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TODAY’S BULLETIN OF MARITIME NEWS
These news reports are updated on an ongoing basis. Check back regularly for the latest news as it develops – where necessary refresh your page at www.africaports.co.za
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FIRST VIEW: AMIS WEALTH
EARLIER NEWS CAN BE FOUND AT NEWS CATEGORIES…….
The Sunday masthead shows the Port of Durban’s Island View Terminal
The Monday masthead shows the Port of Durban’s Maydon Wharf
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FIRST VIEW: AMIS WEALTH
The Supramax bulk carrier AMIS WEALTH (IMO 9897896) arrived off Durban on Wednesday 21 July 2021 from Portland in Australia after a journey of 27 days, entering port the following day when photographer Keith Betts was on hand to take these photos.
The 63,111-dwt bulk carrier, 200 metres in length and 32m wide, sails under the flag of Panama and is owned by Elite Steamship SA which is care of Wisdom Marine Lines SA of Taipei City in Taiwan – who are almost certainly the true owners. Wisdom Marine Lines are also the ISM, ship and commercial managers of the vessel, all of the same Taiwan address. The company, founded in 1999, is the largest dry bulk shipowner in Taiwan, with a fleet of 148 vessels.
Launched In March this year from the Japanese Tsuneishi Shipyard this is Amis Wealth’s maiden voyage to South Africa. Note the vessel’s distinctive bow and straight, clean lines – not everyone’s choice for a ship design but with its own attraction.
Pictures are by Keith Betts
Added 25 July 2021
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Photographs of shipping and other maritime scenes involving any of the ports of South Africa or from the rest of the African continent, together with a short description, name of ship/s, ports etc are welome.
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Transnet prioritises reefer exports as IT network remains hacked
Transnet was continuing to experience downtime with its IT network despite having saying it has identified and isolated the source.
As a result Transnet has had to resort to working manually on port and rail operations. On Friday Transnet said it was prioritising the export of reefer containers primarily through the port of Durban.
At that time two export-bound vessels had started a loading cycle at Pier 2 (container terminal) while a third was discharging imports at Pier 1 and would soon commence with the loading of reefer containers.
Since the start of the citrus season in April, reefer container volumes have been 12% higher than the same period in 2020.
In Richards Bay manual operations were continuing. In the Eastern Cape, the East London and Port Elizabeth Container and Auto Terminals were working manually. The Ngqura Container Terminal was meanwhile impacted by high swells, which also applied to the Cape Town Container terminal.
All other terminals in the Western Cape ports were reported as working manually.
Coming after the previous week’s unrest in KZN and Gauteng, which prevented rail and port operations for much of the week, as staff were forced to stay away from the workplace and threats and acts of sabotage to rail and road deliveries blocked most traffic to the ports, the latest attack on the IT network could not have come at a worse time.
The NATCOR line between Gauteng and Durban had only returned to service last Sunday (18 July), after Transnet Freight Rail people worked round the clock to restart operations in a safe mode.
This latest development has led to inevitable speculation that the cyber-attack is connected with the insurrection that the two provinces experienced, which is seen as connected with the arrest and imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma.
According to Transnet on Thursday (22 July) other operations across the Group were continuing normally – Freight Rail, Pipelines, Engineering and Property divisions. However the later report of Friday makes it clear that rail and port operations are impacted with only manual operations possible.
“We cannot export anything at the moment because the operations are at a standstill,” Mitchell Brooke, development manager at the Citrus Growers Association was quoted by Bloomberg. “That’s a big problem, a big challenge for us because we are sitting at the peak of our season and we can’t get product onto the market.”
Transnet had been communicating publicly via its Twitter account, however there has been no word since Friday. The company’s websites remained offline as of Sunday evening 25 July.
Added 25 July 2021: 19h00
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Nigerian court sentences 10 pirates to lengthy jail time
Ten men accused of piracy involving the fishing vessel HAILUFENG 11 on the evening of 15 May 2020 have been sentenced to lengthy terms in jail by a court in Lagos.
The boarding of the fishing vessel was one of two acts of piracy in the waters of Lome and Cotonou, with the other occurring on 24 June 2020 when another fishing vessel, PANOFI FRONTIER, was boarded by pirates also south of Cotonou.
