Mogadishu - Somali pirates have reduced their ransom demand for a hijacked Saudi supertanker to 15 million dollars and moved the ship after threats from an Islamist insurgent group, a local elder and an Islamist spokesman said Monday.

Pirates seized the Sirius Star, which is carrying a full load of crude oil worth 100 million dollars, around 830 kilometres south-east of the Kenyan port of Mombasa over a week ago.

They initially demanded that ship owner Saudi Aramco pay 25 million dollars by November 30 or face "disastrous action."

New Delhi - Five Indian crew members of a Japanese ship who spent two months as hostages of Somali pirates returned to the western city of Mumbai on Monday, officials said.

The free sailors from the ship MV Stolt Valor were received by relatives at the city's international airport on their arrival from Muscat.

The seamen said they were relieved at the "homecoming" after spending "two months at gunpoint."

Athens  - Somali pirates safely released a Greek owned chemical tanker with 19 member crew that was hijacked in September, the Greek Ministry of Merchant Marine said Saturday.

An official from the ministry told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the ship was released on November 19 that that the cargo of petrol and all 19 crew members, from Georgia, Sri Lanka and Syria, were safe and in tact.

The Somali pirates had hijacked the vessel, NV Genius, under the ownership of Greek shippig company Mareship on September 25 in the Gulf of Aden, near the Horn of Africa, as it was sailing from Romania to the Emirates.

The ship is the latest to be released by pirates after seizing dozens of vessels in recent weeks.

Islamabad - Pakistan is ready to join Indian efforts to halt piracy off Somalia, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said Saturday.

Nairobi, Nov. 22 : Kenya’s Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula has clamed that Somali pirates have collected over 150 million dollars in ransoms over the past year, and appealed to ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

According to Fox News, Somali pirates have seized eight vessels including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with 100 million dollars worth of crude oil in the past fortnight.

"We are advised that in the last 12 months, ransom to the excess of 150 million dollars has been paid to these criminals and that is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities," Wetangula said.

Mogadishu - Somali insurgents Saturday vowed to fight pirates wreaking havoc off the coast of Somalia, in the wake of the hijacking of a Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying 100-million- dollars-worth of crude oil.

Pirates have reportedly demanded a 25-million-dollar ransom for the Sirius Star, which they seized over the weekend around 830 kilometres south-east of the Kenyan port of Mombasa - way outside the normal piracy danger zones in the Gulf of Aden.

The Sirius Star has been anchored off the Somali port town of Haradhere since Tuesday. However, Islamist insurgents, angry that a ship from a Muslim country has been taken, now say they will act against the pirates.