Iranian navy chases American ship in Persian Gulf

Sam Chambers January 24, 2025

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) is reporting a suspicious approach to a US-flagged roro vessel Liberty Power in the Persian Gulf near Iran.

The vessel’s master reported that the ship was approached by a small military craft around 6:30 am local time and it had been flashing a green laser light towards the bridge. The small military craft continued to hail the vessel.

According to security firm Vanguard, the craft undertook aggressive behaviour and was assessed to be attempting to force the vessel into Iranian waters.

The military craft also claimed to be the “Safarni navy”, despite the master’s assessment that it was an Iranian military craft following the sighting of an Iranian flag onboard.

Vanguard added that the Joint Maritime Information Center assessed the incident to be related to the Iranian large-scale military exercise Noble Prophet, or Great Prophet 19.

The 2011-built, 46,635 dwt roro is owned by the New York-based shipping firm Liberty Maritime. It has been part of the US firm’s fleet since 2022.

Iran has detained a number of merchant ships in recent years.

https://splash247.com/ukmto-warns-of-suspicious-vessel-approach-near-iran/

UN Confirms Level of Damage to Yemen’s Ports

Published Jan 22, 2025 2:40 PM by The Maritime Executive

Officials from the Untied Nations provided the first independent confirmation to the level of damage that has been inflicted on Yemen’s Red Sea ports. The officials estimated that less than a quarter of the port capacities remain available expressing concern about the ability to get relief supplies to the citizens of Yemen.

"(The) impact of airstrikes on Hodeidah harbor, particularly in the last weeks, is very important," Reuters reports Julien Harneis, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, told a U.N. meeting in Geneva on Tuesday, January 21. Harneis did not assign responsibility for the damage but warned it would impede the efforts to delivery food and fuel to Yemen.

Reports from Yemen indicate there is about two months of cereal and fuel inventories in the ports. UN officials have been working with the local authorities attempting to maintain aid and had a long-term plan to repair damage to the Red Sea ports which have been under the control of the Houthis for a decade. In approximately 2018, the UN conducted an extensive survey of the port facilities and documents the lack of maintenance and problems that needed to be addressed.

In Hodeidah they are now saying four of the port’s five tugboats were sunk and the fifth damaged. Local officials claim the port’s capacity in Hodeidah, Salif, and at the Ras Issa oil terminal was reduced by 70 percent.

UN officials said the ports had been targeted four times in the past six months. U.S. raids focused on key assets during the long-running conflict in the Red Sea region, while the Israel Defense Force carried two large raids in December.

The Israeli raids were in response to repeated missile and drone attacks launched by the Houthis. On December 19, they were there were a total of seven raids targeting Hodeidah as well as one on Salif and two on the oil terminal. In addition, Israel staged four raids on a power station south of Sanaa and two on another power station north of Sanaa.

The Houthi missile attacks continued and on December 26 the IDF conducted a second wave of attacks. That involved a reported 25 Israeli Air Force planes and included the port of Hodeidah as well as the power station and oil terminal. There was also heavy damage including the control tower, runways, and buildings at the Sanaa airport as well as additional targeting of the power station south of Sanaa.

Local officials are saying a total of eight tugs essential to the port operations were damaged.

"The civilian crews who man them (the tugs) are obviously very hesitant,” warned Harneis. “The capacity of the harbor is down to about a quarter," he added, saying the port was used to transit a significant portion of imported aid.

The Houthis continued to launch missile attacks on Israel through January 18 and the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire. They have however threatened to continue to target Israeli shipping and warned more widespread attacks would resume if the truce is violated.

Harneis told the UN briefing that the danger remains high for additional attacks. He also said it was hampering UN mediation efforts to reach a political solution to the conflict. The Houthi forces seized the western areas of Yemen in 2014 and early 2015.

https://maritime-executive.com/article/un-confirms-level-of-damage-to-yemen-s-ports

>>22443285

Did you not catch this the other night? They sad at the UN

Canada #70

U.N. Mourns Trump Taking U.S. out of W.H.O., Paris Climate Deal

by Frances Martel 21 Jan 2025

United Nations agencies reacted with dismay on Monday and Tuesday following President Donald Trump issuing executive orders on Monday night withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)

Trump, who became president for a second term on Monday, had withdrawn the United States from both the world’s most powerful public health agency and the globalist climate deal during his first term, exiting the W.H.O. in the aftermath of its disastrous handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement in 2019, condemning the disproportionate commitments demanded of its signatories, requiring much more financial investment and many more limits on economic development from America than the world’s worst polluters, such as China and India.

Former President Joe Biden overturned Trump’s decisions almost immediately upon returning to office. The Biden administration additionally declared the alleged “climate crisis” a major policy priority and committed the United States to supporting the establishment of a global “pandemic agreement” that would grant the W.H.O. dramatically expanded powers over the public health systems of sovereign country.

In his executive orders on Monday, Trump reiterated his reasons for halting funding to the W.H.O. and for rejecting the Paris agreement. The W.H.O. executive order also ended American involvement in the drafting of the controversial pandemic accord.

