Free Republic

A large liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Grace Emilia ran aground in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Wednesday. Local media reports the shipping traffic is unaffected as the incident took place in a southern section of the canal where a second channel allows for ships to bypass the blockage. AIS data from Vesselfinder (below) showed four tugboats working to move the 293-m-long vessel. Equasis lists the 2021-built 174,000 cu m ship, which entered the canal early Wednesday morning, as owned by Japan’s NYK. The latest incident comes just three weeks after the bulker Glory bound for China carrying 66,000 mt of...

Al Arabiya English Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Israel for the third time. He has until December 21 to form a government before taking office. In a wide-ranging interview with a group of print and television journalists at Al Arabiya, Mr. Netanyahu discussed Israel’s relations with Arab states, the US alliance structure in the Middle East, unrest in Iran, Israel’s new hard-right government, the future of the US-brokered maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated the paramount importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would be a “quantum leap” toward...

Gibraltar finally joined the official list of British cities on Monday (Aug 29), after 180 years in which its status, granted by Queen Victoria, had been overlooked due to an administrative error. The British overseas territory bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, but research in the National Archives established it had in fact been granted city status in 1842. "It is excellent to see official recognition given to the City of Gibraltar, a huge accolade to its rich history and dynamism," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in...

It's a major construction project, aimed at doubling the width of the Suez Canal and deepening its main waterway. 500 million cubic meters of sand and soil have already been transported from all over the world. Using unprecedented 3D images, we reveal how the canal will be widened. We also look back to the original construction, back in 1859, to show how it first came to be built.How Engineers Widened The Suez Canal For Bigger Ships [4K]Extreme Constructions | Spark | Premiered May 15, 2022

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands—The Ever Given, the 1,300-foot container ship that became an internet meme after getting stuck in the Suez Canal, is now facing a new type of celebrity: tourist destination.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy said Wednesday it will begin a new task force with allied countries to patrol the Red Sea after a series of attacks attributed to Yemen's Houthi rebels in a waterway that's essential to global trade. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who oversees the Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet, declined four times to directly name the Iran-backed Houthis in his remarks to journalists announcing the task force. However, the Houthis have launched explosive-laden drone boats and mines into the waters of the Red Sea, which runs from Egypt's Suez Canal in the north, down...

If Putin had followed the advice offered in the Belmont Club just before the Ukraine War, Russia might still be a first-rank power. On Feb 21, 2022, I argued that he had no chance of conquering Ukraine and would be crazy to try. “Fears over Vladimir Putin’s threatened invasion of Ukraine continue to grow despite the fact that the effort would burst both Russia’s military and economy, not to mention ruining its foreign relations. Swallowing a poison pawn makes so little sense that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Russia’s Putin may be ‘irrational,’ unable to act in his own...

WASHINGTON - A U.S. official said Russia asked China for military equipment to use in its invasion of Ukraine, a request that heightened tensions about the ongoing war ahead of a Monday meeting in Rome between top aides for the U.S. and Chinese governments. In advance of the talks, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan bluntly warned China to avoid helping Russia evade punishment from global sanctions that have hammered the Russian economy. "We will not allow that to go forward," he said. The prospect of China offering Russia financial help is one of several concerns for President Joe...

The Megaship which blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March set sail Wednesday following a compensation deal between Egypt and the vessel's Japanese owner. The ship, MV Ever Given, started to move north from the central canal city of Ismailia towards the Mediterranean Wednesday morning after having been impounded for more than 100 days. The nearly 200,000-tonne container vessel was wedged in the canal during a sandstorm on March 23, blocking a passage from Asia to Europe that carries 10% of global maritime trade and pumps vital revenues into Egyptian state coffers. Egypt seized the ship after an...

We previewed last week to readers that port congestion wasn’t just observed across US West Coast ports, such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, but also severe congestion was developing in southern China. At the time, we called it a “perfect storm” ahead of the peak shipping season. Now the world’s largest container line, Maersk, calls the port congestion at Yantian International Container Terminal, a deepwater port in Shenzhen, Guangdong, in southern China, a much more significant disruption to its operations than the shutdown of the Suez Canal in March. Ditlev Blicher, Maersk Asia Pacific Managing Director, was quoted by Seatrade Maritime,...

