By Kayla Turner

The trial of Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino has entered its final stages on Tuesday with the verdict of the three appointed judges expected by Thursday at the latest. Schettino is currently facing charges of multiple manslaughter and dereliction of duty in relation to the fatal January 2012 shipwreck. The prosecution and defense teams have now made their closing arguments.

Despite the anticipated large crowds, the room remained largely empty except for a small group of international press.

The prosecution reiterated its request for a sentence of 26 years and three months for the former captain, calling for a “fair punishment that reestablishes the truth concerning the tragedy of the Costa Concordia”. Prosecutors are insisting the captain’s failure to promptly order an evacuation of the cruise ship is the sole reason why 32 people died when the luxury liner partially capsized off Giglio island. However, Schettino’s defense claims equipment problems complicated the evacuation.

According to NBC News, Schettino maintains that he was thrown into a lifeboat when the vessel suddenly rolled onto its side. His lawyers are asking for manslaughter and abandonment charges to be dropped, and argue for shipwreck with “diminished responsibility,” stating that he wasn’t entirely responsible at the time of the crash. Normally abandonment carries a mandatory sentence of nine years; diminished responsibility could mean just five.

Schettino will be in the courtroom to hear the verdict and will reportedly make a statement afterwards. Earlier in the trial, the infamous captain left the courtroom briefly after apparently being angered by the prosecution’s denial that he had been a victim of a media witch-hunt. The prosecution also rejected claims by Schettino’s defense team that their client had been isolated during the proceedings.

Survivors and victims’ families are wondering if justice will actually be done if Schettino, the only defendant, is forced to the take all the blame. Five initial co-defendants – four ship officers and a Costa Cruises manager – entered a plea bargain for their role in the tragedy in 2013, resulting in no prison time. 

By Wendy Laursen

Two 100-year-old film clips of the SS Eastland disaster in Chicago have been unearthed. 

Believed to be the first known clips of the disaster, they were found by U.S. University of Illinois graduate student, Jeff Nichols, reports The Chicago Tribune.

Early on the morning of July 24, 1915, the lake steamer Eastland cast off from its mooring along the Chicago River with 2,572 Western Electric Company employees and their families on board. It was to have been a pleasant Lake Michigan cruise and picnic, but instead it turned into Chicago’s worst single disaster with 844 people, mostly women and children, killed.

The ship was top-heavy, both by design and by subsequent modification, and as the passengers moved to the port side to watch other vessels departing, it rolled, trapping passengers on the lower decks.

At the time of the tragedy, the ship was not ballasted, making it more at risk of rolling. 

The clips are taken from Dutch news reels, mixed in with unrelated material.

The first clip shows first responders, and the second shows the Eastland being righted.

The last known survivor of the disaster, 102-year-old Marion Eichholz, died in November last year.

By MarEx

A legal attempt by Iran’s main oil tanker firm NITC to stop the European Union from reimposing sanctions on it over its disputed nuclear program has failed in a London court, setting back Tehran’s efforts to ease trade restrictions.

Iran is engaged in nuclear talks with world powers as it tries to strike a final deal to lift the sanctions that have halved its oil exports to just over 1 million barrels per day since 2012 and hammered its economy.

EU governments were due imminently to re-include NITC, a major carrier of Iran’s oil, on a blacklist of people and entities targeted by the bloc’s sanctions, High Court Judge Nicholas Green said on Monday.

The NITC case is part of an effort by the EU to mount a challenge against Iranian companies that have been winning court cases aimed at lifting sanctions against them.

NITC had been on an EU sanctions blacklist since 2012 until a European court ruled in July last year that there were no grounds to keep it on the list. The firm announced in October that EU sanctions against it had been annulled. It is still blacklisted by the United States.

The sanctions had prohibited any trade between the EU, its companies and citizens, and NITC, including the provision of services such as insurance or banking.

However, with Brussels expected to imminently put NITC back on the blacklist, the tanker firm went to the London High Court on Friday seeking an urgent injunction to compel Britain to veto the EU decision, which has to be unanimous.

The court rejected NITC’s application for an injunction, and scheduled a hearing early on Monday for Judge Green to give the reasons for the ruling.

NITC officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

At the Monday hearing, the judge summarized the facts of the case and the arguments made by NITC and the British government.

He said government lawyers had argued that a British veto on EU sanctions against NITC would damage London’s credibility on the nuclear issue.

They also said such a veto would reduce the chances of a negotiated settlement with Iran by lending credence to the view held by some Iranians that Tehran did not need to negotiate seriously as the West’s sanctions regime would collapse anyway.

The judge said that NITC’s lawyers had put forward legal arguments which, while not overwhelming, could not be dismissed. However, he said those arguments should be considered by the Luxembourg-based General Court, the second highest court in the EU and the one that lifted the NITC sanctions last year.

