Evergreen has over 200 vessels. They are a major player in the shipping game so figure every major port would be on your "frenly" list.
I still firmly believe that Hanseatic Unity Chartering are the bigger suspects. One of their ships was already busted in Mexico a few years ago for carrying drugs. A digger went looking at them and discovered the Street View image of their office in Germany is blurred out.
A dig on them was going the same time as the one on CEMEX, we were trying to find a direct link between the two companies as there are actual dedicated cement carrying ships.
I was watching over a dozen ports and more than fifty vessels, including yachts like Wexner's LIMITLESS, when the kung flu came up and there was no real way to identify normal traffic patterns vice something spoopy.
I don't recall a container of baby parts, just remember the shipment of cadaver parts going to China in a container but was not the best sauced of reports.
CEMEX has operations all over, which is why a direct link to Hanseatic Unity Chartering was a goal because ships could have been hired for a temporary charter, say six months to a year.
We were chasing that when the Gulftainer in DWS territory showed up and then we learned about EMP Freight and how they tie in railroads to ports and have basically coast-to-coast coverage. Canadian Pacific or the other company does buy Kansas City RR company then there's rail available from Mexico up into Canada as well
Originally Canada #17 >>13518903
Mural in Denver International Airport depicting kids with face masks from every country | Painted in 1994
Facebook v Apple: The ad tracking row heats up
By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter
26 April 2021
A new feature is being introduced to iPhones and iPads this week which is causing a huge rift between Apple and Facebook.
It will allow device users to say no to having their data collected by apps.
Facebook has been put in a spin by this because user data - and the advertising it can generate - is what makes the company so profitable. This update could deal a severe blow to its business model.
What's it about?
The row focuses on a unique device identifier on every iPhone and iPad, called the IDFA (identifier for advertisers). Companies which sell mobile ads, including Facebook, use this IDFA to both target ads and estimate their effectiveness.
The IDFA can also be paired with other tech, such as Facebook's tracking pixels or tracking cookies, which follow users around the web, to learn even more about you.
But when iOS 14.5 comes out this week, the new App Tracking Transparency feature will be on by default. It will force app developers to explicitly ask for permission from users to use this IDFA.
Surveys suggest, and Facebook acknowledges, that up to 80% will say no.
If you want to know how much Facebook already tracks you on other sites and apps, there's a helpful tool on Facebook.
Why is Apple doing this?
Apple has little interest in its customers' data because it makes money from selling devices and in-app purchases, rather than from advertising. Plus it has always marketed itself as a privacy-first company.
Back in 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs acknowledged that some people didn't care about how much data they shared, but said they should always be informed of how it was being used.
"Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in plain English and repeatedly… ask them, ask them every time," he said.
More recently, in what many saw as a thinly-veiled reference to Facebook, current chief executive Tim Cook said: "If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform."
Apple is baking privacy into its systems. Its browser Safari already blocks third-party cookies by default, and last year Apple forced app providers in iOS to spell out in the App Store listings what data they collect.
And Facebook isn't best pleased?
Facebook has warned that the app update could cut the money earned through its ad network by half, hitting small businesses the hardest.
And it argues that sharing data with advertisers is key to giving users "better experiences".
It also says that Apple is being hypocritical, because it will force businesses to turn to subscriptions and other in-app payments for revenue, from which Apple takes a cut.
As it often does when under pressure, Facebook has gone on a PR offensive. It took out adverts in national newspapers in December, featuring small businesses talking about how they only survived the pandemic thanks to targeted ads.
In its latest blog, Facebook appeared to accept the changes and promised "new advertiser experiences and measurement protocols". It admitted that the ways digital advertisers collect and use information needed to "evolve" to one that will rely on "less data".
Why should I care?
In recent years, governments and regulators have become increasingly concerned about just how big and complex the ecosystem around websites, apps and social media companies has become.
