Monthly Archives: February 2011

Middle East upheaval will change view of shipping

YOU would have to go a long way back in my career to find political events that are such a game-changer — as the Americans like to call it — as the recent upheaval in the Middle East. It is normally tempting to think of shipping as somehow insulated from the outside world, as if the [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Where there are people there is scope for corruption

THE mob is still at it, or so one would believe judging by the recent spate of arrests going on at the New York and New Jersey docksides. Late last year I turned my beady eye on the Waterfront Commission of New York, the corruption-busting body set up in the aftermath of a series of journalistic [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Putting shipping into a box is never going to work

THERE is the old adage that if you cannot measure it, you cannot control it. The saying is true apparently in shipping circles, as I see a plethora of indexes and indicators emerge. Of course the International Maritime Organization has its formulas developed to show the world it can keep vessels’ CO2 emissions in check. But [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

US is wrong to treat seafarers as suspects

JOLLY good stuff yesterday from John AC Cartner, this paper’s guest columnist for the day, who spent the better part of 900 words detailing and castigating the unmitigated stupidity behind the US Transportation Worker Identification Credential programme. To misquote an old salt, it is clearly the work of a bunch of complete twic-heads. It won’t stop them, [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

The changing climate for capital-raising exercises

THE number of listed shipping companies issuing extra shares to gain some purchasing leverage has become quite noticeable of late. As we stumble, somewhat blindly, out of the economic woes of the last two years, there have been recurring announcements on various exchanges as companies look to raise capital, often for “acquisition, consolidation or general operating [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Owners on the radar for Sharpeye’s piracy pitch

THE recent unrest in Egypt threatened to close the Suez Canal and force shipping round the foot of Africa and so avoid the pirate infested waters off Somalia. It also raised the profile of the Northern sea route as an alternative should the Suez Canal’s operations be threatened again. A Norwegian minister joked about the lack [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Battle for control of green rating schemes hots up

THERE is big business to be had in selling a service that can verify and formulate how efficient a ship is. That is why many people seem to be coming out of the woodwork with a rating scheme. With so many now on offer, there needs to be consolidation. Not unsurprisingly all of the ratings schemes [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Wikileaks, the Environment and the stories behind the scandals

WHAT have Wikileaks and the UK government’s expenses scandal got in common? There was simply so much news from the various sources that it all melded into one long list of accusations; some petty, some serious. All one remembers in the UK is duck houses and moats, without having any strong recollection of who it [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment

Censorship can’t beat the tweet, so why not join it?

HAVING been invited to attend an e-navigation conference, I was particularly heartened to be invited to engage in a bit of tweeting by the organiser (a self-confessed Twitter fan). Now for those of us that are reading this in the printed version of our esteemed paper and not on the blog site, tweeting is not the [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | 1 Comment

Is it still safe to count on ‘fourth arm of defence’?

TWENTY years ago today, the liberation of Kuwait — as Ronald Reagan’s press secretary famously called it — was in full swing. While the ground war did not commence until the final week of February 1991, bombers operated by the US and its allies were already blasting Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, in an attempt [...]
Posted in Bill Barratry | Leave a comment