Patients line up for Louisiana's first smokable medical marijuana; balk at prices
Greg Hilburn, Lafayette Daily Advertiser
Tue, January 4, 2022

Photos of seedlings from the first crop of medical marijuana being grown in Louisiana.

Medical marijuana patients packed Louisiana's nine cannabis pharmacies on Monday, the first day of the expansion of the state's program to include the raw, smokable form of the medicine as an option, though many complained about the cost of the raw buds.

Until Monday Louisiana's only two legal growers — LSU AgCenter, Southern AgCenter and their private partners — could only produce the medicine in processed form like tinctures and edible gummies.

"It's an exciting day; it feels like the first day again from August 2019 when the first products became available," said John Davis of Good Day Farms, LSU AgCenter's private partner and grower.

There were some long lines and waits at the nine pharmacies across the state, according to media reports.

More: Louisiana lawmakers chide ag commissioner for slow pace of medical marijuana expansion

Business was brisk at Delta MedMar, northeastern Louisiana's cannabis pharmacy in West Monroe, though patients there were disappointed by the cost of the flower product.

"They said it would be cheaper, but it's not," said Corbet King, who drove an hour from Wisner and said the medicine treats both his pain from back and neck injuries suffered in a car wreck and his bipolar disorder.

"I've been waiting on the flower option," King said. "But this more than double the street price (of illegal weed)."

Delta MedMar was charging between $440 and $480 an ounce, according to a price sheet provided to USA Today Network by two patients. One ounce is generally enough for 84 pre-rolled cigarettes.

More: Waitr: Marijuana delivery plan moves forward, rebranding as ASAP | Business Buzz

The cost for one-eighth of an ounce of the flower product sold by the state's nine, regional monopoly pharmacies ranged from $35 in Lake Charles to $60 in West Monroe to $80 in New Orleans, according to various reports.

When the Louisiana Legislature voted last year to expand the program to include the raw product as an option for patients, one of the arguments was that it would be more affordable for patients because it bypasses processing.

Inhaling the medicine provides patients with faster relief for their medical conditions — 5 to 10 minutes compared to as much as an hour for ingestable forms like gummies.

Though neither Good Day Farms nor Ilera Holistic Healthcare has provided USA Today Network with their wholesale prices, Davis said the growers "are very focused on making sure the wholesale pricing is consistent with other states even though we aren't yet a mature market."

Davis said research shows if the retail price isn't within 20% of the illegal market, most people will continue to buy from the illegal market.

But the wholesale growers have no control over retail pricing by the pharmacies and Louisiana's medical cannabis law places no price restraints on the products.

"I feel like we were lied to," King said.

Greg Morrison, one of the owners of Delta MedMar, said retail pricing will likely drop as the market matures.

"When there are more patients and more products prices are going to be more affordable," Morrison said.

Republican state Rep. Tanner Magee of Houma, whose legislation expanded the program to include the flower product, said he was concerned about early pricing reports but wanted more information.

"It's the first day, but I'm going to monitor it and see if there needs to be adjustments moving forward," said Magee, who is also the No. 2 leader in the House as speaker pro-tem. "One of the primary reasons to expand the options in the program was to make the medicine more affordable and accessible."

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana's first smokable medical cannabis sold; patients balk at cost

Oldest Lion in Kenya Captured in Stunning Photos

Professional wildlife photographer Leighton Lum was shooting in Kenya when he came across a lion known as Morani. At 14 years old, Morani is the current title holder for the oldest known lion in a national reserve in the East African country

The 33-year-old photographer captured a series of gorgeous photos of Morani as the big cat relaxed in Maasai Mara, a large national game reserve in the county of Narok that is world-famous for its populations of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and elephants.

The reserve, also known simply as The Mara (which means “spotted” in the local Maasai language), also hosts the annual Great Migration of wildebeest from Tanzania to Kenya, and it’s often named one of the great Wonders of the World.

Lum is based in Hawaii and was visiting Africa for a photography workshop when he shot his portraits of Morani.

“Just by looking at his face, you can tell this guy has been through a lot,” Lum says. “He went from a young stud leader of a pride, a king, to a retired old man who still fights for survival in the Mara.”

Morani was once part of a group of aging male lions, but he has outlived the others.

