Fishermen from detained Taiwanese ship freed by Philippines

Want China Times, CNA 2015-05-14

The Sheng Feng No. 12. (Photo/CNA)

The captain and crew aboard a Taiwanese fishing ship detained in Batanes province of the Philippines last week for alleged poaching in territorial waters were released and allowed to return home Wednesday after paying a fine of US$50,000.

Lin Tung-heng, a section chief of Taiwan's representative office in the Philippines, and Hsu Chz-yeh, an official with Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration, presented a check for US$50,000 to the Philippines' Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to pay the fine.

The sum had been remitted to the Philippines by the family of captain Hung Tien-ting.

The fisheries agency then filed a motion with the Basco district prosecutors' office and court to drop the case, and the court agreed, leading to the immediate release of the ship, its captain and crew.

Hung, who will leave the Philippines Thursday along with his ship and crew, said after the court ruling that he was still considering whether to return to Taiwan or go on another fishing trip to make up for losses from the fine.

Expressing the financial pressure he felt in paying the fine, Hung told CNA that he will discuss the issue with his family before making a decision.

He also voiced his gratitude for Taiwan's representatives in Manila for their assistance over the past week.

The Pingtung-registered Sheng Feng No. 12 was detained last Thursday while passing through waters 6.5 nautical miles off the coast of Yami Island when inspectors on a Philippines ship approached and boarded the fishing boat to see if it was operating illegally.

The six people aboard the ship — Captain Hung, chief engineer Huang An-sheng and four Indonesian fishermen — were each released on 15,000 pesos (US$336) bail last Friday after negotiations with Filipino officials.

They were allowed to move freely in the Philippines before appearing in court Wednesday.

Related Article:

Fishing incident between Taiwan, Philippines resolved: minister

Fears for migrants as S.E. Asia refuses safe haven

Yahoo – AFP, M Jegathesan, 13 May 2015

A Malaysian sailor stands guard as a truck carrying Bangladeshi and Rohingya

 migrants from a temporary detention centre arrives at a naval base in Langkawi, 

on May 13, 2015 (AFP Photo/Manan Vatsyayana)

Malaysia joined Indonesia on Wednesday in vowing to turn back vessels bearing a wave of migrants, drawing warnings that the hardline policy could be a death sentence for boatloads of people at risk of starvation and disease.

As the UN's refugee agency accused regional authorities of playing with lives, more grim accounts emerged from among hundreds of migrants who endured weeks of torment at sea before being dumped by human-traffickers.

Mizanur Rahman, a 14-year-old Bangladeshi boy, said he and a friend spent two agonising months crammed aboard a boat with an estimated 600 other people.

A rescued migrant receives medical 

treatment at a temporary shelter in a 

government sports auditorium in 

Lhoksukon, Indonesia's Aceh 

province, on May 12, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Chaideer Mahyuddin)

They subsisted on a single plate of rice per day, but were given nothing to eat the final two weeks, Rahman told AFP.

He spoke in the northern Indonesian region of Aceh, where the two friends washed up this week after traffickers told them to "swim to shore if we wanted to stay alive".

"We wanted to go to Malaysia, dreaming of a better future of our families. After everything that happened to us, I would now prefer to die here rather than go back home," Rahman said.

Migrant groups are warning that thousands more men, women and children are believed stuck at sea or at risk of abandonment by smugglers since a Thai police crackdown disrupted people-smuggling routes.

Thailand has called for a May 29 regional summit to address what it called an "unprecedented increase" in arrivals of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and impoverished Bangladeshi migrants.

But Malaysia -- where more than 1,100 migrants came ashore this week -- said it would turn away boats entering its waters unless they were about to sink.

"The policy has always been to escort them out of Malaysian waters after giving them the necessary provisions" including fuel, water and food, First Admiral Tan Kok Kwee of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency told AFP.

The Indonesian navy already has turned away at least one vessel packed with hundreds of abandoned migrants.

'Maritime ping-pong'

Vivian Tan, Bangkok-based spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the policy was "really worrying".

"We continue to appeal for countries in the region to share responsibility and avert a humanitarian crisis," she said.

"The first priority should be to save lives and provide humanitarian aid."