Here are some points to consider:
*the average app includes six third-party trackers that are there solely to collect and share your online data, according to a report commissioned by Apple
*some apps request access to more data than is required to provide their service. TikTok, for instance, is being sued by England's former children's commissioner for collecting large amounts of children's data
*the UK's Information Commissioner's Office is investigating real-time bidding - the daily automatic placement of billions of targeted online adverts on webpages and apps
*any one data broker is estimated to have data on up to 700 million consumers, according to research consultants Cracked Labs
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56831241
Originally Canada #17 >>13519413
Liberals urged to condemn Iran receiving UN women’s rights committee seat
https://tnc.news/2021/04/26/liberals-urged-to-condemn-iran-receiving-un-womens-rights-committee-seat/
Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau was grilled by the Conservatives during Monday’s session of question period after it was revealed that Iran was elected to a 4-year term to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis raised the issue with the minister and asked the Canadian government to condemn Iran’s involvement.
“The government of Iran has just been elected to the UN Commission on the Status of Women where it will be able to join Saudi Arabia in contributing to international discussions on advancing the rights of women and girls. This elevation obviously makes a mockery of the important work the commission should be doing. What is the position of the government of Canada on the appropriateness of Iran’s leaders holding a seat at the UN Commission on the Status of Women?” asked Genuis.
“Canada will always be unequivocal when it comes to the protection of women’s rights around the world. Canada also firmly believes in the United Nations and multilateralism. Of course, we recognize that the UN, including the women’s rights commission is not perfect, but let me be clear, our strong position on the human rights situation in Iran including women has been expressed repeatedly both in public and in private and we will continue to do so,” said Garneau.
“If the government is not hesitating to express its position, it should do so right now with respect to the presence of the government of Iran on the UN women’s rights commission. We have all seen the images of courageous Iranian women standing up to the regime, a regime that this government unfortunately continues to try to curry favour with. It’s another slap in the face for these oppressors to be on that commission, and the government should clearly state what the problem is here.”
In response Garneau claimed that the voting process relied on a secret ballot, meaning that the voting direction of member states is not shared.
On April 20, 2021 Iran was elected to the UN Commission on the Status of Women with 43 votes in favour. Nations hoping to achieve representation on the commission were required to have at least 27 votes. Iran was chosen alongside other nations like Pakistan, China and Lebanon.
According to an analysis by UN Watch, at least four EU and Western democracies voted to elect Iran to the position.
In total, there are 54 member states who participated in the vote, 15 of which were Western democracies. According to the voting results, 11 of the member nations did not back Iran’s spot at the commission, meaning that four Western countries potentially broke ranks to support the authoritarian Iranian regime.
Iran has an abhorrent record when it comes to women’s rights, including the practice of jailing women’s rights activists. A 2020 report by the UN General Assembly noted the human rights situation in the country as including “torture and large-scale arbitrary detention, as well as persistent discrimination against women, girls and minorities.”
ILA Union Lawsuit Claims Breach of Master Contract at New U.S. Terminal
The Loadstar
April 26, 2021
By Gavin van Marle (The Loadstar) –
The US east coast is set for another bruising encounter between a dockworker union, shipping line and terminal operators.
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has launched legal action against Hapag-Lloyd and the US Maritime Alliance.
At the centre of the claim is the new Hugh K Leatherman container terminal at the port of Charleston, the first new box capacity in the US for over a decade when it opened this month.
The first vessel call was by Hapag-Lloyd’s 3,200 teu Yorktown Express, which arrived on 9 April and is the focus of an ILA claim for $200m in damages.
The ILA says the labour operating the new terminal are not ILA members and handling the vessel breached the master contract between the ILA and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX) – the organisation that represents carriers and terminals in master contract negotiations with the ILA.
The ILA claim, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County, says: “The Leatherman Terminal has been under construction for years and, at various times during the past 24 months, the ILA has reached out to USMX for assurances that the terminal would be one where all container and ro-ro work that has been historically performed by the ILA would be performed by the master contract bargaining unit, consistent with the work jurisdiction provisions of the master contract. USMX failed, and refused, to give the requested assurances to the ILA.”
It adds: “On the contrary, the information the ILA received was that the Leatherman Terminal would have non-bargaining unit workers employed in various positions unloading containers from ships and handling containers in the marine terminal, instead of longshore workers represented by the ILA who are covered by the master contract.”
It also says the carrier and USMX had been made aware that calling at the terminal would represent a breach of the master contract, which most recently was renewed in 2018.
It says: “USMX was aware that Hapag-Lloyd intended to bring its ship to Leatherman Terminal on 9 April 2021. Upon information and belief, USMX did not do anything to dissuade Hapag-Lloyd from utilising the non-bargaining unit labour and, indeed, may have encouraged them to do so.
