‘A bridge too far’: local anger at dismantling of historic bridge for Bezos boat

DutchNews, February 3, 2022, Senay Boztas

The Hef is an iconic part of Rotterdam’s skyline. Photo: elm3r via Wikimedia Commons

The Rotterdam branch of political party GroenLinks has called an emergency council debate over the fact that an iconic bridge will be temporarily taken apart to allow passage for a mega-yacht for Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos. 

The news that a section of national monument De Hef would be dismantled (and then put together again) to allow passage for the 127m long, three-masted, aluminium and steel schooner swiftly voyaged the world. 

But the story, broken on Wednesday by local broadcaster Rijnmond, sparked fury amongst history lovers, the Dutch public and some local councillors. 

GroenLinks councillor Stephan Leewis told Rijnmond that he took a dim view of the permission, particularly in the light of Amazon personnel policies and tax andregulation avoidance battles. 

‘Now, we have to break apart our beautiful listed monument?’ he reportedly said, in calling an emergency debate. ‘This really is a bridge too far.’ 

Heritage 

According to Dutch media, next week Rotterdam city council will debate the planning permission given to dismantle the middle section of the 1927 bridge, and reconstruct it – reportedly, at the cost of shipbuilder Oceanco and Bezos. 

Project leader at Rotterdam city council Marcel Walravens previously defended the decision as a pragmatic one. ‘It is about a ship with high masts which cannot pass through the bridge. The only alternative is to take out the middle section,’ he told Rijnmond. 

Walravens hoped that with proper preparation, the middle section of the bridge would only be removed for a day and pointed out the economic and jobs benefit to the region, plus the boost to its international shipbuilding reputation. 

However, some history experts were unimpressed. ‘Jobs are important, but there are limits with what you can and should do with our industrial heritage,’ said Ton Wesselink of the local history society Historisch Genootschap Roterodamum to Rijnmond. 

‘Inequality’ 

On social media, commentators also pointed out the apparent inconsistency in strict, Dutch listed building policy and the privilege apparently afforded to an American billionaire to take apart a bridge which the council had previously promised would no longer be touched. 

On social media, the story inspired humorous comment as well as outrage, particularly in the light of the bridge’s historical destruction during the 1940 Nazi bombardment. A commenter called ‘Marky Mark’ suggested: ‘Can’t we simply dismantle Jeff Bezos and have Rotterdam pass through him?’ 

Jeroen Stet commented: ‘Mega-yachts are a symbol of greed, inequality, and all that is bad about capitalism and the impact it has on the world. If you think you need something like this, it says a lot about you.’ 

Ophef 

Others pointed out that the bridge would be repaired again, and that the shipyard was a huge local employer. Meanwhile, Paul Peeters, podcast host at DutchNews.nl, noted that this was a scandal, or ophef, with a ring about it: ‘De Hef/Jeff-ophef.’ 

At 127 metres long, Bezos’ yacht is set to be the largest sailing yacht in the world when delivered at some point this year, according to Boat International. It is reportedly being moved from one shipyard to another for final fitting. 

A spokesman for Rotterdam council told DutchNews.nl. ‘The municipality of Rotterdam only gives permission to the maritime sector to take a ship to sea. The municipality does not build ships, so we have no further information about this.’

Britain to take back plastic waste from Malaysia

Yahoo – AFP, November 25, 2019

Southeast Asia has been flooded with plastic from more developed nations
such as the US and Australia since last year when China -- which boasted a
massive recycling industry -- ordered a halt to imports (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Britain has agreed to take back 42 containers of plastic waste illegally exported to Malaysia, officials said Monday, as several Asian nations push back against becoming the world's trash dump.

Southeast Asia has been flooded with plastic from more developed nations such as the US and Australia since last year when China -- which boasted a massive recycling industry -- ordered a halt to imports.

Many recycling businesses from China moved to Malaysia after the ban took effect, leaving officials struggling to return a large number of shipping containers full of waste brought in from abroad.

After a visit by UK environment officials, Britain agreed to take back containers sent to a major port in northern Penang state since last year without the necessary import papers.

Malaysian Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin praised the "highly commendable" move by London.

