Evergiven refloated but arrested ! by SCA

Ever Given is a Golden-class container ship, one of the largest in the world. The ship is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha (a shipowning and leasing subsidiary of the large Japanese shipbuilding company Imabari Shipbuilding), and is time chartered and operated by container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine, headquartered in Luzhu District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan.  Ever Given is registered in Panama and its technical management is the responsibility of the German ship management company Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM). Truly international !!

On 23 March 2021, while on a voyage  from Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking it. The ship remained in place for six days before salvage crews freed it on 29 March 2021.  .. .. that garnered global attention and concern.

After its successful salvage and refloating – generally, the vessel should have continued its journey delivering its consignments to consignees at designated ports – that would have been a happy ending .. .. but it appears that the ship is mired neck-deep in legal hassles too, arising out of the unfortunate agrounding !

 

Media reports suggested that on  7^th  April, the owners of the container vessel “Ever Given” received a claim from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) for the sum of US $916 million. Further reports stated that SCA had not provided a detailed justification for the extraordinary magnitude claim lodged.  It was also stated that  the owners and their insurers have been negotiating in good faith with the SCA. On 12 April, a carefully considered and generous offer was made to the SCA to settle their claim. Now comes the news that the ship stands arrested and that she  will be held in Egypt until compensation is paid, and that her crew will be unable to leave the vessel during this time.

                 The grounding at the   Suez passage, resulted in no pollution and no reported injuries. The vessel was re-floated after six days and the Suez Canal promptly resumed their commercial operations.  The claim presented by the SCA also does not include the professional salvor’s claim for their salvage services which owners and their hull underwriters expect to receive separately. The P&I aspects of the claim are relatively modest, with the exception of a claim for loss of reputation, out of the nearly one billion dollars demanded by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) as compensation for the ‘Ever Given’ mishap, 300 million dollars has been claimed for ‘loss of reputation’.

Factually, an Egyptian judge granted permission for the SCA to seize the vessel after it lodged a $916m compensation claim against its Japanese vessel owner, Shoe Kisen.  According to some reports Egypt ratified the Brussels Convention 1952 and has not ratified the International Convention on the Arrest of Ships 1999. An arrest could be applied for security owing to a claim, which would come within the ‘maritime claims’ as defined in the 1952 Arrest Convention, a concept that the Egyptian Maritime Law has adopted.  Generally, the concept of arrest is to determine a security on the creditor over the ship that is related to his or her debt. Therefore, there are no restrictions on a third party applying an arrest for security on the ship subject to his or her debt. Meanwhile, the shipowners could raise the defence on his or her liability under bareboat charter party or time charter party before the court if an arrest has been successfully applied.

Ship arrest is a process by in which a ship is prevented from trading or moving until the matter in question is decided. It is an exclusive jurisdiction that is granted to an admiralty court to detain a vessel to secure a maritime claim. Article 2 of the International Convention Relating to the Arrest of Sea-Going Ships, 1952 defines the term arrest as the following:

"(2) "Arrest" means the detention of a ship by judicial process to secure a maritime claim, but does not include the seizure of a ship in execution or satisfaction of a judgment." A ship arrest may be exercised under the authority of a court having admiralty jurisdiction, for the following reasons: loss of life; loss of property; salvage; collision; execution of a decree; violation of customs, usages, regulations or norms. 

A statement on the website of the vessel reads that :   Evergreen was informed by the Japanese shipowners of M.V. Ever Given today (14th April) that the Vessel had already been officially arrested by the Court in Egypt on April 13, 2021. In accordance with the information from U.K. P&I Club, the protection and indemnity insurer for the Vessel, the shipowners received a claim from Suez Canal Authority (“SCA”) for the sum of US$ 916 million on April 7, 2021, to cover losses during Ever Given’s grounding in the Suez Canal. The amount includes a US$ 300 million claim for salvage bonus and a US$ 300 million claim for loss of reputation and so on. During the meeting between the shipowners and SCA on April 12, 2021, no consensus was reached as SCA’s claims are largely unsupported and lack any detailed justification. The following day (13th April), SCA immediately filed an application to arrest the Vessel and this has been granted by the Court. In order to lift the arrest order as soon as possible, Evergreen is urging all concerned parties to facilitate a settlement agreement to be reached. Meanwhile, Evergreen is investigating the scope of such a court order and studying the possibility of the Vessel and the cargo on board being treated separately. Evergreen assures to do its utmost to complete the mission entrusted by its customers with all due dispatch and to keep all adverse impacts to minimal level.

