The changing face of the Strait.

Officials at the port of Algeciras went into overdrive this week to sell the benefits of a new infrastructure development project in Tarifa. They want to change this sleepy little fishing harbour into a bustling passenger port and marina. The reason? Tarifa is just 30 minutes by fast ferry from Morocco.

A study by the University of Cadiz released this week suggests the port would generate up to 2652 jobs by 2015, plus tens of millions of Euros in annual income for the region.

Tarifa, which is administered by the Algeciras port authority, handled 1.3m passengers and 274,000 vehicles last year. Just three years, the numbers were negligible. The key to the port’s growth is its privileged location at the western end of the Strait, just a few kilometres from Tangiers. Changes in the port’s customs regime mean it is now a fully-fledged Schengen border post able to handle non-EU passengers. That is attracting new ferry operators, hence the need to expand.

The main opposition to the project comes from environmental groups who fear there is already too much port development on both shores of the Strait of Gibraltar. The environmental impact assessment is complete and a decision on the Tarifa project should be known by the end of the year.

Across the way south, Morocco is well advanced in developing a new major deepwater port near Tangier, built from scratch on a pristine stretch of coastline. A second phase, just as large, is planned for the future. Algeciras itself is also undergoing a radical transformation that will virtually double its capacity over the coming years.

The driver is simple: all these ports overlook one of the busiest maritime chokepoints in the world, the Strait of Gibraltar, through which 100,000 ships sail each year. That is a huge market, one that remains largely untapped.

All this infrastructure will generate business on both sides of the Strait, creating much-needed jobs and income and, it is hoped, helping to stem the flow of illegal migrants heading north in search of opportunities.

But it must come at a price. It would be wonderful if instead of port and industrial activity, this area remained untouched, a paradise of rocky coastlines, whitesanded beaches and transparent seas. But it’s too late for that.

The key now is to find the right balance between jobs and environment, to ensure we protect what we still have while accommodating the needs of business and trade. It won’t be easy.

It is also important that authorities in Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar are all singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to issues such as navigational safety and anti-pollution standards. If anyone cuts corners on these issues to gain a competitive advantage, then that’s going to spell trouble in the long run.

Journalism (still) matters.

 

Journalists on the Spanish regional daily Europa Sur are worried about their jobs.

The daily belongs to the Grupo Joly, which also owns a number of other titles in southern Spain. Using the excuse of the economic downturn, the group is trimming jobs. Reporters have been made redundant in Huelva, Seville and Cadiz.

Staff at Europa Sur have so far escaped the axe this time round but they are uneasy. Today, backed by union CCOO and the local press association, they demonstrated in the main square in Algeciras in support of their colleagues and in defence of their jobs.

Estanislao Ramirez, chairman of the Campo de Gibraltar press association, said the Grupo Joly was ducking its obligations by making small numbers redundant, thereby avoiding scrutiny – and questions – from employment officials. But both Ramirez and CCOO warned of the damaging cumulative effect this was having on staff.

“It’s not fair that workers should pay for bad management with their jobs,” Ramirez said.

He was also sharply critical of Europa Sur’s decision to recently mark its 20th anniversary with “feasts and celebrations”, while at the same time sacking staff.

This situation, unfortunately, is nothing new, nor is it uncommon. In Spain, in the UK, all across the developed world, journalists are losing their jobs.

I’ve said it before but please remember: Journalism matters.

I love my iPhone

I’m sitting in a bar in Algeciras, drinking a coffee and watching the world go by…oh, and blogging. I downloaded WordPress on my iPhone and now I can post on the move. How cool is that?

I love my iPhone. I’ve only had it since Christmas – it was a rather extravagant present from myself – but I can’t remember what it was like not to have one. I don’t care if that sounds sad. I’m hooked.

So what can I do on it apart from blog and make phone calls? Well, pretty much anything you can do on a normal PC. Email, of course. Organise your calender and contacts. Surf the web. Read news. Listen to the radio. Make a Skype call. Take a photo and email it. Post on Facebook. Oh, and did I mention music? The iPhone is also an iPod. I have over 2000 songs on mine, plus two feature-length films. I can also use it to record interviews, which I can then save in handy digital files.

Something else you can do with an iPhone is download apps, or programs, for free or just a small fee. Apps like WordPress, which let’s me blog from a square in Algeciras and opens up a world of opportunities.

This phone, beyond a shadow of doubt, is the most incredible, exciting piece of technology I have ever owned.

And on that note, it’s time for another coffee, so I leave you. (Plus I’m getting weird looks from the waiter, who’s ogling my phone…)

“Por favor, otro…”

The drugs keep coming.

A short while back I wrote about clandestine migration across the Strait of Gibraltar. Despite many measures to deter the migrants, they still keep on coming.

The same can be said for this region’s other cross-Strait black market commodity: drugs.

This week, the Guardia Civil seized a fast semi-rigid launch loaded with nearly three tonnes of hashish from Morocco. The smugglers had slipped into the bay of Gibraltar in the dead of night but were detected by shore-based radars and sensors.

