Cinmpring kici

Senin, 29 Maret 2021

More Myanmar violence reported as activists seek help from ethnic groups - CNA

YANGON: Myanmar security forces killed an anti-coup protester and wounded a toddler in fresh violence overnight, media reported on Monday (Mar 29), as activists called on armed ethnic groups in the diverse nation to back their struggle against military rule.

After the bloodiest day since last month's military coup with 114 deaths on Saturday, security forces opened fire at a funeral on Sunday, witnesses said.

Another 13 people were killed in other incidents over the weekend, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group on Sunday, taking its total toll of civilians killed since the Feb 1 coup to 459.

READ: Myanmar junta warns protesters at risk of being shot in the head: State TV

In the town of Pathein in the Ayeyarwaddy region one man was shot dead by security forces on Sunday evening, DVB TV News reported on Monday.

Meanwhile, in the South Dagon area of the commercial hub of Yangon a one-and-half-year old toddler was hurt by gunfire, the Mizzima news portal reported.

Police and a junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment.

ARMED ETHNIC GROUPS CALL FOR HELP

The General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN), one of the main protest groups, in an open letter posted on Facebook urged armed ethnic groups "to collectively protect the people, youths, women, children and elders" who opposed military rule.

Heavy fighting has erupted between the army and some of the two dozen ethnic armed groups that control swathes of the country.

About 3,000 people fled to neighbouring Thailand after military jets bombed areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU) militia near the border, an activist group and media said.

Protest against the military coup, in Yangon — Men run during a protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar, Mar 28, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)

At least three civilians were killed on Saturday in an air attack by the military on a village controlled by the KNU, a civil society group said. The militia earlier said it had overrun an army post near the border, killing 10 people.

COMMENTARY: Can Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement overturn the coup?

Fighting also erupted on Sunday between another armed group, the Kachin Independence Army, and the military in the jade-mining area of Hpakant in the north. The Kachin forces attacked a police station and the military responded with an aerial assault, Kachinwaves media reported.

There were no reports of casualties.

"MASS MURDER"

At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed across Myanmar on Saturday, according to news reports and witnesses. Protesters call the victims "Fallen Stars".

On Sunday, mourners fled shooting by security forces at a service for 20-year-old student Thae Maung Maung in Bago near Yangon and there were no immediate reports of casualties, three people in the town told Reuters.

People in Mandalay surrounded a police station late in the evening on Sunday, accusing the security forces of arson after five houses burned down, residents said.

"While we are singing the revolution song for him, security forces just arrived and shot at us," a woman called Aye who was at the service said. "People, including us, run away as they opened fire."

READ: Myanmar bloodshed 'absolutely outrageous', Biden says after deadliest day

UN Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews said the army was carrying out "mass murder" and called on the world to isolate the junta and halt its access to weapons.

Foreign criticism and sanctions imposed by some Western nations have failed so far to sway the generals, as have almost daily protests around the country since the junta took power and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade to mark Armed Forces Day on Saturday that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.

Countries including the United States, Britain, Germany and the European Union again condemned the violence.

"It's terrible, it's absolutely outrageous," US President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware. "Based on the reporting I've gotten an awful lot of people have been killed totally unnecessarily."

The EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called on the generals to stand down from what he called a "senseless path" of violence against their own people.

The top military officer from the United States and nearly a dozen of his counterparts said a professional military must follow international standards for conduct "and is responsible for protecting - not harming - the people it serves".

Myanmar's military took power saying that November elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the country's election commission.

Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention at an undisclosed location and many other figures in her party are also in custody.

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2021-03-29 05:54:29Z
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Minggu, 28 Maret 2021

Myanmar bloodshed 'absolutely outrageous': Biden - CNA

WASHINGTON: United States President Joe Biden on Sunday (Mar 28) decried the bloodshed unleashed against anti-coup protesters in Myanmar as "absolutely outrageous", after security forces killed more than 100 people including at least seven children.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb 1, triggering mass protests demanding a return to democracy.

On Saturday, at least 107 people were killed across Myanmar as security forces opened fire on protesters.

"It's terrible," Biden told reporters in brief remarks he gave in his home state of Delaware.

"It's absolutely outrageous, and based on the reporting I've gotten, an awful lot of people have been killed totally unnecessarily."

Saturday's killings came after the junta staged a major show of might for its annual Armed Forces Day.

The European Union described the deadly violence as "unacceptable".

"Far from celebrating, the Myanmar military has made yesterday a day of horror and of shame," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

The condemnation came after the defence chiefs of 12 countries including the US, Britain, Japan and Australia denounced the Myanmar military.

"A professional military follows international standards for conduct and is responsible for protecting - not harming - the people it serves," the rare joint statement said.