"This cooperation signifies a recognition that plastic pollution is a global issue which requires commitment from various countries to address the problem," she said in a statement.

British High Commissioner Charles Hay said the return of the containers showed the UK's "commitment to fighting the illegal plastic waste trade".

Officials hope to take back all the containers by the end of the year, a Malaysian High Commission spokesman said.

Several Southeast Asian countries have sent back unwanted waste in recent months. Indonesia has returned hundreds of containers to their countries of origin, while the Philippines returned a huge shipment of garbage to Canada.

The Netherlands calls on Shell to clean up North Sea oil rigs

DutchNews, October 10, 2019

The four Brent platforms: Photo: Shell 

The Dutch government wants Shell to clean up the foundations of three oil and gas platforms in the British part of the North Sea, infrastructure minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen has told MPs. 

The minister’s comments follow the publication of a report on the decommissioning operation which recommends the clean up be carried out as agreed over 20 years ago in international treaties. 

The licence request ‘does not sufficiently support’ the claim that leaving the foundations and storage units, which contain polluted material, is the best option from an environmental or safety point of view, the minister told MPs. 

The Netherlands, she said, will join Germany in making a formal protest about the plan. 

The clean-up was agreed in a special treaty known as Ospar which was adopted in 1992. The Ospar treaty states that rigs, including their contents and pipelines, must be removed from the sea after decommissioning. 

Shell, however, wants to leave the foundations of three of the four Brent platforms – Brent Bravo, Brent Charlie and Brent Delta – in the North Sea. It argues that removing the three concrete constructions would be risky and expensive. 

Risks 

‘Constructed nearly half a century ago, they were not designed to be removed,’ Shell said when submitting the decommissioning plans in 2017.  ‘We have to consider the safety of those who will work offshore to deliver this project. The safety risks associated with trying to remove them outweigh minimal environmental benefit.’ 

The final decision is up to Britain and it is keen to make an exception for the three platforms. Germany and the Netherlands, which only have an advisory role, are opposed, fearing the impact of leaks of polluted oil in the concrete bases on marine life. 

The topside of the Brent Bravo platform was taken to Britain for scrapping in June this year. 

The Brent field was discovered in 1971 and started production five years later.

Indonesia to send 210 tonnes of waste back to Australia

Yahoo – AFP, July 9, 2019

The eight containers seized in Surabaya city should have contained only waste
paper, but authorities also found hazardous material and household trash,
including used diapers (AFP Photo/Juni Kriswanto)

Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia said Tuesday it would send more than 210 tonnes of garbage back to Australia, as Southeast Asian nations push back against serving as dumping grounds for foreign trash.

The eight containers seized in Surabaya city should have contained only waste paper, but authorities also found hazardous material and household trash including plastic bottles and packaging, used diapers, electronic waste and cans, a spokesman for the East Java customs agency told AFP.

Following the inspection the Indonesian environment ministry recommended "the items be re-exported," the agency said in a separate statement Monday.

"This is done to protect the public and Indonesian environment, especially in East Java, from B3 waste," it added, referring to hazardous and toxic materials.

Australian company Oceanic Multitrading sent the waste to Indonesia with help from Indonesian firm PT. MDI, authorities said.

China's decision in 2018 to ban imports of foreign plastic waste threw global recycling into chaos, leaving developed nations struggling to find places to send their waste.

Southeast Asian nations are pushing back against serving as dumping grounds 

for foreign trash (AFP Photo/Juni Kriswanto)

Huge quantities of rubbish have since been redirected to Southeast Asia, but opposition to handling exported trash is growing in the region.

Indonesia announced last week it was sending back 49 containers full of waste to France and other developed nations.

In May, neighbouring Malaysia announced it was shipping 450 tonnes of imported plastic waste back to its sources, including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The Philippines, meanwhile, returned about 69 containers of rubbish back to Canada last month, putting an end to a diplomatic row between the two countries.

Global concern over plastic pollution has been spurred by shocking images of waste-clogged rivers in Southeast Asia and accounts of dead sea creatures found with kilos of refuse in their stomachs.

Around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), with much of it ending up in landfills or polluting the seas, in what has become a growing international crisis.

