Either way, Morris Architects has proposed exactly that:

There are approximately 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico varying in size, depth and mobility that will be decommissioned within the next century. If a deck on one of these rigs is about 20,000 square feet, then there is potentially 80 million square feet of programmable space just off the coast of the United States. The current method for rig removal is explosion, which costs millions of dollars and destroys massive amounts of aquatic life. What if these rigs were recommissioned as exclusive resort islands? Could the Gulf be America’s “Dubai” and the rig the artificial island on which to build it? This project examines the possibilities of creating a self-sufficient, eco-friendly high-end resort experience in our own backyard – the Gulf of Mexico.According to Curbed LA, the hotel rooms themselves “are pre-fabricated, designed to be transported out to the rig as a standard cargo container.”

Once there, a new world of luxury interiors unfolds above the continental shelf – apparently an ideal environment in which groups of semi-nude women can watch James Bond films.

Of course, if the real Dubai is any model for what might actually happen with such a resort, then we’ll probably see dozens of oil rigs partially converted to luxury hotels only then to be abandoned by their construction crews and investors.

As the lands of southern Louisiana continue to disappear into the Gulf, heavily armed refugees on fishing boats will move out to sea, recolonizing the derelict structures. There will be campfires at night, burning driftwood, and specialty gardens.

Within four or five decades of inconsistent contact, the Library of Congress sends out a new, 21st century Alan Lomax to visit those thriving offshore subcultures and record their folk songs and oral histories.

He discovers a sort of new Kalevala, written by dwellers of empty structures at sea, somewhere between creation myth and national folk history. The Kalevala of Abandoned Oil Rigs.

Alas, it turns out to be a latter day Ossian – that is, he just makes the whole thing up.

Or, of course, the economy will recover, this plan will work, and within a decade you’ll be suntanning on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico, reading Self (source: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com).

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According to the experts, the corvettes are “electronically undetectable at more than 8 miles in rough seas and at more than 13.5 miles in calm seas”. Their creation was an answer to the incursion of foreign submarines in Swedish waters in the mid-eighties.

The corvettes are designed to travel at more than 35 knots in between the many beautiful islands that populate Sweden’s shallow coast, thanks to waterjets-made by Rolls-Royce subsidiary Kamewa-that reduce their draft. Their mission will be to quickly patrol their territorial waters while hunting for enemy submarines and other ships.

While I prefer to travel the Swedish coast on a sailing ship, I wouldn’t mind getting a quick surf on these things when they enter in service at the end of this year (as they are probably staffed with non-stealth blonde valkyries – source: http://i.gizmodo.com).

Yet the oceans are such as mystery that we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the undersea world.

Now for the first time, aspiring Jacques Cousteaus will be able to explore every square mile of the sea from the comfort of their own homes.

The latest version of Google Earth lets people plunge beneath the sea, swim around underwater volcanoes, hover above shipwrecks and navigate mountains on the sea bed.The Ocean in Google Earth software also includes video and photographs of thousands of marine species, and lets virtual divers follow whales and sharks tagged with satellite tracking devices.

The undersea 3D world was created with help from more than 25 leading marine scientists.

National Geographic Society oceanographer Dr Sylvia Earle said: ‘I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet.

‘For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes.

‘In a stroke, Google Earth brings life and character to the blue part of the planet, and makes obvious the many ways land, water, atmosphere and living systems connect. ‘

The virtual ocean is available for free by downloading the latest version of Google Earth from the Google homepage.

Google Earth lets people hover over a virtual world, created by piecing together tens of thousands of satellite maps.

The new version includes a three dimensional map of the sea floor, including the Mid Ocean Ridge, the world’s longest underwater mountain range stretching 30,000 miles.

Most of the sea bed is shown in relatively low resolution. But some areas – such as the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii are highly detailed.

The software also shows protected areas of the ocean and lets people follow the movement of sea animals tagged with satellite trackers.

