region:north atlantic

The most expensive hyphen in history
▻https://www.fastcompany.com/90365077/the-most-expensive-hyphen-in-history

https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_1280,f_auto,q_auto,fl_lossy/wp-cms/uploads/2019/06/p-1-the-most-expensive-hyphen-in-history.jpg

Bugs, bugs bugs

By Charles Fishman4 minute Read

This is the 18th in an exclusive series of 50 articles, one published each day until July 20, exploring the 50th anniversary of the first-ever Moon landing. You can check out 50 Days to the Moon here every day.

In the dark on Sunday morning, July 22, 1962, NASA launched the first-ever U.S. interplanetary space probe: Mariner 1, headed for Venus, Earth’s neighbor closer to the Sun.

Mariner 1 was launched atop a 103-foot-tall Atlas-Agena rocket at 5:21 a.m. EDT. For 3 minutes and 32 seconds, it rose perfectly, accelerating to the edge of space, nearly 100 miles up.

But at that moment, Mariner 1 started to veer in odd, unplanned ways, first aiming northwest, then pointing nose down. The rocket was out of control and headed for the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic. Four minutes and 50 seconds into flight, a range safety officer at Cape Canaveral—in an effort to prevent the rocket from hitting people or land—flipped two switches, and explosives in the Atlas blew the rocket apart in a spectacular cascade of fireworks visible back in Florida.

The Mariner 1 probe itself was blown free of the debris, and its radio transponder continued to ping flight control for another 67 seconds, until it hit the Atlantic Ocean.

This was the third failed probe in 1962 alone; NASA had also launched two failed probes to the Moon. But the disappointment was softened by the fact that a second, identical Mariner spacecraft (along with an identical Atlas-Agena rocket) were already in hangers at the Cape, standing by. Mariner 2 was launched successfully a month later and reached Venus on December 14, 1962, where it discovered that the temperature was 797º F and that the planet rotated in the opposite direction of Earth and Mars. The Sun on Venus rises in the West.

It was possible to launch Mariner 1’s twin just 36 days after the disaster because it took scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory only five days to figure out what had gone wrong. In handwritten computer coding instructions, in dozens and dozens of lines of flight guidance equations, a single letter had been written incorrectly, probably forgetfully.

In a critical spot, the equations contained an “R” symbol (for “radius”). The “R” was supposed to have a bar over it, indicating a “smoothing” function; the line told the guidance computer to average the data it was receiving and to ignore what was likely to be spurious data. But as written and then coded onto punch cards and into the guidance computer, the “R” didn’t have a bar over it. The “R-bar” became simply “R.”

As it happened, on launch, Mariner 1 briefly lost guidance-lock with the ground, which was not uncommon. The rocket was supposed to follow its course until guidance-lock was re-achieved, unless it received instructions from the ground computer. But without the R-bar, the ground computer got confused about Mariner 1’s performance, thought it was off course, and started sending signals to the rocket to “correct” its course, instructions that weren’t necessary—and weren’t correct.

Therefore “phantom erratic behavior” became “actual erratic behavior,” as one analyst wrote. In the minute or so that controllers waited, the rocket and the guidance computer on the ground were never able to get themselves sorted out, because the “averaging” function that would have kept the rocket on course wasn’t programmed into the computer. And so the range safety officer did his job.

A single handwritten line, the length of a hyphen, doomed the most elaborate spaceship the U.S. had until then designed, along with its launch rocket. Or rather, the absence of that bar doomed it. The error cost $18.5 million ($156 million today).

In the popular press, for simplicity, the missing bar became a hyphen. The New York Times front-page headline was “For Want of a Hyphen Venus Rocket Is Lost.” The Los Angeles Times headline: “‘Hyphen’ Blows Up Rocket.” The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1968 book The Promise of Space, called it “the most expensive hyphen in history.”

For NASA’s computer programmers, it was a lesson in care, caution, and testing that ended up steeped into their bones. During 11 Apollo missions, more than 100 days total of spaceflight, the Apollo flight computers performed without a single fault.

But what happened to Mariner 1 was, in fact, an arresting vulnerability of the new Space Age. A single missing bolt in a B-52 nuclear bomber wasn’t going to bring down the plane, but a single inattentive moment in computer programming—of the sort anyone can imagine having—could have a cascade of consequences.

George Mueller was NASA’s associate administrator for manned spaceflight from 1963 to 1969, the most critical period for Apollo’s development. Just before that, Mueller had been an executive at Space Technology Laboratories, which had responsibility for writing the guidance equations for Mariner 1, including the equation with the missing bar.

During his years at NASA, Mueller kept a reminder of the importance of even the smallest elements of spaceflight on the wall behind his desk: a framed image of a hyphen.

#Histoire_numerique #Nasa #Mariner

Éoliennes sur la côte est des États-Unis, le constructeur accepte de suspendre le battage des piles pendant la période de migration des baleines.

Whales Will Get Right of Way at Huge Martha’s Vineyard Wind Farm - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-23/whales-will-get-right-of-way-at-huge-martha-s-vineyard-wind-farm

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iBlJeR.RaBe8/v2/1200x677.jpg

• Agreement with environmental groups may be offshore template
• Wind developers plan more than 10 gigawatts off East Coast

Migrating whales will have the right of way off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard starting this month under a new agreement between a wind developer and environmental groups.

