News Items

The Paris MOU on Port State Control's 2009 Annual Report, released last month, provides the maritime community with updated white, grey, and black lists, classifying flag states according to performance.

The Marshall Islands Registry discusses global issues such as UN Sanctions on Iran and how the Deepwater Horizon incident has affected their perception by others.

The two months since the Deepwater Horizon disaster have fueled discussion regarding how flag states and classification societies can work with owners and governments to prevent future disasters.

June has been a busy month for the maritime world with conventions taking place from Greece to New York.

As the OGSR previously reported, Posidonia took place June 7-11, 2010, and was attended by several of the world's leading registries.

Among the many connections forged at Posidonia last week was the Jamaica Ship Registry's signing of Greek marketing agency Adora Investments as its representative in the Greek shipping market.

Registry officials from around the world traveled to Posidonia 2010, Europe's largest annual maritime conference which took place in Piraeus, Greece last week, June 7th-11th.

Malta, the Cayman Islands, Belize, Cyprus, Liberia and the Bahamas were among the registries that hosted booths at the event.

Panama has been promoted to the Paris MoU grey list of flag states after two years on the black list.

The US Coast Guard has prohibited the Norwegian-flagged and owned Wilmina from entering its ports as a result of what it has determined is a failure to meet IMO MARPOL regulations on pollution control.

Samho Shipping has stated that it is in the process of negotiations with the Somali pirates who seized the company's VLCC Samho Dream in April this year.