Fogbow

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 5:24 pm https://www.washingtonpost.com/transpor ... agerstown/

Metro’s next series of rail cars will be built at a $70 million plant in Maryland that will employ nearly 500 people and supply rail cars for the Washington-area system and transit agencies across the country.

Hitachi Rail announced Monday it has chosen Hagerstown as the home for an assembly plant that will release Metro’s eighth generation of rail cars starting in late 2024. Metro selected the company about 18 months ago to build 256 cars for its 8000 series, with an option for as many as 800 cars this decade.

The lucrative contract worth about $2.2 billion came with the requirement that Hitachi Rail assemble the cars at a plant in the Mid-Atlantic region. The announcement advances Metro’s lengthy journey to go from bidding to planning for its next rail car, a process that included Congress inserting itself into negotiations over cybersecurity fears and concerns about what would be built domestically.

It's nice that 500 people will be employed, but it's still not an American company and the profits go to Japan.

keith wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:07 am

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 5:24 pm https://www.washingtonpost.com/transpor ... agerstown/

Metro’s next series of rail cars will be built at a $70 million plant in Maryland that will employ nearly 500 people and supply rail cars for the Washington-area system and transit agencies across the country.

Hitachi Rail announced Monday it has chosen Hagerstown as the home for an assembly plant that will release Metro’s eighth generation of rail cars starting in late 2024. Metro selected the company about 18 months ago to build 256 cars for its 8000 series, with an option for as many as 800 cars this decade.

The lucrative contract worth about $2.2 billion came with the requirement that Hitachi Rail assemble the cars at a plant in the Mid-Atlantic region. The announcement advances Metro’s lengthy journey to go from bidding to planning for its next rail car, a process that included Congress inserting itself into negotiations over cybersecurity fears and concerns about what would be built domestically.

It's nice that 500 people will be employed, but it's still not an American company and the profits go to Japan.

Victoria has been using Hitachi rolling stock for some years. I got the impression that they were less than pleased with the quality. I'll have to look it up. I think there were majorly problems with the brakes.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 12:02 am

The decision comes after a spate of attacks on vessels launched from a part of Yemen controlled by the Houthis - an Iran-backed rebel movement.
The group has declared their support for Hamas and say they are targeting ships travelling to Israel.

The Red Sea is one the world's most important routes for oil and fuel shipments.

"The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the area are alarming and pose a significant threat to the safety and security of seafarers," Maersk said in a statement sent to the BBC.

"Following the near-miss incident involving Maersk Gibraltar yesterday and yet another attack on a container vessel today, we have instructed all Maersk vessels in the area bound to pass through the Bab al-Mandab Strait to pause their journey until further notice," it added.

Ikea warned of delays on some products due to the mass diversion of shipping containers from the Red Sea over safety concerns.

“The situation in the Suez Canal will result in delays and may cause availability constraints for certain IKEA products,” a spokesperson said by email Thursday.

They added that the safety of staff working in its supply chain was its priority, and it was evaluating other options to secure the availability of products. Ikea does not have its own container vessels but uses external operators.

At least $80 billion worth of cargo has already been diverted from the waterway which provides access to Egypt’s Suez Canal, the quickest passage between Europe and Asia, due to a wave of drone and missile attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants.

Sweden’s Electrolux, the world’s largest appliance company, has set up a task force to find alternative routes and identify priority deliveries, Reuters reported.

Shipping giants Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM are among those to have confirmed this week they will begin diverting ships already in transit around the longer Cape of Good Hope route along the south of Africa as the attacks continue.

Shipping companies sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Houthi attacks on the Red Sea face tough choices over where to refuel and restock, as African ports struggle with red tape, congestion and poor facilities, companies and analysts say.

Hundreds of large vessels are rerouting around the southern tip of Africa, a longer route adding 10-14 days of travel, to escape drone and missile attacks by Yemeni Houthis that have pushed up oil prices and freight rates.

The attacks by Iranian-backed militants have disrupted international trade through the Suez Canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia, which accounts for about a sixth of global traffic.

South Africa's major ports, including Durban, one of Africa's largest in terms of container volumes handled, as well as Cape Town and Ngqura ports are among the worst performing globally, a World Bank 2022 index released in May found.

With the Red Sea diversions by shipping companies including Maersk continuing amid the risk of attacks by the Houthis, global logistics managers are faced with a two-front storm of rising ocean and air freight prices and stranded cargo. Both are threats to the global supply chain after three tumultuous years of inflationary pressures and delays from Covid disruptions which recently seemed to finally have been vanquished.

The ceiling in ocean freight prices shot up in a matter of hours on Thursday as a result of more vessels diverting from the Red Sea. CNBC has learned that logistics managers were quoted this morning an ocean freight rate of $10,000 per 40-foot container from Shanghai to the U.K. Last week, rates were $1,900 for a 20-foot container, to $2,400 for a 40-foot container. Truck rates in the Middle East now being quoted are more than double.



As of Thursday morning, 158 vessels are currently re-routing away from the Rea Sea carrying over 2.1 million cargo containers, Kuehne + Nagel tells CNBC. The value of this cargo based on MDS Transmodal estimates of $50,000 per container is $105 billion.

The US Navy has destroyed Houthi "small boats" whose crew attempted to board a container ship in the Red Sea.

Four vessels from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen fired upon the Maersk Hangzhou and got within metres of the ship, the US military said.

Helicopters from nearby US warships responded to a distress call - and, after being fired upon, sank three boats "in self-defence".
The crews were killed and the fourth boat fled the area.

A Houthi spokesperson said the vessel had refused to respond to warning calls, and that 10 of its group members were dead or missing after the incident.
Houthi forces have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November, launching more than 100 drone and missile attacks on vessels passing through the vital shipping lane.