In the attack on the fishing vessel HAILUFENG II, 18 members of the crew of the crew were abducted from the vessel when the pirates departed.
However the Nigerian Navy took a hand by capturing the pirates and releasing the crew of the fishing vessel . The Federal High Court judge when sentencing the ten pirates said the attack on the Hailufeng II and kidnapping of the screw was “an embarrassment to the nation that has impacted the economy negatively.”
He sentenced all ten to 12 years in jail as well as imposing fines of 250,000 naira (US$608) on each man.
The convictions imposed on the pirates fell under an anti-piracy law signed into effect by President Muhammadu Buhari in June 2019. Until then Nigeria and the remainder of West and Central Africa region had no specific stand-alone legislation regarding piracy at sea.
At the time the new legislation involving the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act was described as a reassurance to the global community that Nigeria was serious about getting on top of the security issues in its maritime domain.
Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Bashir Yusuf Jamoh, has described Nigerian pirates as working with the support and cooperation of international allies, which he said, was what makes them sophisticated.
“We have set out to tackle them through intelligence gathering and collaboration with relevant stakeholders. Our recent arrests have shown the international community that we are not handling illegalities in our waters with kid gloves.”
Added 25 July 2021
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WHARF TALK: multi-role geophysical and hydrographic survey vessel FUGRO DISCOVERY
Story by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
The arrival of stable 4G and 5G internet is coming a step closer for Africa with the preliminary inshore, shallow water, surveys taking place for another fibre-optic telecommunications cable system known as 2Africa. One of the companies that are heavily involved in the majority of these surveys is the giant Fugro group of Holland.
On 20th July at 09h00 the multi-role geophysical and hydrographic survey vessel FUGRO DISCOVERY (IMO 9152882) arrived at the Table Bay anchorage and after a few hours she entered Cape Town harbour at 16h00 and berthed at the Eastern Mole in the Duncan Dock, which is the usual berth for vessels taking bunkers and stores only, whilst en-route to elsewhere.
Fugro Discovery had arrived from Durban where she had a short 2 day stay before sailing on 5 July for Cape Town. Her 15 day voyage presumably included a survey off Durban, as this is where the 2Africa cable will come ashore on South Africa’s East Coast. Ngqura is the where the cable will come ashore for the South Coast and Cape Town (Duynefontein) is the landing point for the cable for the West Coast.
Fugro’s survey vessels have been contracted to circumnavigate the entire coast of Africa to determine the best route for laying the cable on the seabed, and the best route for bringing it onshore and preparation for the installation of what will become the world’s largest fibre-optic communications cable is currently well underway.
At just under 37,000 km in length, the 2Africa cable will provide connectivity to an initial 16 Africa countries with 21 landings in these 16 African nations. It will form a critical part of meeting the African Union’s ambition of ensuring internet connections for all by 2030. Another landing point for the cable is Nigeria and Fugro Discovery sailed from Cape Town on 23 July at 09h00, heading north with a destination merely given as ‘Survey Site’ and an ETA in six days time, so Nigeria is looking likely.
Built in 1997 by Stocznia Marynarki Wojennej (Naval Shipyard) at Gdynia in Poland, Fugro Discovery is 70 metres in length and has a deadweight of 1,350 tons. She is powered by a single MaK 8M32 8 cylinder 2 stroke main engine providing 3,590 bhp (2,640 kW) to give her a maximum service speed of 13 knots. Her auxiliary machinery includes a single GMC 16V92 generating set producing 690 kW, and a Detroit 12V92TA emergency generating set providing 513 kW.
Owned and operated by Fugro Marine Services BV of Leidschendam in Holland, the survey fit of Fugro Discovery is extensive and includes Echo Sounders, Multibeam Echo Sounders, Sidescan Sonar, Sub-Bottom Profiler, Magnetometer, Seabed Sampler, Air Gun and Streamer, an ROV and a full suite of data processing computers. This fit proved invaluable in 2016 as a result of what today is still a continuing mystery. Namely the disappearance of flight MH370 on 8th March 2014.
After the initial aerial search had been completed, acoustic beacon search and a sonar survey had failed to locate the missing airliner, it was decided by the Australian based Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC), situated in Canberra, that an underwater search would be the next phase of the operation to locate MH370. This would take place following a bathymetric survey of the seabed in the Indian Ocean search area.
