YCLOAK

Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected.

Ninety percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea. Every vessel has an identification number administered by the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization or IMO. But crews are able to change the digital identity of their ship, making it possible to conceal previous journeys.

The Israeli firm Windward has developed software to track the changes. Its CEO, Ami Daniel, showed VOA several examples of suspicious shipping activity, including one vessel that changed its entire identity in the middle of a voyage from a Chinese port to North Korea.

“It’s intentionally changing all of identification numbers. Also its name, and its size, and its flag and its owner. Everything that’s recognizable in its digital footprint. This is obviously someone who is trying to circumvent sanctions [on North Korea],” says Daniel.

Transfers at sea

In a joint investigation with the Times of London newspaper, Windward showed that in January and February more than 1,000 cargo transfers took place at sea. Security experts fear traffickers are transporting drugs, weapons, and even people.

Suspicious activity can be highlighted by comparing a vessel’s journey with all its previous voyages. In mid-January a Cyprus-flagged ship designed to carry fish deviated from its usual route between West Africa and northern Europe to visit Ukraine, deactivating its tracking system on several occasions.

“It’s leaving Ukraine, transiting all through the Bosphorus Straits into Europe, then drifting off Malta,” explains Daniel, as the Windward system plots the route of the reefer [refrigerated] vessel on the screen. “On the way it turns off transmission a few times … then it comes into this place east of Gibraltar. This area is known for ship-to-ship transfers and smuggling, because of the proximity to North Africa.”

Under global regulations all vessels must report their last port of call when arriving in a new port.

“But as you can understand, when it does ship-to-ship transfers here, it doesn’t actually call into any port, right, because it’s the middle of the ocean. So it’s finding a way to bypass what it already has to report to the authorities,” Daniel said.

Finally the vessel sails to a remote Scottish island called Islay, but again it anchors around 400 meters off a tiny deserted bay. The specific purpose of this voyage hasn’t yet been identified.

Lack of political will

Daniel shows another example of a vessel leaving the Libyan port of Tobruk before drifting just off the Greek island of Crete, raising suspicions that it is involved in people smuggling.

But he says using information like this to investigate suspicious shipping activities requires political will as well as technological advances.

“Regulation, coordination, legislation. And then proof in the court of law. And not all of this necessarily exists. The high seas, which means 200 nautical miles onwards by definition, are not regulated right now. The U.N. is still working on it.”

Meanwhile the scale of smuggling around the United States’ coastline was underlined this month, as the Coast Guard intercepted 660 kilos of cocaine off the coast of Florida, with a street value of an estimated $420 million.

 
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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern that the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected. New technology enables authorities to follow the routes of suspect vessels, but security experts say taking on the smugglers will require greater coordination. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Zambia is attempting to convert the nation to energy-saving light emitting diode (LED) lightbulbs to help plug crippling power shortages that have hit mining and agriculture and imposed daily rationing on parts of the country.

If all homes and industries switch to the longer-lasting bulbs, the country could save up to 200 megawatts of electricity annually — about 30 percent of its power deficit — according to the state-owned Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO).

The company is planning to distribute 5 million free LED bulbs by June in exchange for conventional ones, at a cost of $20 million. The aim is to replace every incandescent bulb in the country.

“With such initiative, we are going to save a lot of energy. Just imagine moving from 40 watts energy consumption for an ordinary bulb to … only 5 watts for LEDs,” Thomas Sinkamba, manager of the LEDs rollout at ZESCO, told Reuters.

So far, 3 million of the low-energy bulbs have been bought for $5 million, ZESCO senior manager Bessie Banda said.

The government in January banned the manufacture, sale and import of energy-hungry incandescent lightbulbs and several other inefficient devices.

It has also lifted import taxes on LED bulbs, solar panels and other energy-saving equipment, while imposing taxes on inefficient electrical devices.

Rozaia Mapika, a 53-year old a meat seller living in Lusaka, who received six LED bulbs free in December under the government scheme, said the new lightbulbs have cut her monthly electricity bill.

“We used to spend 300 Zambian kwacha [$30] monthly on electricity [for] household use,” said Mapika, who uses electricity for cooking, heating and lighting.