The judge also said that for the court to force the British government to veto sanctions would have been “wholly exceptional” and risked causing “tangible difficulties for the policy behind the sanctions regime”. Copyright Reuters 2015.

By MarEx

By picking a banker instead of an oil executive to run Petrobras, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff appears to have recognized that the state-run company’s biggest priority is to clean up its books and acknowledge how many billions of dollars it lost to a corruption scheme in recent years.

Yet her choice on Friday of confidant Aldemir Bendine also signals that Rousseff wants to maintain tight control over the company, which investors fear could prevent it from releasing a fully realistic estimate of graft-related losses.

With the economy sputtering, inflation above 7 percent and Brazilians preparing for increasingly likely electricity and water rationing this year, Rousseff’s approval rating is already the lowest of her presidency.

Having Petrobras (PETR4.SA) recognize as much as $22 billion in losses stemming from the price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal, the extent of which prosecutors began to reveal last year, is likely to increase Brazilian anger at government mismanagement, analysts say.

While some voice respect for Bendine, who was previously chief executive for state-run bank Banco do Brasil SA (BBAS3.SA), they expect he will lack the independence to break free of the politics surrounding the company’s accounting.

“A big loss would please the market but hurt Rousseff,” said Reginaldo Gonçalves, a professor of accounting at Faculdade Santa Ursula, a Sao Paulo university. “I don’t see getting a reliable (estimate of the loss) anytime soon.”

JUNE DEADLINE

Petrobras results have been delayed since November, when the corruption probe led to the arrest of executives from the company and its suppliers. Auditors refused to certify third-quarter results.

If the company fails to publish results by June, investors can declare the company in default, which could force Petrobras to repay or renegotiate as much as $54 billion in bonds.

Petrobras’ press office did not respond to requests for comment or for an interview with Bendine, who officially began the job on Monday.

Shares of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, have fallen more than 60 percent since September, and 5 percent since word of Bendine’s appointment first leaked early Friday.

Before becoming president in 2011, Rousseff spent seven years as Petrobras’ chairwoman, mostly during years when police say company executives conspired to overcharge billions of dollars for contracts.

Some of the money was kicked back to executives, politicians and political parties as bribes and campaign contributions, the largest part going to Rousseff’s own Workers’ Party, prosecutors say. Rousseff has denied knowledge of the corruption scheme at the time and urged a full investigation.

The political difficulties surrounding the loss will make Bendine’s turnaround effort even harder, investors say.

“Bendine faces a mine field of political noise,” said Bill Rudman, who manages emerging market stocks, including Petrobras, at Blackfriars in London. “With shares trading at distressed levels, there’s not much the government can do for investors.”

Bendine’s predecessor, Maria das Gracas Foster, abruptly resigned last week along with most of the company’s senior management team.

Foster and most of Petrobras’ board had agreed on Jan. 23 to take a net writedown of 61.4 billion reais ($22 billion) in the third quarter, but Rousseff, through government-appointed board members, vetoed it, saying it was too large, Reuters has reported. The writedown was rejected by the full board on Jan. 27.

Gil Castello Branco, founder and general director of Contas Abertas, a Brasilia-based corporate and government transparency group, said Bendine is loyal to Rousseff but will approach Petrobras as more of an outsider than Foster, who spent her career there.

Bendine may therefore be “far more likely to do Rousseff’s bidding (and) keep corruption-related losses small,” Castello Branco said. Copyright Reuters 2015.

By MarEx

Conservation group WWF is stepping up pressure on Australia to do more to protect the Great Barrier Reef, launching a global campaign ahead of a vote by UNESCO on whether to put the world’s largest coral reef on an “in danger” list.

UNESCO, which has given the reef a World Heritage listing, is due to decide in June whether to designate it as “in danger”, which could lead to restrictions on shipping and port expansions that could hit Australia’s trade in commodities and energy.

The WWF wants the government and state of Queensland to ban all dumping of sand dug up for port expansions anywhere near the reef, which is one of Australia’s main tourist attractions and runs 2,300 km (1,450 miles) along its east coast.

“These places need to be protected and not used as an industrial dumping ground,” WWF-Australia Chief Executive Dermot O’Gorman told Reuters.

The national government has already moved to ban all dumping of dredge spoil within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which covers a slightly smaller area than the World Heritage listed area.

But the WWF, which is the official name for the World Wide Fund for Nature, said most port dredging was outside the marine park zone.

“To be successful turning around the decline of the reef you need to see a ban across the whole World Heritage area,” O’Gorman said after releasing a report titled “The Great Barrier Reef Under Threat”.

The campaign is being designated a priority across the WWF’s 80 offices around the world.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt criticized the report as misleading, saying even with the ban on the disposal of dredge material in the reef marine park the government was focused on protecting the reef and would work with organizations like the WWF to do so.