Contracted by JACC in October 2014 to conduct a bathymetric survey of that part of the Southern Indian Ocean where the flight is thought to have disappeared, Fugro Discovery was sent into Durban to prepare for the survey. Once her fitting out was complete she sailed for Fremantle to load further search equipment and to take onboard the specialist mission crew. She spent the next ten months producing a bathymetric map of the seafloor, which was previously uncharted and poorly mapped.
Once that survey was complete, the next phase of conducting a towed sidescan sonar survey, coupled with investigative autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), could take place. The search for missing flight MH370 was spread over a vast swath of the Indian Ocean, covered a huge surface area of the ocean and took a great deal of time to complete, with Fugro Discovery being one of three advanced survey vessels undertaking the role of hoping to spot the last resting place of the missing aircraft.
In late January 2016 Fugro Discovery was forced to terminate her search when one of her towfish sonars collided with an unknown underwater mud volcano. The umbilical line from Fugro Discovery was severed in the crash and the sonar and 4,500 metres of cable were lost in a water depth of 2,200 metres. Thankfully, another of the three survey vessels in the area, HAVILA HARMONY was able to retrieve the sonar, and with a new cable fitted, Fugro Discovery returned to the search area in late February 2016. At this point, over 85,000 km2, of the 120,000 km2 search area had been surveyed.
By August 2016, the search area had been fully surveyed, with no luck in locating the missing airliner. As such, the Australian Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) released Fugro discovery from the search and she left the area on 11th August and returned to Fremantle. To this day the mystery of the missing Malaysian Boeing 777-200 airliner, en-route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and her 239 passengers and crew remains unsolved. Parts of the doomed aircraft started washing up on the shores of Reunion and Madagascar some years later after drifting across the Indian Ocean, but what actually happened, and where her flight terminated in the South Indian Ocean, far from her original planned flight path, is still unresolved.
Added 25 July 2021
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WHARF TALK: LR1 Aframax tanker SERENGETI
Story by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
In the past year, the United States government has slapped hefty sanctions on Nicolas Maduro and his Venezuelan regime, mostly connected with preventing the export of crude oil from Venezuela. Some companies found ways to circumvent the sanctions regime, and with all of the spot market tanker traffic that is currently calling at South African ports, it was only a matter of time before one of these vessels previously active in the Venezuelan oil trade would arrive at either Durban or Cape Town.
On 20th July at 18h00 the LR1 Aframax tanker SERENGETI (IMO 9403554) arrived in Table Bay from Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, and immediately entered Cape Town harbour, where she was berthed at the long tanker berth in the Duncan Dock to discharge her refined products cargo.
Built in 2009 by Sungdong Shipbuilding at Tongyeong in South Korea, Serengeti is 228 metres in length and has a deadweight of 74,998 tons. She is powered by a single Doosan MAN-B&W 6S60MC 6 cylinder 2 stroke main engine producing 16,642 bhp (12,240 kW), which drives a fixed pitch propeller to give a service speed of 15 knots. She has 14 cargo tanks and has a cargo carrying capacity of 83,104 m3.
Owned by Tidebay Limited of Athens, Serengeti is operated and managed by Dynacom Tankers Management, also of Athens. She is a spot market tanker and has had no recent history of supplying fuel products to African ports, other than a single port call to Port Louis in Mauritius back in November 2020. In what is becoming a common anti-piracy measure, to prevent forced entry to the superstructure, Serengeti has had burglar bars added to all portholes on the accommodation block, including on the bridge.
Back in April 2019, in order to avoid American sanctions which were imposed in January 2019, tankers picking up Venezuelan oil products were reported to be using ‘co-loads’ and ‘false berthing’ by calling into nearby Trinidad and Tobago waters for a few hours, possibly obtaining new bills of lading, and then setting off again for another intermediate port, usually Singapore or Gibraltar, thus raising suspicions with the authorities that Venezuelan cargoes were being hidden, by disguising their origin.
This method was a second attempt by the Venezuelan state oil company to hide the destination and origin of oil exports. Immediately after the imposition of US sanctions, two tankers that loaded in Venezuela were involved in ship-to-ship transfers off Gibraltar. On this second occasion, three tankers were identified as carrying out ‘false berthing’ voyages, one of them being Serengeti, whose destination after ‘false berthing’ in Trinidad was given as Gibraltar.
