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DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 187 Number 187 *** COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS *** 21-08-2007(1) News reports received from readers and Internet News articles taken from various news sites. THIS NEWSLETTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY : VLIERODAM WIRE ROPES Ltd. wire ropes, chains, hooks, shackles, webbing slings, lifting beams, crane blocks, turnbuckles etc. Nijverheidsweg 21 3161 GJ RHOON The Netherlands Telephone: (+31)105018000 (+31) 105015440 (a.o.h.) Fax : (+31)105013843 Internet & E-mail www.vlierodam.nl [email protected] The GREEN CHAPECO seen departing from Amsterdam - Photo : Willem Koper © The first few editions of the newsclippings will be an overview of the news in the shipping industry over the last few weeks, so it can appear that some articles are a little “older” news, but I am just catching up the news Distribution : 3050 copies worldwide daily Page 1 8/21/2007 DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 187 SVITZER OCEAN TOWAGE Jupiterstraat 33 Telephone : + 31 2555 627 11 2132 HC Hoofddorp Telefax : + 31 2355 718 96 The Netherlands E-mail: [email protected] DO YOU HAVE PICTURES OR OTHER SHIPPING RELATED INFORMATION FOR THE NEWS CLIPPINGS ?? PLEASE SEND THIS TO : [email protected] EVENTS, INCIDENTS & OPERATIONS The VAASABORG seen enroute Rotterdam Photo : Frits Janse © Distribution : 3050 copies worldwide daily Page 2 8/21/2007 DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 187 Ship captain arrested over bridge collapse in S China A captain of a cargo vessel has been arrested in connection with a bridge collapse in south China's Guangdong Province, which left eight people dead and one still missing, the local procuratorate said on Friday. Four vehicles carrying seven people and two road workers plunged into the Xijiang river in Guangdong in the early morning of June 15 when, in heavy fog, a cargo vessel "Nanguiji 035" traveling along the river ploughed into a section of the 1,600-meter-long Jiujiang bridge that spans the river, causing part of it to collapse. Investigations have shown that Shi Guide, 43, captain of "Nanguiji 035", was responsible for the accident, said a spokesman with the People's Procuratorate of the Zhuhai District in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. Shi took a risk in continuing to navigate the vessel despite heavy fog and even did so after he found the vessel had deviated from the main channel following a collision with a navigation mark, which eventually led to the collision with the bridge on the Xijiang River, a tributary of the Pearl River, near Jiujiang in Foshan, the spokesman said. Shi, from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a neighboring province of Guangdong, was arrested on charges of causing the traffic accident which led to multiple deaths, he said. Shi obtained his ship license in 1998 and qualified as captain in 2003. He has been navigating the "Nanguiji 035" since 2005. The salvage workers have so far recovered eight of the nine known victims who went missing after the collapse. Investigators have said the collapse had nothing to do with the quality of the construction of the bridge which opened to traffic in 1988. Cruise giant Carnival wins rights to qe2.com site Carnival, the world's largest cruise operator, won exclusive rights to 'qe2.com' after the firm that registered the Internet site was found to have no link to its most famous ocean liner. Prime Choice, a web design and site hosting company based in the US state of Virginia, did not contest the complaint filed against it at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations agency in Geneva. A WIPO panel agreed with Carnival's claim that Prime Choice 'lacks rights or legitimate interests in respect to the domain name' which it registered in August 2000 but did not develop. Its ruling found it 'highly unlikely' that the US company was unfamiliar with the QE2 trademark, which is an abbreviation of the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner launched by Carnival's Cunard Line in 1969. 'It is difficult to conceive of any plausible actual or contemplated actual use of the domain name by the respondent (Prime Choice) that would not be illegitimate or an infringement of the complainant's trademark rights,' it said. WIPO has handled some 10,500 such cases of 'cybersquatting', where outsiders register domain names to which they have no genuine claim in order to divert browsers to their own sites or to sell the rights to the site to interested parties. Distribution : 3050 copies worldwide daily Page 3 8/21/2007 DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 187 IMEC FOCUSES ON TRAINING TO COUNTER OFFICER SHORTAGE THE London-based International Maritime Employers Committee (IMEC) is set to greatly increase its involvement in training following a survey among its members, who operate open-registry ships under International Transport Workers' Federation agreements. The “mini