A group of rescued mostly Rohingya migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh,

 rest at a government sports auditorium in Lhoksukon, Indonesia's Aceh 

province, on May 12, 2015 (AFP Photo/Chaideer Mahyuddin)

Joe Lowry, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Bangkok, said authorities were playing "maritime ping-pong".

"What we want is for governments to allow people to disembark so they can be treated and policy can be worked out later," he said.

Otherwise, "people are going to die in the hundreds and thousands on the sea".

The UNHCR agency says 25,000 people embarked from Bay of Bengal ports in January-March, double last year's rate.

Thousands of them are feared left in the lurch by the crackdown in Thailand, which began after the discovery of dozens of dead migrants in jungle graves earlier this month.

Bangladeshi authorities said they seized a fishing trawler filled with 116 of its nationals in the Bay of Bengal near Myanmar on Tuesday.

"They have been on the boat from 15 days to three months," coastguard station commander Dickson Chowdhury said, adding some had not eaten in a week.

Thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group denied citizenship by Buddhist-majority Myanmar, flee annually to escape discrimination and sectarian violence that has targeted them in recent years.

Muhammad Shorif, a 16-year-old Rohingya, fled the squalor of a refugee camp back home in hopes of reaching relatively prosperous Malaysia.

He said he spent a month aboard a smuggling ship jammed with hundreds of others who survived on meagre rations and faced beatings from armed smugglers.

"Six people on our boat died due to illness and hunger, and the captain ordered that their bodies be thrown to the sea," he said, in Aceh.

The IOM has called for search-and-rescue operations to find stricken migrant boats.

The inter-governmental group has also demanded a coordinated and sympathetic response by Europe as the continent grapples with its own migration crisis originating in North Africa.

Almost 500 Rohingya rescued off Indonesia: officials

Yahoo – AFP, 10 May 2015

Migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh pictured at a shelter in Matang Raya

village in northern Aceh, Indonesia on May 10, 2015 (AFP Photo/Reza Juanda)

Jakarta (AFP) - Rescuers on Sunday brought ashore 469 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh after their wooden boat arrived off Aceh in northwest Indonesia, an official said.

"We received a report from fishermen this morning that there were boat people stranded in the waters off north Aceh," Aceh provincial search and rescue chief Budiawan told AFP.

"We despatched teams there and evacuated 469 migrants who are Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshis. There are women and children among them. So far, all of them are safe," he added.

He said the group would be taken to a detention centre in north Aceh district, where police and immigration officials would carry out "further processing" which would include investigating their motives.

Darsa, a disaster management agency official who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP the group had arrived near a beach in north Aceh district early Sunday and were told to swim to shore.

"One of the migrants who could speak Malay told me that their agent had told them they were in Malaysia, and to swim to shore," he said.

"Some of them did. But later they found out from fishermen that they were in Indonesia," he added.

According to the migrant, five boats had departed from Myanmar last week to escape the conflict in their country, Darsa said.

"He said the Muslims were beaten and had hot water poured on them and they just wanted to get out of Myanmar as soon as possible, to anywhere where they could seek refuge," he said.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, and they have been targeted in outbreaks of sectarian violence there in recent years, prompting many to flee.

Migrant women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh wait at a shelter

 in Matang Raya village in northern Aceh, Indonesia, on May 10, 2015 (AFP 

Photo/Reza Juanda)

Darsa said there were 83 women and 41 children on board. One of the women was pregnant and some of the children were aged under 10.

"There was little food and water on the boat. Some of them were not doing too well and needed medical attention," he said.

Thousands of Muslim Rohingya have braved the dangerous sea crossing from Myanmar to southern Thailand and beyond in recent years.

Many hope to go on to mainly Muslim Malaysia but the migrants have often fallen prey to people-traffickers in Thailand.

The UN considers the Rohingya to be one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

South Korea vows to get tough with illegal Chinese fishing

Yahoo – AFP, Jung Ha-Won, 7 May 2015

A South Korean coastguard cutter arrives at the country's northernmost

island of Baengnyeong (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

South Korean fishermen who work the flashpoint maritime border with North Korea tend to be a resilient bunch, but these days a larger, more powerful neighbour is making them lose sleep.

"North Korea is nothing compared to the Chinese fishing ships," said Choi Won-Jin, who has fished the crab-rich waters around his home island of Daecheong for decades.

Daecheong is one of five "frontline" islands whose proximity to the disputed border with North Korea means they are manned by thousands of South Korean soldiers and bristling with artillery units and bomb shelters.