“Now, we are not exceeding more than 240 ZMW [$25] per month,” she told Reuters.

Some people, however, are concerned about the safe disposal of long-lasting LED bulbs and their impact on people’s health.

“[LED lightbulbs] contain mercury, which is highly toxic even in small doses,” said Robert Chimambo a board member for the Zambia Climate Change Network.

The LED bulbs are more expensive to buy than conventional bulbs, costing $5 compared to $1.50. But they last six times longer, promoters said.

Providing the bulbs free of charge is key to driving the switchover in a country where about 65 percent of the population live on less than $1.90 a day.

Powering a nation

The country’s electricity demand in the last five years has risen to 1,800 megawatts, up from 1,600 megawatts, as more areas have been electrified, putting increased pressure on the national electricity grid, according ZESCO.

The rising demand, coupled with two years of drought that lowered water levels in the country’s hydroelectric dams, have led to the country’s power shortages.

Electricity from the national grid has been rationed for up to six hours a day in parts of the country as a way to cushion the shortfall.

“Increased economic activities and [not enough] rainfall have severely impacted the power deficit,” Sinkamba said.

Insufficient investment in electricity generation has also worsened the country’s power deficits, the ministry of finance said in November.

The demand for power is likely to grow, as the government attempts to roll out electricity supplies to more people.

More than two-thirds of Zambia’s 15.5 million people have no access to any power, according to USAID, the U.S. government’s aid agency, which is working with Zambia to help improve its power supplies.

Justine Mukosa, a manager at the government’s Rural Electrification Authority, said that as demand for power increases nationally, other energy sources will be needed to reduce pressure on the national grid.

“We need to intensify other energy sources like solar mini-grid, wind energy and others,” Mukosa said.
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Several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration on Thursday to challenge its decision to approve construction of TransCanada Corp’s controversial Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.

In two separate filings to a federal court in Montana, environmental groups argued that the U.S. State Department, which granted the permit needed for the pipeline to cross the Canadian border, relied on an “outdated and incomplete environmental impact statement” when making its decision earlier this month.

By approving the pipeline without public input and an up-to-date environmental assessment, the administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act, groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and the Northern Plains Resource Council said in their legal filing.

“They have relied on an arbitrary, stale, and incomplete environmental review completed over three years ago, for a process that ended with the State Department’s denial of a cross-border permit,” the court filing says.

In the other filing, the Indigenous Environmental Network and North Coast Rivers Alliance sought injunctive relief, restraining Transcanada from taking any action that would harm the “physical environment in connection with the project pending a full hearing on the merits.”

Trump surrounded by supporters

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the presidential permit for the Keystone XL at the White House last week. TransCanada’s Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling and Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, stood nearby.

Trump, a Republican, said the project would lower consumer fuel prices, create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

His Democratic predecessor, former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for U.S. motorists.

“This tar sands pipeline poses a direct threat to our climate, our clean water, wildlife, and thousands of landowners and communities along the route of this dirty and dangerous project, and it must and will be stopped,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.

Earlier lawsuit targets coal leases

The lawsuits came on the heels of a lawsuit filed on Wednesday challenging other recent moves to undo Obama’s climate change regulations.

Conservation groups and the Northern Cheyenne Native American tribe of Montana sued the administration on Wednesday for violating the National Environmental Policy Act when it lifted a moratorium on coal leases on federal land.

All lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in Montana’s Great Falls Division.
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Nearly all of New York City’s millionaires would receive big tax cuts under President Donald Trump’s proposed tax overhaul, while more than one-third of moderate- and middle-income families would face increases, according to a government report issued Thursday.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer said Trump’s overall plan, as proposed during the Republican president’s campaign, would give more than $5 billion of tax cuts to city dwellers. But almost two-thirds of that would go to those earning more than $500,000. That group bears just over one-half of the total tax burden.

“We already have astounding wealth gaps across the city and across the country,” Stringer said at a news conference. “The Trump tax code, if implemented, would only exacerbate it.”

The lower taxes for wealthier residents would be achieved through lower marginal tax rates on ordinary and capital gains income and the elimination of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) — a federal income tax that’s required in addition to baseline income tax for certain individuals or entities for which exemptions allow lower payments of standard income tax.