Two wartime shipwrecks go missing off coast of Malaysia

DutchNews, July 8, 2019 

An unnamed Dutch submarine during the Second World War. Photo: Wikipedia

Two Dutch Second World War shipwrecks have disappeared from Malaysian waters, months after the two countries agreed to step up efforts to protect war graves. 

The two submarines are suspected to have been recovered illegally for their scrap metal value. Debris from one was found on the sea bed, while at the other site only the imprint of the wreck was visible. 

‘This news has hit us very hard,’ said defence minister Ank Bijleveld. ‘These shipwreck locations are the last resting places of those who served on them and are a place of remembrance. The relatives have been informed. 

‘Out of respect for the survivors a commemoration has been held at both sites by members of the expedition.’ 

Last year foreign affairs minister Stef Blok signed a deal with his Indonesian counterpart to locate and protect vulnerable wrecks in the Java Sea, after it emerged that three sunken ships had disappeared.

Canada takes garbage back from Philippines, ending long dispute

Yahoo – AFP, Alia Dharssi, June 29, 2019

A ship carrying dozens of containers of Canadian trash left in the Philippines for
years has arrived back home (AFP Photo/Don MacKinnon)

Vancouver (AFP) - Tonnes of Canadian garbage left in the Philippines for years arrived back home Saturday, putting an end to a festering diplomatic row that highlighted how Asian nations have grown tired of being the world's trash dump.

A cargo vessel loaded with about 69 containers of rubbish docked in a port on the outskirts of Vancouver, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

The trash will be incinerated at a waste-to-energy facility, local officials said.

The conflict dates back to 2013 and 2014, when a Canadian company shipped containers mislabeled as recyclable plastics to the Philippines.

The shipment actually contained a mixture of paper, plastics, electronics, and household waste, including kitchen trash and diapers, even though Philippine law prohibits imports of mixed plastics and household trash.

Some of the waste was disposed of in the Philippines, but much of it stewed in local ports for years.

The issue polluted bilateral relations for years, but tensions came to a head in April when Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to "declare war" against Canada unless it reclaimed the garbage.

Canada missed a May 15 deadline to repatriate the rubbish, but then made arrangements soon thereafter to move it back to Canadian soil.

Canada's Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told reporters on Thursday: "We committed with the Philippines and we're working closely with them."

Global concern over plastic pollution has been spurred by shocking images of waste-clogged rivers in Southeast Asia and accounts of dead sea creatures found with kilos of refuse in their stomachs.

Environmental activists in the Philippines had protested outside the Canadian 

embassy in Manila to speed up the removal of the tonnes of Canadian trash (AFP 

Photo/maria Salvador Tan)

For years, China had received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, but closed its doors to foreign refuse last year in an effort to clean up its environment.

Huge quantities of waste plastic have since been redirected to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia and -- to a lesser degree -- the Philippines.

In November 2016, Canada amended its regulations on waste disposal to prevent incidents like the one with the Philippines.

Canadian exporters now need a permit to export hazardous waste and can only obtain it if the other country consents to the import, Jenn Gearey, a spokeswoman for the Canadian environment ministry, said via email.

Even so, challenges remain.

In May, Malaysian officials criticized Canada after a shipping container filled with contaminated plastic bags from major Canadian grocery chains was shipped to Kuala Lumpur by a private company.

Canada produces more waste per capita than other countries with comparable levels of economic development, ranging from the United States to Japan, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada.

The majority of it ends up in landfills.

Environmental advocates argue that developed countries should stop exporting their trash and figure out how to handle it domestically.

"The way forward is to drastically reduce the amount of waste we generate, especially plastic waste," said Vito Buonsante, plastics program manager at Environmental Defense in Toronto.

Britain should give up Chagos Islands: UN court

Yahoo – AFP, Danny KEMP, Jan HENNOP, February 25, 2019

Britain allowed a few of the evicted Chagossian islanders back for a brief visit in 

2006 (AFP Photo/STRINGER)

The Hague (AFP) - Britain should give up control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean "as rapidly as possible", the UN's top court said Monday in a decades-old row with Mauritius over an archipelago that is home to a huge US airbase.

