she's been hiding in Tuscany
anybody seen or heard from DWS? Six tons of weed is quite a weekend
U.S. Coast Guard Offloads $450 Million Worth of Drugs in Florida
Mike Schuler October 27, 2023
The U.S. Coast Guard offloaded 33,200 pounds of cocaine and 12,400 pounds of marijuana, valued at approximately $448 million, at Port Everglades on Thursday.
The crew of the national security cutter USCGC James conducted the offload following 13 separate seizures involving multiple ships from the USCG and Navy in international waters in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
“This offload is crucial for national security,” said Vice Adm. Kevin Lunday, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area. “It represents one part of a strong interagency team that closely collaborates with our allies and international partners to intercept dangerous and illegal drug smuggling into the United States.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is actively involved in combating drug cartels. The Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West, Florida, is responsible for detecting and monitoring drug transit, while the Coast Guard 11th District in California and the 7th District in Miami lead the law enforcement operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, respectively, including interdictions and boardings.
The USCGC James operates under the command of U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area, based in Portsmouth, Virginia, which oversees all Coast Guard operations east of the Rocky Mountains to the Arabian Gulf. In addition to surge operations, Atlantic Area also deploys ships to the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to combat transnational organized crime and illicit maritime activity.
Several U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security collaborated in the effort. In addition to the Coast Guard, the Navy, Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as allied militaries and international partner agencies, all played a role in the counter-drug operations.
https://gcaptain.com/u-s-coast-guard-offloads-450-million-worth-of-drugs-in-florida/
baker
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hershel_%22Woody%22_Williams
as sauce for >>19821603 seems a bit crappy, the pic is from 2019
All I've got now is a German frigate southwest of Cyprus and what may be a Ticonderoga-clsss CG south of Spain
>>19821762 (me)
Here we go, just popped in, track one minute old. Hershel Woody Wlliams ESB-4 is Western Med, south of Spain, a bit east of where the Tico track is
Clown ship
50 C-17s is still not the capacity of the sealift ships that aren't rust buckets.
Algol-class fast sealift USNS POLLUX I can't confirm, last position is three days old, moored in Port Neches near Beaumont, Texas. The pair in Baltimore, ANTARES and DENEBOLA are sitting there, position reports 5 and 6 minutes old
Ukraine Ramps Up Scrutiny of Grain Exports
By Volodymyr Verbianyi and Áine Quinn (Bloomberg) — October 27, 2023
Ukraine is imposing tighter controls over grain traders to boost revenues to fund its wartime defenses, a move that may further complicate shipments from the country’s Danube and Black Sea ports.
The Cabinet of Ministers will require exporters of grains and oilseeds either to get licenses or to provide tax records going back before the invasion, an official with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified to discuss decrees passed at a government meeting on Friday. The mechanism may be amended further, should the situation change, the official said.
The government aims to squeeze out fly-by-night companies, repatriate more foreign currency revenue and raise tax collection as Ukraine’s international allies, which are providing billions of dollars of aid, scrutinize its anti-corruption efforts. However, the efforts are taking time and costs for traders are racking up as their cargoes suffer delays.
Audits of exporters stalled agricultural shipments from ports in the Odesa region earlier this week, triggering numerous complaints, while traders shipping grain through the Danube said issues related to export documents have caused big delays in recent weeks.
“The sudden change in regulations has created problems for exporters and is causing further delays,” grain trader Filipe Pohlmann Gonzaga from Bryce SA said. He has chartered three vessels to pick up grain via the Sulina branch on the Romanian side of the Danube.
The bureaucracy, along with delays due to overcrowding of the channel, bad weather and de-mining operations means it’s taking almost twice as long as usual for ships to start loading, according to the trader. One of his ships has been waiting 11 days to berth in Ukraine’s riverport of Reni, while a second has been waiting 14 days to get clearance to pass the Sulina channel and pick up its cargo in Izmail and each day of delays can cost as much as $4,000 extra in demurrage costs, he said.
Atria Brokers’ Christina Serebryakova said the changes in customs declarations for grain exports, together with long waiting times to pass the Sulina canal, mean that delays can be up to one month or more. “Buyers are asking exporters for extra discounts,” she said. “Some vessels are being cancelled in Danube or Sulina, because traders are forced to take a pause in execution in order to restructure their work.”
Shipments from deep-sea ports on the Black Sea resumed on Friday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promising the route will keep functioning despite multiple threats, including the risk of Russia’s air-strikes.
Ukraine is a major exporter of agricultural commodities, which are a key source of its wartime revenues. Kyiv had opened a unilateral corridor to allow ships to export commodities such as grains and metals from its deep-sea ports in Greater Odesa, after Moscow in July pulled out of the United Nations-backed Black Sea grain initiative that had guaranteed safe movement of crop vessels.
https://gcaptain.com/ukraine-ramps-up-scrutiny-of-grain-exports/
Says muriatic acid, and chlorine. Pool chemicals