survey” was conducted by a working group which held three meetings: in Cyprus, London and Manila. The group reviewed of the scale of the officer shortage and found that the shortage is “acute and escalating”. It estimates that low retention rates meant IMEC members would have to recruit about 10% of its officers from other companies. After reviewing of recruitment and training initiatives in most of the major labour supply countries the working group decided that the problems were not simply a matter of numbers. Rather, in some countries the problem was more a matter of fundamental weaknesses in the tertiary education system and in the quality of available maritime training.” Among countries with particular problems the Philippines is taking an annual intake of about 18,000 cadets into its training colleges but only about 4,000 become officers. Of the rest some get STCW qualifications but can't initially get officer jobs and so go to sea as ratings. After a short time they are no longer capable of serving as officers without refresher training. Others complete their college training but cannot get berths as cadets and therefore cannot get the sea time they need for STCW certificates. They also go to sea as ratings. Among a number of recommendations the working group says enhanced/upgraded cadet training should be provided in the Philippines through a dedicated IMEC training course to overcome fundamental problems with the existing quality of training. According to the working group this could form part of an existing scheme, such as that run by the Norwegian Shipowners Association, or as a standalone IMEC course. The financial support could be provided by the International Maritime Training Trust. Some of the funding for new training projects will be met by using unspent welfare fund money while the need to allocate more money to training is also an element of current negotiations at the International Maritime Forum. Tackling Piracy in Somali Waters: Rising attacks impede delivery of humanitarian assistance By Sana Aftab Khan Frequent pirate attacks in Somalia have been threatening commercial shipping and fishing and impeding the delivery of humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of Somalis. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) jointly issued an appeal in July 2007 for action to halt piracy off the coast of the country. Both UN agencies have been pushing the UN Security Council to ask the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to help tackle the problem. Delivery of supplies by sea has been a logistical and security challenge since the collapse of the last national government in 1991 due to the rise in the frequency of pirate attacks. This has resulted in higher shipping costs and a significant reduction in the number of cargo vessels in the water. WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran stated that close to 80 per cent of its assistance to Somalia is shipped by sea, "but because of piracy we have seen the availability of ships willing to carry food to the country cut by half". There were 15 attacks on ships in or near Somali waters from January to July 2007-two of these on WFP-contracted vessels, wherein a security guard was killed-compared to 10 such attacks in 2006. WFP hoped to deliver food assistance for 1 million people in Somalia, as already high levels of malnutrition had worsened with predicted crop failures. Ms. Sheeran also stated: "Pirates may have a romantic image on the silver screen these days, but the picture might not be quite so pretty from the point of view of someone stuck in a camp for internally displaced people in Somalia, dependent on food assistance for survival." In a presidential statement in March 2006, the Security Council responded to reports of piracy, encouraging UN Member States with naval vessels and military aircraft operating in international waters and airspace adjacent to the Distribution : 3050 copies worldwide daily Page 4 8/21/2007 DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 187 coast of Somalia to be vigilant against pirate attacks and to take action to protect merchant shipping, especially vessels transporting humanitarian aid. Due to rising attacks in 2007, IMO undertook a number of steps, including intensifying its coordination with WFP and the navies operating in the Western Indian Ocean region, to bolster assistance to merchant ships. IMO suggested that the Council could act beyond its presidential statement and request Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to give consent to ships to enter the country's territorial waters when engaging in operations against pirates or suspected pirates and armed robbers. IMO Secretary General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos requested UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to raise the issue of Somali piracy to the Security Council so that it could ask the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to address the problem.

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