Navy Battles -
British commandos killed two suspected pirates who tried to seize a Danish ship in the Gulf of Aden in an unprecedented operation involving a Royal Navy and a Russian warship, it was revealed today (12 Nov).
The suspect pirates were shot yesterday after the Royal
It said the
"Various non-forcible methods had been used in an attempt to stop the dhow but they were unsuccessful," the MoD said, adding that the inflatables circled the dhow in an attempt to stop it. People on the dhow fired at the British commandos who returned fire in self-defence, the MoD said. Two of the dhow crew were killed.
The rest of the crew surrendered and the vessel was boarded 60 miles south of the Yemeni coast.
A Yemeni national was also found injured and later died, despite receiving emergency treatment from the
Igor Dygalo, the Russian navy's chief spokesman, told the Guardian that the Russian frigate Neustrashimy (Fearless) was also involved in yesterday's operation after the two warships were alerted as they patrolled the area.
"The pirates fired on the Danish craft with automatic weapons and tried twice to seize it," said Dygalo. He said the Neustrashimy had been escorting another Danish vessel when it was called to help.
"As with all shooting incidents, a post-shooting incident investigation is being conducted," an MoD spokesman said tonight.
The incident occurred amid mounting criticism of the failure to cope with a growing number of piracy incidents in the
This year at least 32 ships have been hijacked in the area. A multinational naval force including US, British and German warships is patrolling the waters off
Neustrashimy, from
The crew – 17 Ukrainian nationals, two Russians, and one Lithuanian – yesterday managed to send an email to a journal in
Dyaglo said Ukrainian representatives were holding negotiations to resolve the stand-off.
We have a picture of the male brain, observe that we now see how new areas have developed, while some parts have atrophied. As ever a picture is worth a thousand words.
Further research on the differences between male and female brains still has a long way to travel. Wrestling meaning from the similarities and differences between male and female brains is a challenge in the decades ahead, but a challenge that those of us who dedicate our lives to research of the hypothalamus anticipate with relish. Professor David J. Etherington.
| UNCTAD says boom days are over Source: Date: November 6, 2008 Page: B12 Author: Genivi Factao Boom days are over for the shipping industry according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport 2008 that said that the late 2007 to early 2008 marked the high point of the shipping boom. International seaborne trade in 2007, driven by emerging and transition economies, surpassed a record 8 billion tons. The strong demand for shipping services helped push to unprecedented highs the cost of moving dry bulk commodities internationally, as echoed by the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) through the first quarter of 2008. The BDI is a composite of shipping prices for various dry bulk products such as iron ore, grain, coal, bauxite / alumina and phosphate, and is a useful indicator of price movements. However, the BDI has declined more than 11-fold, from 11,793 points in May 2008 to 891 as of early November. “This shows that unfolding financial crisis has spread to international trade with negative implications for developing countries, specially those dependent on commodities,” the report said. A rapidly falling BDI is also accompanied by reduce demand for shipping services, increasing the effects of the financial crisis and global demand for goods. This will negatively affect many developing economies. The industries show an immediate effect of declining freight rates, which also lead to lower prices for delivered, traded goods. Both exporters and importers of foods and other commodities thus benefit from lower freight costs, and inflationary pressured are eased. For most commodities shipped in bulk, freight rates account for a high portion of the final value of the goods. Because trade in commodities or low-value manufactured goods such as steel product dominates developing countries’ trade, a drop in shipping rates benefits their trade under normal circumstances. The global merchandise trade had grown by 5.5 percent in 2007, almost 2 percentage points higher than the growth of the word’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year. Dynamic emerging developing and transition economies drove the increase in international seaborne trade 4.8 percent in 2007. In tandem with economic and trade expansion, demand for shipping service increase to reach 32,932 billion ton-miles –a 4.7 percent jump. Word container port throughput grew by an estimated 11.7 percent to reach 485 million TEUs in 2007, the Review said. However, port investment, running up at a pick levels until recently, will now be curtailed the international trade flow situations becomes clear. |
SWOT analysis is a simple framework for generating strategic alternatives from a situation analysis. It is applicable to either the corporate level or the business unit level and frequently appears in marketing plans. SWOT (sometimes referred to as TOWS) stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT framework was described in the late 1960's by Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christiansen, Kenneth Andrews, and William D. Guth in Business Policy, Text and Cases (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1969). The General Electric Growth Council used this form of analysis in the 1980's. Because it concentrates on the issues that potentially have the most impact, the SWOT analysis is useful when a very limited amount of time is available to address a complex strategic situation.
The following diagram shows how a SWOT analysis fits into a strategic situation analysis.
| Situation Analysis | |
| / | \ |
| Internal Analysis | External Analysis |
| / \ | / \ |
| Strengths Weaknesses | Opportunities Threats |
| | | |
| SWOT Profile | |
The internal and external situation analysis can produce a large amount of information, much of which may not be highly relevant. The SWOT analysis can serve as an interpretative filter to reduce the information to a manageable quantity of key issues. The SWOT analysis classifies the internal aspects of the company as strengths or weaknesses and the external situational factors as opportunities or threats. Strengths can serve as a foundation for building a competitive advantage, and weaknesses may hinder it. By understanding these four aspects of its situation, a firm can better leverage its strengths, correct its weaknesses, capitalize on golden opportunities, and deter potentially devastating threats.
Irish bank AIB has closed its shipping desk but rumours that the department’s head has walked appear wide of the mark.
A return to concentration on core businesses appears to behind the decision to axe the dedicated desk which occurs at a time of deep global financial crisis coupled with a slump in shipping markets.
The closure follows the axing of German bank WestLB’s shipping desk in early August as part of a major restructuring of the bank’s activities.
AIB is not a major player in shipping finance with its market portfolio lagging behind compatriot rival Bank of Ireland. The bank had been an active player in lending to the shipping market for about seven years but the dedicated team was made up of just two personnel.
Rumours had circulated that Fred Kelly, a UK citizen who heads the department from AIB’s Sydney office, had left the bank in the wake of the desk’s closure. A source close to the situation, however, denied this saying Kelly continues to do general asset financing for the bank.
The other person on the shipping desk, London-based Michael McNally, also remains with the bank and is believed to have taken on a property portfolio.
The banking source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said AIB will continue to do banking deals but on a case-by-case basis.
AIB has been involved in some syndicated deals but has not itself lead any shipping deals.
Like AIB, shipping was not a core business for WestLB which was rumoured to have only given personnel in the department less that a week’s notice that it was to close.
Rumours that the German bank was also chopping its aviation department were denied by a spokesperson in August with the explanation that the desk was being “refocused within Dusseldorf.
