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France Caves To Farmers As Ireland ‘Solidarity’ Protests Kick Off
France Caves To Farmers As Ireland ‘Solidarity’ Protests Kick Off
Two of France’s main farming unions on Thursday agreed to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country after the government announced measures the deemed “tangible progress” in the ongoing revolt against EU ‘climate-driven’ initiatives designed to wean society off of evil, non-bug-based, carbon-emitting food while China, India, and the rest of the world laughs.
In addition to France, protests have been held in Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. Last week, tensions came to a head in Brussels when farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament building, demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs to finance the so-called ‘green agenda.’
After French farmers stepped up protests earlier in the week, the government promised on Thursday to extend protections – including better controlling imports and giving farmers additional aid, Reuters reports.
“Everywhere in Europe the same question arises: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, announcing the new measures.
In response, France’s main farmers union, FNSEA, announced that it was time to lift the blockades and “go home.” Arnaud Gaillot of the Young Farmers’ union echoed the message, however both unions warned that other types of protests would continue, and they’d be back if the government doesn’t make good on their promises.
Meanwhile in Ireland, farmers began protesting Thursday evening.
“There’s a general dissatisfaction with the level of environmental regulation that is being heaped on farmers, the low margins, and (the) resulting low income the farmers have been suffering from for a very long time now,” said Cathal MacCarthy, media director for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, adding…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Dominoes: After NYCB, Shares Of Japanese Bank Implode On Massive US CRE Writedown
Dominoes: After NYCB, Shares Of Japanese Bank Implode On Massive US CRE Writedown
Following a profit warning from New York Community Bancorp on Wednesday, partially attributed to turmoil in the commercial real estate sector, Japan’s Aozora Bank Ltd. slashed the value of some of its US office tower loans by more than 50%, according to Bloomberg.
New York Community Bancorp’s move to slash its dividend and bolster reserves led to a 38% plunge in its shares yesterday, also triggering the largest drop in the KBW Regional Banking Index since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last March.
Like rows of falling dominoes, Aozora Bank, the 16th largest in Japan by market value, recorded a 20% plunge in shares on Thursday after reporting a net loss of 28 billion yen ($191 million) for the fiscal year. This was in stark contrast to its earlier projection of a 24 billion yen profit.
Aozora wrote down the value of its non-performing office loans by 58%, including a 63% reduction in Chicago and between 51% and 59% in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco – all of these cities are plagued with violent crime and controlled by radical Democrats.
US office loans totaled about 6.6%, or approximately $1.89 billion. It said 21 office loans worth $719 million were classified as non-performing. It increased its loan-loss reserve ratio on US offices to 18.8% from 9.1%.
Several months ago, we pointed out: “Next bank failure will be in Japan.”
“It’s a shock,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, a senior market analyst at Matsui Securities Co., adding, “The expectation was the worst was over and that the bank had set aside enough provisions.”
For lenders, this development is a major warning sign that a tsunami of office loan defaults could be on the horizon. Many landlords struggle to repay or finance existing loans in an environment with high-interest rates. Some are simply walking away from properties.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Europe Erupts In Widespread Farmer Protests As Revolt Against ‘Green’ Policies Intensifies
Europe Erupts In Widespread Farmer Protests As Revolt Against ‘Green’ Policies Intensifies
Farmers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Romania, and other countries across Europe are protesting radical leftist governments by obstructing major transport networks with tractors. This widespread populist movement is sweeping Europe at a time when over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda threaten the livelihoods of not just farmers but working-class people and comes several months before the European election cycle kicks off in June.
Some countries hit hardest by protests have been Germany, Italy, Belgium, and France. Protests are expected to spread to Spain and Portugal.
On Tuesday, France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, promised farmers emergency funds and stricter trade controls on foreign products to guarantee fair competition.
However, that might not have been enough, as the farmer’s union in France was unimpressed by concessions offered by the French government. They encouraged their members to continue the fight.
“I’m so proud of you,” Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, head of Lot-et-Garonne department’s farmer’s association, told protesters in the south of Paris.
Bousquet-Cassagne said:
“You are fighting this battle because if we don’t fight we die.”
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told local TV station France 2 that police were preparing to defend strategic areas of larger cities.
“They can’t attack police, they can’t enter Rungis, they can’t enter the Paris airports or the center of Paris,” said Darmanin, adding, “But let me tell you again that if they try, we will be there.”