Vineyard Wind, which is building the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S., has agreed to halt some construction activity between January and April, during the period when some endangered North Atlantic right whales are most likely to pass through the area. Extra protocols, including whale spotting, will be in place in November, December and May.

Le porte container Yantian Express (Hapag-Lloyd ) en feu avec ses 7500 containers à 1000 Km de la cote est du Canada

▻https://gcaptain.com/hapag-lloyd-containership-yantian-express-on-fire-off-east-coast-of-canada
▻https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/press/releases/2019/01/containers-caught-fire-on-board-the-yantian-express.html

A fire has broke out aboard a Hapag-Lloyd containership in the North Atlantic off the east coast of Canada.

In a statement posted to its website, Hapag-Lloyd said the fire started January 3 in one container on the deck of the Yantian Express and has spread to additional containers.

Efforts to extinguish the fire were launched immediately but were suspended due to a significant deterioration of weather conditions.

At the time of the update, the ship was located approximately 650 nautical miles off the coast of Canada.

The crew of 8 officers and 15 seafarers are unharmed, Hapag-Lloyd said.

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The ship was sailing from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Halifax, via the Suez Canal, where it was expected to arrive on January 4, according to AIS ship tracking data. 

The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday afternoon that it is coordinating the response efforts to ensure the safety of the crew.

Another commercial vessel, Happy Ranger, was just 20 miles from the position of the Yantian Express and has diverted to provide assistance. A commercial tugboat is also en route.

The Coast Guard said it is monitoring the situation. 

The 7,510 TEU vessel 320-meters-long and is flagged in German flag. The ship operates in the East Coast Loop 5 (EC5) service. It was built in 2002.

https://hapag-lloyd7.azureedge.net/content/website/en/press/photo-library/hapag-lloyd-logo/_jcr_content/par/containermodule_d2c/cmpar/image_fedd/desktop.image.img.transform/content-desktop/c-1471290893020.png/a-1474302648388.png/download_logo_HLAG.png

“It is still too early to make a precise estimate of any damage to the vessel or its cargo. Hapag-Lloyd is closely cooperating with all relevant authorities,” Hapag-Lloyd said.

Both the Yantian Express and Happy Ranger are participating in the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue System (AMVER) program. 

“Thanks to the participation of mariners in the AMVER system, we were able to coordinate a quick response,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Kelly Badal, operations unit watchstander at the Fifth District command center. “This system is crucial to coordinating nearby vessels to provide assistance when an emergency arises far from Coast Guard assets.”

No pollution or injuries have been reported. 

A new hegemon

The Chinese century is well under way
Many trends that appear global are in fact mostly Chinese

Print edition | Graphic detail
Oct 27th 2018

Get the data here : ▻https://github.com/TheEconomist/graphic-detail-data/tree/master/data/2018-10-27_chinese-century/README_files/figure-markdown_github

When scholars of international relations predict that the 2000s will be a “Chinese century”, they are not being premature. Although America remains the lone superpower, China has already replaced it as the driver of global change.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/f3jwilr07rtnucz/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202019-01-03%20%C3%A0%2013.30.12.png?dl=0

There is one economic metric on which China already ranks first. Measured at market exchange rates, China’s gdp is still 40% smaller than America’s. However, on a purchasing-power-parity (ppp) basis, which adjusts currencies so that a basket of goods and services is worth the same amount in different countries, the Chinese economy became the world’s largest in 2013. Although China is often grouped with other “emerging markets”, its performance is unique: its gdp per person at ppp has risen tenfold since 1990. In general, poorer economies grow faster than rich ones, because it is easier to “catch up” when starting from a low base. Yet in other countries that were as poor as China was in 1990, purchasing power has merely doubled.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/uhnv4k8cbn038f9/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202019-01-03%20%C3%A0%2013.30.20.png?dl=0

China’s record has exerted a “gravitational pull” on the world’s economic output. The Economist has calculated a geographic centre of the global economy by taking an average of each country’s latitude and longitude, weighted by their gdp. At the height of America’s dominance, this point sat in the north Atlantic. But China has tugged it so far east that the global centre of economic gravity is now in Siberia.

Because China is so populous and is developing so quickly, it is responsible for a remarkable share of global change. Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, for example, China has accounted for 45% of the gain in world gdp. In 1990 some 750m Chinese people lived in extreme poverty; today fewer than 10m do. That represents two-thirds of the world’s decline in poverty during that time. China is also responsible for half of the total increase in patent applications over the same period.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/o1pckkkjv2fo8pi/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202019-01-03%20%C3%A0%2013.30.25.png?dl=0

For all its talk of a “peaceful rise”, China has steadily beefed up its military investment—even as the rest of the world cut back after the end of the cold war. As a result, the People’s Liberation Army accounts for over 60% of the total increase in global defence spending since 1990. And all of this growth has come at a considerable cost to the environment: China is also the source of 55% of the increase in the world’s carbon emissions since 1990.

