industryterm:oil spill

  • Trump starts fundraising minutes after his first primetime Oval Office address – Alternet.org
    https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/trump-starts-fundraising-minutes-after-his-first-primetime-oval-office-add

    Non, mais on vit où là ?
    Ainsi donc Trump constitue un fichier des « vrais américains » qui payent pour construire son mur... que fera-t-on des autres demain ?

    The Trump presidency has been little more than an extension of his presidential campaign, starting when he filed papers for re-election the day he was sworn in to office.

    So perhaps it comes as no surprise that literally minutes after delivering his first primetime Oval Office address to the nation on what he labeled the “crisis” at the border, Trump was fundraising off his speech.

    A primetime address from the Oval Office is generally reserved for the absolute, most important events in a president’s time in office. It is literally an attempt to place the weight and magnitude of the entire presidency in view of the American people, in order to convey the extreme magnitude of the President’s speech and the issue at hand.

    President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis from the Oval Office.

    President Ronald Reagan spoke to comfort the nation from the Oval Office after the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

    President George W. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office the night of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

    President Barack Obama used the Oval Office to address the nation on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

    None of them fundraised off their speeches.

    On Tuesday night, about 15 minutes after President Trump finished his speech, likely thousands if not millions of supporters received a text asking them to “Donate to the Official Secure the Border Fund NOW.”

    MSNBC’s Joy Reid posted a screenshot of the text:

    If that weren’t enough, Trump sent a fearmongering fundraising email, trashing Democratic leaders and urging supporters to donate half a million dollars by 9 PM, the time of his speech. The email was sent around 5:30 PM.

    “Drugs are poisoning our loved ones,” it reads. “MS-13 gang members are threatening our safety.” “Illegal criminals are flooding our nation,” it warns.

    “I want to make one thing clear to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: Your safety is not a political game or a negotiation tactic!”

    If these scare tactics weren’t enough, Trump used high-pressure tactics to eek every dime out of his supporters – many of whom are low income earners or retirees.

    “I want to know who stood with me when it mattered most so I’ve asked my team to send me a list of EVERY AMERICAN PATRIOT who donates to the Official Secure the Border Fund,” the email reads.

    In other words, the President of the United states is saying if you don’t send him money, you’re not a patriotic American. And he’s taking names. Literally.

    “Please make a special contribution of $5 by 9 PM EST to our Official Secure the Border Fund to have your name sent to me after my speech.”

    The Official Secure the Border Fund is not a fund that will actually secure the border. It’s just Trump’s re-election campaign fund.

    Here’s the email:

    #Trump #Fichier

  • Spain’s Supreme Court Upholds 1.6 Billion Euro Prestige Oil Spill Ruling – gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/spains-supreme-court-upholds-1-6-billion-euro-prestige-oil-spill-rulingspa


    The bow of the Prestige oil tanker floats above water moments before sinking in waters off northwestern Spain in this November 19, 2002 file photo. A Spanish court on November 13, 2013 found the crew and the government not guilty of responsibility in Spain’s Prestige disaster, a 2002 accident caused by a leaking tanker which coated the northwestern coastline with thousands of tonnes of oil.
    REUTERS/Paul Hanna (SPAIN – Tags: ENVIRONMENT DISASTER

    Spain’s Supreme Court upheld Thursday a lower court’s ruling that Spain is to be paid 1.6 billion euros in damages over the 2002 #Prestige oil spill.

    The definitive ruling confirms an earlier ruling handed down by a lower court in La Coruna, Galicia, where the oil spill occurred, in November 2017. France will also be awarded 61 million euros as its coastline was also impacted by the oil spill.

    The single-hulled oil tanker Prestige broke in half and sank off the northwestern coast of Spain after being denied a port of refuge after one of its tank was damaged in a storm.

    The wreck is estimated to have spilled some 63,000 tonnes of oil, which severely impacted Spain’s Galicia coast and closed some of the country’s richest fisheries. The oil spill is considered one of Europe’s worst-ever environmental disasters.

    Prestige’s captain, Apostolos Mangouras, was initially clear of criminal wrongdoing, but Spain’s Supreme Court in 2016 overruled and convicted Mangouras of recklessness resulting in catastrophic environmental damage. Mangouras was sentenced to two years in prison, and the ruling opened the door to damage claims against him and the insurer.

    #marée_noire

  • U.S. Coast Guard to Tackle MC20 Oil Spill Containment Fourteen Years After the Leak Likely Began – gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/u-s-coast-guard-to-tackle-mc20-oil-spill-containment-fourteen-years-after-

    The U.S. Coast Guard has partially assumed federal control over the operation to contain an oil dishcarge from the site of MC20 platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico that has likely been leaking since the platform toppled back in 2004.

    The platform, owned by Taylor Energy, LLC, was located in Mississippi Canyon Block 20, approximately 11 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It toppled in September 2004 during Hurricane Ivan after storm surge triggered an underwater mudslide. The incident left the platform well conductor pipes buried in more than 100 feet of mud and sediment, impacting 25 of 28 connected wells. The spill went unnoticed for years until 2008 when it was identified as the source of daily sheen reports.

    Now more fourteen years after the hurricane, crude oil continues to discharge from the site and surface on the Gulf waters.

    IN 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement estimated that oil continues to leak at a rate of approximately 1 to 55 barrels of oil per day. Satellite imagery and overflights have shown oil slicks on the surface varying in size, sometimes ranging up to 30 miles in length.

    Even still, the specific source, or sources of the discharge at the MC20 site are not fully known.

    Federal officials have directed Taylor Energy, as the Responsible Party, to remove the platform deck, remove sub-sea debris, decommission the oil pipeline, attempt to contain the leaking oil, and plug nine of the 25 impacted wells that were deemed highest risk.

    Following several scientific studies conducted over several years by federal and industrial experts, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) issued Taylor Energy an administrative order back in October requiring it to propose a final viable plan to install a containment system. Last month, however, the FOSC ultimately issued Taylor Energy a Notice of Federal Assumption, and assumed authority for containing the oil.
    […]
    As the Responsible Party, Taylor Energy, which is now defunct, is required to pay for oil spill recovery and response costs under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). It also has a continuing legal obligation to respond to the ongoing oil discharge and also must comply with the Coast Guard Administrative Orders.

  • Norwegian frigate collides with oil tanker off country’s coast, 8 injured (VIDEO) — RT World News
    https://www.rt.com/news/443399-tanker-frigate-incident-norway


    The Norwegian Navy frigate “KNM Helge Ingstad” after a collision with a tanker.
    ©NTB Scanpix- Marit Hommedal via REUTERS

    A Norwegian Navy frigate returning from a NATO exercise collided with an oil tanker off Norway’s coast. Eight people received light injuries in the incident while the warship started slowly sinking.
    The early morning collision, which involved the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad and the tanker Sola TS, happened off Norway’s western coast near an island chain on which the municipality of Øygarden is located.

    Unlike the warship, the tanker, which carries around 625,000 barrels of crude, was mostly undamaged in the incident and no signs of an oil spill were reported. The ship was still ordered to return to port for inspection.

    The frigate, which reportedly received a long tear in the hull’s starboard side, started to take on water and listed dangerously. A tank of helicopter fuel was damaged and leaked some of its content, local media say. The crew of 137 was ordered to abandon ship, which was moved closer to land to prevent it from capsizing.

    The incident also triggered the shut-down of several oil industry sites in the vicinity, including a North Sea crude export terminal, Norway’s largest gas processing plant and several offshore fields.

    • Pas d’infos précises,…

      Cette après-midi, la BBC sort des fuites sur les communications entre les deux navires avant la collision qui ont été enregistrées. Pas glorieux, semble-t-il pour la marine norvégienne. En tous cas, les dégâts sont impressionnants et l’échouage volontaire a très certainement évité un chavirage rapide que l’on voit se profiler sur la première vidéo, alors que le navire est déjà à la côte.

      Norway warship Helge Ingstad ’warned’ before collision - BBC News
      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46150048


      Chris Cavas — @CavasShips — 8 nov.
      Images of the damage caused to Norwegian frigate HELGE INGSTAD F313 from collision with tanker SOLA TS. Views are obviously before the ship partially sank. The below-water damage to the ship was more extensive than the photos can show.

      The tanker, which was heading northbound, contacted the frigate, heading southbound, to ask if they had a plan to safely pass them as they seemed to be on a collision course,” Kjetil Stormark, the editor of AldriMer.no told the BBC.
      Citing what he called key sources, he said: “The response was:We have everything under control.’”
      Lucky vessels
      The incident is undergoing investigation, both by the police and by the Accident Investigation Board Norway, officials told the BBC.
      Mr Stomark says that because the tanker was “slow, heavy and much larger”, it was the warship’s responsibility to move around it.

    • Version française, sans les informations sur les échanges radio.

      Frégate norvégienne : le point sur l’accident | Mer et Marine
      https://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/fregate-norvegienne-le-point-sur-laccident


      Capture d’écran d’un direct de la télévision publique norvégienne
      © NRK

      C’est un accident spectaculaire qui risque bien de sceller le sort de la frégate norvégienne Helge Ingstad. À 3 heures 55 du matin, le pétrolier Sola TS a quitté le terminal pétrolier de Sture, près de Bergen, en direction du nord. Il était alors suivi du remorqueur Tenax. Huit minutes plus tard, le tanker entrait en collision avec le bâtiment de combat norvégien qui faisait route inverse. À 4 heures 50, la Marine norvégienne commençait l’évacuation des 137 membres d’équipage se trouvant à bord de la frégate, devenue incontrôlable.
       
      Heureusement, il n’y pas de victimes à déplorer pour les deux navires. Seuls huit marins de l’Helge Ingstad ont été légèrement blessés et c’est un miracle à la vue des images diffusées par les autorités. L’abordage a eu lieu sur tribord. Le pétrolier, probablement lourdement chargé de pétrole, a vu son écubier littéralement déchirer la coque de la frégate sur la moitié de sa longueur au niveau de la ligne de flottaison. Une importante voie d’eau n’a pas pu être maîtrisée. Sur les photos de la télévision publique norvégienne NRK1, on peut observer que le tanker a été très faiblement endommagé au niveau du bordé et de l’écubier tribord. Ce dernier est très proéminent sur ce bateau et est probablement renforcé pour soutenir son ancre et sa chaîne.

    • ça se confirme ; le centre de contrôle du trafic maritime avait également prévenu…

      Wrecked Norwegian Frigate Was Warned Prior to Collision
      https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/wrecked-norwegian-frigate-was-warned-prior-to-collision

      Prior to her collision with the Suezmax tanker Sola TS on Thursday, the Norwegian frigate KNM Helge Ingstad was repeatedly called over VHF, both by the approaching vessel and by the nearby Fedje VTS center, according to a new report. However, the bridge team on the frigate allegedly responded that they had the situation under control. The Ingstad and the Sola TS collided shortly thereafter. 

      Norwegian defense outlet Aldrimer first reported the radio exchange in an update Friday, citing “five sources” with independent knowledge of the accident.

      According to the report, the Sola TS spotted the Helge Ingstad visually shortly after departing the Sture petroleum terminal outside Bergen. The Ingstad was inbound, heading for the Haakonsvern Naval Base at Mathopen. The Sola’s bridge team called the Ingstad to determine her intentions. The Fedje VTS center also noted the situation and called the Ingstad repeatedly to warn that she was on a collision course. 

      Shortly after 0400 on Thursday, the two vessels collided. The impact tore a large hole in the Ingstad’s starboard side, spilling fuel, injuring eight crewmembers and rendering her unable to maneuver. Aldrimer’s sources reported that the Ingstad’s crew turned on her AIS transponder after the collision so that she could be easily located by rescuers, thereby corroborating the sudden appearance of her AIS signal on commercial tracking services shortly after the collision. 

      On Friday, Fedje Maritime Transport Center confirmed that it had played a role in a VHF exchange with the Ingstad. The Norwegian military declined requests for comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

    • Communiqué officiel de l’OTAN, le 8/11/18

      Allied Maritime Command - SNMG1 ship accident at sea
      https://mc.nato.int/media-centre/news/2018/snmg1-ship-accident-at-sea.aspx

      NORTHWOOD, United Kingdom (November 08, 2018) HNoMS Helge Ingstad was involved in a collision with the Maltese oil tanker Sola TS in Norwegian waters around 0400 this morning (8 Nov) while sailing inner Fjords for navigation training.

      Due to the damage to the frigate it was moved to a safe place and the crew was evacuated in a professional manner. There are no reports of damages or leaks from the oil tanker and no report of serious injuries, though eight crewmembers are being treated for minor injuries.

      The Norwegian Armed Forces are working with the Norwegian Coastal Authority to address the situation. The Norwegian frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad is part of the Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1). The group was sailing in and around the Fjords, following their participation in exercise Trident Juncture 2018 which concluded on November 7th.
       
      The rest of SNMG1’s ships are positioned nearby at sea in the event that further assistance is required. The Norwegian Armed Forces Press Office has lead for further information, contact at +47 40 43 80 83, info@njhq.no.

    • Plan de situation, histoire de ne pas perdre la main ;-)
      https://drive.google.com/open?id=1t_JjDMYnt3uLCIBt3wotJxemMltL87uI

      On remarquera que le lieu de l’échouage est à un jet de caillou du terminal d’Equinor (ex-Statoil)

      source de la localisation de l’échouage :
      We Have Located The Precise Spot Where Norway’s Half Sunken Frigate Lies (Updated) - The Drive
      http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24795/we-have-located-the-precise-spot-where-norways-half-sunken-frigate-lies

    • Ça n’a pas trainé ! VesselTracker (l’autre site, celui que je n’utilise quasiment pas,…) a sorti l’animation basée sur les enregistrements AIS. La collision a lieu, sans doute, vers 0:18-0:19, le Helge Ingstad active son transpondeur AIS juste après. Le Vestbris manœuvre en catastrophe pour éviter le Solas TS

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izbXbQ1Shmk

      EDIT : pour mémoire, les sources indiquent un délai de 8 minutes de temps réel entre l’appareillage du Solas et l’abordage.

    • À l’instant, l’intégralité des échanges en VHF entre Fedje, Sola et Helge Ingstad avec visualisation des positions de tous les bâtiments (y compris après la collision). En norvégien,…

      Le locuteur en norvégien du Sola TS, navire de l’armement grec Tsakos, sous pavillon maltais et dont l’équipage est certainement cosmopolite a de grandes chances d’être le pilote, basé justement au centre de contrôle du trafic de Fedje qui assure (de tous temps, dit WP) le service de pilotes pour le fjord de Bergen.

      VGTV - Hør samtalen mellom skipene

      https://www.vgtv.no/video/167055/hoer-samtalen-mellom-skipene

    • Les fuites quant aux échanges radio étaient fausses :
      – dès la prise de contact (laborieuse…) le pétrolier demande une manœuvre,
      – ce que la frégate annonce accepter, apparemment, sans qu’il se passe grand chose,
      – presque tout de suite après, le Solas TS réclame, fermement !, tourne ! sinon, c’est la collision.
      – le Helge Ingstad n’a jamais indiqué contrôler la situation. En fait, il ne dit rien… Après la collision, il dit qu’il essaye de contrôler la situation.

      Hør samtalen mellom skipene

      Fedje VTS, det er Sola TS,

      Sola TS, hør

      Ja, jeg hørte ikke navnet. Vet du hvilken båt som kommer mot oss her ?
      jeg har den litt på babord

      (10 secondes)

      Nei, det er en en… Jeg har ikke fått noen opplysninger on den.
      Den har ikke rapportert til meg.
      Jeg ser bare den dukker opp på skjermen her.
      Ingen opplysninger om den, nei, nei.
      Nei, okey.
      Nei (?)

      (43 secondes)

      Sola til VTS ?

      Ja

      Det er mulig det er « Helge Ingstad »
      Han kom inn nordfra en stund tilbake. Det er mulig det er han som kommer her.

      Helge Ingstad, hører du Sola TS ?

      Helge Ingstad

      Er det du som kommer her nå ?

      Ja det stemmer.
      Ta styrbord med en gang.
      Da går vi for nærme blokkene.

      Svinge styrbord, hvis det er du som kommer.
      Altså, du har…

      (7 secondes)

      Jeg har et par grader styrbord nå vi har passert eh…
      Passert eh…
      (?) styrbord

      Helge Hingstad, du må gjøre noe. Du begynner å nærme deg veldig.
      Helge Hingstad, drei !
      Det blir en kollisjon her da.
      (15 secondes)
      Det kan være en krigskip. Jeg traff den.

      Det er mottatt.

      (16 secondes)

      Det er tauebåten. Over.

      Ja, tauebåten er her, ja.

      Jeg tror vi bare må kalle ut de…
      De andre tauebåtene.
      Får se på skadene her.

      Heldigvis er det et sett med de da. Vi må jo se…

      (?)

      (25 secondes)

      Fedje VTS til Sola TS ?

      Sola TS hører.

      Har du kontakt med vår DD krigskip ?
      Ingen kontakt ?