A South Korean coastguard vessel patrols

 near the country's northernmost island of 

Baengnyeong (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

But all that weaponry has failed to guard against what Choi sees as the biggest threat to the livelihood of the islands' fishing communities -- the "invasion" of Chinese trawlers.

According to official estimates, more than 1,000 Chinese fishing ships illegally accessed exclusive South Korean waters around Daecheong last year, with only four coastguard ships on hand to pose a deterrent.

The numbers have been growing every year as China's increasing affluence and appetite for seafood pushes more fishermen to venture beyond its overfished waters.

Smaller, wooden Chinese ships sneaking into South Korean waters were once tolerated in an area where the top priority has always been guarding against potential incursions from North Korea.

'Nothing left'

But in recent years, the small boats have given way to larger steel trawlers who engage in bottom trawling -- dragging a large, weighted net across the sea floor -- and sweep up "everything in their path," Choi told AFP.

"By the time they are gone, we have nothing left. It's all gone, including our fishing pots," he said.

Around 2,200 Chinese vessels have been stopped and fined by South Korea for illegal fishing in the past four years, and the number of arrested fishermen jumped from two in 2010 to 66 in 2013.

There were only five arrests in 2014, but coastguard officials said that was largely due to all resources being diverted to the lengthy rescue and recovery operation that followed the Sewol ferry disaster in April that year.

Chinese captains are well-organised, said coastguard commando Lee Kyung-Hak, and frequently chain their ships together "like a big floating city" in the event of a confrontation.

Crew members often arm themselves with steel pipes and knives, and have been known to throw burning gas canisters at officers trying to board their ships.

Overwhelming numbers

"We are trying our best to drive them off our territory... but the sheer number of them sometimes feels overwhelming," Lee told AFP.

Under growing domestic pressure to crack down harder on the Chinese fishing 

vessels, South Korean officials have signalled a tougher line with the start of this 

year's fishing season in April (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

A recent study estimated that 675,000 tonnes of fisheries products were illegally taken from South Korean waters in 2012 by China -- with a value of around 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion).

"If anything, the situation has worsened since then," said Lee Kwang-Nam, head of the Fisheries Policy Institute in Seoul who authored the 2014 study.

According to Lee, the undermanned coastguard only manages to seize or arrest less than one percent of Chinese poachers.

"Our fisheries resources are relatively well-preserved thanks to strict regulations... but may face serious shortages if this pace keeps up," he told AFP.

Under growing domestic pressure to crack down harder on the Chinese fishing vessels, South Korean officials have signalled a tougher line with the start of this year's fishing season in April.

"We were greatly outnumbered and overwhelmed by them last year... but we've had enough," said Yun Byoung-Doo, the chief of the Incheon coastguard which guards the Yellow Sea border islands.

Yun said the coastguard would use firearms, including handguns and onboard cannon more actively "if deemed necessary."

China says be 'reasonable'

Beijing's foreign ministry, when contacted by AFP, did not directly comment on Seoul's toughened stance against illegal fishing, but urged it to "enforce the law in a reasonable way, and ensure the safety and lawful rights and interests" of Chinese fishermen.

"China will continue to strengthen the education and guidance for its fishermen," it said in a statement faxed to AFP.

China's increasing affluence and appetite

 for seafood pushes more fishermen to 

venture beyond its overfished waters

 (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

Two Chinese fishermen have been killed in violent clashes with the South Korean coastguard since 2012, prompting angry protests from Beijing.

Seoul insists the violence is initiated by the Chinese crews and point to the stabbing death of a South Korean coastguard member in 2011 by a Chinese fisherman.

South Korean fishing vessels have not been blameless themselves when it comes to illegal fishing in waters as far away as the seas off West Africa.

But the government has moved to eradicate the practice and South Korea was taken off the US list of countries engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in February, and then from the EU list last month.

The fishermen of Daecheong island hope the government can be equally effective in curbing the illegal activities of the Chinese trawler fleets.

"This is one of the biggest crises I've ever seen on this island," said Kim Neung-Ho, whose father and grandfather also made their living in the waters off Daecheong.

"At this point we're not really counting on them all going away, because that's just impossible," Kim told AFP.

"We just hope that there will be fewer of them. Just a little fewer," he said.