Sources: Economist Intelligence Unit; Global Carbon Project; Maddison Project Database; SIPRI; World Bank; World Intellectual Property Organisation; The Economist

#chine #économie

Dangerous North Atlantic Storm Impacting Shipping Lanes – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/dangerous-north-atlantic-storm-impacting-shipping-lanes

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/A_sfc_full_ocean_color.jpg

A developing hurricane force storm low over the west-central North Atlantic continues to move eastward at 35 knots producing winds of 55-75 knots with significant wave heights up to 12 meters (40 feet) within 180 NM south and 120 NM west of the center. Over the next 24 hours max winds will be between 50-75 knots with significant wave heights to 15 meters (50 feet) within 240 NM in the western semi-circle.

The Navy’s Crash Course on Accountability - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-09/the-navy-s-crash-course-on-accountability

Le point de vue (cité ici intégralement) de James Stavridis, amiral en retraite de la marine états-unienne et ancien commandant en chef de l’OTAN (SACEUR de 2009 à 2013).

In 1952, on a stormy night in the North Atlantic, the aircraft carrier USS Wasp cut the highly decorated World War II destroyer USS Hobson in two, with the loss of 176 sailors. Afterward, the accountability was swift and sure — such is the tradition of the Navy. The Wall Street Journal responded with an editorial that is still routinely quoted in the service: “Now comes the cruel business of accountability. It was no wish to destruction that killed this ship and its 176 men; the accountability lies with good men who erred in judgment under stress so great that it is almost its own excuse.”

Today’s Navy is facing some hard business of accountability itself, following the shocking loss of two guided missile destroyers and the deaths of 17 sailors — part of a string of seamanship failures in the legendary 7th Fleet. In particular, the twin collisions of USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain sent shock waves through the entire Navy, prompting the abrupt retirement of the four-star admiral who commanded the entire Pacific Fleet, as well as the firings of the three-star commander of the 7th Fleet, the two-star admiral commanding the Japanese-based strike group, and the commanding officers, executive officers (second in command) and senior enlisted sailors aboard both destroyers. This is breathtaking accountability, from top to bottom.

Even more striking was the release this month of a searing and recommendation-laced report prepared by the Navy’s senior surface-warfare admiral, Phil Davidson. While there are additional reports that will follow (including one prepared at the behest of the service’s civilian leader, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer), it is Davidson’s report that will drive the corrective action.

The Navy’s failures in the forward-deployed ships are centered in a culture of “shut up and do the job” in the surface fleet. Growing up as a junior officer in that world, I saw again and again the refusal to balance sufficient rest with on-deck watch standing in order to accomplish the mission: admirable in concept, foolish in execution.

I failed personally in command of my first ship — the USS Barry, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer like the Fitzgerald and McCain — to find the right balance between operational demands, training and rest levels of my crew. We were lucky on several occasions to avoid a grounding or collision. That such situations are still so prevalent is, of course, is a leadership failure at heart, and will take the longest to correct.

Unfortunately, these challenges emerge against the backdrop of a long, embarrassing investigation into more than 60 current and retired admirals surrounding allegations of corruption, likewise in the 7th Fleet. The so-called “Fat Leonard” scandal — named after Leonard Glenn Francis, the convicted Malaysian defense contractor at its center — is part of the leadership clean-up ahead at the senior levels of the Navy.  

The report also highlights and mandates corrections in equipment and maintenance, training and qualification pipelines, and organizational oversight. While complex, these steps can largely be accomplished swiftly if they get the senior-level attention and resources they need. For decades, unfortunately, the surface forces have been the “poor cousin” of better-resourced nuclear powered fleet (submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers) and the aviation arm of the Navy.

Also critical is the longstanding insufficiency of the Navy’s size. The fleet count hovers around 275, far lower than at any point since early in the 20th century. While all of the ships today are certainly of high quality, the old saying “quantity has a quality of its own” has great merit, and the vast majority of analysts believe the fleet needs to grow to around 350 front-line warships. This will allow lower operational tempo, better rest cycles, and more training and ship-handling opportunities for officers coming up through the ranks.

Basic blocking and tackling are the heart of real-world operations. Even in this increasingly high-tech, artificial-intelligence and cyber driven world, humans will continue to make difficult operational decisions. There is no easy way to substitute for basic experience — it takes five years of ship handling to have five years of ship handling experience. We can use simulators more creatively and aggressively, but the heart of such skills comes the good old-fashioned way: spending time performing hard tasks under demanding instructors who challenge the apprentice again and again until he or she masters the art.

Institutional reputation can evaporate in an instant, but rebuilding it takes time. The damage to the Navy’s national and international reputation caused by this string of mishaps is profound — but hardly irretrievable. Over the past few months, I have been challenged in dozens of public forums to explain the Navy’s failure streak, and I tend to revert to what I was taught 40 years ago as a plebe at Annapolis: to say simply, “no excuse, sir,” and describe how the Navy has taken all the right steps and will emerge stronger over time. Rebuilding the sea wall of our reputation can only be done brick by brick, but that wall will stand again.

Harsh accountability is painful but critical when facing serious damage. The chief of naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, has been forced to fire good officers and enlisted sailors. He feels that loss personally and profoundly; but he has shown the courage and leadership to do what must be done. Too many American institutions again and again refuse to seize the “hard right course of action,” and default to an easier path. This may be the most important lesson of all in the wake of these failures.

In closing their editorial six decades ago, the Journal editors said:

We are told men should no longer be held accountable for what they do as well as for what they intend. To err is not only human, it absolves responsibility. Everywhere else, that is, except on the sea. On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both goes accountability.