It also displays historical images on land and sea – allowing people to watch the melting of glaciers, the construction of Germany’s football stadia in the run up to the 2006 World Cup, the shrinking of Lake Chad in Africa and the melting of the Arctic sea ice.

Broadcaster Sir David Attenborough said the site’s wildlife films contained ’some of the rarest and most amazing creatures you will ever see’.

He said: ‘It is surely an extraordinary privilege not only to be able to see the great jungles and deserts of the world in Google Earth, but also now, thanks to the Ocean project to be able to explore the bottom of the sea.’

Prof Ed Hill, director of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton added: ‘Understanding the oceans’ role in climate change is the biggest challenge facing us in the coming years.

‘We need to reach out to everyone to add to our global understanding of a world that is remote and largely undiscovered.’

The Google Earth software has been downloaded more than 500million times since it was launched in June 2005 (source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk).

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The Government wants to open a major new centre of marine expertise – and Tyneside has been shortlisted as a possible location for the project.

If the plans are given the go-ahead, at least 150 highly-skilled jobs are expected to be brought here. The centre, called the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), will also act as a magnet to bring more firms to the area and boost employment further.

However, the North East is competing for the scheme with other parts of the country. Bids have been made by places including Plymouth, Carrick, the East Riding of Yorkshire, London, Lowestoft/Great Yarmouth and Merseyside.

Ministers are expected to announce their decision by the end of January.

But MPs and various organisations in Tyneside are in the process of lobbying for the project to be brought to this region.

Tynemouth MP Alan Campbell said: “I have met representatives at Defra and have presented our case for the MMO to come to the North East.

“There is a lot of competition for it. But we have a lot to offer and I believe Tyneside is the best place for it.

“We have a tradition of marine industry, whether it’s fishing or shipbuilding and ship repair, and increasingly wind farm and off-shore technologies.

“I have stressed the strengths of the North East with regards to the economy over the last decade or so. I have emphasised that our universities have strong marine departments and research bases.

“Indeed, Newcastle University has the Dove Marine Laboratory in my constituency.

“The benefits of the MMO will be great. There will be at least 150 high-value jobs, it will raise the profile of Tyneside and attract more firms and work in the marine industry. More jobs will follow.”

The MMO headquarters will be responsible for regulating all marine activities and help to enforce laws to protect coastal waters.

It will be a centre for marine management, planning, conservation and licensing.

Consultants have been involved in forming the shortlist of locations. The criteria of assessment includes the availability of labour market with appropriate skills, transport links and access to key stakeholders.

Mr Campbell added: “We have a strong lobby from the North East. Nick Brown, Minister for the region, and regional development agency One North East are among those campaigning for this project. This will be a real boost for Tyneside and will show the rest of the country what we have to offer.”

The MMO will be created under the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, which aims for better protection and development of the seas around Britain.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said: “The effects of climate change and the increasing use of the sea by many competing interests mean we must look after our marine areas for future generations.

“This new system of protection and management of our seas will help to halt the decline in biodiversity and to create clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically-diverse oceans and seas. And all of us will be able to walk along more of the length of the coast and get close to the sea right around England.” (source: www.chroniclelive.co.uk).

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International Niche Job Board Invites Employers and Recruiters To Post Jobs For FREE!!!

Chicago, Illinois, January 31, 2009 – MaritimeJobSearch.com, an international niche job board for the Shipping, Transportation, and Engineering industry, is celebrating its one year anniversary and is providing free job postings. The site www.MaritimeJobSearch.com has been up and running for one year and has positioned itself as a global niche job board for maritime, offshore, and port jobs to be reckoned with.

“MaritimeJobSearch.com started as a hobby project and has grown to an international job board with a quality resume database of nearly 4,000 job seekers in the last year”, indicated Dirk Meuzelaar, Interactive Project Manager at Maritime Job Search. The website www.MaritimeJobSearch.com is receiving much praise for its design and high level of usability “I have to say it is very easy to use and thank you for loading our logo into the Halcyon profile. I am very impressed”, says Heidi Heseltine of Halcyon Recruitment. “I found the usability of the site very good. It is pretty user friendly”, says Charlotte Bollu of KeyPower Consultants.