      Hei, dette er Helge Ingstad.

      Hei, Helge Ingstad. Dette er VTS.
      Hører du meg ?

      Ja, så godt jeg klarer.
      (on entend l’alarme en fond…)
      Vi ligger da… like ved… nord for…
      Nord for Vetlefjorden.
      Har slått alarm. Prøver å få kontroll på situasjonen.

      Ja, er det du som har vært i kollisjonen der ved Sture ?

      Ja, det er korrekt.

      OK.
      Hvor mange personer har du ombord ?

      Vi har 134 personer ombord.

      OK.
      Gi meg status om situasjonen så snart som mulig, da.

      Ja, jeg skal gjøre det.

      Etter kollisjonen går Helge Ingstad inn mot land i rund 5 knop.

      Fedje VTS til Sola TS ?

      Sola TS svarer.

      Hvor mange personer har du ombord totalt ?

      (10 secondes)

      23

      Hvor mange passasjerer ?

      23

      23, ok, 2, 3

      Få en status av deg når du vet litt mer.

      Kan du gjenta ?

      Vi må få høre hvordan det går med deg etter hvert som du får litt mer oversikt.

      Det er ikke noe spesielt her.
      Vi går fram og sjekker på bauen, da. Så stoppet vi her.
      Forelopig så ser det bra ut, men vi må frem og se, vi vet jo ikke skadene der fremme.

      Ja, ok.

      Helge Ingstad til VTS ?
      (30 secondes)
      Helge Ingstad til VTS ?

      Ferje TS, KNM Helge Ingstad.

      Helge Ingstad til VTS ?

      Vi har en situasjon.
      Vi har gått på et ukjent objekt.
      Vi har ikke fremdrift.

      Helge Ingstad har ikke fremdrift ?

      De har vært i en kollisjon med Sola TS, forstår jeg.
      De driver inn mot land uten fremdrift.
      Har du gått på grunn ?

      Det er foreløpig litt løst fra min side, men vi trenger umiddelbar assistanse.

      Trenger umiddelbar assistanse.

      (?) rett fram.

      Vi skal se om vi kan få tak i en tauebåt.

      (?)

      Ajax, Ajax til VTS ?

      Trauebåten Ajax blir sendt fra terminalen med en gang.

      Ajax, Ajax, jeg gjentar.

      Ja Ferdje VTS til Ajax.

      (?) Helge Ingstad. Han ligger like nord for deres.
      Han ligger uten framdrift.

      (?)

      Helge Ingstad til VTS ?

      Helge Ingstad.

      Tauebåten Ajax fikk beskjed. Den er på vei.

      (?)

      Den (?) om mer enn tre minutter.

      Ajax, Ajax, KNM Ingstad K16.

      Ajax til VTS ?

      Helge Ingstad, Ajax.

      Ajax, KNM Helge Ingstad K16. Vi er på vei.

      Vi har ingen framdrift, vi går på noe anker.
      Vi trenger assistanse fra taeubåt.

      note (quelques à peu près de gg:translate) :
      • tauebåt, ce n’est pas « bateau-feu » mais remorqueur (tugboat)
      • framdrift / uten framdrift, ce n’est pas « progrès / sans progrès », mais propulsion / sans propulsion

    • Article de Defense News quelques heures après la diffusion des échanges. La présentation de ceux-ci souffrent toujours des à peu près des commentaires initiaux.

      Warnings and confusion preceded Norwegian frigate disaster : here’s what we know
      https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/11/11/warnings-and-confusion-preceded-norwegian-frigate-disaster-heres-what-w

      The Royal Norwegian Navy was dealt a devastating blow in the early morning hours of November 10 when one of its five capital Nansen-class frigates collided with a fully loaded oil tanker more than 10 times its size while returning NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise.

      The frigate Helge Ingstad lost steering and drifted at five knots onto the rocky shore near Norwegian port of Sture, north of Bergen, saving the ship from sinking in the Fjord, according to media reports. The crew of 137 was forced to abandon ship. Ingstad is now resting on its side on three points while crews move to secure it.

      The disaster has far-reaching consequences for the Norwegian Navy, which is facing the loss of one of its premier warfighting assets,

      This is a huge blow to the Norwegian navy,” said Sebastian Bruns, who heads the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security at the University of Kiel in northern Germany. The loss of the $400 million ship, which appeared likely, leaves the Norwegian Navy with a 20 percent cut to its most advanced class of ship, Burns said.

      The situation is made all the more painful as evidence mounts that Ingstad was repeatedly warned to alter course before the collision and failed to take corrective action to avoid the collision.

      Local media reported that the Maltese-flagged tanker Sola TS identified Ingstad and tried to avoid the disaster. The reports also revealed details that show that Ingstad did not have a firm grasp of the surface picture it was sailing into.

      The disaster developed quickly, with Ingstad transiting the channel inbound at 17 knots and Sola TS traveling outbound at 7 knots.

      Sola TS raised the Ingstad multiple times and was discussing the emerging danger with shore-based Central Station, according to the Norwegian paper Verdens Gang. The responses from Ingstad appear confused, at one point saying that if they altered the course it would take them too close to the shoals, which prompted Sola TS to respond that they had to do something or a collision would be unavoidable.

      Contributing to the confusion, the Ingstad appears to have been transiting with its Automatic Identification System switched off. That seems to have delayed recognition by central control and the other ships in the area that Ingstad was inbound and heading into danger, the account in VG seems to indicate.

    • Mon interprétation, au vu des échanges – et des dégâts provoqués par la collision (la capture de la visualisation de l’écran radar n’est pas vraiment lisible) : il semblerait que le Helge Ingstad après avoir accepté d’infléchir sa trajectoire vers la droite (à tribord) ait, en fait, viré vers sa gauche, d’où l’impact à tribord, au deux tiers de sa flottaison.

      On voit la déchirure provoquée par l’écubier, il n’est pas possible de savoir si le bulbe du pétrolier a entrainé des dégâts sous la flottaison. Sans doute, non puisque le Solas TS a pu reprendre sa route sans trop de problème et à vitesse normale.

      Sous le choc (17 noeuds entrant vs 7 noeuds sortant, presque 45 km/h de vitesse relative) le Helge Ingstad a pivoté sur sa droite est s’est retrouvé, désemparé, sans propulsion, ni gouvernail, à dériver vers la côte à 5 noeuds ; la manœuvre n’a pas du tout été délibérée, mais entièrement subie.

    • Il y a 3 jours, Le Figaro reprenait les éléments de langage de l’armée norvégienne, rien depuis. Quant au Monde, aucun signe de l’affaire ; la dernière mention de la frégate norvégienne est de janvier 2014, où elle opérait à Chypre dans le cadre du contrôle des livraisons d’armes chimiques en Syrie…

      Norvège : une frégate menace de couler après une collision
      http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2018/11/08/97001-20181108FILWWW00059-norvege-7-blesses-legers-dans-une-collision-entre

      « La KNM Helge Ingstad a subi des dégâts au-dessus et en dessous de la ligne de flottaison. Les dégâts étaient tels que la frégate n’était plus stable et n’avait plus assez de capacité de flottaison », a déclaré Sigurd Smith, officier de la Marine norvégienne, lors d’une conférence de presse. « Il a par conséquent été décidé de l’échouer énergiquement sur le rivage », a-t-il expliqué. La Marine a refusé de se prononcer à ce stade sur les causes de la collision.

    • en Norvège, tout finit par des chansons,
      sur NRK, (vidéo sur FB, uniquement)
      https://www.facebook.com/NRK/videos/582039188932786

      Vi hadde en gang en båt,
      en feiende flott fregatt
      men plutsellig så gikk det galt en november-nat.

      å grøss og gru
      å grøss og gru
      Hva skjedde nu ?
      Jeg bare undres :
      Hva skjedde nu ?

      Fregatten Helge Ingstad så stolt og kry.
      Hal toppseil my boys, hit hoy,
      Kosta to milliarder da den var ny
      Hal toppseil my boys, hit hoy.

      Nå var hun på øvelse smekker og grå
      sonarer og radarer passet godt på
      men tankern med olje kom ut av det blå.
      Hal toppseil my boys, hit hoy,

      Hør skipsklokkens, klang
      noe galt er på gang
      men vi holder kursen som vi alt satt
      for dette er den norske marinen fregatt !
      Hal toppseil my boys, hit hoy,

    • Une version officieuse qui circule en défense de la marine norvégienne : le Sola TS n’était pas sur le rail du trafic sortant, il est plus à l’ouest. À quoi, il est répondu :
      • il venait d’appareiller, sa vitesse n’était que de 5 noeuds, alors que le flux sortant était à 10 noeuds,
      • pour appareiller, vu la situation, il a besoin de l’autorisation du centre de contrôle du trafic (Fedje VTS)

      … qui lui a, sans doute, été accordée (ce n’est pas dit). Et c’est là, que l’absence d’information AIS prend toute son importance. L’écho radar était visible, mais pas l’identification, ni la vitesse (17 noeuds, ce qui n’est pas rien dans un détroit (un fjord, en fait,…) Le centre de contrôle ne devait certainement pas suivre manuellement (à l’ancienne !…) l’écho radar, se reposant sur les informations visualisées.

      Sjøoffiser mener at tankskipet « Sola TS » hadde feil kurs før ulykken – NRK Norge – Oversikt over nyheter fra ulike deler av landet
      https://www.nrk.no/norge/sjooffiser-mener-at-tankskipet-_sola-ts_-hadde-feil-kurs-for-ulykken-1.14290245

      Hvorfor « Sola TS » ikke legger seg på samme linje som den andre trafikken, er ikke klart. Det er noe som besetningen om bord og losen sannsynligvis kan forklare.
      […]
      Den andre trafikken var skip som hadde større hastighet enn « Sola TS ». Ut fra AIS-data så er det klart at disse måtte vike dersom tankskipet hadde fortsatt mer mot øst før det tok svingen mot nord.

      […]

      – Tankskip som skal forlate en terminal kaller opp trafikksentralen med informasjon om at de er klar for avgang, og angir seilingsrute. Deretter blir det gitt seilingsklarering dersom det ikke er noe hinder for dette, skriver regiondirektør John Erik Hagen i Kystverket i en generell kommentar til NRK.

    • DN : Berging av fregatten « Helge Ingstad » kan koste opptil 300.000 kroner per dag - Forsvaret - Næringsliv - E24
      http://e24.no/naeringsliv/forsvaret/dn-berging-av-fregatten-helge-ingstad-kan-koste-opptil-300-000-kroner-per-dag/24490783

      Trondheim-selskapet Boa Management har fått oppdraget å løfte havarerte KNM «Helge Ingstad» på lekter og frakte båten til verft. Det melder Dagens Næringsliv.

      Skipsmeglere avisen har kontaktet anslår med noen forbehold at det kan koste 30.000-35.000 dollar per dag å leie inn taubåt og lekter som trengs for jobben. Altså mellom 250.000 og 300.000 kroner.

    • Le texte d’Aldrimer.no repris ci-dessus par la NRK.
      KNM Helge Ingstad fryktet å gå på grunn ‹ aldrimer.no
      https://www.aldrimer.no/knm-helge-ingstad-fryktet-a-ga-pa-grunn

      Il contient une vidéo d’animation des trajectoires AIS plus claire, avec un champ plus large.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6I1twpZVIY

      elle permet de suivre, p. ex. la trajectoire de l’Ajax qui a aidé à l’appareillage du Sola TS et qui repart immédiatement, comme on l’entend dans la transcription VHF, à la demande de Fedje VTS, dès l’abordage. Son trajet permet, en creux de suivre celui du KNM Helge Ingstad, sur laquelle viennent s’agglutiner les remorqueurs. Malgré la localisation AIS, du navire de guerre de l’OTAN, F313 qui apparaît brusquement (à 0’09"), après la collision, derrière le Sola pour ne plus bouger ensuite, la MàJ de la position ne se faisant plus.

    • RIP KNM Helge Ingstad !


      A shipwrecked Norwegian navy frigate “KNM Helge Ingstad” is seen in this Norwegian Coastal Administration handout picture in Oygarden, Norway, November 13, 2018.
      Jakob Ostheim/Norwegian Coastal Administration/Handout vis REUTERS

      Norwegian frigate now nearly submerged after collision
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-accident/norwegian-frigate-now-nearly-submerged-after-collision-idUSKCN1NI10Z


      A shipwrecked Norwegian navy frigate “KNM Helge Ingstad” is seen in this Norwegian Coastal Administration handout picture in Oygarden, Norway, November 13, 2018.
      Jakob Ostheim/Norwegian Coastal Administration/Handout vis REUTERS

      A Norwegian navy frigate that collided with an oil tanker last week was almost completely submerged on Tuesday despite efforts to salvage the sinking vessel, pictures taken by the Norwegian Coastal Administration showed.

      The ship’s plight off the Norwegian coast is, however, not disrupting the nearby Sture crude oil export terminal. “We are in normal operations,” said a spokeswoman for the plant’s operator, Equinor.

      The Norwegian military has been working since Thursday to salvage the ship by tethering it with several cables to the shore. Some of these had broken.

      The ship sunk a meter further and, as a result, two wires broke. They were replaced with two stronger ones. We worked until midnight on this. After midnight, we realized it was not safe for our staff to carry on the work further,” said Haavard Mathiesen, the head of the salvage operation for the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency.

      Around 0600 (0500 GMT), more wires broke and the ship sank further. It is now in deep water and stable,” he told a news conference.

      The ship was stranded off Norway’s west coast early last Thursday after it collided with the tanker that had left the Sture terminal. The facility was shut for several hours as a result.

      Eight Navy staff, out of a total crew of 137, were slightly injured in the incident.

    • L’édito de gCaptain.
      Pas de piste, pas d’hypothèse, un appel à la vigilance.

      Who Sunk The Battleship ? – gCaptain
      https://gcaptain.com/who-sunk-the-battleship

      Again. There was a collision at sea again.
      […]
      Take the time to read up on this seemingly textbook collision. Think about the other maritime incidents that have happened recently. Don’t think that these accidents only happen to other people – it only takes one misstep between a near miss and a catastrophe.

      Take away what you’ve observed from this – discuss it with your colleagues. Find ways to ever be improving. Awareness, procedures, re-design from lessons learned.

      Fair winds and following seas – if not that a strong hull and a cautious mariner.

      Note : la première partie de la dernière phrase est traditionnelle, la suite moins.
      https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/NHC/fairwinds.htm

    • L’amiral commandant les forces navales états-uniennes en Europe était à bord de la frégate. C’est lui qui était le responsable de l’exercice OTAN Trident Juncture

      Amerikansk offiser om bord da « Helge Ingstad » kolliderte - Bergens Tidende
      https://www.bt.no/article/bt-VRJjWV.html

      TOPPADMIRAL: Sjefen for de amerikanske marinestyrkene i Europa, admiral James G. Foggo III, var om bord på KNM «Helge Ingstad» fire dager før ulykken. Etter ulykken har Havarikommisjonen sendt en henvendelse til Foggos styrke. De vil ikke si hvorfor.
      FOTO: MARIUS VÅGENES VILLANGER / FORSVARET

      Amerikansk offiser om bord da Helge Ingstad kolliderte
      En amerikansk marineoffiser var om bord på KNM Helge Ingstad da det smalt, bekrefter Forsvarsdepartementet. Offiserens rolle blir nå etterforsket.

      James G. Foggo III - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Foggo_III

      James “Jamie” Gordon Foggo III (born September 2, 1959) is a United States Navy admiral who currently serves as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe while concurrently serving as the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Africa and commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples.
      […]
      25 October to 7 November 2018, admiral Foggo is responsible for conducting the NATO exercise Trident Juncture.

    • De mauvais esprits font remarquer la très faible efficacité (!) des travaux entrepris tout de suite après l’échouage pour empêcher le naufrage de la frégate…

      La glissade au fond a englouti les composants à forte valeur qui étaient initialement récupérables (radar Aegis et système électronique hypersophistiqués, idem pour la propulsion par turbine)
      (on remarquera sur la photo ci-dessous qu’il en va à peu près de même pour le dispositif anti-pollution à en juger par les irisations de chaque côté des barrages flottants…)

      Lokale selskaper bak mislykket « Helge Ingstad »-sikring - VG
      https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/EoryO2/lokale-selskaper-bak-mislykket-helge-ingstad-sikring

      Ifølge Forsvaret ble den beste kompetansen i Norge hentet inn da bergingen av KNM « Helge Ingstad » ble satt i gang. Kritikere sier arbeidet fremstår uprofesjonelt. Nå står milliardfregatten under vann, og er i fare for å gli videre ut på dypet.

      Therese RidarMagnus NewthOda Leraan Skjetne
      Publisert:16.11.18 21:15

      Da KNM « Helge Ingstad » ble grunnstøtt etter kollisjonen forrige uke, ble fregatten sikret med ti stålvaiere festet til land. Sikringsjobben var ferdig lørdag morgen. Slik lå skipet fram til mandag kveld, da vaierne foran på skipet begynte å ryke. Tirsdag morgen hadde alle festepunktene foran på fartøyet røket, og « Helge Ingstad » sank nesten helt under vann.

