Introduction The MV Tasman Spirit, a 1979 vintage, Japanese-built, Malta-registered and Greek-owned crude oil tanker, chartered by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) on behalf of the National Oil refinery at Korangi, got grounded at precisely 1257 on 27 July 2003 while rounding the bend of the Karachi port outer channel to proceed to it’s assigned berth. This grounding sparked off an unfortunate sequence of…
Pakistan Navy’s Quest for Peace
Navies all over the world, by their very nature, are outgoing and interactive. With the high seas traditionally deemed to be a common heritage of mankind, it is not unusual for warships of different nationalities to come across each other during deployments or transit, and exchange salutations. This breeds a sort of comradeship spanning oceans and continents. Naval warships, through periodic flag-showing deployments, are ideal…
Integrated Coastal Zone Management
A UNESCO-sponsored workshop on the subject of Integrated Coastal Area Management was recently organized at Karachi on 13 & 14 May 2011 under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology/National Institute of Oceanography. This was a follow-up to an earlier workshop on the same theme, organized as far back as 1994, some seventeen years earlier. The 1994 workshop presumably took it’s cue from…
Innocent, Non-Innocent And Not-So-Innocent Passage
The right of innocent passage being enjoyed by ships at sea is a subject, which, though lying at the periphery of the maritime security paradigm, keeps nibbling it’s way to the core. The intricacies of the maritime domain are best symbolized by the very concept of innocent passage as it mingles rather effortlessly with the realm of non-innocent and not-so-innocent passage.
Piracy through the Pakistani Prism
The release of 16 Pakistani hostages in Somalia through military action by the Danish Navy brought joy to their families and well-wishers. The fate of four other Pakistani crew members, including the Captain, of the ill-fated MV Suez, however hangs in the balance. The real life ordeal of their families, particularly after the two-week ultimatum given by the pirates, is finally being beamed into our…
Pictorial View
International Conference on “Maritime Security Management” held on 08 & 09 March 2011 at Bahria University Karachi Auditorium.
Security of the Maritime Domain – A Global Perspective
Introduction The security of the maritime domain encompasses a field so vast and a feat so daunting that it boggles the imagination. Since a relatively large number of people travel by air as opposed to sea, the fact that over 90% of the world’s cargo by volume gets transported through the medium of the sea, easily gets lost sight of. And again, let’s face it,…
Of Maritime Boundaries, Continental Shelves and a Creek Named Sir
That a dispute by the name of Sir Creek exists is quite well known in the country. What is lesser known is its linkage with our maritime boundary, our exclusive economic zone and our continental shelf. The last time that the dispute had hit the headlines was presumably back in November 2008 when the post Mumbai terrorist attack scenario had forced the cancellation of the…
World Maritime Day 2010
The World Maritime Day 2010 is being celebrated by the International Maritime Organization at it’s headquarters in London on Thursday 23 Sep 2010. Individual governments have been offered the flexibility to celebrate it anytime during the last full week of September ie during 20 to 24 of the month. A parallel event, officially sanctioned by the IMO Council, is scheduled on 7 and 8 Oct…
Somalian Piracy – Bane or Boon?
Piracy at sea has always evoked feelings of romanticism and mystique amongst the land lubbers. It is a realm where fact and fiction mingles effortlessly. The likes of Barbarossa, Henry Morgan, Edward Teach a k a Blackbeard, Francis Drake and Jean Lafitte are as much a part of history as they are the stuff of legends. The piratical cast of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Long John…
