Eeyore's News and View

Idle ports signal two 'bleak' years ahead in world trade
Loss of financing threatens sector that accounts for 25% of world economy
By Michael Janofsky and Mark Drajem, Bloomberg NewsJanuary 5, 2009
Chris Lytle, chief operating officer of the port of Long Beach, Calif., took in a panorama of the slumping world economy from his rooftop observation deck one day this month.
Shipping cranes stood still, truck traffic trickled and a cargo vessel sat idle, moored to a pier.
"You never see that," Lytle said. "It's quiet. Too quiet."
Port traffic is slowing around the world -- everywhere from North America to Asia -- as a recession erodes consumer demand and the credit crisis chokes off loans to export-dependent companies. International trade is set to fall by more than two per cent next year, the most since the World Bank began measuring it in 1971. Idle ports are showing how quickly a collapse in trade can spread, undermining growth in each country it reaches.
September and October are typically Long Beach's busiest months as U.S. retailers take deliveries for holiday sales. This year, September imports fell 15.8 per cent from a year earlier, October's dropped 9.5 per cent, and November's slid 13.6 per cent.
"Everybody expects 2009 to be a bleak year," said Jim McKenna, chief executive officer of the Pacific Maritime Association, a San Francisco-based group representing dock employers at U.S. West Coast ports. "Now, it looks like 2010 is going to be just as bleak."
At the Mozambique port of Maputo in Africa, coal is piling up. Exports from the port in Singapore, the world's busiest for containers, fell 1.5 per cent in November from a year earlier, its first decline in seven years. And at the port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest, shipments are likely to remain stagnant this year compared with 2007, said Jan Westerhoud, chief executive officer of Europe Container Terminals BV.
"The problem is that people can't get financing, no matter what their credit situation," said Ed Rice, president of the Coalition for Employment through Exports, which represents companies such as Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc., United Parcel Service Inc. and BNP Paribas SA. "Banks are cancelling credit lines even for creditworthy customers."
The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, is down 93 per cent from a record in May, a sign that traders expect export volumes to stay depressed.
Slowing trade is both a cause and an effect of the first simultaneous contraction in the world's largest economies since the Second World War. Throughout this decade, trade grew by an average 12 per cent a year, reaching $13.6 trillion in 2007 and propelling growth in nations including Germany, China and Chile. Now the evaporation of financing and collapse in demand threaten an activity that accounts for a quarter of the $54-trillion global economy.
"We are having this dramatic reversal," said Michael Finger, a trade economist in Geneva since the early 1970s. "I'm a long time in this business, but this is unique."
Governments and international lenders are stepping in to fill the gap. China and the U.S. pledged $20 billion to aid their exporters. The World Bank tripled funding, to $3 billion, for banks that help emerging-market companies to sell abroad. South Korea pledged $16 billion for its exporters after banks there couldn't secure international credit lines for them.
In Germany, the world's top exporter, trade abroad slipped 0.5 per cent in October, the fourth drop in six months. The same month U.S. shipments fell 2.2 per cent to the lowest level in seven months. In China, the November decline of 2.2 per cent was the first decline in seven years, while in Japan, exports decreased a record 26.7 per cent that month.
Exporters worldwide are short $25 billion in trade financing that either isn't available or costs too much, according to Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization.
Trade credit insurance, which protects sellers against losses and typically covers as much as 40 per cent of trade in Europe and five per cent in the U.S., is also harder to get.
Atradius NV, an Amsterdam-based insurer that covers about a third of global trade receivables, is raising prices by as much as 50 per cent and reducing coverage on thousands of companies. That includes 12,000 in the U.K. and all the suppliers to the biggest U.S. automakers -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
One 57-hectare tract at Long Beach is filled with more than 25,000 new Toyotas that dealers can't sell.
Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, recently forecast its first operating loss in 71 years on weak demand.
Nearby, scrap metal meant for export to Asia piled up behind a fence. From the observation deck, Lytle pointed to piles of empty containers stacked four high and numbering in the thousands.
Some of the dockside cranes "haven't turned a wheel in months," he said.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Idle%2Bports%2Bsignal%2Bbleak%2Byears%2Bahead%2Bworld%2Btrade/1142123/story.html