      Den mislykkede sikringen av fregatten til en verdi av fire milliarder har fått hard kritikk i ettertid.

    • Voici donc mon #Thread concernant l’accident du #HelgeIngstad, cette frégate que la Norvège a perdu sans combattre il y a une semaine..

      François Narolles @FNarolles
      https://twitter.com/FNarolles/status/1063493033969287170

      signalé par @unagi, https://seenthis.net/messages/736408#message736413

      Mon analyse est très voisine, mais j’aurais tendance à augmenter la responsabilité du centre de contrôle du trafic.

      • la frégate va vite, très vite, trop vite : 17 noeuds, c’est pratiquement le double de la vitesse de l’ensemble des bateaux environnants, la vitesse de rapprochement est donc de 44 km/h, soit 11 m/s
      • son AIS est éteint, alors que le navire est en vue des côtes, dans un trafic dense, ça n’a pratiquement que des inconvénients (c’est une des conclusions des analyses des accidents des destroyers de la marine états-unienne l’année dernière). D’un autre côté, on comprend que l’état-major soit réticent à ce que tout le monde (y compris les méchants) puisse connaître en une connexion à MarineTraffic ou VesselFinder la position des navires de sa flotte, du moins ceux qui sont en eaux côtières

      • le centre de contrôle du trafic échoue totalement dans sa mission et commet une très lourde faute. Quand le pétrolier lui demande qui il a en face de lui, le VTS ne le sait pas d’emblée. C’est proprement ahurissant. Il est probable que cela vient du fait que le suivi des navires se fait uniquement sur la base de l’AIS ; position, cap et vitesse sont affichés automatiquement. Il n’y a probablement pas (ou alors pas au même endroit) de suivi manuel du navire sans AIS ; celui-ci mobilise une charge mentale intense, une grande concentration et génère un stress non négligeable (souvenirs précis de service militaire en Iroise,…)
      • d’après ce que j’ai lu, le VTS doit autoriser l’appareillage des navires du port pétrolier. Si c’est exact, alors il a donné un clear pour une situation qui ne l’était pas du tout et était hautement problématique. En demandant de retarder l’appareillage d’une demi-heure, ça laissait le temps à la frégate de défiler et de dégager le terrain

      • je ne vois pas trop ce que le Sola TS aurait pu faire d’autre, il est à 5 noeuds, en phase d’accélération pour atteindre les 10 noeuds qui lui permettront de s’injecter dans le rail sortant, ce qui fait qu’il est décalé vers l’ouest par rapport à ce rail, fermant une partie du passage pour le Helge Ingstad. Ses capacités de manoeuvre sont très limitées, c’est d’ailleurs pour ça qu’il a toujours un remorqueur au cul (le Tenax).
      • sans doute, lui aussi, pouvait (aurait pu…) maintenir une veille radar et suivre les échos, y compris sans AIS, – cf. supra – mais, il est possible que son radar ait été masqué par les structures du port et, donc, que la frégate n’ait pas été perçue au départ du quai (par ailleurs, elle était encore « loin ») et, surtout, c’est normalement le boulot du VTS.

      À mon sens, à partir du moment où le pétrolier a appareillé, la situation est plus que problématique et il aurait fallu un enchaînement exceptionnel pour éviter la catastrophe (perception ultra-rapide de la situation et de sa gravité, manoeuvre sans hésitation de la frégate dès la prise de contact radio).

    • Le rapport préliminaire d’enquête de la commission norvégienne d’enquête. On peut saluer la performance et la transparence : moins d’un mois après l’événement !

      Investigation of marine accident, collision outside the Sture Oil Terminal in Hjeltefjorden, Norway | aibn
      https://www.aibn.no/Marine/Investigations/18-968

      On the morning of Thursday 8 November 2018, the Accident Investigation Board Norway (AIBN) was informed of a collision between the frigate ’KNM Helge Ingstad’ and the Maltese registered tanker ’Sola TS’ in Hjeltefjorden, outside the Sture terminal in Øygarden Municipality in Hordaland County, Norway. The AIBN contacted the Defence Accident Investigation Board Norway (DAIBN) and it was decided to initiate a joint investigation into the accident, led by the AIBN. The AIBN then contacted the Marine Safety Investigation Unit of Malta (MSIU), which is also a participating party in the investigation; cf. Chapter 18 Section 474 of the Norwegian Maritime Code.

      29 November 2018 the AIBN publishes a preliminary report on the accident and two interim safety recommendations. This preliminary report is published to communicate the information obtained during the initial phase of the ongoing investigation. The purpose is to provide a brief update on how the investigation is progressing as well as a preliminary description of the sequence of events and disseminate safety-critical issues identified at this stage of the investigation. This preliminary report also identifies areas that need further investigation and describes lines of investigation that will be followed up.

      En lien, deux pdf
      • Preliminary report 29.11.201
      • Appendix : Interim safety recommendations 29.11.2018

    • De très utiles précisions :
      • le Sola TS avait laissé ses feux de ponts allumés le rendant difficile à distinguer des lumières du terminal pétrolier dont il s’éloignait doucement et ne permettant pas le repérage rapide de ses feux de navigation et donc la lecture de sa trajectoire
      • dans la version de la passerelle du KNM Helge Ingstad où venait de s’effectuer la passation de quart, cette masse lumineuse a été prise pour un obstacle fixe non identifié et c’est cette perception qui justifie l’absence de manoeuvre d’évitement vers la droite, justement pour éviter de percuter cet obstacle fixe

    • À noter surtout dans les recommandations préliminaires la mention d’un grave défaut de conception de ces frégates (et peut-être d’autres issues des chantiers espagnols Navantia.

      En effet, les dégâts provoqués par la collision ont noyé 3 compartiments étanches mettant en péril la stabilité du bâtiment mais lui permettant de se maintenir à flot, conclusion initiale à bord, conforme aux documents décrivant la stabilité du navire, ceux-ci mentionnant que l’envahissement d’un quatrième compartiment entrainait la perte du bâtiment.

      Or, l’eau s’est rapidement infiltré dans un quatrième compartiment en passant par les passages des arbres d’hélice, puis aux autres compartiments à travers les cloisons.

      To start with, flooding occurred in three watertight compartments on board KNM Helge Ingstad: the aft generator room, the orlob deck’s crew quarters and the stores room. There was some uncertainty as to whether the steering engine room, the aftmost compartment, was also filling up with water. Based on this damage, the crew, supported by the vessel’s stability documents, assessed the vessel as having ’poor stability’ status, but that it could be kept afloat. If more compartments were flooded, the status would be assessed as ’vessel lost’ on account of further loss of stability.

      Next, the crew found that water from the aft generator room was running into the gear room via the hollow propeller shafts and that the gear room was filling up fast. From the gear room, the water then ran into and was flooding the aft and fore engine rooms via the stuffing boxes in the bulkheads. This meant that the flooding became substantially more extensive than indicated by the original damage. Based on the flooding of the gear room, it was decided to prepare for evacuation.

      The AIBN considers the vessel’s lack of watertight integrity to be a safety issue relating to Nansen-class frigates and therefore issues the following two safety alerts.

    • Early report blames confused watchstanders, possible design flaws for Norway’s sunken frigate
      https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/11/29/early-report-blames-confused-watchstanders-possible-design-flaws-for-no

      In a statement to Defense News, Navantia spokesperson Esther Benito Lope stressed that the report is “very preliminary” and that the company has offered to work with Norway on the investigation.

      Navantia has offered, since the very beginning, its collaboration with the [Royal Norwegian Navy] in order to clarify the accident,” Benito Lope said. “Navantia will analyze all the possibilities, considering that some of the mentioned possibilities … are concluded from a very preliminary investigation.

      The statement went on to say that the company has not received any official notice or fielded any consultations about the cause of the accident.

      Navantia has not received any official communication, neither any consults about possible causes, nor participated in any action … in Norway,” Benito Lope wrote.

    • Navy divers arrive at KNM «Helge Ingstad» - Norway Today
      http://norwaytoday.info/news/navy-divers-arrive-at-knm-helge-ingstad

      The vessel is not lifted anytime soon. The vessel is filled with nearly 10,000 cubic meters of seawater, and a large part of this must be pumped out first, the Project Manager for the Salvage Operation, Commander Captain Arild Øydegard tells VG.

      We have great lifting capacity, but not to lift both a vessel of about 5,000 deadweight tonnes and another 10,000 metric ton of seawater. So this we have to get rid of underway – we have estimated that we might have 500 cubic metres left when we lift it up, he says.
      […]
      There is still no final decision as to whether the Frigate may be repaired. According to VG, two working groups have been established to assess that question; one who will try to salvage the material on board and one who is planning a possible repairing.

      Øydegard announces that the hull is relatively intact, except for the 45-metre tear that the Frigate sustained in the collision with «Sola TS».

      We have damage to the rudder and such, but this is a warship which hull has tolerated the stresses so far, Øydegard explains.

    • Grave problème d’étanchéité d’une frégate norvégienne construite par Navantia
      https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/grave-probleme-d-etancheite-d-une-fregate-norvegienne-construite-par-navan

      Le Bureau d’enquête sur les accidents de la Norvège a identifié dans un rapport préliminaire des « problèmes de sécurité critiques », qui nécessitent une « attention immédiate ». Notamment des problèmes d’étanchéité entre les compartiments de la frégate KNM Helge Ingstad construite en 2009 par Navantia.

      Coup dur pour Navantia. Après la collision le 8 novembre entre une frégate norvégienne, un bâtiment moderne d’environ 5.000 tonnes construit par le chantier naval espagnol, et le pétrolier maltais Sola TV, le Bureau d’enquête sur les accidents de la Norvège (AIBN) a identifié dans un rapport préliminaire public daté du 29 novembre, des « problèmes de sécurité critiques », qui nécessitent une « attention immédiate ». L’AIBN a affirmé que le manque d’étanchéité entre les compartiments des frégates de la classe Nansen, est l’un de ces problèmes de sécurité. Il a déjà émis deux alertes de sécurité en attendant de poursuivre une enquête plus approfondie.

    • Frégate HNoMS Helge Ingstad : un rapport de la marine espagnole remet en cause la version norvégienne | Le portail des sous-marins
      https://www.corlobe.tk

      #C’était_à_prévoir : les critiques adressées au constructeur Navantia par le rapport préliminaire du bureau norvégien d’enquêtes sur les accidents maritimes ne passent pas en Espagne. La marine espagnole a rédigé son propre rapport qui dédouane complètement Navantia et conclut qu’une erreur humaine a été la cause principale de l’accident de la frégate Helge Ingstad.

      Ce rapport remet en cause la version des autorités norvégiennes : la semaine dernière, le bureau norvégien d’enquêtes sur les accidents maritimes avait pointé du doigt le chantier naval espagnol. Selon le rapport espagnol, « il existe des preuves claires que les dommages initiaux ont touché 4 compartiments étanches, et des indices que 5 aient été réellement endommagés dans la collision, ce qui dépasse les critères de survie fixés pour ce navire. »

      Le rapport interne de la marine espagnole explique que « la longueur de la déchirure visible sur les photos est de 15% de la longueur à la ligne de flottaison (18,2 m), soit 3 tranches contigües inondées. »

      Il ajoute aussi que l’avarie pourrait avoir aussi touché d’autres compartiments. « L’analyse des images indique que, probablement, sous la ligne de flottaison, un 4è compartiment étanche ait été éventré. »

      Pour la marine espagnole, une erreur humaine est la seule cause de l’accident. Une suite d’erreurs ont été commises : navigation à vitesse excessive (environ 17 nœuds), non-utilisation de l’AIS, non-respect du règlement international de prévention des abordages en mer, et non-prise en compte des avertissements du pétrolier.

      Le rapport conclut que « aucun navire ayant des caractéristiques similaires à la frégate n’aurait été capable de contrôler la voie d’eau et d’éviter le naufrage ».

      Remarque : que la cause de l’accident soit une erreur humaine ne fait guère de doute, ce qui est en cause est la suite, l’issue finale de l’accident : le naufrage…

    • Integrity of Nansen-class frigates questioned by Helge Ingstad investigation | Insurance Marine News
      https://insurancemarinenews.com/insurance-marine-news/integrity-of-nansen-class-frigates-questioned-by-helge-ingstad-

      Meanwhile, during the weekend of December 1st and 2nd, the Coastal Administration continued monitoring the Helge Ingstad with daily inspections of the oil spill equipment. Patrol boat Bergen and anti-pollution vessel Utvær were in the area and had collected about 50m3 of oil mixture by December 1st. In total, about 90m3 of diesel mixed with water had been recovered by the Utvær.

  • Photos : Oil Spills After Tunisian Ferry T-Bones Anchored Containership in Mediterranean – gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/photos-oil-spills-after-tunisian-ferry-t-bones-anchored-containership-in-m


    photo : Préfecture maritime de la Méditerranée

    Authorities in France and Italy are responding to a major oil slick after a ferry collided with an anchored containership in the Mediterranean Sea off the island of Corsica.

    The collision occurred Sunday morning when the Tunisian roll-on/roll-off ferry Ulysses collided broadside with the Cypriot registered containership CLS Virginia approximately 17 miles (28 km) north of Cape Corsica. 

    The collision caused a breach of the containership’s hull measuring several meters and resulting in the release of bunker fuel.

    An oil slick measuring 20 km long by several hundred meters wide has been observed moving to the northwest, moving away from Corsica, according to France’s Maritime Prefecture for the Mediterranean.

    Photos show the bow of the ferry embedded in the starboard side of the containership, which is not loaded with any containers.

  • U.S. Navy Commences Oil Removal from Capsized German Cruiser ’Prinz Eugen’ in Marshall Islands – gCaptain
    https://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-commences-oil-removal-from-capsized-german-cruiser-prinz-eugen-in


    The U.S. Army, in partnership with the U.S. Navy and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, are safely recovering oil from the capsized World War II German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Kwajalein Atoll.
    U.S. Navy Photo by LeighAhn Ferrari

    The Prinz Eugen was transferred to the U. S. Navy as a war prize from the British Royal Navy after the war, and in 1946, it was loaded with oil and cargo and used to test the survivability of warships during the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

    During the test, the cruise withstood the initial blast but sustained heavy damage. Five months later, however, she capsized and sank in Kwajalein Lagoon, approximately 3.6 miles from Kwajalein.

    The wreck contained about 2,767 metric tons of oil when it sank, and an assessment of the wreckage has shown that there remains a high risk of a spill of more than 1,000 metric tons.

    A U.S. Navy report on the oil spill risk conducted in 1974 recommended that oil be removed from the wreck within 30 years, but Ownership of the wreckage was eventually transferred to the Republic of Marshall Islands in 1986.

    • German cruiser Prinz Eugen - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Prinz_Eugen

      The ship survived two atomic bomb blasts: Test Able, an air burst on 1 July 1946 and Test Baker, a submerged detonation on 25 July. Prinz Eugen was moored about 1,200 yards (1,100 m) from the epicenter of both blasts and was only lightly damaged by them; the Able blast only bent her foremast and broke the top of her main mast. She suffered no significant structural damage from the explosions but was thoroughly contaminated with radioactive fallout. The irradiated ship was towed to the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific, where a small leak went unrepaired due to the radiation danger. On 29 August 1946, the US Navy decommissioned Prinz Eugen.

      By late December 1946, the ship was in very bad condition; on 21 December, she began to list severely. A salvage team could not be brought to Kwajalein in time, so the US Navy attempted to beach the ship to prevent her from sinking, but on 22 December, Prinz Eugen capsized and sank.

    • Je viens de remonter le temps avec gg:earth sur l’embouchure du détroit de Johor, la progression des terres à partir de 1995 est assez impressionnante.

      Quant aux paquets de bateaux qui sont mouillés en rade, la vingtaine qui sont devant les chantiers navals de ces nouvelles terres a l’air d’être là depuis un bon bout de temps (au minimum 3 ans) et on les voit éviter au fil des vents et des courants… Ceci dit, ils sont dans les eaux malaisiennes, la délimitation remontant à avant les polders passe maintenant presque à toucher la côte singapourienne.

      Je me demande, d’ailleurs, pour cette « flotte fantôme » s’il y a une quelconque forme de gardiennage et, donc, dans quel état se trouvent les navires ? En particulier l’équipement de passerelle (radar, radio, compas, …) et les apparaux de manœuvres. Ont-ils été démontés avant abandon, laissés en place en vue d’une réactivation éventuelle du navire (une partie est censée avoir été « mise sous cocon » ou vandalisés par les pirates dont la renommée n’est plus à faire dans ces détroits ?…

      On trouve quelques (en fait, pas temps que ça) photos des files de navires, mais jamais vues des ponts ou des machines. Bon, il faut déjà pouvoir grimper à bord et ce doit être une sacrée expédition. La surveillance singapourienne doit (devrait ?) être relativement sérieuse, mais qu’en est-il de celle exercée par les autorités de Malaisie ?

