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In The News

Houthi Insurance? The Rebel Group Launches Website To Spare Ships From Red Sea Attacks

With more than 115 attacks since 2023, Yemen’s Houthis now offer ship operators a website to register vessels and avoid drone or missile strikes, a move that raises alarms among maritime security experts and highlights the rebels’ bid to control global shipping lanes.

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This Happened

This Happened — July 10: The Sinking Of The Rainbow Warrior

Updated July 10, 2024 at 12:15 p.m. The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed on this day in 1985. The bombing was carried out by agents of the French intelligence service, specifically the “Action Service” division of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE). What was the motive behind the Rainbow Warrior bombing? The French government […]

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This Happened

This Happened – April 16: MV Sewol Ferry Disaster, 10 Years Ago

Updated April 16, 2024 at 11:40 a.m. On this day in 2014, the MV Sewol ferry capsized off the coast of South Korea, killing 295 people, most of whom were high school students. What caused the MV Sewol to capsize? The ferry was carrying 476 passengers, including 325 students from Danwon High School in Ansan, […]

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This Happened

This Happened—January 13: Costa Concordia Crashes In Tuscany

Updated January 13, 2024 at 11:05 a.m. The Costa Concordia cruise ship crashed and sank on this day in 2012. What happened to the Costa Concordia? The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Tuscany after hitting a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a […]

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In The News

Worldcrunch Magazine #41 — Death Trap At Sea: An Exclusive Die Welt Investigation Into The Migrant Tragedy In Greek Waters

July 10 – July 16, 2023

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Russia-Ukraine War War in Ukraine

In Sevastopol, Russia Secretly Honors The Black Sea Crew It Won’t Admit It Lost

In the secrecy that often surrounds wars, and in the realm of information warfare, losses are often deliberately underreported or completely omitted. But this case in Crimean port city of Sevastopol is pure paradox.

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Economy Russia-Ukraine War

Alexandroupoli, How The Ukraine War Made This Sleepy Greek Port A Geopolitical Hub

Once neglected, this small port in Thrace, northeastern Greece, has become a strategic hub for transporting men and arms to the shores of the Black Sea. Propelled by ambitious infrastructure and gas projects, the region dreams of becoming an alternative to the Bosphorus strait.

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In The News

This Happened — May 4: Ground Is Broken On The Panama Canal

The building of the Panama Canal started on this day in 1904. This man-made waterway connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and was built by the United States. Why was the Panama Canal built? The Panama Canal was built to provide a more direct route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, saving time and money […]

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In The News

The Costa Concordia Disaster, 10 Years Later — This Happened, January 13

The images of the Italian cruise ship, which had run aground just a few hundred meters from the Tuscany coast, captured the world’s attention for a chilly winter week in 2012.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Risk Lessons, From A Grounded Ship In Suez To A Global Pandemic

A pandemic and a maritime accident teach us the same lessons: humility, fragility and ultimately human ingenuity. Risk is impossible to predict, except that we know it always exists.

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Food / Travel Future OneShot

Watch: OneShot — Energy Observer, A Journey Toward The Future

Monday marks the debut of the third stage of Energy Observer’s revolutionary six-year journey toward a cleaner, hydrogen-fueled future. After four months of updating its equipment and infrastructure, including custom photovoltaic panels, the state-of-the-art ship has embarked from French harbor Saint-Malo, this time heading towards Northern Europe. This first major vessel in the world powered by hydrogen is led by Victorien Erussard, founder and captain of Energy Observer, and Jérôme Delafosse, expedition leader and documentary filmmaker. The odyssey began in Saint-Malo June 26, 2017, as the vessel travels the world’s waterways in search of innovative solutions for the environment. Here’s […]

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Ideas Migrant Lives

Using Shipping Flag Policy To Take Hard Line On Migration

Europe’s aggressive migration policy has seen Italy dive into the obscure world of national shipping flags to sabotage rescue missions.

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In The News

Italy Is Closing The Borders, And Nobody Can Blame Them

Finger pointing isn’t going to help Italy solve its migration problems. What it needs is help, and for the EU to stop dilly-dallying. A view from Berlin.

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In The News

Need A Smaller Boat

Mauritius has developed a certain fascination for the craft of ship modeling. In the island’s massive-miniature workshop, some 3,000 people make sure that every tiny detail, from mast to hull, is faithful to the original vessel of the past.

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In The News

French Naval Pride

We French call our country “la France.” But when we speak of “le France,” that’s the SS France — once the biggest ocean liner in the world. In my 60 years of travels, I’ve found myself twice in its wake: here in the late 1960s, off the pier of Cannes in southern France; and some […]

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blog

You Shot My Battleship!

The Bay of Brest, in northwestern France’s Brittany region, has been an important military port for centuries. I walked a hundred meters or so on a forbidden but unguarded path overlooking a naval base to take a picture of this fine example of our glorious French fleet.

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Food / Travel

Slow Travel, Cheap Travel – A Low-Cost Honeymoon To Conquer The World

VERONA — One honeymoon. 90,000 kilometers. 321 days. Two rules: 1) never take an airplane, and 2) never pay more than 15 euros for a meal for two. Elisa Bocca, a 32-year-old interpreter, and Alessandro Bocca, a 37-year-old photographer, are the Italian stars of this global honeymoon. They travelled through the United States, Mexico, South […]

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Geopolitics

Toxic Shipping Containers May Be Contaminating Your Food And Clothes

ROTTERDAM – Governments are well aware of the danger, but consumers have no idea. One out of five freight containers arriving in European ports has been fumigated with extremely dangerous, carcinogenic or neurotoxic gases. It is a vast phenomenon: one million containers filled with imported goods arrive in Europe by ship every week. These toxic […]

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Geopolitics

China’s “String Of Pearls” Strategy To Secure The Ports Of South Asia

CHITTAGONG – In the port of Chittagong, containers pile up like colorful cubes of sugar. Dozens of ships scurry down the estuary of the Karnaphuli, the river that winds around the economic capital of Bangladesh to finally stream down into the Bay of Bengal. The port is bustling. The newly built mooring container terminal (NCT) […]

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Geopolitics

New Video Of Frantic Evacuation Of Sinking Italian Cruise Concordia

Just before the first anniversary of the deadly sinking of the Italian cruise ship, La Repubblica daily’s website posts a never-before-seen video of the final desperate moments.

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Future

Seeing Things At Sea: When Solo Round-The-World Sailors Start To Hallucinate

GENEVA – The disappearance of many sailors has been blamed on something that doesn’t quite seem real: hallucinations, which have even prompted sailors to believe they had reached port and to climb over the railing of their boat. Loss of lucidity, loss of bearings – sleep deprivation can wreak havoc on a sailor’s mind, to […]

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Food / Travel

Women And Children First? Fat Chance, Says Shipwreck Study

A shockwave, an explosion, a fire. The boat lets in water and topples over, passengers hang on to life boats or jump into the waves. Few circumstances have the tragic intensity of a shipwreck, which takes mere seconds to throw human beings into life-threatening situations, where the cruelest of decisions have to be made: who […]

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