NEWS: Arab Firm May Gain Control of Several U.S. Ports

Dawnstar, I forget the exact company name, but it's something like "Dubai Shipping Company".

I believe there were going to be at least three major international ports. One in Boston, and I forget the others.

Edit: It's actually six ports. The original article states:

The $6.8 billion sale could be approved Monday and would affect commercial port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

Dubai Shipping Co.

International and Multinational Private company
PO Box 855, Dubai , United Arab Emirates
971 04 3241341, 971 04 3243599 fax, Primary SIC: Arrangement Transport Freight & Cargo, Primary NAICS: Freight Transportation Arrangement
Description: Transportation: Ship owners, operators, charterers, shipping agents and ship management

goliath.ecnext.com...

Some disturbing news:

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- A recent crackdown on oil smuggling in Iraq's southern ports has uncovered a smuggling chain that stretches all the way down the Persian Gulf to the glittering, ultra-rich cities of the United Arab Emirates.


The farther you go from Dubai's sleek high-rises, the anything-goes atmosphere increases. At Umm al-Quwein, a tiny emirate about 40 miles north of Dubai that is much poorer and dowdier than its neighbors, smuggling is more overt. A port worker said dhows and small tankers arrive almost every day carrying diesel fuel and gasoline from Iraq. He said the traffic has decreased in recent weeks, however, because of the U.S. crackdown.
www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2003/10/22/MNG7L2GHCB1.DTL

Seems too early in the story to really get any websites with good coverage. The deal isn't even officially closed just yet.


[edit on 13-2-2006 by Yarcofin]

that's the company buying.....

the company that is selling (it was sitting there in front of my eyes!!)....is :

theLondon-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.


which well, I found this little tidbit on their website:

-----------------------------------------------

"A preferred tenderer has been selected to provide a new permanent Southern Ocean patrol vessel and crew to detect and pursue fish thieves, the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Chris Ellison, and the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Ian Macdonald, said today.
The armed vessel will help Customs and Fisheries officers better protect Australia?s sovereign interests and valuable Southern Ocean fisheries, a prime target for piscatorial poachers.
"P&O Maritime Services has been selected by Customs to provide a suitable ship and crew to conduct year-round armed patrols of Australian waters surrounding the remote Heard Island and McDonald Islands," Senator Ellison said."

Document Link

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the report of the sale makes it sound like the entire company is being sold, if so, well, wonder if this new company will be patroling Australian waters......

hope they aren't related to the terrorists, because that would be a scary idea!!


ooopssss!!! link was too long....mods!!! I want my link!!! please fix???



[edit on 13-2-2006 by dawnstar]

[edit on 17-2-2006 by Nerdling]

The UAE has links to 9/11? Thats a bit of a tenuous link isnt it? Are you people aware that Osama Bin Laden is Saudi Arabian and that Saudi Arabia owns between $500 - 700 billion of The United States economy? Why no outrage over that little fact?

The Saudi's have HUGE leverage over the United States economy due to their vigorous investments since the 1970's. Couple that with the fact that 15% of the oil imported into the United States comes from Saudi Arabia and you have much more to worry about than the UAE buying internationally owned corporations.

I suppose Arabs are Arabs no matter which country they're from. Same logic as Arabs are muslims are middle eastern. No worries that it's not really accurate, they all come from those sand dunes, no?

Ok I'll shut up now

So, for the record, the only thing that this group is guilty of is being dark skinned and araby right?

And why is everyone concerned about outsourcing now?

Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

Its already owned by 'ferners'.

[edit on 15-2-2006 by Nygdan]

So Nygdan,

I guess the question is, do you think that the ports will be safer under Arab control?

You seem to be trying to turn this into a racial issue. Why?

Isn't it really just a security, outsourcing and business as usual issue?

Yes but has any one thought of this: When the ports are destroyed in a 'terror' incident by nuclear weapons ect, the goverment can force through tighter laws to combat those 'nasty decietful arabs who owned the port and all who support them'. This way they have a problem with a neat solution: Ease up on terror checks, then when the next attacks happen, clamp down. But guess what? the clamps not on the Muslims in the USA, but on the American people. What makes me think that? well, how much inside trading was done just before nine eleven??