“Both Hapag-Lloyd and USMX were well aware that the work in question would have been handled by ILA members who are covered by the master contract if the ship had gone to other the east and Gulf coasts of the United States, including all the marine terminals in New Jersey.”
According to the eeSea liner database, the Yorktown Express is deployed on THE Alliance’s AL3 transatlantic service.
However, it would also appear that there could be further alleged breaches of the ILA-USMX master contract, given that the terminal has also been selected to serve THE Alliance’s EC2 Asia-US east coast service as well as the Ocean Alliance’s AWE2 round-the-world service.
The Hugh Leatherman Terminal has been over 20 years in the making, according to SCSPA chief executive Jim Newsome, and represents one of the largest facilities on the east coast. The first berth is capable of handling vessels up to 20,000 teu and adds 700,000 teu annual handling capacity at Charleston.
Ultimately, there will be three berths and an annual handling capacity of 2.4m teu.
https://gcaptain.com/ila-union-lawsuit-claims-breach-of-master-contract-at-new-terminal-at-port-of-charleston/
Yeah, I gets it, read the dates
I have the FulfordFag seething and freaking hard across multiple country breads now
>>77496 (me)
Found this little tidbit trying to see if Hapag-Lloyd was part of Hanseatic Unity. Look like no for that but explains that "THE Alliance" part:
Hapag-Lloyd is currently the largest member of the Transport High Efficiency vessel-slot sharing alliance ("THE Alliance"), which was created in April 2017 and also includes Taiwan's Yang Ming Line and the Japanese carrier Ocean Network Express
Originally South Africa #5 >>13397129
“Mozambique Crisis | Total's future in Cabo Delgado”
https://youtu.be/npbdN3BmtDA
“The Southern African Development Community decided on Thursday on a regional response to the violence in northern Mozambique.”
“Mozambique’s Frelimo gambled everything on gas – and lost” - https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-08-mozambiques-frelimo-gambled-everything-on-gas-and-lost/. Below are excerpts.
The country's ruling party thought gas would secure a wealthy future, but that dream faded and finally was shattered by attacks that sent energy giant Total packing.
The leadership of Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo, was dazzled by gas. The discovery of the second-largest gas reserve in Africa in 2010 led the political and business elite to believe Mozambique would be like Abu Dhabi, Qatar or Kuwait. Gas would make them fabulously wealthy and the riches would trickle down to ordinary people.
Poverty and inequality were increasing, but there was no reason to spend money on rural development because the gas bonanza would end poverty. Of course, the elites could take their share early, such as with the $2-billion secret debt in 2012. The gas windfall would benefit everyone by 2020, delayed to 2025 and then to 2030. The people would believe the dreams.
But in Cabo Delgado they did not, and an insurgency began in 2017 over growing poverty and inequality as well as political and economic exclusion. There is broad agreement that al-Shabaab, as the insurgents are known in Mozambique, initially comprised local people with a local leadership. Whether the Islamic State now controls al-Shabaab is a matter of huge debate, but even advocates of this view accept that it took over an existing local insurgency. Local people saw the development of a ruby mine in the province and the initial gas development and realised there were no jobs for them. The gas and ruby money was not trickling down to them.
In Mozambique, the government, Frelimo and business are the same people, led by a handful of oligarchs who are surrounded by a penumbra of the Frelimo elite. They control contracts, land and licences, and thus the economy. Frelimo is now run entirely according to a patron-client system. At each level, people service those above them, demand obeisance from those below and collect money from whatever they are involved in.
The system is known locally as “goatism”, from the saying “the goat eats where it is tethered”. The police set up checkpoints to collect money, clerks demand a fee to process a document, and so on. School teachers must satisfy their school head by working actively on elections but, in exchange, they can demand bribes from pupils and parents and do not have to show up to teach.
Will Total return? Not in the short term. It will take perhaps a year for more than 100 British and US military trainers already in Nacala, on the northern coast in Nampula province, plus Portuguese soldiers, to create a functioning army.
The Suez Canal legal fight
April 27, 2021
Carlos Luxul wonders why beneficial cargo owners aren’t kicking up a greater fuss to get their goods from the stranded Ever Given.