Maritime and land-based units closed on the launch as it approached the beach in Puente Mayorga, close to the refinery. The three smugglers managed to get away, though one, a Moroccan, was caught some time later.

There’s a lot of this stuff going on round here. Last week, the Guardia Civil revealed details of a long-running operation to dismantle a major drug-running network involving legitimate businesses, fast boats and at least 16 tonnes of hashish.

Talk to any law enforcement person and they will tell you that they intercept just a small fraction these shipments. The rewards are high and well worth the risk of getting caught. Check out the face on this smuggler as he drives a launch loaded with bales of cannabis resin. He doesn’t look worried does he? (Perhaps he should have been, as this video was apparently found on his phone when he was nicked.)

Just like the migrants, the drugs keep on flowing north.

The migration tragedy.

The tragedy of human trafficking across the Strait of Gibraltar doesn’t let up.

Despite efforts on both shores of the strait to stem the flow of clandestine migration, the economic imbalance between north and south means they just keep on coming.

Spain has been at the forefront of EU countries working with north African and sub-Saharan ‘partners’ to find ways of discouraging people from making the dangerous trip.

The carrot: Investment and commercial incentives to encourage economic activity. Witness, for example, the radical changes in north Morocco. Once it was the poorest region in the country, now it is evolving into one of its primary economic centres, with a new port, trade and tourism infrastructure.

The stick: Tougher border controls on land and at sea. Tighter monitoring systems that are driving people smugglers further out to sea on ever longer – and more dangerous – journeys.

But they keep on coming. Some in search of a better life. Others to escape poverty and violence. Most, a combination of all the above. 

In Andalucia this year alone, 1275 so far according to the Spanish Red Cross. In the last two days, 211 reached Spain along the Andalusian coastline as far north as Motril.

The numbers, of course, will be a lot higher. Some will have slipped through undetected. Others will have chosen different routes, perhaps by sea to the Canaries, or across the fence into Ceuta or Melilla. Still others will have perished in the attempt.

This week, in Tarifa, my friends in the local media covered yet another of these arrivals. A small boat loaded with African migrants, including six babies among the mass of people on board. They were found adrift in the Atlantic off Tarifa.

But it was a good news story. This time, unlike a similar case a fortnight ago, they were all alive.

Checkout out this blog post by Paco Guerrero, a Spanish photographer who covered this.

Criminalisation of seafararers.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation communicated some sad news for seafararers around the globe today.

Konstantin Metelev, chief mate on the Coral Sea, died earlier this month in hospital. He had been detained for a year along with two other officers after Greek authorities found drugs in the cargo on their ship.

They were all cleared last year but Metelev was too ill to return home.

“We consider him another victim of the underserved criminalisation of seafarers,” the ITF said.

This subject is close to my heart. Some years ago, I interviewed Apostolos Mangouras, the master of the Prestige, the tanker that sank off Spain in 2002 and caused a devastating oil slick.

It was the only time he spoke to a journalist. He was facing – and still faces – the possibility of charges in a Spanish court.

Authorities in Spain allege that he disobeyed orders and was partly responsible for the spill. He claims he simply did his job and that, had the Spaniards allowed the vessel into a sheltered spot, it could have been saved.

I can understand why seafarers are targeted in this way, but I can’t accept it. It’s the age old scapegoat tactic. Seafarers are easy targets.

Cross-Strait traffic…

Moroccan and Spanish law enforcement agencies seized nearly 181 tonnes of hashish last year during a concerted crackdown on smuggling across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The impact of these operations on the smuggling networks is hard to gauge because the exact level of cannabis production in Morocco is not known.

But there is no doubt that on both side of the Strait, the clandestine flow of drugs is coming under increased scrutiny.

During the course of 2008, Moroccan authorities seized close to 111 tonnes of hashish and 33.5 tonnes of cocaine, according to official figures released this week.

The purge of drug traffickers continued this year with the dismantling of an extensive international network that involved police and military officers in northern Morocco.

The judge investigating Morocco’s largest drugs ring has so far interrogated 79 suspects, including 61 who were serving in the police or the armed forces at the time of their arrest.

The suspects are accused of involvement in conspiracy, international drug trafficking and corruption.

The Moroccan network is said to have links to criminal groups in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Melilla.

In Spain, Guardia Civil officers based in Algeciras seized nearly 70 tonnes of hashish last year and 177 kilos of cocaine.

Just over half of the Spanish haul was confiscated in the ports of Algeciras and Tarifa, where smugglers use all sorts of tricks to get the drugs through. In the picture, a Guardia Civil officer finds hash blocks inside a car wheel.

The rest of the total haul was the result of operations against organised crime in this region.

Proximity to Morocco, the world’s largest producer of cannabis resin, makes the Strait of Gibraltar a key transit point for clandestine shipments of drugs into Europe.

Throughout the year, Spain’s SIVE coastal radar system has helped detect fast speedboats as they transit the Strait toward the Spanish coastline.

Pirates: Follow the money…

The UN has announced plans to target the people who finance pirate activities from the safety of dry land. It is a logical step that will add pressure on these criminal gangs, many of whom are financed from outside Somalia by unidentified backers who are making big bucks out of each hijacked vessel.