Marine intelligence at the time stated that there was no suggestion that any of the three shipments were in breach of US sanctions. Venezuela is entitled to sell oil in order to pay off state debt, but not for commercial gain. The other two vessels were showing Singapore, via the Cape of Good Hope, as their next port of call.
Between January and March 2019, Serengeti had made two voyages between Venezuela and Gibraltar, and also carried a cargo of naphtha from the Eastern Mediterranean to Venezuela on behalf of the Russian state owned oil company, Rosneft. In June 2020, as a result of potential sanctions busting by third party tankers, the US authorities threatened that they would begin blacklisting any vessels involved in shipping oil from Venezuela that could not be proven to be cargoes being used to pay off state debt.
Just before this threat became real, in May 2020, Serengeti had loaded a cargo of Venezuelan oil, bound for Singapore. One month later one of Dynacom Shipping Management tankers was added to the blacklist, and another Dynacom tanker was turned around before she arrived in Venezuela to pick up a cargo. Blacklisting was quite a severe sanction for a shipping company as it meant that not only were vessels to be banned from entering any American port, but they would be barred from making transactions in US dollars, something which no shipping company could afford to have happen to them.
After Serengeti had reached Singapore, the cargo destination was changed to South Korea. On 16th June when in the South China Sea between Hong Kong and the Philippines, she reported a crewmember missing. The Second Engineer Officer had disappeared overnight, and was only discovered to be missing when he failed to arrive for his duty in the Engine Room the next morning. Despite an extensive search, the two Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres in Hong Kong and Manila called off the search after 72 hours after no trace of the missing crewman was found. The officer, from India, was on the ship well after his contract had expired, but due to global Covid restrictions at the time, he could not be relieved.
Added 25 July 2021
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NEW BOOKS:
Flag Waves: House Flags from the National Maritime Museum
Flag Waves – House Flags from the National Maritime Museum
By Sue Prichard
Four Corners Books
152 pages, £20.00
Softback
ISBN 978 1 909829 17 6
House flags identify the owner of the vessel. Let me turn to A Dictionary of Sea Terms revised by Peter Clissold, an acquaintance from way back who sadly crossed the bar long ago. In this work issued in 1985, an edition of one first published in 1920, we learn that this example of maritime heraldry is: ‘A square flag displaying the device and colours adopted by any merchant shipping company.’
Of these our readers will be, of course, familiar while those of a certain age may recall Brown’s Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamships of years ago. Lloyd’s also produced a guide as did the Liverpool Journal of Commerce. Brown’s of Glasgow are the publishers of the famous Almanac, which first appeared in 1876, and a wealth of shipping textbooks that have seen generations pursue the seagoing career. They also produce ships’ stationery.
In Flag Waves there is an introduction by Sue Prichard, Senior Curator: Arts, at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, to what is claimed to be the first book to examine the symbols and motifs of a remarkable museum collection providing origins of house flag design (and jacks and ensigns) with heraldry, geometric form, material, and the role of company flags with 113 examples shown. We are also introduced to the subject of vexillology, the study of flags.
For my own service, the Trinity House (incorporated by Henry VIII in 1514), is shown its jack whose design is based on a four-ship configuration from the coat of arms granted in 1573 by Elizabeth I. The jack of the sister-service, Irish Lights, is also depicted. Until the mid-20th century this incorporated the cross of St George.
It is refreshing to be reminded of some of the companies, long gone or absorbed into others, whose house flags became recognised the world over and House Flags depicts a fine locker of bunting by: American Mail Line, Anchor Line (created in 1899 and formerly Handysides & Henderson), Australind Steam Shipping Co Ltd (formed 1904), Baltic Trading Co Ltd, Bamburgh Shipping Co Ltd (formed 1956), Belfast Steam Ship Co Ltd (formed 1852) to, at the end of the alphabet, Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Co Ltd, Ulster Steamship Co Ltd, United Baltic Corporation Ltd (founded 1919 as a partnership between the East Asiatic Company of Copenhagen and Andrew Weir of London), United Towing Ltd (formed 1920), United Towing Salvage, Western Ferries (Clyde) Ltd, Wyre Trawlers and Zillah Shipping Co Ltd (formed 1949) not forgetting, amidships, Ellerman’s Hall Line Ltd (founded 1864), Esso (1912), Geest Line Ltd (the British company of a Dutch family of 1935), Guinness (who purchased it first ship in 1913 and conveyed bulk stout to 1993), Alfred Holt, Houlder Brothers, Niarchos Ltd (formed 1952), North Thames Gas Board and Furness Withy & Co. The last-named incorporated as a company in 1891 upon the amalgamation of Christopher Furness’ business in West Hartlepool and London with Edward Withy’s shipbuilding yard in Hartlepool.
