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The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ) announced earlier this year new requirements to prevent the spread of the ZIka virus for cargo coming from certain countries. The United States was recently added to the list. If the requirements cannot be...

A wildfire northeast of Los Angeles has closed the main highway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas and threatens rail traffic in the region, state officials said Wednesday. That means disruption, detours and delays for shippers moving goods through the region, at the edge of the Inland Empire, a major...

Chinese authorities have provided some guidance on how U.S. exporters need to show that they have made their shipments mosquito-free, or risk having their cargo turned away because of concerns over the the Zika virus, but questions remain. Container shipments to China shall hold a valid mosquito eradication certificate, which...

Delegates from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) who met in San Francisco last week for a caucus, voted Thursday to have the union enter into discussions with representatives of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) to discuss a contract extension. A majority of the more than 100 ILWU delegates...

Efforts by Chinese authorities seeking to prevent the spread of Zika by placing demands on the way containerized goods enter China have sparked concerns among U.S. exporters about added costs and delays, a trade group said Wednesday. Shipping companies have alerted members of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, which represents agriculture...

Record fog is delaying shipments at South America’s busiest port of Santos, Brazil, adding to other woes shippers are coping with, including from customs slowdowns and a recurring labor dispute between terminal operators and dockworkers. The port began its second working week in a row closed as fog made navigation...

Brazilian shippers are suffering from a double whammy of industrial action this week as customs officials start a nationwide slowdown and dockworkers strike at the port of Santos with the Olympics just weeks away. Customs officials of the Receita Federal in Rio de Janeiro and throughout the country have started...

Piracy and armed robbery at sea has fallen to its lowest levels since 1995, despite a surge in kidnappings off West Africa, according to a new report from the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau (IMB). IMB’s global piracy report shows 98 incidents in the first half of 2016,...

Shippers using the port of Santos, Brazil, have enjoyed a week of peace after intermittent strikes and labor slowdowns during the first week of July, but the calm may not last much longer. This week, a government minister who heads the Superior Labor Court in Brasilia, met with the president...

After four days of stop-start industrial action from angry stevedores that caused delays and rolled cargo, shippers using the Brazilian port of Santos can finally breathe a sigh of relief as an uneasy peace seems to have taken hold. Stevedores from the Sindicato dos Estivadores do Santos union, known as...