“It’s disappointing that WWF’s report is so inaccurate and out of date and has the potential to mislead the international community,” Hunt’s spokesman, John O’Doherty, said in an email. Copyright Reuters 2015

By MarEx

Following a request from the owners of the Rena to pause salvage work required by the Maritime Transport Act, the Director of Maritime NZ has decided to allow a temporary pause pending resolution of the resource consent application.

This pause will take effect only when the wreck reaches the state set out in the application.

The Rena’s owners lodged a resource consent application under the Resource Management Act to leave sections of the wreck and associated debris in place on Otaiti (Astrolabe) Reef and to provide for any future discharges of contaminants that may arise from leaving the wreck in place.

The owners’ application states that the wreck will be left in an “as benign as practicable state”. The application is set out here: www.renaresourceconsent.org.nz  

The application is expected to be heard later this year by commissioners appointed by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

In allowing a temporary pause, two notices imposed by the Director of Maritime NZ will remain in place declaring the wreck a “hazardous ship” (under section 47 of the Maritime Transport Act) and a “hazard to navigation” (under section 100A of the MTA). 

The notices – which have recently been updated to reflect the current state of the salvage operation – require debris removal, and removal of all known copper cargo, to be completed to a depth of 30m, and any release of hazardous substances to be monitored.

Maritime NZ Director Keith Manch said the owners were also required to continue to ensure any flotsam or debris escaping from the wreck would continue to be handled appropriately.

“This will be a temporary measure to allow the owners to go through the resource consent application process. Maritime NZ accepts that it is not reasonable to require further salvage work to be carried out, beyond what is required to reach the wreck state set out in the application, until resolution of that process.”

In the early hours of Thursday, the Indian Coast Guard rescued all 11 crewmembers of a cargo ship bound for Maldives as it started sinking off India’s Vizhinjam coast. 

Once receiving the distress signal from the Maldivian MV Minnath, Coast Guard rescue teams deployed in two ships and were able to successfully rescue the entire crew. The water inside the vessel was pumped out, and two leaks were plugged – preventing the ship from sinking. It is being towed ashore. 

The vessel, which makes weekly trips to Maldives with perishables, mostly fruits and vegetables, had set sail from Vizhinjam on Wednesday evening. The ship had covered around 30 nautical miles before the crew noticed the flooding. 

According to The Hindu, which spoke with the ship’s owner Finesse Shipping Lines Private Limited, the crew noticed water entering the engine room through two cracks under the room around midnight. They immediately turned the ship around and were on the way back when the engine stalled around 1:30 a.m., about eight nautical miles off the Vizhinjam coast. The crew alerted the firm, who in turn alerted police and Coast Guard officials. With water beginning to seep into the engine room, the hull of the ship had begun to slowly sink.

The crew offloaded a few loads of bananas and watermelons into the sea that were packed near the hull to prevent further sinking. There was a total of 196 tonnes of perishables on board.

By MarEx

China has started dredging around the disputed Mischief Reef in the South China Sea, a Philippine navy commander said on Thursday, signalling Beijing may be preparing to expand its facilities in the area.

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to set Southeast Asian minds at ease over the country’s regional ambitions, but Beijing’s reclamation work in the Spratlys underscores its drive to push claims in the South China Sea and reassert its rights.

China has already undertaken reclamation work on six other reefs it occupies in the Spratlys, expanding land mass five-fold, aerial surveillance photos show. Images seen by Reuters last year appeared to show an airstrip and sea ports.

China has claims on almost the entire South China Sea, which is believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas.Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims on the sea where about $5 trillion of ship-borne trade pass every year.

Rear Admiral Alexander Lopez, commander of the Philippine military’s western command, told reporters on Thursday a Chinese dredging ship was spotted at Mischief Reef, about 135 km southeast of the island of Palawan.

“We don’t know what they plan to do in Mischief,” he said. “They have long been doing that, only that it was Fiery Cross that got a lot of attention because that was on a bigger scale.”

IHS Jane’s said in November images it had obtained showed the Chinese-built island on the Fiery Cross Reef to be at least 3,000 meters (1.9 miles) long and 200-300 meters (660-980 ft) wide.

Lopez did not say when China started the dredging work or give any details on the extent of reclamation at Mischief Reef, saying only the work had been “substantial”.

Surveillance photos that were taken of Mischief Reef last October showed no reclamation work in the area.

The photos, seen by Reuters, showed two structures, including a three-story building sitting on an atoll, equipped with wind turbines and solar panels.

China occupied Mischief Reef in 1995, building makeshift huts, which Beijing claimed provided shelter for fishermen during the monsoon season. But, China later built a garrison in the area, deploying frigates and coast guard ships.