To many of the examples illustrated there is a paragraph or two by way of company history. In all this is a splendid example of heraldry and design from our maritime world.
Reviewed by Paul Ridgway
London Correspondent
Added 25 July 2021
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MAIB report on Stolt Groenland explosion & fire Sept 2019
UK MAIB Accident Investigation Report 9/2021
On 28 September 2019, a cargo tank containing styrene monomer on board the Cayman Islands registered chemical tanker Stolt Groenland ruptured causing an explosion and fire.* The tanker was moored alongside a general cargo berth in Ulsan, Republic of Korea and the Singapore registered chemical tanker Bow Dalian was moored outboard. Ignition of the styrene monomer vapour resulted in a fireball, which reached the road bridge above. Both vessels were damaged, and two crew suffered minor injuries. Fifteen emergency responders were injured during the fire-fighting, which lasted for over six hours.
* See our report of the explosion and fire HERE
Rupture of the styrene monomer tank resulted from a runaway polymerisation that was initiated by elevated temperatures caused by heat transfer from other chemical cargoes. Elevated temperatures caused the inhibitor, added to prevent the chemical’s polymerisation during the voyage, to deplete more rapidly than expected. Although the styrene monomer had not been stowed directly adjacent to heated cargo, the potential for heat transfer through intermediate tanks was not fully appreciated or assessed.
Critical temperature limits had been reached before the vessel berthed under the road bridge in Ulsan. The tanker’s crew did not monitor the temperature of the styrene monomer during the voyage, and therefore were not aware of the increasingly dangerous situation. A similar dangerous styrene monomer polymerisation incident had occurred a couple of weeks earlier on board another Stolt Tankers BV ship, Stolt Focus. The heat generated by the polymerisation process was noticed before the critical runaway temperature was reached. The styrene monomer cargoes on board both tankers was loaded at a similar time from the same tank in Houston and were exposed to similar environmental conditions. The incident on board Stolt Focus was not reported to the ship’s Flag State or other masters in the Stolt Tankers BV fleet.
Following the accident, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Republic of Korea, prohibited ship-to-ship transfer operations for dangerous cargo on general cargo berths in Ulsan.
Stolt Tankers BV took immediate action to ensure that the temperatures of all cargoes carried on board its ships were monitored and reported to its shore management. It also took steps to enhance crew awareness on the hazards of inhibited and heat sensitive cargoes. The company is said to be developing technological and administrative initiatives to assist with the safe stowage and monitoring of heat sensitive cargoes.
A recommendation has been made to Stolt Tankers BV aimed at ensuring the wider marine chemical sector benefits from the lessons learned from the Stolt Focus incident and research initiatives that were carried out as a result of this accident.
Recommendations have also been made to the Cayman Island Shipping Registry, the Chemical Distribution Institute and Plastics Europe (Styrene Producers Association). These are intended to assist in ensuring that the guidance provided in certificates of inhibitor and styrene monomer handling guides is consistent and achievable given the limitations of equipment and testing facilities on board ships.
This investigation was carried out by the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) on behalf of the Cayman Islands Government in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the MAIB and the Red Ensign Group Category 1 registries of Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Gibraltar.
MAIB Accident Investigation Report 9/2021 was published on 20 July 2021 and may be found HERE
This article is based on material kindly provided by the UK MAIB.
MAIB Crown Copyright 2021 ©
Reported by Paul Ridgway
London
Added 25 July 2021
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SAIMENA joins forces with IZA on zinc coatings for ships
In an article by Kevin Watson last Thursday (22 July 2021), it was announced that the South African Institute of Marine Engineers and Naval Architects (SAIMENA) is collaborating with the International Zinc Association (IZA) to promote zinc thermal spraying for the local ship-repair industry.
Rear Admiral (JG) Kevin Watson (ret), is the President of SAIMENA.