Supply chain issues and the popularity of garden centres during lockdown are causing a shortage of garden gnomes. The ornaments are in short supply with raw materials hard to come by and the recent blockage of the Suez Canal contributing to the national shortage. Ian Byrne, assistant manager of Highfield Garden World in Whitminster, said there had been a "massive upswing" in the sales of garden gnomes. "There aren't any [gnomes]. There's definitely a shortage. It's a combined thing with garden centres being so busy, I looked at some figures based on March which said garden centres were 97% busier...

A mammoth cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal last month is being held in the waterway as authorities pursue a $916 million compensation claim against its owner, according to the vessel’s insurer. The UK Club, an insurer for the Ever Given, said in a statement Tuesday that the ship's Japanese owners received a claim from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), which runs the canal, on April 7. The claim includes $300 million for "loss of reputation." The company said a "generous offer" was made to the SCA to settle their claim on Monday, without elaborating on the sum.

An IDF Navy submarine crossed the Suez Canal last week as a direct message to Iran, Kan News reported Monday evening. Arab intelligence officials reportedly confirmed to Kan News that the Israeli submarine crossed the canal toward Iran visibly above water, in an act meant as a message to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The move was made during a more than usually tense time between Jerusalem and Tehran. It was made possible after receiving an approval from Egyptian authorities. According to Arab intelligence that confirmed the reports, the submarine passed the Red Sea and was making its way toward...

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is set to lose over $10m in revenue from container lines routing vessels via the Cape of Good Hope rather than its waterway. According to new Alphaliner research, “the number of containerships that have opted to use the Cape route and bypass the Suez Canal has risen to a historic peace-time high,” including at least 20 sailings on the Asia-Europe, Europe-Asia and North America east coast-Asia trades. “A unique combination of a container tonnage surplus and rock-bottom bunker prices has increasingly prompted ocean carriers to avoid the canal – and thus its fees,” the analyst...

Environmentalist argues that conveying brine to the Dead Sea could cause irreparable damage to the basin. The cross-border water swapping and sharing partnership, Interior Minister Silvan Shalom and Jordanian Water and Irrigation Minister Hazim El Naser announced the issuance on Monday of initial tendering documents for the forthcoming "Red-Dead" project. The ministers met on Monday on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, where they jointly launched a prequalification tender for the plans - printed in various local and international media on Tuesday. The tender, they explained, will enable the advancement of the $800 million project that will supply water...

The ISIS-linked “Sinai Province” terrorist group sank an Egyptian navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea near Gaza and Sinai. They claim to have fired a rocket at the ship, setting it on fire and sinking. Some news reports confirm this, but the Egyptian military says that there was only an exchange of gunfire that caused the ship to catch on fire. The attack comes just two weeks after Egypt said it was in a ‘state of war’ in northern Sinai, following July 1 when the same group conducted simultaneous coordinated terror attacks at 15 different locations in Sinai. According to...

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) transits through the Suez Canal in this time-lapse video filmed April 6, 2015.

The B-1B Lancer bomber flew Saturday over the Strait of Hormuz... the Red Sea, its narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Egypt’s Suez Canal. Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also took part. The B-1B came from the 37th Bomb Squadron based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

ISMAILIA, Egypt, July 7 (Reuters) - The Ever Given, one of the world's largest container ships, resumed its journey to leave the Suez Canal on Wednesday, 106 days after becoming wedged across a southern section of the waterway for nearly a week and disrupting global trade. The Ever Given started to head north in the late morningacross the Great Bitter Lake, which separates two sections of the canal and where it had been moored with its Indian crew since being refloated on March 29. It then joined the back of a northbound convoy, passing the site of a ceremony where...

The canal director and a judicial official said Tuesday that Egyptian authorities had impounded a giant container ship that had blocked the Suez Canal last month due to a financial dispute with its owner. According to Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, the hulking Ever Given would not be able to leave the country until a settlement is reached with the vessel's Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. “The vessel has now been legally impounded,” he said late Monday on Egypt's state-run television. “They refuse to pay anything.” The vessel's owner made no immediate comment.