AUSTRALIAN SHIPOWNERS ASSOCIATION: THE INCREASING THREAT TO WORLD SHIPPING

Australian Shipowners Association
Media Release

The Increasing Threat to World Shipping

Monday, February 28, 2011

Over 800 seafarers are currently being held hostage in appalling conditions by armed gangs of Somali pirates. Subjected to physical and psychological abuse for months at a time, they are held ransom for millions of dollars.  Merchant ships are being attacked daily and run a gauntlet of gunfire and rocket propelled grenade attacks.

 “The piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean is getting worse, and not just for the shipping industry” said Ms Teresa Hatch, Executive Director of the Australian Shipowners Association. “The impact on the key supply routes and vessels having to look at alternative routes will mean increased transport costs and delivery times.”

“Recent figures show that piracy is costing the global economy billions of dollars a year” Ms Hatch said.

To highlight the severity of the crisis the international shipping community has now resorted to placing adverts in the world’s media and calling for action from governments. 

The Australian Shipowners Association has raised the industry’s concern over this increasing threat with the Gillard Government.

The world relies on freedom of the seas for the safe delivery of 90% of food, fuel, raw materials and manufactured goods. This freedom is threatened. The lawlessness has spread right across the Indian Ocean – through which half the world’s oil supply passes.

As part of the campaign to increase awareness and a call for government action, the SOS Save Our Seafarers website was launched today – http://www.saveourseafarers.com/  Supporters can send a pre-prepared letter, signed by them to their chosen heads of government.  The website will also have up-to-the minute information on the piracy situation, and an SOS TV page with film clips and pictures. 

MY INSERT INTO THIS PRESS RELEASE:
Bible Voyage Ends in Tragedy
CBN News, February 25, 2011 

Orchestrating the Response to Piracy
NATO Community, February 14, 2011
The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency, has launched an action plan to tackle the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia.
[MY COMMENTARY: IMO is avoiding any consideration for a new maritime treaty on the arming of merchant vessels and their crew (not just armed contract security teams). Criticism of IMO’s reluctance in this regard is increasing.]

 

Real Life Pirates in Africa 

RocketBoom, October 15, 2008

 

Combating Somalia Piracy 

TV2 Africa

 

Somali Piracy Threatens Egypt’s Economy 

Aljazeer TV News (English), November 19, 2008

ETERNAL VIGILANCE AND THE PRICE OF FREEDOM: SHARIA AND MEIN KAMPF COMPARED

The ultimate goal of Sharia and Islam, like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, is the achievement of a global empire. Sharia must never get a foothold in the United States! First order of busines for Sharia and Islam is the overthrow of our Bill of Rights! It will be, on that basis alone, the predicate act triggering World War III.

The quote, “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom”
has never been traced to Thomas Jefferson.

INTL MARITIME ORGANIZATION AND THE ORGANIZATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE COMPARED

ITF MOCKS SOMALI ANTI-PIRACY EFFORTS – THREATEN BOYCOTT OF THE INDIAN OCEAN

Excerpt from William Shakespeare – Hamlet 3/1:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

Here I present a POINT: Prosecute and Imprison Somali Pirates and COUNTER-POINT: Hang captured pirates at sea or sink pirate ships at sea with all hands aboard. This age old question is reflected in two Latin maxims:

Via antiqua via est tuta
The old way is the safe way.

Salus populi est suprema lex.
The safety of the people is the highest law.

YACHT QUEST: DID FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR VIOLATE THE TRUCE UNDER THE LAW OF NATIONS?

If “Piracy and Armed Robbery on the High Seas” and the connsequential murder of innocent seafarers can be couched in terms of war, especially when Somalia is choatically devolving into civil war with civilian refugees fleeing into Kenya then I concluded that the Djibouti Code of Conduct and the international coalition of naval forces operating under The Law of Nations short of initiating a full scale war on Somalia is a complete failure to suppress piracy and armed robbery on the high seas. The next step must be war on Somalia to circumvent the imminent risk of destabilizing the region, though it could be said that initiating a war on Somalia is itself an act the further destablizes the region. It may very well be. But like that old saying, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, kind of like a tornado or a hurricane coming at you.

According to the ECOTERRA International Bulletin, Status of Seized Vessels and Crews in Somalia, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean, February 23, 2011, “at least 50 foreign vessels plus two barges are kept in Somali hands against the will of their owners, while at least 815 hostages or captives – including a South-African yachting couple – suffer to be released” are being held hostage by the Somali pirates. Under the Geneva Convention this hostages are prisoners of war. 