For additional information about MaritimeJobSearch.com or to start your free job posting trial until 3/31/2009, contact Dirk Meuzelaar.

“Excellent! I found your site very easy to use to post our job. Thanks for offering this opportunity to companies such as ours”, Carolyn Macina of Young Brothers, Ltd.

About MaritimeJobSearch.com

MaritimeJobSearch.com is an international niche job board for the Shipping, Transportation, and Engineering industry. There is the ability to add video and keywords to your company profile and job postings for search engine optimization. In addition, employers and recruiters may gain access and receive daily resume alerts from the resume database with almost 4,000 job seekers.

Information about your apprenticeships/internships can be added to your company profile for FREE. To increase your exposure, all your job postings with MaritimeJobSearch.com are distributed to all major job boards around the world like BaseGoogle.com, Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, CareerJet.com, JobRapido.com, Recruit.net, etc.

All services for job seekers are FREE. This includes searching and responding to jobs, uploading video and resumes, and receiving daily job alerts.

Overall, MaritimeJobSearch.com is an effective, usable, and well designed site that will fulfill all your needs.

Contact Information

Dirk Meuzelaar | Interactive Project Manager
MaritimeJobSearch.com
200 S. Wacker Drive – 15th Floor
Phone: 312.924.1020
Fax: 413.513.5697
Email: dirk@maritimejobsearch.com

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The goal, pushed by major powers, was to begin reining in the growing threat to commercial activity in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. In its December meeting, the council authorized governments that are already carrying out naval operations in Somali waters to possibly extend their anti-piracy efforts to land and air. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that Somalia’s piracy problem cannot be divorced from the need to forge a comprehensive peace agreement for the country. As Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s UN representative, told an October council meeting, piracy in Somalia is “part of the larger problem of the lack of peace and stability.”

Piracy, moreover, is not limited to Somali waters. Weak coastal states located near shipping choke points (where traffic is slow) are the most likely havens for piracy, says Kerstin Petretto, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. That description fits the waters off Somalia and a few other parts of the world, including West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, which saw 40 pirate attacks from January to November 2008.

But piracy off Somalia is more common. Since the International Maritime Organization (IMO) began keeping records in 1984, there have been more than 440 reported acts of piracy off the Somali coast. “Of these, 120 took place in 2008 alone,” IMO Secretary-General Efthimios Mitropoulos told the Security Council in November. More than 40 ships and 600 seafarers have been seized. Pirates have collected an estimated $120 mn in ransom.

Farther and more brazen

Somali pirates are also sailing increasingly farther into the Indian Ocean from their bases in Puntland, in northern Somalia. One vessel, the Sirius Star, a supertanker carrying two million barrels of oil, was hijacked 450 nautical miles (833 kilometres) southeast of Kenya’s port, Mombasa, farther south than any previous attack. “This incident is significant on two counts,” says International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Director Pottengal Mukundan. “Firstly, this is the largest vessel to have been hijacked. Secondly, the distance from the shore would suggest a highly organized operation – this is not mere opportunism.” The IMB is a division of the International Chamber of Commerce and operates a 24-hour piracy reporting centre.

Rising pirate attacks led to a 12-15 per cent rise in insurance premiums in 2008 and a hike from $500 to $20,000 of the special risk insurance for each ship passing through the Gulf of Aden, which skirts Somali waters. Ships can go around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to Europe instead. But the Gulf of Aden route, which serves about 20,000 vessels annually and carries over 12 per cent of all the oil transported by sea, is faster and cheaper. Nor is the Cape route totally safe. The Sirius Star was using the Cape route when it was hijacked.

‘A perfect environment’

With very little functioning government, long, isolated beaches and a population that is desperate and accustomed to war, “Somalia is a perfect environment for piracy to thrive,” states an October 2008 report by Chatham House, a UK-based think tank.

Within Puntland, the autonomous area in Somalia where most pirate attacks originate, the hijackings are seen as an important source of income, providing jobs and opportunities for hundreds. Fuel suppliers and merchants equip the pirates’ boats.