Last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump’s objective was a tax cut for the middle class, not the top 1 percent. He said he was aiming for passage of a comprehensive tax overhaul by the time Congress takes its August recess.

Six-figure tax cut

Stringer’s office analyzed tax returns of 365,000 New York City households. It found that 92 percent of the city’s millionaires would receive, on average, a tax cut of at least $113,000.

Nearly half of single parents who make $25,000 to $50,000 would experience a tax increase, it said.

The tax cuts, which would reduce federal revenue by more than $2 trillion over 10 years, are driving proposed budget cuts that would leave the city, home to 60,000 homeless people, with a weakened social safety net, Stringer said.

“I find it incredible that this guy, who comes from New York City, who has major investments here, can’t see what his proposal will do to his hometown,” he said. “And then when you scratch the surface, you realize that part of his agenda and who benefits from it is Donald Trump himself.”

Based on the limited information available from Trump’s now-public 2005 federal tax return, his proposal to eliminate the AMT would have benefited him by $31 million that year. In contrast, under his tax plan, a single mother raising two children on less than $50,000 a year would face a tax increase of $464.
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A Native American tribe in Montana filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday, challenging its decision to lift a moratorium on coal leases on public land without first consulting with tribal leaders.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe, located in southern Montana, said the administration lifted the moratorium without hearing the tribe’s concerns about the impact the coal-leasing program has on the tribe, its members and lands.

Earlier this month, the tribe sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who signed the order lifting the moratorium Tuesday, asking to meet with him to discuss the issue. Zinke did not respond to the letter.

“It is alarming and unacceptable for the United States, which has a solemn obligation as the Northern Cheyenne’s trustee, to sign up for many decades of harmful coal mining near and around our homeland without first consulting with our Nation,” Tribal Chairman Jace Killsback said.

Although coal leasing can resume on federal lands, Killsback said the tribe, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Montana, will bear the brunt of the impact.

“The Northern Cheyenne rarely shares in the economic benefits to the region generated by coal industry and other energy development projects,” he said.

Approximately 426 million tons of federal coal are located near the Northern Cheyenne Reservation at the Decker and Spring Creek mines in Montana, the tribe said.

Neighboring tribe, the Crow, rely on coal production to support their local economy and have called for the relaxation of coal regulations for years.

In a press call Wednesday, Zinke said the new executive orders are a boon for the Crow people, who rely on coal as their predominant industry.

“A war on coal is a war on the Crow people,” he said. He did not respond to a query about the Northern Cheyenne lawsuit.

In a separate lawsuit filed Wednesday by environmental group Earthjustice, a coalition of conservation groups challenged the administration’s moratorium decision, arguing that it imperils public health for the benefit of coal companies.

“No one voted to pollute our public lands, air or drinking water in the last election, yet the Trump administration is doing the bidding of powerful polluters as nearly its first order of business,” Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine said in a statement.
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Beijing’s reported economic retaliation against South Korea for deploying the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system continues to target certain sectors, like imports of Korean cosmetics, canceling K-pop concerts, and a ban on Chinese tour groups to South Korea.

At Seoul’s Namsam Tower, smaller than usual crowds gather to watch the daily Korean cultural performances and to look out at the sprawling modern metropolis from the highest point in the city.

Buses of visitors from countries like Malaysia, Vietnam and Hong Kong still arrive at this popular site, but there are fewer visitors overall than in the past because Chinese tourists have virtually disappeared in the last month.

Fewer Chinese visitors

Chinese tourists accounted for nearly half of the 17 million visitors to South Korea last year. But the latest government figures indicate the number of tourists from China fell by nearly 20 percent in March. Local travel agencies, airlines, hotels, cruise lines, and duty-free operators have all been affected.

WATCH: Video report by Brian Padden

In Seoul, some tour groups and restaurants that cater exclusively to Chinese visitors have temporally shut down. Even travel agencies not directly affected by the abrupt decline of Chinese visitors are worried this could hurt South Korea’s image as a tourist destination.