      Peut-être terrain glissant…

    • U.S. Navy Salvage Team Completes Oil Removal from Former German Cruiser Prinz Eugen – gCaptain
      https://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-salvage-team-completes-oil-removal-from-former-german-cruiser-pri


      The U.S. Army, in partnership with the U.S. Navy and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, are safely recovering oil from the capsized World War II German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Kwajalein Atoll.
      U.S. Navy photo by LeighAhn Ferrari, chief mate, U.S. Naval Ship Salvor

      A U.S. Navy-led salvage team has successfully removed 229,000 gallons of oil from the sunken World War II vessel ex-Prinz Eugen located in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

      229000 gallons -> 866 mètres cube (à peu près autant de tonnes, entre 1/3 et 1/4 de piscine olympique, pour prendre les éléments de comparaison habituels ;-)

  • Saudi Arabia suspends oil exports through Red Sea lane after Houthi attack | Reuters
    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-yemen-security/houthis-target-saudi-warship-off-yemen-coast-al-masirah-tv-idUKKBN1KF0WN

    Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it was “temporarily halting” all oil shipments through the strategic Red Sea shipping lane of #Bab_al-Mandeb after an attack on two big oil tankers by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

    Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said in a statement sent by his ministry that the Houthis had attacked two Saudi Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) in the Red Sea on Wednesday morning, one of which sustained minimal damage.

    Saudi Arabia is temporarily halting all oil shipments through Bab al-Mandeb Strait immediately until the situation becomes clearer and the maritime transit through Bab al-Mandeb is safe,” the statement said.

    #Bab_el_Mandeb

    • Les deux pétroliers, non identifiés, appartiennent à Bahri, la filiale Maritime de Saudi Aramco.
      http://www.bahri.sa/Images/logo.aspx?width=423&height=129&ext=.png

      Saudi Arabia suspends oil exports through Bab al-Mandeb | Yemen News | Al Jazeera
      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/saudi-arabia-suspends-oil-exports-bab-el-mandeb-180725215417388.html

      A statement by the coalition said one tanker was attacked west of Yemen’s Hodeidah port but did not name the vessel or describe how it was hit.

      The Saudi oil tanker was subjected to slight damage due to the attack by the Houthi militia,” the statement said. “Thankfully the attack failed due to immediate intervention of the coalition’s fleet.

      A statement from Saudi Aramco said “two Very Large Crude Carriers [VLCCs], each with a two million barrels capacity ... were attacked by terrorist Houthi militia this morning in the Red Sea. One of the ships sustained minimal damage. No injuries nor oil spill have been reported”.

    • هل هُناك عَلاقة بين هُجوم الحوثيين على نَاقِلَة نِفط سُعوديّة في البَحر الأحمر وتَهديد إيران بإغلاق مَضيق هرمز؟ ولماذا تتزايَد تسريبات الإمارات حَول نواياها بسَحبِ قُوّاتِها مِن اليَمن هَذهِ الأيّام؟ وكيف نُفَسِّر الصَّمت السُّعوديّ تُجاهَها؟ | رأي اليوم
      https://www.raialyoum.com/index.php/%d9%87%d9%84-%d9%87%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%83-%d8%b9%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%82%d8%a9-%d8%

      Edito ABA dans Rai al-yom : "Y a-t-il un lien entre l’assaut des Houthis contre le pétrolier saoudien en mer Rouge et les menaces iraniennes de fermer le détroit d’Hormuz ? Pourquoi voit-on se multiplier les rumeurs à propos d’un retrait des forces émiriennes au Yémen ? Pourquoi ce silence saoudien sur ce sujet ?

    • D’après Mujtahidd, il ne s’agit pas d’un pétrolier mais bel et bien d’un bâtiment de guerre....

      السفينة التي ضربت قرب باب المندب كانت بارجة حربية سعودية لكن ابن سلمان تحاشى أن يعترف أن الحوثيين لديهم قدرة على تدمير سفنه الحربية فزعم أنها ناقلة نفط الأحمق لم يدرك أن الاعتراف بعجز كامل عن حماية باب المندب بعد ثلاث سنوات من الحرب أخطر من الاعتراف بضرب بارجة حربية

    • UAE Calls Houthi Attack on Oil Shipments Totally Irresponsible - The New York Times
      https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/07/26/world/26reuters-yemen-security-emirates.html

      An attack on Wednesday by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels on two oil tankers in the Red Sea was totally irresponsible, United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said.

      This is a totally irresponsible act,” he told an audience in London on Thursday. “The effect of it actually is much wider than the region.

      He added: “I think this is another example of why the Houthi takeover of the Yemeni government in Sanaa should end.

      Saudi Arabia and arch-foe Iran have been locked in a three-year proxy war in Yemen, which lies on one side of the Bab al-Mandeb strait at the southern mouth of the sea, one of the most important trade routes for oil tankers heading from the Middle East to Europe.

      The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states fighting to gain control of the Houthi-controlled main port of Hodeidah.

      The only way forward is to get Hodeidah,” Gargash said. “What we are planning to do is give diplomacy every possible chance to secure that.

      #yapuka … l’offensive « finale » sur Hodeida démarrée le 13 juin est « en pause » pour laisser sa chance à la diplomatie depuis le 1er juillet.

    • Saudi Arabia resumes oil exports through Red Sea lane | Reuters
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/saudi-arabia-to-resume-oil-exports-through-red-sea-lane-idUSKBN1KP0B7

      Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Saturday it has resumed all oil shipments through the strategic Red Sea shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb.

      Saudi Arabia halted temporarily oil shipments through the lane on July 25 after attacks on two oil tankers by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

      A statement by the Energy Ministry said shipments had resumed on Saturday.

      The decision to resume oil shipment through the strait of Bab al-Mandeb was made after the leadership of the coalition has taken necessary measures to protect the coalition states’ ships,” Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said in the ministry statement.

  • Big Oil eyes U.S. minority groups to build offshore drilling support | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
    https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1N1TN29Y

    The largest U.S. oil and gas lobby group is seeking to convince Hispanic and black communities to support the Trump administration’s proposed expansion of offshore drilling, arguing it would create high paying jobs, including for storm-displaced Puerto Ricans.

    The American Petroleum Institute (API) launched its #Explore_Offshore campaign earlier this month to counter offshore drilling foes in coastal southeast states from Virginia to Florida, where lawmakers and governors on both sides of the aisle have expressed fear an oil spill could ruin tourism.

    We want to build support in minority communities because the message that increasing the supply of affordable energy and good paying jobs will resonate,” said Erik Milito, API’s director of Upstream and Industry Operations.

    As part of the campaign, API has partnered with a number of black and Hispanic business groups, including the Virginia, Florida and North Carolina Hispanic Chambers of Commerce and the Florida Black Chamber of Commerce and South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce.

    A Pew Research poll published in January showed that 56 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks opposed offshore drilling, compared to 48 percent of white people.

  • Avoiding a Cold War in the High North - Bloomberg
    par l’amiral (en retraite) James G. Stavridis, ancien SACEUR…

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-04/russia-is-gearing-up-for-a-cold-war-in-the-arctic

    In the classic Cold War novel (and fine 1965 film) "The Bedford Incident," a U.S. destroyer on a NATO mission tangles with a Soviet submarine in the frigid waters near the Arctic Circle. Mayhem ensues in a tautly described set of interactions that lead the world to the brink of nuclear war.

    Today, as we watch U.S. and Russia continue to confront each other around the world — from Syria to Ukraine to the cyber sphere — the High North is no exception. “Our goal is to make it a truly global and competitive transport route,” Putin said of the Arctic in a March address to the Russian Federal Assembly. China may also be getting into the game: President Xi Jinping recently met with Putin to discuss a collaborating on a kind of “frozen Silk Road.

    Clearly, the Arctic is dangerously close to becoming a zone of conflict. How can we achieve what our Canadian allies wistfully call “high north but low tension"?

    Bon, on ne voit pas en quoi les deux déclarations d’intérêt géopolitique des « méchants » élèvent le niveau de tension, mais bon, c’est un ancien patron de l’OTAN…

    La suite, n’est guère plus rassurante, car, hormis le point 2, appel au renforcement des moyens plus que classique chez un responsable militaire, les trois autres points laissent assez peu de place à un optimisme raisonnable vu l’approche états-unienne actuelle des relations internationales…

    First, the U.S. should invest in the international institutions that provide forums for dialog between Russia and the rest of the Arctic nations. At the top of the list is the Arctic Council, a loosely organized but bureaucratically functional international organization with all the Arctic nations (and many observer states as well, notably China). The council brings together both the foreign ministers and military chiefs from the member nations, and uniquely could hold a summit and convene the heads of state from every state with either geographic or economic interest.

    Second, the Pentagon must increase its ability to monitor and operate militarily in Arctic. Congress must allocate financing for at least half a dozen significant icebreakers, and joint private-public partnering could help develop a strategic plan for constructing appropriate infrastructure — from airfields to ports to offshore platforms.

    Third, Washington should seek zones of cooperation with Russia (and eventually China if it becomes a regional player). These could include using “science diplomacy” to jointly sponsor missions to measure environmental issues from warming sea temperatures to melting ice; conducting exercises to test our ability to respond to ecological disasters (including oil spills); practice search-and-rescue operations over wide areas (Canada has invested heavily in this); and so on.

    Finally, Americans simply need to pay more attention to the vast stretches of ocean and ice at the top of the world. The stakes — geopolitical competition, hydrocarbons, a fragile environment with global effects, the emergence over time of important shipping lanes — are enormous. We can avoid a real world Bedford Incident, but it will require attention, resources and imagination applied to the High North.

    #Arctique

  • Neal Stephenson : Innovation Starvation | WIRED
    https://www.wired.com/2011/10/stephenson-innovation-starvation

    par Neil Stephenson

    Still, I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space program might be symptomatic of a general failure of our society to get big things done. My parents and grandparents witnessed the creation of the airplane, the automobile, nuclear energy, and the computer to name only a few. Scientists and engineers who came of age during the first half of the 20th century could look forward to building things that would solve age-old problems, transform the landscape, build the economy, and provide jobs for the burgeoning middle class that was the basis for our stable democracy.

    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 crystallized my feeling that we have lost our ability to get important things done. The OPEC oil shock was in 1973 — almost 40 years ago. It was obvious then that it was crazy for the United States to let itself be held economic hostage to the kinds of countries where oil was being produced. It led to Jimmy Carter’s proposal for the development of an enormous synthetic fuels industry on American soil. Whatever one might think of the merits of the Carter presidency or of this particular proposal, it was, at least, a serious effort to come to grips with the problem.

    The audience at Future Tense was more confident than I that science fiction [SF] had relevance — even utility — in addressing the problem.

    I heard two theories as to why:

    The Inspiration Theory. SF inspires people to choose science and engineering as careers. This much is undoubtedly true, and somewhat obvious.
    The Hieroglyph Theory. Good SF supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place. A good SF universe has a coherence and internal logic that makes sense to scientists and engineers. Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace. As Jim Karkanias of Microsoft Research puts it, such icons serve as hieroglyphs — simple, recognizable symbols on whose significance everyone agrees.

    Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems — climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation — like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley — accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance — will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

    #Science_fiction #Innovation #Neil_Stephenson

  • Researchers Map Seven Years of Arctic Shipping – gCaptain
    http://gcaptain.com/researchers-map-seven-years-of-arctic-shipping


    This map shows unique ship visits to Arctic waters between September 1, 2009, and December 31, 2016.
    Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

    To illustrate this increase in ship activity in the Arctic, a team of scientists has banded together to analyze and map more than 120 million data points in order to track where ships are most using the region.

    To make the map, the team, led by Paul Arthur Berkman, director of the science diplomacy center at Tufts University, and Greg Fiske, a geospatial analyst at the Woods Hole Research Center, used data compiled by SpaceQuest, a company designs microsatellites that can monitor the track Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals from ships.

    Once the data was plotted, there were some interesting observations to be made.

    Looking at the data, Berkman, Fiske, and their colleagues found that the mean center of shipping activity moved 300 kilometers north and east—closer to the North Pole—over the 7-year span.

    Notably, they were particularly surprised to find more small ships, such as fishing boats, wading farther into Arctic waters. The team also plotted the AIS ship tracks against sea ice data from NSIDC and found that ships are encountering ice more often and doing so farther north each year.

    Despite the seemingly growing opportunities for shipping, the increasing number of ships in the region has given rise to serious concerns about pollution, oil spills, and disturbances to marine life, among other possible impacts.

  • Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation
    and the Nature of “Nature”
    PDF : https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/1299771/mod_resource/content/1/Fourcade_Cents%20sensibility.pdf

    How do we attribute a monetary value to intangible things? This article offers a general sociological approach to this question, using the economic value of nature as a paradigmatic case, and oil spills litigations in France and the United States as real world empirical illustrations. It suggests that a full-blown sociology of economic valuation must solve three problems: the “why,” which refers to the general place of money as a metric for worth; the “how,” which refers to the specific techniques and arguments laymen and experts deploy to elicit monetary translations; and the “then what” or the feedback loop from monetary values
    to social practices and representations.

  • China plans first lab on ocean oil spill cleaning: media
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-spill/china-plans-first-lab-on-ocean-oil-spill-cleaning-media-idUSKBN1FI18F

    China’s Ministry of Transport is planning to establish a laboratory specializing in treating oil spills at sea, the first of its kind in the country, local media Science and Technology Daily reported on Sunday.

    China is spending some 200 million yuan a year on researches for emergency treatment of oil spills but the technological expertise has not been widely applied because of lack of such a lab, the report said.

    The laboratory is planned in northern port city of Tianjin, off the Bohai Bay, with an initial investment 400 million yuan ($63 million). The investment will go to research projects on oceanic ecological protection and safety issues for sea-borne transportation.

    To date, only the United States and France have laboratories capable of undertaking tests and inspections required in treating ocean oil spills, the report said.

  • Sanchi Oil Spill Has Already Caused ’Serious Ecological Injury’
    https://www.ecowatch.com/sanchi-oil-spill-2529690043.html

    The Sanchi oil spill in the East China Sea could potentially be one of the worst tanker spills in decades, experts are warning, even though the spill has now largely disappeared from news reports.

    Work by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the University of Southampton, who have plotted where the condensate ends up, believe that the spill could even reach Japan within a month. In doing so, it could severely impact locally important reefs, fishing grounds and protected marine areas.

    Pas terrible pour les thons rouges


    #fuite #pétrole #Mer_de_Chine #Pacifique #Japon

  • Jackson Lears · What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking : #Russiagate · LRB 4 January 2018
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n01/jackson-lears/what-we-dont-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-russian-hacking
    La pensée unique aux États Unis de plus en plus sectaire et pesante

    Jackson Lears

    American politics have rarely presented a more disheartening spectacle. The repellent and dangerous antics of Donald Trump are troubling enough, but so is the Democratic Party leadership’s failure to take in the significance of the 2016 election campaign. Bernie Sanders’s challenge to Hillary Clinton, combined with Trump’s triumph, revealed the breadth of popular anger at politics as usual – the blend of neoliberal domestic policy and interventionist foreign policy that constitutes consensus in Washington. Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means of fighting evil in order to secure global progress. Both agendas have proved calamitous for most Americans. Many registered their disaffection in 2016. Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton’s defeat. Then everything changed.

    A story that had circulated during the campaign without much effect resurfaced: it involved the charge that Russian operatives had hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee, revealing embarrassing emails that damaged Clinton’s chances. With stunning speed, a new centrist-liberal orthodoxy came into being, enveloping the major media and the bipartisan Washington establishment. This secular religion has attracted hordes of converts in the first year of the Trump presidency. In its capacity to exclude dissent, it is like no other formation of mass opinion in my adult life, though it recalls a few dim childhood memories of anti-communist hysteria during the early 1950s.

    The centrepiece of the faith, based on the hacking charge, is the belief that Vladimir Putin orchestrated an attack on American democracy by ordering his minions to interfere in the election on behalf of Trump. The story became gospel with breathtaking suddenness and completeness. Doubters are perceived as heretics and as apologists for Trump and Putin, the evil twins and co-conspirators behind this attack on American democracy. Responsibility for the absence of debate lies in large part with the major media outlets. Their uncritical embrace and endless repetition of the Russian hack story have made it seem a fait accompli in the public mind. It is hard to estimate popular belief in this new orthodoxy, but it does not seem to be merely a creed of Washington insiders. If you question the received narrative in casual conversations, you run the risk of provoking blank stares or overt hostility – even from old friends. This has all been baffling and troubling to me; there have been moments when pop-culture fantasies (body snatchers, Kool-Aid) have come to mind.

    Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is a confused and largely fact-free ‘assessment’ produced last January by a small number of ‘hand-picked’ analysts – as James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, described them – from the CIA, the FBI and the NSA. The claims of the last were made with only ‘moderate’ confidence. The label Intelligence Community Assessment creates a misleading impression of unanimity, given that only three of the 16 US intelligence agencies contributed to the report. And indeed the assessment itself contained this crucial admission: ‘Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation and precedents.’ Yet the assessment has passed into the media imagination as if it were unassailable fact, allowing journalists to assume what has yet to be proved. In doing so they serve as mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies, or at least for those ‘hand-picked’ analysts.

    It is not the first time the intelligence agencies have played this role. When I hear the Intelligence Community Assessment cited as a reliable source, I always recall the part played by the New York Times in legitimating CIA reports of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s putative weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the long history of disinformation (a.k.a. ‘fake news’) as a tactic for advancing one administration or another’s political agenda. Once again, the established press is legitimating pronouncements made by the Church Fathers of the national security state. Clapper is among the most vigorous of these. He perjured himself before Congress in 2013, when he denied that the NSA had ‘wittingly’ spied on Americans – a lie for which he has never been held to account. In May 2017, he told NBC’s Chuck Todd that the Russians were highly likely to have colluded with Trump’s campaign because they are ‘almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favour, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique’. The current orthodoxy exempts the Church Fathers from standards imposed on ordinary people, and condemns Russians – above all Putin – as uniquely, ‘almost genetically’ diabolical.

    It’s hard for me to understand how the Democratic Party, which once felt scepticism towards the intelligence agencies, can now embrace the CIA and the FBI as sources of incontrovertible truth. One possible explanation is that Trump’s election has created a permanent emergency in the liberal imagination, based on the belief that the threat he poses is unique and unprecedented. It’s true that Trump’s menace is viscerally real. But the menace posed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was equally real. The damage done by Bush and Cheney – who ravaged the Middle East, legitimated torture and expanded unconstitutional executive power – was truly unprecedented, and probably permanent. Trump does pose an unprecedented threat to undocumented immigrants and Muslim travellers, whose protection is urgent and necessary. But on most issues he is a standard issue Republican. He is perfectly at home with Paul Ryan’s austerity agenda, which involves enormous transfers of wealth to the most privileged Americans. He is as committed as any other Republican to repealing Obama’s Affordable Care Act. During the campaign he posed as an apostate on free trade and an opponent of overseas military intervention, but now that he is in office his free trade views are shifting unpredictably and his foreign policy team is composed of generals with impeccable interventionist credentials.

    Trump is committed to continuing his predecessors’ lavish funding of the already bloated Defence Department, and his Fortress America is a blustering, undisciplined version of Madeleine Albright’s ‘indispensable nation’. Both Trump and Albright assume that the United States should be able to do as it pleases in the international arena: Trump because it’s the greatest country in the world, Albright because it’s an exceptional force for global good. Nor is there anything unprecedented about Trump’s desire for détente with Russia, which until at least 2012 was the official position of the Democratic Party. What is unprecedented about Trump is his offensive style: contemptuous, bullying, inarticulate, and yet perfectly pitched to appeal to the anger and anxiety of his target audience. His excess has licensed overt racism and proud misogyny among some of his supporters. This is cause for denunciation, but I am less persuaded that it justifies the anti-Russian mania.

    Besides Trump’s supposed uniqueness, there are two other assumptions behind the furore in Washington: the first is that the Russian hack unquestionably occurred, and the second is that the Russians are our implacable enemies. The second provides the emotional charge for the first. Both seem to me problematic. With respect to the first, the hacking charges are unproved and may well remain so. Edward Snowden and others familiar with the NSA say that if long-distance hacking had taken place the agency would have monitored it and could detail its existence without compromising their secret sources and methods. In September, Snowden told Der Spiegel that the NSA ‘probably knows quite well who the invaders were’. And yet ‘it has not presented any evidence, although I suspect it exists. The question is: why not? … I suspect it discovered other attackers in the systems, maybe there were six or seven groups at work.’ He also said in July 2016 that ‘even if the attackers try to obfuscate origin, ‪#XKEYSCORE makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops.’ The NSA’s capacity to follow hacking to its source is a matter of public record. When the agency investigated pervasive and successful Chinese hacking into US military and defence industry installations, it was able to trace the hacks to the building where they originated, a People’s Liberation Army facility in Shanghai. That information was published in the New York Times, but, this time, the NSA’s failure to provide evidence has gone curiously unremarked. When The Intercept published a story about the NSA’s alleged discovery that Russian military intelligence had attempted to hack into US state and local election systems, the agency’s undocumented assertions about the Russian origins of the hack were allowed to stand as unchallenged fact and quickly became treated as such in the mainstream media.

    Meanwhile, there has been a blizzard of ancillary accusations, including much broader and vaguer charges of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It remains possible that Robert Mueller, a former FBI director who has been appointed to investigate these allegations, may turn up some compelling evidence of contacts between Trump’s people and various Russians. It would be surprising if an experienced prosecutor empowered to cast a dragnet came up empty-handed, and the arrests have already begun. But what is striking about them is that the charges have nothing to do with Russian interference in the election. There has been much talk about the possibility that the accused may provide damaging evidence against Trump in exchange for lighter sentences, but this is merely speculation. Paul Manafort, at one point Trump’s campaign manager, has pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to register his public relations firm as a foreign agent for the Ukrainian government and concealing his millions of dollars in fees. But all this occurred before the 2016 campaign. George Papadopolous, a foreign policy adviser, has pleaded guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI about his bungling efforts to arrange a meeting between Trump’s people and the Russian government – an opportunity the Trump campaign declined. Mueller’s most recent arrestee, Michael Flynn, the unhinged Islamophobe who was briefly Trump’s national security adviser, has pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about meeting the Russian ambassador in December – weeks after the election. This is the sort of backchannel diplomacy that routinely occurs during the interim between one administration and the next. It is not a sign of collusion.

    So far, after months of ‘bombshells’ that turn out to be duds, there is still no actual evidence for the claim that the Kremlin ordered interference in the American election. Meanwhile serious doubts have surfaced about the technical basis for the hacking claims. Independent observers have argued it is more likely that the emails were leaked from inside, not hacked from outside. On this front, the most persuasive case was made by a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, former employees of the US intelligence agencies who distinguished themselves in 2003 by debunking Colin Powell’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, hours after Powell had presented his pseudo-evidence at the UN. (There are members of VIPS who dissent from the VIPS report’s conclusions, but their arguments are in turn contested by the authors of the report.) The VIPS findings received no attention in major media outlets, except Fox News – which from the centre-left perspective is worse than no attention at all. Mainstream media have dismissed the VIPS report as a conspiracy theory (apparently the Russian hacking story does not count as one). The crucial issue here and elsewhere is the exclusion from public discussion of any critical perspectives on the orthodox narrative, even the perspectives of people with professional credentials and a solid track record.

    Both the DNC hacking story and the one involving the emails of John Podesta, a Clinton campaign operative, involve a shadowy bunch of putatively Russian hackers called Fancy Bear – also known among the technically inclined as APT28. The name Fancy Bear was introduced by Dimitri Alperovitch, the chief technology officer of Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to investigate the theft of their emails. Alperovitch is also a fellow at the Atlantic Council, an anti-Russian Washington think tank. In its report Crowdstrike puts forward close to zero evidence for its claim that those responsible were Russian, let alone for its assertion that they were affiliated with Russian military intelligence. And yet, from this point on, the assumption that this was a Russian cyber operation was unquestioned. When the FBI arrived on the scene, the Bureau either did not request or was refused access to the DNC servers; instead it depended entirely on the Crowdstrike analysis. Crowdstrike, meanwhile, was being forced to retract another claim, that the Russians had successfully hacked the guidance systems of the Ukrainian artillery. The Ukrainian military and the British International Institute for Strategic Studies both contradicted this claim, and Crowdstrike backed down. But its DNC analysis was allowed to stand and even become the basis for the January Intelligence Community Assessment.

    The chatter surrounding the hack would never have acquired such urgency were it not for the accompanying assumption: Russia is a uniquely dangerous adversary, with which we should avoid all contact. Without that belief, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s meetings with Russians in September 2016 would become routine discussions between a senator and foreign officials. Flynn’s post-election conversations with the Russian ambassador would appear unremarkable. Trump’s cronies’ attempts to do business in Russia would become merely sleazy. Donald Trump Jr’s meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya would be transformed from a melodrama of shady intrigue to a comedy of errors – with the candidate’s son expecting to receive information to use against Clinton but discovering Veselnitskaya only wanted to talk about repealing sanctions and restarting the flow of Russian orphans to the United States. And Putin himself would become just another autocrat, with whom democracies could engage without endorsing.

    Sceptical voices, such as those of the VIPS, have been drowned out by a din of disinformation. Flagrantly false stories, like the Washington Post report that the Russians had hacked into the Vermont electrical grid, are published, then retracted 24 hours later. Sometimes – like the stories about Russian interference in the French and German elections – they are not retracted even after they have been discredited. These stories have been thoroughly debunked by French and German intelligence services but continue to hover, poisoning the atmosphere, confusing debate. The claim that the Russians hacked local and state voting systems in the US was refuted by California and Wisconsin election officials, but their comments generated a mere whisper compared with the uproar created by the original story. The rush to publish without sufficient attention to accuracy has become the new normal in journalism. Retraction or correction is almost beside the point: the false accusation has done its work.

    The consequence is a spreading confusion that envelops everything. Epistemological nihilism looms, but some people and institutions have more power than others to define what constitutes an agreed-on reality. To say this is to risk dismissal as the ultimate wing-nut in the lexicon of contemporary Washington: the conspiracy theorist. Still, the fact remains: sometimes powerful people arrange to promote ideas that benefit their common interests. Whether we call this hegemony, conspiracy or merely special privilege hardly matters. What does matter is the power to create what Gramsci called the ‘common sense’ of an entire society. Even if much of that society is indifferent to or suspicious of the official common sense, it still becomes embedded among the tacit assumptions that set the boundaries of ‘responsible opinion’. So the Democratic establishment (along with a few Republicans) and the major media outlets have made ‘Russian meddling’ the common sense of the current moment. What kind of cultural work does this common sense do? What are the consequences of the spectacle the media call (with characteristic originality) ‘Russiagate’?

    The most immediate consequence is that, by finding foreign demons who can be blamed for Trump’s ascendancy, the Democratic leadership have shifted the blame for their defeat away from their own policies without questioning any of their core assumptions. Amid the general recoil from Trump, they can even style themselves dissenters – ‘#the resistance’ was the label Clintonites appropriated within a few days of the election. Mainstream Democrats have begun to use the word ‘progressive’ to apply to a platform that amounts to little more than preserving Obamacare, gesturing towards greater income equality and protecting minorities. This agenda is timid. It has nothing to say about challenging the influence of concentrated capital on policy, reducing the inflated defence budget or withdrawing from overextended foreign commitments; yet without those initiatives, even the mildest egalitarian policies face insuperable obstacles. More genuine insurgencies are in the making, which confront corporate power and connect domestic with foreign policy, but they face an uphill battle against the entrenched money and power of the Democratic leadership – the likes of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and the DNC. Russiagate offers Democratic elites a way to promote party unity against Trump-Putin, while the DNC purges Sanders’s supporters.

    For the DNC, the great value of the Russian hack story is that it focuses attention away from what was actually in their emails. The documents revealed a deeply corrupt organisation, whose pose of impartiality was a sham. Even the reliably pro-Clinton Washington Post has admitted that ‘many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.’ Further evidence of collusion between the Clinton machine and the DNC surfaced recently in a memoir by Donna Brazile, who became interim chair of the DNC after Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in the wake of the email revelations. Brazile describes discovering an agreement dated 26 August 2015, which specified (she writes)

    that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics and mailings.

    Before the primaries had even begun, the supposedly neutral DNC – which had been close to insolvency – had been bought by the Clinton campaign.

    Another recent revelation of DNC tactics concerns the origins of the inquiry into Trump’s supposed links to Putin. The story began in April 2016, when the DNC hired a Washington research firm called Fusion GPS to unearth any connections between Trump and Russia. The assignment involved the payment of ‘cash for trash’, as the Clinton campaign liked to say. Fusion GPS eventually produced the trash, a lurid account written by the former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele, based on hearsay purchased from anonymous Russian sources. Amid prostitutes and golden showers, a story emerged: the Russian government had been blackmailing and bribing Donald Trump for years, on the assumption that he would become president some day and serve the Kremlin’s interests. In this fantastic tale, Putin becomes a preternaturally prescient schemer. Like other accusations of collusion, this one has become vaguer over time, adding to the murky atmosphere without ever providing any evidence. The Clinton campaign tried to persuade established media outlets to publicise the Steele dossier, but with uncharacteristic circumspection, they declined to promote what was plainly political trash rather than reliable reporting. Yet the FBI apparently took the Steele dossier seriously enough to include a summary of it in a secret appendix to the Intelligence Community Assessment. Two weeks before the inauguration, James Comey, the director of the FBI, described the dossier to Trump. After Comey’s briefing was leaked to the press, the website Buzzfeed published the dossier in full, producing hilarity and hysteria in the Washington establishment.

    The Steele dossier inhabits a shadowy realm where ideology and intelligence, disinformation and revelation overlap. It is the antechamber to the wider system of epistemological nihilism created by various rival factions in the intelligence community: the ‘tree of smoke’ that, for the novelist Denis Johnson, symbolised CIA operations in Vietnam. I inhaled that smoke myself in 1969-70, when I was a cryptographer with a Top Secret clearance on a US navy ship that carried missiles armed with nuclear warheads – the existence of which the navy denied. I was stripped of my clearance and later honourably discharged when I refused to join the Sealed Authenticator System, which would have authorised the launch of those allegedly non-existent nuclear weapons. The tree of smoke has only grown more complex and elusive since then. Yet the Democratic Party has now embarked on a full-scale rehabilitation of the intelligence community – or at least the part of it that supports the notion of Russian hacking. (We can be sure there is disagreement behind the scenes.) And it is not only the Democratic establishment that is embracing the deep state. Some of the party’s base, believing Trump and Putin to be joined at the hip, has taken to ranting about ‘treason’ like a reconstituted John Birch Society.

    I thought of these ironies when I visited the Tate Modern exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which featured the work of black American artists from the 1960s and 1970s, when intelligence agencies (and agents provocateurs) were spearheading a government crackdown on black militants, draft resisters, deserters and antiwar activists. Amid the paintings, collages and assemblages there was a single Confederate flag, accompanied by grim reminders of the Jim Crow past – a Klansman in full regalia, a black body dangling from a tree. There were also at least half a dozen US flags, juxtaposed in whole or in part with images of contemporary racial oppression that could have occurred anywhere in America: dead black men carted off on stretchers by skeletons in police uniform; a black prisoner tied to a chair, awaiting torture. The point was to contrast the pretensions of ‘the land of the free’ with the practices of the national security state and local police forces. The black artists of that era knew their enemy: black people were not being killed and imprisoned by some nebulous foreign adversary, but by the FBI, the CIA and the police.

    The Democratic Party has now developed a new outlook on the world, a more ambitious partnership between liberal humanitarian interventionists and neoconservative militarists than existed under the cautious Obama. This may be the most disastrous consequence for the Democratic Party of the new anti-Russian orthodoxy: the loss of the opportunity to formulate a more humane and coherent foreign policy. The obsession with Putin has erased any possibility of complexity from the Democratic world picture, creating a void quickly filled by the monochrome fantasies of Hillary Clinton and her exceptionalist allies. For people like Max Boot and Robert Kagan, war is a desirable state of affairs, especially when viewed from the comfort of their keyboards, and the rest of the world – apart from a few bad guys – is filled with populations who want to build societies just like ours: pluralistic, democratic and open for business. This view is difficult to challenge when it cloaks itself in humanitarian sentiment. There is horrific suffering in the world; the US has abundant resources to help relieve it; the moral imperative is clear. There are endless forms of international engagement that do not involve military intervention. But it is the path taken by US policy often enough that one may suspect humanitarian rhetoric is nothing more than window-dressing for a more mundane geopolitics – one that defines the national interest as global and virtually limitless.

    Having come of age during the Vietnam War, a calamitous consequence of that inflated definition of national interest, I have always been attracted to the realist critique of globalism. Realism is a label forever besmirched by association with Henry Kissinger, who used it as a rationale for intervening covertly and overtly in other nations’ affairs. Yet there is a more humane realist tradition, the tradition of George Kennan and William Fulbright, which emphasises the limits of military might, counselling that great power requires great restraint. This tradition challenges the doctrine of regime change under the guise of democracy promotion, which – despite its abysmal failures in Iraq and Libya – retains a baffling legitimacy in official Washington. Russiagate has extended its shelf life.

    We can gauge the corrosive impact of the Democrats’ fixation on Russia by asking what they aren’t talking about when they talk about Russian hacking. For a start, they aren’t talking about interference of other sorts in the election, such as the Republican Party’s many means of disenfranchising minority voters. Nor are they talking about the trillion dollar defence budget that pre-empts the possibility of single-payer healthcare and other urgently needed social programmes; nor about the modernisation of the American nuclear arsenal which Obama began and Trump plans to accelerate, and which raises the risk of the ultimate environmental calamity, nuclear war – a threat made more serious than it has been in decades by America’s combative stance towards Russia. The prospect of impeaching Trump and removing him from office by convicting him of collusion with Russia has created an atmosphere of almost giddy anticipation among leading Democrats, allowing them to forget that the rest of the Republican Party is composed of many politicians far more skilful in Washington’s ways than their president will ever be.

