Week In Review : Compliance

Two-dozen U.S. Marines boarded a German-owned containership in the Gulf of Aden Thursday and recaptured it from nine pirates that had tried to seize control of the ship on Wednesday. The Navy said the ship was recaptured without shots being fired. The crew had locked themselves in a safe room and turned off the engine when they saw the pirates approaching. Meanwhile, Intertanko is...

Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Sperry Marine unit has opened a new ship navigation training center in Charlottesville, Va. The facility will provide a range of navigation courses, including computer-controlled classroom training and a full ship’s bridge simulator, giving students hands-on training under realistic scenarios. Courses include operation, maintenance, trouble-shooting and repair of ...

A fire that erupted on a UPS plane that crashed in Dubai last week, killing both pilots, appears to have broken out in a cargo compartment, according to an Associated Press report citing unnamed sources close to the investigation. Accident investigators are trying to determine which cargo aboard the Boeing 747-400 was located just forward of the starboard wing, where the fire broke out. I...

The inland waterways industry was left high and dry in President Obama’s announcement Monday that he will ask Congress to approve a more than $50 billion long-term spending plan for roads, railways and runways. In a statement on Thursday, Cornel Martin, president and chief executive officer for the Waterways Council, said the industry was “disappointed and puzzled” by the Obama administra...

Highway fatalities involving commercial trucks declined 20 percent to 3,380 from 4,245 in 2009, the lowest number since the Department of Transportation began tracking the data in 1975. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration touted stepped up enforcement and safety awareness efforts for the improved results, but there were also fewer trucks on the road as the recession reduced fr...

The U.S. Grains Council has appointed Rebecca Bratter to director of development, effective October. Bratter will work with the council to develop strategies and manage programs to obtain market access and foster sales of U.S. grain and grain products in specific emerging international markets. She comes to the council from the U.S. Wheat Associates where she served as the director of...

Lidinsky U.S. Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky Jr. said he plans to "keep a focus on improving the service contract process." Speaking to members of the Global Shippers' Forum on Monday, Lidinsky said, "service contracts need to be improved if they are to come close to the vision that Congress had for them when it passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act in 1998. "R...

The U.S. Navy and Navy League voiced their opposition to legislative attempts on Capitol Hill earlier this year to repeal the Jones Act, a law that requires the use of U.S.-flagged, crewed and built vessels in domestic U.S. waterborne trades. “For decades, U.S. merchant mariners have provided essential support for the U.S. Navy during times of war and national crisis,” the Navy said. “Rep...

A ship collision last month near the Nhava Sheva port complex in Mumbai that left a Mediterranean Shipping Co. containership severely listing has been blamed on a bulk vessel involved in the collision. A report this week from India’s director general of shipping has found the bulk carrier Khalijia 3, which collided with the 2,314-TEU MSC Chitra in August, “entered the navigation channel a...

Delta Air Lines and the Virgin Blue Group won’t be able to closely coordinate their international operations after the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday tentatively denied their request for antitrust immunity on joint U.S./Australia service. Virgin Blue Group includes V Australia, Virgin Blue and Pacific Blue Airlines. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which operates Virgin...

The China Maritime Safety Agency has awarded a contract to Saab TransponderTech AB to supply an automatic information system (AIS) network covering six major inland waterways in China. The AIS stations are expected to improve the Maritime Safety Agency’s visibility over the thousands of vessels transiting the country’s extensive rivers and canals, by capturing each vessel’s name and descr...

The United Nations World Food Program has deployed GT Nexus’ Internet-based global logistics visibility platform to better manage its vast network of international food deliveries. The platform went live at WFP in 2009 and is operational globally. The WFP operates in 78 countries and employs more than 12,000. Each year, the WFP ships more than 4 million tons of relief supplies to wher...