The Navy will emerge stronger from this ordeal, and better at the basics of operating our ships. Its ruthless sense of operational accountability lies at the heart of recovery — and here lies a profound lesson for any organization.

Très instructif de voir exhumer l’idée du #responsable_mais_pas_coupable dès 1952, principe alors supposé acquis partout sauf sur mer !

Echoes of Cold War as NATO mulls new North Atlantic command
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia/echoes-of-cold-war-as-nato-mulls-new-north-atlantic-command-idUSKBN1D61ZP

NATO needs to establish a new regional base for protecting the North Atlantic against increased Russian naval strength, a senior alliance general said on Monday, as allies consider the next step in a military build-up reminiscent of the Cold War.

General Petr Pavel, head of NATO’s military committee, will help put the case to allied defense ministers this week for a new planning and strategy base to be located in a chosen NATO ally and focused on keeping Atlantic shipping lanes safe from enemy submarines.

It would be the first such expansion in two decades after NATO sharply cut back its commands in 2011.

“If we look at the growing capabilities of countries like Russia and China, with a global reach, it is quite obvious that maritime lines of communication have to be protected,” Pavel, a Czech army general, told Reuters in an interview.
[…]
Strong in symbolism, the decision is unlikely to revive a much larger Cold War-era Atlantic Command that was disbanded in 2002, but it would broaden NATO’s new deterrent against Russia.

Merging Pacific Storms Could Produce 17-Meter Wave Heights – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/merging-pacific-storms-could-produce-17-meter-wave-heights

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/north-pacific-wave-forecast-1-1.jpeg

Post-Tropical Hurricane Force Storm Lan will move rapidly northeast and transfer its energy to a developing storm low that will move towards the southwestern Bering Sea and western Aleutian islands.

This developing storm will deepen very rapidly to a dangerous 939 millibars hurricane force storm creating winds of 55 to 75 knots and seas building 36-56 feet (11-17 meters) within 360 NM SE and 420 NM SW of the center within 24-36 hours. This will create a dangerous situation for ship traffic steaming along northern Pacific routes.

Check out the 17-meter wave heights! Remember, significant waves heights is based on the average height of the tallest one third of the waves, so individual waves can be much taller!

Un peu de mode (et de pub…)
Les #t-shirts de gCaptain
(j’suis fan !)

http://3kbo302xo3lg2i1rj8450xje.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/mockup-ccf0a169_1296x.png

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0020/4582/products/sam-plimsoll-load-line-shirt-grey_large.png

la #marque_de_franc-bord est dite aussi (d’après WP) ligne de Plimsoll
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_internationale_de_charge

Canadian Coast Guard Ship Hit with $6K Speeding Ticket in Gulf of St. Lawrence – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/canadian-coast-guard-ship-hit-with-6k-speeding-ticket-in-gulf-of-st-lawren

The Canadian government has issued a $6,000 speeding ticket to a Canadian Coast Guard ship for travelling over the posted speed limit in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Since August 11, 2017, Transport Canada has been imposing a 10-knot speed limit for larger vessels operating in designated areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence due to the increased presence of right whales in the area. The speed restriction applies to ALL vessels of 20 meters or greater travelling in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence, between the Quebec north shore and just north of Prince Edward Island.

To that end, Transport Canada said it has issued a $6,000 penalty to the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Sir William Alexander for its alleged non-compliance with the temporary mandatory speed restriction.

The slowdown comes after the deaths of at least 10 North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in recent months, which have made 2017 the deadliest year record for the endangered mammals.

#estuaire_du_Saint_Laurent #baleine_franche #béluga

Canada orders ships to reduce speed to prevent whale deaths
▻https://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCAKBN1AR20O-OCADN

Certain ships are being ordered to reduce speed because of the deaths of at least 10 North Atlantic right whales in Canada’s Gulf of St Lawrence during the past two months, the government said on Friday.

The deaths have made 2017 the deadliest year for the endangered marine mammal since scientists began tracking their numbers in the 1980s, researchers said.

The ministries of transport and fisheries issued a temporary order for vessels 20 meters or longer to slow to a maximum of 10 knots in the western portion of the Gulf, which stretches from Quebec to north of Prince Edward Island.

DNA from Viking cod bones suggests 1,000 years of European fish trade | University of Cambridge
▻https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/dna-from-viking-cod-bones-suggests-1000-years-of-european-fish-trade

https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/map_4.jpg

Norway is famed for its cod. Catches from the Arctic stock that spawn each year off its northern coast are exported across Europe for staple dishes from British fish and chips to Spanish bacalao stew.

Now, a new study published today in the journal PNAS suggests that some form of this pan-European trade in Norwegian cod may have been taking place for 1,000 years.

Latest research from the universities of Cambridge and Oslo, and the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology in Schleswig, used ancient DNA extracted from the remnants of Viking-age fish suppers.

The study analysed five cod bones dating from between 800 and 1066 AD found in the mud of the former wharves of #Haithabu, an early medieval trading port on the Baltic. Haithabu is now a heritage site in modern Germany, but at the time was ruled by the King of the Danes. 

The DNA from these cod bones contained genetic signatures seen in the Arctic stock that swim off the coast of Lofoten: the northern archipelago still a centre for Norway’s fishing industry. 