Related Articles:

Thailand Tells Indonesia It Will Tackle Illegal Fishing

Thailand Faces EU Threat of Seafood Ban Over Lax Fishing Rules

US authorizes commercial ferry services to Cuba

Yahoo – AFP, 5 May 2015

US flags are seen in a bici-taxi near the capitol in Havana, Cuba,

on January 23, 2015 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

Washington (AFP) - The United States authorized commercial ferry services to Cuba for the first time in more than a half-century on Tuesday, another major step in improving relations between the two countries.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control lifted the ban and at least one Florida company confirmed it had been licensed to launch boat services to the island.

That adds to the charter air services that had been permitted up until now, focused on enabling Cuban-Americans to visit families.

Joseph Hinson, president of Miami-based United Americas Shipping Services, confirmed his company had received permission from the Treasury to provide ferry travel.

"Today's action was a great step forward," he told AFP, while saying other permissions were still needed from authorities in both countries before launching the first trip.

Whether by plane or ferry, American travelers still have to come under one of 12 categories permitted in the landmark easing of US sanctions announced by the White House in December -- including family visits, official government business, humanitarian projects and sports gatherings.

The ferries will also be allowed to carry cargo to the communist island, which sits just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the southern tip of Florida.

On December 17, US President Barack Obama broke a nearly six-decade Cold War-rooted estrangement between the two countries by lifting sanctions on travel and some trade as the first step toward normalizing relations.

EU ships rescue more than 3,400 migrants from Mediterranean

Italy has said that more than 3,400 migrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast. This comes amid stepped up EU efforts to prevent migrant deaths on the Mediterranean Sea.

Deutsche Welle, 3 May 2015

The Italian coast guard announced early on Sunday that a total of 3,427 people had been rescued from vessels in the Mediterranean Sea over the course of Saturday.

It said a total of 16 ships had been involved in the rescue operations and that the migrants were to be taken to the Italian region of Calabria as well as the islands of Sicily and Lampedusa.

Among the ships involved in the operation were a French naval patrol boat, the Commandant Birot, which has been operating in the region over the past couple of weeks as part of the Triton mission under the command of the European Union's Frontex border security agency.

The Commandant Birot picked up 217 migrants in distress from three separates boats and according to a maritime police statement, two alleged people traffickers were arrested and handed over to the Italian authorities.

The AFP news agency also quoted the Italian coast guard as saying the Italian frigate Bersagliere had rescued 778 migrants on Saturday, while the Italian patrol ship Vega had plucked a further 675 from the sea.

Three people were also drowned when a boat carrying migrants capsized off Egypt's Mediterranean coast. Thirty-one others were rescued and detained, according to Egyptian state media.

Single disaster spurs action

The increased efforts by European countries to rescue migrants fleeing war and poverty in places like war-torn Syria, Libya or sub-Saharan Africa come after a single incident last month in which one migrant boat seeking to make the journey across the Mediterranean to EU territory capsized, killing more than 700 people.

This led EU leaders to convene an emergency summit in Brussels, where they agreed to contribute more funding and equipment to efforts to prevent further loss of life on the Mediterranean. Among the countries that pledged to send more naval vessels to the Mediterranean were Germany, France and Britain.

pfd/bk (dpa, AFP)

Related Article:

Bodies recovered in rescue of refugee boats in Mediterranean Sea

Russia, China launch joint exercise in Mediterranean

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-05-02

Geng Yansheng, the spokeperson of China's defense ministry announced on
April 30 that China will launch Joint Sea 2015 exercise with Russia over the
Mediterranean Sea in May. (Photo/CNS)

Geng Yansheng, the spokesperson of the Chinese ministry of defense confirmed that the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Russian Navy will launch joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea later this month, according to our sister newspaper, Want Daily.

Among the nine vessels which will participate in the exercise, known as Joint Sea 2015, three warships are from the PLA Navy's 19th escort task force currently patroling the waters of the Gulf of Aden. Those ships include the Weishanhu, a Type 903 replenishment ship, the Linyi and the Weifang, two Type 054A guided-missile destroyers according to Geng. He said that the joint exercise is not being carried out with any third nation in mind and has nothing to do with the political developments in the region.