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has received 22 license applications and changes for review. The FMC has received non-vessel-operating common carrier license applications from Car Go Worldwide, Compton, Calif. (Lionel Perera, president); Providence Shipping Group, Imperial Beach, Calif. (Jessica A. Drewnowski, vice president of chartering and operations); Sino United Link Corp., Plac...

The International Air Cargo Association has started offering courses to East African freight forwarders covering supply chain and transportation management, information technology, safety and security. To conduct the course, TIACA has joined with the Federation of East African Freight Forwarders' Association (FEAFFA), which has members in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. ...

President Barack Obama in a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee outlined an ambitious six-year agenda for investing in transportation infrastructure as a way to help create construction jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic growth. He called for rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, laying or repairing 4,000 miles of rail lines; restoring 150 miles of runways; funding the Next Genera...

A request for bids is expected by the end of the year for a new navigation channel that would give ships access to the Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT) independently of the convoys that traverse the Suez Canal. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm quotes Port Said Port Authority President Ibrahim Seddiq as saying the project is expected to cost 400 million Egyptian pounds ($70 mill...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the Guam Deep Ocean Disposal Site as a permanent ocean dredged material disposal site. Dredging is needed to maintain safe navigation at port and naval facilities in Apra Harbor and other locations around Guam, the agency said. While landside uses for dredged materials is preferred, EPA noted this material is not always suitable. T...

Maersk Line said Tuesday it would begin using low-sulfur fuel while at Berth in Hong Kong. The Danish container carrier said its ships make around 850 port calls in Hong Kong annually and that switching from bunker fuel, which is used on the high seas, to low-sulphur fuel would reduce its emissions of unhealthy sulphur oxides (SOx) and particles by at least 80 percent. It said the Hong Ko...

Ho Shippers in China and Hong Kong said they have become subject this year to unwarranted surcharges for container damage by liner carriers, according to a report Monday by International Freighting Weekly. The report, based on a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Shippers’ Council, said the size and frequency of such surcharges has markedly increased this year, possibly due to a global cont...

Agility Logistics won a key victory Thursday in its defense against charges it defrauded the U.S. military of $68 million on a food supply contract in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. A judge in Atlanta agreed the Justice Department failed to properly serve the company with an indictment, according to an Agility statement and news reports. The global supply chain management company argued the...

The International Maritime Bureau has urged Indonesia to increase patrols in the South China Sea after nine attacks on vessels in less than three weeks, an Associated Press report said. Twenty-six attacks have been reported in 2010. “Pirates armed with guns and machetes had robbed tankers and bulk carriers of cash and other valuables in the attacks off the Indonesian islands of Mangkai, A...

A fuel tanker carrying nearly 60,000 barrels of diesel fuel has run aground in the Northwest Passage. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said the Canadian Coast Guard confirmed the ship Nanny ran aground Wednesday in Simpson Strait, about 50 kilometers southwest of Gjoa Haven, a hamlet on King William Island in western Nunavut. Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada, s...

An NYK car carrier recently rescued 18 sailors adrift in a lifeboat in the South China Sea off Malaysia, the Japanese carrier said Friday. NYK’s Goliath Leader was sailing from Laem Chabang, Thailand, to Singapore at around 8 a.m. (local time) on Aug. 27, when the vessel came across sailors in a lifeboat in the northeast sea off the Malay Peninsula. Rescue operations were immediately set ...

A preliminary determination by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Import Administration has found that $514 million of aluminum products imported from China in 2009 were unfairly subsidized. As a result of the preliminary determination, importers of Chinese aluminum extrusions will be required to post cash deposits or bonds at rates determined by the Import Administration. If Commerce makes a...

The U.S. Commerce Department will lead a trade mission to Baghdad, Iraq, in October. Francisco Sánchez, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, will lead the mission, which will include about 15 U.S. companies. This will be the first trade mission to Iraq since the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. Some of the companies included in the mission will be America Cargo T...