“Morani was a part of a coalition of four males and he’s the only one remaining out of the four,” Lum says. “He is a lone male who has been pushed out of the pride by younger, stronger males which is a natural process in lions as the strongest males will control the pride.”

Getting a sharp photo of Morani is not difficult once you locate him, as his level of physical activity is quite low, especially at his advanced age.

“In general, adult male lions are lazy by nature and can sleep for 20 hours a day!” Lum says. “We spotted him in the morning, then went back at the very end of the day only to find him no more than 15 feet from where we left him.

“Even when he does get up and sit down, it is a rather slow process.”

---

Image credits: Photographs by Leighton Lum / Caters News

CALIFORNIA

Clean Tech Startup Mote Unveils Plans for $100M Carbon Capture Plant

By Howard Fine

Monday, January 3, 2022

Mote says it’s the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen.

There’s a new local entrant in the global decarbonization race: Culver City-based cleantech startup Mote Inc.

On Dec. 15, Mote unveiled plans for a $100 million gasification plant on 5 acres of land in unincorporated Kern County to extract carbon dioxide from wood waste.
 
To build the plant, Mote intends to team up with Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. and SunGas Renewables, a subsidiary of Des Plaines, Ill.-based GTI International Inc. that makes gasification systems.

Assuming the project team is able to secure financing and obtain the necessary government approvals and permits, construction could begin toward the end of 2022, and the plant could start operations sometime in 2024.

For Mote, this will be the first real-world application for its approach to decarbonization, one that goes beyond just capturing and storing carbon and tries to tap into multiple markets.
 
Some of the carbon dioxide would be stored underground, where it could generate credits that industrial companies could buy to meet carbon emission reduction mandates. The company is also looking to sell some of the carbon dioxide to concrete producers, who would inject it into their concrete.
 
Mote also intends to sell one of the byproducts of this carbon extraction process — hydrogen gas — to hydrogen fuel station operators.

Multiple markets

Many other carbon extraction companies have arisen over the past decade or so, with several — including Westwood-based CarbonBuilt Inc. — targeting markets to reuse and store the extracted carbon. But Mote is one of a few that aim to target several markets at once.

Mote co-founder and Chief Executive Patrick “Mac” Kennedy sees the hydrogen fuel market as the company’s most unique niche.
“As the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen, we are addressing the ever-growing demand for renewable hydrogen with a carbon-negative approach,” Kennedy said in the company’s announcement.

In an interview with the Business Journal, Kennedy, a serial entrepreneur, said he first launched a carbon extraction business under the Mote name in 2017, which targeted the heavy-duty truck market.

But after a series of discussions Kennedy had with his friend, Joshuah Stolaroff, an environmental scientist who ran the carbon capture program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Kennedy pivoted to the current multimarket approach for carbon extraction products in early 2020. Stolaroff year joined the fledgling venture earlier this as chief technology officer.

The pair looked around for a carbon-based source that could serve as the input for the carbon extraction and found a cheap, plentiful one in wood waste. There’s plenty of manmade wood waste, including a supply from building demolitions and agricultural operations. But by far, the most common wood waste source is dead trees in forests in California and elsewhere.
 
In California alone, nearly 150 million trees died between 2010 and 2019 because of drought, bark beetle infestations, wildfires and other causes, according to the University of California’s journal “California Agriculture.” These dead trees have become an increasingly urgent concern for both state officials and electric utility executives who are trying to reduce the risk of massive and devastating wildfires.

“We hope to create a market for unburned wood waste coming from forests,” Kennedy told the Business Journal.
 
Burned wood waste is unusable for carbon extraction purposes since the act of burning releases the carbon.

In Mote’s gasification process, the wood waste is heated to nearly 1,500 degrees, which releases the carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases. Then, a chemical solvent is used to separate out the carbon dioxide and hydrogen from each other. The carbon dioxide gas is then piped either to an underground storage facility or directly into trucks for transport to concrete producers. The hydrogen gas is piped into specialized trucks for transport to hydrogen fueling stations.

When operating at full capacity, the plant is expected to produce approximately 7,000 metric tons of hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually. That’s equivalent to removing more than 32,000 cars off the road.

Funding for fuel

Mote must still obtain a number of government approvals for the project and then will need to obtain construction financing. The company in the fall raised $1.1 million in seed funding for its own operations as it goes through these next steps.