The Iranian-backed Yemeni rebel group has previously claimed its attacks are directed at vessels linked to Israel, in response to the war in Gaza.

The US has announced the re-designation of the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity following US-UK airstrikes on the Iranian-backed Yemen-based militants who have launched waves of attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

A statement from the White House’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, reads:

"Over the past months, Yemen-based Houthi militants have engaged in unprecedented attacks against United States military forces and international maritime vessels operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. These attacks fit the textbook definition of terrorism. They have endangered US personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized global trade, and threatened freedom of navigation.

Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. This designation is an important tool to impede terrorist funding to the Houthis, further restrict their access to financial markets, and hold them accountable for their actions. If the Houthis cease their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the United States will immediately reevaluate this designation."

The decision requires US financial institutions to freeze Houthi funds and its members will be banned from the country.

Murtaza Hussain @MazMHussain wrote: Houthi pirate TikTok is crazy. Mostly seem like kids:

Hundreds of Houthi rebel child soldiers dead in Yemen war - UN

Nearly 1,500 children recruited by Yemen's Houthi rebels died in fighting in 2020, and hundreds more the following year, the UN says.

In a report to the Security Council, experts said rebels were still recruiting children, using summer camps and a mosque to spread their ideology.

They added that air strikes on the rebels by Saudi-led forces were still inflicting many civilian casualties.

More than 10,000 children have been killed in the war that began in 2015.

Tens of thousands of adults have also died as a direct result of the fighting, with millions displaced and on the brink of famine.

In the 300-page report, the panel said it had received a list of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who had died on the battlefield in 2020 and 562 between January and May the following year.

"The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan 'death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam'," the Associated Press news agency quoted the four-member panel of experts as saying.

"In one camp, children as young as seven years of age were taught to clean weapons and evade rockets."

It called on all parties "to refrain from using schools, summer camps and mosques to recruit children" and recommended sanctions for anyone who did not.

For Chinese businessman Han Changming, disruptions to Red Sea freight are threatening the survival of his trading company in the eastern province of Fujian.

Han, who exports Chinese-made cars to Africa and imports off-road vehicles from Europe, told Reuters the cost of shipping a container to Europe had surged to roughly $7,000 from $3,000 in December, when Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement escalated attacks on shipping.

"The disruptions have wiped out our already thin profits," said Han, adding that higher shipping-insurance premiums are also taking a toll on Fuzhou Han Changming International Trade Co Ltd, the company he founded in 2016.

The rupture of one of the world's busiest shipping routes has exposed the vulnerability of China's export-reliant economy to supply snarls and external demand shocks. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Premier Li Qiang emphasised the need to keep global supply chains "stable and smooth", without referring specifically to the Red Sea.

Some companies, such as U.S.-based BDI Furniture, have said they are relying more on factories in places such as Turkey and Vietnam to mitigate the impact of the disruptions, adding to recent moves by Western countries to reduce dependence on China amid geopolitical tensions.

At stake for China now is the danger that other firms will follow suit and reassess their de-risking strategy, opting potentially to shift production closer to home, an approach known as "near-shoring".

An oil tanker is reported to be on fire in the Gulf of Aden after being struck by a missile claimed by Yemen's Houthis.

The movement said they had targeted the Marlin Luanda on Friday evening.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said that the incident happened 60 nautical miles south-east of Aden.

US officials say a nearby naval ship is responding to the vessel's distress signal and no injuries have been reported.

It is the latest attack on commercial shipping by the Houthis in and around the Red Sea.

UKMTO said authorities had been informed and were responding to the latest strike, and warned other vessels to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity.

Houthi military spokesman Yaha Sarea said the group used "a number of appropriate naval missiles" and Friday's strike was "direct".

The oil tanker is flagged with the Marshall Islands.

Since November, the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels travelling through the Red Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

The pro-Hamas group says it is targeting ships linked to Israel in response to the military ground operation in Gaza. However, many of the vessels which have been attacked have no connection with Israel.

A second wave of UK and US air strikes were carried out on Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this week.

The UK and US are also targeting the Iran-backed militant group with sanctions to cut of its financial resources.

“What’s happened right now is short-term chaos, and chaos leads to increased costs,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of the supply chain management company Flexport. “Every ship that gets rerouted has 10,000 containers on it. It’s a lot of emails and phone calls getting made to replan each of those container journeys.”

Adding to the bedlam in global shipping is what Petersen calls a “double whammy": Passage through another crucial trade corridor — the Panama Canal — is restricted by low water levels caused by drought. And shippers are in a rush to move goods before Chinese factories shut down for the Feb. 10-17 Lunar New Year holiday.

The threat grows considerably the longer the war in Gaza drags on. Disruption to Red Sea trade lasting a year could surge goods inflation by up to 2%, Petersen says, piling on pain while the world already struggles with higher prices for groceries, rent and more. That also could mean even higher interest rates, which have weakened economies.

At the beginning of 2023, China had 1,749 large oceangoing commercial vessels under construction in its domestic shipyards. America had five.

At the beginning of 2022, China had 1,708 vessels under construction. America had three.

U.S. production of commercial vessels—at least, the kind used in international trade—has nearly ceased.

While China consolidates its role as the world’s leading commercial shipbuilder with 40% of global output, the United States produces about one-fifth of one percent of global output.

The U.S.-flagged merchant fleet is similarly debilitated. At the beginning of 2023, only 177 oceangoing commercial vessels flew the American flag. The number of vessels flying the Chinese flag was over 5,000.

Not surprisingly, the ranks of U.S. merchant mariners capable of crewing such vessels has dwindled. Indeed, were it not for laws that reserve domestic oceangoing commerce for U.S. ships, the profession would probably disappear.