Alastair Macdonald News

Shipping was blocked on the Brussels-Willebroek canal just north of the Belgian capital on Thursday after a ship struck a bridge near the town of Grimbergen, police said.The Humbeek bridge, which rises on cables to allow barges to pass beneath, was badly damaged, according to police cited by local media, although no one was injured.The canal carries significant amounts of freight between Brussels and the Scheltdt estuary around Antwerp.(Reuters reporting by Alastair Macdonald Editing by Gareth Jones)

The European Union's plans to hit back at new U.S. tariffs on EU steel and aluminium exports include hiking duties on a range of imports from the United States, from blue jeans and rice to the proverbial kitchen sink.In eight closely typed pages of documentation lodged at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, the EU has set out 25-percent tariff increases that are in part aimed at hurting the electoral districts of some of President Donald Trump's allies.That explains "motorcycles ...

World No. 1 shipping company Maersk Line gained EU antitrust approval on Monday for its acquisition of Hamburg Sud (HSDG) after agreeing to pull the German company out from five consortia on trade routes to address competition concerns. The bid by Maersk, part of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk , underscores the wave of mergers in an industry struggling with over-capacity and slowing global trade. Hamburg Sud will withdraw from the consortia on trade routes connecting northern Europe to central America…

European Union leaders will on Thursday call for more vessels for the Libyan coastguard to help it prevent migrants leaving its shores for Europe, sources said. Migrant arrivals from Libya to EU member state Italy are higher this year than last at more than 175,000 people. Curbing immigration is the bloc's top priority after about 1.4 million refugees and migrants reached it in 2015-2016. The EU's naval operation in the Mediterranean, Sophia, which is targeting arms traffickers and training the Libyan coastguard, is obliged to pluck out of the sea people who leave Libya in unreliable boats provided by people smugglers, meaning most of those who reach Italy arrive on EU vessels. One EU official said the bloc is increasingly worried that Sophia "has become a taxi service".

British and Russian World War Two veterans gathered on Wednesday in Arkhangelsk, 75 years to the day since Britain's first Arctic convoy of military supplies steamed into the northern port. Britain's Princess Anne has been among those attending events honouring those who sailed, and the thousands who died, protecting supply convoys dispatched to aid the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. On Aug. 31, 1941, two months after Hitler's surprise attack on his erstwhile ally prompted Josef Stalin to seek support from a beleaguered Britain, the first convoy, codenamed "Dervish", sailed into Arkhangelsk, or Archangel, after a 10-day crossing.

NATO sent its ships into Greek and Turkish waters in the Aegean Sea on Monday to counter the criminal networks smuggling migrants into Europe, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, overcoming territorial sensitivities in Greece and Turkey. "NATO is starting activities in territorial waters today," Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels, flanked by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "We are expanding our cooperation with the EU's border agency Frontex and we are expanding the number of ships in our deployment," he said, saying that France and Britain had agreed to send ships to the Aegean. Germany is leading the NATO mission that was agreed on Feb. 11, which also includes ships from Canada, Turkey and Greece. Until now, ships had been in international waters.

The European Union fears Mediterranean migrant smuggling gangs are reviving a route from Egypt, officials told Reuters, putting thousands of people to sea in recents months as they face problems in Libya and Turkey. "It's an increasing issue," an EU official said of increased activity after a quiet year among smugglers around Alexandria that has raised particular concerns in Europe about Islamist militants from Sinai using the route to reach Greece or Italy. Departures from Egypt were a tiny part of the million people who arrived in Europe by sea last year; more than 80 percent came from Turkey to Greece and most others from Libya to Italy. Detailed figures on Egypt are not available.

British and German warships made ready to sail for waters off Libya as Europe ramped up rescue operations in the Mediterranean after up to 900 desperate migrants drowned last weekend on a boat heading for Italy. Yet hours after European Union leaders agreed in Brussels on Thursday to treble funding for EU maritime missions and pledged more ships and aircraft, 14 clandestine migrants were killed when a train ploughed into dozens of Somalis and Afghans making their way in darkness along a rail track in a Macedonian gorge. The incident highlighted the variety of routes that growing numbers are taking to escape war and poverty in Asia, Africa and the Middle East and chance their luck in a wealthy region that offers, at best, a chilly welcome.

