What’s New: In Brief (December 22, 2008)

Stephen Greene, former executive director of the Insurance Brokers Association of Nova Scotia (IBANS), is one of 18 new senators appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Harper announced his new appointments to the Senate on Dec. 22.
Greene served as the executive director of IBANS for eight years. He went on to serve as Preston Manning’s chief of staff in the Leader’s Office of the Reform Party of Canada from 1993 and 1996.
For the past two years, he has served as principal secretary and deputy chief of staff to Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald, the Leader of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party.

The London P&I Club has reported that one of its members recently suffered an onboard fire as a result of an intentional misdescription by shippers of a chemical cargo.
The cargo involved was calcium hypochlorite, a chemical commonly used in the treatment and purification of water.
Calcium hypochlorite has some inherent properties that can lead to fire or an explosion if it becomes too hot or contaminated with impurities. For this reason, many carriers refuse to accept any calcium hypochlorite cargoes.
In the latest issue of its StopLoss Bulletin, the London Club says: “a club member recently experienced a fire on board one of its ships which originated in a calcium hypochlorite cargo which, in order to circumvent the carrier’s prohibition of carriage, had been deliberately misdescribed by the shipper as ‘calcium chloride.’”
The Club notes voluntary auditing schemes do exist that promote safe practice in the carriage of chemicals.