Tag: Ships and Shipping

Bridge Collapses in Baltimore and Guangzhou Raise Questions on Modern Shipping

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Tuesday’s crash was at least the second in just over a month in which a container ship hit a major road bridge, raising questions about the safety standards of increasingly large ships and the ability of bridges around the world to withstand crashes. On Feb. 22 in Guangzhou, a port in southern China, a much smaller vessel carrying stacks of containers hit the base of a two-lane bridge, causing vehicles to fall. Officials said that five people were killed. The crashes have also raised questions about whether more ships should…

Ship Crash Collapses Part of Bridge in China, Killing at Least 2

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Part of a bridge in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou collapsed after a container ship crashed into it, killing at least two people as vehicles plummeted, the local authorities said on Thursday. Three people were missing, according to the authorities, who said an empty container ship had hit one of the supporting columns of the two-lane Lixinsha Bridge, fracturing the surface. The crash occurred at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday in the Nansha district, and its cause was under investigation, the district said in a statement. Photos published by…

Biden Plans to Harden Protection Against Cybersecurity Threats to Ports

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President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday that will strengthen the government’s ability to respond to maritime cybersecurity threats, amid heightened concerns that China could seek to hobble crucial infrastructure systems within the United States. Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, previewed the executive order for reporters on Tuesday evening, saying it would broaden the powers of the Department of Homeland Security. She said that the order would also allow the U.S. Coast Guard to outline rules for establishing minimum…

Angela Chao, C.E.O. of Foremost Group, Dies in a Car Crash

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Angela Chao, the chief executive of a shipping company and part of a family prominent in American politics and business deals with China, died in a car crash on Sunday, in Texas. She was 50. Her family confirmed her death. Details about the accident were not immediately available. Ms. Chao had since 2018 been the chair and chief executive of the Chao family’s Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carrier ships. The vessels are used to transport commodities like iron ore and soybeans. She was a sister…

Red Sea Attacks Leave Shipping Companies With Difficult Choices

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The shipping companies that move goods on one of the world’s busiest trade routes for factories, stores, car dealerships and other businesses face an excruciating decision. They can send their vessels through the Red Sea if they are willing to risk attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen and to bear the cost of sharply higher insurance premiums. Or they can sail an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, adding 10 days in each direction and burning considerably more fuel. Neither option is appealing and both raise costs — expenses that…

Blasting Bullhorns and Water Cannons, Chinese Ships Wall Off the Sea

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The Chinese military base on Mischief Reef, off the Philippine island of Palawan, loomed in front of our boat, obvious even in the predawn dark. Radar domes, used for military surveillance, floated like nimbus clouds. Lights pointed to a runway made for fighter jets, backed by warehouses perfect for cruise missile launchers. More than 900 miles from the Chinese mainland, in an area of the South China Sea that an international tribunal has unequivocally determined does not belong to China, cellphones pinged with a message: “Welcome to China.” The world’s…

China Is Flooding the World With Car Exports

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At a time when many of China’s exports are faltering and its consumers are spending less at home, the country is flooding the world with cars. Overseas demand for inexpensive vehicles made in China, mostly gasoline-powered models that Chinese consumers now shun in favor of electric cars, is so great that the biggest obstacle to selling more abroad is a lack of specialized ships to carry them. Chinese automakers have leaped to dominance in Russia since war began in Ukraine, transporting cars by train. The companies have also captured large…

U.S. Seized Iranian Oil Over Smuggling Incident That Escalated Tensions in Gulf

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The United States government has seized nearly one million barrels of Iranian crude oil that it says was being smuggled to China in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, after it raised the threat of prosecution to get the tanker brought to American waters, newly unsealed court papers show. The seizure of the oil from the vessel, the M/T Suez Rajan, is part of a larger and shadowy conflict with Iran. After the tanker began to steam toward the United States last spring, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps seized two oil…

China’s Coast Guard and the Fight to Control Asia

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Seeking to dominate the strategic waterways of Asia, China has deployed an armada of boats that are equipped with 76-millimeter cannons and anti-ship missiles, and are bigger than U.S. Navy destroyers. But they are not Chinese Navy vessels. Their hulls are painted white, with “China Coast Guard” in block letters on the sides. In just a decade, China has amassed the world’s largest coast guard fleet, and it is like no other. More militarized, more aggressive in international disputes and less concerned with the usual missions of policing smugglers or…

Fake Signals and American Insurance: How a Dark Fleet Moves Russian Oil

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The Cathay Phoenix is not a lone rogue ship, but one of at least three tankers identified by The New York Times taking extraordinary steps to hide their true activity, a practice that helps them to elude U.S. government oversight and puts their American insurer at risk of violating recent sanctions on Russian crude oil. For years, ships wanting to hide their whereabouts have resorted to turning off the transponders all large vessels use to signal their location. But the tankers tracked by The Times go beyond this, using cutting-edge…