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The insurance issued to dozens of ageing oil tankers used by Russia to skirt international sanctions was bogus, according to Norwegian authorities now investigating the small firm behind the forged documents.Norway-registered Romarine AS purported to be an insurance provider with a website listing dozens of tankers believed to be part of Russia's shadow fleet, including vessels under Western sanctions.However, the company was not registered as an insurance provider by Norway's Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA), the FSA said.Western nations have imposed sanctions on hundreds of ships they suspect Russia is using to avoid price cap restrictions on exports of crude oil and other cargoes.Such vessels are not regulated or covered by conventional Western insurers…

Russian and U.S. experts will discuss ways to ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea at talks on a possible Ukrainian peace settlement in Riyadh on Monday, the Kremlin said.After Russian forces made gains in 2024, President Donald Trump reversed U.S. policy on the war, launching bilateral talks with Moscow and suspending military assistance to Ukraine, demanding that it take steps to end the conflict.Trump envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this week said U.S.-Russian talks would take place on Sunday in Jeddah.

A ship carrying Russian crude transferred from three smaller tankers that are under U.S. sanctions unloaded last week at a Chinese port, shiptracking data shows, ending an unusual month-long voyage highlighting the efforts of producers and traders to keep Moscow's oil flowing despite tightened curbs.The Panama-flagged Daban, one of dozens of non-sanctioned vessels drawn to the Russian oil trade by fat margins following the January 10 U.S. sanctions, was received at a berth run by the privately-controlled Qingdao Haiye Group at the port of Qingdao…

The United States is watching growing cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic closely and some of their recent military collaboration in the region sends "concerning signals", the U.S. Arctic ambassador said.Russia and China have stepped up military cooperation in the Arctic while deepening overall ties in recent years that include China supplying Moscow with dual-use goods despite Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.Russia and the United States are among eight countries with territory in the resource-rich Arctic.

Italy police said on Wednesday they had arrested 61 people across four countries and seized 60 million euros ($67.1 million) following an investigation into international drugs trafficking and money laundering.The case had revealed criminal drugs ties between Albania and Latin America, and once again showed how criminals in Europe are using shadow networks of illicit Chinese money brokers, police said.Finance police in the northern city of Brescia said 400 officers had carried out the arrests and searches in Italy, Albania, Switzerland and Poland, with the cooperation of local law enforcement

Japan lodged a protest with China after one of its naval survey vessels entered Japanese waters on Saturday, the second incursion into its territory by the Chinese military in less than a week.An uptick in Chinese military activity near Japan and around Taiwan in recent years has stoked concerns in Tokyo. Japan has responded with a defence buildup that it says aims to deter Beijing from using military force to push its territorial claims in the region.The ship was detected off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture, in Japan's southwest, at around 6 a.m.

Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.While the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy's first passage through the strait since 2002.China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it…

Yemen's Houthis launched attacks on six ships in three different seas, the Iran-backed group said on Wednesday, including the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Laax that was damaged after reporting a missile strike off the Yemeni coast.Security and shipping sources confirmed the Houthis hit the Laax in a barrage of attacks on Tuesday. In a televised speech, the group also said it targeted the Morea and Sealady in the Red Sea, the Alba and Maersk Hartford in the Arabian Sea…

Iran’s foreign minister said the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel have been granted consular access and are expected to be freed, Iranian media reported on Saturday.Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized the container vessel MSC Aries with a crew of 25 in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus. Iran had said it could close the crucial shipping route.Recent attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis…

Toymaker Basic Fun's team that oversees ocean shipments of Tonka trucks and Care Bears for Walmart and other retailers is racing to reroute cargo away from the Suez Canal following militant attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.Suppliers for the likes of IKEA, Home Depot, Amazon and retailers around the world are doing the same as businesses grapple with the biggest shipping upheaval since the COVID-19 pandemic threw global supply chains into disarray, sources in the logistics industry said.Florida-based Basic Fun usually ships all Europe-bound toys from its China factories via the Suez Canal…

A barge carrying three trucks and 2,000 empty cooking gas cylinders lies stranded on the vast sand banks of a diminished Rio Negro river after running aground last month, highlighting the plight of river transport in the Amazon region hit by severe drought.Officials warned that low river levels risk disrupting grains exports from nearby farm states. On the Madeira, they said barge routes used by grain firms such as Cargill, Bunge and Amaggi, are open but loads are being reduced as a precaution.Shipping and logistics group A.P.

Pope Francis said on Friday that migrants who risk drowning at sea "must be rescued" because doing so was "a duty of humanity" and that those who impede rescues commit "a gesture of hate".Francis, 86, spoke at an inter-religious prayer service before a monument dedicated to those lost at sea. Earlier, the city's archbishop, Cardinal Jean Marc Aveline, an Algerian-born Frenchman, criticized politicians who block NGOs and their ships from saving drowning people."We cannot be resigned to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in atrocious ways," Francis said.

