U.N. officials began putting into place their long-term solution to prevent the F.S.O. Safer, a rotting supertanker off Yemen's Red Sea coast, from spilling more than 1 million barrels of oil and causing a major environmental catastrophe.
They've agreed to buy a replacement "Very Large Crude Carrier" for US$55 million as part of an elaborate plan to offload the oil from the rapidly decaying supertanker starting in early May. The U.N. Development Program said it signed a purchase agreement Thursday with Belgium's tanker shipping company Euronav.