“While it is comfortable for me to work as a tour guide because my guests do not need to line up and can avoid the inconvenience, it is always good to have many tourists visiting South Korea. It is sad,” said Kim Sun-hee, a Malaysian tour group guide.

THAAD reprisal

Chinese officials have objected to the advance weapons system as an unnecessary and provocative regional military escalation, and voiced concern that the system’s powerful radar could be used to spy on them and other countries as well. Washington and Seoul insist THAAD is needed to defend against North Korea’s increasing nuclear and missile capabilities.

Beijing has also been accused of limiting some imports of Korean cosmetics and other products, and canceling K-pop concerts. Shares of the Korean cosmetics conglomerate AmorePacific dropped significantly in the wake of the reported Chinese retaliation, as did the stock value of the Korean automaker Hyundai after photos of a vandalized Hyundai car circulated widely on Chinese social media.

And the Lotte Group, the South Korean department store chain that provided the military with a plot of land for the THAAD deployment has had more than 50 of its stores closed in China.

Quiet pressure

Beijing has not acknowledged imposing a tourist ban, but travel agencies in Seoul have been told by their partners in Beijing that tours have been canceled because of pressure from the China government.

Shon Ho-kwon, the president of Modetour International Inc. in Seoul, said he was told officials from the China National Tourism Administration contacted virtually every travel agency and “made a verbal warning that there will be many disadvantages if (the agencies) continued selling South Korea tourism products.”

“There is no document to prove this, but clearly it is understood that China is making such suggestions,” Shon said.

A prolonged dispute between South Korea and China, its largest trading partner, could significantly hurt both economies in the long run.

“South Korea last year had about $4 billion in investment in China. China had about $2 billion that they invested in South Korea,” said James Kim, research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

But there is no resolution in sight with some travel agencies reporting no Chinese reservations for the upcoming spring holidays, which had been the busiest tourist season of the year.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.
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Workplaces have become less civil spaces than they once were. People don’t say please and thank you. Employees send e-mails and texts during meetings, ignoring the speaker and tuning out of the discussion. Others take too much credit for collaborative work. 

The nasty looks and belittling comments reached a point at law firm Bryan Cave, in Irvine, California, that the partners held a civility workshop.

Managing partner Stuart Price says working together toward a common goal set the right tone for the workshop, as the employees set up a code of civil behavior. The firm has the 10 points of the code displayed on a granite block in the lobby. 

“I think two items in the code really stand out for me,” Price said. “No. 3 is we treat each other equally and with respect, even if the conditions are very difficult. Then the last item in our code is we address incivility. If you don’t address incivility, then the plaque just becomes a piece of granite, but it doesn’t have life.”

He says they no longer let uncivil behavior slide. 

“The first step for us along the way is to address it with the person, privately, just talk about what happened,” he said. “If the pattern continues with that specific person, we will have further conversations and if it’s particularly problematic, we might terminate them.”

Creating a civil work environment has impacted the firm in many positive ways. 

“A year after we had this workshop, we won Best Place to Work in Orange County in the large company category,” Price said. “In terms of performance, it seems to me that when we’re most focused on how we treat each other, when were we’re most focused on civility, the financial performance is at its best.”

The High Cost of Incivility

A culture of civility helps employees feel safer, happier and better, said Georgetown University management professor Christine Porath. She incorporated results of her research and personal experiences in a new book, Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace.

She told VOA she witnessed the consequences of incivility years before she started studying it. 

“I thought I scored my dream job after my graduating from college,” she said. “I got to work at one of the largest sports marketing organization in the world. When I took the full-time job, I learned that it was a very toxic culture. The top leaders had a bad behavior, narcissism. And they had a tendency to belittle and demean people in front of others.”

Then it became clear to her the negative effect incivility had on people. 

“It was contagious, too,” she said. “It affected their performance and motivation and mood throughout the day, but they took that into their relationships with others; clients, customers and that kind of thing. And I just saw that it was hurting the organization. And it was also hurting employees, not only their work life, but they were taking it home with them.”

And, she discovered, incivility had a physical impact. 

“Then the second thing was my dad. (He) had had two toxic bosses. Even though he tried to protect me from learning about how bad that was, he ended up in the hospital with a heart attack scare,” she said.