The International Court of Justice said in a legal opinion that Britain had illegally split the islands from Mauritius before independence in 1968, after which the entire population of islanders was evicted.

Mauritius and the exiled Chagossians reacted with delight to the "historic" opinion delivered by judges in The Hague, which is non-binding but will carry heavy symbolic and political weight.

Britain however defended its hold on the islands, saying the Diego Garcia military base, which has been used to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan, protected people around the world.

"The United Kingdom's continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago constitutes a wrongful act," chief judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.

"The United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring an end to its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, thereby allowing Mauritius to complete the decolonisation of its territory."

The UN General Assembly in 2017 adopted a resolution presented by Mauritius and backed by African countries asking the ICJ to offer legal advice on the island chain's fate and the legality of the deportations.

'So happy'

Colonial power Britain split off the islands from Mauritius -- which lies around 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away -- three years before Port Louis gained independence in 1968. It also paid Mauritius three million pounds.

Between 1968 and 1973 around 2,000 Chagos islanders were evicted, to Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles, to make way for a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The evictions were described in a British diplomatic cable at the time as the removal of "some few Tarzans and Man Fridays".

The Chagos Islanders have already taken their battle through the courts in Britain,
where their supporters include the current leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn 
(second from the right in this 2007 photo) (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)

Diego Garcia is now under lease to the United States and played a key strategic role in the Cold War before being used as a staging ground for US bombing campaigns against Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s.

Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Mauritius-based Chagos Refugees Group, told reporters outside court that he was "so happy".

"It is a big victory against an injustice done by the British government for many years. We people have been suffering for many years -- I am so lucky today," he said.

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth hailed it as a " historic moment for Mauritius and all its people".

"Our territorial integrity will now be made complete, and when that occurs, the Chagossians and their descendants will finally be able to return home," he said in a statement.

The ICJ opinion comes as a stunning blow to London in a case that goes to the heart of historic issues of decolonisation and current questions about Britain's place in the world as it prepares to leave the European Union.

Mauritius' lawyer Philippe Sands said there was "no wiggle room" in the judges' view and that Britain would resist pressure to comply.

"I suspect the United Kingdom will say to itself, what resistance can we put up to moving forward -- and particularly in the context of Brexit, as the United Kingdom finds itself a little bit isolated in the world," he told reporters outside court.

Britain's foreign ministry rejected the court's opinion.

"The defence facilities on the British Indian Ocean Territory help to protect people here in Britain and around the world from terrorist threats, organised crime and piracy," the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in a statement.

'Shameful' evictions

When judges heard the case in September, Mauritius argued that it was illegal for Britain to have broken up its territory while it was still the colonial power.

Britain, while apologising for the "shameful" way it evicted thousands of islanders, insisted Mauritius was wrong to have brought the case to the ICJ.

The United States meanwhile said the court had a "duty" not to take a position on the row.

The Chagos Islanders have already taken their battle through the courts in Britain, where their supporters included the current Labour opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The legal opinion is only the 28th since the ICJ was set up in 1946 in the wake of World War II to provide a tribunal to resolve disputes between UN member states.

Previously such opinions include one on Israel's West Bank barrier in 2004, which judges said was illegal, and declaring legal Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2010.c

Thomas Cook drops SeaWorld holidays over animal welfare concerns

Yahoo – AFP, July 29, 2018

Thomas Cook will stop selling trips to animal parks which keep captive killer
whales, including SeaWorld in Florida and Loro Parque in Tenerife

British holiday firm Thomas Cook will stop selling trips to animal parks which keep captive killer whales, including SeaWorld in Florida and Loro Parque in Tenerife, their CEO announced Sunday.

"We have actively engaged with a range of animal welfare specialists in the last 18 months, and taken account of the scientific evidence they have provided", Peter Fankhauser wrote in a blog post.

"We have also taken feedback from our customers, more than 90% of whom told us that it was important that their holiday company takes animal welfare seriously," he added, confirming that tickets to such attractions will no longer be sold from next summer.