The SCA says it intends to maintain the vessel’s arrest until the claim is paid, a position that has caused fury among the ship’s insurers and ship managers, and led charterer Evergreen to investigate whether it could use a court order to treat vessel and cargo separately. The SCA claim includes $300m for salvage and $300m for “loss of reputation”, which appears set to be rejected by the vessel’s insurer, the UK P&I Club, which revealed it had already made a compensation offer to the SCA this week. 

Ian Beveridge, CEO of the vessel’s manager, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), also voiced his concern over the arrest. “The SCA’s decision to arrest the vessel is extremely disappointing. From the outset, BSM and the crew on board have cooperated fully with all authorities, including the SCA and their respective investigations into the grounding. “This included granting access to the voyage data recorder and other materials and data requested by the SCA,” Mr Beveridge added.

Evergreen said it had begun to look at other ways to free cargo trapped on board, adding: “In order to lift the arrest order as soon as possible, Evergreen is urging all concerned parties to facilitate a settlement agreement to be reached. BMS said the Ever Given’s classification society, the American Bureau of Shipping, had completed its inspection following the incident and it had “been declared suitable for onward passage to Port Said, to be assessed again before departing for Rotterdam”.

Arresting the “Ever Given” and not releasing the vessel until the money is paid sounds like a hostage situation. The maritime industry has a long tradition that when a vessel is arrested, the vessel’s insurer will issue a letter of undertaking, which promises to pay up to its policy limit the court’s judgment or the agreed settlement. I understand that there is USD 2.2 billion in total P&I insurance. After the acceptance of the LOU, the vessel is released to continue its voyage.   LoUs are, in effect, a form of guarantee issued by the Club – an undertaking to pay to the claimant the sum adjudged by a court to be due to them, or the sum agreed under settlement terms.  

Admiralty law is that body of law governing maritime offences and activities. It would encompass marine commerce, navigation, shipping, sailors and transportation of passengers and goods by sea.  Marine or for that matter Law is all about terminology. In rem is Latin for “in a thing” – an action ‘in rem’ is towards some specific property rather than being a claim for monetary compensation against a person, which would be ‘in personam’. An action of a suit on a ship would action in rem.  In rem action, the jurisdiction of Court would be where the property actually is.  The ship owner  is obliged to provide medical care to seaman and provide basic living expenses during the period of convalescence. They owe a duty of reasonable care to passengers as also to goods. 

So more to be read and understood as the ill-fated vessel is mired in legal hurdles though it has been successfully refloated.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
14.4.2021. 

newly discovered fresh water snail named after Serbian ace Novak Djokovic

We hear this idiom ‘at a snail's pace’ often meaning or referring to something moving or happening very slowly !  

A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name snail is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into.  Gastropods that naturally lack a shell, or have only an internal shell, are mostly called slugs.  Since the advent of email,   the postal system has come to be referred to in Internet slang by the retronym "snail mail".

Novak is in the first place on the all-time list of players who have spent most weeks at No.1. Having spent his 316th week at the summit of men’s professional tennis, he is in front of the aces like Federer, Sampras, Lendl, Connors, Nadal, McEnroe, Borg, Agassi… Novak Djokovic is the only player in history to have at least 9 semifinals in all four Grand Slams: US Open – 11, Roland Garros – 10, Wimbledon – 9, Australian Open – 9. With a 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3) victory over Roger Federer in the 2019 Championships final, Novak joined Bjorn Borg and Laurence Doherty as a five-time Wimbledon titlist.  Novak Djokovic from Serbia, is currently ranked as world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).  Djokovic has won 18 Grand Slam men's singles titles and 82 ATP singles titles overall, including a record nine Australian Open titles and a record 36 Masters 1000 events.  