But given that Somalia is a lawless state, how easy will this proposal be to put into practice? With the focus on the war on terror, do western law enforcement agencies have the resources to do this properly?

I looked into these issues for an article in Lloyd’s List and found that this is going to prove a complex task. And for one expert I spoke to, it’s a misguided one. The real effort, he said, should be focused on finding a longterm solution to the violence and instability in Somali that fuels piracy in the first place.

Chinese spooks in the bay…

Just over a year ago, I wrote a story for the Gibraltar Chronicle looking at the activity of Chinese-owned merchant ship in the Bay of Gibraltar. A guy I know who works in the maritime sector was intrigued by the fact that every time a western navy ship called at Gibraltar, a Chinese ship appeared in the bay. His theory was simple: the Chinese, ever increasing their presence worldwide, were engaged in Cold War-style espionage just like the Russians used to do with their fleet of spy trawlers.

It sounded fanciful but I looked into it and found that the US military, in particular, was keenly interested in the possibility. I also tracked vessel movements and found that my source was right. For every frigate or submarine in port, there were several Chinese ships in the bay, often the same vessels on different occasions. I also found a lot of open-source material that seemed to back up the possibility of Chinese spy ships, including a de-classified report from the US Senate´s intelligence committee.

I penned a cautous story for the Gibraltar Chronicle and promptly forgot about it until, several weeks later, I started receiving emails from a chap in China asking me to contribute to a military magazine that he described as the Chinese equivalent of Janes. My US military contacts had clear ideas what this was all about, describing it as a contact from the outer fringes of the Chinese state intelligence-gathering network. I´m not that sure and I wasn´t keen to send anything through to Mr Wang.

Why am I writing all this now? After months of silence, I just received another email from him. New Year resolution: revisit this subject.

Business opportunities off Somalia…

The New Year has brought no respite in the number of piracy attacks off Somalia. The EU task force has helped foil an attack, while the French navy has reportedly captured a handful of pirates. But there are reports too of a couple of vessels taken by force. No change, then, from the final weeks of 2008.

In this climate, a growing number of private military contractors continue to offer their services to shipowners. Espada, a US-basec company, is the latest to step into the market, according to this report in a Texas business newspaper.

As always, the article is scant on specifics and the company declines to say much other than sell its services in generic terms. This topic will run and run in the coming months. High on my list of New Year resolutions is to find someone who will describe, in detail, what is actually happening with these guys at sea.

As an interesting aside, I also found this blog dedicated to the issue of modern day piracy. Journalist Daniel Sekulich is writing a book on the subject and has some insightful comments, as well as some good links to useful resources.

From Gib to Somalia…part III

The Associated Press ran an interesting story on Somali pirates this week, looking at the international networks that support the groups doing the actual hijacking at sea.
This is a subject that I covered in some detail in a story for Lloyd’s List a couple of months ago, when I looked at ransom payments and how this business actually works in practice.
There seems to be little doubt that the pirates form part of transnational crime networks operating in a highly-sophisticated manner. There are rich pickings to be had at sea, so it’s no surprise that piracy attracts organised crime. But the AP reporters hit the same brick walls that I did. The experts acknowledge this international reach (and the pirates too!), but details as to how these groups operate are scant.
The AP story is worth a read though, if you’re interested in this subject.
Also worth looking at is this blog which references the same story and has an incisive comment on tackling piracy by targeting finances. Follow the money…

From Gib to Somalia…part II

A short while after I wrote the article on piracy ransoms, I received an unsual email asking me to contact a man by the name of John Dalby. Captain Dalby was active in the anti-piracy business and was open to an interview.

I did some cursory research and found that Cpt Dalby, head of a company called Marine Risk Management, appeared to have ample experience in this area. His company employs former British special forces personnel to take back hijacked ships, mostly by subterfuge and clever ploys, sometimes by the use of force. Interested, I dropped him a line.

My contact with Capt Dalby led to two articles for Lloyd’s List. In the first, I reported on fears that a large tanker was targeted by Somali pirates using inside information provided by the same international clan-based networks that helped with ransom payments. Until then, it had been widely assumed that piracy in the Gulf of Aden was a crime of opportunism.

In the second article, I reported on the growing number of shipowners tempted by the thought of putting armed guards on ships. The actual take-up number was small, but the interest was most certainly there. Increasingly, more and more private military contractors are touting for business. (As an aside, this piece got a mention in a report in the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, which both lifted a quote from another contractor I contacted, Andy MacDonagh, director of Raven Special Projects.)

From Gib to Somalia

A while back, I did some stories for the Gibraltar Chronicle on a Gibraltar-flag cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Piracy has surged in that region over recent months and the Lehmann Timber was just one among dozens of victims.

The ship was eventually released, but only after a large ransom was paid. That got me thinking: how does one go about paying a ransom to group of Somali pirates? I started asking questions and found that piracy is a well-organised business that stretches from the treachorous waters of the Gulf of Aden to capitals in Africa, the Middle East and even Europe. I put together what I found in an article for Lloyd’s List, the London shipping daily.