US asks Arab nations for $300 Billion to fund auto bailout
The US has had to go cap in hand to the Middle East asking for $300 Billion to fund the bail out for the auto industry. The US economy has long been shored up by the Gulf States and China. This time it is Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar who are being asked to foot the bill to save the US economy. It is not difficult to understand how mired the US is in Middle East politics and borrowed policy agendas, given the staggering dependency it has for both Arab oil and their money to keep it afloat. There is also a somewhat ironic twist that the US, funded as it is by the Arab nations, is so close a partner to Israel. The US again this week used its veto power to prevent a UN resolution calling for a end to the Gaza attacks. It must anger many Arab nations that the US, who some call ‘The Great Satan’, is saved from total economic meltdown, again, by members of its own brethren. The report comes from Saudi Arabia’s Arab News:
“According to reports published in Al-Seyassah, a Kuwaiti newspaper, and some other Gulf newspapers, the United States has asked four Gulf states for financial aid close to $300 billion to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession.
Washington is seeking $120 billion from Saudi Arabia, $70 billion from the United Arab Emirates, $60 billion from Qatar and $40 billion from Kuwait.
The Kingdom has dismissed these reports. There is enough evidence that the Federal Reserve is out of ammunition. The Fed can only control the supply of money, it cannot control the velocity of money or the rate of its turnover. The outcome of this crisis will be that the currency will be “devalued” as policy makers seek to weaken it, undermining its role as an international reserve currency.

The dollar is going to lose its status as the world’s reserve currency. The catalyst will be foreign creditors who are replacing dollar with gold. That will in turn lead to global recognition of the need for a vastly more disciplined financial system.

The Gulf’s vast investment funds are run by professionals who know that stocks go down as well as up. But they have lost heavily because of their forays into Western markets, particularly with their investments in banks, which are hit by the credit crisis.
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Barclays have all raised billions of dollars from the Middle East. The funds are now nursing heavy losses, such as those purchased by the Kuwait Investment Authority which invested in Citigroup whose shares have fallen by three quarters this year.
The impact on Gulf state funds is particularly acute given that largely declining oil revenues fund them. They are also likely under political pressure to invest more locally than in the past because companies in the Gulf are themselves fighting for liquidity now that the credit crunch has reached the Middle East. Investment funds from Kuwait, Dubai, Qatar and possibly Abu Dhabi are all shifting their focus.
Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, the automaker in most imminent danger of failure, gave lawmakers three reasons why Chapter 11 was not an option. First, the special financing that usually tides companies over through reorganization is so scarce that GM might not be able to get enough to keep functioning. Second, the stigma of bankruptcy would deter consumers from buying GM cars.
Third, GM is already in the midst of a dramatic reorganization that will pave the way to a profitable future. President George W. Bush preferred choice is Chapter 11 for the US auto industry. Saudi Arabia should create a sovereign wealth fund run separately and independently from other government agencies. They should report directly to the king to get the best and most secure business opportunities.
We should not discredit or underestimate the threat raised by Henry A. Kissinger and Martin Feldstein in an article they published in the Herald Tribune in September.
It is time for Gulf leaders to look at the interest of their own country first. Helping the US automobile industry is not a good option for now. Wages in the auto industry are very high compared to other industries, together with pension and health-care obligations and the lavish entitlement that the management receives.
Gulf states have been helping and protecting the US economy for many decades i.e. having their currencies pegged to the dollar, quoting oil prices in US dollars, putting their entire surplus in passive investment in the US economy (they have lost over 40 percent of their assets because of the declining value of the dollar) and purchasing expensive weapons.
Many voices would like to drag the Gulf states into a confrontation with Iran as they did in the early 1980s when they convinced Saddam Hussein to invade Iran. Everybody knows the disastrous results. What happened to Iraq and to the entire region? Iran is not nuclear, Israel is nuclear.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states do not need the protection of other nations. They should depend on themselves and should not trust anybody but themselves for their protection. How could Saudi Arabia help the US auto industry and not help its own stock market that dropped over 80 percent from its value in the last 2 years? Saudi Arabia should help its citizens. Over 50 percent of Saudi families do not own homes. They rent homes.
The monthly income of most Saudi families is below $1,500. To sum up, if there is good business opportunities in the US, let us invest in them but the decision must be based on business calculations rather than other considerations.”
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/us-asks-arab-nations-300-billion-fund-auto-bailout