Dan Evans pulled off the best victory of his career so far under the unlikeliest of circumstances as he produced a nerveless performance to upset Novak Djokovic 6-4, 7-5 on clay and advance to the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters. Evans had arrived in Monaco widely considered to be one of the weakest clay court players in the top 100, with a 0-7 overall record against top-five opponents. The Briton had lost 10 consecutive main-draw matches on clay dating back to 2017, and he has been so candid about his distaste for clay that when Tim Henman later asked him whether it was his best surface he shot back with a sarcastic question of his own: “Is golf your best sport?”  Yet this week has been a different world from the beginning. In the opening round Evans beat Dusan Lajovic, runner-up of the Monte Carlo tournament in 2019, before defeating the Miami Open champion, Hubert Hurkacz, in straight sets to line up his match against Djokovic.   Evans was often the more durable player, working Djokovic with his wicked slice, abrupt injections of pace with his forehand and countless excellent drop shots that either remained low and moved Djokovic off the baseline or died in the dirt for an outright winner.

One loss does not make a summer !  .. ..  Djokovic is in news as always – a  newly discovered species of freshwater snail has been named after Serbian tennis ace Novak Djokovic 'to acknowledge his inspiring enthusiasm and energy'. 

Researchers from Montenegro found Travunijana djokovici in a karstic spring in the Dinaric Alps near the capital city of Podgorica during a field expedition back in 2019. Karst is the name given to the landscape created by the dissolution of soluble rocks like limestone, complete with sinkholes, caves and underground steams. Snails are notoriously slow and the naming is intended to reflect not T. djokovici's pep but that of the team — who traversed challenging landscapes to discover it.

MailOnline reports that Researchers from Montenegro found 'Travunijana djokovici' (the shell of which is pictured) in a spring near the capital city of near Podgorica during a field expedition back in 2019.  'Some of the world's rarest animals inhabit the unique underground habitats of the Dinaric karst,' the duo explained. 'To reach inaccessible cave and spring habitats and for the restless work during processing of the collected material, you need Novak's energy and enthusiasm.'

Adapted to living in underground streams, T. djokovici has a 1.8 millimetre-tall milky-white spiral shell shaped into an elongated cone. It belongs to the family of small freshwater and brackish water snails known as the Hydrobiidae, or 'mud snails'. T. djokovici is the first species of the genus Travunijana to date to have been found in the Skadar Lake basin — all other have been found in the Trebisnjica river basin in Herzegovina.  As T. djokovici is found in such a small area, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the newly-discovered species as being vulnerable and it will be added to their Red List of Threatened Species. The full findings of the study were published in the journal Subterranean Biology.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
16.4.2021.

  

Salute the Oxygen Express initiative !

The nos. are increasing disproportionately – newer heights are being reached. India now has 1,53,20,972 – of which 38,98,262 is from Maharashtra and third from a very small state Delhi 8,77,146 with 23686 in last 24 hours. While  Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji  held a meeting with leading doctors and top pharma companies, the Delhi Govt which is battling to cater to the need of oxygen for COVID-19 patients, claimed in the Delhi High Court that one of the reasons for the shortage of oxygen was diversion to one of the largest states of the country. Politics is a different ball game – one of blame game for most !!!

From the eastern tip Visakhapatnam to West – Mumbai – there are different train routes.  Konarak Express emanating from Bhubaneswar runs via Khurda road, Brahmapur, Ichchapuram, Palasa, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Vizag, Tuni, Samlalkot, Rajahmundry, Eluru, Vijayawada, Khammam, Warangal, Kazipet, Secundearabad, Wadi, Solapur, Daund, Pune, Lonavala, Kalyan, Thane, Dadar to Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus while Visakhapatnam Lokmanya Tilak Express runs the other route from Vizag – Vizianagaram, Bobbili, Parvatipuram, Rayagada,  Khariar road, Raipur, Durg, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha, Akola, Bhusaval, Manmad, Nasik road, Kalyan Jn to Lokmanya Tilak junction.  