SAIMENA is the professional body driving the growth and upskilling of the South African marine engineering sector, and is working hard to bring new and advanced expertise to the fingertips of the marine engineering profession.
“We continue to advance and promote maritime engineering knowhow and continuous development for marine engineers, ship repair engineers and designers. Working with professional bodies such as IZA enhances our capability,” comments Admiral Watson.
“We have excellent local expertise to assist SAIMENA in realising its mandate of growing a vibrant, skilled marine engineering sector,” said Simon Norton from the IZA Africa Desk.
Zinc thermal spraying can be applied to a variety of steel ships, from trawlers to warships, fast patrol boats and fisheries patrol boats. This includes superstructures, fittings and onboard steelwork which after zinc thermal spraying can be further coated by the application of a zinc rich primer and an epoxy coat to give a superb long lasting duplex coating system.
The advantage of zinc thermal spraying is that it is possible to apply zinc coatings of varying thickness but typically to about 100 microns. Spraying allows the thickness of the coating to be controlled and varied, even on different areas of the same structure and/or parts.
Thermal spraying makes it possible to apply zinc coatings to structures and components that are too large for hot-dip galvanizing or have to be zinc coated in situ. The metal coating is laid down in a single application. Zinc coatings also have excellent adhesion to steel and resistance to abrasion, enabling the structure to withstand rough usage. However, most of all they provide a barrier to the environment and offer galvanic protection to the steel.
All grades of steel, including highly alloyed steels, can be thermal spray coated. Spraying does not affect the metallurgical structure of the steel. Since zinc adheres and coats instantly, no drying time is needed. Designated top coating operations can start immediately, whereas paint systems in comparable categories might require days for cure.
In terms of lifecycle costs, Norton explains that the initial coating application costs are minimal compared to the maintenance costs over the life of the structure. Continuous maintenance is not required with a properly applied zinc thermal sprayed coating. A single application provides excellent corrosion protection, including areas where minor mechanical damage may have exposed the steel. Further application of organic epoxy top coats makes for an outstanding corrosion protection system.
The IZA’s collaboration with SAIMENA forms part of a long-term strategy to promote the advanced upskilling of South African engineers, the growth of the local maritime industry, as well as increasing the uptake of zinc in industry, where its primary application is for the corrosion protection of steel. Since the closure of the country’s only zinc refinery in 2011, it has been heavily reliant on costly imports, a situation that the IZA Africa Desk hopes to turn around by campaigning for the establishment of a new local zinc refinery.
“This is especially important given the ambitious infrastructure delivery programme plan being promoted by the government, which will require large tonnages of zinc coated steel,” notes Norton.
“Our association with SAIMENA is an example of how we are reaching out to the various professional bodies and associations to promote the benefits of specialised processes such as zinc thermal spraying,” said Norton.
Added 25 July 2021
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How to spot the warning signs of wildlife crime in the maritime industry
Weaknesses and loopholes in maritime supply chains are often exploited by traffickers to smuggle illegal wildlife and timber products to feed growing demand, predominantly in Asian markets, says the WWF (World Wide Funds for Nature).
TRAFFIC, a NGO organisation working globally on trade in wild animals and plants, and WWF are supporting the shipping sector to detect illegalities passing through global waters.
Legal wildlife trade is a complex business, supplying local and international demand for wildlife products across numerous industries. However, a growing, parallel illegal business is taking advantage of weaknesses in maritime supply chains to illegally transport wildlife products from source to destination markets.
“It’s estimated that by volume, 72–90% of wildlife products are trafficked by sea. Around 90% of international trade in goods by volume are carried by sea, so you can see how detecting illegal wildlife trade can be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Livia Esterhazy, Chair of WWF’s Asia Pacific Growth Strategy (APGS) and CEO of WWF-New Zealand.
“Wildlife smugglers are growing bolder by secreting illicit cargo into commercial supply chains. To tackle this and respond proactively to the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), we needed practical, handy detection guides to assist freight forwarders and ocean liners to detect suspicious shipments even without opening the cargo containers,” Esterhazy added.
Often traffickers adapt their modus operandi to avoid detection in the smuggling of illegal products. This can vary depending on the wildlife commodity type, their origin, and target consumers, but frequently involves facilitating corruption throughout the maritime transport infrastructure.