Police look to hack citizens' home PCs
'Very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door'
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Posted: January 04, 2009
8:56 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Police and state intelligence agencies from several countries may soon be working together to secretly hack into private citizens' personal computers without their knowledge and without a warrant.
According to a London Times report, the police hacking process, called "remote searching," enables law enforcement to gather information from e-mails, instant messages and Web browsers, even while hundreds of miles away.
Furthermore, the Times reports, a new edict by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels has paved the way for international law enforcement agencies to begin remote searching and sharing the information with each other. According to the Times, the United Kingdom's Home Office, the nation's lead government department for immigration, drugs and counter-terrorism enforcement, has already quietly adopted a plan that would enable French, German and other European Union police forces to request remote searching be done on UK citizens' computers.
Who might be watching you without you knowing it? Get "Spychips" and see how major corporations and government are planning to track your every move!
The Home Office's plan has drawn immediate protest.
"These are very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door and coming into your home," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, a British civil liberties and human rights group.
"The public will want this to be controlled by new legislation and judicial authorization," Chakrabarti told the Times. "Without those safeguards it's a devastating blow to any notion of personal privacy."
According to the report, a remote search can be granted if a senior police officer believes it is necessary to detect a serious crime, and unlike searching a suspect's home, a remote search does not require a warrant under Home Office policy.
Richard Clayton, a researcher at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, told the Times that remote searches had been possible since 1994, but usually involved covertly breaking into a suspect's home to access the computer. By installing a key-logging device on the computer, police could track the suspect's every keystroke.
"It's just like putting a secret camera in someone's living room," Clayton said.
A spokesperson for the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers told the Times that hacking into private citizens' computers is sometimes necessary in investigating cybercrimes such as child pornography, identity theft and terrorism.
Further, the ACPO spokesperson said, the surveillance is directed under the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, a law passed in 2000 governing the interception and disclosure of communications.
To authorize remote searching, the ACPO spokesperson said, "The officer giving it must believe that when it is given it is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime and [the] action is proportionate to what it seeks to achieve."
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85293

Satellite firm tracking pirates
A satellite firm with offices in Thornton can spot seized ships in the Gulf of Aden
By Andy Vuong
As pirate attacks continue on ships in the faraway Gulf of Aden, a satellite company with major operations in Thornton is helping in the effort to stop them.
The Ikonos satellite, which orbits 423 miles above Earth and is operated by GeoEye, snapped a high-resolution picture of oil supertanker MV Sirius Star in November, a few days after it was reported missing by the U.S. Navy, according to GeoEye spokesman Mark Brender.
"We were able to precisely locate the ship about 5 miles off the Somali coast," said Brender, who directed the satellite to snap images in the area after reading press reports about the ship's location.
The 1,090-foot-long vessel is owned by a Saudi oil company and remains hijacked. Somali pirates reportedly
A 1999 computer sketch of the satellite Ikonos. (Courtesy of Space Image)sought $15 million in ransom for the tanker, which was carrying $100 million of oil and 25 crew members.
Ikonos was launched in September 1999 by Space Imaging, a Thornton-based company that merged with Orbimage Holdings in 2006 to form GeoEye.
Dulles, Va.-based GeoEye employs 464, including about 130 in Thornton.
The company took the initiative to shoot the image to show "that commercial satellite imagery is a tool to monitor the maritime environment," Brender said.
Another pirate attack occurred in the Gulf of Aden on Friday, but the crew of a Greek oil tanker fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates. It was the fourth pirate attack of the new year.
Pirates attacked 111 ships around the Gulf of Aden in 2008, hijacking 42 of them and earning tens of millions in ransom.
Commercial satellite imagery may also be a tool for treasure hunters.
A musician from Los Angeles claims that he used Google to spot a buried treasure in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of south Texas, according to a report last week by the Houston Chronicle. The treasure hunter has asked a federal court to allow him to pursue the find, which he says may be a 19th century boat and its cargo of gold and silver, according to the report.
Google Maps and Earth use satellite images from GeoEye and other firms. Brender said he's not sure whether the images the treasure hunter viewed were shot by GeoEye's satellites.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11368375

French warship captures 19 Somali pirates 04 Jan 2009 19:31:23 GMT
Source: Reuters
PARIS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A French warship captured 19 Somali pirates on Sunday when it came to the rescue of two cargo ships threatened in the Gulf of Aden, the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
The French naval vessel "Jean de Vienne" was on patrol off the Somali coast as part of a European Union anti-piracy force when it came to the rescue of a Croatian cargo vessel and a Panamanian ship crossing the Gulf of Aden.
The 19 Somali pirates, armed and equipped with equipment to board the vessels, were captured and have been handed over to Somali authorities, the statement said.
The incident came three days after another French vessel captured eight Somali pirates who attacked a Panamanian registered vessel.
Piracy off Somalia, one of the world's busiest shipping areas, has soared over the past year, earning the pirates millions of dollars of ransom payments and pushing up maritime insurance rates.
The European Union set up an anti-piracy naval task force under British command last month involving warships and aircraft from several nations in the first such naval operation of its kind. (Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L4679563.htm


