In a statement the Selangor Freight Forwarders and Logistics Association (SFFLA) said it is still uncertain whether the protest, which began on May 2, will continue into tomorrow, May 4. Some have even speculated that it will go on until Sunday, May 6.

SFFLA went on to report the unprecedented and unexpected action of the drivers will cause delays in clearing import boxes, shut-out of export boxes and also the risk of incurring Container Demurrage charges, Container Detention charges, Terminal storage charges and removal charges.

As of 6:30pm in Malaysia (6:30amEDT), BDP Malaysia operations reported there has been no impact on outbound shipments already at the Port. However, there is no movement of containers into or out of the North Port l and West Port depot gate areas due to the strike.

BDP will continue to monitor the Port Klang strike and report any substantive changes in status there.

Sources: Malaysia Star, SFFLA, BDP International Malaysia 

 All flights at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW) were grounded and passengers and airport employees were moved into shelters as the storm system spawned multiple funnel clouds.  DFW is the eighth busiest airport in the world.

400 flights were cancelled Tuesday (April 3) and over 100 aircraft were being inspected for hail damage.  An additional 420 flights are cancelled today for DFW.

Expect delays via DFW for the remainder of the week as flights and airport operations get back in rotation.  In the meantime, BDP recommends Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston as alternate through the weekend.   

Sources:  Dallas Fort Worth Telegram, CNN, Reuters, BDP International

Road, rail and air transport are all due to be affected, with domestic and European flights cut to a fraction of their usual volume.

Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government is to unveil measures on Friday to save tens of billions of euros.

The strike is the government’s first big challenge since taking office.

Scuffles broke out between protesters and police as workers from Spain’s largest unions picketed at the capital’s bus depot early on Thursday.

The interior ministry said a total of 58 people were detained and nine were injured.

BDP International in Spain will be operating as usual during the strike but they are not able to foresee if the daily activity will be carried out 100% due to the situation.

An internal communication has been sent to all BDP employees in Spain, providing direction on accessing the office facilities and to carry out the usual daily job, taking consideration of the team safety.

In case of BDP employees in Spain are not able to make it to office and attend to the offices desk phones as the unions close the access to the industrial parks, please contact the following persons at their cellphones:

• Jose Martinez  (For general issues) +34609451954
• Blanca Martinez (For logistics issues) +34629016914
• Jose Luis Barbero (For Madrid Branch issues) +34686721466
• Jordi Alegria (For Sales-Projects issues) +34638841765
• Noelia Garcia (For Barcelona Branch issues) +34649963474
• Luis Pizarro (For Administration issues) +34609451954

Source:  Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, BDP International in Spain

The 30,000 workers at the port and other related container freight stations (CFS) at Nhava Sheva also struck work on Tuesday in support of the PAPs who are demanding 12.5% of the value of their ancestral land that they had given away for the construction of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port. The strike is likely to continue on Wednesday, affecting the regular port business of nearly Rs 400 crore per day.

One of the trustees of JNPT, Bhushan Patil, told TOI: “In 1984, land was acquired from 3,000 families of PAPs in Uran to build the Jawaharlal Nehru Port. However, the promised compensation has still not been given to the PAPs, despite the availability of 400 acres of land for this purpose near JNPT township.”

Patil added that the sanction for the compensation is awaiting the cabinet approval at the Centre. 

According to BDP International in India, all operations are suspended at the 3 terminals of Nhava Sheva (i.e. JNPT / NSICT / GTI). About 10 vessels are waiting at the anchorage for their berthing at Nhava Sheva. All the CFSs and offices of shipping lines in the vicinity were compelled to close their office since yesterday and will be restrained from resuming until the strike is over.

Source: The Times of India, BDP International in India

The Jakarta Police Traffic Management Center reported at 10:33 a.m. (Indonesia time) that crowds had begun gathering outside the House of Representatives (DPR) in West Jakarta, at the Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle in Central Jakarta, and at Tanjung Priok Port and a depot of state oil firm Pertamina in North Jakarta.

Traffic around those areas, the police reported, was becoming congested, including around the DPR where protesters had occupied much of the road in front of the parliamentary complex.