African Union forces escort a cargo ship released by Somali pirates.
Many pirates started as fishermen. As Ms. Petretto points out, Somalia’s fishing waters used to be a source of community income. But over time they attracted many European and Asian fishing vessels, whose exploitation depleted fish stocks and possibly prompted residents’ “sense of justification in targeting foreign ships.”

Successful anti-piracy efforts do exist. Until 2004, the Malacca Straits, a narrow passage through the waters of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, was the world’s most pirate-prone region, with 103 attacks that year. The three countries mounted daily joint air and sea patrols, eventually reducing the attacks to just 32 between January and September 2008.

Following a June Security Council authorization for naval powers to conduct similar patrols off Somalia, warships from more than a dozen nations, including NATO and European Union members as well as Russia and India, have taken turns policing the waters. Consequently, successful hijackings fell from 53 per cent of total attacks to 31 per cent between August and October. But the area is too vast – an estimated 6.5 mn square kilometres – to police effectively.

Limited capabilities

African countries themselves lack the resources to contribute to such an effort. They do not “have the money for fuel, never mind the hardware, to run adequate surveillance at sea or port security,” argues Chris Trelawny, IMO’s chief of maritime security.

To be effective against piracy, Africa’s coastal countries would need “effective early warning and intelligence services, credible deterrent and reaction forces … high mobility … and the ability to sustain operations for long periods,” says Len le Roux of the South African Institute of Security Studies. Those are precisely the capabilities “sorely lacking in Africa.”

Oil-rich Nigeria, in whose waters most piracy in West Africa occurs, has the best navy in the region. But in 2005 its former commander told the local media that “in its present state” it could not protect the nation’s territorial waters because it was “ill equipped and underfunded.” The waters off Cameroon and Angola are also prone to piracy, but their navies are even less equipped.

South Africa is in a stronger position, and its air force patrols the coast daily. But air patrols can easily miss a ship or the speedboats favoured by pirates. And South Africa does not have a satellite-based security system, which could monitor ships passing within 1,500 km of the coast.

Worse, says Mr. le Roux, regional solutions are lacking. He notes that the African Union’s arrangements to establish standby peacekeeping forces do not address maritime threats. Those plans, he says, leave “the impression of an Africa without a coastline or maritime zone, let alone broader maritime interests such as trade and resources.”

Regional approach

International cooperation is helping West African countries better handle maritime security. The US and European countries are working with local navies to enhance their capacities and engage in joint policing of territorial waters. Such partnerships are partly driven by the area’s strategic interest as an oil-exporting region, as well as concern over the recent use of West African waters by traffickers of cocaine and immigrants to Europe.

But naval training, better equipment and law enforcement will not be enough, says a 2005 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). It argues that strengthening the “legitimacy of governments,” “tackling corruption” and addressing endemic poverty will be vital in denying criminals an environment favourable to illegal activities. In Somalia, the Chatham House report notes, although piracy has been a problem since the collapse of government in 1991, it almost vanished during the six-month rule of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. “This indicates that a functioning government in Somalia is capable of controlling piracy,” the report argues.

UNODC presented a number of concrete proposals to a December 2008 UN-sponsored meeting in Nairobi on tackling piracy. At the meeting, 40 countries agreed to trace, track and freeze assets of those who back Somali pirates. “Regional cooperation is essential,” UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in mid-December.

As well as going after financial flows, the proposed measures call for countries in the region to cooperate in placing law-enforcement officials aboard warships operating in Somali waters and to bring captured pirates to justice in local courts, a system that has been successful in the Caribbean. December’s Security Council resolution called on Somalia’s neighbours to establish such a network of “ship riders,” as the officials are known, and to set up a contact group for gathering intelligence on pirates.

Nevertheless, African speakers at the December Security Council meeting strongly argued that action to tackle piracy must not be taken at the cost of resolving Somalia’s broader peace, security and humanitarian challenges (www.allafrica.com).

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