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Press release n°9 – 11:20 am

The atomic container ship Sevmorput anchored at 10:20 French time in the Bay of Neva in front of St. Petersburg with her 2 cut down blades propeller, 97 crew members and technicians and without her captain. She had left St. Petersburg for Antarctica on October 5, 2020 with a new 4-blades propeller and 5000 tons of general cargo intended for the reconstruction of the Vostok scientific station. In September, she had unloaded in St. Petersburg 5000 tons of sea products from Kamchatka via Murmansk. The prestigious mission of the Sevmorput was to achieve a world premiere, the crossing from the North Pole to the South Pole by a nuclear-powered cargo ship.

Press release n°8

After the successive mobilisation of the deep-sea tugs Abeille Bourbon and Abeille Liberté, the Abeille Languedoc, also chartered by the French Navy, will take over. She is at this time off Le Touquet and is heading towards the damaged Russian atomic cargo ship to escort her to Dunkirk and the limit of the separation of the coastal waters with Belgium. This continuous and reinforced surveillance of the Sevmorput is all the more essential as maritime traffic in the Channel is intense. On the map, oil, chemical and gas tankers are shown in red. Click on the map.

Press release n°7

Click on the map.

The Abeille Bourbon is the deep-sea tug chartered by the French Navy to cover the Bay of Biscay and the waters off Brittany.

The Polarstern is a German government research vessel, able to carry out sampling and analysis at sea of chemical or radioactive residues.

The other tugs or special craft are not yet identified.

14:00 (English version) – Press release n°6

On Friday, December 18, at 15:40, the atomic ship Sevmorput on her way to the European continent suddenly changes her course towards the Moroccan coast. The next day, Saturday 19th in the morning, she resumed her course northwards. But late this Saturday afternoon, she headed back again for the Moroccan coast. This uncertain path reflects the embarrassment of the Russian shipowner Rosatom and the failure of talks with Morocco, Spain and the United Kingdom (Gibraltar) likely to accomodate the ship in distress in a port or a place of refuge.

2:00 pm – press release n°5

From 14 December 2020 at 16:00, when she was off Western Sahara, until yesterday at 22:00, the atomic ship Sevmorput followed an atypical path suggesting difficulties and delays on board. Yesterday, from 20:28 to 20:41, a helicopter from the Salvamento Maritimo sea rescue agency hovered over the ship. The commander of the Sevmorput, who reportedly showed symptoms of meningitis, is said to have been evacuated to the hospital in Las Palmas. There were 98 crew members and technicians on board the ship until then. After this evacuation, the Sevmorput resumed a linear path towards the European continent. In addition to the technical problems, there are now also health problems.

Press release n°4
English version: December 15, 2020

The last of the nuclear-powered cargo ships, the Russian Sevmorput, is in breakdown (see previous press releases*). On her way to Antarctica to unload heavy loads for the extension of the Vostok research station, the Sevmorput was forced to turn back. Victim of propeller or propeller shaft damage, she returns to St. Petersburg at reduced speed after having been wandering round and round for several weeks off the coast of Angola and Congo Brazzaville. Angola and South Africa were reportedly opposed to the Sevmorput‘s entry into their ports to carry out repairs in a shipyard.

Italy-Tunisia: household and sanitary waste

In April 2020, a container ship left Naples with 282 boxes bound for the Tunisian port of Sousse. The cargo was destined for Soriplast in the industrial zone of Sidi Abdelhamid. Soriplast claims to be specialised in recycling used plastics. The containers were filled with household and sanitary waste. On 13 November 2020, the director of Anged (National Waste Management Agency) was dismissed by the head of the Tunisian government, Hichem Mechichi. According to the chairman of the Commission for Administrative Reform and the Fight against Corruption, the director of Anged is only a scapegoat, “senior officials from the Ministry of Environment are involved in this crime”.

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  11:40 am – Press release n°3

Robin des Bois wrote yesterday to Rosatom, owner of the Sevmorput. Thanks to Rosatom for his reply:

November 20, 2020 – Press release n°2

The arrival of the Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship was scheduled for early November at Progress station, in the north of the Antarctic continent.

