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The crew of a Belize-flagged, British-registered cargo vessel have abandoned ship off Yemen after it was hit by missiles fired by the Houthi movement.

For months, a withering drought has created major traffic jams at the Panama Canal. The drought, which may have been exacerbated by climate change, has left the canal’s water levels lower than ever, forcing Panama to let fewer ships through. The restrictions have led to delays, increased shipping costs, and uncertainty over the future of one of the world’s critical trade chokepoints. “This has fundamentally changed how shipping through the canal works,” said Soren Stokkebaek Andersen, a regional commercial manager at Leth Agencies, a shipping agency.

United Parcel Service said Tuesday that it plans to cut about 12,000 jobs this year, a move that the package-delivery giant said would result in $1 billion in savings. Most of the cuts will be to full-time and part-time management positions and contract workers, and executives said they don’t expect these jobs to return when parcel volumes return. UPS has around 85,000 workers in management. [Snip] The job cuts were unveiled after the company said its revenue declined in the last quarter of 2023 as volumes in both its domestic and international businesses dropped.

The Navy's amphibious ships are not ready to deploy Marines around the world on time, a problem that has no short-term fix and degrades America's ability to deter adversaries and reassure allies at a time when it is needed most, according to one of the Marine Corps' top generals. "There's a saying that wars are a come-as-you-are game," Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for combat development and integration -- the Marine who heads the service's modernization efforts, told Military.com on Thursday. "Well, this is where we are. And there...

A Houthi missile shot and ignited an oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, forcing a crew on the commercial ship into life boats. The attack appears to have caused the most serious damage to any of the ships hit by Houthi missiles since the Israel-Hamas war started.

The US arm of AP Moller-Maersk is suspending voyages through the Red Sea after two of its container ships came under missile attack while being escorted by the US Navy. The 6,200-teu Maersk Detroit and 2,474-teu Maersk Chesapeake (both built 2008) turned around in the Red Sea and were escorted back to the Gulf of Aden, said the company. The master of an unidentified ship reported an explosion 100 metres from its starboard side, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said earlier. US Central Command, which coordinates the country’s military operations in the region, said three anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired...

In this episode, Sal Mercogliano - maritime historian @campbelledu - discusses the Top 5 Maritime Stories as of Jan 23, 2024.

Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy‘s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. However, Cooper acknowledged that attacks associated with Iran have expanded from previously threatening just the Persian Gulf and its Strait of Hormuz into waters across the wider Middle East.

Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed another attack on a US ship early Friday, after the United States launched fresh strikes on rebel targets over their aggression towards vessels in and around the Red Sea. While the Iran-backed rebels maintained they had struck the commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden, the US military later said the group's missiles had missed their mark. The Huthis said in a statement posted to social media that their "naval forces... carried out a targeting operation against an American ship" -- identified as the Chem Ranger -- "with several appropriate naval missiles, resulting in direct hits".

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions against 19 tankers that transported Russian oil under the flags of Liberia and Panama. SOURCE: US Department of Treasury DETAILS: It is noted that sanctions are imposed in connection with the violation of the restriction on oil prices. 18 tankers fly the flag of Liberia, and one sails under the flag of Panama. Two companies own the tankers: Hennesea Holdings Limited (UAE) and Cielo Marine Ltd (Hong Kong). It is known that the shipping firm Hennesea Holdings Limited (Hennesea), which is headquartered in the United...

There is a touch of irony that the Biden administration has been driven to undertake air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi “regime” to prevent the collapse of global trade and higher inflation. It is yet another case of this White House being caught in a trap of its own creation. The current crisis in the Red Sea, as well as the chaos it is causing within the Democratic party, are merely the latest example of this phenomenon, one in which Biden and his team are being punished for their “original sin” – abandoning the successful policy not just of Donald Trump,...

Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said Monday night: “The Yemeni armed forces consider all American and British ships and warships participating in the aggression against our country as hostile targets”. The missile came from near Hodeidah, a Red Sea port city long held by the Houthis, the US said. ..

Montreal West is known for its large porches, but around the holidays, those porches are a big target for thieves or "porch pirates(opens in a new tab)." "It's something we deal with on a daily basis," said Montreal West councillor responsible for public security Lauren Small-Pennefather. Small-Pennefather said packages are stolen from homes regularly, and while there are bylaws and police officers in the community who know about the problem, she said porch pirates are getting smarter. "You have people that are following the vehicles, and when they see a parcel that's dropped off, they then go and take the...

Over just a few years, Houthi rebels in Yemen have amassed a remarkably diverse array of anti-ship weaponry, incorporating both cruise and ballistic missiles, which they have recently used to threaten shipping in the Red Sea. The critical role that Iran has played in this build-up raises broader questions about Tehran’s regional strategy. Yemen’s Ansarullah (Houthi) movement has been threatening shipping in the Red Sea with an increasingly diverse and capable range of anti-ship missiles. The attacks are putting pressure on commercial cargo vessels on a vital trade route and the developing naval coalition that is trying to ensure freedom...

Yemen's Houthi rebels fired their largest-ever barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, forcing the United States and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major naval engagement, authorities said Wednesday. No damage was immediately reported. The attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis came despite a planned United Nations Security Council vote later Wednesday to potentially condemn and demand an immediate halt to the attacks by the rebels, who say their assaults are aimed at stopping Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, their targets increasingly have little — or no — connection...

Joe Biden can be called “Sloppy Joe” because of the economic havoc he has sprung on an unsuspecting middle class. The following seven charts are what keeps me up at night (unlike what keeps multimillionaire Michelle Obama up at nights). First, US interest payment on Federal debt is rising faster than our bloated military budget. Thanks mostly to The Fed raising rates to fight inflation under Biden. Second, contrainer shipping rates are soaring thanks to Iran’s interference in the Middle East and Biden’s failed diplomacy with Iran. Third, food prices are over 20% more expensive under Biden while gasoline prices...

In mid-December, almost as soon as our currently ailing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced his soaringly named international coalition of high seas passage defenders…BREAKING:⚡ 🇺🇸🇮🇱 U.S. Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin will announce a multinational campaign codenamed 'Operation Prosperity Guardian' during his visit to the Middle East next weekAccording to U.S. Officials, the joint mission will be carried out by a multinational task force consisting of several allied countries, to counter the Houthi threat and protect vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab & the Gulf of Aden.pic.twitter.com/UoCi83razX— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) December 16, 2023…it started to unravel...

he commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed on Saturday to reach “the enemy” far and near as tensions soar on key shipping routes where Tehran’s allies have been attacking vessels. “Today, we are facing an all-out battle with the enemy,” said Guards commander Hossein Salami at a ceremony in the southern Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas, where the Guards’ navy unveiled a new ship named “Abu Mahdi” and 100 missile launchers.

Yesterday, the ongoing disruption of shipping in the Red Sea took an interesting turn. The Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), a threat well known to anyone who has operated in the Gulf in the last few years – and very well known to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, some of whom have taken up residency on the bottom as a result – made its appearance in the southern Red Sea. So far, details are scant. Vice Admiral Cooper, the US Fifth Fleet commander based in Bahrain, said: “This was a one-way attack, unmanned surface vessel that had launched from Houthi-controlled territory,...

Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, has recently been crowing about how the Islamic Republic of Iran had managed to disrupt traffic in the Persian Gulf, and now it is doing the same in the Red Sea. Full of braggadocio, he threatens that now the Islamic Republic will close off the entire Mediterranean Sea, and keep it closed until Israel halts its war in Gaza.The Arabs call the Mediterranean El-Bahr el-Abiadh el-Moutawwassit, “la mer blanche du milieu” in French, and “the white sea in the middle [of the world]” in English. In the time...