The exercise is being launched to help China and Russia to gain the experience both nations need to face potential maritime threats in the future, Geng said. Like the military parade held in Moscow to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, which Xi Jinping will attend personally, it is aimed at strengthening the military-to-military relationship between China and Russia, according to the report.

Chang Ching, a researcher from Taiwan's Society for Strategic Studies said that the exercise is not the first time that the PLA Navy has deployed its ships to the Mediterranean Sea. He said that China deployed the Linyi to Yemen to evacuate its citizens from the war-torn nation earlier this year. He said that the exercise should also be considered part of China's military diplomacy because its vessels may visit countries in the region after the exercises.

Dutch saltwater potatoes offer hope for world's hungry

Yahoo – AFP, Maude Brulard, 29 April 2015

A worker sorts potatoes before packaging them at the Salty Potato Farm, 

in Den Horn, Netherlands (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

Den Hoorn (Netherlands) (AFP) - A small field on an island off the Netherlands' northern coast promises one answer to the problem of how to feed the world's ever-growing population: potatoes and other crops that grow in saltwater.

Every day, swathes of farmland somewhere in the world become unusable because of salty soil, but farmers on windswept Texel are finding solutions using traditional methods.

The team headed by farmer Mark van Rijsselberghe has planted around 30 types of potato and their approach is simple: anything that dies in the saline environment is abandoned, and anything that lives "we try to follow up on," said Van Rijsselberghe. "It's faster."

Dutch farmer Mark van Rijsselberghe, 

who launched the Salty Potato Farm

(AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

The experiments do not just target potatoes, but also look at how other crops grow in saltwater, including carrots, strawberries, onions and lettuce.

The plants are irrigated using pumps that manage water down to the drop, so the plant and soil salinity can be accurately measured and the effect of "sweet" rainwater taken into account.

Van Rijsselberghe, 60, started the "Salty Potato Farm" around 10 years ago in the hope of helping the world's malnourished.

The team, supported by Amsterdam University, uses neither genetically modified organisms nor laboratories in their quest for food that grows in salty environments.

With more than 5,000 varieties, the potato is the world's fourth most popular food crop, according to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Plants whose ancestors grew near or on the sea, but have moved inland with human populations, are likely still to have the necessary genes.

"It could be a hundred, it could be 1,000 years ago, they still are capable of coping with saline surroundings," said Van Rijsselberghe.

Food security

A worker sorts potatoes before packaging 

them at the Salty Potato Farm in Den Horn,

 in the Netherlands (AFP Photo/

Emmanuel Dunand)

While today much research is focused on improving the yield of crops, the Dutch team has taken the opposite approach: trying to grow crops on land previously considered unusable.

The bespectacled farmer jokes that in a country where much of the land lies below sea level, "we are so afraid of the sea that until 10 years ago we didn't dare to do anything with sea water and growing plants".

The world loses around 2,000 hectares (just under 5,000 acres) of agricultural land a day to salt-induced degradation in 75 countries, caused by bad or absent irrigation, according to the UN's Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

The problem today affects an area the size of France -- about 62 million hectares or 20 percent of the world's irrigated lands, up from 45 million hectares in the early 1990s.

Solutions to make the land cultivable once more are too expensive for most of the areas, including the basin of the Yellow River in China, the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq or the Indus Valley in Pakistan.

A testing field used by the Salty Potato

 Farm project to experiment with crops 

(AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

The Team on Texel has already sent thousands of its potatoes to Pakistan where they were "successful", said Van Rijsselberghe, who will send more plants next year.

These "salt" potatoes could transform the lives of thousands of farmers in affected regions and, in the long term, those of around 250 million people who live on salt-afflicted soil.

The potato was introduced to Europe from Peru in the 16th century and became popular because of its ability to feed people during the continent's frequent famines.

However, over-reliance on the crop was potentially disastrous, with a blight leading to the devastating 19th-century Irish potato famine.

Today, about 800 million people in the world are under-nourished, according to the FAO, with salt degradation threatening 10 percent of the global cereal crop.

Sweet taste not price

The potatoes grown here taste sweeter than those grown on normal land, because the plant produces more sugars to compensate for the salty environment.

Packaged pototoes at the Salty Potato

Farm (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

The salt absorbed by the plant stays in the leaves, not in the flesh.

But the price of the potatoes is for now prohibitive, with one kilo (around two pounds) selling for five euros (just over $5), compared to less than a euro for the same amount of "normal" potatoes.