Two articles about the fragility of the cell phones and what can happen to make them not work. It is eye opening or should be, if you plan on using them in emergencies.
Will your cell phone crash in emergencies?
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Posted: January 01, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
Just how dependent are you on your wireless phone?
Just two days ago, the Chicago Tribune reported that a service outage affecting AT&T customers cut off wireless users across the Midwest all day Sunday. This outage in turn highlights a growing trend: According to the Tribune article, one out of every six U.S. households does not have a landline. That means just under 18 percent of U.S. households, up from 7 percent only three years ago, depend entirely on wireless technology for their communication needs.
When I was growing up, it was a fact of life that the family telephone would continue operating in a power outage. As time went on and we incorporated a cordless phone or two, we learned that those phones would not work in the event of a brownout. We turned instead to the older, more reliable landlines. Later, when my father's home business required the installation of a commercial intercom system integrated into phones throughout the house, none of the phones operated in a power outage – and we would have to drag out the single, scuffed Princess model we kept in the basement, plugging it in so we could make and receive calls during ice storms and other losses of power.
During the Northeast blackout of 2003, nearly 50 million people in the United States and Canada were affected by a power-grid problem, and the causes were debated fiercely in the days that followed. When the power went out that August afternoon, I was in the car running an errand. I was listening to AM talk radio, and it wasn't long before news reports revealed that the outage was far more than a local problem. A bit concerned, I dialed my wife on my wireless phone – only to discover I could not connect. The wireless network was down.
This was only two years after Sept. 11, 2001, and I was not the first person to wonder – with growing agitation as the power outage continued – if this wasn't some far-reaching act of terrorism affecting several portions of American infrastructure. As it turned out, the truth, as it so often is, was far less fraught with drama. When the power went out, everyone and his uncle started making calls, apparently. The subsequent load on the wireless network was what crashed it. Power was eventually restored, we spent at least part of a day blaming Canada for the failure of the grid, and the debate continued for some time after that. I remember thinking, even then, that my wireless phone was not as dependable as I had come to think of it.
As a society, we are becoming increasingly involved with our phones. Camera phones and phones that record digital video have turned every second person on the street into an amateur reporter. Very few events transpire that are not recorded for the news, or for YouTube, by some wireless phone-toting spectator. Our phones browse the Internet, keep us connected to our work e-mails while on the go and have turned the noun "text" into a verb meaning: "to send a written message to someone on your wireless phone." The pervasiveness of wireless phone technology has helped make us all more interconnected, to each other and to the network of networks that is the Internet, speeding up society, making data transfer more rapid and becoming critical infrastructure for millions of Americans. What we have to ask ourselves, then, is how we will cope when we are suddenly and unexpected cut off from these devices on which we now depend.
Techworld reported yesterday that a denial-of-service attack, spread by text message to Nokia phones, could cause those phones to stop receiving subsequent messages. This raises the ugly specter of computer virus-like malware affecting phones – and causing phones to require anti-virus protection – in the same way such programming affects home and laptop computers today. Some PDAs already run Windows, after a fashion, and the plethora of viruses makes the Windows Mobile pocket-PC user wonder if his phone and data assistant is as safe as it should be.
A few years ago, one of the late Gene Roddenberry's television programs made mention of this trend, among a few others. (The program correctly predicted, for example, that the Internet would become a sort of alternative broadcast medium for user-generated content, including television shows.) Characters on the show were equipped with devices they called "Globals" –combination telephone, television, data transfer and recording devices that were, in some ways, like the all-purpose "tricorders" of Roddenberry's "Star Trek." Any child who today is old enough to notice the similarity between a modern flip phone and a Star Trek communicator will take for granted that the Enterprise crew is simply talking on wireless phones. A decade or two from now, our youngsters may well take for granted that a phone is not merely a phone, but an all-purpose, multimedia data receiver and transmitter. One could argue that this is already the case.
These innovations are useful, convenient and even fun. I'm very dependent on my Blackberry, and I use it for everything from text messaging to playing Tetris and, yes, even to make the occasional phone call. When we take a piece of technology for granted, however, we must consider the unintended consequences of accepting that piece of infrastructure for what it has become. We must ask ourselves how we will cope if we are suddenly cut off from these devices, which are far more susceptible to denials of service than we might be tempted to think. Whether from power outages or malicious software, our phones are vulnerable to external threats. We must acknowledge this and plan for it if we are to have workable alternatives in the event of an emergency.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php? ... geId=85036

Crowds could overwhelm cell towers
December 9, 2008 - 6:19am
WASHINGTON - The record crowds expected for the inauguration could mean cell phone towers will be overwhelmed and broadband Internet service slowed down, business and government leaders warned Monday.
If 4 million to 5 million people show up as expected, the region could be in for a "logistical nightmare," says Greater Washington Board of Trade President Jim Dinegar.
At briefing organized by the board, officials said the employees for caterers, hotels and other service industries should expect to start their commutes much earlier than expected.
Restaurants expecting deliveries should prepare for delays in those deliveries.
The Secret Service is still mapping out security checkpoints.
The crowd expectation -- roughly 20 percent of the District's yearly visitor count -- has one expert suggesting people stay home.
Charlie Fisher with the Washington-based disaster preparedness and response firm, James Lee Witt Associates also says with so many people not staying in hotels grocery stores need to stock up so there are not shortages of basics, such as milk and bread.
http://wtop.com/?nid=780&sid=1542788