Ship arrested over R430m debt claim

September 8 2010 at 10:44am

Caryn Dolley

A SHIP has been arrested in Saldanha because its owners allegedly owe creditors more than $60 million (R430m).

While lawyers wrangle over the legal details, the Cape Santa Milagria, a bulk carrier registered in Tuvalu, is anchored off Sea Point with a skeleton crew of 27 people.

The captain, who spoke to the Cape Times in a telephone interview yesterday, said they had been told to wait offshore until further notice.

“We are under arrest. There are 27 people aboard. We’re just waiting for orders. We don’t have any orders yet. We are fine,” he said in a thick accent.

The Cape Santa Milagria, owned by a British company, was arrested in Saldanha 12 days ago and then moved to Cape Town.

Yesterday, attorney Matt Ash, appointed by the ship’s owners, declined to comment.

Edmund Greiner, also acting for the owners, said he could not speak to the media until getting instructions from his London-based client.

Cassiem Augustus, representative of the International Transport Federation in Cape Town, said the ship had been arrested because it owed creditors at least $60m.

The arrest of the ship also led to the arrests of five Indian nationals, who had flown to Cape Town as replacement crew, and an urgent midnight court case to get them freed.

Augustus said that, while everyone was focusing on the money issue, focus should also be placed on the well-being of those aboard the vessel and on how the replacement crew members had been treated.

Alan Goldberg, a shipping attorney of Rose Street Chambers, representing the ship’s replacement crew, said at the end of last month the five men from India had arrived in Cape Town as relief crew.

According to court papers, the five had refused to board the vessel after hearing it had been arrested. A Home Affairs official told them they could stay in Cape Town to make arrangements to return home. It was agreed the five would stay in a hotel in Cape Town until their flight back to India, scheduled for last Saturday.

Goldberg said on Friday evening, the day before their flight, the five had gone to fetch their passports at Customs House. However, the immigration officer said he had not heard of any plans to have them housed in Cape Town, and had them arrested and locked up in the Sea Point police station’s holding cells at about 11pm.

An urgent application was then lodged in the Western Cape High Court where procedures started at 4am.

After hearing evidence, Judge Vincent Saldanha ordered the five crew members be released from the holding cells and that the immigration department pay the legal costs of the application.

Goldberg said the crew was released from the cells at 5.30am, with only just enough time to get their passports and get to the airport in time for their flight

caryn.dolley@inl.co.za

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/ship-arrested-over-r430m-debt-claim-1.680012

Twists and turns

Sitting in front of the eye testing room for my oral examinations in mmd a couple of weeks ago

waiting for my turn wondering what will be asked.People coming out were giving bizarre reactions.

I went inside answered like 2 questions properly out of 5 or 6 still the examiner was generous enough to pass me. i came out in shock rather than ecstasy.

i said wait a minute how can i be so lucky, then comes the real take

i flunk in the written's and my god i knew the question paper.

buy the way i have venting my anger by playing ps3.

just bought one. oh i bought a lcd tv, oh i had my laser operation done and yeah i have started guitar classes.

back in shape it ain't that bad is it.

been enjoying every moment of my mini vacation with of course a couple of sleepless nights.

Pathetic state of affairs

The fifth and final ODI between India and Sri Lanka was called off earlier today as the under-prepared pitch was too dangerous to bat on. While there will be the normal post mortem and scapegoats would be found, those who run the show will do no more than pontificate and sound seriously intelligent on TV channels, pouting, doubting and shouting the others down. Sure, there will also be the normal shedding of tears over nation’s prestige being compromised et al.

Cricket, like other sports in India, is managed by those who can’t tell ‘round the wicket’ from ‘over the wicket’. It just so happens that there is so much money being poured into the game and spectator interest is so high that administrators normally try and do a better job, relatively speaking that is.

I heard some remarks soon after the match was called off that they always thought such things could only happen in smaller centers alone where there is lack of resources. Clearly, such people have no idea that Delhi is a microcosm of India. Just as the nation hurtles towards mediocrity, Delhi is no different. If anything, the national capital is the leader of the pack.

But let me stick to cricket alone for the time being. Cricket administration in Delhi is headed by a highly articulate, intelligent and bright lawyer cum politician who, it is well known, was till recently completely focused on somehow getting the leadership of his faction ridden political party, the BJP. I am sure we will see a lot of him on TV in the near future, offering credible sounding explanations why it happened and that he would pull up those responsible for the fiasco. Not for a moment would you hear him say that it was his own ineptitude that has led millions of fans down, who waited for months to enjoy a good game of cricket.

