BOW WAVE 333

Bow Wave Issue 333--Boxing the Compass Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2006 WavyLine.com	Issue No 333 10 Apr 06
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Insurance Companies and Mutuals--Middlemen All?
3. New Domestic Air Carrier Limits of Liability in China
4. New Lloyd’s Office to be Set Up in Shanghai
5. African Trade and Transport Conference - London 04May06
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

We Bring Democracy To The Fish

It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other.
For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries
that exclude predators. Our care will provide
for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition. Of course all creatures need to feel useful.
At maturity the fish will discover their purposes.

Donald Hall from White Apples and the Taste of Stone

New Readers this week include:-

Renji Zachariah of Coast Underwriters in Toronto
Mutual development man Craig Watson at CTC
Bill Moir, Paul Hanson and Tom Pocklington of the RSA Ian Green of Casebourne, Leach & Co.
David Marler in Knowlton in QC.
Canadian environmentalist Nicholas Lee
Adele Appleby of the UK Home Office
Ron Salter of Australian lawyers Phillips Fox

News of Readers

Chris Koch on Foreign Port Ownership in the United States

One of the sanest industry voices which has emerged since shipping and transport security came under intense political scrutiny following 9-11 is represented by Chris Koch and the World Shipping Council, a container industry trade body which patiently assembles the forces and arguments of reason and attempts to apply them in the public domain. We were recently sent the text of the testimony given by Koch before the House Committee on Homeland Security on 04APR06 in relation to the HR49, The SAFE Port Act. He uses the opportunity to castigate the myopia shown by some legislators in relation to the DWP acquisition of P&O Ports and illustrates how interpentrated the US marine industries are these days with the operations of overseas port and shipping companies.

Read the speech at:-

http://www.worldshipping.org/spe.html

Readers Write

From Chris Wielders, Regional Marine Loss Control Manager, AIG Europe in Paris:-

There are regular and I think all too frequent losses on Post Panamax container vessels (C11) due to " Parametric Rolling". For example "Nedlloyd Hudson",
"Nedlloyd Barcelona", "Nedlloyd Mondriaan" (twice these last two months), and the "MV Xing Dao" to name but a few. Each time some 50 containers are lost overboard. The issue was dealt with in studies and presentations at IUMI 2003 in Seville but not at the most recent proceedings. It would be very interesting to hear the latest views and information on the subject

Contact him:-

chris.wielders@aig.com

From Dr. Ben Sullivan, the BirdLife Global Seabird Programme Coordinator at the RSPB:-

It has been another very busy but encouraging month for our campaign. I was down in the Falkland Islands for a meeting of ACAP (Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels) working on developing a strategy for managing illegal fishing activities around the UK overseas territories of Tristan and St. Helena. The organisation that manages fisheries in the Southern and Arctic Oceans (CCAMLR) has done an amazing job in 'policing' their waters and drastically reduced illegal fishing by a staggering 75%. We hope to learn from their efforts and to protect the albatrosses breeding and foraging in our own waters from pirate fishers.

Another encouraging piece of news this month was an announcement by Taiwan that it had instructed its fleet that when longlining in the Southern Oceans, they must use bycatch avoidance measures, such as streamer lines.

At the ACAP meeting, a renowned Chilean seabird scientist reported that since Chile had started to introduce bycatch mitigation methods, such as streamer lines, albatross deaths have been halved. Chile's goal is to reach zero mortality in the next two years. We hope to be able to help them with this, by providing Albatross Task Force members by the end of the year. In early April, two new task force members will be employed in Brazil. Our two ATF employees in South Africa, Maria and Meidad are in place and Meidad is all ready at sea, working with the fishermen! These really are exciting times and I am hopeful for the future.

http://www.savethealbatross.net

AfterOfficeHours News

Issue 247 of the weekly e-zine Maritime Advocate On-Line may be read by clicking on the link below:

http://afterofficehours.com/news.php

Note from the Editor

This Issue has a little of everything with no real unifying theme--save that there is a fair amount going on this week

Enjoy.