“The demonstration in front of the DPR building on Jl. Gatot Subroto is still going on. At the moment three lanes of the road cannot be passed through,” @TMCPoldaMetro tweeted at 10.33 a.m. (Indonesia time).

“Hundreds of people are staging rallies at HI. Traffic is congested around the location,” it added at 10:53 a.m. (Indonesia time).

Hundreds of protesters also stopped at the traffic circle during their march from the Proclamation Monument to the Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta.

5,000 cadres are expected to gather at the Presidential Palace later in the day.

A total of 22,000 police officers and military personnel have been dispatched to secure massive fuel protests expected in Jakarta on Tuesday.

According to Aaron Chen, Managing Director, BDP International in Indonesia, there is no more container traffic IN/OUT of Tanjung Priok port, Jakarta at this point. There might be a risk of disruptions through the rest of this week.

Will update the situation again as the day progresses. 

Sources: Jakarta Globe, The Straits Times, BDP International in Indonesia

Office workers fled into the street when the 7.4-magnitude quake shook Mexico City for more than a minute. Cell phone lines went down, buildings were evacuated, traffic snarled and the stock exchange had to suspend trading early.

At least 11 people were injured, the Interior Ministry said.

The quake hit hardest in the southwestern state of Guerrero, where around 800 houses were damaged, officials said. The state governor Angel Aguirre said he had reports of homes being knocked down, though state authorities could not confirm this.

The tremor was one of the strongest to hit the country since the devastating 8.1-magnitude earthquake of 1985, which killed thousands in Mexico City.

Mexico’s interior ministry said the country would remain on high alert for the next 24 hours after 18 aftershocks to the quake were registered. Some were above magnitude 5.

Still, no deaths were reported on Tuesday and there were major disruptions to air travel or to oil installations. But it scared many residents and temporarily cut off electricity to 2.5 million users in the capital.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said some rails of the subway system moved as a result of the tremor while leaks at three aqueducts feeding the eastern portion of the capital would leave hundreds of thousands of homes with no water for at least a day.

Television images showed part of a bridge collapsed onto a vehicle on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Mayor Ebrard said no one was injured and that helicopter flyovers showed there was no sign of major damage in the capital.

President Felipe Calderon also said there were no reports of serious damage, and experts said the impact did not look severe.

Eqecat, a disaster modeling company whose software is used by insurers to predict exposure to natural disasters, estimated insured losses from the quake at less than $100 million.

Mexico City’s international airport was operating normally and only a couple of flights to the United States were temporarily grounded, a spokesman said.

State oil company Pemex said all its installations on the Pacific coast were operating normally, including the country’s largest 330,000-barrel-per-day capacity Salina Cruz refinery.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was magnitude 7.4 and aftershocks continued during the afternoon.

The quake was felt as far away as Guatemala City.

A spokesman for Mexico City’s health authorities said hospitals and clinics were operating normally although some patients were evacuated from damaged buildings.

According to BDP International in Mexico, communications might be affected due to the eartquake therefore would appreciate your patience for any slow response.

All BDP Staff and family are well and safe.

Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, BDP International in Mexico  

Riot police surrounded and methodically pushed back about 100 protesters who had been blocking access to the Port of Long Beach. By 9 a.m. the road leading to Terminal J was clear and traffic moving.

Two large groups of protesters marched in circles around the two main truck entrances to the Port of Oakland, causing long backups of drayage trucks trying to enter the terminals.

Protesters in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area gathered around 5 a.m. Pacific Time at Harry Bridges Park, near the Port of Long Beach.

According to local reports, police ordered the protesters to leave the port area.

Officials at Port Metro Vancouver in British Columbia said their terminals were open for business Monday morning.

In the most dramatic action yet associated with the movement that began as Occupy Wall Street, protesters have vowed to shut down activity at the ports along the West Coast, including LA-Long Beach facilities that handle some 40 percent of U.S. inbound container traffic.