As is often said these days, this is nothing but symptomatic of the rot that is engulfing this nation rapidly. Lack of accountability in almost any sphere of governance, administration, even in the private sector, can be seen day in and day out. Given that, I am actually surprised that the shameful episode that played out in Delhi is still an exception and not a rule.

And this brings me, and I am sure every sports lover of the country, to the question of our ability to organize the Commonwealth games less than ten months away. After today’s episode, my worries have grown. If we cannot manage something like cricket, which is a national obsession, and thousands of crores of money riding on it, what hope can other sports have? I may sound like a pessimist, but the writing on the wall is fairly clear. I don’t even want to end with a line that says we have to pull ourselves out of the downward spiral. I don’t think we can.

Two movies and two questions............

Wondering how to pass my time in the evening, I slumped to my sofa dad gone on a official trip, my mother engrossed in a book, sister off to Amritsar with her hubby. Feeling little bored I was rather relieved to know that India had a t20 match. Though it did not end the way i liked it to be.

i watched a couple of movies 1. finding neverland

2. bucket list

thought both were good and bucket list that bit extra good, so philosophical started thinking we have very few precious days on this planet and we should put it to good use......

two question they ask as i came to know from morgan freeman in this movie before u are admitted to the heaven.

1.Have you found joy in your life?

2.Have others around you found joy because of you?

At this point of time i can't answer either of those,

Joy let us see i think i will only find joy in my life if there is euphoria around me,

and and the second question answer i will answer it after 25 years.

till then ........cya

Are you'll also in philosophical mood share it with me if at all someone read's my blog :lol:

Internet and Me

Everyone knows what a boon the internet has been over the past two decades in Europe and about past 10 years in India.

It started for me first by creating my first email way back when may be when i was i 4 standard,

then started playing chess on the computer with a dial up connection

Then when i was in eight standard i remember seeing a cd writer a big one if you know what i mean it was the size of a small oven costing 8k which my friend had bought and he used to charge about 50 bugs for burning a single disc.

Playing games like roadrash, watching movies and games like quake faint memories remind me of windows 95........

from those days slowly the net has changed everything the advent of youtube, facebook, orkut,

and now farmville etc(world's most popular internet game)

i nowadays rather spend a whole evening infront of my computer rather than hanging out with my freinds or playing. This is how it has changed our lives, while people claim it to be a boon for killing time when nothing else to do we instead become addicted to it and keep ourselves away from all social activities. Once when i could not harvest my virtual strawberries on time it pissed me off i fought with my sister and kept a long face whole of the evening this is the extent to which it has affected our daily life.

verdict being as long as it remains entertainment well and good, the minute it becomes addiction it turns daily life mundane and stressful.

Let's not enter the virtual world let us use the virtual world to our use, saying all this i think of those farmers who really loose the crops do to floods etc spare some thought youngistanis it is time to wake up and help the real rather than the virtual

chalo see you'll will be back for more

Premiership.

Hi Guys

Well now that my orals are over thought that i could spend some time blogging.

Inspired by Bhambri Sir, here goes

Arsenal from being title contenders go on to become not good enough to be in the top four in one week. I started watching premiership courtesy of two of my friends in college back in 2005 guess what it was FA CUP final. I was watching it in the recreation room of our hostel and there were around hundred of us watching in front of a 52 inch television i was of course a neutral, but as the game went on I noticed that none of them were supporting Arsenal. i have always had the tendency to support the underdogs right since my childhood and that automatically drew me towards arsenal. Thus began my journey of being an arsenal fan, but i must say this may be because of me arsenal has failed to win a single trophy since then. then when i started supporting there was no looking back we moved to a new stadium the bergkamp testimonial in the highbury.A new team was built after viera and pires left, the champions league final everything made the bond towards arsenal stronger. I noticed a team unique among other clubs, unique manager, unique market policy, unique ownership whereas other teams like manu chelsea and liverpool all were taken over by new owners.

I started playing football for the first time in my life at the age of 20 and slowly started getting good at it never made it to the college team though there were people who just could not accept

that a guy can learn decent football in couple of years.

I am not a glory hunter unlike other fans for example my room mate was a liverpool supporter when they won the champions league and then a manu supporter when they won it.

In India we do not have traditional support if u know what i mean it is not like that my father is an arsenal supporter then i became one, it is not even geographical like people born near Merseyside support either everton or liverpool. We support these teams for reasons which are abstract and pretty tough to explain.

we support because we love the game there is this friend of mine who is a man city supporter since past 8 years, well before they became rich, it is these kind of people who make Indian supporters unique and a breath of fresh air among other glory hunters.

Adios my friends i think this supplement is enough for you'll for now