More Rudeness

Porath notes that civility has been declining for years.

“When I started studying it in about 1998, it was less than 25 percent (people) were affected by this on a weekly basis, and those numbers most recently hovered over 50 percent — meaning more people are experiencing or witnessing disrespectful, rude behavior in the workplace these days.”

She conducted surveys, asking people “Why are you uncivil?”

“Over 60 percent of people say, ‘Because I’m overwhelmed or stressed.’ People are asked to do more with less resources. The other thing is technology. The fact that people communicate so often now with e-mails and other forms of technology, it makes being civil tougher in a sense that you don’t have the nonverbal (cues), you don’t have the tone of voice. So typically there are more misunderstandings with technological communication,” she said.

Let’s be e-Civil

To avoid those sorts of misunderstandings, Porath recommends that you do not send an email if you’re feeling very stressed, angry or can’t solve a disagreement. If you’re not sure how your humor, sarcasm or criticism will be received, reread, rethink and resist the temptation to hit Send. And if you are uncertain about your tone, save the message and review it later with a fresh perspective before sending it. If you have to get something off your chest, write your note now but maybe send it later using delayed delivery. Finally, she suggests trying to have a phone call, or Skype, or meet face to face under those circumstances.
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El Salvador’s Congress on Wednesday approved a law prohibiting all metal mining projects in a bid to protect the poor Central American country’s environment and natural resources.

The new law, which enjoyed cross-party support from 70 lawmakers, blocks all exploration, extraction and processing of metals, whether in open pits or underground.

The legislation prohibits the use of toxic chemicals like cyanide and mercury, and makes permanent an executive order passed by former President Antonio Saca in 2009 and renewed by subsequent administrations.

Several regions of the country have attracted interest from international gold and silver mining companies.

In October, El Salvador won an arbitration at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) against the Australian-Canadian miner OceanaGold Corp, which was seeking $250 million over the 2009 denial of an extraction permit.

In its decision, the ICSID ordered the company to pay El Salvador $8 million for legal costs.
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Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a prominent ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to New York this week to school investors on his state bank’s plans to sell new dollar bonds.

Instead, he was placed under arrest by U.S. authorities and accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by teaming with wealthy Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S. banks to Iran’s government.

“United States sanctions are not mere requests or suggestions; they are the law,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement in New York, where Atilla was arraigned Tuesday.

He was arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday.

Gold, currency allegedly sent to Iran

Atilla “protected and hid Zarrab’s ability to provide access to international financial networks,” U.S. authorities said in documents filed in the U.S. court. The documents allege that gold and currency were sent to Iran, while documents were forged to disguise the transactions as food shipments so as to comply with humanitarian exceptions to the sanctions law.

Atilla’s arrest and the case of Zarrab — arrested last year in Florida — drew a sharp rebuke from the Turkish government, which said it planned to raise the matter with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he visits Ankara this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Turkish media.

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey are frayed over the Syrian civil war and Turkish demands for the extradition of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish leadership blames for July’s failed coup in Turkey.

Diplomatic dispute?

In terms of the impact of the recent development on the U.S. Turkish relationship, some analysts suggest it could potentially be an issue as the two sides view the case through different lenses.

“For the U.S., it is a case of sanctions law violation,” said Ihan Tani, a journalist who follows U.S.-Turkish relations. “But some people close to the Turkish president seem to be involved with Reza Zarrab.”

Tani added that because of the involvement of close aides of the Turkish president, the issue could escalate into a diplomatic dispute.

But Tani said Atilla knew that U.S authorities viewed him as a potential suspect.

“He knew that he was part of the U.S. investigation here. So why did he come to this country? It is hard to understand. If he took a risk, now he is paying for it,” Tani said.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment on his motives to travel to the U.S.

Lender’s shares drop

The arrest could have major financial implications for Turkish state lender Halkbank. Bank shares posted their biggest one-day fall on Wednesday.

Halkbank, Turkey’s fifth-largest bank in terms of assets, vowed to investigate.

“Our bank and relevant state bodies are conducting the necessary work on the subject, and information will be shared with the public when it is obtained,” Halkbank said in a statement.
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