Its a messed up world when the Muslims control the white house....but they do, and how? Bush, Clinton, Cheney, OIL.

Noooooooo!
Noooooooo!
This is like a bad dream! I completely support Chuck Shumer, and think Bush needs to address this now! And Shumer is leading the charge!!!

By the way, this has been in the works for a week now, but because of "Fuddgate", there's no media coverage of it.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I guess you can add outs0ourcing of our strategic security assests to that list marg

We have been out sourcing (or privatizing) national security for some time now, or should I say out sourcing large swaths of the military operations...mostly to Halliburton and Kellog Brown and Root. It started in the early 90's under Cheney the dick's watch in the pentagon and has escalated since then, especially with Dumbsfeld at the helm. It has reached the point where the military has become a catered affair and no longer does any of its basic functions itself. I am not sure if this is true of the Navy or Air Force but the Army and Marines are all but proped up by these companies. Stockpiling of supplies has also been eliminated in favor of point of purchase orders which is how our troops ended up without body armor or armored HUMVEES...there weren't any stockpiles to draw upon. This gang has so screwed up our militray its a wonder the damage bush has been able to do with it.

Originally posted by whaaa
Great, we might as well turn over the Department of
Homeland Security over to the Arabs too.

Agreed.

This is the WORST thing I have read in a very long time.
I am soooooo ticked .. not that anyone cares ... but I'm
really ticked ...

As if we didn't have enough problems, this agreement
is INVITING terrorism.

wow, a triple-post ...Mal-Function !!

i guess the gremlins are at it again



[edit on 17-2-2006 by St Udio]

.......see below, as this became a double-post.......................

[edit on 17-2-2006 by St Udio]

Does it really matter who wil be signing the paychecks of the Port & Dock workers & the Stevedors, Longshoremen??

i expect that the current personnel who are doing the work at these port facilities will be kept in place...
heck fire, all those MiddleEast OPEC countries are having to fly and boat in the Indian & Pakistani workers to man their homeland ports & provide the labor for Dubais' UAEs' mega projects.....

they just don't have the people available to ship their citizens over here to operate these US Ports, let alone to make sure that covert cells of Jihadists are assigned to these US Ports of entry....

as i think back, the Red Chinese took over the operation of the Panama Canal, and there hasn't been serious fallout from that.

[edit on 17-2-2006 by St Udio]

Originally posted by whaaa
So Nygdan,

I guess the question is, do you think that the ports will be safer under Arab control?

Is there some reason why arabs can't protect a port that I am unaware of? Who has more experience protecting uber-busy and high target ports, anglos or arabs? How does the UAE get its oil out of its country, ports perhaps?
Yeah, I suspect that a company based in the oil-rich middle east that has experience in security for persian gulf ports can do an acceptable job in the US.

You seem to be trying to turn this into a racial issue. Why?

Because the only thing that has been cited here is race.

Isn't it really just a security, outsourcing and business as usual issue?

No, its not. The UAE company is purchasing and taking over from a british company. There's no outsourcing issue here. Its a 'i don't want any god-damed a-rabs in charge. Thur all terrists and ur gunna blow up thu port for mo-hamed."

Nygdan,

I cant argue with logic like that; Maybe if we turn more of our sensitive operations over to the the Arabs they will call off the Jihad. Couldn't hurt, right.

I just read all the post and realized interesting point.

The USA, to my knowledge, has no real authority to block a foreign company from purchasing another foreign company. That is global capitalism at it best.

Now, it is pretty clear that the purshasee(London based company) has contracts to run 6 USA ports. The purchasor (the UAE), will probably inherite the contracts and assume all responsibillities, liabilities, debt, and operations(i.e. cash register).

With all this being said, the USA needs to REALLY consider buying out the contracts.

Then the USA needs to run it themselves, make a profit, pay down the national debt with the profits and when that it done, sell to a local, well established company/corporation.

well, two developement, unfortunately, no links for the time being....if you search, you'll find them. I ran across them earlier, but didn't have the time to post, now, I have the time to posts, but not the links.

the NY State Port Authority appearently has a say in what goes on in the NY port, so, well, they are doing their own evaluation of the situation....maybe they have the power to say who controls the ports??

and Sen. Clinton and someone else is working on legislation about it.

