BOW WAVE 139

Peering Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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(c)2002 WavyLine.com	Issue No 139 22 Jul 02
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Security and Risk
3. Outstanding Photographs
4. China Maritime Newsletter
5. BIG Opportunity
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

Norfolk

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,
The years fall off and find me walking back
Dragging a stick along the wooden fence
Down this same path, where, forty years ago
My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hand with sorrel seeds
And shower him with them from the tops of stiles I used to butt my head into his tweeds
To make him hurry down those languorous miles
Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till here
Our moorings and the masthead would appear.

There after supper lit by lantern light
Warm in the cabin I could lie secure
And hear against the polished sides at night
The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure,
A whispering and watery Norfolk sound
Telling of all the moonlit reeds around.

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
The church is just the same, though now I know
Fowler of Louth restored it. Time bring back
The rapturous ignorance of long ago,
The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts,
Of unkept promises and broken hearts.

John Betjeman

New Readers this week include:

Maritime Law Professor Robert Force of Tulane University Daniel Yarrow Coulter of Eagle Transport Services Chambers Yang of lawyers Haworth & Lexon in Shanghai Edwin Tan of the Raets Club's Asian Office
Andrzej Tyc in Poland
Readers in the Mitchell Cotts P & I Ltd Office in Kenya J.R.B.Harding,aka Spike of Spica Marine Inspections Ltd in Mombasa

News of Readers

Juan Carlos Croston, 25, has been involved in the maritime field for almost nine years now. After graduation from Panama's Nautical School,where he was awarded a B.Sc. in Nautical Engineering, he received a Master of Science degree in Maritime Affairs from the World Maritime University.

Like many fresh graduates, he imagined this was all he would need to take him to the top of the shipping business. In the current climate he has not found anything suitable in the industry and he now teaches at an international Master's degree program in Panama, but he is looking for a chance to prove himself in a shipping or port company.

Readers who might know of a position which might suit him should contact him at:

crostonj@hotmail.com

Transport and Insurance Lawyer Kevin Sach writes:

Solicitors Mr Laurence McFadyen and Mr Alastair Broster have joined Sach Solicitors from Lester Aldridge, Southampton.

Freight Forwarder Joe DiVincenti has set up in Hong Kong and describes the scene there:

"Greetings from HK. Been here two months now. I know you have a lot of HK readers. Curious if anyone's reported in on the dire situation with the expat community here. General unemployment is >7%, which means that it's probably more like +10%, as there is a HUGE gray market here. Expat unemployment is more like 25/30%... they're moving down from Mid Levels in droves to be able to afford to stay in the (now it's official)
most expensive city in the world, and even with my small circle of friends,
I've attended 5 farewell parties in the eight weeks since I arrived."

Noting our recent item on the numerology of the World Cup he cites a most appropriate quote from a famous American College football coach, Mr Woody Hayes of Ohio State University:

"Statistics reminds me of the guy who drowned in a river that had an AVERAGE depth of 18 inches."

Rather a lot of peering in this Issue.

Enjoy.

2. Security and Risk

The latest edition of Counterpane, the monthly e-zine on IT and computer security produced by Ed Schneier contains an interesting article on embedded control systems in our society, the sorts of devices which measure things, throw railway switches, turn valves on and off and so on. These have been designed without much security but are more and more connected via the internet. In one case in the year 2000, a hacker in Melbourne was convicted for releasing sewage via the control systems accessible on the internet.

Yet as thinkable as some risks of attack and misuse may be, he comes up with advice which might sometimes also be applicable to those who worry today about the security in the maritime industries:

"The solution is twofold. One, keep critical control systems off the Internet. Two, fix the protocols to add security. And three, don't panic about the threats; the risk isn't that great."

Subscribe to Counterpane by visiting the site

http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html

Also in the current issue is a column on the poor progress being made by the digital security approach known as PKI or public key infrastructure.

http://www2.cio.com/research/security/edit/a05232002.html

3. Outstanding Photographs

Certainly for the transport and shipping enthusiasts, who are sometime known as anoraks, are these superb photographs of ports and shipbreaking.

http://www.charlescowles.com/burtynsky/containerports.html http://www.charlescowles.com/burtynsky/shipbreaking.html

4. China Maritime Newsletter

Here is one we wished we had thought of. An on the spot e-letter from Shanghai on the maritime scene there. If you think you need to know more about the place--and you probably do--try this rather interesting effort from the enterprising law firm of Lehman, Lee & Xu. The letter we saw contained the following items:

Shanghai Port 1st Half Cargo increases 17.2% to 125 Million Tons Chinese Banks Show Shanghai the Money Foreign-funded Company approved to Take Holdings of Chinese Pier LPG Tanker on Auction in China Court Dispute Coscon Launches New Northeast Asia Route

Subscribe by sending an e-mail to:

maritime@lehmanlaw.com

5. BIG Opportunity

Another post from Ian Priban, convener of the British Innovation Group--Europe whose members include people working in insurance, transport and energy.

The Opportunity

Owner-manager capitalism was started in England in the First Industrial Revolution. Its founders were highly moral non-conformists. We are at the end of that line which began three centuries ago. The advances presently expected are rooted in quantum capitalism which embraces science and technology.

Fifty years ago Arthur C. Clarke wrote: "What we are building is the nervous system of mankind which will link together the whole human race in a unity which no earlier age could have imagined." October 1945. His nervous system and a new consciousness of opportunities will resolve today’s issues.

These are seen as failing legacy systems in business, pensions, policing and justice, and public education, health and transport. They are black holes in the fabric of society, causing discontent and unrest. The useful fact is that history repeats itself. However, the people and the tools are different.

The present context of low trust is the opportunity for new thinking that starts a sea change, inspiring confidence. Rather than becoming victims of an undiagnosed psychological depression. The sea change pattern expected is like the last one remembered by older generations e.g. the Great Depression, Weimar Republic mega-inflation, and the World War Two devastation.

The foundation for the last period of growth in the German Federal Republic was laid by Adenauer and Erhard on 20 June 1948. That currency reform established price stability. It was a shift, over one weekend, from desperation, hunger, the black market and prostitution. Now everyone knew what to work for. It set them on the path to a healthy future and the economic miracle.

In the USA it was taboo to refer to the Great Depression until 1955, its official end. However, it was Japan’s Pearl Harbour attack in December 1941 that woke America up. It stimulated breakthrough innovations in all its industrial divisions to liberate them from the Depression. The British and the Dutch who were already in the midst of a fight against tyranny in Europe, warned them of the impending Pearl Harbor attack, but the US did not act. The World Trade Centre 11th September failed to inspire the USA in the way of Pearl Harbor.

To mobilise science and technology for concurrent breakthroughs Earlybirds use the All-The-Way-Agenda. This may seem novel, but is in no way alien to the British. It is like a flock of birds moving on to a new course. Individual birds initiate a move by repeatedly changing direction momentarily and returning to their original course. When enough have "voted" for a change, the whole flock is prepared. As the next few birds move, the whole flock follows simultaneously. Would you like to try this?
Can you see yourself involved in this democratic change! If so how? I would like to hear from you.
You can read about 1 Self-organising Earlybirds, 2 Self-renewal, 3 Risk of being misinformed, and 4 BEGIN THE FUTURE.

Contact him at:

IanPriban@compuserve.com

6. And Finally....

Brain teaser

A man pushed a car to a hotel. On arriving, he was made bankrupt! How did this happen?"

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 7200 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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