Animal welfare concerns over the treatment of orcas in captivity have been amplified since the critically lauded 2013 documentary Blackfish, which argued that the highly intelligent animals are psychologically traumatised in tourist attractions such as SeaWorld.

Fankhauser said the decision came after an introduction of a new Thomas Cook animal welfare policy which recognises "that customer expectations were changing when it comes to animal attractions" and "the important role tourism has to play during the transition to ending practices that are known to harm animals."

Animal rights campaigners People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been campaigning for Thomas Cook to drop the holidays for the past 12 months, with 150 protests around Britain.

"This momentous victory means that Thomas Cook has now become the world-leading travel provider for animal welfare that it had claimed to be," wrote PETA manager of special projects Elisa Allen.

"If other travel providers hope to maintain a shred of credibility with animal-loving British holidaymakers, they must follow its lead," she added.

"There's no humane way to keep these highly intelligent animals in captivity, let alone force them to perform cruel circus-style tricks for food."

In 2016 SeaWorld announced it will stop breeding orcas and no longer keep any in captivity after the current generation dies.

Netherlands and Indonesia agree to protect wartime shipwrecks

Dutchnews, July 4, 2018

The Netherlands and Indonesia are to set up a joint team to protect Second World War shipwrecks being plundered on the sea bed. 

Foreign affairs minister Stef Blok said he had agreed with his Indonesian counterpart to set up a team to locate and protect vulnerable wrecks by the end of the year. 

It follows the discovery last year that three Dutch wrecks had disappeared from the bottom of the Java Sea, having apparently been taken by scrap dealers. 

At least 110 Dutch ships that were sunk during the Pacific Ocean campaign are currently lying in Indonesian waters. On a visit to Jakarta, Blok said the Indonesian government was aware of the cultural significance of the shipwreck sites to the Netherlands. 

The locations of the three missing vessels – the SNLMS De Ruyter, Java and Kortenaer – will be marked as commemorative sites. The ships were sunk by the Japanese fleet in 1942, with the loss of around 1,100 sailors.

Superyacht seized in Den Helder port as part of corruption probe

DutchNews, April 14, 2017

A 75 meter long superyacht, worth €113m, has been placed in sequestration in Den Helder port after a judge in Zwolle ruled that the vessel be held while its owner is investigated under charges of corruption in Switzerland and France. 

The ‘Ebony Shine’ is owned by Teodoro Obiang, son of the long-serving president of the tiny West African state of Equitorial Guinea, the NRC said on Friday. 

Teodoro Obiang is being charged on a number of points including money laundering and stealing from the state treasury. The yacht was seized while it was in a Den Helder dockyard for regular maintenance. Obiang claims it is the property of the state of Equitorial Guinea. 

Obiang serves as vice president of the country and has an annual salary of €100,000. Equitorial Guinea has a population of 800,000 and is a former colony of Spain. 

The vessel, built by Feadship in Makkum, has two jaccuzis, a spa, a pool and gym, a helipad, several jetskis and a cinema seating 12. 

Equatorial Africa is one of the richest countries in Africa due to its oil income which amounts to about €3.7bn a year. Only 2% of of this goes for health care and 3% to education. Apart from a small elite, most of the country lives on less than €2 a day.

South Korea raises sunken ferry: Yonhap

Yahoo – AFP, Hwang Sunghee, March 22, 2017

Barges during a salvage project to bring the sunken Sewol ferry back to
surface in the sea off the southwestern island of Jindo (AFP Photo/Handout)

Salvage operators raised part of South Korea's sunken Sewol ferry early Thursday, Yonhap news agency reported, nearly three years after the disaster killed more than 300 people and dealt a crippling blow to now-ousted president Park Geun-Hye.

Emotional parents of victims -- the vast majority of the dead in the country's worst-ever maritime tragedy were schoolchildren -- had earlier urged people to pray for a successful recovery.

"As of 3:45 am (1845 GMT Wednesday), part of the Sewol's structure, which is believed to be its stabilizer, can be seen above the water with the naked eye," an official from the Oceans and Fisheries Ministry was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

It is expected to take around eight days to fully raise the ship and move it to the port of Mokpo, and another four days to move it onto a dry dock, he added.

