BOW WAVE 189

Swamping Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 189 06 Jul 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. You be the Judge
3. Thoughts on the Three Gorges Dam in China
4. Essay Prize Reminder
5. What the Papers Say
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

The list of Readers of Bow Wave continues to grow. Issue one went out to 200 Readers, today we are climbing past the 8500 mark. Please dear Readers, new and old, send us word of developments in your markets where you live and trade. As Item 5 below demonstrates, the world is a much smaller place than in used to be.

New Readers this week include:

Adrian Wright of SwissRe
Richard Meeking of IT consultants Qinetiq
Laurie Bond of the Pro Group in Zimbabwe
Mutual Club Correspondent Dermot O'Sullivan

News of Readers

The Friday edition of Lloyd's List contains a profile of our friend Mark Holford heralding him as the IT innovator of the maritime world. Holford's great qualities are his curiosity and his relentless capacity for enthusiasm. He resembles a brightly striped tropical fish swimming energetically in the blue and grey murk, seeking out new interesting things which lie scattered all around unobserved by all the other creatures in the ocean.

contact him at:

mark.holdford@thomasmiller.com

Maritime Lawyer Walter P. Verstrepen has left the law firm Baker & McKenzie, Antwerp and has joined the law firm Stanbrook & Hooper, Brussels to practise European maritime and transport law.
contact him at:

walter.verstrepen@pandora.be

Readers Write:

Maritime Lawyer Edward Gray writes

Thanks for the publicity about my hike around Mont Blanc (Bow Wave Issue 184) The charity tells me they had quite a few responses as a result! I am now back from the trek - if only I had known in advance what was involved, I might have had second thoughts!

You can find a report on

http://www.m-f-b.co.uk/news/index.html

contact him at:

EGray@M-F-B.co.uk

Roger Foord, the insurance IT guru wrote recently in his newletter his concerns regarding the regulatory burden currently facing the London insurance market:

The FSA

The report into FSA compliance costs has confirmed the open secret that the cost for compliance by a firm has risen since the FSA came into their lives. Some companies reckoned that there was an increase of 20% in their costs.In the Lloyd’s market, which is only just getting used to the fear factor of a visit by the FSA’s ‘Arrows’, companies now have three potential regulatory bodies, the FSA, the Corporation of Lloyd’s and the new franchise board. This cannot carry on presumably. At the same time, UK-listed firms also have to deal with new accounting standards which are highly complex and will add even more short-term costs. One has to presume that it all makes some sort of sense and the world will be better for it all!

Contact him at:

info@rogerfoord.com

Item 3 has a fine piece describing how the rising waters from the Three Gorges Dam slowly overwhelm the surrounding valley We were reminded how similar is the process when a cycle of really poor underwriting comes home in the form of claims.

Enjoy.

2. You be the Judge

Peter Jones, the forwarding law guru in Canada was also one of the first people to see the possibilities of the internet for use in his work. He has this week launched an item which encourages visitors to his site to decide in the case of the Maersk Amsterdam, a piece of hard cheese indeed for the shipowner, when an English court held the company liable for the release of cargo without bills of lading committed by a state licensed customs terminal in Chile.

Decide for yourself at:

http://www.forwarderlaw.com/Feature/csav.htm

3. Thoughts on the Three Gorges Dam in China

There is a remarkable piece of writing in this week's issue of the New Yorker called Underwater which describes the waters from the Three Gorges Dam reclaiming the areas within the flood valley inch by inch for the first time. The author is Peter Hessler who taught English in a small town along the Yangtse during the 1990s.

Here are some extracts:

Watching the river rise is like tracking the progress of the clock’s short hand: it’s all but imperceptible. There is no visible current, no sound of rushing water but at the end of every hour another half foot has been gained. The movement seems to come from within, and to some degree it is mysterious to every living thing on the shrinking banks. Beetles, ants, and centipedes radiate out in swarms from the river’s edge. After the water has surrounded the brick, a cluster of insects crawl madly onto the dry tip, trying desperately to escape as their tiny island is consumed. The people knew that the flood was coming, but they did not know that it would come so fast. Most residents of Longmen left last year, when the government relocated them to Guangdong Province, in the south of China. But a few, like Zhou Ji’en and his family, stayed behind to work the land for one final spring.....

Whenever I travelled along the Yangtze, I sensed that the dam’s timing was perfect, because the parallel drives of Communism and capitalism had bent just enough to intersect. Building the world’s biggest dam appealed to the dreams of the Communist leaders, but they never could have achieved it in the days of isolation and chaos, before the market reforms. And if the reforms had been around long enough for locals to get their bearings and look beyond satisfying today’s immediate desires, they would have questioned and possibly resisted the project. In the future, when people look back at China’s transition period, one of the lasting monuments may well be an enormous expanse of dead water in central China.

Read the whole piece on the New Yorkers' website:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030707fa_fact

4. Essay Prize Reminder

Christopher Barstow has written in to remind Readers that this year's CTC Essay Prize (held in conjunction with the London Shipping Law Centre) remains open until the the end of July. There is still time for anyone with ideas and motivation to contribute their essays on any of these subjects:

Does the MIA 1906 serve justice between insurer and insured?

How should Transport law develop in the 21st century?

What would be an effective deterrent to sub-standard shipping?

The use or abuse of the corporate veil in shipping: is legislation needed to unveil it and, if so, for what reasons?

Does the standard requirement ‘to exercise due diligence’ under the Hague Visby Rules fulfil the needs and responsibilities of the international maritime community in the 21st century?

Full details can be found at:

http://www.charlestaylorconsulting.com/essaycomp.asp

5. What the Papers Say

Courtesy of the FITA Newsletter called Really Useful Sites we have learned of this website which enables browsers to see the front pages of some 325 daily newspapers around the world. The list looks a little thin in places (there is nothing on offer from Russia for example) but we suppose in time more will be added.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

The Federation of International Trade Association (FITA) website can be accessed at:

http://www.fita.org

6. And Finally...

Brighter Days Ahead

A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package; what food might it contain?

He was aghast to discover that it was a mouse trap!

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning, "There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house."

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell you this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me; I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mouse trap in the house."

"I am so very sorry Mr. Mouse," sympathized the pig, "but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; be assured that you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, "Like wow, Mr. Mouse, a mouse trap; am I in grave danger, Duh?"

So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected to face the farmer's mouse trap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught.

In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital.

She returned home with a fever.

Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

His wife's sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer's wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.

So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you,
remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk. And traps are usually well disguised.

PS Thanks to E-Securegateway's Serena Standing for these:-

33 Reasons Why Men Are Just Happier People

Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood, ALL the time.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you to something, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Everything on your face stays its original color. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You don't have to shave below your neck.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.
One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons. You can "do" your nails with a pocketknife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 8600 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

Thanks for reading BOW WAVE