Among the investors were San Francisco-based socially conscious investment firm Preston-Werner Ventures and London-based Counteract Partners Ltd., which invests in carbon removal technologies. Kennedy said the company is in discussions with these and other investors for follow-on funding.

The company also hopes to win funding from a $50 million hydrogen fuel generation fund set up last year by the state and administered through Pasadena’s Calstart, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting clean transportation technologies. And the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill that was enacted this past fall contains $8 billion in support for “clean hydrogen hubs” around the nation.

Kennedy also said Mote plans to seek out customers for the carbon and hydrogen products from the gasification plant among the industrial companies that tap into the state’s carbon credit market to meet state-mandated carbon-emission reduction targets. Among these industrial companies are concrete and cement producers.

He said the company is in talks with Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Carbon Cure Technologies Inc., a company similar to CarbonBuilt that is developing a technology to inject carbon dioxide into concrete, thereby locking in the carbon. If a deal could be worked out, Carbon Cure could become a regular customer for the carbon dioxide extract produced at the Kern County plant.

“CarbonCure applauds Mote as it enters the market with its innovative hydrogen production process. Curbing climate change requires creative, complementary solutions to scale up carbon removal rapidly,” Robert Niven, CarbonCure’s chief executive, said in the Dec. 15 announcement. “We look forward to an ongoing collaboration,” he added.

As for the hydrogen fuel, Kennedy said that the fact that it is produced in a process that removes carbon dioxide gives it a negative carbon score, which helps fuel station operators meet the state’s low carbon fuel standard.

“This is what separates our hydrogen fuel out from other producers,” Kennedy said.
Besides obtaining construction financing, Mote’s biggest challenge is likely to be coordinating supply chains on both ends of its planned business model.

“Their biggest challenge is supply chains: They are bringing two different businesses together into a single supply chain,” said Roger Aines, chief scientist of the energy program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
 
“On the input side, they will have to get large quantities of wood from dead trees in forests under contract and then transport that wood waste to their Kern County plant,” Aines said. “Then, once the wood has been gasified, they have to have contracts to transport those gases either to a storage site or to a (hydrogen) fuel station. That’s a tremendous amount of coordinating of supply chains.”

Aines said this all might be made easier as more government funding pours into this sector.

“The state is definitely interested in making all these things happen,” he said.

 

Every US-Based Cruise Ship With Passengers Has Reported COVID-19 Cases

Cruise ships at PortMiami, 2016 (Corey Seeman / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

PUBLISHED JAN 4, 2022 6:38 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

With just 11 days to go until the expiration of the CDC's COVID-19 rules for cruise ships, the agency says that the epidemic has reached every vessel in the actively-operating U.S. cruise fleet. 

97 out of the 110 cruise ships that the agency tracks have reported COVID-19 cases on board within the past week, including every ship listed in a passenger-carrying voyage status, according to the latest numbers on the agency's website on January 4.

The CDC does not rank infection events by size, and all recently-reported U.S.-based cruise outbreaks have affected about one percent or less of the total onboard complement. The overwhelming majority of passengers and crew are fully vaccinated before boarding, and most of those who test positive experience no symptoms or light symptoms, according to initial industry reports. 

The 13 ships that have not reported any COVID cases recently are all in "crew-only" voyage status, including Carnival Horizon; Carnival Paradise; Carnival Sensation; Ovation of the Seas; Vision of the Seas; Celebrity Eclipse; Celebrity Solstice; Noordam; Crown Princess; Norwegian Sun; Regatta; Seven Seas Navigator; and Silver Muse. 

Last week, the CDC advised the public to avoid cruise ships due to the emergence of the highly-contagious omicron variant, which has proven resistant to immunity in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. “The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high, even if you are fully vaccinated and have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose," CDC cautioned in an advisory note. 

A handful of cruise ships have altered their itineraries due to COVID-driven disruption on board, but the bulk of the U.S.-based industry continues to operate largely as before under the rules of the CDC's Conditional Sailing Order (CSO). That order has been extended until January 15, but it will expire shortly - along with CDC's onboard testing and reporting requirements - unless it is renewed. 

