Month: February 2006

How Cargo Travels Through the Shipping System

How Cargo Travels Through the Shipping System

I may be obsessing about this Port security issue, but then I am intimately involved with it on a daily-basis. I hope some of these postings will give some insight into the issues involved.

At some point, almost all the world’s Goods pass through a Port. This graphic follows a hypothetical example shipment. If you think that the economic shock from the 9-11 airport shutdown was bad, let’s hope we never have to experience the effects of a similiar halt in Port traffic.


The Real Focus for Port Security

Stephen E. Flynn, a specialist in maritime security at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that although the company is state-owned, several members of its top management are Americans — including its general counsel, a senior vice president and its outgoing chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, who is a former U.S. Navy officer. And since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States has increasingly depended on such foreign port operators to cooperate in inspecting cargo before it heads for U.S. shores.

“It’s a global network at the end of the day that we’re trying to secure here,” Flynn said. “And that doesn’t happen by the United States owning every bit of it. What we should be focusing on instead is the question, are the security standards adequate?”

Critics voiced strong doubts about whether the existing procedures are commensurate with the threat. “There are not enough Customs and Border Protection inspectors at the nation’s ports to handle the incoming traffic that we have now, and our guys at the ports are being told that they can’t do any overtime,” said Charles Showalter, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents officers who inspect ships. “That combination often results in uninspected ships being left unattended in port overnight.”

Concerns over insufficient inspectors worry many security experts far more than the issue of who owns the companies managing the terminals.

Flynn cited a litany of unsettling practices, such as the lack of any screening for the thousands of truck drivers, many of whom are immigrants, hauling containers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., to railway lines.

“What I hope for out of this whole debate is that, as Americans suddenly realize most of our marine terminals are managed by foreign-owned companies, they ask, given that that’s a reality, how do we secure it?” Flynn said. “I also hope this current situation doesn’t lead to a feeding frenzy [against foreign operators], because if we want things to be secure over here, we’re going to have to work with foreign counterparts.”

 

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong – New York Times
Under the current medical system, doctors, nurses, lab technicians and hospital executives are not actually paid to come up with the right diagnosis. They are paid to perform tests and to do surgery and to dispense drugs.
There is no bonus for curing someone and no penalty for failing, except when the mistakes rise to the level of malpractice

A Ship Already Sailed

A Ship Already Sailed – New York Times

In the outcry over who should run America’s seaport terminals, one clear trend appears to have been overlooked: American companies began withdrawing decades ago from the unglamorous business of stevedoring, ceding the now-booming industry to enterprises in Asia and the Middle East.

Little Mideast Oil Wealth Is Going Toward Takeovers of U.S. Assets

Little Mideast Oil Wealth Is Going Toward Takeovers of U.S. Assets – New York Times

Oil-exporting nations in the Middle East and North Africa are expected to earn about $530 billion from sales of crude oil this year, compared with $300 billion in 2003, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Middle Eastern countries account for less than 1 percent of $1.5 trillion of foreign direct investment in United States businesses and real estate, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service. That lags far behind the largest foreign investors: Britain, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and France.

US prepares military blitz against Iran’s nuclear sites

Click here to see the potential targets

Remember, there are two ongoing attempts to convert the entire world to Islam. The Shia movement, which got traction in the 1980s when radical clerics took control of Iran, have been threatened by the Sunni movement al Qaeda, which rose to prominence in the 1990s. Over 80 percent of the world’s Moslems are Sunni, and radical Sunnis (like the ones who run al Qaeda) believe the Shia are heretics and must be killed if they do not accept  Sunni religious practices and beliefs. Thus, in the Arab world (which is very, very Sunni), Iran getting nuclear weapons is seen as a religious, as well as a military, threat.