One good thing--possibly--to come out of the Gulf disaster
I've been writing about the insanely hazardous shipping conditions on the Bosphorus for some time.
In the past five years, cargo traffic through the Black Sea has risen by nearly 500 per cent; the flow of oil from the port of Novorossysk has more than doubled. Monstrous vessels full of oil, dangerous chemicals, nuclear waste and liquid gas - often skippered by drunken incompetents - have been pouring down from the Caucasus. Many of these tankers are rustbuckets that shouldn't be at sea, let alone passing right through the middle of a city of 15m people. Because of the Montreux Convention, Turkey can't ban them.
One good thing may come out of the BP mess. It seems the Turkish government is finally panicking. (They should have been panicking long ago, but that's how it goes here.) They've at long last convened a summit with the major oil companies to discuss the problem. BP was there, of course.
“[BP] is aware that safety and security on the straits is crucial for the lives of people and the environment,” BP Turkey’s Murat Lecompte told journalists.
I'll bet.
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May '10
Re: One good thing--possibly--to come out of the Gulf disaster
You can monitor ship traffic here:
http://marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?level0=100