I must contest to these news sources.

Furthermore, out of my own experiences, I confirm that general population of Philippines shares the same support and opinion about the drug problem AND it’s handling by Duterte (concensus is generally positive).

This is not as simple matter as it seems.

Duterte, being already of age when he took the presidency, openly said that ‘‘he is an old guy who has only this one shot to set things right’’ before he is out of the picture (and thrown under the train).

And so the war on drugs begun. Philippines are the country of almost 100 million people and the drug world there is ruled by chinese. So one could imagine how Duterte pissed of many ‘‘influential’’ chinese. Furthermore, he did allow for controversial law to shoot any drug abusers on site, because this went on to allow every corrupt police officer/official to shoot his snitch (generally either drug user or member of the drug world) in order to protect their own corrupt asses (by shutting the mouth of possible witness).

Things very quickly spiraled out of control and pretty soon it was difficult to hold the reins (although he managed… somehow), however, this also DID efficiently decimate the drug world and chinese influence in Philippines.

I’m not getting into other affairs of his here, but this one is really complex and not to be judged hastily.

On a further note, ICC should not be blowing it’s own pipes on Duterte case. Mongolia, for example, did not touch Putin, who really IS a deranged war criminal and mafia kingpin, so there are obviously… people that are ‘‘above the system’’. 80 year old Philippine president is, what Klingons would call: not honorable prey.

Crime does not get old and this is, for sure, a good thing. But one should not rush in judgement and know that here is a lot more than meets the eye.

Yes, the tech on board is as cheap as it can possibly get. These are no state of the art ships. Nobody builds that for commercial transport. Some parts are even from dismantled ships… salvaged. I once, personally, took apart a 30 years old switch on a brand new ship (we were the second crew… ever).

However, crew shortages are DISASTEROUS today.

Let us take clear example of one crew complement of 14 people (this is just illustrative):

14 people / 2 departments (deck + engine) = 7 people per department.

Deck: 1 captain + 1 officer + 1 cargo guy + 3 crewmembers + 1 cook

Engine: 1 chief engineer + 1 engineer + 5 crewmembers

And this complement means that Captain/officer and chief engineer/engineer are keeping 6 hours on-6 hours off watch… that is already A KILLER job. Imagine having 3-6 months contract on that regime… IF you come back home you are malnourished, destroyed, exhausted and deranged. Lack of rest and sleep literally drives you mad. Even when you can sleep, these small ships are rocking like the rolercoaster, so you are again f…d.

Then, for any mooring operation, you need all crew… so, no sleep again…

Cargo operation is a nightmare from hell.

I’m not even going to go into maintenance area… with this crew complement, one guy goes to the toilet, you are left without 30% of the manpower and anything that even could be done - is delayed (not that much can be done with 3-4 men).

Whoever allowed such a small crew complement (looking at you IMO and classification societies) has NEVER EVER been at sea and I wish them all nothing but sea service until the end of their miserable lives.

Terrible tragedy that one man got lost (crews are today mostly asian and many cannot swim).

It is a global crime that cargo freights are on the rise (constantly), but the crews and their salaries are reduced.

When you are so greedy that you want to maintain and operate 183m long vessel with just 14 crewmembers. The other is no better.

These are not big vessels, but the crew of 14 is deffinitely not enough. Fatigue sets in almost at the beginning of contract and by the end, you are EXHAUSTED. Literally.

It is wonder this hasn’t happened before… oh wait…

Donald, we repelled 73 drones

The card meant the death of Windows.

I find this to be rather healthy sacrifice attitude. You pay a few cents more, but the world gets that one micron more normal than it was a second ago. Works for me.

Haven’t bought almost anything from Amazon in decades. No subscriptions or fire sticks either. I think Jeff Bezos got like 13 $ from me. Ever. Period.

There have always been better or just as good deals elsewhere (i.e. eBay). And I think that people do not realize that more than 50% of offered stuff can be obtained CHEAPER when bought directly from the seller/producer.

Just write an eMail and… off you go.