The vessel was lying more than 40 metres (130 feet) below the waves off southwestern South Korea and the operation, originally scheduled for last year, had been pushed back several times because of adverse weather.

It is thought that nine bodies still unaccounted for may be trapped inside the sunken ship, and raising the ferry intact has been a key demand of the victims' families.

Raising the Sewol sunken ferry (AFP Photo/Laurence CHU , Gal ROMA)

"I am a mother who just really misses her daughter. Please pray for us so we can go home with Eun-Hwa," said Lee Keum-Hui, one of a handful of relatives who have been living in makeshift homes at Paengmok, the closest port to the wreck, since the accident.

"We will be grateful if you pray with us so that the last remaining victims can return to their families," she said, breaking down.

Other bereaved family members have been maintaining a vigil at a camp on a hilltop on Donggeochado, the nearest island to the site, just 1.5 kilometres away.

Yellow ribbons -- a symbol for the victims of the disaster -- hang on nearby trees, their colour faded by the course of time.

"My heart is pounding," said father Jung Seong-Wook of the decision to go ahead with the lift. "I have mixed feelings that I cannot put into words. I'm also a little scared."

In a tense atmosphere during the day, another father nervously watched through binoculars, trying to get a glimpse of the operation. Some 50 bereaved family members went out to sea by boat to watch the proceedings, he added.

Two enormous barges were positioned on either side of the 6,825-tonne ship and air bags inserted for the salvage effort, which is being led by a Chinese consortium.

Beams were installed by digging through the seabed underneath the wreck, which was lying on its side, and cables attached to bring it painstakingly towards the surface.

Once two-thirds of it is exposed, a semi-submersible will be positioned underneath to raise it out of the water and transport it Mokpo to carry out investigations and search for the missing.

A monk bowed in prayer before a memorial to victims of the Sewol ferry 

disaster, at Paengmok harbour on the southern island of Jindo (AFP 

Photo/Ed Jones)

Wilful negligence

A senior official from the maritime ministry said it took three hours to raise the wreck one metre off the seabed in what was initially a feasibility test.

The ministry then decided to go ahead with the full lifting, it said in a statement. The operation is expected to take three days.

The disaster and its aftermath gripped South Korea and overshadowed the presidency of Park, who stayed at her residence for seven hours in the crucial initial phase of the sinking.

She has never specified what she was doing, sparking wild rumours including a tryst and cosmetic surgery.

A permanent Sewol protest site targeting her was subsequently set up in the centre of Seoul, with effigies of the head of state on display alongside pictures of the dead schoolchildren.

Negligence over the sinking was one of the grounds for which parliament impeached Park in December, although the constitutional court ruled that it was not an impeachable offence when it upheld her dismissal on other charges earlier this month.

Donggeochado island has a population of only around 300, but the once-a-day ferry to it was packed with reporters Wednesday and at least one broadcast truck.

Investigations into the disaster, in which 304 people died, concluded it was largely man-made -- the cumulative result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, inexperienced crew and a questionable relationship between the ship operators and state regulators.

Even though the vessel took around three hours to sink, those on board were never ordered to evacuate, while the crew escaped to safety.

Captain Lee Jun-Seok was sentenced to life in prison for "murder through wilful negligence" and 14 other crew members given terms ranging from two to 12 years.

South Korea's sunken Sewol ferry moves a step closer to reaching port https://t.co/cObM847pqu pic.twitter.com/9uVD4yYnhs

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 25, 2017

Related Article:

Captain sentenced to jail in Sewol ferry case

SeaWorld's whale-turned-killer Tilikum dies

Yahoo – AFP, January 6, 2017

Tilikum, an orca whale made famous by the US documentary "Blackfish",
died at the age of 36 on January 6, 2017 (AFP Photo/Gerardo Mora)

Miami (AFP) - Tilikum, the killer whale linked to the deaths of three people and made famous by the 2013 documentary "Blackfish" -- which criticized the captivity of orcas -- died Friday, according to SeaWorld.

One of SeaWorld's most prominent orcas, Tilikum had been fighting a bacterial lung infection since March when he died at the marine theme park in Orlando, Florida.