"We urge the Myanmar Armed Forces to cease violence and work to restore respect and credibility with the people of Myanmar that it has lost through its actions."

According to a local monitoring group, the death toll from crackdowns since the coup has climbed to at least 423.

Funerals were held on Sunday for some of the victims, after the bloodiest day since the putsch.

In Mandalay, the family of Aye Ko, a father of four, commemorated his life at a service after he was killed overnight.

READ: Myanmar protests continue a day after more than 100 killed

READ: Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup, UN investigator condemns 'mass murder'

"SHAMEFUL, COWARDLY"

"I am very saddened to lose my husband - together with my children I'm heartbroken," his wife Ma Khaing told AFP.

Relatives of 13-year-old boy Sai Waiyan, who was shot on Saturday while playing outside his house in Yangon, cried over his casket on Sunday afternoon, local media reported.

Despite the dangers, protesters hit the streets again on Sunday in parts of Yangon including Hlaing, and in the cities of Dawei, Bago, Myingyan and Monywa.

State-run media confirmed two men and two women were killed in Monywa on Sunday.

There was also a death in Myingyan - one woman was killed and two others injured, a medic said.

In Hlaing, a 16-year-old boy lost a hand in a blast while trying to throw back a grenade that security forces had lobbed at protesters, a rescue worker said.

A day earlier, there were brutal military crackdowns at more than 40 locations across the country. The Mandalay and Yangon regions saw the majority of deaths, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The United Nations put Saturday's death toll at 107 people - including seven children - but expected it to rise further.

"The shameful, cowardly, brutal actions of the military and police - who have been filmed shooting at protesters as they flee, and who have not even spared young children - must be halted immediately," UN envoys Alice Wairimu Nderitu and Michelle Bachelet said in a joint statement.

Henrietta Fore, the executive director for the UN's children's agency UNICEF, said 10 children reportedly had been shot and killed on Saturday.

"In addition to the immediate impacts of the violence, the longer-term consequences of the crisis for the country's children could be catastrophic," Fore said in a statement.

Military-run broadcaster Myawaddy TV reported that Saturday's death toll was 45, noting that 552 people had been arrested and claiming that it was an unavoidable crackdown because protesters used real guns and bombs against security forces.

READ: Top military officers from US, allies to condemn violence by Myanmar security forces

READ: More than 100 protesters killed in Myanmar as junta puts on show of force for Armed Forces Day

"HARMFUL TO STATE TRANQUILITY"

Rebels in eastern Myanmar's Karen state said they had been targeted in air strikes late on Saturday, hours after the ethnic armed group seized a military base.

Hsa Moo, an ethnic Karen and human rights activist, said three people were killed and at least eight injured.

It was the first air assault in 20 years in the state, and targeted the Fifth Brigade of the Karen National Union (KNU) - one of the country's largest armed groups - which says it represents the ethnic Karen people.

Further air strikes on Sunday sent 2,000 people from two villages in Karen state darting through the jungle across the border into Thailand seeking safety, Hsa Moo told AFP.

A grand parade of troops and military vehicles in the capital Naypyidaw on Saturday saw junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing defend the coup and pledge to yield power after new elections.

But he also issued a threat to the anti-coup movement, warning that acts of "terrorism which can be harmful to state tranquillity and security" were unacceptable.

On Saturday night, Min Aung Hlaing and his wife entertained dignitaries including Russian deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin at a lavish outdoor dinner in Naypyidaw.

State-run newspaper the Mirror reported there were musical performances and a drone display featuring a representation of Min Aung Hlaing saluting.

Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of local resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II, and usually features a parade attended by foreign military officers and diplomats.

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2021-03-28 23:18:43Z
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Covid-19 cluster at Mandarin Orchard hotel remains a mystery - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - Three months on, officials are no closer to solving the mystery behind the cluster of 13 Covid-19 cases that emerged at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel at the end of last year.

After two weeks of investigations, with the help of experts from other fields, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has not been able to say how the virus had spread within this group.

Apart from a couple who had flown in from Britain, the rest did not know one another.

They had come to Singapore from 10 widely dispersed places: Bahrain, Canada, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, Philippines, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the United States.

But somehow, they were all part of the same Covid-19 cluster. The genetic sequence of the virus that caused their infection was too similar for it to be anything else.

None were diagnosed on arrival in Singapore and they were all serving their routine two weeks of isolation at the hotel.

It appears that at least 12 of them had been infected at the hotel with a virus one of them had brought in from overseas.

That is because no one else - the hotel staff or the other guests who were infected - had viruses that were so genetically similar.

So the virus must have been brought in by one of the 13 people who were on stay-home notice (SHN) at the hotel, and spread to the rest.