As the saga of the Ever Given in the Suez canal rumbles on, one thing has struck me: why haven’t we heard anything about a class-action law suit against the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) from a collective of the frustrated shippers and receivers?
I haven’t seen the manifest but with around 20,000 TEUs on board, it stands to reason that many of the world’s leading corporations are likely to have been caught up in this – and while they may have a lot of power individually, they will have even more as a consortium.
While I’m no lawyer, it seems to me that the SCA is already guilty of flouting certain international laws and conventions. They are also making arbitrary and unreasonable claims against the ship’s ownership structure and, more specifically, the innocent parties caught up in it – the beneficial cargo owners. All this suggests there are solid grounds for action. Surely there’s an international commercial court or institution that would take up the case, and surely a leading law firm would want to head it up?
There’s plenty of scope: a court ruling to release the containers; damages for trade disruption; sanctions against the SCA; liens against their assets; restrictive orders against their leading personnel; and no doubt a good lawyer can add ten further claim categories in the time it takes to have a cup of coffee.
So far we’ve seen the usual pleas from the ship’s owners, the charterers, managers, flag, P&I Club and underwriters, and they’ve all fallen on deaf ears – as would be expected. So what’s stopping it? Is the legal ground shaky or are the beneficial cargo owners running scared of punitive action in the future from the SCA, who might try to restrict their future cargoes from transiting the canal?
In today’s litigious world, I’m surprised not to have heard any suggestion of legal action in the media, though perhaps it’s been discussed in private. So, all you lawyers out there, can you throw any light on it – would a class-action law suit work or is it already dead in the water? I’d love to see a reasoned opinion on the pros and cons, and I suspect everyone else would too.
https://splash247.com/the-suez-canal-legal-fight/
As much of the world continues to hunker down, a New Zealand band plays to 50,000 fans
By Nick Perry, Associated Press
26 April 2021
AUCKLAND, New Zealand —
Singer Matiu Walters grinned as he gazed out over 50,000 damp but delirious fans and said those magic words: "So, what's up Eden Park?"
While much of the world remains hunkered down, the band Six60 has been playing to huge crowds in New Zealand, where social distancing isn't required after the nation stamped out the coronavirus. The band's tour finale on Saturday night was billed as the largest concert in the world since the pandemic began.
Equally momentous for a band which met while playing rugby at university was getting to play the first concert ever held at the storied Eden Park rugby stadium. And finding themselves at the apex of world music came as a twist for Six60, which has enjoyed unparalleled success in New Zealand but whose forays abroad have ended without the breakthroughs they sought.
Saturday's set by the five-piece band included powerful cameos by military musicians ahead of the nation honoring its war dead on Sunday, and Maori performers who stretched across the stage while the band switched to singing in the Indigenous language.
One fan, Lucy Clumpas, found it a surreal experience to be surrounded by so many people after she spent last year living through endless lockdowns in Britain.
"It's very important for us as humans to be able to get together and sing the same songs together," she said. "It makes us feel like we're part of something,"
Walters, the lead singer, said they desperately want their musician friends around the world to be able to play live shows again.
"We know what it's like to be in lockdown. It sucked. And we didn't know if we'd be able to play gigs again," he said in an interview before the show. "But we are fortunate, for a few reasons, here in New Zealand."
Guitarist Ji Fraser said the reception they received while on the road for their summer tour had been incredible.
"It was amazing to see how fanatical people were, and excited about being out and seeing live music, and seeing something to drag them out of a long, brutal year," he said. "It was very special."
Walters said they did worry that something could have gone wrong — that their gigs could have turned into super-spreader events. But he said there was not much to do other than play by the rules and follow the government guidelines.
The band formed 13 years ago after they started jamming in their rugby changing rooms, making their concert at the hallowed ground of the nation's All Blacks rugby team feel like completing a circle.
The band had pushed for changes to civic rules to allow concerts at Eden Park, but not all the neighbors were happy.
One who objected was former Prime Minister Helen Clark, who said at the time that the concerts would represent a "home invasion" of noise.
"But the people wanted it. And the people spoke," Walters said. The singer added that Clark would have been welcomed at the concert. "Six60 is for everyone. And maybe if she came and enjoyed herself, she'd have a change of heart."
More:
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-zealand-band-plays-to-50000-fans/36232071