Researchers say the findings show that supplies of ‘stockfish’ – an ancient dried cod dish popular to this day – were transported over a thousand miles from northern Norway to the Baltic Sea during the Viking era.

Prior to the latest study, there was no archaeological or historical proof of a European stockfish trade before the 12th century.

#Hedeby Commerce de la #morue #Vikings

PSB::Acoustics::Sounds
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/sounds.html
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/specs/Minke%20Whale.JPG

Sounds in the Ocean
Notes: Some sounds are very low frequency and you may not be able to hear well without a bass speaker.

To download sound file: either click on the link, go to file menu and save that page, or right click on the link and chose the ’save link as’ option.

Acoustic sounds.
Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/humpback-whale.ogg

North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/north-atlantic-right-whale.ogg

Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/minke-whale.ogg

Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/fin-whale.ogg

Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/sei-whale.ogg

Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
▻http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/acoustics/audio/blue-whale.ogg

After Sailing from Across North Atlantic, Real Viking Ship Forced to Leave Great Lakes Over Pilot Fees - gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/real-viking-ship-forced-to-leave-great-lakes-over-pilot-fees

The Norwegian Viking Ship, Draken Harald Hårfagr, has already sailed across the North Atlantic with stops in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland, and is currently in Lake Erie after having passed through the the St Lawrence Seaway. It is headed to the Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes 2016 race series, a tall ship race through all five Great Lakes with port appearances in cities throughout the United States and Canada.

The non-profit behind the Draken however, Draken Expedition America, says that the Viking ship recently entered the Great Lakes with information from the Great Lakes Pilotage Authorities that the ship would not be required to obtain pilotage based on a rule stating, in part, that “…Foreign ships of less than 35 meters in overall length are not subject to compulsory pilotage in the Great Lakes Region”.

Unfortunately, the organization later learned when entering the St Lawrence Seaway that the ship actually is required a pilot at all times while at sea, with no possibility of a discount on fees. If the ship were to participate in the Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes as scheduled, the cost for the pilotage would be well over $400,000 – a fee so high that it is simply not possible for a non-profit like Draken Expedition America, the organization says.

“We are required a pilot as soon as we leave the dock with the cost of 400 USD per hour, the rate as a commercial freight ship,” says Captain Björn Ahlander. “It is very disappointing, the people in the harbors around the lakes are expecting us and we have been warmly welcomed in every port we have visited, it is a pity if we can not pursue this expedition.”

Ship Photos of the Day - Real Viking Ship Completes North Atlantic Crossing - gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/ship-photos-of-the-day-real-viking-ship-completes-north-atlantic-crossing

https://i2.wp.com/gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Draken_1-1.jpg

The world’s largest viking ship has arrived in North America after crossing the North Atlantic Ocean on a journey from its homeport in Haugesund, Norway.

The Viking ship, named Draken Harald Hårfagre, set sail from Norway with its approximately 32 crew members in late April and made stops in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada, before making its way through the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Toronto for the Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes 2016 festival this weekend.

Future stops for the Viking ship include Chicago, Green Bay and Duluth, before heading to U.S. east coast with stops in New York City and finally Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut in October.

Harald Belle Chevelure
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Ier_de_Norvège

Trump, in Scotland, links Brexit vote to his campaign - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/trump-arrives-in-scotland-hails-british-exit-from-eu/2016/06/24/ef267f20-39f6-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html

Donald Trump, in a visit to Scotland on Friday, hailed Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, drawing parallels to the anger driving his own presidential campaign.

“I love to see people take their country back,” he told reporters at a news conference at one of his golf courses in Scotland. “And that’s really what’s happening in the United States” and other parts of the world.
[…]
“People want to see borders. They don’t necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don’t know who they are and where they come from,” Trump said.

Trump, whose visit to Scotland is his first international trip since sealing sufficient delegate support to be the GOP standardbearer this fall, also predicted that other nations will follow the United Kingdom’s lead.

“This will not be the last,” he said earlier at a ceremony to mark the reopening of a golf resort he owns on Scotland’s west coast. “They’re angry about many, many things.”
[…]
Trump’s reason for his trip to Europe wasn’t politics, but rather to check on a pair of championship-level golf resorts he owns in Scotland. Trump, who unlike previous presidential candidates did not schedule any political meetings while abroad, spent Friday morning marking the $200 million-plus rehabilitation of the famed Turnberry golf resort nestled on the rocky coast facing the North Atlantic Ocean.
[…]
Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, has long emphasized his ties to the country, but he has waged several battles with those in his ancestral homeland. Earlier this year, he was stripped of an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Trump was initially welcomed by Scottish leaders. But relationships soured as arguments ensued over a nearby wind farm and the levels of investment promised. Trump feared the wind farm would block the view from his course. He claimed he had received assurances that it would not be built. Trump denounced a leading Scottish politician, Alex Salmond, as “an embarrassment to Scotland.”

When Good Waves Go Rogue - Issue 37: Currents
▻http://nautil.us/issue/37/currents/when-good-waves-go-rogue-rp

http://static.nautil.us/3826_a292f1c5874b2be8395ffd75f313937f.png

Early in the morning on Sept. 11, 1995, the cruise liner the Queen Elizabeth 2, on its way from Southampton to New York, was being lashed by the tail end of Hurricane Luis, somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland. As if sensing its imminent demise, Luis had galvanized one last time, twitching to life and whipping the North Atlantic into a torrent of 130 mph winds and 40-foot waves. None of this caused undue concern for the ship’s captain, Ronald Warwick, a 30-year sailing veteran well acquainted with rough seas. Luis was hardly unexpected; since leaving England, the ship had steadily tracked the storm’s path. “This was fair game for us,” the retired Commodore recalls, from his home in Somerset, England. “We are a transatlantic liner.” At dinner, Warwick had advised the ship’s passengers that (...)