So far, evidence suggests that omicron is more infectious but less harmful than previous variants. It is spreading rapidly on shore, but it is not driving significantly higher rates of hospitalization (except among children). At the current rate of spread, it could peak in some states - including the leading U.S. cruise state of Florida - before the end of the month, according to epidemiologists.  

The shoreside pattern appears to be mirrored in cruise lines' experiences with omicron so far. At the end of last month, Royal Caribbean reported that it has had 41 COVID hospitalizations since it restarted operations in June, and none of them have been omicron cases, despite a recent rise in the number of positive test results. "Our case count has spiked, but the level of severity is significantly milder. We will remain nimble and in constant contact with health authorities," said the group's chief medical officer, Dr. Calvin Johnson. 

 

Icelandic Coast Guard Carries Out Lava-Field Rescue

Courtesy Icelandic Coast Guard

PUBLISHED JAN 3, 2022 7:31 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The Icelandic Coast Guard has search and rescue responsibilities for a challenging stretch of the North Atlantic, but it also gets called out periodically to help people in distress on a different surface - lava. Iceland is one of the few parts of the world where fresh lava flows are within reach of the general public, and visitors occasionally get into trouble by walking out onto the surface of recently-cooled rock. This is hazardous for several reasons: the rock may be crumbly or unstable, and even solid surfaces may turn out to be hot enough to cause burns. 

On Friday, a mountain search and rescue squad was called out to help a hiker in distress at Fagradasfjall on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where a recent volcanic eruption occurred about 10 miles from the country's main airport. The individual had walked out onto new lava but did not feel safe following the same path back. 

The mountain SAR squad brought advanced thermal cameras and other specialized equipment, and they attempted to find a safe path to reach the individual by foot. After walking a short distance out onto the surface, they determined that it was not safe to continue, and they called for an Icelandic Coast Guard helicopter aircrew to hoist the individual to safety.

The Fagradasfjall lava flow has been a particularly popular draw for visitors, as it is within easy reach of both the airport and the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik. The volcanic eruption began in March 2021 and ended in mid-September, and its light could be seen from the city at night. It was the largest eruption the island has seen in 50 years, and the scenic attraction drew more than 350,000 visitors, according to the Islandic Tourist Board.

Risk management has occasionally been a challenge at the site, with uncautious visitors frequently walking up to the edge of active lava flows. Though the eruption has ended, heavy seismic activity at the site continues, raising the risks for anyone venturing out onto the surface. Given the potential for a renewed eruption, the local chief of police has advised hikers to stay clear of the area. 

 

Photos: Greek ROV Company Finds Lost WWII Submarine Off Mykonos

The wreck of the Jantina (Kostas Thoctarides)

PUBLISHED JAN 2, 2022 8:52 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

A research team headed up by Greek explorer Kostas Thoctarides has discovered the wreck of an Italian WWII submarine off the coast of Mykonos. 

The submarine Jantina was a 1932-built Argonauta-class attack sub, a diesel-electric design of about 650 tonnes displacement. On July 5, 1941, she was under way on a surface transit from the Greek island of Leros when she was attacked by a British submarine, HMS Torbay.

The Torbay was operating submerged and spotted Jantina on the surface at a distance of about four nautical miles. Torbay fired a spread of six torpedoes at a range of about 1,500 yards, and several found their target, sinking Jantina and killing 42 out of 48 crewmembers. Six survivors managed to swim to shore on Delos, a small island to the west of Mikonos. 

Thoctarides and his crew discovered the location of the Jantina during an ROV sonar sweep, and they sent down a second ROV to get images of the sub and confirm its identity. The video survey showed that the sub sank with periscopes down and a deck hatch open. 

Marina Militare / Kostas Thoctarides

Kostas Thoctarides

Kostas Thoctarides

Thoctarides' company, Planet Blue ROV Services, normally uses its submersibles for subsea pipeline inspections. The firm has nine of the high-spec devices, and wreck-hunting is a long-time side project. Jantina is his fourth find, Thoctarides told CNN Greece, and he has published several books on the subject. His daughter, Oceanis, has joined him in his work. 

As for HMS Torbay, she went on to a successful wartime career, sinking 24 coasters, 17 merchant ships and five warships, including Jantina. She survived the war and was scrapped in 1945.

