The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year 
(The 'ghost fleet' near Singapore. The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies)Singapore -The Daily Mail (UK), by Simon Parry -16 September 2009: -- Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen... A couple of years ago these ships would be steaming back and forth. Now 12 per cent are doing nothing...
(Two container ships tied together in southern Malaysia, waiting for the next charter)
(Lights from the fleet of ships illuminate the night-time horizon) ... These empty ships should be carrying Christmas over to the West. All retailers will have already ordered their stock for the festive season long ago. With more than 92 per cent of all goods coming into the UK by sea, much of it should be on its way here if it is going to make it to the shelves before Christmas... But retailers are running on very low stock levels, not only because they expect consumer spending to be down, but also because they simply do not have the same levels of credit that they had in the past and so are unable to keep big stockpiles...
(World shipping is tracked by satellite service Vesseltracker,, SEE DETAILS )There have hardly been any new orders. In 2011 the shipyards will simply run out of ships to build.
Christopher Palsson, a senior consultant at London-based Lloyd's Register-Fairplay Research, believes the situation will worsen before it gets better... 'Some ships will be sold for demolition but the net balance will be even further pressure on the freight rates and the market itself. A lot of ship owners and operators are going to find themselves in a very difficult situation'... The current downturn is the worst in living memory and more severe even than the slump of the early Eighties, Palsson believes...Labels: recession worldwide
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Tallinn,Estonia -Estonian National Broadcasting/LETA reports/The Baltic Course, by Juhan Tere -25 Sept 2009: -- The economic recession forces Estonia highway cargo transport firms to give back their new trucks to leasing companies and use old vehicles that are often in a very bad state and make thus highways dangerous for other drivers... None of the heavy vehicles that the highway safety police inspected Thursday morning while entering Tallinn were in excellent technical condition... The first “victim” of the police operation “fell” before the police could signal the truck to stop as the truck with full load of timber broke down by the roadside right in the sight of the police patrol. “It’s not a turtle to go on for 300 years, it will finally die,” said the driver... Unfortunately the economic recession has taken the proper, mainly leased vehicles back to sales grounds and the work is now done with old and tired trucks. The truck drivers should not be blamed but the owners slip away from responsibility...