Sources: Journal of Commerce, LA Times.com

Air quality in Beijing reached “hazardous” levels on Monday, according to the US embassy, which conducts its own measurements, while China’s state Xinhua news agency said pollution was likely to reach “dangerous” levels.

Nearly 400 flights were cancelled on Sunday, China’s state television network CCTV reported.

By midday Monday, Beijing’s main airport — the second busiest in the world — had cancelled 132 domestic and five international flights, according to itswebsite.

Television footage of the airport concourse showed thousands of stranded passengers being turned away, or waiting around in hopes of booking later flights if the smog lifted.

Most major highways linking Beijing to other parts of north China were closed early Monday due to the smog, but sections of some roads began opening throughout the day as the visibility improved, CCTV reported.

International organisations including the United Nations list Beijing as one of the most polluted cities in the world, mainly due to its growing energy consumption, much of which is still fuelled by coal.

Authorities in Beijing went to huge lengths to clean up the city’s air ahead of the 2008 Olympics, shutting down coal-fired power stations and restricting the number of cars on the roads, but air quality in the city remains poor.

According to Lu Jing, Station Manager – Beijing, BDP International, all road transportations to Hebei, Tianjin and other cities have also stopped due to the shut down of highway.

We shall keep all posted once there is any new update. At the mean time, if you have any questions about your shipments, please do not hesiate to contact Lu Jing at lu.jing@bdpcn.com or tel: +86 10 65814080 ext. 280.

Sources: Channel News Asia and BDP International in China

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, built on swampland, has had its flood defenses reinforced in recent weeks to protect the world’s 20th largest airport (by air cargo tonnage) from the worst monsoons Thailand has seen in five decades.

Last week most flights were still operating on schedule, but access to large swathes of Thailand was restricted for trucks and volumes were significantly down on expectations, according to operators.

Over 350 people have been killed since July while some 700,000 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged. The floods have hit the north, north-east and central regions of Thailand particularly hard, and the impact on major industrial areas has seen some 14,000 factories forced closed. With seven suburbs already flooded on Friday, officials told Bangkok residents, about 12
million of them, that evacuation was their best option.  

“The economic impact of the flooding is expected to be sizeable, given that all economic sectors, ranging from agriculture to industry to services, have been affected,” said a spokesperson for IHS Global Insight.

The analyst has downgraded its forecast for Thai economic growth to around 2.5 percent compared with the 3.7 percent anticipated in September. Thailand’s Commerce Ministry now expects national exports to be down to 13 percent year-on-year in quarter four as a result of the flooding, while the World Bank has predicted that flood damage will cut 2 percent off the country’s GDP in 2011.

Air cargo demand related to the automotive and electronics sectors is expected to suffer most severely. Thailand is the largest automaker in South East Asia and plant closures are having a widespread impact. Japanese manufacturers, who dominate the business in Thailand, warned that output was now down by some 6,000 units a day. Thai vehicle production this year is forecast to be 150,000 units lower than anticipated in 2011 at 1.65 million units.  

“Apart from the impact at the local level, the floods are likely to have a harmful effect on the supply chains of automakers in other countries since Thailand is one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in South-East Asia for a number of suppliers,” said the IHS spokesperson.  

Global hard disk drive shortages are also looming due to Thailand’s status as the world’s second largest producer after China. Western Digital, which has suspended all production at facilities in Thailand where it produces 60 percent of its drives, warned that supplies could remain tight into 2012.  

Major transport gateways were still open, conditions were expected to deteriorate. The situation is critical as huge volumes of water from the north of the city will affect Bangkok soon. Should that happen, it is likely that the ports and airport would suspend operations and that will significantly affect the commercial activities of the entire country.However, for air freight operators
at least, the rebuilding could deliver a spike in demand, helping redress recent losses as manufacturers airlift in urgently needed production parts once flood waters recede.

 ”A lot of parts manufacturers are flooded, but still quite a few assembly factories are open so we may get a rush of airfreight shipments of parts into BKK to support the assembly plants as the spares are underwater,” said Stewart Sinclair, Senior Vice President Asia and Managing Director of ground handler Bangkok Flight Services. 

Sources: Air Cargo News