On Feb. 10 last year, the cable ship CS Dependable appeared off the coast of the island of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll that’s home to a discreet U.S. naval base.Over the next month, the ship’s crew covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation code-named “Big Wave,” according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.The new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia, which has not previously been reported, will boost U.S. military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the last decade.The CS Dependable is owned by SubCom…

Six people were killed and 64 others were missing after a boat capsized in Democratic Republic of Congo's Lake Kivu early on Monday, local authorities said.Mustapha Mamboleo, a local official at Idjwi island in the lake, said 150 passengers were aboard the motorized boat traveling from Mugote village on Idjwi island to the eastern city of Goma and 80 of them survived.Mathieu Alimasi Malumbi, the transport minister for South Kivu province, confirmed the incident."I can confirm that there was a capsizing of a motorboat with more than 100 passengers on board, many of whom were not on the manifest

Search teams in Gabon have recovered the dead bodies of 15 passengers of a ferry that sank off the West African country's coast last week, bringing the provisional death toll up to 21, the coordinator of rescue operations said on Tuesday.The Esther Miracle ferry was carrying 161 passengers from Libreville to Port-Gentil when it sank close to the coastal village of Nyonie on March 9.Authorities confirmed six deaths on Monday and were still searching for 31 missing people. Air force…

One more tanker took to 20 on Friday the number of vessels waiting in the Black Sea to pass through Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait on the way to the Mediterranean, the Tribeca shipping agency said, amid talks to disperse the build-up.On Thursday, dismissing pressure from abroad over the lengthening queue, Turkey's maritime authority said it would continue to keep out of its waters oil tankers that lacked the appropriate insurance letters, and it needed time for checks.Eight tankers were also waiting for passage through the Dardanelles strait into the Mediterranean…

Norway police on Friday investigated reports of a drone flying over the Kaarstoe [Kårstø] gas plant in southwest Norway on Thursday, while in Arctic Norway a Russian-Israeli citizen was arrested when police found two drones in his car.The Norwegian military Home Guard has been posted at Kaarstoe and other major energy export facilities since authorities boosted security at Norwegian oil and gas installations after the Sept. 26 Nord Stream leaks.At 2130 local time (1930 GMT) on Thursday…

Norwegian police on Thursday responded to a threat made by telephone against the Nyhamna gas processing plant, one of Europe's largest energy export facilities, and later said the incident had been resolved. The threat came amid heightened concerns about the security of oil and gas infrastructure following suspected sabotage of Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines to Europe, though plant operator Gassco and offshore producers Shell and Equinor said output had not been interrupted.

At least 12 sailors on a Chinese-flagged cargo ship have died of suspected food poisoning off Vietnam's southern coast, a government official said on Friday.After receiving distress calls from the ship's captain, authorities in the island district of Con Dao deployed helicopters to bring the victims and nine other sailors to a hospital onshore, according to Huynh Trung Son, a local government official."The survivors are in critical condition and our medical staff are trying to save them," Son said via telephone."We haven't been able to identify the nationality of the sailors, but they are likely Chinese," he added.The Wu Zhou 8 ship was en route from Thailand to China, he said, adding that it was not immediately clear what the ship was transporting.The ship was built in 2013 with a carryin

“An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.” –Charles KetteringJust for fun, try asking a friend a few questions. Who developed the telephone? Chances are that your friend will reply, Alexander Graham Bell. Who developed the lightbulb? That would be Thomas Edison. Who developed the telegraph? That would be Samuel F.B. Morse. Now ask, who developed containerization? Unless your friend has a background in maritime history, he is likely to draw a complete blank. The answer is a man named Malcom McLean. But who exactly was he? Was he a shipping executive?

Police in Bangladesh on Wednesday opened an investigation into eight officials from a shipping container depot after a blaze killed at least 44 people, including 10 firefighters, and injured around 200 others, officials said.Firefighters put out the blaze at the depot in Sitakunda, 40 km (25 miles) from the southeastern port city of Chittagong, on Wednesday, four days after it began late on Saturday, triggering a series of explosions.The investigation was opened into officials who were directly involved operating the depot on suspicion of negligence and mismanagement…

Firefighters in Bangladesh brought a blaze at a container depot under control on Tuesday, three days after fiery explosions killed at least 43 people at a facility that a senior fire service official suspected had not followed safety guidelines.Drone footage showed smoke and rows of burnt-out containers from the fire that began late on Saturday, triggering blasts and blazes at Sitakunda, 40 km (25 miles) from the southeastern port city of Chittagong. Authorities have not determined…

California port leaders expect imports to rise as Shanghai, home to the world's busiest seaport, emerges from a two-month COVID-19 lockdown.The question is whether that release of pent-up goods will again swamp West Coast ports that have recently emerged from the pandemic's massive cargo wave, they and other experts said.The Port of Shanghai was open during the city's shutdown, but cargo flows still slowed. Area factories that make everything from Tesla electric vehicles to Apple laptops ran out of components and quarantines idled some truckers.As the city returns to normal…