SeaWorld, which owns several entertainment parks in the United States, said the approximately 36-year-old killer whale had spent years with the company.

"Tilikum passed away early this morning, January 6, surrounded by the trainers, care staff and veterinarians that provided him around-the-clock world-class care," SeaWorld announced on its website.

"Tilikum had, and will continue to have, a special place in the hearts of the SeaWorld family, as well as the millions of people all over the world that he inspired," SeaWorld president and chief executive Joel Manby said.

The official cause of death will not be announced until the completion of a necropsy, the company said.

It noted that Tilikum was near the upper end of the average life expectancy for a killer whale, and faced "some very serious health issues," it said.

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) tweeted a photo of Tilikum on Friday along with the message: "R.I.P. Tilikum Dead after three decades of misery."

Tilikum's name means "friend" in the Chinook Jargon language spoken among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

The black-and-white five-tonne bull orca, the largest killer whale in captivity, had been linked to the deaths of three people.

In 2010, Tilikum grabbed the ponytail of Dawn Brancheau, a SeaWorld trainer, and dragged her underwater to her death in front of horrified onlookers at the end of a show at SeaWorld Orlando.

The whale, nicknamed "Tilly," was involved in the death of a part-time trainer at the Sealand of the Pacific facility in Canada in 1991 and that of a man who died in 1999 after he sneaked into SeaWorld to swim with the mammals after the park closed.

CNN featured Tilikum in a 2013 documentary "Blackfish" that covered those fatalities and also sought to show the impact of captivity on these giant sea creatures.

Animal rights groups charge that orcas were kept in tanks that are too small, fed improper diets and forced to perform tricks.

Under public pressure, SeaWorld last March announced it would stop breeding killer whales, and would no longer keep any of them in captivity after its current generation dies.

With the death of Tilikum, SeaWorld now has a total of 22 orcas at its three facilities -- in Orlando; San Antonio, Texas; and San Diego, California.

Related Articles:

SeaWorld to stop breeding killer whales

SeaWorld lawsuit alleges orcas are drugged and confined in 'chemical tubs'

Miss Universe criticised for whale shark swim in Philippines

Yahoo – AFP, December 13, 2016

Tourists swimming with whale sharks is strongly discouraged by
environmental groups (AFP Photo/Aqua Planet Jeju)

Environmentalists have hit out at organisers of the Miss Universe beauty pageant in the Philippines, calling them "irresponsible" for letting contestants swim with endangered whale sharks.

A group of bikini-clad Miss Universe candidates were photographed smiling and waving from boats on their way to swim with the world's largest living fish in waters off the island of Cebu on Tuesday, ahead of January's contest.

Tourists swimming with the creatures is strongly discouraged by environmental groups, who say feeding whale sharks makes them dependent and also leaves them vulnerable to poaching or injuries from boat propellers.

"We are afraid because with Miss Universe going there, the Philippines is promoting a bad tourism practice," Vince Cinches of Greenpeace Southeast Asia told AFP.

"We are telling the world it's okay to do this, aggravating this kind of behaviour."

The Philippines is hosting Miss Universe next year and the tourism department said the trip was part of an inspection of potential competition sites.

The whale shark visit was coordinated with the help of the local municipality "which promised a well managed marine interaction experience", tourism undersecretary Kat De Castro told AFP.

Wildlife conservation groups in the Philippines have for years opposed whale shark tourism in Cebu's Oslob city, but local officials say the practice is a source of livelihood for the community.

Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines opposes this.

"It's irresponsible and unsustainable. It's not even ecotourism. You sacrifice the environment just for a selfie," the group's director AA Yaptinchay told AFP.

A veterinarian and aquatic ecologist, Yaptinchay urged the government to enforce guidelines including maintaining a three-metre distance from the whale sharks and prohibiting swimmers from touching them.

Internet users in the social media-obsessed nation expressed outrage online.

"Miss Universe, please don't be a bitch to the environment", Gabriel Yap wrote on Facebook.

Besides environmental issues, security has been a concern for the Miss Universe competition.

In August, authorities said they were looking into a "serious" threat by an Islamic State-related group to bomb the pageant.