The European Commission cancelled a news conference planned to follow talks between Russia and Ukraine on gas supplies on Wednesday, saying negotiations in Brussels were continuing late into the evening. All three parties had been hoping to conclude a deal on resuming Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine over the winter but differences over payments have been hampering their efforts to reach agreement. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Payment problems are disrupting commercial food cargoes to Iran, with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grain and sugar stuck in transit, as Western banking sanctions complicate deals and trade financiers scale back exposure. Iran is not barred from buying food or other "humanitarian" goods under sanctions imposed over Tehran's pursuit of nuclear technology, but measures by the European Union and the United States have made trade more difficult over the past two years. Several international trade sources, with knowledge of deals that have been affected, told Reuters that ships carrying cargoes of grain, including wheat and soybeans, as well as raw sugar, have been stuck for several weeks outside Iranian cargo ports such as Bandar Imam Khomeini and Bandar Abbas.

At least three people were killed in a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict. The incident triggered a war of words between Moscow and Ukraine's Western-backed government, with each questioning the other's compliance with the agreement, brokered last week in Geneva, to end a crisis that has made Russia's ties with the West more fraught than at any time since the Cold War. The separatists said armed men from Ukraine's Right Sector nationalist group had attacked them. The Right Sector denied any role, saying Russian special forces were behind the clash.

A mediator from Europe's OSCE security body headed to eastern Ukraine on Saturday seeking the surrender of pro-Russian separatists as the Kiev government declared an Easter truce following a peace accord with Moscow. Gunmen occupying public buildings in Donetsk and other Russian-speaking border towns refuse to recognise an accord in Geneva on Thursday by which Russia, Ukraine and Kiev's U.S. and EU allies agreed that the OSCE should oversee the disarmament of militants and the evacuation of occupied facilities and streets. The coming days may determine whether unrest following the overthrow ofUkraine's pro-Moscow president can be contained. Russia, which annexed Crimea last month in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, denies running the separatists or planning to invade.

The Ukrainian government said it will not attack pro-Russian separatists over the Easter weekend as its U.S. ally threatened Moscow with new sanctions if it fails to persuade the militants to surrender. The Kremlin denies having control over gunmen who want their eastern regions to follow Crimea in being annexed by Russia. Moscow scolded Washington for treating Russia like a "guilty schoolboy" following their agreement in Geneva on Thursday that Ukrainian militants should disarm and vacate occupied buildings. Ukraine's government, short of effective forces, has shown little sign of trying to recapture the dozen or so town halls, police stations and other sites seized over the past two weeks, despite proclaiming the launch of an "anti-terrorist operation".

A day after an international deal in Geneva to defuse the East-West crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists vowed not to end their occupation of public buildings and Washington threatened further sanctions on Moscow if the stalemate continued. Leaders of gunmen who have taken over city halls and other sites in and around Donetsk this month in pursuit of demands for a Crimea-style referendum on union with Russia rejected the agreement struck in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, theUnited States and European Union and demanded on Friday that the leaders of the Kiev uprising must first quit their own government offices. Moscow renewed its insistence that it has no control over the "little green men" who…

Ukrainian forces launched a "special operation" on Tuesday against separatist militia in the Russian-speaking East, authorities said, although aside from a landing by airborne troops the action was limited. Soldiers disembarked from two helicopters at an airfield at Kramatorsk, where reporters earlier heard gunfire that seemed to prevent an air force plane from landing. The troops withdrew into barracks after local civilians manning a barricade gave them a hostile reception when they tried to leave the compound. In Kiev, acting President Oleksander Turchinov declared a much-needed victory over pro-Russian rebels by saying the air base had been "liberated." But there was no sign of militants.

Milford Haven Port Authority has begun a trial of advanced C-Vu 3-dimensional VTS display software from GeoVS. The system has been installed to establish whether its clarity of presentation and viewing versatility can enhance situation awareness and ease of interpretation for the port’s vessel traffic controllers. The technology is unique in that it transforms a traditional two dimensional radar display into a three dimensional panorama in which, instead of appearing as featureless radar targets, vessels on the display appear as they really are.

Maritime Surveys Ltd., Shoreham, Sussex, U.K., recently took delivery of the first SeaBat 8160 multibeam echosounder system from RESON A/S. The SeaBat 8160 was installed on one of Maritime's survey vessels, the Scotian Shore. Alastair MacDonald, managing director of Maritime Surveys, commented on the success of the sea trials: "The SeaBat 8160 delivered the highest quality multibeam survey data in a swath width of 1,300 meters at 3,000 meters water depth, even when experiencing a near 20 degree roll and 12 degree pitch. The excellent data quality combined with the system's portability makes the 8160 extremely valuable for our operations." During these trials the system was supported by GSE Rentals of Aberdeen who supplied a TSS POS M/V 320 system.