2. Insurance Companies and Mutuals--Middlemen All?

We were lunching the other day with one of the most original thinkers in the insurance industry. This guru opined that nowadays even big names in the insurance business were becoming middlemen between their customers and the large capital battalions such as the Munich Re or the Swiss Re. Many of the big names retained surprisingly little of the risk--they laid off their risks to the large reinsurers. This is how the $3.3 billion hit at Lloyds of London after the storm season became a mere loss of $103 million for the whole market for the whole 2005 year. Real risk manangement as it were.

Other organisations have reported similar phenomena--a really bad year's result has ended up in a sheltered bottom line. Doubles and trebles all round of course and long may it continue. But something tells us this agreeable present is less than probable in the future. The professionally reinsuring gentlemen of Central Europe are in business too and most unlikely to continue to play this particular and agreeable role in the industry.

3. New Domestic Air Carrier Limits of Liability in China

The current edition of Peter Jones' forwarderlaw e-zine contains an update by lawyer George Wang who reports:

"The Rules for Damage Liability Limitation of Domestic Air Carriers will take effect as of 28 March 2006 thus liability limits in domestic flights will be enhanced by a large margin....However, the gap caused by the dual standard between international and domestic flights remains huge. What’s more, in domestic flights, there is still no law or regulation as regards liability for damages for delay."

Read the details at:-

http://www.forwarderlaw.com/library/view.php?article_id=370

4. New Lloyd’s Office to be Set Up in Shanghai

Steve Farrance has sent in this announcement:-

Lloyd’s, the world’s leading specialist insurance market, is to set up its new Chinese onshore reinsurance operation in Shanghai..

Shanghai was chosen because of its status as a growing commercial and financial centre in China. Lloyd’s will also keep its representative office in Beijing to maintain the strong relationships the market has developed there.

The Mayor of Shanghai -- Han Zheng, met with Lloyd’s Chairman Lord Levene in March to promote the advantages of the city, and he committed to establish a taskforce to make Lloyd’s entry as smooth as possible.

Lloyd’s was given the go-ahead to set up an onshore reinsurance licence by Chinese President Hu Jintao last November.

The new company -- Lloyd’s Reinsurance Company (China) Ltd - will give Chinese insurers full access to the Lloyd’s market, enabling its underwriters to support the development of the local market and the Chinese economy.

Lloyd’s Chairman, Lord Levene, said:

"We decided to base the operation in Shanghai because of its importance as a major financial centre in the rapidly growing Chinese economy. Our operation there will complement the work of our existing office in Beijing, which has been building strong relationships in China for six years. We look forward to continuing our work with the Chinese authorities to get the new operation up and running in the autumn."

5. African Trade and Transport Conference - London 04May06

The spotlight on the G8 talks and African debt is stimulating new interests in the continent's role in global trade, experienced African trading interests know just how difficult it remains to move goods and money to, from and within the continent.

Jointly organised by the West Africa Business Association and African Business Events, and sponsored by FBN Bank, the seminar brings together executives from banking, trade documentation, security, trading concerns, transport operators and consultants to review the key issues, including:-

** Trading issues post G8
** The views of the banking community on Nigeria's decision to move to destination inspection
** Latest trade documentation and post-shipment inspection issues
** Shipping to Africa - the impact of global industry consolidation on the liner transport network
** Upcoming developments in regional transport services ** The outlook for port privatisation
** What all of this means for shippers and traders

For more information go to:-

http://www.africanbusinessevents.com

Contact Steve Cameron at

steve@cmrsupport.com

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to Paul Dixon's Joke of the day for this report from the front line:-

NEW OFFICE SLANG

World Wide Wait - The real meaning of www.

404 - Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, "404 Not Found," which means the document requested couldn't be located. "Don't bother asking John. He's 404."

Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, salsa = software. "First we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

Cobweb - A WWW site that never changes.

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one's own name.

Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people's computer keyboards.

Mouse Potato - The online generation's answer to the couch potato.

Oh-no-second - That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you've just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers - People who work at home or telecommute.

Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn't require training. "That new guy is totally plug-and-play."

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everything and then leaves.

Stress Puppy - A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Under Mouse Arrest - Getting busted for violating an online service's rule of conduct. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest."

Xerox Subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace

PS

Thanks to David for this link to a whole treasury of poems on the illogicality of the English language. Can be read aloud for fun and profit:-

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/poems.php

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