According to Armstrong Economics:
Farmers throughout the world have been protesting the increasing regulations on agriculture. The media is barely covering the story, and when they do mention it, they say that the farmers are protesting due to Russia blocking supplies from Ukraine. This is simply untrue. The farmers are protesting against over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda that is making it increasingly difficult for them to make a successful living.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
“Dangerous Game”: Chevron Warns California That Anti-Petrol Policies Could Result In Gas Price Spikes, Shortages
“Dangerous Game”: Chevron Warns California That Anti-Petrol Policies Could Result In Gas Price Spikes, Shortages
Chevron is warning the state of California that its climate policies have consequences: namely, that the price of gas is going to continue to rise.
Calling the state’s policies a “dangerous game”, it was reported by Bloomberg this week that Chevron is warning the state of potential gasoline price spikes and shortages as a result of policies that discourage petrol production.
In the last quarter of 2023, drivers in California faced an average gasoline price of $4.94 per gallon, surpassing the national average by approximately $1.72, marking the highest recorded quarterly difference, as per Bloomberg’s compiled data.
Head of Chevron’s U.S. refining, Andy Walz, said this week that the spike is partly attributed to California’s stringent low-carbon fuel regulations, which prompt refineries to shift from petroleum to renewable diesel production. This transition is curbing gasoline availability and causing prices to rise, he told Bloomberg.
“They knew it was going to happen when they wrote the legislation. The problem is the consumer is starting to realize it. It’s becoming painful. The way politicians dealt with it was ‘let’s blame the oil companies,” Walz said.
But – as expected – Governor Gavin Newsom’s office responded with a vague statement blaming oil producers that was barely one brain cell above throwing paint on the Mona Lisa: “Big Oil has been ripping off consumers for decades and lying to protect their profits.”
And so, the adversarial tone naturally drives producers from the state: “If they cap the upside when conditions are good it’s going to make it really challenging to want to put our money there. I cannot compete internally for big capital investments. It doesn’t stack up. I’d rather spend money at our refinery in Mississippi,” Walz said.
As the report notes, Chevron’s relationship with California has become increasingly strained, with stringent regulations leading to a $4 billion asset write-down, mostly in the state.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Visualizing All The Nuclear Waste In The World
Visualizing All The Nuclear Waste In The World
Nuclear power is among the safest and cleanest sources of electricity, making it a critical part of the clean energy transition.
However, nuclear waste, an inevitable byproduct, is often misunderstood.
In collaboration with the National Public Utilities Council, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti created the following graphic to show the volume of all existing nuclear waste, categorized by its level of hazardousness and disposal requirements, based on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)..
Storage and Disposal
Nuclear provides about 10% of global electricity generation.
Nuclear waste, produced as a result of this, can be divided into four different types:
- Very low-level waste: Waste suitable for near-surface landfills, requiring lower containment and isolation.
- Low-level waste: Waste needing robust containment for up to a few hundred years, suitable for disposal in engineered near-surface facilities.
- Intermediate-level waste: Waste that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by near-surface disposal.
- High-level waste: Waste is disposed of in deep, stable geological formations, typically several hundred meters below the surface.
Despite safety concerns, high-level radioactive waste constitutes less than 0.25% of total radioactive waste reported to the IAEA.
Stored and disposed radioactive waste reported to the IAEA under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. Data is from the last reporting year which varies by reporting country, 2019-2023.
The amount of waste produced by the nuclear power industry is small compared to other industrial activities.
While flammable liquids comprise 82% of the hazardous materials shipped annually in the U.S., radioactive waste accounts for only 0.01%.
As China Stocks Crash, Beijing Proposes Multi-Trillion Market Rescue Package
As China Stocks Crash, Beijing Proposes Multi-Trillion Market Rescue Package
Earlier today, we lamented the latest implosion in Chinese markets, which we discussed in “China Stocks Crash Through ‘Snowball Derivatives’ Trigger Levels Overnight“, in which we pointed out the unprecedented failure of the centrally-planned market to halt its collapse be it through short selling bans, or even the latest impotent intervention by the “National Team”, China’s Plunge Protection Team, which today failed to spark even a modest rebound in the relentless selling which had triggered key liquidation levels.
We then summarized just how badly Beijing had boxed itself, noting that “after short selling ban did nothing, China PPT stepped in… and couldn’t do jack. Beijing trapped.” We concluded that “either they watch liquidation cascade as snowball derivatives are knocked in sparking rout and leading to social unrest, or they stop talking and finally do something.”
Well, just a few hours later we were proven correct again, because shortly after China reopened on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that according to “people familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified” – i.e., government sources eager to do a market test, China is considering a package of measures to stabilize the plummeting stock market, after earlier attempts to restore investor confidence fell short and prompted Premier Li Qiang to call for “forceful” steps.