Bribes are commonplace in illegal wildlife trade, taking place at source, transit, and export stages.
At times, these bribes persuade employees to help falsify documentation. One type of documentation critical to regulate the legal trade and ensure it does not threaten the species’ survival is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) permits and certificates for Appendix listed species.
“The smuggling of CITES-protected species is an extremely lucrative trade for criminal networks and could have major ramifications for the species’ survival in the wild. This compendium targets supporting the shipping sector to better identify potential signs of tampering or non-compliance of CITES permits,” said Monica Zavagli, TRAFFIC Programme Manager for Transport Sector.
Engagement
“By definition, illegally traded wildlife does not undergo hygiene, sanitary, and phytosanitary controls; as a result, illegal wildlife trade carries risks to public health and can contribute to the spread of zoonotic diseases and invasive species around the globe,” added Zavagli.
To address these issues, TRAFFIC and WWF, have worked with multiple partners to produce guidance to help the sea cargo industry identify wildlife crime. ‘The Red Flag Compendium for Wildlife and Timber Trafficking in Containerised Cargo’ details the warning signs of corruption, smuggling, other related crimes and outlines red flags and additional tools to identify prolifically trafficked CITES-listed species, including big cats, specific marine life, large mammal species such as rhino, elephant, and timber.
This compendium includes information on at-risk routes as well as typical indicators of illicit activities such as questionable paperwork and discrepancies in information like value, weight, and appearance. Irregular behaviour, such as consignments split across multiple shipments, last-minute request for shipment clearance and abnormal or sudden changes in routes or destinations may be signs of illegal action.
By highlighting the potential risks in this compendium, shipping companies can implement greater safeguarding measures to protect their employees, business and nature. This information is critical to protecting the integrity of maritime supply chains from operational, economic, security and zoonotic health risks.
“We know traffickers use existing transport infrastructure to move their illicit goods throughout the world and have developed sophisticated networks to facilitate this movement by exploiting weaknesses and loopholes and by facilitating corruption on a massive scale. Maritime supply chains are very complex but through our cross-sector collaborations within United for Wildlife (UfW), we are working with partners across the globe to disrupt these networks and address this threat,” said Lord Hague, Chair of United for Wildlife.
Added 25 July 2021
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IN CONVERSATION: Violence in South Africa: an uprising of elites, not of the people
From time to time, South Africa is rudely reminded that its past continues to make its present and future difficult. It does not always recognise this reality when it sees it.
The latest – and most shocking – reminder is the violence which followed the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma. The mayhem devastated KwaZulu-Natal, the home of Zuma and his faction of the governing African National Congress (ANC), and damaged Gauteng, the economic heartland which also houses hostels in which working migrants from KwaZulu-Natal live.
The violence was seen as a new threat to the democracy established in 1994. But, while it was severe, it was a symptom of a past the country has yet to face, not a future it did not see coming. Even the one aspect which was new – the scale of violence in KwaZulu-Natal – was a product of realities which have been evident for years.
Destructive violence is frightening. In South Africa, it is even more alarming because its middle class, which monopolises the debate, assumes that it is only a matter of time before the country is engulfed in conflict. This makes it important to point out that, as severe as the violence was, it does not mean that the country’s democracy is in deep danger.
The South African mainstream, which expected democracy to usher in a perfect country and is repeatedly angered that it didn’t, ignores a core reality – that democracies are tested all the time. For people who like power – who exist in all societies and at all times – there is nothing natural or necessary about democracy. It forces them to obey rules they would rather ignore, listen to voices they would rather not hear, and allow others to take decisions they would prefer to take.
This means that there is nothing fatal about democracy being tested – it always is. The question is whether it passes the test. The violence did test democracy. Whether President Cyril Ramaphosa is right that it was a failed insurrection is open to debate. But the violence was aimed at ensuring that democracy did not work. Democracy survived the assault. Whether this test strengthens it depends on whether the issues which caused the violence are addressed. And that depends on understanding what the test was.
Elite uprising
The violence has been widely seen as an expression of anger and frustration by people living in poverty, which has been much worsened in South Africa by the impact of COVID-19. But there was no revolt of the poor – it was an assault on democracy by elites.
