Suez Canal halts all traffic as bid to refloat grounded ship hits trouble

The blockage has already hit world oil markets. Crude futures surged six percent on Wednesday as traders assessed the likely impact on deliveries.

CAIRO--The owners of a giant container vessel blocking the Suez Canal said Thursday they were facing “extreme difficulty” refloating it, prompting Egypt to suspend navigation through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it was trying to refloat the Panama-flagged MV Ever Given, a 400-metre (1,300-foot) vessel which veered off course and ran aground in a sandstorm on Tuesday.

Satellite pictures released by Planet Labs Inc show the 59-metre wide container ship wedged diagonally across the entire canal.

Japanese ship-leasing firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha said it owned the giant vessel and was facing “extreme difficulty” trying to refloat it.

“In co-operation with local authorities and Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, a vessel management company, we are trying to refloat (the ship), but we are facing extreme difficulty,” Shoei Kisen Kaisha said in a statement on its website.

In a sign of the global turmoil the blockage has caused, the ship’s Japanese owner even offered a written apology Thursday for the incident as well.

“We are determined to keep on working hard to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. said. “We would like to apologize to all parties affected by this incident, including the ships travelling and planning to travel through Suez Canal.”

As shipping specialists warned it could take days or even weeks to budge the vessel, the Suez Canal Authority announced it was “temporarily suspending navigation”.

So far, dredgers have tried to clear silt around the massive ship. Tug boats nudged the vessel alongside it, trying to gain momentum. From the shore, at least one backhoe dug into the canal’s sandy banks, suggesting the bow of the ship had plowed into it. However, satellite photos taken Thursday showed the vessel still stuck in the same location, wedged diagonally across the canal.

“We’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Ranjith Raja, Middle East oil and shipping researcher at international financial data firm Refinitiv.

“It is likely that the congestion… will take several days or weeks to sort out as it will have a knock-on effect on other convoys.”

‘Days, maybe weeks’

The blockage has already hit world oil markets. Crude futures surged six percent on Wednesday as traders assessed the likely impact on deliveries.

Broker Braemar warned that if tug boats are unable to move the giant vessel, some of its cargo might have to be removed by crane barge to refloat it.

“This can take days, maybe weeks,” it said.

The vessel’s managers, Singapore-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), said its 25 crew were unhurt and the hull and cargo undamaged.

A MarineTraffic map showed large clusters of vessels circling as they waited in both the Mediterranean to the north and the Red Sea to the south.

Historic northern sections of the canal were reopened in a bid to ease the bottleneck, with dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the waterway. However the stretch of the canal blocked by the container ship has no alternative channel.

The waterway drastically shortens travel between Asia and Europe because it prevents vessels from having to navigate around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

The Singapore-to-Rotterdam route, for example, is 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) and up to two weeks shorter than going around Africa.

It is an “absolutely critical” route because “all traffic arriving from Asia goes through the Suez Canal,” said Camille Egloff, a maritime transport specialist at Boston Consulting Group.

Nearly 19,000 ships passed through the canal last year carrying more than one billion tonnes of cargo, according to the SCA.

Egypt earned $5.61 billion in revenues from the canal in 2020.

The Ever Given, built in 2018 with a length of nearly 400 meters (a quarter mile) and a width of 59 meters (193 feet), is among the largest cargo ships in the world. It can carry some 20,000 containers at a time. It previously had stopped at ports in China before heading toward Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo. It also remains one of Egypt’s top foreign currency earners. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi completed a major expansion of the canal, allowing it to accommodate the world’s largest vessels. However, the Ever Given ran aground south of that new portion of the canal.

The stranding Tuesday marks just the latest to affect mariners amid the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have been stuck aboard vessels due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, demands on shipping have increased, adding to the pressure on tired sailors.

Source: The Arab Weekly

Priti Patel pledges new routes to asylum, as critics warn migrant boat crossings won’t stop

Priti Patel today promised new routes for women and children in “appalling camps” overseas to be brought to Britain as critics warned that her plans to overhaul the asylum system will fail to stop migrants risking their lives crossing the Channel.

The Home Secretary said she wanted to stop families stuck in “desperate parts of the world” who are unwilling to put themselves in danger from being “elbowed aside” by young men who will pay people traffickers to smuggle them into the UK via lorries or small boats.

She also insisted that other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, had a “moral duty” to give sanctuary to migrants rather than allowing them to pass through to attempt illegal entry to Britain.

Ms Patel’s comments on Wednesday came as charities and opposition politicians lashed out over her plan to introduce a “two tier” asylum system as part of an overhaul being unveiled in Parliament today. Under the proposals, migrants brought in from overseas via official schemes will be given an immediate permanent right to remain in Britain.