Specifically, Beijing is reportedly seeking to “mobilize” about 2 trillion yuan ($278 billion), mainly from the offshore accounts of Chinese state-owned enterprises, as part of a stabilization fund to buy shares onshore through the Hong Kong exchange link; it has also earmarked at least 300 billion yuan of local funds to invest in onshore shares through China Securities Finance Corp. or Central Huijin Investment Ltd.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
WSJ Editor-in-Chief Admits To Davos Elites ‘We No Longer Own The News’
WSJ Editor-in-Chief Admits To Davos Elites ‘We No Longer Own The News’
Thanks to the internet and (shrinking) press freedoms, legacy media outlets no longer have a monopoly on information and narratives.
Case in point, during a WEF discussion at Davos entitled “Defending Truth,” Wall St. Journal EIC Emma Tucker lamented this loss of control over ‘the facts,’ as Modernity.news reports.
“I think there’s a very specific challenge for the legacy brands, like the New York Times and like the Wall Street Journal,” Tucker said, adding “If you go back really not that long ago, as I say, we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well.”
“If it said it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, then that was a fact,” she continued, adding “Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news and they’re much more questioning about what we’re saying.”
Watch:
Russia, Russia, Russia!
European Commission VP Věra Jourová also piped up during the same discussion, calling the rise of “disinformation” a “security threat,” and suggesting that “It was part of the Russian military doctrine that they will start information war, and we are in it now.”
Like when the Hillary Clinton campaign used a former (?) British spook’s Russian source to fabricate a hoax against Donald Trump, which was peddled through the Wall Street Journal and every single other legacy media outlet? That kind of information war? Or when 51 former US intelligence officials used disinformation to influence the 2020 election, suggesting the NY Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop bombshell was Russian meddling?
“Disinformation is a very powerful tool,” Jourová continued, adding that “In the EU we are focusing on improving of the system where the people will get the facts right. We don’t speak about opinions. We are not correcting anyone’s opinions or language. This is about the facts.”
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Maersk Warns “Significant Disruptions To Global Shipping Network” As Red Sea Attacks Persist
Maersk Warns “Significant Disruptions To Global Shipping Network” As Red Sea Attacks Persist
President Biden’s second week of military strikes against Iran-backed Houthi anti-ship missile bases and continued attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by the rebels have raised serious concerns about supply bottlenecks jeopardizing global growth.
On Thursday, top container shipper AP Moller-Maersk sent a memo to customers, warning how the global shipping network is fracturing because of the elevated risks in the Red Sea:
“While we hope for a sustainable resolution in the near-future and do all we can to contribute towards it, we do encourage customers to prepare for complications in the area to persist and for there to be significant disruption to the global network.”
Major shipping companies like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have diverted hundreds of vessels on lengthier and costlier routes around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Houthi rebels. Shell was the latest company to suspend all Red Sea shipments earlier this week.
Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that global shipping networks will be disrupted for at least a few months:
“So for us this will mean longer transit times and probably disruptions of the supply chain for a few months at least, hopefully shorter, but it could also be longer because it’s so unpredictable how this situation is actually developing.”
Earlier this week, Stifel shipping analyst Ben Nolan told clients, “Red Sea issues are getting worse, not better.”
The knock-on effects of Red Sea disruptions have pushed companies to rent more vessels, thus reducing capacity, which has increased shipping rates in recent weeks.
“This week saw a scramble for prompt tonnage,” said MB Shipbrokers (formerly Maersk Broker) in a market report on Friday, referring to ships that can be chartered immediately.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
“Worried About Next Two Months”: Solar Firms Running Out Of Cash In California
“Worried About Next Two Months”: Solar Firms Running Out Of Cash In California
The solar industry in California is facing significant headwinds following the implementation of a new policy in April, which reduced incentives that had encouraged homeowners to install solar systems.
Bloomberg reports the California Solar & Storage Association has found about 63% of its 400 solar installer members have reported cash flow issues because the new policy crushed consumer demand.
Since last April, sales of rooftop solar systems across the state have crashed 85% in the most recent months of 2023 compared to similar periods one year before, according to solar firm Ohm Analytics.
On Wednesday, California Solar and Storage Association Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro told an audience at the Intersolar North America conference in San Diego that 25 to 30 solar companies have already closed shop or abandoned the state.
“We are worried about the next two months,” she said. “We think a lot more fallout may be coming.”