    It is not the Democratic Party that is leading the search for alternatives to the wreckage created by Republican policies: a tax plan that will soak the poor and middle class to benefit the rich; a heedless pursuit of fossil fuels that is already resulting in the contamination of the water supply of the Dakota people; and continued support for police policies of militarisation and mass incarceration. It is local populations that are threatened by oil spills and police beatings, and that is where humane populism survives. A multitude of insurgent groups have begun to use the outrage against Trump as a lever to move the party in egalitarian directions: Justice Democrats, Black Lives Matter, Democratic Socialists of America, as well as a host of local and regional organisations. They recognise that there are far more urgent – and genuine – reasons to oppose Trump than vague allegations of collusion with Russia. They are posing an overdue challenge to the long con of neoliberalism, and the technocratic arrogance that led to Clinton’s defeat in Rust Belt states. Recognising that the current leadership will not bring about significant change, they are seeking funding from outside the DNC. This is the real resistance, as opposed to ‘#theresistance’.

    On certain important issues – such as broadening support for single-payer healthcare, promoting a higher minimum wage or protecting undocumented immigrants from the most flagrant forms of exploitation – these insurgents are winning wide support. Candidates like Paula Jean Swearengin, a coal miner’s daughter from West Virginia who is running in the Democratic primary for nomination to the US Senate, are challenging establishment Democrats who stand cheek by jowl with Republicans in their service to concentrated capital. Swearengin’s opponent is Joe Manchin, whom the Los Angeles Times has compared to Doug Jones, another ‘very conservative’ Democrat who recently won election to the US Senate in Alabama, narrowly defeating a Republican disgraced by accusations of sexual misconduct with 14-year-old girls. I can feel relieved at that result without joining in the collective Democratic ecstasy, which reveals the party’s persistent commitment to politics as usual. Democrat leaders have persuaded themselves (and much of their base) that all the republic needs is a restoration of the status quo ante Trump. They remain oblivious to popular impatience with familiar formulas. Jess King – a Mennonite woman, Bard College MBA and founder of a local non-profit who is running for Congress as a Justice Democrat in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – put it this way: ‘We see a changing political landscape right now that isn’t measured by traditional left to right politics anymore, but bottom to top. In Pennsylvania and many other places around the country we see a grassroots economic populism on the rise, pushing against the political establishment and status quo that have failed so many in our country.’

    Democratic insurgents are also developing a populist critique of the imperial hubris that has sponsored multiple failed crusades, extorted disproportionate sacrifice from the working class and provoked support for Trump, who presented himself (however misleadingly) as an opponent of open-ended interventionism. On foreign policy, the insurgents face an even more entrenched opposition than on domestic policy: a bipartisan consensus aflame with outrage at the threat to democracy supposedly posed by Russian hacking. Still, they may have found a tactical way forward, by focusing on the unequal burden borne by the poor and working class in the promotion and maintenance of American empire.

    This approach animates Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis, a 33-page document whose authors include Norman Solomon, founder of the web-based insurgent lobby RootsAction.org. ‘The Democratic Party’s claims of fighting for “working families” have been undermined by its refusal to directly challenge corporate power, enabling Trump to masquerade as a champion of the people,’ Autopsy announces. But what sets this apart from most progressive critiques is the cogent connection it makes between domestic class politics and foreign policy. For those in the Rust Belt, military service has often seemed the only escape from the shambles created by neoliberal policies; yet the price of escape has been high. As Autopsy notes, ‘the wisdom of continual war’ – what Clinton calls ‘global leadership’ –

    was far clearer to the party’s standard bearer [in 2016] than it was to people in the US communities bearing the brunt of combat deaths, injuries and psychological traumas. After a decade and a half of non-stop warfare, research data from voting patterns suggest that the Clinton campaign’s hawkish stance was a political detriment in working-class communities hard-hit by American casualties from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Francis Shen of the University of Minnesota and Douglas Kriner of Boston University analysed election results in three key states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – and found that ‘even controlling in a statistical model for many other alternative explanations, we find that there is a significant and meaningful relationship between a community’s rate of military sacrifice and its support for Trump.’ Clinton’s record of uncritical commitment to military intervention allowed Trump to have it both ways, playing to jingoist resentment while posing as an opponent of protracted and pointless war. Kriner and Shen conclude that Democrats may want to ‘re-examine their foreign policy posture if they hope to erase Trump’s electoral gains among constituencies exhausted and alienated by 15 years of war’. If the insurgent movements within the Democratic Party begin to formulate an intelligent foreign policy critique, a re-examination may finally occur. And the world may come into sharper focus as a place where American power, like American virtue, is limited. For this Democrat, that is an outcome devoutly to be wished. It’s a long shot, but there is something happening out there.

    #USA #cuture #politique

  • U.S. to Roll Back Safety Rules Created After Deepwater Horizon Spill - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/trump-offshore-drilling.html

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history.

    A proposal by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which was established after the spill and regulates offshore oil and gas drilling, calls for reversing the Obama-era regulations as part of President Trump’s efforts to ease restrictions on fossil fuel companies and generate more domestic energy production.

    Doing so, the agency asserted, will reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the energy industry and save the industry $228 million over 10 years.

    Il faudra boire la coupe jusqu’à la lie.

    Environmental groups warned that reversing the safety measures would make the United States vulnerable to another such disaster.

    “Rolling back drilling safety standards while expanding offshore leasing is a recipe for disaster,” Miyoko Sakashita, director of the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “By tossing aside the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Trump is putting our coasts and wildlife at risk of more deadly oil spills. Reversing offshore safety rules isn’t just deregulation, it’s willful ignorance.”

    #Forage #Pétrole #Régulation #Environnement

  • The World Eyes Yet Another Unconventional Source of Fossil Fuels | Peak Oil News and Message Boards

    http://peakoil.com/production/the-world-eyes-yet-another-unconventional-source-of-fossil-fuels

    Vast quantities of methane hydrates — frozen deposits of natural gas on the sea floor — exist worldwide. But as experimental drilling moves forward, many experts question the wisdom of exploiting a costly, environmentally risky trove of fossil fuels that will accelerate global warming.

    In May of this year, China claimed a breakthrough in tapping an obscure fossil fuel resource: Researchers there managed to suck a steady flow of methane gas out of frozen mud on the seafloor. That same month, Japan did the same. And in the United States, researchers pulled a core of muddy, methane-soaked ice from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

    The idea of exploiting this quirky fuel source would have been considered madness a couple of decades ago — both wildly expensive and dangerous. Until recently, methane-soaked ice was considered explosively unstable. In the Gulf of Mexico, traditional oil rigs have been tiptoeing around these icy deposits for years, trying to avoid them.

    “These deposits have been a pain in the neck for oil exploration,” says Scott Dallimore with the Geological Survey of Canada. Accidentally melting deposits overlying traditional oil and gas fields could cause drilling infrastructure to collapse, or pipes to clog up with ice. After the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, for example, water and methane formed an icy plug that scuppered one attempt to halt the oil spill.

    #énergie #pétrole #analyse via @irucevska

  • Ten sailors missing after U.S. warship, tanker collide near Singapore
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash-idUSKCN1B100C
    ça devient une habitude…
    mais cette fois à babord, donc, a priori, c’est lui qui a priorité…

    Ten sailors are missing after a U.S. warship collided with an oil tanker east of Singapore before dawn on Monday, tearing a hole beneath the waterline and flooding compartments that include a crew sleeping area, the U.S. Navy said.

    The collision between the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and the tanker Alnic MC was the second involving U.S. Navy destroyers and merchant vessels in Asian waters in little more than two months.

    The ships collided while the U.S. warship was heading to Singapore for a routine port call, the Navy said in a statement.

    • Ici, il est hors de question d’imaginer une quelconque défaillance de la veille sur l’un ou l’autre navire : ça doit être l’endroit où le trafic est le plus dense au monde et on est aux abords immédiats du port…

      En revanche, le communiqué de la Navy laisse songeur. Le John McCain est abordé à babord (à l’arrière de sa seconde cheminée), vraisemblablement à l’endroit où s’achève la dernière ligne droite de la trajectoire) alors que le pétrolier vient de l’est et se dirige vers le terminal pétrolier (dans l’axe de cette ligne droite). Difficile à imaginer si le John McCain entrait au port ; normalement, il présentait son flanc tribord…

      Au vu des photos, et de l’enfoncement des tôles, il semblerait que le pétrolier venait de l’arrière.

    • Stricken destroyer John S. McCain arrives in Singapore, 10 crew still missing
      http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/20/navy-destroyer-john-s-mccain-collides-with-merchant-vessel

      Mounting questions
      The details of how the collisions occurred remain unkown, But incidents such as those with the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents are troubling, said Jan van Tol, a retired commander of three war ships who now serves as an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

      Navy destroyers are remarkably nimble and responsive, including rapid acceleration ability, thus should certainly be able to get out of the way of almost anything approaching ‘too close,’” van Tol said in an email.

      Such close quarters situations should NEVER be allowed to develop without various watchstanders and watchteams being well aware that they are developing,” he said.

      It is unknown whether McCain had suffered any kind of casualty to its engineering or steering systems ahead of the collision that would have contributed to the disaster.

      The collision was the fourth significant safety incident of 2017 involving a U.S. 7th Fleet ship. In January, the cruiser Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay and in May, the cruiser Lake Champlain collided with a Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan.

      (outre le Fitzgerald)

    • Complètement dingue !

      La collision a eu lieu nettement plus à l’est, juste à l’entrée du dispositif de séparation de trafic. Dans les derniers instants, on voit l’Alnic NC abattre en grand sur la gauche en ralentissant fortement, indice évident d’une manœuvre en catastrophe, qui ne peut se justifier (on est dans le rail, bon sang !) que par une tentative d’évitement désespérée…

      Mille sabords !, que fabriquait cet amiral de bateau-lavoir de USS John S. McCain à cet endroit là ?
      (NB : le père et le grand-père du sénateur, John S. McCain III, ont tous les deux terminé leur carrière comme amiral et, pour faire simple portaient également le même middle name, Sidney. On fait dans la dynastie ou pas…)

      Comment a-t-il pu couper la route d’un bateau dont la route est absolument rectiligne et prévisible (il est dans le rail) ? Peut-être le McCain n’y était-il pas et a-t-il manœuvré brutalement pour s’y placer ?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlrA36GzHNs

      EDIT (24/08)
      pour gCaptain, l’abattée à gauche est le résultat de la collision, ce qui parait tout à fait crédible et explique bien la forme de l’enfoncement sur l’arrière de l’ouverture. Le McCain devait filer vite pour dévier à ce point la trajectore.
      Du coup, on peut élaborer un scénario où le McCain coupe, pour des raisons qu’il reste à préciser, le rail « conformément aux règles internationales » : perpendiculairement et le plus vite possible. Et dans ce cas, il est responsable à 100%…

      Comment, elle a dit déjà l’amirauté ? ah oui, #poor_seamanship

      http://gcaptain.com/uss-john-s-mccain-collision-ais-animation-shows-tankers-track-during-colli

    • The Latest: US Navy vessel arrives to help damaged destroyer - The Washington Post
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest-us-warship-sailing-on-own-power-after-collision/2017/08/20/9c7ae012-860e-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html

      5:00 p.m.
      The oil tanker involved in a collision with the USS John S. McCain destroyer in busy Southeast Asian waters had four deficiencies including navigation safety violations in its last port inspection.

      An official database for ports in Asia shows the Alnic MC was inspected in the Chinese port of Dongying on July 29 and had one document deficiency, one fire safety deficiency and two safety of navigation problems.

      The database doesn’t go into details and the problems were apparently not serious enough for the Liberian-flagged and Greek-owned vessel to be detained by the port authority.
      […]
      4:10 p.m.
      The chief of Malaysia’s Maritime Enforcement Agency says the collision between an oil tanker and the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer early Monday occurred at the start of a designated sea lane for ships sailing into the Singapore Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

      Zulkifli Abu Bakar said the incident occurred 4.5 nautical miles (8.3 kilometers) from Malaysia’s coast. He said a Malaysian warship was in the area monitoring the cleanup of an oil spill from an unrelated collision of two merchant ships and was contacted by the McCain.

      Both Malaysia and Singapore say the accident happened in their waters, likely reflecting a dispute about ownership of some rocky outcrops in the area.

      It happened in Malaysian territorial waters, specifically in Teluk Ramunia waters,” Zulkifli said. “For this moment, we shouldn’t argue about whose waters. Most important thing is we focus on the search and rescue.

    • Frontière entre la Malaisie et Singapour — Wikipédia
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontière_entre_la_Malaisie_et_Singapour

      La délimitation de cette frontière maritime a fait l’objet d’un recours devant la Cour internationale de justice, effectué conjointement le 24 juillet 2003 par la Malaisie et Singapour. Le différend portait sur l’île de Pedra Branca, les Middle Rocks (deux rochers inhabités) et South Ledge, un haut-fond découvrant. Par un arrêt du 23 mai 2008, la Cour a attribué Pedra Blanca à Singapour, les Middle Rocks à la Malaisie, et South Ledge à l’État dans les eaux territoriales duquel il se trouve (la Cour n’ayant pas reçu mandat des parties pour délimiter leurs eaux territoriales respectives).

      L’arrêt de la CIJ
      Affaire relative à la souveraineté sur Pedra Blanca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks et South Ledge –(Malaisie/Singapour)
      Arrêt du 23 mai 2008
      http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/130/130-20080523-JUD-01-00-FR.pdf

      (il me semblait avoir vu passer ce contentieux ici)


      (extrait de l’arrêt de la CIJ)

    • Serrage de boulons généralisé…

      Admiral to order operational pause in Navy after warship, merchant ship collide - CNN
      http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/20/asia/us-navy-destroyer-collision-singapore/index.html

      Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is expected to order a one-day pause in operations “to ensure we are taking all appropriate immediate measures to enhance the Navy’s safe and effective operation around the world,” according to a US Defense official and an advanced copy of Richardson’s statement obtained by CNN.

      The stand-down will take place over the next couple of weeks, at the discretion of individual commands, the defense official said.

      The order comes after a US Navy guided-missile destroyer collided early Monday with an oil tanker east of Singapore, the fourth accident this year involving a US warship in Asian waters.

      This is the second major collision in the last three months, and is the latest in a series of major incidents, particularly in the Pacific theater. This trend demands more forceful action,” Richardson’s statement says.

      C’est le moment de ressortir la vanne éculée du phare et du porte-avions états-unien… #lighthouse_vs_US_Navy

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_urban_legend

    • US Navy also considering ’cyber intrusion or sabotage’ as possible causes for USS John McCain collision
      http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-navy-also-considering-cyber-intrusion-sabotage-possible-causes-uss-joh

      A steering failure, or maybe even hacked systems – the US Navy is considering all possible reasons after launching a broad investigation into the collision of the US guided-missile destroyer USS John McCain with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore on Monday (21 August).

      Plusieurs médias reprennent l’hypothèse, apparemment émise par l’US Navy, de panne de l’appareil à gouverner (#avarie_de_barre, un des entrainements les plus fréquents en passerelle dans mon souvenir, presqu’autant que #un_homme_à_la_mer à babord/tribord suivie du Boutakov règlementaire…) Je ne trouve pas le communiqué original. Pas plus que, l’évocation officielle d’une #cyber-attaque qui aurait déjà été plus ou moins éliminée par la marine.

      Apparemment, la source initiale est CNN

      Ships, aircraft search for crashed US destroyer’s 10 missing crew - CNNPolitics
      http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/uss-john-s-mccain-collision/index.html?sr=twCNN082217uss-john-s-mccain-collision0958AMVODtop

      What caused the accident?
      The warship suffered a steering failure as the warship was beginning its approach into the Strait of Malacca, causing it to collide with a commercial tanker Monday, a US Navy official told CNN.
      The official said it was unclear why the crew couldn’t utilize the ship’s backup steering systems to maintain control of ship.
      Earlier, another US Navy official told CNN there were indications the destroyer experienced a loss of steering right before the collision, but steering had been regained after the collision.

      Évidemment, l’option #hacker circule pas mal (déjà pour l’USS Fitzgerald), Popular Mechanics explique de son côté que ça ne peut pas être du #GPS_spoofing, etc.
      No, the USS McCain Wasn’t a Victim of GPS Spoofing
      http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a27854/uss-mccain-collision-gps

    • Ah, ben Les Échos relaient le complotisme, bravo…
      (oubliant au passage l’hypothèse de l’avarie de barre, mise en avant par l’amiral Richardson (CNO : Chief of naval operations)

      Après la collision d’un destroyer américain, des experts agitent la piste de la cyberattaque
      https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/010189757977-apres-la-collision-dun-destroyer-americain-des-experts-agitent

      L’amiral n’a pas exclu que la collision ait pu être provoquée par un facteur extérieur ou une cyberattaque. Cet accident n’est pas le premier (voir encadré) et intrigue certains spécialistes de la Défense.