Routes are not relevant – the consignment and the efforts behind are the most important ones !

Kalamboli is one of the nodes of Navi Mumbai. It is a transportation hub, being situated at the junction of the Sion-Panvel Highway, NH 48, Panvel By-Pass, NH 66 and Mumbai-Pune Expressway and is among the biggest iron and steel delivery centers in India.   The terminal of Mumbai-Pune Expressway is at Kalamboli. It also has Navi Mumbai's largest marble market alongside the Sion Panvel Highway.

Given the rapid increase in Covid-19 cases, Oxygen is critical in the treatment of certain medical conditions in Covid infection – and logistics of moving  liquid medical oxygen (LMO) and oxygen cylinders for patients across India, is of utmost importance.  Due to restrictions of height of Road Over Bridges (ROBs) and Over Head Equipment (OHE) at certain locations, out of the various specifications of road tankers, the model of road tanker T 1618 with height of 3320 mm was found feasible to be placed on flat wagons (DBKM) with height of 1290 mm. Railways immediately explored the technical feasibility of transportation of LMO.  LMO has to be transported through Roll On Roll Off (RO RO) service with road tankers placed on flat wagons.

Must appreciate the urgency and efficiency with which the Central Railway's Mumbai Division  has built a ramp within 24 hours at the Kalamboli Goods Yard for the loading and unloading of oxygen tankers on and from the train. This facilitates movement of ‘Oxygen Express’ loaded with empty tanker trucks and the train will move via Vasai Road, Jalgaon, Nagpur, Raipur Jn to Vizag Steel plant.  

          The first-ever "Oxygen Express" carrying seven empty tankers on Monday left Mumbai for Visakhapatnam, where they will be loaded with liquid medical oxygen for transportation to Maharashtra, reports said. The move has come as several states face an acute shortage of medical oxygen amid rising COVID-19. According to a release by the Central Railway, the Ro-Ro (Roll-On-Roll-Off) train left from the Kalamboli Goods Yard in Navi Mumbai for the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant at 8:05 pm. At the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, the empty tankers will be loaded with liquid medical oxygen and then brought back to Maharashtra, which is running short of oxygen required to treat COVID-19 patients.

Great effort and we must appreciate the Railways and the Govt for this novel initiative.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
20.4.2021. 

TN Assembly elections - EVMs - fear of hacking !

As Tamil Nadu awaits the counting and the results of Assembly Election held on 6^th Apr 2021, the social media is rife with memes on ‘EVM hacking’ – on containers, bosch machines and dish antennas !!.  Some grassroot workers have been deputed and have been selflessly keeping watch at centres where EVM are kept.  .. .. .. it is sad, that a fortnight ago, lakhs conglomerated in poll meeting of leaders – no restrictions were imposed but now the nos. are so high and even a full-time lockdown appears to be a welcome measure.

Back to 1980 – in Kerala,  the Left Democratic Front (LDF) formed a government led by E. K. Nayanar. By 20 October 1981, LDF lost their majority in the Assembly when the Congress (A), the Kerala Congress (M) and the Janatha (Gopalan) withdrew support for the government to join the UDF.  Nayanar recommended to the Governor to dissolve the assembly and impose President's rule   which led to a mid-term election in 1982.

Middle aged persons living in Tamil Nadu will recall ‘Rupavahini’ – the broadcasting network of Srilanka.  At that time it was the largest television  broadcasting its channels in both VHF and UHF frequencies.  In Chennai, in summer, one could see Rupavahini TV (some Tamil and some Cricket too) – it was common sight – people having a taller antenna than normal, climbing to their rooftops and kept changing its directions, while someone watching TV would shout whether they were receiving any signal !!

.. .. .. years later living in a room in a remote place – a portable TV with internal antenna – the hack for getting improved quality was ‘a metal coat hanger’ – yes the one primarily intended to hang clothes !  - it really worked !!