What’s going on in the North Atlantic? « RealClimate
►http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-going-on-in-the-north-atlantic

http://www.realclimate.org/images//Atlantic-Conveyor-rc.jpg

The North Atlantic between Newfoundland and Ireland is practically the only region of the world that has defied global warming and even cooled. Last winter there even was the coldest on record – while globally it was the hottest on record. Our recent study (Rahmstorf et al. 2015) attributes this to a weakening of the Gulf Stream System, which is apparently unique in the last thousand years.

The whole world is warming. The whole world? No! A region in the subpolar Atlantic has cooled over the past century – unique in the world for an area with reasonable data coverage. So what’s so special about this region between Newfoundland and Ireland?
...

http://www.realclimate.org/images//Winter15NOAA.jpg

...
What are the impacts of a slowdown?

http://www.realclimate.org/images//Greenland09-59.jpg

Meltwater on the Greenland ice sheet.

The consequences of a large reduction in ocean overturning would look nothing like the Hollywood film The Day After Tomorrow. But they would not be harmless either – e.g. for sea level (Levermann et al. 2005) particularly along the US east coast (Yin et al. 2009), marine ecosystems, fisheries and possibly even storminess in Europe (Woollings et al. 2012). We have studied these consequences some years ago in an interdisciplinary project with colleagues from Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Norway – the results are summarized in Kuhlbrodt et al. 2009.

If our analysis is correct, then this indicates that climate models underestimate the weakening of the Atlantic circulation in response to global warming – probably because the flow in these models is too stable (see Hofmann and Rahmstorf 2009). Although these models predict a significant weakening for the future, they do not suggest this as early as the observations show it (see Fig. 2 of our paper). That the real flow may be more unstable than previously thought would be bad news for the future.

If the circulation weakens too much it can even completely break down – the AMOC has a well-known “tipping point” (Lenton et al., 2008).

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3niR_-Kv4SM

#climat #gulf-stream

PAEPARD: The involvement of European corporate and financial entities in land grabbing
▻http://paepard.blogspot.fr/2016/06/the-involvement-of-european-corporate.html

https://www.tni.org/files/styles/cover_image/public/thumbnail-images/expo_stu2016578007_en.jpg?itok=lL3hbDSG

In early research on land grabbing, the initial focus was on foreign companies investing abroad, with a particular focus on those based in countries such as China, Gulf States, South Korea, and India. In recent years, it has become evident that the range of countries land investors originate in is far broader, and includes both North Atlantic - and EU-based actors. In this study, we offer both quantitative and qualitative data illustrating the involvement of EU-based corporate and financial entities in land deals occurring outside of the EU.

This study also analyses the global land rush within a human rights framework, examining the implications of particular land deals involving EU-based investors and their impact on communities living in areas where the investments are taking place. The research presented here builds partly on Cotula’s 2014 study on the drivers and human rights implications of land grabbing, but differs in that it focuses explicitly on particular cases of possible, actual or potential human rights abuses and violations, in the context of activities involving European corporate and financial entities. In our conclusions, we offer a series of recommendations on how the EU can more effectively address these issues.

#terres #Europe

Friendly Fuedalism - The Tibet Myth
▻http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La.
...
Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5 In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6
...
An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be. 9 This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.
...
Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas.
...
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” 13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries.
...
In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation—including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation—were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs.
...
What happened to Tibet after the Chinese Communists moved into the country in 1951? The treaty of that year provided for ostensible self-governance under the Dalai Lama’s rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. ... Among the earliest changes they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and roads. ... No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound peasants.
...
Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.
...
What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs.
...
As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.
...
Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.” The official 1953 census—six years before the Chinese crackdown—recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.
...
If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves—of which we have no evidence.
...
The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”38

In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration.
...
By the 1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exile communities abroad, “restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there.”
...
For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama’s organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama’s annual payment from the CIA was $186,000.
...
Whatever the Dalai Lama’s associations with the CIA and various reactionaries, he did speak often of peace, love, and nonviolence. He himself really cannot be blamed for the abuses of Tibet’s ancien régime, having been but 25 years old when he fled into exile.
...
But he also sent a reassuring message to “those who live in abundance”: “It is a good thing to be rich... Those are the fruits for deserving actions, the proof that they have been generous in the past.” And to the poor he offers this admonition: “There is no good reason to become bitter and rebel against those who have property and fortune... It is better to develop a positive attitude.”
...
Violent actions that are committed in order to reduce future suffering are not to be condemned, he said, citing World War II as an example of a worthy effort to protect democracy. What of the four years of carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned by most of the world—even by a conservative pope—as a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: “The Iraq war—it’s too early to say, right or wrong.” Earlier he had voiced support for the U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan.
...
It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not the only highly placed lama chosen in childhood as a reincarnation. ... In 1993 the monks of the Karma Kagyu tradition had a candidate of their own choice. The Dalai Lama, along with several dissenting Karma Kagyu leaders (and with the support of the Chinese government!) backed a different boy. ... What followed was a dozen years of conflict in the Tibetan exile community, punctuated by intermittent riots, intimidation, physical attacks, blacklisting, police harassment, litigation, official corruption, and the looting and undermining of the Karmapa’s monastery in Rumtek by supporters of the Gelugpa faction.
...
Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk’s building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful “not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time,” or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger women “were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naïve [about Tibet].”