"We grow around 30,000 kilos per hectare, a farmer with good conditions around 60,000 kilos," said Robin Konijn, the farm's financial director.

Countries ranging from Egypt to Bangladesh and India have already asked for advice on planting their own salt-proof crops.

The team is also soon to start trying to cultivate potatoes in the salty wetlands of the Camargue in the south of France -- the so-called "Miss Mignon" (French for "Miss Cutie Pie").

Thailand Tells Indonesia It Will Tackle Illegal Fishing

Jakarta Globe,  Apr 23, 2015

Three Vietnamese fishing vessels were scuttled in the Natuna Sea near Anambas
 in Riau Islands, on Dec. 5, 2014, after allegedly being caught poaching. (Antara
Photo/Joko Sulistyo)

Jakarta. Joko Widodo and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha pledged on Thursday to solve the ongoing illegal fishing issues in Indonesian waters.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Sofyan Djalil and Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti were also present during the meeting.

“Thailand says it will solve illegal fishing issues and will sanction the companies conducting illegal fishing,” Susi told the state-run news agency Antara on Thursday.

There has yet to be a written commitment. Thailand did, however, say at the Asian-African Maritime Forum on Monday that it was committed to installing vessel-monitoring systems to track boat movements.

Joko Widodo has made illegal fishing a significant plank of his commitment to reform, emphasizing that Indonesia loses billions of dollars to foreign vessels encroaching on Indonesian waters.

Related Article:

Thailand Faces EU Threat of Seafood Ban Over Lax Fishing Rules

Thailand Faces EU Threat of Seafood Ban Over Lax Fishing Rules

Jakarta Globe, Jonathan Stearns, Apr 21, 2015 

In this handout photograph released by Indonesia’s Ministry of Fishery on
 April 8, 2015, hundreds of rescued foreign fishermen mostly from Myanmar and
Thailand are gathered during an operation at the private Indonesian fishing firm
 Pusaka Benjina Resources located in remote Benjina island of Maluku
province. (AFP Photo/Ugeng Nugroho/Ministry of Fishery)

The European Union threatened to ban imports of seafood from Thailand because of concerns about illegal fishing, a step that would curb trade of more than 600 million euros ($641 million) a year.

The European Commission said Thailand has been too lax in the international fight against unlawful, unregulated and unreported fishing. Thai authorities have six months to enact “a corrective tailor-made action plan” or risk an EU trade ban, said the commission, the 28-nation bloc’s regulatory arm.

“Failure to take strong action against illegal fishing will carry consequences,” EU Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday in Brussels. “Should the situation not improve, the EU could resort to banning fisheries imports from Thailand.”

The EU is seeking to use the size of its seafood market to prod exporting countries around the world to promote sustainable fisheries. The total value of EU imports of fish products last year was 20.7 billion euros, of which Thailand accounted for 642 million euros, according to the commission.

The EU already prohibits imports of seafood from Guinea, Cambodia and Sri Lanka because those three countries allegedly haven’t done enough to tackle illegal fishing. The bloc last year added Belize to the European fisheries blacklist before lifting the curbs on that nation following “reforming efforts” by authorities there.

In its statement today, the commission withdrew warnings it had issued against South Korea and the Philippines about illegal fishing. Both countries have since improved their legal systems and are “now equipped to tackle illegal fishing,” the commission said.

Bloomberg

A fisherman formerly held in slave-like conditions by a Thai-owned fishing firm in

Benjina, Maluku, shows evidence of abuse. (Antara Foto/Humas Kementerian

Kelautan)

Related Article:

Joko praises Minister Susi’s Work on Combating Illegal Fishing

Dutch investors’ lobby takes legal action against BP for Deepwater disaster

DutchNews.nl, April 20, 2015,

Photo: US Coastguard

Dutch investors’ lobby group VEB is taking legal action against British energy giant BP for misleading Dutch investors in the wake of the 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The organisation says the legal action opens up the way to compensation for Dutch investors because of the ‘systematically incorrect, inadequate and misleading pronouncements’ made by BP about its safety and maintenance programmes ahead of the leak. 

In addition, the complaint concerns misleading statements from BP about the size of the leak after it happened, the VEB statement says. 

