High-seas piracy has not changed much in the last 3,000 years and you can bet a keg of rum, a colorful parrot and some buried treasure that pirates will continue to be successful in the 21st Century and beyond, says a Texas A&M University at Galveston professor who has taught a course about pirates covering all time periods and locations in the world.

Congress has moved one step closer to closing a decades-old loophole that has given online retailers an artificial competitive advantage over their brick and mortar competitors with hearings on the Marketplace Equity Act (HR 3179).

Blake Johnson, consulting professor with Stanford University, details the value that companies can derive from supply-chain risk and flexibility management, and how sales and operations planning can help.

Vitaly Glozman, partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, outlines the current state and future of supply-chain operations in the biopharmaceuticals industry, with an eye toward achieving both short- and long-term goals.

In an effort to prevent higher freight rates and more expensive cruise prices, Alaska has sued to block rules intended to limit pollution from large ships.

The number of pirate attacks fell sharply in the first half of 2012, led by a drop in Somali piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau's global piracy report. At the same time, those positive numbers were offset by a worrying increase of attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.

Mike Cleland, vice president of NorthHighland, discusses what biotech and pharma companies need to do to comply with new regulations for tracking products throughout the supply chain.

The risk of counterfeit parts and products is no stranger to the semiconductor and electronics industry. Recent news spanning industries has underscored the reach of the problem of substandard, non-conforming and counterfeit parts in the wider, global supply chain.

All companies great and small will eventually work with a SaaS provider. In most cases, the standard contract should suffice, but CIOs will never know what they can add (or subtract) if they don't ask.

In a letter sent today, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) urged the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance Ltd. to reach a contract agreement well in advance of the September 30 deadline in order to prevent a disruption to the flow of goods and the lasting economic affects that would result.