I see no way that anything our country does can do anything about a british business selling itself to another business in a country that we don't think should have those types of assetts (this business has a fleet of ships armed with machine guns for crying out loud.....I hope that the buying company ain't in league with terrorists. can you imagine what kind of danger they could do with a fleet of armed ships.....that are now patroling the waters of australia under contract with the australian customs???

I'm sorry. I am not racist, but well, if you are at war with a country, you don't sit there and try to figure out who in that country might be friendly with you and allow them the keys to the mansion!! this is a little more complicated, it isn't a country, it's a group of religous zealots, from many counties, being suported by some of these countries, who are trying to unite the entire muslim world under the extreme religious views. this goes in the same category as letting people walk across our borders, teaching islamic foreign students microbiology in our schools and the like....just plain stupid!!!

Originally posted by whaaa
Maybe if we turn more of our sensitive operations over to the the Arabs they will call off the Jihad. Couldn't hurt, right.

Now who's projecting false statements into the conversation?

I clearly never said anything like that, and I've stated that there's no reason to think that this group has anyhting to do with international terrorism.

Before this sale, a percentage of the ports were run by white foreigners. Now it'd be brown foreigners, and there's calls for an investigation. Its pathetic. Dubai is an ally in the war on terror. There are jihadis there, and there are jihadis AND irish terrorists AND protestant terrorists in the British Isles. But that's not a problem, because they're sufficiently pale that we don't care.

Hell, there wasn't any concern that an agent of the IRA would infiltrate that group and then make connnections with his finnian brothers in NYC and Boston and pull off an attack, but forget that, right, cause there's brown people to worry about.

dawnstar
teaching islamic foreign students microbiology

Considering that most american's are now to god-damned stupid to learn about micro-biology even if they were'nt still too lazy or ignorant to bother signing up for a class in it, its practically more of a case of trying to fill the classes than anything.



[edit on 17-2-2006 by Nygdan]

The space travel agency, Space Adventures, announced plans to develop a commercial "spaceport" in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to take tourists on sub-orbital flights.

The proposed facility in Ras Al-Khaimah, the most northern of the seven emirates that form the UAE, would be the first of several such spaceports envisaged under a global development project budgeted at more than 250 million dollars

www.breitbart.com...

and it seems we are not far away from Al-qeada in space either

Aite, I've done a bit of research into the United Arab Emirates. I'll admit, the initial assumption I had was that there would be close ties with other Arab nations, including Syria and Iran. Something bad happens, and the UAE has to decide who to back because they would have one foot in each nation, so to speak.

That was my assumption, but I didn't know enough about the UAE to be sure of this. What I discovered is rather interesting.

First, they appear to be a monarchy under guise of oligarchy, though they haven't existed long enough to know for sure. They are a group of 7 Arab states that gained independence from the UK in 1971. In 1972, Ras Al Khaimah joined the Emirates. Each province selects its leader based on their own laws. Those leaders, then, get to vote for the president. So far, only one such election has taken place. In one day, the new president, the son of the old president, was chosen. It is not yet clear if elections will continue in this fashion.

Currently, the UAE is having a border dispute with Saudi Arabia and Iran (over some islands in the gulf coast, in the case of Iran). They are the third largest oil provider in the Persian Gulf, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran. Since 1990, after the first Gulf war, the UAE has sought exclusively American and western allies' security forces. That, right there, is a primary reason to lose some concern over this issue. If something were to happen where the UAE government were involved, the US could pull its security from the UAE, and Iran would be able to march right in while Saudi Arabia permanently fixed the boarder they're disputing over. The UAE needs the US and west Europe to survive.

The company, Dubai Ports World (DP World), is owned by the UAE government. As such, anything that goes wrong with the security of our ports will be directly tied to the UAE who, as I stated, can't afford to lose the US as an ally.

While I find it very interesting and a bit disturbing we're going to trust our ports' security to a foreign government (wouldn't have as much of a problem with a foreign international conglomerate), after researching the UAE I feel a little better about it. I'd still prefer we do it ourselves, though.