But those who enter unlawfully will be stripped of the right to benefits and be held in reception centres while their claims are assessed. Even if their application succeeds, they will only be given a temporary right to stay and face regular reassessments to determine if it has become possible to remove them.

The aim is to deter migrants from travelling to the Channel to attempt illegal crossings organised by people traffickers and follows a surge in small boat crossings last year.

Evening Standard

Border crisis: Biden now tells migrants 'Don't come' but had a different message in a 2019 debate

During a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, President Biden said that the United States is a country that tells people struggling under oppression or poor conditions, "You should come," as he argued for a more open asylum policy.

But now, as his administration deals with a crush of migrants on the southwestern border ‒ many being kept in poor conditions similar to those Democrats considered a scandal under the Trump administration ‒ Biden is telling migrants to remain in place.

"They deserve to be heard. That's who we are," Biden said of those applying for asylum in a 2019 debate moderated by Univision's Jorge Ramos. "We're a nation that says, 'You want to flee, and you're fleeing oppression, you should come.'"

Migrants in a Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas,

This year, as Republicans blame Biden's campaign rhetoric and policies for the situation at the border, the president has shifted and is telling migrants that they should stay in their home countries as he aims to let them apply for asylum where they are.

"I can say quite clearly don't come over," Biden told ABC's George Stephanopolous in an interview last week. "So don't leave your town or city or community. We're gonna make sure we have facilities in those cities and towns run by department of — by DHS and also access with HHS, the Health and Human Services, to say you can apply for asylum from where you are right now."

Biden and his administration have noted that there were significant migrant surges under the Trump administration as well. A White House spokesperson also said that "push forces," including "violence, economic hardships, corruption plus two hurricanes and a global pandemic," are driving people in Central America to the U.S.

"Yeah. Well, here's the deal. They're not," Biden said when Stephanopolous told him that migrants are saying they are coming to the U.S. because he was elected president.

But the first three months of 2021 have seen more border encounters by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) than in corresponding months of any of the past three years. There were over 100,000 border encounters in February.

Meanwhile, many migrants are saying that they decided to come to the U.S. because Biden was elected president.

Exclusive Fox News photos from a migrant camp show a Biden campaign flag flying over the camp. In another photo, a man is wearing a shirt that says "Biden let us in," which is similar to shirts other migrants were spotted wearing.

One migrant interviewed by ABC News said that he "definitely" would not have come to the United States if former President Trump was still in office.

"We have a chance, you know. The same environment that's going on today wasn't there last year," he said. After being asked if he came to the U.S. because Biden was elected, the migrant said, "Basically," while also emphasizing the violence in his country.

A different migrant interviewed by Fox News said that migrants are tuning out Biden's newer pleas to stay away partially because of the dangerous conditions in Central America.

"They're not," he said when asked if migrants are listening to Biden's message not to come to the United States.

"Look, if you guys lived in our country, you guys would know that it's really tough," the migrant said, citing violence and killing in his hometown.

"It's not gonna stop, ever," he added on the migrant surge. "I'll tell you that, it's not gonna stop."

This came after a top Biden adviser earlier this month seemed to admit that the president's campaign rhetoric may have played a role in the current border surge.

"We've seen surges before. Surges tend to respond to hope, and there was significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand," Southern Border Coordinator Roberta Jacobson said earlier this month. "There was a hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand, so I don't know if I would call that a coincidence."

The situation at the border is becoming one of the biggest tests of the new president's ability to handle a crisis.

The administration has come under harsh scrutiny for not allowing reporters into facilities on the border that are housing migrants. But some recent photos released by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, show migrants being kept in cramped facilities akin to cages, similar to images that caused outrage among Democrats under Trump.

Democrats and the Biden administration have blamed the Trump team for leaving them in a poor situation.

"What we are seeing is the result of President Trump's dismantlement of the safe and orderly immigration processes that were built over many, many years by presidents of both parties," Homeland Security Secretay Alejandro Mayorkas said on "Fox News Sunday." "That's what we are seeing, and that's why it's taking time for us to execute our plans to administer the humanitarian claims of vulnerable children. That's what this is about."

But Republicans maintain that the current surge is Biden's doing.

"He removes remaining in Mexico policy. He removes the PACR policy. He stops the building of the wall. He questions whether to keep Title 42," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said last week. "That's why you put your whole family together to make this trek. Because you just listened to what President Biden said. No law has changed by moving of Congress. This entire crisis is created simply by Joe Biden's actions and words."

Fox News' Griff Jenkins, Ronn Blitzer and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.