On Dec 19 last year, following preliminary investigations, the ministry announced: "We cannot exclude that transmission could have occurred at Mandarin Orchard Singapore."

But how? That question remains unanswered to this day.

MOH had called in experts from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) to help with the investigations. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) was also involved as it oversees hotels.

All guests, including local guests on staycation at the hotel's other wing, were moved out, and the hotel shut its doors during the investigation.

About 500 hotel staff were checked for Covid-19, in case any of them proved to be the link for the transmission, or might have been infected by one of the 13. That would have required contact tracing to ring-fence any spread.

More than 20 officers spent close to two weeks at the hotel looking for possible breaches - such as transmission due to human-to-human contact, as well as building-related risks due to weaknesses in the ventilation system.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome came to Singapore in 2003 via a woman who returned from Hong Kong, where she had picked up the virus in a hotel lift - which an infected person had used before her - most likely from touching a lift button.

Covid-19 is from the same family of coronavirus.

But the team looking into what happened at the Mandarin Orchard hotel remain stumped, although they had found three areas where the situation had "issues" and "gaps that need to be strengthened": the check-in process, the way testing for those on SHN was done, and the hotel's ventilation system.

Associate Professor Teoh Yee Leong, a senior consultant in the MOH's epidemiology team, Communicable Diseases Division, told The Straits Times: "However, none of these findings could on its own account for how all 13 cases were infected over a short period of time."

The easiest answer would have been if all 13 guests had arrived on the same day and checked in at the same time.

But this did not happen. They had arrived on different days and times, between Oct 22 and Oct 30.

This led Prof Teoh to conclude: "As these 13 cases did not arrive on the same day and timing, but instead over several days, this excluded one of the possibilities that they were infected at the same time en route to the hotel or during the check-in process."

Although their arrivals were over a nine-day period, could all 13 have spent some days together staying on the same floor of the hotel?

Again, the answer is no.

Five of the 13 people had stayed on the 27th storey. But the other eight were scattered over seven other floors - from the ninth storey to the 24th storey - of the hotel's main tower, dedicated to people serving their SHN.

Although they stayed on different floors, their room numbers - XX31-34 and XX43-45 - seem to indicate some clustering at one part of the corridor.

With 446 rooms spread over 28 floors of the wing, there are roughly 16 rooms per floor - with XX3X and XX4X on opposite ends of the corridor.

But neither the hotel nor the STB confirmed if this was the case.

For example, there were four people in rooms XX32 - which is room 32 on different floors - and three in XX33.

However, Prof Teoh said: "Our investigations did not point towards a specific risk regarding common floor or common sections of rooms as they were staying at different levels and sections."

None of them had breached their SHN to wander around and spread the disease.

One possibility of how the virus had spread was when they went to a central location at the hotel to test for the virus.

Prof Teoh said investigations had found some hotel workflow issues, including the polymerase chain reaction testing queue.

There were also issues with the ventilation system based on "the walk-through inspection and environmental sampling" by experts from the BCA and the NEA.

But he added that it is impossible to say if any of these, on their own or in combination with other lapses, "may be the cause for the spread as our investigations were done at a later time".

On the conclusion of the investigations, Prof Teoh said: "Our assessment suggests that infection protocols and ventilation systems can be improved, for example, through better crowd regulation as well as having good ventilation systems to circulate more fresh air."

As for who was the cluster's likely Patient Zero who brought the virus to Singapore, Prof Teoh said: "The first reported case of these 13 cases could have been the Patient Zero, but we are not able to conclude about the chain of transmission as these happened some time ago."

That would be the 30-year-old Indian work pass holder who had arrived from the United Arab Emirates. He was the first to be confirmed with Covid-19 on Nov 2.

Four days later, on Nov 6, five more people in the cluster were confirmed to have been infected.

They are two Singaporeans, one returning from Britain and the other from Canada; a permanent resident returning from South Korea; a work pass holder arriving from the Netherlands; and a woman allowed in from Britain to visit her child who is a PR here.

But one of them, the Singaporean who had returned from Britain, could as easily have been Patient Zero, as her symptoms emerged on Nov 2 - indicating that she had been infected prior to that date.

Nov 2 was also the date the first of the 13 people in the cluster was diagnosed.

But the Indian national had not been sick and was diagnosed from routine testing of those serving SHN.

The other seven were confirmed between Nov 8 and Nov 11 - and were unlikely to have brought the virus into the country.

The time between exposure and the onset of symptoms is usually five to six days, though outliers might take as long as a week.

The more important question is if there are similar lapses or shortcomings at other hotels offering SHN facilities.

When asked, Ms Geraldine Yeo, director of the SHN operations division of the STB, said it is working with the BCA and the NEA on stricter audits of ventilation systems at SHN facilities.