Besides a reduction in incentives, higher interest rates and expensive panels have also curbed demand. This means that solar installers have a dismal pipeline of work through the year’s first half.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey of professional and retail investors from late last year found the green energy downturn will last well into 2024.
iShares Global Clean Energy ETF has nearly roundtriped Covid lows.
The ownership portfolio of the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF shows solar, wind, and hydrogen stocks have been clubbed like a baby seal over the past year.
Will The Texas Power Grid Survive Next Week’s Polar Vortex?
Will The Texas Power Grid Survive Next Week’s Polar Vortex?
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts extreme cold weather “across the heart of the country this weekend and is expected to continue into next week.” We previewed this cold blast in a note titled “Gobsmackingly Bananas”: Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US.
Whenever cold air spills south from Canada into the Heartland, attention usually shifts to Texas.
Next, power demand forecasts from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the power grid operator for Texas, are analyzed to see if demand forecasts exceed supply. Current forecasts show ERCOT faces the first major test of grid stability for the new year.
And this:
ERCOT has warned its 26 million Texas customers about the upcoming cold blast this weekend into next week. The grid operator assures customers, “Grid conditions are expected to be normal, and ERCOT expects to have sufficient supply to meet demand.”
Energy-focused research firm Criterion Research told clients in a note Wednesday that ERCOT will likely survive the big cold shot:
ERCOT has issued an Operating Condition Notice (OCN) for the upcoming cold weather event forecast from January 15-17, 2024. The OCN is the first of four levels of communication provided by the agency ahead of a possible Emergency Condition – the following three levels would be Energy Emergency Levels 1 through 3.
ERCOT’s current forecast run shows extreme demand conditions starting on Tuesday, January 16, 2024. That includes a projected peak load of 85,587 MW at 7 AM that morning. However, renewable generation from wind and solar are expected to help out as demand pushes to a seasonal record, with early morning wind + solar contribution 14,137 MW.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Poland’s Obstruction In Nord Stream Pipeline Probe Raises Alarm For Investigators
Poland’s Obstruction In Nord Stream Pipeline Probe Raises Alarm For Investigators
At this point, one might be forgiven for thinking that the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage is already ancient history. After all, mainstream media and prime time TV news coverage has by and large ‘moved on’ as soon as it became clear that Russia had nothing to do with it.
At this point, the consensus even among Moscow’s vehement enemies is that the September 26, 2022 series of blasts which disabled the Russia to Germany NS-1 and NS-2 natural gas pipelines had Ukrainian and/or Western involvement. While MSM sources have favored the theory that it was a mystery group of pro-Ukraine operatives on a small yacht, legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has reported that it was a CIA and US Navy special operation with help from Norwegian intelligence services.
Since then, the ongoing investigation by Germany, Denmark and Sweden into the details of what happened has continued to yield very interesting, incremental developments. The latest was revealed in a Wall Street Journal report this week, and involves apparent Polish obstruction of the probe, which has been deemed by officials to be highly suspicious.
Reports WSJ, “Polish officials have resisted cooperating with an international probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines and failed to disclose potentially crucial evidence, according to European investigators working on the case.”
Cover-up?… you don’t say:
Those Polish officials have been slow to provide information and withheld key evidence about the alleged saboteurs’ movements on Polish soil, investigators said. They are now hoping the new government in Warsaw, which took office in December, will help shed light on the attack.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Iran Warns Against US ‘Adventurism’ After Parking Cruise Missile-Armed Warship In Red Sea
Iran Warns Against US ‘Adventurism’ After Parking Cruise Missile-Armed Warship In Red Sea
The Red Sea continues to grow busy with the presence of naval assets, as the West and its allies attempt to keep international shipping lanes open despite the threat of Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen. This has lately included nations such as Denmark, Pakistan and Sri Lanka sending military ships to regional waters as well.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while meeting with Arab leaders over the weekend before he arrived in Israel Monday evening said, “These attacks are having a real effect on the prices that people have to pay for food, for medicine, for energy. Ships have to get diverted to other places. Insurance rates go up.”
Maritime and industry analyst Sam Chambers has observed, “Over the weekend, the number of transits through the Suez Canal fell to the lowest since the waterway was blocked by the Ever Given containership in early 2021, according to Inchcape Shipping Services.”
