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March 25th, 2021 
Awake Goy An image of the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal, taken from another container ship
(EPA)
The Ever Given container ship is still aground in the Suez Canal and has not been partially re-floated, authorities said after providing inaccurate information about the rescue operation earlier.
Ships were forced to queue at both ends of the waterway after the 200,000-tonne container vessel became stuck on Tuesday.
Normally, about 50 ships transit between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in both directions every day.
Strong winds were to blame for the Ever Given’s grounding and left it stuck sideways in the vital passage, according to its owners.
Ever Given, which carries Panama’s flag and whose operator Evergreen is based in Taiwan, was travelling from China to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and had been due to arrive on 1 April.
Read more:
Ship has not been re-floated, authorities admit
The Ever Given is still aground in the Suez Canal and authorities are working to refloat it, an official at marine agent GAC said on Wednesday.
Ahmed Mekawy, an assistant manager at GAC’s Egypt office, said the Dubai-based agent had earlier received inaccurate information that the mammoth container ship had been partially refloated.
Jon Sharman24 March 2021 14:10
‘One of the most richly rewarding day-trip destinations in the Mediterranean’
Our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, visited Port Said – the city at the northern mouth of the Suez Canal – in 2012 and found it to be “like Liverpool with sunshine.”
“While some of the grandeur has crumbled with Egypt’s fortunes, the main arteries are infused with commerce and humanity,” he wrote at the time.
Joe Sommerlad24 March 2021 13:55
What impact will the blockage have on global trade?
Our business correspondent Ben Chapman has this analysis of the knock-on effects of the disaster for the global supply chain.
Joe Sommerlad24 March 2021 13:40
QAnon conspiracy theorists weigh in on stranded ship
Wow, these guys never miss a beat do they?
They’re suggesting the grounded Ever Given was being used by Hillary Clinton to traffick children because… oh I give up.
Joe Sommerlad24 March 2021 13:25
Who had control of the Ever Given?
While Twitter is currently awash with jokes like this about the captain being at fault for the grounding…
…it appears that they do not bear sole responsibility when their vessel enters the canal.
Ranjith Raja, a lead analyst at the data firm Refinitiv, told the AP that a pilot from Egypt’s canal authority typically boards a ship when it enters the waterway to guide it along its 120-mile length, although the ship’s captain retains ultimate authority over the vessel.
Here’s the latest shot of the Ever Given at the scene.
The container ship that was hit by strong wind and ran aground in the Suez Canal, Egypt
(Reuters)
Joe Sommerlad24 March 2021 13:10
Tugboats strain to nudge Ever Given aside as first blocked ship moves on
“The Suez Canal will not spare any efforts to ensure the restoration of navigation and to serve the movement of global trade,” lieutenant-general Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, says of the effort to restore order and free the ship.
Here’s my report on the latest from Egypt.
Joe Sommerlad24 March 2021 12:55
Suez Canal: A brief history of the Egyptian trade route and the Ever Given stranded in its waters
The grounding of the Golden-class container ship the Ever Given in the Suez Canal, causing the vessel to drift sideways and block both north and south-bound freight traffic, has brought sudden international attention to the celebrated waterway connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, writes Joe Sommerlad.
The 120-mile man-made passage was originally constructed by the Suez Canal Company between 1859 and 1869 but the idea’s origins go back as far as Ancient Egypt, the goal the same then as it was for the Victorians: to open up global trade between the east and west.
Pharaoh Senusret III is thought to have built a precursor connecting the Red Sea with the Nile River as long ago as 1850 BC, while the later Pharaoh Necho II (610-595 BC) held similar ambitions that went unrealised until the Persian conqueror Darius (522-486 BC) completed it and proclaimed: “When the canal had been dug as I ordered, ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia, even as I intended.”
Jon Sharman24 March 2021 12:38
Ships begin moving again after Ever Given partially refloated
Reuters reports that the first ship from a convoy that had been blocked by the Ever Given is on the move, indicating a resumption of traffic in the waterway.
The news agency cited a shipping source and witness.
Jon Sharman24 March 2021 12:15
Suez Canal is ‘enormously important fulcrum of Egyptian and global politics’
The Suez Canal has huge political importance in addition to its key role in the local and global economies, an expert tells The Independent.
It “has historically been an enormously important fulcrum of Egyptian and global politics” under its various controllers, said Dr Laleh Khalili, an international politics professor at Queen Mary, University of London.
She said: “From its inception as a colonial project facilitating and accelerating British and French imperial control in Asia and Africa, to its nationalisation in 1956 which led to the tripartite attack on Egypt by Britain, France and Israel, the canal has been not only important economically but also politically.
“The opening of the Suez Canal shortened the route between Asia and Europe by a matter of several weeks.”
The canal has even spurred technological change, Dr Khalili said, such as the shift from sail to steam, “as a sailing ship cannot be so easily guided down the canal when transversal winds are blowing”.
She added: “In the two periods where the canal was closed due to war – eight months after the 1956 war, and eight years after the 1967 war – ship sizes increased enormously to take advantage of economies of scale while rounding the Cape of Good Hope on the Asia-Europe route.”
Its historical significance aside, today’s politicians have also capitalised on the canal.
Dr Khalili said: “After General Sisi came to power in a violent coup in 2013, he really needed a national project that was going to be symbolically and economically important.
“The canal’s expansion – the creation of a parallel canal, or a two-ways system, in the middle third of the canal – in 2015 and 2016 provided such an occasion.
“The added bonus was that reported Saudi investments in the expansion project more closely bound the counter-revolutionary regimes in the two countries.”
Today, Dr Khalili said, some 50 ships cross the canal in both directions every day. Because crossing fees are high, they are often run by some of the biggest freight firms in the world.
Jon Sharman24 March 2021 12:01
Ever Given ‘partially re-floated’, say authorities
The Ever Given has been partially refloated and traffic along the Suez Canal is expected to resume soon, port agent GAC said on Wednesday, citing the Suez Canal Authority.
The vast ship was now alongside the canal bank, GAC said on its website.
Earlier, it appeared to be stuck diagonally across the width of the canal, blocking other shipping.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Jon Sharman24 March 2021 11:37
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