      « Il y a quelque chose de plus que la simple erreur humaine car sinon cela impliquerait énormément de gens », avance par exemple Jeff Stutzman interrogé par le site McClatchyDC.

      Pour cet ancien spécialiste de la guerre de l’information et de la marine, qui travaille désormais chez Wapack Labs, une société de sécurité informatique, tout bâtiment qui s’avance dans le détroit de Singapour aura sur le pont une équipe complète de vigiles et d’opérateurs radars.

      De son côté, interrogé par le site « International Business Times », Todd Humphreys, un professeur à l’Université du Texas et spécialiste en systèmes de navigation par satellite, va plus loin dans la suspicion.

      Pour lui, cet accident semble « statistiquement très suspect ». Et il n’hésite pas à faire un parallèle avec un incident intervenu en juin en Mer noire et au cours duquel des signaux GPS auraient été trafiqués via, selon lui, « un signal qui provenait du continent russe ».

      La piste russe n’est cependant pas la seule à être soulevée. Interrogé par le site australien news.com, Itay Glick, un autre expert de cybersécurité qui a travaillé pour les services de renseignements israéliens, avance que si la Russie a les capacités d’effectuer une telle attaque, la Chine l’a également.

      « Je ne crois pas aux coïncidences », explique-t-il encore en rappelant que « l’erreur humaine » est toujours une solution de facilité pour expliquer un accident.

      À « l’expert » dont les pontifications concluent l’article, on fera remarquer que la Navy a viré tout l’état-major de l’USS Fitzgerald et on rappellera aux Échos que l’amiral Richardson met en avant une deuxième hypothèse « matérielle ».

      Certains font remarquer que les nombreuses gesticulations de la Navy dans un contexte où le nombre de bâtiments baisse pourraient avoir aboutir à une fatigue des équipements et des équipages…

      Enfin, on sourira à la légende de la photo (bizarrement fournie par le SIPA) ouvrant l’article…


      Toutes les pistes sont envisagées y compris celle d’une cyberattaque, a laissé entendre l’amiral John Richardson, chef des opérations de la marine américaine.
      Daniel Chan/AP/SIPA

      … où on a un peu de mal à reconnaître l’amiral Richardson…

      la légende d’AP est la suivante
      Malaysian Maritime Director Indera Abu Bakar points to damage on USS John S. McCain at press conference in Putrajaya on Monday.
      AP Photo/Daniel Chan

    • China Calls U.S. Navy ’Arrogant’ After USS John Mccain Collision Accident
      http://www.newsweek.com/china-us-arrogant-john-mccain-653395

      A Chinese state-run newspaper claimed Monday that the most recent collision of a U.S. Navy destroyer with a merchant ship was an example of the U.S.’s “arrogance” in conducting patrols in and around the South China Sea.

      The nationalist Global Times ran an editorial Monday shortly after the USS John S. McCain was hit by an oil tanker east of Singapore in the Strait of Malacca and 10 sailors were reported missing.

      While stating the collision was an example of the U.S. military’s decline and that Chinese society’s “applause” was tantamount to the nation’s feelings toward the U.S. encroaching on its territory, the opinion piece also claimed that the U.S. is not trying to avoid such collisions.

      U.S. warships are constantly involved in accidents around the South China Sea,” the op-ed, which is often considered direct thoughts from the Chinese government, read. “On the one hand, the U.S. Navy has behaved arrogantly in the Asia-Pacific region. It lacks respect for huge merchant ships and fails to take evasive action in time, thus resulting in serious accidents.

      On n’est pas loin de la blague du phare…
      Blague qu’évoque le deuxième commentateur de l’article du Monde sur le sujet.
      https://seenthis.net/messages/623860

    • CNN sur la même – et évidente – question, mais beaucoup plus terre à terre : quand il y a série, c’est qu’il y a problème de fond…

      Why are so many Navy ships crashing ? - CNNPolitics
      http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/navy-ships-crashing-readiness/index.html

      The US Navy is facing difficult questions about the health of its fleet in the aftermath of the USS John S. McCain’s collision with an oil tanker east of Singapore on Monday, the latest in a series of naval accidents in the Pacific.

      Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson ordered a rare, one-day operational pause in response to the latest collision. And while the cause of the USS McCain crash is still to be determined, the spate of accidents — four since January — suggests there could be a more systemic issue.
      Lawmakers and defense analysts are warning that the Navy’s readiness problems — which have led to longer deployments for ships and less time and money for maintenance and training — could be playing a role in the uptick in crashes.
      In addition to the Navy’s stand-down, the Marine Corps grounded all of its aircraft for 24 hours earlier this month on the heels of two deadly crashes “to focus on the fundamentals of safe flight operations, standardization, and combat readiness.

      House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said it was unprecedented that “two military services have now had to take a knee to review safety and training procedures.
      […]
      Former Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes, who is now a fellow at the Naval War College, said the concern over the recent incidents goes beyond just determining why the collisions occurred, but points to a broader issue if the Navy had to ramp up in a significant conflict.

      When our ships are having this much difficulty sailing in open waters, it gives us a lot of concern about what would happen if we were in a major conflict and how we would operate there,” Forbes said. “The Navy is in desperate need of additional resources so that they can do the kind of training they need, they can do the kind of ship maintenance they need.
      […]
      Thomas Callender, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation and former Navy submarine officer, noted that the destroyer collisions occurred in low-light times of day and highly trafficked areas.

      Those are some of the most difficult times, sunset and sunrise, of trying to determine what your contact picture is, what you’re really seeing with this,” Callender said.
      Forbes said traffic congestion would likely be a commonality, too.

      It’s like when you have accidents on roads: Normally it’s going to be where more vehicles are,” he said. “It still doesn’t justify it — we’ve got to operate in those waters.
      But the fact that all four Navy collisions this year occurred in the Pacific could also point to issues with training that are specific to the region, Hendrix said.
      The fact this is so regional ... it strikes me there’s a degradation in training standards and operational procedures,” he said.

    • Déclaration, ce soir à Singapour, de l’amiral Scott Swift, commandant de la Flotte du Pacifique (3è et 7è flotte)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4YIXBf03eo


      pas d’info particulière dans la déclaration liminaire (tout bien, tout corporate)

      • toute première question (7:00) (on ne les entend pas bien, mais les réponses permettent de les reconstituer) : cyberattaque ?
      – j’ai entendu cette hypothèse, mais on n’a rien vu qui puisse laisser penser à quelque chose de cette nature, mais nous (il cite le CNO) n’écartons aucune hypothèse

      • des modifications dans la chaîne de commandement
      – c’est trop tôt pour conclure quoi que ce soit, laisser se dérouler l’enquête

      • la flotte n’est-elle pas épuisée ? y a-t-il eu des négligences ?
      – ce n’est pas ce que j’ai vu ce matin lors de ma visite du navire, les équipages sont déterminés et opérationnels, ils ont bien bossé pour le damage control

      • découverte de corps ?
      – la marine malaisienne a récupéré un corps (en mer, donc) et va nous le restituer ; les plongeurs ont trouvé des corps, nous sommes en train de les identifier

    • U.S. Navy to relieve admiral of command after collisions: WSJ
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash-admiral-idUSKCN1B3034

      The U.S. Navy plans to remove from duty the commander of the fleet that has suffered four recent collisions in Asia and the deaths of a number of sailors, the _Wall Street Journal _reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. officials.

      Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the three-star commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan, will be relieved of command on Wednesday in connection with four collisions since January, including two involving fatalities, two U.S. officials said, according to the Journal. It said Navy officials declined to comment.

    • La Chine remet une couche…

      After U.S. destroyer collision, Chinese paper says U.S. navy a hazard
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash-china-idUSKCN1B20O2

      The state-run China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday that people will wonder why such a sophisticated navy keeps having these problems.

      The investigations into the latest collision will take time to reach their conclusions, but there is no denying the fact that the increased activities by U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific since Washington initiated its rebalancing to the region are making them a growing risk to commercial shipping,” it said.

      China has been upset at U.S. freedom of navigation operations near Chinese controlled islands in the disputed South China Sea, where China has been reclaiming land, building air bases and increasing its military presence.

      While the U.S. Navy is becoming a dangerous obstacle in Asian waters, China has been making joint efforts with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to draw up a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea and it has boosted navigational safety by constructing five lighthouses on its islands,” the China Daily said.

      Anyone should be able to tell who is to blame for militarizing the waters and posing a threat to navigation.

    • Ah, quand même, on se décide enfin à demander leur avis à des experts en autre chose que les cyberattaques !

      US Navy 7th Fleet commander dismissed, Navy says - CNNPolitics
      http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/uss-mccain-7th-fleet-commander-dismissal/index.html

      Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said that he thought it was unlikely that the ship would have been hacked.

      Navigating a ship in a shipping channel is a manual operation. It comes down to watch attention and awareness. It’s a training procedure issue and a watch qualification issue,” he said.

      He added that even if the steering had been compromised it would be possible for the McCain to outrun the tanker, and that some degree of directionality would be possible by changing the speed of the port and starboard propellers.

      The “traffic situation” in the shipping channel at that time should be the focus of investigation, Ridzwan Rahmat, a senior defense and security analyst at Jane’s suggests.

      The signs were that the merchant ship was in compliance and the damage on the USS John S. McCain suggests that it wasn’t in compliance” of traffic rules at the time, he said.

    • Si vous ne l’avez pas déjà lu, peut-être faites un petit détour sur le fil concernant le Fitzgerald, l’article de gCaptain, Red over red, concernant le rapport préliminaire sur l’abordage d’il y a deux mois est à lire absolument.
      https://seenthis.net/messages/607667#message624112

      Je reprends ici mon commentaire qui concernait plutôt les événements du McCain (je finis par m’y perdre…)
      https://seenthis.net/messages/607667#message624116

      Sur l’incompétence des commentateurs, je remarque qu’aucun n’a fait la remarque que le navire de guerre coupe la route d’un bâtiment de commerce dans un rail…

      L’hypothèse d’une cyberattaque relève du délire. Mais peut-être que les hackers russes ou chinois dont déjà capables aujourd’hui de liquéfier les cervelles d’une équipe de quart en passerelle, après tout de quoi ne sont-ils pas capables ?

      Si le GPS est tombé en rade ou a été piraté, on dispose d’autres moyens de navigation, mille sabords, notamment en vue de terre. Bon sang, l’abordage a eu lieu à 5 miles du principal phare de la région et à 10 miles de la côte ! Si la passerelle a besoin du GPS pour naviguer, il y a lieu de s’interroger sur les compétences requises pour être officier de quart dans l’US Navy.

      Mais, de fait, on en est bien là : couper la route d’un navire dans le rail (je sais je me répète, mais ça ne passe pas !…)

      d’où mon soulagement (enfin, presque…) dans le commentaire précédant immédiatement celui-ci…

    • Search for Missing U.S. Sailors Slowed by Extensive Damage to Vessel - The New York Times
      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/world/asia/mccain-collision-destroyer-united-states-navy.html

      In the McCain case, the search is taking longer because the damage to the vessel appears to be more extensive. According to one Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because investigations were underway, the Alnic appears to have hit the McCain nearly head-on, whereas the Fitzgerald suffered more of a glancing blow.

      C’est en effet compatible avec l’enregistrement de la trajectoire de l’Alnic MC (j’ai complété mon commentaire de la vidéo des relevés AIS https://seenthis.net/messages/623510#message623551 )

      Par ailleurs, le corps repêché par la marine malaisienne n’avait pas de lien avec l’abordage.

      A Malaysian Navy vessel found a body at sea on Tuesday, but it turned out to be the decomposed corpse of an elderly man and was unrelated to the collision, the United States Navy said.

    • China suspected after crashes of USS John S McCain and USS Fitzgerald | World | The Times & The Sunday Times
      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0988b8f8-88fa-11e7-a8f3-117a3aea90d9

      The collision on Monday between a Liberian tanker and a US warship, the latest in a series of incidents in Asia, has provoked questions about possible Chinese involvement.

      A former Royal Navy officer said that the movements of the Guang Zhou Wan, a Chinese commercial vessel, could be significant in explaining the fatal crash off Singapore that left at least one sailor dead. A further nine are missing.

      Tracking data indicates that the tanker that collided with U_SS John S McCain_ was followed by the Chinese vessel, which appeared to steer out of the way before the incident.

      “You get the impression that fleet forces command are going to be looking at wider potential problems — hacking, crew training, how they are navigating, validating of ship-watch…

    • With the USS McCain collision, even Navy tech can’t overcome human shortcomings | Ars Technica
      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/with-the-uss-mccain-collision-even-navy-tech-cant-overcome-human-shortc

      Initial reports from the organization suggest that a “steering casualty”—a loss of control over steering from the bridge—contributed to the McCain’s fatal collision. That, and the nature of the ship’s steering and navigation system, has led to speculation that the McCain was “hacked” and that perhaps some sort of malicious electronic attack was also involved in the Fitzgerald’s collision.

      But so far, available evidence suggests something much less sinister—though potentially more threatening to the overall readiness of the service. There was no hacking, no GPS spoofing or jamming, nor any other deliberate enemy electronic attack on the Navy ships involved in this year’s accidents. Instead, much more human factors were at work—and some of them are endemic to the Navy’s current management culture and operational readiness.
      […]
      Watch standers aboard modern warships may have more technology to help them, but they still face a daunting task when they enter high-traffic areas as treacherous as the Strait of Gibraltar—or the Strait of Malacca, the approaches to the Bosporus and Dardanelles, and the approaches to Tokyo Bay. In each, hundreds of other vessels may be visible to the naked eye or on the radar scope. The resulting sea of data points can overwhelm even an experienced bridge crew regardless of how good their technology is.

      Long article, où je finis par perdre le fil de ce qu’il cherche à dire…

    • U.S. Navy Provides Details of Surface Fleet Review In Wake of ’Disturbing Trend’ of Accidents – gCaptain
      http://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-provides-details-surface-fleet-review-wake-disturbing-trend-accid

      The U.S. Navy has provided details of a comprehensive review of the Navy’s global surface fleet operations after the destroyers USS Fitzgerald and John S. McCain were both involved in major collisions with commercial vessels just two months apart.

      http://navylive.dodlive.mil/files/2017/08/MEMO-FOR-USFF_COMPREHENSIVE-REVIEW-OF-RECENT-SURFACE-FLEET-INCIDEN

      2. You are directed to lead a Comprehensive Review of surface fleet operations and incidents at sea that have occurred over the past decade with emphasis on SEVENTH Fleet operational employment to inform improvements Navy-wide. This review should address the follow areas:

      a. Individual training and professional development, to include seamanship, navigation, voyage planning, leadership development, officer and enlisted tactical training in formal schools and on the job;

      b. Unit level training and operational performance, to including manning, personnel management, watchbill management, bridge (and CIC) team resource management, contact management, contact avoidance, leadership oversight and risk assessment/mitigation at all levels of the chain of command;

      c. Development and certification of deployed operational and mission standards (Force Generation) with particular emphasis on Forward Deployed Naval Force (FDNF), to include validation of required certification standards, gaps between required standards and actual employment practices, effectiveness of leadership and oversight at all levels of administrative and operational chains of command, maintaining and enforcing standards throughout FDNF assignment including self-assessment practices, external inspection reinforcement, remedial action mitigation plans;

      d. Deployed Operational Employment and Risk Management (Force Employment), to include Combatant Commander mission requirements, theater security cooperation requirements, maintenance impacts, other competing priorities (fleet experimentation, concept development), and their corresponding impact to operational tempo (OPTEMPO) and fundamental mariner and seamanship proficiency;

      e. Material Readiness of electronic systems to include navigation equipment (e.g. AIS, radars, ECDIS, VMS, WSNs), propulsion machinery to include steering systems, combat system modernization, and material availability;

      f. Practical Utility of current navigation equipment and combat systems including sensors, tracking systems, displays, and internal communications networks to evaluate their effectiveness at integrating tactical data and providing situational awareness to our people.

    • Fatigue and Training Gaps Spell Disaster at Sea, Sailors Warn - The New York Times
      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/world/asia/fatigue-and-training-gaps-spell-disaster-at-sea-sailors-warn.html

      The bridge of each Navy destroyer is controlled by a round-the-clock shift of young officers, who must pass written and oral exams to qualify for the positions. Still, they typically are under 25 and may have little shipboard experience. Junior officers also move on to other assignments after limited tours.

      Are we shortchanging their basic training, especially as we rotate our junior officers every 18 to 24 months?” asked Admiral Crowder.

      Training for junior ship officers has changed significantly in recent years. In 2003, the Navy dropped what had been an intensive six-month training course on navigation, basic seamanship, engineering and maintenance before new officers were assigned to their first ship.