The KwaZulu-Natal violence was frighteningly new because much of it did not follow the familiar pattern of conflict in South Africa and other countries. While there was looting, a common response to conflict by people living in poverty, there was also an assault on infrastructure, destruction of businesses and the “disappearance” of large stocks of bullets. None of this squares with what we might expect people fighting poverty to do during a conflict.
Nor was the violence a popular uprising. There were no large public demonstrations. The scale of the KwaZulu-Natal violence was huge but you don’t need many people to set fire to electricity installations or factories. The damage could have been done with minimal public support and almost certainly was. This was an uprising of elites, not of the people, although some joined the looting as we would expect people in poverty to do.
Ironically, the claims that this was about poverty or the COVID-19 lockdown blame the people for something the elites did.
But which elites? It will take a while before we know exactly what happened. But there are two elements in reports of the violence which suggest that it was a product of realities which have been evident to researchers for years.
First, although South Africa’s democracy is the product of a negotiated settlement, it followed armed conflict between the minority government and the forces fighting for majority rule. This makes the country another example of what some academics call “war transitions”: change from one political system to another where there are armed people on both sides of the divide.
In these cases, the textbook idea that only the state uses violence and does this within rules which are clear to all does not apply. Some people still have weapons and armed networks, whether they are inside or outside the government, and are not necessarily bound by the rules.
Unsettling reality
This has been a South African reality since 1994. It shows in constant factional battles between state intelligence operatives, in divisions between ex-combatants in the fight against apartheid, in security companies and criminal gangs whose members bore arms before 1994.
Their political loyalties may lie with members of the faction, not the governing party, let alone the state. Their networks may be devoted not only to a common political goal but also to gaining wealth and economic influence. This has made keeping order far more difficult. It can also make creating disorder easier.
The second is that local councillors allegedly played an important role in the violence. This too would reflect a long-standing reality. Attention to corruption in South Africa focuses on national government, but local and regional networks devoted to getting richer at public expense are far more deep-rooted. There is a clear link between them and violence – KwaZulu-Natal in particular has seen repeated killings of councillors or local officials who tried to resist corruption.
Both the people under arms and the local networks had ample reason to mobilise their power for harm – Zuma’s imprisonment may well have signalled that power had shifted in ways which threatened the survival of the networks. They may not have been trying an insurrection, which means they were trying to seize power. But they were doing whatever they could to ensure that their networks survived.
Unfinished business
So, while the scale of the violence may have been new, its origins are not. They are deeply embedded in South Africa’s unfinished business, its inability to create a single source of public order or to change an economic balance of power which ensures that ambitious people with the means to destroy see their networks as the only route to wealth.
The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye and find ways to change it before it can be confident about avoiding more of what happened in KwaZulu-Natal.
Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of Johannesburg
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Added 25 July 2021
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After 48 hours in the sea, another survivor of Niko Ivanka is rescued
After spending 48 hours in the sea in the Gulf of Guinea, a seafarer has been rescued by the crew of the SAM SIMON, a ship belonging to the conservation group, Sea Shepherd.
The crew of the Sam Simon had been alerted to the distress of the Liberian-built and registered cargo vessel, NIKO IVANKA,* that the vessel was taking on water off the coast of Marshall, south-east of Monrovia.
* See the story of the Niko Ivanka sinking HERE.
After reaching the scene and at close to midnight six survivors were spotted in a liferaft from the Niko Ivanka. With the support of Liberian Coast Guard sailors on board the Sam Simon, the six survivors on the liferaft were taken on board. At that stage the survivors from the Niko Ivanka had been in the water for nine hours.
They confirmed that their ship had sunk and that when they left the port of Monrovia there were between 26 and 28 persons on board.
Some time afterwards those on board the Sam Simon heard voices in the darkness calling for help. Another five persons were rescued after being in the water for 13 hours. Two of the five were wearing lifejackets and the other three were holding on to them.
This brought the total of those rescued to eleven, one of whom was a woman. They received medical treatment on board from the ship’s doctor, who is also an emergency room doctor.
Using the ship’s searchlight the Sam Simon continued with the search. Meanwhile two tugs had joined the search for survivors for the remaining 17 missing persons.
Then, on 19 July and after 48 hours since the report went out of the sinking of Niko Ivanka, another man wearing a lifejacket was discovered alive in the ocean, bringing the total of those rescued to twelve.
Added 25 July 2021
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