HMS Torbay (Royal Navy)

 

Accusing Carriers of Profiteering, BIFA Calls for UK Government Review

Freight association is calling for a review if the business practiices of ocean carriers (Felixstowe file photo)

PUBLISHED JAN 5, 2022 2:50 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The British International Freight Association has become the latest trade association to call for a government investigation into the business practices of the global shipping lines and the state of competition in the industry. Citing complaints of “dreadful service levels, and hugely inflated rates” the association accuses the ocean carriers of profiteering with little regard to the needs of their customers.

In a letter to Robert Courts MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, BIFA's Director General Robert Keen expresses the trade association’s concern that during a period of well-documented chaos within the container shipping sector, commercial power is becoming increasingly concentrated, resulting in diminished market choice and competition, and distorted market conditions.

“BIFA members fully accept that a free market economy is open to all, but are increasingly concerned that the activities of the container shipping lines, and the exemptions from legislation from which they benefit, are distorting the operations of that market to the shipping lines’ advantage, whilst adversely and unfairly affecting their customers, especially freight forwarders and SME businesses,” writes Keen. “Drewry recently issued a profit forecast of more than $150 billion for 2021 for the main container shipping lines. To put that into perspective, this is more than has been achieved in the previous 20 years combined, and many BIFA members consider it to be a case of blatant profiteering.”

BIFA points to the consolidation in the shipping industry as well as the growth of the three dominant alliances between the lines. “In 2015, there were 27 major container shipping lines carrying global containerized trade, with the largest having a 15.3 percent market share. Today, there are 15 shipping lines, organized into three major alliances carrying that trade, with some analysts observing that the market share of a single alliance on certain key routes could be over 40 percent.”

The association does not single out any carriers but instead focuses on the overall industry. The port of Felixstowe, which is Britain’s largest container port, like many of the world’s ports suffered from extended backlogs and congestion in 2021. During the summer, executives from Maersk confirmed in media interviews that the shipping giant had begun skipping the U.K. port diverting some of its larger containerships to the continent due to the backlogs. Maersk reported that it was using feeder vessels to deliver containers into the U.K. port to avoid congestion and maintain better schedule integrity on its primary liner routes.

In mid-December, the 2M Alliance, announced plans to rationalize its schedules to better manage challenges at the terminals in Felixstowe. They said that going forward they would be replacing a call at the U.K. port with increased time in Rotterdam while combining service from two routes into a single call at Felixstowe. Port officials at Felixstowe responded saying they welcome the change as a means to provide a faster, more efficient, and more reliable service for shippers citing that volumes at the port were up 10 percent year-over-year.

BIFA highlighted that it is joining a growing number of organizations, including its European counterparts CLECAT and FIATA, as well as the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, and the Australian Productivity Commission, in calling for governments and regulators to give careful consideration to the evolving business arrangements in the container shipping market to see whether they are in breach of competition law.

 

On Annual Inspection Tour, USCG Witnesses Climate Change in Alaska

Residents have placed concrete and steel debris to control shoreline erosion near a fuel oil storage site in Teller, Alaska. With an increasing threat of soil erosion, remote communities in Alaska face new challenges (USCG)

PUBLISHED JAN 4, 2022 8:44 PM BY U.S. COAST GUARD NEWS

 

[By Petty Officer 1st Class Nate Littlejohn]

2021 marked a milestone for the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Task Force initiative in Alaska. The seasonal MSTF initiative, first implemented in 2019, deploys Coast Guard teams to remote areas across the state to conduct vessel and facility inspections, provide operator training, improve maritime domain awareness, and conduct outreach for preparedness and safety programs. 

Through MSTF operations, the Coast Guard observed firsthand the impacts of climate change to the landscape of the Arctic and Western portions of Alaska. As permafrost thaws, the ground under many aging fuel facilities is becoming unstable. This could potentially leave people unable to heat their homes and schools, or fuel their traditional hunting and fishing transportation. Potential fuel oil spills caused by aging infrastructure in rapidly changing landscapes threaten local ecosystems that sustain communities. Additionally, an increase in maritime traffic in the Arctic increases the potential for search and rescue or pollution cases.