For more than a month, the Sevmorput has been suffering a failure. She has been sailing at reduced speed to and from a small square in the South Atlantic Ocean off Angola and Congo Brazzaville.

According the social network Vkontakte spread by the Barents Observer, the breakdown of the only civilian nuclear-powered merchant ship still in operation does not affect the reactor compartment. The technical problems would come from the propeller shaft. Divers would be at work to carry out repairs, which could only be precarious.

Issue # 61 of “Shipbreaking” (pdf – 12,8 Mo)
the unique panorama on the end of life of ships and the tricks of globalization.
71 pages, 240 photos, 95 sources

9:45 a.m.

Her arrival was scheduled for early November in a Russian logistic station along the Emperor and Adelie penguins’ territory. Even today, the Sevmorput is coming and going off Angola and Congo-Brazzaville. For several days, her erratic movements have been reported by the newspaper Barents Observer. The trajectory of the Sevmorput continues to be atypical. She could be confronted with technical problems or diplomatic polemics.

The Antarctic Treaty prohibits the dumping of nuclear waste. The last and only official use of nuclear power in Antarctica dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when a 1.8 megawatt nuclear power plant supplied electricity to the U.S. McMurdo science station.

Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, March 11, 2011 – Press release n°17

It is said that the Japanese government is about to authorize the release of radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi into coastal waters and the ecosystem of the Pacific Ocean. Tepco, operator of the plant that crashed on March 11, 2011, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the International Atomic Energy Agency are promoting this option. This voluntary pollution would set a precedent that could be brought up again in the Atlantic Ocean in the event of a major accident at a nuclear power plant or at the La Hague atomic complex in Normandy.

Press release n°1

The African cherry tree (Prunus africana, also known as African almond) was serving the public interest. It slows down erosion and mudflows on the steep slopes of the mountains of tropical and southern Africa as far as Madagascar. It favours the establishment of ferns and orchids and by the abundance of its seeds and fruits, it contributes to feeding primates and birds such as gorillas, eastern black-and-white colobuses, Bannerman’s turacos and Cameroon greenbulls. Local communities use its leaves and roots to treat various diseases.

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“On the Trail ” n°28
The defaunation bulletin
January, February and March 2020
816 events
137 pages (pdf), 7.5 Mo

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While the French Navy is sealing up cracks on the forepart of the Tanio wreck (1980) off Brittany, oil spills or oil spill risks are multiplying. The Covid-19 pandemic is involved in this resurgence. The crews are no longer relieved. Confined to their workplaces, they are overworked, cut off from the world and depressed. The Indian captain of the Wakashio, which ran aground on Mauritius, had been on board for a year and other crew members for 9 months. The minimal maintenance of merchant ships is also delayed. Political circumstances are other aggravating factors, as in the example of FSO (Floating Storage and Offloading) units which in peacetime “feed” tankers that have come empty from all over the world.

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Ile de la Cité : a new polluted site in Paris (press release n°1), April 19, 2019
Letters sent to different ministers and state services, plus AirParif, April 23, 2019
Our Lead-y Notre Dame (press release n°2), April 29, 2019
Paris lead(er) instead of Paris-Plage (press release n°3), August 5, 2019
Notre-Dame, press release n°4, August 14, 2019
Notre-Dame, press release n°5, August 26, 2019
All the roads lead to school (press release n°6), August 27, 2019
Notre-Dame de Paris, press release n°7, August 30, 2019
The scandal of the special needs education school Jacques Prévert on the rue du Pont de Lodi, Paris 6th district (press release n°8), September 2, 2019
The lead makes itself at home (press release n°9), September 4, 2019
Notre-Dame de Paris, a lead blast (communiqué n°10), October 18, 2019

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Trash ships
With one hand, the European Union bans them from its ports because they are dangers publics, with the other one it allows them to be in the trade over and over again in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Maghreb or faraway seas. Among the facilitators of this tragic double game for crews and damaging to the environment are 7 classification societies based in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom (1).

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