      Instead, the new officers were sent directly to a ship where they were supposed to learn on the job. Some said they got practical training on deployments, and noted that the Seventh Fleet had a reputation as being the most experienced in the Navy. But, many commanders said, crews were too busy to provide that kind of instruction.

      By last year, the Navy had largely reversed course, sandwiching a junior officer’s first sea tour between 14 weeks of classroom work.
      […]
      Most ships use a traditional “five and dime” watch rotation, in which sailors serve five hours of watch, then have 10 hours off, he said. But during those 10 hours, sailors often have daytime duties.

      The rotation can lead to a watch officer pulling a 20-hour day every three days, Mr. Cordle said, adding that even designated sleep time can be interrupted by drills or refueling operations that can keep sailors up for days at a time. A recent Government Accountability Office report said sailors were on duty up to 108 hours each week.

      I averaged 3 hours of sleep a night,” someone described as a Japan-based Navy officer wrote on Reddit last week. “I have personally gone without sleep for so long that I have seen and heard things that weren’t there. I’ve witnessed accidents that could have been avoided because the person was so tired they had no right to be operating heavy machinery.

      Navy tests of sailors on the five-and-dime schedule found lack of sleep led to blunted decision-making and reflexes that were roughly the same as those of sailors who had downed several beers.

      The Naval Postgraduate School has developed a shorter watch schedule to match circadian rhythms, which uses three hours of watch duty and nine hours off. Recognizing the benefits, submarines were ordered to move to a similar schedule in 2015.

      Mr. Cordle said adopting the schedule could result in greater safety. But the Navy has left scheduling up to individual captains, and three quarters of ships still use the five and dime.

    • Ship Collisions : Address the Underlying Causes, Including Culture | U.S. Naval Institute
      https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/ship-collisions-address-underlying-causes-including-culture

      Un think tank naval, grosse institution privée (estd 1873…), entre dans la danse (après plusieurs autres dont gCaptain). Dans le collimateur :
      • l’organisation des tours de quart
      • la non-spécialisation des officiers entre pont et machine
      • la (non-)formation au quart
      (j’ai lu sur un blog que, sur les navires modernes de la Navy (classe Ticonderoga !), il n’y aurait plus de table à carte en passerelle (support traditionnel du point à la main) mais uniquement de l’électronique…, à confirmer)

      In the wake of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collisions, the Navy is conducting investigations, relieving commanding officers, conducting safety stand downs (operational pauses), and retraining. This is a similar response to past mishaps, but this time the Navy must include true root cause analysis . Analysis after mishaps invariably uncovers human error and training deficiencies as causal factors. Some people get fired and others retrained. The Navy has begun to dig deeper with the CNO’s mandate for a fleet-wide investigation last week. I predict some of the findings of root causes will include the Navy’s approach to training and career development, surface warfare officer (SWO) culture, and high operational tempo (OpTempo) driving mission over people. 

      When a junior officer (JO) reports to a warship, he or she immediately has three jobs: standing watch under instruction, running a division, and earning qualifications (first as an officer of the deck and then as a SWO). Once qualified to be a watchstander, a JO is on the watch bill and expected to train the next batch of JOs. Depending on the number of qualified watchstanders on board, the watch rotation varies: “port and starboard” (6 hours on watch and 6 hours off); “five and dime” (5 hours on and 10 hours off watch, rotating); three or four section “chow to chow” rotating (based around mealtimes); “3 on/9 off” or “4 on/8 off” with two watches per day that do not change for a given underway. The “off” time is when a JO can accomplish day work, run the division, and work on qualifications—along with a little sleep and maybe squeeze in a run on the treadmill.
      […]
      The U.S. Navy appears to be the only maritime organization in the world that does not have dedicated watchstanders and separate dedicated professional tracks for deck and engineering.
      […]
      Another root cause likely will be the alertness level of those watchstanders. Watch rotations vary greatly in the fleet, partly because of the variability in the number of qualified watchstanders and partly because of SWO culture. Many COs will direct the watches be run the way he or she experienced as a JO. The vast majority of Navy ships still use rotating watches, which is completely against human circadian rhythms. With rotating watches, everyone sleeps when they are off watch because they are in a constant state of exhaustion. Myriad sleep deprivation studies have proven that lack of sleep is cumulative. You can’t “catch up” on sleep, and decision-making is impaired just like being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Yet the Navy has not addressed watch rotations to maximize crew rest. Instead, it perpetuates a culture where lack of sleep is a rite of passage, and the main risk assessment tool does not account for crew rest.

    • Singapore-led safety investigation underway into USS John S McCain collision - Channel NewsAsia
      http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-led-safety-investigation-underway-into-uss-john-s-9174198

      The Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) launched a marine safety investigation following the collision of the USS John S McCain and Liberian-flagged oil tanker Alnic MC on Aug 21. 

      A TSIB spokesperson said on Thursday (Aug 31) that the investigation was launched immediately after the collision, and the probe was being conducted in accordance with the International Maritime Organization’s Casualty Investigation Code in Singapore’s capacity as a coastal state.

      The US Coast Guard, on behalf of the US National Transportation Safety Board, and the Liberian Maritime Administration are participating in Singapore’s safety investigation as Substantially Interested States,” the spokesperson said. 

      To date, investigators have interviewed the crew members of the Alnic, while TSIB has been coordinating with the US Coast Guard to gather relevant information on the US guided-missile destroyer, including statements of account from its crew. 

      TISB has also obtained shipboard data from the Alnic and other ships in the vicinity at the time of the collision to support the Singapore-led safety investigation, the spokesperson said.

      Si on lit entre les lignes, il semblerait que le TSIB rende public l’ouverture de leur enquête (avec 10 jours de retard) pour faire pression sur la Navy qui, à son habitude, ne semble pas particulièrement coopérative…

      Clairement, il n’est pas prévu qu’ils aient accès directement aux témoignages des marins du McCain

    • U.S. Navy to Haul Damaged Destroyer John S. McCain to Japan for Damage Assessment – gCaptain
      http://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-to-haul-damaged-destroyer-john-s-mccain-to-japan-for-damage-asses

      The U.S. Navy is planning to haul the damaged guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to its ship repair facility in Yokosuka, Japan where damage assessments will continue to take place.

      The Navy said Tuesday it intends to issue a task order on an existing contract, for the salvage patching and transport via heavy lift of USS John S McCain (DDG 56) from Changi Naval Base in Singapore to the U.S. Navy’s Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center in Yokosuka, Japan. The Navy did not specify which existing contract it was referring to.

    • Une hypothèse circule depuis quelques jours : l’USS John S McCain aurait été en train de doubler l’Alnic NC, suffisamment près (ie beaucoup trop près…) pour que, vers la fin du dépassement, la perturbation hydrodynamique due à la vague d’étrave de l’Alnic vienne perturber le safran du McCain, provoquant une embardée à gauche, voire mettant en panne l’appareil à gouverner.
      http://forum.gcaptain.com/t/uss-j-mccain-alnic-mc-collision-near-singapore/45819/327

    • Un peu de ménage…
      Pour l’instant, l’état-major du destroyer n’a pas été touché.

      Admiral, Captain Removed in Ongoing Investigations into USS John S. McCain, USS Fitzgerald Collisions
      https://news.usni.org/2017/09/18/admiral-captain-removed-part-investigation-uss-john-s-mccain-uss-fitzgera

      The commander of the Navy’s largest operational battle force and his subordinate in charge of the attached destroyer squadron have been removed from their positions as a result of ongoing investigations into a string of incidents this year that resulted in the death of 17 sailors and hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, USNI News has learned.

      U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Philip Sawyer removed Rear Adm. Charles Williams, commander of Combined Task Force 70, and Capt. Jeffery Bennett, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 15, from their positions on Monday (Tuesday local time) due to a loss of confidence in their ability to command, two Navy officials told USNI News and later confirmed by a statement from the service.

    • Les réparations auront lieu « localement », à Yokosuka. Localement, parce qu’il faut encore acheminer l’USS John S McCain de Singapour à Yokosuka (transfert prévu dans le courant de ce mois). Contrairement à l’USS Fitzgerald qui lui était à Yokosuka et va être acheminé à Pascagoula dans le Mississippi (probablement en décembre).

      USS John S. McCain to Be Repaired in Japan – gCaptain
      http://gcaptain.com/uss-john-s-mccain-to-be-repaired-in-japan

      The U.S. Navy will repair the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) at the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center in Yokosuka, Japan.

      Repairs will begin upon arrival from Singapore aboard a heavy lift vessel in October, the Navy said.

      Accessoirement, on profitera de l’immobilisation pour faire un peu de remise à niveau :

      In addition to supporting repairs, the McCain’s crew will focus on training, readiness, and certifications to prepare the ship for its return to the Seventh Fleet, according to the Navy.
      […]
      On Thursday, the USS John S. McCain departed Changi Naval Base to meet the heavy lift transport vessel MV Treasure, which will transport it to Fleet Activities Yokosuka for repairs.

    • U.S. Navy says deadly McCain collision was #preventable, relieves ship commander
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-asia/u-s-navy-says-deadly-mccain-collision-was-preventable-relieves-ship-command

      The commanding officer exercised poor judgment, and the executive officer exercised poor leadership of the ship’s training program,” the USS Seventh Fleet said in a statement released in Japan on Wednesday.
      […]
      The McCain’s captain, Commander A. Sanchez, and his executive officer, Commander J. Sanchez, were reassigned to other duties in Japan, where the Seventh Fleet is headquartered, the Navy said.

      On attend le rapport préliminaire d’enquête…

  • In Victory for #Standing_Rock Sioux Tribe, Court Finds That Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law - THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN
    https://www.theindigenousamericans.com/2017/07/16/victory-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-court-finds-approval-dakot

    Ruling: Trump administration shortcut environmental review; Court seeks additional briefing on whether to shut down pipeline – Washington, D.C. —

    The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its fight to protect the Tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.

    A federal judge ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.

    In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg wrote, “the Court agrees that [the Corps] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial.”

    #états-unis #peuples_premiers #nations_premières #peuples_autochtones

  • In Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Court Finds That Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law - THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN
    https://www.theindigenousamericans.com/2017/07/16/victory-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-court-finds-approval-dakot

    The #Standing_Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its fight to protect the Tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.

    A federal judge ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.

    In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg wrote, “the Court agrees that [the Corps] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial.”

    The Court did not determine whether pipeline operations should be shut off and has requested additional briefing on the subject and a status conference next week.

    #droits_humains #eau #environnement

  • Trump Weighing Combining Agencies Separated After Gulf Spill, Sources Say - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-08/trump-said-to-mull-combining-agencies-separated-after-gulf-spill

    After the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration broke the scandal-plagued federal agency that policed offshore drilling into separate bureaus.

    Now the Trump administration is considering putting it back together again.

    The change, described by Interior Department officials and lobbyists familiar with the deliberations, would combine two agencies: one that enforces regulations on offshore drilling safety and another in charge of leasing offshore tracts. Keeping those roles separate was a key recommendation of a presidential commission that investigated the #Deepwater_Horizon blast that killed 11 men and sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for months.

    Au cas où on n’aurait pas encore compris qui élabore la politique industrielle et la réglementation aux États-Unis…

  • Canada introduces law to ban tankers off north British Columbia | Reuters
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/canada-politics-tankers-idUKL1N1IE1M3

    Canada’s Liberal government has introduced legislation for a moratorium on oil tanker traffic along the northern coast of the #British_Columbia province, the country’s transport department said on Friday, delivering on an election promise.

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the ban soon after the election in 2015, in which he took power on a pledge to balance resource development with protecting the environment.

    Friday’s bill will likely pass because Trudeau’s Liberals hold a majority in Parliament.

    Trudeau’s orders for the ban effectively slammed the door on Enbridge Inc’s #Northern_Gateway_pipeline, a project facing massive development hurdles that was to deliver oil to the north coast for export via tankers.

    The move is part of a Liberal plan to toughen response to oil spills at sea. The plan was announced last year days before Trudeau formally rejected Northern Gateway, but approved another pipeline project through British Columbia, Kinder Morgan Inc’s #Trans_Mountain expansion.

    According to Transport Canada, vessels carrying less than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude or other oils will be exempt from the tanker ban, so as to ensure northern communities can receive shipments of heating oils and other products.
    […]
    The ban does not apply to the south coast, which will likely see increased tanker traffic if Trans Mountain goes online.

    Whether that happens according to schedule, however, has become uncertain after British Columbia’s pro-energy Liberals, unaffiliated with Trudeau’s federal party, lost their majority in a provincial election on Tuesday.

    While absentee ballots still need to be counted in the close race, if the current seat count in the provincial legislature holds, the future of key energy projects in British Columbia will be pitted against the ability of the Liberals to work with the third-party Greens.

    • Kinder Commits to Pipeline Linking Oil-Sands Crude to Asian Markets - Bloomberg
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-25/kinder-commits-to-pipe-linking-oil-sands-crude-to-asian-markets

      The Houston-based company announced its final investment decision for the Trans Mountain expansion project Thursday, saying it expects to secure enough financing from an initial public offering of its Canadian subsidiary to proceed with the project. It expects to raise C$1.75 billion from the IPO by May 31, according to a statement.

      The project will nearly triple Trans Mountain’s capacity, giving producers from Alberta’s oil sands access to Pacific shipping routes from the coast of British Columbia. Currently, almost all of Canada’s oil is exported to the U.S. With the expanded line, Canada can export to Asian refineries capable of processing its heavy crude and pay higher margins than those in the U.S.
      […]
      Environmental Opposition
      Those plans are likely to face a galvanized opposition in British Columbia, where the pipeline terminates near Vancouver. Two political parties — the New Democratic Party and Green Party — expanded their support in an election there earlier this month. Both are staunchly opposed to the project, which they say would increase tanker traffic and the risk of a catastrophic oil spill. Together they could muster a majority of lawmakers to overwhelm the more energy-friendly Liberal Party.

  • Negotiations and protests ongoing in wake of oil spills in Peruvian Amazon
    https://news.mongabay.com/2016/09/negotiations-and-protests-ongoing-in-wake-of-oil-spills-in-peruvian-a

    Negotiations on Aug. 31 between national government officials and leaders and residents of Nueva Alianza, an indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon, ended an impasse over cleanup of about 4,000 barrels of oil that spilled from two pipeline breaks 10 days earlier. But the talks left many questions unanswered and local residents dissatisfied.

    While the meeting was under way in Nueva Alianza, at the confluence of the Urituyacu and Marañón rivers in Peru’s northeastern Loreto region, a protest over oil operations was brewing downstream in San José de Saramuro, where the troubled northern Peruvian oil pipeline begins.

    That protest erupted on Sept. 1, with demonstrators blocking the Marañón River, a crucial waterway connecting the key Amazonian city of Iquitos with highways to the coast. The protesters’ demands include replacement of the deteriorated pipeline, remediation of 40 years’ worth of oil pollution in the Amazon, compensation for damages, and an environmental monitoring law.

    The recent events underscore growing discontent among indigenous communities living in a region where decades of poorly regulated oil production have left hundreds of contaminated sites, and where residents who depend on rivers for drinking water and fish for protein worry about long-term health effects.

    #Pérou #pétrole #pollution #peuples_autochtones #eau #forêt #pêche

  • 37% of North American Birds Face Extinction
    http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/21/birds-face-extinction

    A new report says 37 percent of all 1,154 migratory bird species on the North American continent are at risk of extinction, primarily due to sea-level rise, coastal development, human activity and oil spills.

    The report, by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, noted that birds living in ocean environments face the most risk due to overfishing, #pollution and climate change, as do birds living in tropical and subtropics forests.

    http://www.stateofthebirds.org/2016
    #oiseaux #oiseaux_migrateurs #biodiversité #surpêche #climat #pétrole #pollution #anthropocène

  • Shell Oil Spill Dumps Thousands Of Barrels Of Crude Into Gulf Of Mexico
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shell-oil-spill-gulf-mexico_us_57353058e4b060aa7819ee00

    A 2,100-barrel oil spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico forced Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday to shut in all wells that flow to its Brutus platform, federal regulators said.

    The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said a 2 mile by 13 mile (about 3 km by 21 km) sheen was visible in the sea about 97 miles off the Louisiana coast.

    About 88,200 gallons was reportedly released from the pipeline, the Coast Guard said, adding the source of the discharge was reported as secured.

    The sheen is near Shell’s Glider Field, a group of four subsea wells whose production flows through a subsea manifold to the Brutus platform, which sits in water with a depth of 2,900 feet (884 m).

    Du pétrole s’évade dans le golf de mexico… #shell #pétrole

    Via http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jason-najum/shell-oil-spill_b_10026514.html «Lost In The Spectacle Of ’News’ Was Another Oil Spill We Barely Noticed»

    Last week another major oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. A leak from a Shell oil rig released approximately 90,000 gallons (over 340,000 liters) into the sea, creating a floating slick of oil the size of Manhattan. And I didn’t hear about until today. Did you?

    #pollution