"I had a very special opportunity to be part of an MSTF team that deployed to the island community of Little Diomede in October,” said Capt. Leanne Lusk, commander, Sector Anchorage. “Little Diomede is the closest location in the U.S. to Russia. The island has 98 residents, half of whom are children. We learned that they only receive one fuel delivery each year. We were there to inspect their fuel tanks to ensure they could survive the coming winter without a fuel or heating oil spill, and to talk about pollution response efforts in the Bering Strait should a spill ever occur. The residents we met described this increasingly-transited region as their ‘grocery store’ and explained the tragic impacts a major pollution incident would have on their village and their people.”

Inhabitants of Little Diomede subsist on blue king crab, walrus, seal, and an occasional polar bear, all harvested in the winter months when the ice is safe enough to walk on around the island. However, for the last seven years, the multi-year ice they have counted on for fishing and hunting for generations has receded substantially.

“Crabbing on winter ice is not so good anymore,” said Opik Ahkinga, environmental coordinator and vice-mayor on Little Diomede. “We are no longer able to access the locations where crabs are abundant . . . We are concerned that hunting for our traditional Inupiaq foods will be lost. For three years now, we have not seen full meat racks of oogruk (seal) and walrus. We are also concerned about the increased shipping near our island and the potential for groundings and possible oil spills. We do have mitigation plans, but we need to train everyone here on how to respond should an incident occur.”

An oil spill in a remote part of Alaska could potentially devastate nearby marine life and maritime communities, and remote pollution incidents require significantly more resources to clean up. A 3,000-gallon heavy fuel oil spill on Shuyak Island in 2019, just northeast of Kodiak Island, cost $9 million to clean up, the highest cost-per-gallon spill in U.S. history. In the winter of 2020-2021 there were a total of five spills in remote Alaskan communities, including one during a barge-over-the-water transfer that cost a community more than $60,000 in lost fuel alone.

Long-range logistics

In 2021, aircrews from the Alaska Army National Guard flew Coast Guard members from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to hub communities, including King Salmon and Nome. From these hub communities, pilots from the Civil Air Patrol Alaska Wing flew MSTF members to remote communities, where runways only allow for smaller airplanes. In total, MSTF teams visited 95 remote communities, completed 128 fuel storage facility inspections, 470 commercial fishing vessel exams, five gold dredge exams, and monitored six fuel-to-shore transfers.

The direct result of the MSTF effort has been a 395 percent increase in physically inspected facilities and an almost 2,000 percent increase in vessel exams since the program's launch in 2019. 

“Coastal erosion, changes to the home range of key species, increased commercial traffic, and thawing permafrost all have significant impacts on coastal communities and Coast Guard operations across various mission sets,” said Cmdr. Jereme Altendorf, an Arctic emergency management specialist at Sector Anchorage. “Via the MSTF initiative, the Coast Guard has positioned itself to not only complete its statutory missions, but simultaneously share the story of the effects of climate change with those who may be able to act.”

This article appears courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard News and is reproduced here in an abbreviated form. The original may be found here. 

 CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

World's Largest Bunker Company Keeps CEO After Criminal Conviction

Bunker Holding headquarters (USTC)

PUBLISHED DEC 29, 2021 2:32 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

It is rare for a company with $10 billion in turnover to retain a CEO with a custodial sentence, but Danish trading house Bunker Holding - the largest bunker company in the world - has decided to keep a convicted chief executive and to accept its own sentencing on charges related to sanctions-busting.

Earlier this month, Bunker Holding, subsidiary Dan-Bunkering and Bunker Holding CEO Keld Demant were all convicted of charges related to supplying jet fuel to Russian intermediaries, who then resold the fuel for diversion to Syria. The deliveries were made during a period in which Russian and allied Syrian forces allegedly engaged in indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas of Aleppo, killing hundreds of non-combatants. The battle was a turning point in Syria's 10-year civil war, and its outcome hinged on Russian air support. At the time, EU sanctions prohibited fuel deliveries to Syria. 

Prosecutors argued that executives at Dan-Bunkering and Bunker Holding, including Demant, were aware or should have been aware of the risk of diversion - but still signed off on 33 sales totaling 172,000 tonnes of jet fuel over two years. In the trial, it emerged that the firm's internal compliance controls had worked properly - Bunker Holding's chief legal officer flagged the sales and warned repeatedly that they risked violating EU sanctions - but traders overrode the warnings and approved the deals anyways. 