New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has filed charges of price-fixing and collusion against a number of air freight forwarding companies, Reuters reported Thursday. The investigation, announced by the commission Thursday, alleges that subsidiaries of the Deutsche Bahn Group, Kuehne + Nagel, Panalpina, EGL and Geologistics “had colluded to fix the implementation and application of fees for f...

Venezuela said it has signed an agreement to have China's Harbor Engineering Co. (CHEC) develop a new container terminal in Puerto Cabello. The government said the terminal would be able to accommodate post-Panamax vessels up to 70,000 deadweight tons, up from the 30,000 dwt ships the port can handle today. (A 70,000 dwt ship equates to a capacity of about 5,300 to 5,600 TEUs accordin...

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency has awarded a $813,000 grant to the Autorité Aéroportuaire Nationale (AAN), Haiti's national airport authority, to conduct an analysis of priority airport infrastructure modernization projects. This assistance will allow the authority to design and implement important upgrades at Haiti's principal international airport in Port-au-Prince, USTDA said. ...

The Japanese government will invest about $76 million to help develop Kazakhstan’s road networks. The project is expected to improve Kazakhstan’s access to European and Asian markets, as well as contribute to regional integration. The loan will specifically enable a new bypass to be built on one of the country’s main transport arteries in the southern Zhambyl province -- as well as th...

A congressional watchdog agency said the Commerce Department’s Commercial Service requires better management controls if it’s going to successfully help the White House achieve its goal of doubling U.S. exports in the next five years. The Government Accountability Office found the Commercial Service’s workforce has declined about 14 percent from its peak in 2004 through attrition -- “affe...

Nigeria is to develop a massive free trade zone in Lagos with the help of Chinese investors, Reuters reported Wednesday. The $5 billion project, dubbed the Lekki Free Zone, is a 3,000-hectare site on the eastern fringe of the city. The project is 60 percent held by Chinese investors and 40 percent by the Lagos state government. Among the Chinese investors are the China Railway Constructio...

The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided almost $2 million to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to support the humanitarian logistics operation and the provision of emergency relief supplies for health, shelter, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs. This funding is in addition to the $2.5 million previously provided through the World Food Pr...

The U.S. International Trade Commission has appointed Andrew C. Martin to chief information officer. Martin will serve as the principal information management advisor to the commission and direct all the agency’s information management activities. Previous to this appointment, Martin served as the chief information officer at the Federal Communications Commission. He joined the FCC in...

Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky has forwarded a wide-ranging set of recommendations for revising the Shipping Act of 1984 to the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. Lidinsky Included in the recommendations to committee Chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, R-Md., are six proposals: • Bring container and chassis lessors within the ambit of...

While export control reform is well underway in the United States, the Obama administration on Tuesday warned exporters that enforcement of the regulations remains a top priority. The reform, announced by the White House on April 20, calls for significant changes to the way the federal government processes export licenses for controlled U.S.-made military and commercial items. The plan al...

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security wants input from the industry to develop an updated set of proposed best practices for how companies may avoid becoming involved in the illicit transit, transshipment and re-export of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. BIS said it’s especially interested in receiving industry feedback regarding new transshipmen...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday launched a new organizational performance management system. The system, FDA-TRACK, will monitor more than 100 FDA program offices through data from key performance measures established each year. That data will be gathered monthly, analyzed and presented each quarter to FDA’s senior management. The public will also be able to track this da...

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has received 16 license applications and changes for review. The FMC received non-vessel-operating common carrier license applications from ECM Freight Solutions Corp., Miami (Christian A. Saravia, vice president); “K” Line Logistics (U.S.A.) Valley Stream, N.Y. (Antonio Rodriguez, vice president); Norma’s Cargo Solutions, Miami (Norma A. Pineiro, mana...

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency has awarded the Brazilian government a $674,000 grant to fund a feasibility study on the implementation of vessel traffic management systems at four of the South American country’s main ports. The large volume of commercial activity transiting each year through Brazil's thirty-four public ports has lead to logistical challenges for Latin America's lar...