July 15, 2011
LONDON: Attacks on the world’s seas are soaring as armed and dangerous pirates become increasingly emboldened, seizing more ships than before and taking even bigger risks, an international body said on Thursday.
In the first six months of 2011, there were 266 piracy attacks compared with 196 incidents over the same period last year, and 60 percent of them were carried out by Somali pirates, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said. Read the rest of this entry »
January 8, 2011
MANILA, Philippines – The Federation of ASEAN Shipowners’ Associations (FASA) remains cautiously optimistic on the shipping industry despite its recovery in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
December 22, 2010
YEAREND REPORT
MANILA, Philippines—Major sea accidents had been routinely followed by high-profile congressional inquiries that bore little fruit in ensuring maritime safety in the Philippines. Read the rest of this entry »
March 22, 2010
With two recent columns dedicated to the shipping industry, one of our readers wrote some suggestions to how the shipping industry may further be developed. Bobby Tordesillas listed 10 pointers, which we are sharing with other readers: Read the rest of this entry »
February 22, 2010
A major seafarers’ group has scored the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) for the agency’s failure to plug loopholes in maritime safety enforcement in the Philippines, saying that most of the memorandums it has issued were meant to put the blame for the disasters on others. Read the rest of this entry »
February 12, 2010
CEBU, Philippines – The Visayan Association of Ferryboat and Coastwise Service Operators is supporting the planned nationwide strike by all shipping owners in protest of the several memorandum circulars issued by the Maritime Industry Authority. Read the rest of this entry »
January 9, 2010
MANILA, Philippines – A seasoned diver of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) sacrificed his life yesterday afternoon while helping in the retrieval of the remains trapped inside the sunken ferry M/V Catalyn B. Read the rest of this entry »
January 8, 2010
Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza yesterday blamed the series of sea tragedies, eight of which were recorded in the past two years, to “human error.”
Mendoza said such cause was traceable to lack of competent seafarers and ship maintenance crew. Read the rest of this entry »
December 28, 2009
The sinking of the ferry MV Baleno-9 near the Philippine city of Batangas, which has left at least three dead and 22 missing, is the latest in a long list of shipping accidents across the Philippines. Millions of Filipinos, many of them too poor to afford air travel, use the seas and waterways to travel around the archipelago, on everything from massive steel-hulled ferries to wooden dugouts with outriggers. Read the rest of this entry »
August 31, 2009
The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) has warned that granting the wish of foreign shipping firms to be excluded in the cabotage law could result in the death of the local shipping industry, similar to what happened in Indonesia. Read the rest of this entry »
