Posted on Wed. Feb. 22, 2006 at FortWayne.com (Associated Press)

“Feinstein: Ports ‘ought to be governmentally operated’

“SAN DIEGO – U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday it was fortunate that California’s major ports are run different than the six ports on the East and Gulf coasts embroiled in controversy over whether their shipping operations should be taken over by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirate. ‘My reaction is that it is a mistake to let ports be privately owned, period,’ the California Democrat said during a news conference in San Diego.

“Feinstein was asked her view on the sale of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to Dubai Ports World …

“Feinstein said she was familiar with port operations because of her nine years as mayor of San Francisco. ‘We operated a port,’ she said. ‘On the West Coast, most of the ports that I know of are all governmentally operated, and I actually believe that’s the way it should be. I don’t know how it got started on the East Coast that private entities operate ports.’

“Feinstein noted that governmental entities run the giant neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, through which a great amount of the nation’s container traffic moves.”

*******
Posted on Thurs. Feb. 23, 2006 at latimes.com (Los Angeles Times)

“Foreigners are already major operators in U.S. ports. Thirteen of 14 terminal operators at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex are foreign-owned, including companies from China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Denmark.”
*******
Posted on Thurs. Feb. 23, 2006 in The ADVOCATE ( Newsday)

“‘It’s been a little distressing to see the way that this has been politically handled,’ said Ed Kelly, the executive director of the 400-member Maritime Association of the Port of New York, which includes terminal operators, large shipping lines, marine lawyers and tugboat firms.

“Kelly said DPW has a good reputation and in New York would take over one terminal …

“James Devine, president of New York Container terminal, which handles about 12 percent of the harbor’s volume, agreed with Kelly’s assessment. ‘[Criticism] comes from a lack of good information,’ he said. ‘There is no increased threat just based on ownership.”

*******
Posted on Wed. Feb. 22, 2006 at Alert Net (Source: Reuters)

“‘Politicians have conveniently overlooked the fact that the vast majority of these port employees are American citizens. What are we saying: that they are terrorists?,’ said Neil Davidson of Drewry Shipping Consultants. ‘The day-to-day security is also done by Americans to international standards — the risk is non-existent’…

“A spokeswoman for P&O noted that Dubai Ports would only manage some of the ports, not own them. ‘In New York and New Jersey for example we do not own the ports, they are owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,’ she said.”

*******
Posted on Wed. Feb. 22, 2006 at Sun-Sentinel.com (By Meredith Cohn)

“Just about any given time, it’s possible to find a Greek-owned ship flying a Liberian flag, employing a Filipino crew and carrying cargo from China into a U.S. port terminal managed by a British company that hires American longshoremen …

“‘To be fair, we’re on the edge of the world and we haven’t done a good job explaining how we work, so people are confused by it,’ said Art Wong, a spokesman for the port of Long Beach, near Los Angeles …

“In the major U.S. ports where Dubai Ports World would operate terminals – Baltimore, New York, New Jersey, Miami, New Orleans and Philadelphia – many of the shipping lines, the stevedores that load and unload ships and terminal operators have foreign owners.

“The top 10 containership fleets are based in Denmark, Switzerland, Taiwan, China, Germany, France, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, said Peter S. Schaerf, managing director of AMA Capital Partners LLC, a merchant banking firm that focuses on the maritime and transportation industries. All call on U.S. ports, and some of the shipping lines manage U.S. terminals.”

********
Posted on Feb. 20, 2006, in the Baltimore SUN (By William Hughes)

“The critical point is that Dubai Ports World won’t be running the Port of Baltimore, or any other U.S. port for that matter. What it would be doing, as ex-Rep. Helen Delich Bentley (R-MD), a respected expert on Maritime matters, explained in a Feb. 18th letter to the Baltimore SUN, is hiring the longshoremen to load and unload the cargo from the vessels. The Maryland Port Authority, an agency of the state, she underscored, would continue to “run the port of Baltimore’s public terminals and be the spokesman for the port in general’.”

*******
Politicians and the media have fed us spinnage again. All the West Coast ports are not “governmentally operated”— DPW is not taking over six major ports, only the 6 terminal operations they bought at a public auction — and Will Rogers was right about the gullible U.S. public.