The women interviewed by Lewis recounted stories of their grandmothers’ ordeals with monks who used them as “wisdom consorts.” By sleeping with the monks, the grandmothers were told, they gained “the means to enlightenment” — after all, the Buddha himself had to be with a woman to reach enlightenment.
...
Notes:

Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, (University of California Press, 2000), 6, 112-113, 157.
Kyong-Hwa Seok, “Korean Monk Gangs Battle for Temple Turf,” San Francisco Examiner, 3 December 1998.
Los Angeles Times, February 25, 2006.
Dalai Lama quoted in Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998), 205.
Erik D. Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today (Alaya Press 2005), 41.
Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet (Monthly Review Press, 1964), 119, 123; and Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (University of California Press, 1995), 6-16.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 50.
Stephen Bachelor, “Letting Daylight into Magic: The Life and Times of Dorje Shugden,” Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 7, Spring 1998. Bachelor discusses the sectarian fanaticism and doctrinal clashes that ill fit the Western portrait of Buddhism as a non-dogmatic and tolerant tradition.
Dhoring Tenzin Paljor, Autobiography, cited in Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 8.
Pradyumna P. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 64.
See Gary Wilson’s report in Worker’s World, 6 February 1997.
Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 62 and 174.
As skeptically noted by Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 9.
Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh, and Tashì-Tsering, The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashì-Tsering (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).
Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 110.
Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet 1913-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 5 and passim.
Anna Louise Strong, Tibetan Interviews (Peking: New World Press, 1959), 15, 19-21, 24.
Quoted in Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25.
Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 31.
Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 175-176; and Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25-26.
Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 113.
A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: 1996), 9 and 7-33 for a general discussion of feudal Tibet; see also Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 241-249; Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 3-5; and Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, passim.
Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 91-96.
Waddell, Landon, O’Connor, and Chapman are quoted in Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 123-125.
Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 52.
Heinrich Harrer, Return to Tibet (New York: Schocken, 1985), 29.
See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002); and William Leary, “Secret Mission to Tibet,” Air & Space, December 1997/January 1998.
On the CIA’s links to the Dalai Lama and his family and entourage, see Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).
Leary, “Secret Mission to Tibet.”
Hugh Deane, “The Cold War in Tibet,” CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1987).
George Ginsburg and Michael Mathos Communist China and Tibet (1964), quoted in Deane, “The Cold War in Tibet.” Deane notes that author Bina Roy reached a similar conclusion.
See Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, 248 and passim; and Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet, passim.
Harrer, Return to Tibet, 54.
Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 36-38, 41, 57-58; London Times, 4 July 1966.
Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 29 and 47-48.
Tendzin Choegyal, “The Truth about Tibet,” Imprimis (publication of Hillsdale College, Michigan), April 1999.
Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 52-53.
Elaine Kurtenbach, Associate Press report, 12 February 1998.
Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 47-48.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 8.
San Francisco Chonicle, 9 January 2007.
Report by the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril (Berkeley Calif.: 2001), passim.
International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril, 66-68, 98.
im Mann, “CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in ’60s, Files Show,” Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1998; and New York Times, 1 October, 1998.
News & Observer, 6 September 1995, cited in Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 3.
Heather Cottin, “George Soros, Imperial Wizard,” CovertAction Quarterly no. 74 (Fall 2002).
Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 51.
Tendzin Choegyal, “The Truth about Tibet.”
The Dalai Lama in Marianne Dresser (ed.), Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1996)
These comments are from a book of the Dalai Lama’s writings quoted in Nikolai Thyssen, “Oceaner af onkel Tom,” Dagbladet Information, 29 December 2003, (translated for me by Julius Wilm). Thyssen’s review (in Danish) can be found at ▻http://www.information.dk/Indgang/VisArkiv.dna?pArtNo=20031229154141.txt.
“A Global Call for Human Rights in the Workplace,” New York Times, 6 December 2005.
San Francisco Chronicle, 14 January 2007.
San Francisco Chronicle, 5 November 2005.
Times of India 13 October 2000; Samantha Conti’s report, Reuter, 17 June 1994; Amitabh Pal, “The Dalai Lama Interview,” Progressive, January 2006.
The Gelders draw this comparison, The Timely Rain, 64.
Michael Parenti, The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006).
John Pomfret, “Tibet Caught in China’s Web,” Washington Post, 23 July 1999.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 3.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 13 and 138.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, 21.
Curren, Buddha’s Not Smiling, passim. For books that are favorable toward the Karmapa appointed by the Dalai Lama’s faction, see Lea Terhune, Karmapa of Tibet: The Politics of Reincarnation (Wisdom Publications, 2004); Gaby Naher, Wrestling the Dragon (Rider 2004); Mick Brown, The Dance of 17 Lives (Bloomsbury 2004).
Erik Curren, “Not So Easy to Say Who is Karmapa,” correspondence, 22 August 2005, www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=22.1577,0,0,1,0.
Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 15 July 2004.
Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 16 July 2004.
Ma Jian, Stick Out Your Tongue (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006).
See the PBS documentary, China from the Inside, January 2007, KQED.PBS.org/kqed/chinanside.
San Francisco Chronicle, 9 January 2007.
“China: Global Warming to Cause Food Shortages,” People’s Weekly World, 13 January 2007