I cite excerpts from Vattel’s, The Law of Nations (1797), concerning a truce during war, and current news events as noted below to conclude that the FBI Hostage Negotiator violated the Rules of War under The Law of Nations when he wrongly concluded that the two Somali pirate leaders aboard the USS Sterett (DDG 104) were not serious about the negotiation and decided to throw the two Somali pirate leaders into the brig. [CORRECTED FEB. 28, 2011]

DID THE U.S. NAVY PROVOKE SOMALI PIRATES INTO MURDERING FOUR AMERICANS ABOARD THE YACHT QUEST?

Three of the four Americans murdered aboard the yacht Quest (Davidson 58 Pilot House Sloop) by Somali pirates were Amateur Radio Operators! See, Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL), Three Yachtsmen Killed by Somali Pirates were Hams, February 22, 2011. As an incidental fact, I am an Extra Class amateur radio operator, Don Hamrick/KI5SS in addition to being a U.S. merchant seaman of 20 years.

U.S. HOUSE RULE 7b(1) NO COSPONSORS FOR PRIVATE BILLS VIOLATES FIRST & NINTH AMENDMENTS

U.S House of Representatives’ Rule 7b(1) states in full:

 “The sponsor of a public bill or public resolution may name cosponsors. The name of a cosponsor added after the initial printing of a bill or resolution shall appear in the next printing of the bill or resolution on the written request of the sponsor. Such a request may be submitted to the Speaker at any time until the last committee authorized to consider and report the bill or resolution reports it to the House or is discharged from its consideration.”

FIREARMS FREEDOM ACT: STATE-BY-STATE STATUS AS OF FEBRUARY 23, 2011

 

THE NEW REVOLUTION: INTERSTATE FIREARM FREEDOM COMPACT!

Unless I’m wrong I believe I scooped the NRA, SAF, & GOA
on the Interstate Firearm Freedom Compact.
I checked Google News and found only two news items:
(1) Missoulian State Bureau, Bills in Legislature to ‘nullify’ or defy federal law,
(Montana), February 12, 2011
(2)Mike Dennison, Bills test state’s power to nullify fed laws, Helena Independent Record,
State Bureau (Montana), February 13, 2011.
 

THE STATES’ TENTH AMENDMENT LEGISLATIVE REVOLUTION 
AGAINST UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

 

THE NULLIFICATION MOVEMENT GAINS MOMENTUM! 

  

For Interstate Compacts there is the INTERSTATE FIREARM FREEDOM COMPACT, which is, in essence, a Tenth Amendment rebellion (revolution) against unconstitutional federal gun control laws encroaching on the States’ legislative and police powers. There is a State legislative movement to nullify unconstitutional federal laws through what are considered as “Nullification Bills” such as the Firearm Freedom Act and the Interstate Firearm Freedom Compact because Congress and the BATFE are getting out of control criminalizing a constitutional right. The Interstate Firearm Freedom Compact is going hot and heavy! February 17, 2011 Arizona Senate Committee on Border Security, Federalism and States Sovereignty voted 5-Yea and 2-Nay for their Interstate Firearm Freedom Compact (SB 1391). The Interstate Firearm Freedom Compact is an undeniable rebellion (dare a say a legislative revolution?) against the Federal Government’s “subversive activities affecting the internal security of the United States (i.e., Domestic Tranquility Clause now linked to the Common Defense Clause of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States).

 

Raging Against Censorship Through Budget Cuts: The Impending Demise of the VOA

SOURCES FOR MY COMMENTARY:

Keith Johnson, U.S. Plans to Lower Its ‘Voice’ in China, The Wall Street Journal/Asia, February 17, 2011

Bill Gerts, VOA Radio Broadcasts to China Signing Off, While Beijing Boosts Propaganda, Washington Times, February 15, 2011

Blanquita Cullum, Obama Bows to Chinese Dictators, Washington Times, February 18, 2011 (Obama photo bowing to Chinese President Hu Jintao during the Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010)

And if the plan doesn’t work, the decision to eliminate shortwave broadcasting is nearly irreversible. Once America has released these frequencies, they will be acquired in the free market by those who will make robust use of them. Moreover, once VOA lets go more than half of its Mandarin Service, where will it get broadcasters if there is another Tiananmen Square massacre? When we realize the critical nature of this mistake, there will be nothing we can do – no going back.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA), among other broadcasts, is preparing to implement what some inside observers have termed a “strategic disintegration plan” – marking America’s exit as a bona fide force in international broadcasting. Troubling components of the plan, as stated in the fiscal 2012 budget submission, include eliminating language programming such as Mandarin and Cantonese and cutting back dramatically on critical modes of broadcasting by both hours and frequencies.

Public access to information from worldwide sources empowers citizens of all nations to make informed decisions and exposes dictators for what they are – power-hungry, illegitimate and increasingly scared of their own people’s desire to have a say in their government. Now is the time to increase worldwide access to information – especially when a void is created by other broadcasters’ budget-driven cutbacks. This is not the time to pull the plug.