But amid the heavy presence Western coalition military ships, there is now an Iranian frigate parked in the Red Sea after its arrival starting nearly a week ago. “2024 was only a few hours old when Iran dispatched a warship, the frigate Alborz, to the Red Sea,” FP recently noted. “Its arrival was yet more bad news for shipping, already facing a crisis from the Iran-backed Houthi attacks on merchant vessels.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has issued a new statement warning Israel and America against ‘adventurism’ which will expand war in the region:
“Iran issues a stern warning against any US adventurism that could endanger regional peace,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Tuesday in a letter directed to the US and its allies, a week after Iran’s Navy deployed a cruise missile-armed warship in the region.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
US Debt Hits A Record $34.001 Trillion
US Debt Hits A Record $34.001 Trillion
The US Treasury has a morbid habit of revealing big, round numbers of debt around major calendar milestones, and the new 2024 year was no different because according to the latest Treasury Daily Statement published after the close today and reflecting the US Treasury’s financial statements as of Dec 29, 2023, total US debt as of the end of the year was – drumroll – just over $34 trillion for the first time ever, or $34,001,493,655,565.48 to be precise.
Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since zerohedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have gone a long way since then.
Some context: US debt increased by…
- $1 trillion in the past 3 months
- $2 trillion in the past 6 months
- $4 trillion in the past 2 years
- $11 trillion in the past 4 years
… and so on. You get the exponential picture. At this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…
… but since there is no way to reverse the catastrophic outcome, there is no point in even talking about it. At best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.
And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.
This not only explains where US “growth” has come from, but begs the question just how much debt will be needed when the US falls into an official recession.
Or actually not, because at this point the best anyone can do is polish the brass on the titanic while waiting for the inevitable, captures so vividly by the following endgame chart.
“This Is Off The Charts”: Economist Claims 2024 Will Bring ‘Biggest Crash Of Our Lifetime’ In US
“This Is Off The Charts”: Economist Claims 2024 Will Bring ‘Biggest Crash Of Our Lifetime’ In US
An economist who focuses on consumer spending has issued a dire warning about the U.S. economy in the coming year.
“Since 2009, this has been 100 percent artificial, unprecedented money printing and deficits: $27 trillion over 15 years, to be exact,” economist Harry Dent told Fox Business on Dec. 19. “This is off the charts, 100 percent artificial, which means we’re in a dangerous state.
“I think 2024 is going to be the biggest single crash year we’ll see in our lifetime.
“We need to get back down to normal, and we need to send a message to central banks,” he said. “This should be a lesson I don’t think we’ll ever revisit. I don’t think we’ll ever see a bubble for any of our lifetimes again.”
As Jack Phillips reports at The Epoch Times, Mr. Dent, who owns the HS Dent Investment Management firm, told the outlet that U.S. markets are currently in a bubble that started in late 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Things are not going to come back to normal in a few years. We may never see these levels again. And this crash is not going to be a correction,” he said.
“It’s going to be more in the ’29 to ’32 level. And anybody who sat through that would have shot their stockbroker,” Mr. Dent said, making references to the stock market crash in 1929 that led to the Great Depression throughout the 1930s.
“If I’m right, it is going to be the biggest crash of our lifetime, most of it happening in 2024. You’re going to see it start and be more obvious by May.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
100 Container Ships Diverted, Insurance Surges As Red Sea Chaos Worsens
100 Container Ships Diverted, Insurance Surges As Red Sea Chaos Worsens
Global transport and logistics company Kuehne + Nagel International AG reports more than 100 container ships have been rerouted from the Red Sea around Africa to avoid Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen who attack commercial vessels with missiles and drones.
Bloomberg released two headlines early Wednesday detailing Kuehne + Nagel’s update on the Red Sea. The logistics firm said 103 container ships have detoured around the Cape of Good Hope, lengthening travel time by 1 to 2 weeks. It expects the number of detours to rise in the coming days.
For commercial vessels still transiting the vital waterway that connects to the Suez Canal, Bloomberg noted in a separate report that the cost of insuring jumped this week from about .1% to .2% of the hull value to .5%. A $100 million vessel must pay about $500,000 per voyage.
Increased insurance costs plus more extended travel around the Cape of Good Hope only suggest snarled supply chains and increased prices of goods.
“Both options of increased premiums and rerouting around Africa will see a knock-on effect on the price of goods,” said Toby Vallance, Executive Committee Member of the London Forum of Insurance Lawyers.
Euronav NV Chief Executive Officer Alexander Saverys told Bloomberg TV that the disruption in the Red Sea “will slow down the trade because we will have to wait for a convoy to pass through.” The petroleum tanker giant halted shipments through the Red Sea early this week and won’t transit the region unless there are military escorts. Several other major shipping firms stopped traveling through the area this week (read: here).
Called “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” the Pentagon hasn’t released exact details on how it plans to escort commercial vessels through the conflict region. Vincent Clerc, the chief executive of container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, said it could take several weeks for the task force to become operational.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