#Tibet #Chine #religion #bouddhisme

Baltic Dry Index Hurtles to Record Low
▻https://www.porttechnology.org/news/baltic_dry_index_hurtles_to_record_low

https://www.porttechnology.org/images/made/images/uploads/news/baltic_dry_index_hurtles_further_downhill_331_220.jpg

Drewry recently estimated that if dry bulk ship-owners collectively removed half of all capesize ships over 12 years old, equating to around 20 million dead weight tonnage of capacity, it would enable their earnings to return to profitability by 2018.

If they were to remove all old capesize vessels the recovery would occur even sooner. This could be achieved through a combination of scrapping and temporary vessel idling.

???

“Nothing Is Moving,” Baltic Dry Index Crashes as Insiders Warn International “Commerce Has Come To a Halt” | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization
►http://www.globalresearch.ca/nothing-is-moving-baltic-dry-index-crashes-as-insiders-warn-international-commerce-has-come-to-a-halt/5501779

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2016/01/20160111_bdiy4.jpg

The continued collapse of The Baltic Dry Index remains ignored by most – besides we still have Netflix, right? But, as Dollar Vigilante’s Jeff Berwick details, it appears the worldwide ‘real’ economy has ground to a halt!!

Last week, I received news from a contact who is friends with one of the biggest billionaire shipping families in the world. He told me they had no ships at sea right now, because operating them meant running at a loss.

This weekend, reports are circulating saying much the same thing: The North Atlantic has little or no cargo ships traveling in its waters. Instead, they are anchored. Unmoving. Empty.

You can see one such report here. According to it,

Commerce between Europe and North America has literally come to a halt. For the first time in known history, not one cargo ship is in-transit in the North Atlantic between Europe and North America. All of them (hundreds) are either anchored offshore or in-port. NOTHING is moving.

This has never happened before. It is a horrific economic sign; proof that commerce is literally stopped.

We checked VesselFinder.com and it appears to show no ships in transit anywhere in the world. We aren’t experts on shipping, however, so if you have a better site or source to track this apparent phenomenon, please let us know.

Forget El Niño, start worrying about the North Atlantic blob | News | The Guardian

▻http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/oct/18/north-atlantic-cold-jet-stream-el-nino

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/85f2b1f3ef709866638a1dbab1ffd654cb185cbf/69_407_4438_2662/master/4438.jpg?w=1200&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=76825b3dba91ffb8b6668aed1ac6057e

The extra heat being generated in tropical seas by the strong El Niño is bleaching coral reefs and disrupting weather patterns in the Pacific. But will it affect Britain’s weather, and if so, how?

This question is what climate scientists across the northern hemisphere are trying to answer, especially since it coincides with an exceptionally cold North Atlantic, which might be even more important because it affects the position of the jet stream.

The easterly winds of last week, bringing unseasonably cold weather, are believed to be as a direct result of this North Atlantic cold diverting the jet stream and allowing cold easterly air from Siberia to reach our shores. There has already been snow in Germany.

#climat #el_nino #météorologie

Key differences between the 1997 and 2015 El Niños, and their impact on our hurricane season - The Washington Post

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/wildcard/key-differences-
between-the-1997-and-2015-el-nios/2015/09/18/2b8dd185ba12d49d5b48c6082107977d_story.html

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/api/imgs/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftabletimages.washingtonpost.com%2Fprod%2Fd_tstmp_1

The 1997 and 2015 El Niño events are very similar in many ways — mainly in their stark intensity. But over the North Atlantic ocean, interesting differences emerge between the 1997 record-strong El Niño and its potential usurper.

Just past the halfway point, this Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet. Hurricane activity is just 40 percent of normal for this time of year. El Niño, which is defined by the presences of warmer than normal ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific, is primarily responsible for the quiet hurricane season, through its influence on the upper-level wind patterns over the Atlantic Ocean

#climat #el_nino

Canary statement

noun
1… A small songbird in the finch family, serinus canaria domestica, originally native to islands in the North Atlantic.

2… A mechanism to test for unsafe conditions, originating from the use of canaries in coal mines to detect poisonous gases or cave-ins. If the canary died, it was time to get out of the mine. More recently, the term has been used by some online service providers to refer to an affirmative statement, updated regularly, that the provider has not been subjected to certain legal processes. If the statement is not updated in a timely fashion, users may infer that the canary statement may no longer be true.

https://help.riseup.net/en/canary/canarypronounce.png

▻https://canarywatch.org/faq.html

For example, an #ISP might issue a semi-annual transparency report, stating that it had not received any #national_security_letters in a particular six-month period. NSLs come with a gag, which purports to prevent the recipient from saying it has received one. (While a federal court has ruled that the #NSL gag is unconstitutional, that order is currently stayed pending the resolution of the government’s appeal). When the ISP issues a subsequent transparency report without that statement, the reader may infer from the silence that the ISP has now received an NSL.

#surveillance #NSL