The Suez Canal Authority Chairman Ahmed Fadel announced at a press conference Canal’s revenue in the 2008-09 fiscal year which ended on June 30, crimped to $4.74bn from its all-time high of $5.1bn of the previous year. However, Fadel claimed it was the downturn that had resulted in lower revenues rather than the piracy as piracy remained a bane to many other parts of the world.

Fadel also indicated that the impact on shipping from piracy in the Gulf of Aden off the Horn of Africa had been exaggerated. The pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden, a key route to the canal, had scared off many ship owners to divert their vessels through the old route of Cape of Good Hope.

The Canal’s revenue loss is cited has the major reason for the slower 4.7 GDP growth of Egypt as compared to 7 percent of the past three years. This fiscal, 19,354 ships passed through the waterway which connects the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea with regards to 21,080 in 2007-08. About 811.4mn tons of goods passed the canal during the same period, down 8.9 percent from 890mn tons of the previous year.

Fadel stated that the government had taken number of steps to attract higher traffic including keeping the toll unchanged and infrastructural improvements to accommodate all kinds of ships. The authority had almost completed work on dredging and deepening of the Canal which when finished would allow to handle ships over 240,000 tons, up from the current 200,000 ton limit. Besides, the deepening of the Canal from 62 feet to 66 feet is expected to pave way for 64 percent of the world’s oil tanks and 99 percent of the cargo ships to transit through the water way by this year end.

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A large portion of animal imports to the UAE come from the European countries including the UK, Portugal and Austria. There are several cases reported in the last one year from countries such as – Germany, Italy, Norway, Greece, Spain, Israel, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Algeria and Austria.

Blue-tongue virus is non-transmittable to humans and non-contagious among animals. The disease is characterised by changes to the mucous membranes of the tongue and nose, and certain types of midges are vectors of this animal disease. The ruminants including camels, cattle and sheep are chiefly susceptible to the virus.

According to new regulation, every animal arriving from blue-tongue affected countries will be individually inspected. Prior to the directive, only a random sample of about 10 per cent of each shipment had undergone inspection.

Besides, the animals should not be stung by the midges for a period not less than 28 days from the date of shipping. Regarding import of sperm, embryos and ova, the donating animals should be immunised against stings of midges for a period not less than 60 days before and during the process of collecting the sperm, ova and embryos.

However, OIE is surprised by the timing of the UAE’s move to clamp restrictions to animal imports particularly because these strains have been reported for more than a decade in Europe and the Mediterranean. Glaieul Mamaghani, deputy director of communications at the OIE asserted that the virus could not be transmitted to humans. The UAE ministry said that the effective date for the new regulation would be made known in a few days’ time.

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On the contrary, the Maersk chairman John Clancey had told the subcommittee last week that arms on ships could make the seas even more dangerous. He had added arming merchant sailors might result in the acquisition of ever more lethal weapons and tactics by the pirates making them furthermore defenceless.

Though heads of both leading shipping companies have contrasting views about arming their ships against sea piracy, according to sources, the military has admitted that guarding the Gulf of Aden about four times the size of Texas would be a gargantuan task. Navy Vice Adm. James A. Winnefeld said it would put a “large dent” in the Navy’s capacity and funding if it had to assign a military security force to each ship in the region.

Shapiro’s call comes in the wake of an aborted attempt on his ship which was on a humanitarian ‘food for Africa’ relief mission and a series of piracy at the Somali waters including the failed attack on the cargo ship Maersk Alabama. It should be recalled while rescuing the mariners of Alabama three pirates were killed. He said the Maersk Alabama incident had become a game-changer as the pirates wanted to avenge the killings of their accomplices, and had now issued direct threats against the US merchant sailors.

At the hearing, Shapiro also opposed the government’s official advice in discouraging ransom as it would only jeopardize the lives of the US mariners. Since the law would take its own time for implementation, until then, the president and CEO of Liberty Maritime wanted the authorities to urgently sanction government security teams or naval escorts for all US-flagged vessels on high-risk transits.

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