Kenyans and ex-pats alike pour into numerous clubs for all-night dancing to the latest American, reggae and African hits, as well as to the city’s wide array of upscale bars that host karaoke nights and live bands.

Nairobi has its share of dive bars, where local Kenyans hang out discussing the latest politics. Many places can be found easily by tourists, and, as in most African cities, spots frequented by “ladies of the night.”

But what this modern, urban city lacks is a gay club.

And although the motive is still money, today’s pirates are a far cry from the eye-patched, peg-legged swashbucklers of Hollywood.

“The only thing today’s pirates have in common with the romantic vision people have of pirates is that they are ruthless criminals who exploit very vulnerable people at sea,” said Pottengal Mukundan of the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors shipping crime.

Today’s maritime muggers don night-vision goggles, carry rocket launchers and navigate with global positioning devices.

With the ransoms they collect, pirates can earn up to $40,000 a year, analysts say. That’s a fortune for someone from an impoverished country.

A spate of well-publicized attacks this month has cast the problem in sharp relief.

Amnesty International said police officers have used “excessive force” to deal with criminals because of public pressure to crack down.

“Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill and the weak police accountability system allows for this,” Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty’s Africa programme, said in the report.

“In almost all cases of human rights violations by police — including unlawful killings — no investigation into the case and no disciplinary action against those responsible has been undertaken,” the report said.

Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe said that, for the first time, it had documented several incidents of violence by supporters of the MDC. But it said the scope of those incidents was incomparable to those perpetrated by the state security agents and Zanu-PF militia.

Human Rights Watch warned that the emergence of “tit-for-tat retaliatory attacks” between Zanu-PF and MDC supporters would escalate the violence.

‘Anyone opposing Mugabe is in danger’
A report in The Zimbabwean on Friday said army barracks across the country were now issuing war veterans and former military and police officers with AK-47 assault rifles.

African countries and the UN should intervene to deal with a “deteriorating” situation, they said.

The opposition says it won the 29 March presidential poll outright, but results are yet to be released.

Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe may return to China after being blocked in South Africa.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the ship’s owners were considering bringing the arms back, amid international pressure not to let the ship unload its cargo.