In 2002, Southeast Asian states agreed with China to sign an informal code of conduct in the South China Sea to stop claimant states from occupying and constructing garrisons in the disputed Spratlys.

Last year, the Philippines and Vietnam protested China’s reclamation work as a violation of the informal code.

North of Mischief Reef, China on Thursday defended the actions of a coast guard vessel in the Scarborough Shoal after the Philippines accused it of ramming three fishing boats.

“China’s coast guard sent a dinghy to drive them away and slightly bumped one of the fishing vessels,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing in Beijing.

“We ask that the Philippines strengthen education and indoctrination of its fishermen to prevent such incidents from happening again.”

A Philippine military spokesman, Colonel Restituto Padilla, described China’s action as “alarming” saying the local fishermen were trying to seek shelter due to bad weather.

By Manuel Mogato (C) Reuters 2015.

By MarEx

A pirate attack that killed a supertanker crewman off the coast of Nigeria this week has highlighted a growing threat off oil-rich West Africa, as vessels carrying millions of barrels of crude traverse a region that has become known as “pirate alley”.

The 2 million barrel Kalamos Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) was heading to Nigeria’s main oil terminal when it was attacked late on Monday, leaving the ship’s Greek deputy captain dead and three crew members taken hostage.

Security experts say the waters off Nigeria are now the deadliest on earth, surpassing Somalia on Africa’s east coast, which gained notoriety due to months-long hijackings, high-cost ransoms, and U.S.-led rescue missions such as the one that inspired Hollywood movie “Captain Phillips”.

“It’s referred to as pirate alley – kidnap alley,” said Ken Johnson, regional analyst with Dryad Maritime, referring to the stretch of West African coast from the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria to as far south as Angola’s capital Luanda.

Johnson, who provides operations and intelligence advice to the shipping industry, said there was another deadly attack on a ship in the region last month when pirates killed a Nigerian naval seaman aboard the oil support vessel MV Jascon.

Another attack last year on an oil products tanker, the SP Brussels, killed one crew member, Johnson said.

Neither Indian refiner Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), which chartered the Kalamos tanker that was attacked this week, nor the manager of the vessel, Greek shipping firm Aeolos Management, returned calls for comment.

Cyrus Mody, assistant director of the piracy-tracking International Maritime Bureau said the waters off Nigeria are now the deadliest in the world “by any length”, despite attention still focused on Somalia and the Gulf of Aden.

“(The Gulf of Guinea) is not perceived as bad as it is,” Mody said.

Mody said incidents in the region were hugely underreported due to fear of further attacks, concerns over insurance or a belief that information on vessels is sensitive or proprietary.

Oil tankers make relatively easy targets for Nigerian-based pirates who usually want hostages to ransom, but will also sell stolen fuel.

Security experts say the pirates have emerged from militant groups in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta, such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

These groups have long targeted oil infrastructure and foreign companies in the region, arguing the Niger Delta has been left impoverished despite production of almost 2 million barrels of oil per day in Nigeria.

The situation is further complicated by the government’s ban on foreign armed guards in its waters – a method that has been used to deter pirates off Somalia and Yemen.

Security experts said most companies know the risks in the region well.

“It hasn’t stopped or slowed down trading,” said Johnson at Dryad.

The danger is already priced into premiums that insurers charge for entering the region, said Dominic Enderby, marine hull practice leader for Marsh, a global insurance broker.

While costs varies widely, the premium is generally “a few thousand dollars” per voyage – not enough to increase costs significantly for a tanker that may carry more than $100 million worth of crude.

“It’s not going to change the price of our oil,” Enderby said.

“These attacks are part and parcel of operating in this part of the world.”

By Libby George (C) Reuters 2015.

By MarEx

The pilot of a single engine Cirrus SR-22 aircraft that ran out of fuel is safe after ditching his aircraft 253 miles northeast of Maui, Hawaii Sunday.

At approximately 4:44 p.m. the pilot was able to deploy the aircraft’s airframe parachute system and safely exit the aircraft into a life raft. Watchstanders at the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu identified the cruise ship Veendam, en route to Lahaina, Maui, and coordinated the pilot’s ditch near their location.

At 5:21 p.m. the crew of the Veendam rescued the pilot. The pilot was reported to be in good condition. The plane was last observed partially submerged. 

Weather conditions at the time of the rescue were seas of 9 to 12 feet and winds of 25 to 28 mph.

The Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane from Air Station Barbers Point assisted the pilot during the process of ditching his aircraft and maintained communications throughout the ditching process. The Hercules crew remained on scene until the pilot was safely aboard the Veendam.

The flight originated in Tracy, California and was destined for Kahului Maui.

 At 12:30 p.m. the pilot contacted the Hawaii National Guard and reported his aircraft had approximately three hours of fuel remaining and he would be ditching 230 miles north east of Maui.