Now it is again all about dish antennas !! .. .. and every other machines and people’s professed knowledge on EVM and hacking them. While some fear that EVMs can be so programmed to ensure that every pressing of the machine turn golden vote for one party, some go a step further professing that they can be hacked – even without contact, changing the vote in favour of a National party!.

Electronic Voting has come a long way since the usage of long ballot papers, casting votes on them and folding them to insert inside ballot boxes.   The use of EVMs and electronic voting was developed and tested by the state-owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics in the 1990s. They were introduced in Indian elections between 1998 and 2001, in a phased manner. The electronic voting machines have been used in all general and state assembly elections of India since 2014.

Prior to the introduction of electronic voting, India used paper ballots and manual counting. Those now trying to  criticize EVM do know very well – that in those days of paper ballots – booth capturing, fraudulent voting, mass voting were all prevalent.  There have been instances when polling booths would turn inaccessible in late evening – and the votes remaining would be cast in favour of the top 2 parties – sort of ‘vote sharing’.  To the naïve Q of what is the purpose is casting say 150 vote each of the 300 remaining – brilliant answer was it would ensure that the electoral race is always between the perceived & powerful 1 & 2 – the fringe parties would automatically get relegated in the race.  Loyalists (goondas !) would simply walk in, snatch the ballot paper from polling officer, punch them and put them in the boxes -  ‘one man – many a votes’ – which is absolutely not possible in EVMs.    Embedded EVM features such as "electronically limiting the rate of casting votes to five per minute",  a security "lock-close" feature, an electronic database of "voting signatures and thumb impressions" to confirm the identity of the voter, conducting elections in phases over several weeks while deploying extensive security personnel at each booth have helped reduce electoral fraud and abuse, eliminate booth capturing and create more competitive and fairer elections.

Indian EVMs are stand-alone machines built with once write, read-only memory. The EVMs are produced with secure manufacturing practices, and by design, are self-contained, battery-powered and lack any networking capability. They do not have any wireless or wired internet components and interface – that way paper balloting was more susceptible to electoral malpractices.  In the hue and cry and the debate around claims of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) hacking, the voices of technical experts remain silent and what dominates is the shallow opinion of some self-proclaimed experts, politicians and political experts.  

Unlike what is being portrayed, any electronic device can be hacked: wired and wireless. In order to hack a machine, the best way is to establish a wired link with its control unit, which is the brain of the device. In technical terms, it is called the microprocessor, which is an electronic board with some circuit elements that can do basic mathematical operations based on the given input.  Hacking a device through a wired connection essentially means designing another electronic device, which is able to send a specific pattern of information that its brain can read and interpret.  Wireless hacking would be even more difficult – would require the recipient device having a link, radio receiver so that the electronic circuit could be read from outside. 

·         The Supreme Court junked a plea by a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader seeking 100 per cent matching of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) vote count. “We are not going to interfere in the middle of the election process,” a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said, dismissing the plea by Gopal Seth. The petitioner contended that 100 percent matching was necessary to ensure transparency in the polling process.

·         In another unrelated instance that smacks comedy – five dish antennas fitted on buildings at the Kunthavai Naacchiyar Government Arts College for Women in Thanjavur, were received upon a complaint to EC made by DMK. (https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/dish-antennas-at-a-counting-centre-in-thanjavur-removed/article34360929.ece)

EVMs were first used in our Country almost 40 years ago in Parur assembly elections in Kerala, which was meant to be an experiment.   Congress candidate at the time, A.C. Jose, moved the Supreme Court to challenge the use of EVMs after he lost the election to Sivan Pillai of the Communist Party of India. In his petition, Jose argued that there was no specific law prescribing the use of EVMs — a contention the court upheld. Saying that EVMs could not be used in elections unless a legal provision to this effect was introduced.  Parliament consequently amended the Representation of the People Act 1951 in December 1988 to introduce a provision, Section 61A, that empowered the Election Commission to use EVMs.

Eminent Tamil writer Srirangam  Rangarajan (more famously Sujatha) headed the team of Engineers from BEL that made those EVMs.   

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
20.4.2021.