The court agreed with the prosecution, finding that Dan-Bunkering should have "realized it was overwhelmingly probable" that the fuel would be used in the Syrian conflict and that such use would violate EU sanctions. It handed Bunker Holding CEO Keld Demant a four-month suspended prison sentence, and it sentenced Dan-Bunkering to a fine of nearly $5 million - plus an additional profit confiscation of $2 million. 

Bunker Holding noted that only Dan-Bunkering was convicted of a deliberate breach of sanctions, and Bunker Holding and Demant were convicted only of negligence contributing to a breach of sanctions. 

The penalty was unusually stringent for a white-collar crime case, according to observers. "It is not often that we see fines of that magnitude in Denmark," commented Prof. Thomas Elholm, a professor of criminal law at University of Copenhagen, speaking to DR. "And it is not every day that we see directors who are sentenced to imprisonment."

In a statement this week, Bunker Holding owner Torben Ostergaard-Nielsen - the head of Denmark's sixth-richest family - expressed his continued support for Demant and said that he would remain CEO. "Keld R. Demant has the full and unchanged supoport of the board of directors and the ownership and will continue as the CEO of Bunker Holding," Ostergaard-Nielsen said. 

Ostergaard-Nielsen added that as the world's largest bunker company, Bunker Holding has "an obligation to take the lead in compliance and set the highest standards for ourselves." 

Bunker Holding and Dan-Bunkering will accept the court's decision and will not appeal the ruling, said Klaus Nyborg, Bunker Holding's vice chairman.

Researchers identify biomarker for depression, antidepressant response

by University of Illinois at Chicago

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers are one step closer to developing a blood test that provides a simple biochemical hallmark for depression and reveals the efficacy of drug therapy in individual patients.

Published in a new proof of concept study, researchers led by Mark Rasenick, University of Illinois Chicago distinguished professor of physiology and biophysics and psychiatry, have identified a biomarker in human platelets that tracks the extent of depression.

The research builds off of previous studies by several investigators that have shown in humans and animal models that depression is consistent with decreased adenylyl cyclase—a small molecule inside the cell that is made in response to neurotransmitters such as serotonin and epinephrine.

"When you are depressed, adenylyl cyclase is low. The reason adenylyl cyclase is attenuated is that the intermediary protein that allows the neurotransmitter to make the adenylyl cyclase, Gs alpha, is stuck in a cholesterol-rich matrix of the membrane—a lipid raft—where they don't work very well," Rasenick said.

The new study, "A Novel Peripheral Biomarker for Depression and Antidepressant Response," published in Molecular Psychiatry, has identified the cellular biomarker for translocation of Gs alpha from lipid rafts. The biomarker can be identified through a blood test.

"What we have developed is a test that can not only indicate the presence of depression but it can also indicate therapeutic response with a single biomarker, and that is something that has not existed to date," said Rasenick, who is also a research career scientist at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. 

The researchers hypothesize they will be able to use this blood test to determine if antidepressant therapies are working, perhaps as soon as one week after beginning treatment. Previous research has shown that when patients showed improvement in their depression symptoms, the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft. However, in patients who took antidepressants but showed no improvement in their symptoms, the Gs alpha was still stuck in the raft—meaning simply having antidepressants in the bloodstream was not good enough to improve symptoms.

A blood test may be able to show whether or not the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft after one week. 

"Because platelets turn over in one week, you would see a change in people who were going to get better. You'd be able to see the biomarker that should presage successful treatment," Rasenick said.

Currently, patients and their physicians have to wait several weeks, sometimes months, to determine if antidepressants are working, and when it is determined they aren't working, different therapies are tried. 

"About 30% of people don't get better—their depression doesn't resolve. Perhaps, failure begets failure and both doctors and patients make the assumption that nothing is going to work," Rasenick said. "Most depression is diagnosed in primary care doctor's offices where they don't have sophisticated screening. With this test, a doctor could say, 'Gee, they look like they are depressed, but their blood doesn't tell us they are. So, maybe we need to re-examine this.'"Why is it so hard to withdraw from some antidepressants?

More information: Steven D. Targum et al, A novel peripheral biomarker for depression and antidepressant response, Molecular Psychiatry (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-021-01399-1

Journal information: Molecular Psychiatry 

Provided by University of Illinois at Chicago