Long Beach Harbor

Asian imports continued to flow through the Port of Long Beach, the largest U.S. container port, at a record pace in June. Asian imports were up 13.4% last month over June 1997. For the year, Asian imports through Long Beach are up about 16% over last year, as depressed Asian currencies make goods produced there more attractive to U.S. consumers. At the same time, U.S. exports to Asia continued to slide during June, as those same weak currencies increased the cost of American-made goods in Asia.

Cargo imports to Long Beach and Los Angeles, the nation's busiest ports, rose in October, and exports from both were down 11% from last year, the latest signal that a strong U.S. dollar continues to suppress overseas demand for American goods. Imports to the busier Port of Long Beach rose 6% in October from a year ago and surged 20% in Los Angeles, harbor officials reported Thursday.

Acting under cover of darkness, environmental activists protesting the logging of old-growth rain forests boarded a 570-foot freighter as it sailed into Long Beach Harbor on Tuesday and prevented the ship from unloading its cargo of Canadian newsprint by chaining themselves to a crane.

In an attempt to secure at least $75,000 in back wages for the crew of the battered Fotini, a federal magistrate Friday issued a warrant allowing federal marshals to seize the Greek-owned cargo ship, which the Coast Guard has detained as unsafe in Long Beach Harbor. Philip Monrad, an attorney for the International Transport Workers' Federation, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in an attempt to secure the "arrest" of the ship until the crew's labor dispute with the owner can be resolved.

A record number of imports are expected to stream through the Port of Long Beach--the nation's busiest--this month as retailers, who earlier this year fretted about a potential container shortage, bulk up their holiday season inventories, port officials said. But exports from Long Beach and neighboring Los Angeles harbor are expected to fall as the dollar's recent strength and ongoing financial turmoil in Asia continue to stifle demand for U.S. goods to the region.

In an indication that fallout from Asia's economic turmoil continues to jostle the U.S. and local economies, the nation's busiest ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles reported Thursday that overall export volume in August was down at least 4% over a year ago. At the Port of Long Beach, which handles more cargo than any other U.S. harbor, the drop was even more pronounced at 11.5%. And August also marked the port's fifth straight month of decline in export volume.

Although Congress has killed a deal to lease the abandoned Long Beach Naval Station to a Chinese shipping company, the Port of Long Beach vowed Friday to find new tenants for the controversial base and to make other accommodations to keep the China Ocean Shipping Co. from leaving the harbor. John W.

Long Beach is about to lose the chance to lease a terminal through its port to a major shipper, China Ocean Shipping Co., or Cosco, because a congressman from San Diego created a piece of legislation that prevents Long Beach from doing so. That's a loss to Long Beach because the community could have benefited to the tune of $20 million a year. Cosco would have leased a whole terminal on the site of the former U.S.

Driven by fears of a rising Chinese military threat, congressional conferees have agreed to kill an industrial development project aimed at bringing hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars in revenues to the Port of Long Beach, port officials say. Lawmakers have agreed to include language in the annual defense authorization bill that would bar Cosco, the China Ocean Shipping Co.

Determined not to turn back and shunned by unionized dockworkers all along the West Coast of North America, a cargo ship loaded by nonunion workers in Australia is now entering its third week marooned in the waters off Long Beach. As a show of solidarity with unionized longshoremen Down Under, Port of Los Angeles dockworkers refused May 9 to unload any cargo from the Columbus Canada, a vessel laden with frozen beef and lamb that was put aboard by nonunion laborers.