The leak was caused by a pipeline explosion under BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform. Eleven workers died and millions of litres of oil leaked into the gulf.  The misleading statements by BP led the US regulator SEC to fine the company $525m, the third highest fine the organisation has ever levied, the VEB says. 

After the disaster, BP’s share price plunged more than 48%. The VEB says the share price had been kept artificially high because of misleading statements about the company’s safety programme. 

BP is facing legal action from other BP shareholders in Canada and the US. Investors who did not buy their shares in BP via a US institution have been ruled out of the American class action suit, hence the VEB’s campaign.

Related Articles:

US Supreme Court rejects BP challenge to Gulf settlement

BP could face up to $18bn in extra fines after US ruling on Gulf of Mexico spill

Halliburton to pay $1.1bn for US Gulf spill

MOAS: 'Migrants do not deserve to die out at sea'

Last year, the private Migrant Offshore Aid Station saved 3,000 migrants in distress at sea. In view of the surge of people trying to reach Europe in rickety boats, MOAS hopes to expand its operations.

Deutsche Welle, 20 April 2015

Life vests being thrown to refugees on boat

DW: How exactly does MOAS operate? Do you get emergency calls?

Martin Xuereb: We operate in two ways: reactive and proactive. Reactive in a sense that normally a boat in distress would contact rescue coordination centers first. If they call us first, we also call and inform the rescue coordination center, and, once they're aware of the boat in distress, they will decide whom to ask to help. If we are close, they would task us. We would go and try and find the boat. We sometimes use drones. Once the boat is located, we inform the rescue coordination center and we'll go close and deploy one of our dinghies with a rescue expert, a doctor, a paramedic and life jackets on board, which goes close to the migrant craft. We go alongside the boat to determine the state of the boat and the first thing we do is give life jackets to everyone. Then we report back on the state of the boat, its size, how many people we think are on the boat - men, women and children - and, if need be, we do the rescue.

Last year, the first boat we assisted was a 12-meter (40-foot) boat with 271 people on board, including over a hundred women and children, and this boat was already taking in water. Luckily, they had a bilge pump, but it was already a boat in distress, so we started the rescue straight away. Once we take people on board, we are constantly in contact with the rescue coordination center, and they tell us where to disembark.  

Martin Xuereb retired from
Malta's military in 2013

Last year we were out at sea for 60 days. This year we set out to sea on May 2, and we'll be at sea for six months this time. This time, we also partnered with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), because we feel that, once we do the search and the rescue, the people that come on board deserve the best care possible, so MSF will be giving assistance.

The MOAS team saves people no one else seems to care that much about. What happens to them after their rescue?

We focus on saving people at sea. It's not the solution to the migration problem - however, we say if a person dies at sea, then what happened to him before and what will happen after is irrelevant, so, as a foundation, what we do is encourage others to try and solve the problem of migration, tackle the issue of trafficking. The foundation tries to make sure that these people, who see no option but to cross the Mediterranean, do not die while they are out at sea.

Who are the Catrambone family and why are they so committed to helping the refugees - and privately, with their own money?

Christopher and Regina Catrambone - he's American; she's Italian - set up MOAS and funded the operation last year. They feel that people do not deserve to die out at sea. They are entrepreneurs, but they feel the responsibility to helping people in distress lies not solely with the state or the EU. They feel civil society needs to mitigate loss of life at sea, civil society should not be a bystander, and, rather than talk about it, or write about it, they decided to do something about it.

How do you finance the operations?

We are a private entity, so we need support. People have been donating since November last year. Over 50 percent of the donations we have received have come from Germany. We have a MOAS swapsite and a donate button, we're partners with MSF, and the founders, Cristopher and Regina Catrambone, continue to support us. However, we still have a long way to go. We hope we have inspired people, convinced them that migrants do not deserve to die out at sea.

Shouldn't governments and politicians be doing the job you're doing?

Yes. They should shoulder the responsibility, remove politics from search and rescue, and put saving lives at the top of their agenda.

We need to bring all our assets to bear, to come together and find a solution. The European states and governments should take the lead, although civil society and NGOs should be ready to help in this effort.

Martin Xuereb heads MOAS. He's a Maltese native. During his 26-year military career, Xuereb oversaw search and rescue missions as Malta's chief of defense. He has been Malta's representative on the EU Military Committee as well as at the European Defence Agency, the EU Institute for Security Studies, the EU Satellite Centre, and NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

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