Suez Canal Ship
Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the owner of Ever Given, the large ship that blocked the Suez Canal since Tuesday last week, said on Monday the ship had turned but was not yet afloat.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the trade route is expected to reopen soon following the news that the ship had partially been refloated by engineers.
The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) in a statement on its website said that the ship’s course had been corrected by approximately 80% and the process would continue throughout the day, aided by higher tides.
The large ship has been stuck in the Suez Canal for nearly a week, disrupting an estimated $9.6 billion a day.
The Suez Canal Authority on Saturday said the grounding of the MV Ever Given container ship may have been a result of a human mistake or a tech glitch.
“Strong winds and weather factors were not the main reasons for the ship’s grounding, there may have been technical or human errors,” SCA head Osama Rabie said.
According to the authorities, more than 300 vessels are waiting for the canal to reopen.
US-China Tensions
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai on Sunday said Biden’s administration was not prepared to lift its sanctions on Chinese imports in the near future, fueling more tensions between the two countries.
Tai also noted the possibility of the country’s negotiating trade with Beijing. She told The Wall Street Journal the sanctions could take a toll on the country’s economy but stressed that removing them too quickly could have the same effect.
This comes after the Chinese government on Saturday announced plans to implement counter-sanctions against the United States and Canada in response to the recent joint action taken by the Western countries against Beijing for its human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
China said that it will sanction the chairman and vice-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, one member of the Canadian parliament and the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the House of Commons of Canada according to news outlets.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned China’s “baseless” sanctions against US officials.
Vaccine Updates
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday proposed the use crude oil as payment for coronavirus vaccines.
According to Reuters, Maduro said Venezuela was working to pay for vaccines from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX mechanism – which provides vaccine access to poor countries – both through Venezuelan funds frozen in overseas accounts due to sanctions, and through oil shipments.
He added that country is “ready and prepared” to trade oil for vaccines and that it has the oil vessels and the customers to make that move.
The South American nation’s oil exports have dropped since its shipments to the United States were halted in 2019 when Washington imposed sanctions on a Venezuelan state-owned oil company to pressure Maduro to resign.
Meanwhile, in other news, Japan is expected to introduce digital certificates for citizens who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.
Japan joins China, the European Union and other countries that have embraced vaccine passports aimed at opening up overseas travel. The passport will be managed on a mobile app, according to the report.
The EU is set to issue the vaccine passports by this summer.
READ; The Suez Canal Blockage Costing Global Trade $9.6 Billion Daily
