who danced under the stage name Jade at Thee Dollhouse in Sunny Isles Beach. Investigators would soon conclude she had been brutally sodomized, strangled, and dumped. A week later, authorities arrested brawny 33-year-old former Marine sniper Ariel Hernandez. In April 2002, a jury concluded the Gambino crime family had sent Hernandez to kill Jeanette after she apparently discovered a check-kiting scheme. U.S. District Court Judge Paul C. Huck sentenced him to life in prison.