Trump ordered America to “pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO [and] recall and reassign United States Government personnel or contractors working in any capacity with the WHO” on Monday. The order condemned the agency for its “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”

“While withdrawal is in progress, the Secretary of State will cease negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the amendments to the International Health Regulations,” the executive order detailed, “and actions taken to effectuate such agreement and amendments will have no binding force on the United States.”

“That’s a big one,” Trump told reporters while signing the executive order, recalling that his government was responsible for paying the W.H.O. $500 million during his first term, while other countries invested much less in the agency, which he branded as “a little unfair.”

In addition to its poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the W.H.O. is also currently facing an ongoing scandal over widespread reports that its employees raped and otherwise sexually assaulted girls and women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during operations to help contain an Ebola outbreak in the country.

The W.H.O. issued a statement on Tuesday saying it “regrets” Trump’s decision to defund it.

“WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems,” the agency claimed, “and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.”

“For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats,” the statement continued. “Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership of WHO.”

“We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe,” the organization concluded.

Separately, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing America from its Paris Agreement commitments and other United Nations environmental projects.

“In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” Trump’s executive order read. “Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”

The order triggered an immediate formal notification to the U.N. to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and ended American involvement in “any agreement, pact, accord, or similar commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” The U.S. government, it declared, would “henceforth prioritize economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy.”

A spokeswoman for the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) condemned Trump’s decision to exit the climate agreements, calling the benefits to America of participating in the deals as “pretty obvious” without detailing any such benefit.

Spokeswoman Clare Nullis asserted that America “has sustained 403 weather and climate spokesperson disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 403 events exceeds $2.915 trillion, according to US figures.”

Nullis concluded by appealing to local, left-wing American officials.

“The Secretary-General remains confident that cities, states and businesses within the United States – along with other countries – will continue to demonstrate vision and leadership,” she said, “by working for the low-carbon, resilient economic growth that will create quality jobs and markets for 21st century prosperity.”

https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2025/01/21/u-n-mourns-trump-taking-u-s-out-of-w-h-o-paris-climate-deal/

Iranian Ships Load Ballistic Rocket Fuel in China

Published Jan 26, 2025 2:15 PM by The Maritime Executive

According to a widely-quoted report in the Financial Times datelined Washington and Taipei, intelligence officials in two unidentified countries have briefed the paper that two Iranian ships are loading ballistic missile propellant in the Yangtze river port of Taicang north of Shanghai. Once loading is complete, the ships are scheduled to set sail for Bandar Abbas.

The two ships concerned are the container ships MV Golbon, currently holding its position in the Xiushan Island anchorage 100 miles East of Shanghai, and the MV Jairan, which is yet to complete loading.

Both ships are owned by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), which is closely associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), IRISL ships having been used for intelligence collection purposes. Both vessels are also listed by the US Treasury as being subject to OFAC secondary sanctions.

Although subject to sanctions, the two vessels appear to have made numerous port calls in friendly countries in recent years without attracting US Treasury reprisals against those handling the ships. MV Golbon visited 30 ports in 2024, including calls in the UAE and Malaysia. MV Jairan mustered 29 similar such port calls in 2024.

The cargo to be shipped is sodium perchlorate in pellet form, of which MV Golbon has loaded 34 20-foot containers and MV Jairan is to load 24 such containers.

Sodium perchlorate - when transformed into ammonium perchlorate in a chemical reaction - makes up 70% of the standard fuel load of most of Iran’s solid-fueled ballistic missiles. Iran probably has the industrial capacity to manufacture sodium perchlorate domestically, in facilities at Parchin to where the Chinese shipment was consigned. But it may be facing capacity issues, with booming production of missiles and the need for solid fuel propellant increasing to replace stocks fired at Israel, but also to support increased exports.

The Iranian solid fuel ballistic missile inventory includes both longer range missiles such as the Khybar-Shikan and Fattah, used in attacks against Israel. But it also includes shorter-range missiles such as Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar systems exported to Russia for its war on Ukraine. Iran was spotted shipping Fath-360 solid-fueled ballistic missiles to Russia across the Caspian Sea in January. Resistance of Axis allies, including latterly to Hezbollah in Lebanon, have also received Iranian solid-fueled systems.

In November 2022, USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC 1146) and the destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) intercepted 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate in the Gulf of Oman en route between Iran and the Houthis. The Houthi solid-fueled Palestine-2 missile used ineffectively against Israel is believed to be either an Iranian Fattah missile or derived from it. The US base at Al Asad in Iraq has been attacked on at least two occasions with Iranian solid-fuel ballistic missiles, including Fateh-313 missiles.

Both the MV Golbon and the MV Jairan were expected to sail directly to Bandar Abbas without further port calls. But now that the Chinese authorities - not normally known for being unsighted domestically - have been alerted as to what has been loaded in Shanghai, it is possible that the ships’ itinerary and cargo may be adjusted.

https://maritime-executive.com/article/iranian-ships-load-ballistic-rocket-fuel-in-china

>>22443342

>>22443508

Never underestimate the trouble making power of Apu

>>22444180

C'mon Man!

Let the Artillery guys have some fun

>>22444222

Somebody figured it out, no doubt there