In early October Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI) released a study on the psychological impacts of piracy on seafarers. While incidents of piracy decline off the Horn of Africa, an inestimable number of seafarers continue to bear the psychological impact of captivity by pirates.
POEA issued an announcement in early October regarding proliferation of employment seafarers’ job scams in the internet. More applicants use the internet to find jobs and with the popularity of internet-ready gadgets, and job search and social networking websites, they become easy victims of illegal recruiters and job scammers.
Last September 19 Filipino manning agents have been charged with illegal recruitment activities. Among these companies where names affiliated with well known ship managing companies. POEA’s Operations and Surveillance Division, assisted by detectives, sent personnel at Luneta Seafarer’s Center in Ermita, Manila pretending to be jobseekers in order to discover if illegal recruitment activities were being conducted in the area.
Ship officer qualifications should be regarded as the equivalent of a university degree in the opinion of InterManager president Alastair Evitt. That would help a great deal in improving the public image of shipping and encouraging more young people to choose a career at sea. The industry’s reputation has taken a dent as a result of the Costa Concordia caualty, Mr Evitt acknowledged, with the fact that 99% of all cargo arrives safely never making the news.
The US Coast Guard is searching for a missing 26-year-old Turkish crewmember approximately 230 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday morning. The second mate was last seen walking the deck of MT AQUA, a Maltese-flagged 248 m tanker vessel, wearing a green and brown shirt with no life jacket. He was reported missing after he did not report for his watch.
BOURBON announced today that 7 crew members, 6 Russians and 1 Estonian were kidnapped during the boarding of the Bourbon Liberty 249, which occurred on October 15, 2012 in Nigeria. The other 9 crew members are still onboard the vessel, safe and in good health, heading for the Port of Onne.
The US Coast Guard is searching for a missing 37-year-old Filipino crewman who might have fell overboard from a container ship off the coast of Mobile, Monday. Coast Guard Station Dauphin Island watchstanders received a call from the Mobile Pilots reporting a missing crewmember aboard the Singapore-flagged MSC Tokyo at approximately 2:30 a.m.
A Liverpool court has found a director of a crewing agent operating in the UK guilty of withholding approximately £21,000 in pay from four seafarers. The court in Liverpool ordered the director of a UK Crewing Agency, to pay fines and costs totalling £3,015. The crewing director, who admitted the offences, was prosecuted by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate following an investigation into claims of non-payment of wages. The UK Crewing Agency has now gone into liquidation.
An 80,000 ton Panamanian flagged ship owned in Korea and has carried fly ash into the port. National ITF coordinator Dean Summers said that that the 14 strong Philipino crew had suffered significantly under the 4 Korean officers over a number of months however the situation had deteriorated quickly after the attempted suicide of one of the men on route to Newcastle.
Mobile network operator Three is to provide seafarers visiting ports across the UK with free mobile internet as part of a national scheme being run in collaboration with the UK Merchant Navy Welfare Board, which aims to connect international seafarers with their families using internet communications tools. Three UK has provided 32 mobile Wi-Fi hotspots to the national charity, with each device to be loaded with 15 GB of data per month.
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Officer of the Watch 