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“I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders.”During President Biden’s State of the Union address, the President stated that he was directing the military to set up a temporary pier in Gaza that would enable supply of humanitarian aid the the Palestinians. We had predicted that he would say that: Biden to Announce Plans to Build Port in Gaza for Humanitarian Aid Shipments: President Joe Biden will announce during his State of the Union address plans to build a port on Gaza’s coast to...

The U.S. military port that is intended to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza is expected to take up to two months to construct and requires over 1,000 U.S. servicemembers to complete, the Pentagon said. In a press conference on Friday, Press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters that that port would take at least 1,000 U.S. forces. "We anticipate that it'll take over 1,000 U.S. forces to participate in building this capability," Ryder said. "As far as time frame, several weeks, likely up to 60 days in order to deploy the forces and construct the causeway and the pier,"...

Powering the nation’s long-haul trucks with electricity would require the same amount of electricity for more than 46 million homes every year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 2022, California adopted regulations that required all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state to be zero emissions by 2035. Immediately, 17 states eyed the electric vehicle mandates and started considering their own. That was on top of the Biden administration’s own tailpipe standards, which many say function as a federal EV mandate. The vision of a forced electric vehicle transition hasn't quite gone as California and the Biden administration have hoped. But in...

The head of the Yemeni Houthi terrorist organization, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, issued remarks on the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on Sunday guaranteeing to his supporters that he would continue to orchestrate terrorist attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea despite the holiday season. “We will continue our operations and many of our fundamental and necessary activities must continue,” Houthi promised, according to the Iranian state Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Houthi’s terrorist group, formally known as “Ansar Allah,” began a campaign of drone and missile strikes against seemingly random ships attempting to navigate in the greater...

A congressional investigation has discovered strange communication equipment on Chinese-built cargo cranes at U.S seaports, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Rather than building them domestically at potentially higher costs, the U.S. relies heavily on Chinese-built cargo cranes that are relatively cheap to produce and equip at seaports across the country. The congressional probe discovered that several of these cranes, built by Chinese mega-manufacturer ZMPC, contain communications devices that were not requested or don’t appear to support standard operations, heightening existing espionage concerns, according to the WSJ. U.S. intelligence has warned that Chinese cranes – equipped with an array...

An attack by Yemeni Houthi rebels on a Belize-flagged ship earlier this month caused an 18-mile (29-kilometer) oil slick, the U.S. military said Saturday. It also warned of the danger of a spill from the vessel’s cargo of fertilizer. The Rubymar, a British-registered, Lebanese-operated cargo vessel, was attacked on Feb. 18 while sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, U.S. Central Command said. The missile attack forced the crew to abandon the vessel, which had been on its way to Bulgaria after leaving Khorfakkan in the United Arab Emirates. It was...

Commercial shipping expert and host of the "What's Going on With Shipping?" YouTube channel, Sal Mercogliano, returns to discuss whether Operation Prosperity Guardian is actually deterring the threat posed by the Houthis and keeping the sea lanes open in and around the Red Sea.

Two missiles have hit a ship off Yemen and caused a fire on board, authorities say, in another apparent attack by Yemen's rebel Houthi movement. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said the unnamed vessel was in the Gulf of Aden when it was attacked and that US-led coalition forces had responded. A maritime security firm identified it as a Palau-flagged cargo ship. There was no claim from the Houthis, but they have been targeted merchant vessels in the region since November.

"The Middle East looks set for a path of escalation on multiple fronts as Israeli forces close in on what is left of southern Gaza, and as Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch their most damaging strike yet on a ship in the Red Sea.The crew of the British-owned, Belize-flagged bulk carrier MV Rubymar were forced to abandon ship in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, receiving help from a nearby merchant vessel and coalition warship to reach a nearby port after “two anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched from Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist-controlled areas of Yemen,” according to U.S. Central Command." (snip) Twenty-six...

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,...