She added that the board is ensuring that more than 70 SHN facilities follow strict infection control measures. They have been advised to improve infection prevention protocols and ventilation systems.

"STB will not hesitate to take enforcement action for non-compliance by businesses and individuals," she said.

No action will be taken against Mandarin Orchard hotel as it had not breached any of the protocols.

Singaporean who returned from India among 12 new imported Covid-19 cases - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - A Singaporean who had returned from India was among the 12 new Covid-19 cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Sunday (March 28).

All 12 cases were imported had been placed on stay-home-notice or isolated upon arrival into Singapore, said MOH.

Among the new cases announced on Sunday, 10 were asymptomatic and detected through proactive screening and surveillance, while two were symptomatic.

This brings Singapore's total tally up to 60,300.

There were no new cases from the community or from the workers' dormitories.

One of the new cases was a short-term visit pass holder who had arrived from the US for a work project in Singapore.

There were also five work permit holders who had arrived from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, four of whom are foreign domestic workers, said the MOH.

The Health Ministry added that the number of new cases in the community has increased from none in the week before, to two cases in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from zero to two in the same period.

MOH added that among the 104 confirmed cases reported from March 22 to March 28, 34 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, while 51 have tested negative.

A further 19 serology tests results are pending.

With nine cases discharged, 60,107 have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 33 patients remain in hospital, including one in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 115 are recuperating in the community facilities.

Singapore has had 30 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

UMNO can withdraw from Perikatan Nasional 'any time' if polls are not called soon: Ahmad Zahid - CNA

KUALA LUMPUR: United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) can withdraw its support for the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government "any time" if there are no indications of a general election in the near future, said party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

"It is understood that the delegates have given the mandate to the president and the supreme council to determine that we can withdraw from the PN government any time," he said in his closing remarks at the party's two-day general assembly on Sunday (Mar 28).

The leadership will pull out of PN, he added, if the latter does not indicate an intention to call for the 15th general election "in the very near future".

Ahmad Hamidi, who is a former deputy prime minister, added that he expected all members to follow the party's decision.

"Just now in my policy speech, I mentioned that there is a possibility of them holding on for a full term.

"If that is their decision, I am confident that our friends in the supreme council, especially the ministers, deputy ministers and GLC (government-linked corporations) chairmen, as well as all MPs, will adhere 100 per cent to the party’s decision to withdraw from the PN government," he said.

"They will not hesitate to resign as ministers, deputy ministers and GLC chairmen in order to adhere to the decision made by the party," he added.

Speaking at a press conference later, Ahmad Zahid said the unanimous motion to withdraw support would be brought to the party's supreme council.

READ: UMNO will not work with Anwar, DAP or Bersatu in the next general election - Ahmad Zahid

"UMNO is not at a crossroad. The decision made at today's general assembly was clear," he said, stating that the party's general assembly was the highest body and had made a major policy decision.

In reply to a question on the exact timeline for withdrawing support, including a deadline for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to indicate a general election, Ahmad Zahid said these details would be discussed at the supreme council meeting.

UMNO is a key ally in the ruling PN government but it had earlier vowed to sever ties with Mr Muhyiddin's Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia and end their cooperation in the next general election.

Ahmad Zahid had said on Sunday morning that Barisan Nasional (a coalition of which UMNO is the backbone member) had decided to face the polls alone.

READ: What to watch out for at this weekend's UMNO general assembly

Meanwhile, UMNO deputy president Mohamad Hasan, in his closing remarks, said the party must be prepared to leave the government in August. Malaysia's state of emergency, declared to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, is slated to end on Aug 1.

"Stop playing silat pulut (a showy silat performance at traditional Malay weddings)."

"If we have to depend on the goodwill of others, we cannot build up our own strengths," he said, in reference to UMNO's second fiddle status in the current PN, which has been mainly controlled by Mr Muhyiddin's Bersatu since the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government back in February 2020.

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2021-03-28 13:13:03Z
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Myanmar protests continue a day after more than 100 killed - CNA

YANGON: Protesters in Myanmar returned to the streets on Sunday (Mar 28) to press their demands for a return to democracy, just a day after security forces killed more than 100 people in the bloodiest day since last month's military coup.

Protests were held in Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s two biggest cities, as well as elsewhere. Some of the demonstrations were again met with police force.

At least 114 people were killed on Saturday as security forces cracked down on protests against the Feb 1 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, according to the online news service Myanmar Now. The reported fatalities included several children under 16 years old.

Similar tallies of the death toll were issued by other Myanmar media and researchers, far exceeding the previous highest death toll on Mar 14. The number of killings since the coup is now more than 420, according to multiple counts.

READ: Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup, UN investigator condemns 'mass murder'

The coup reversed years of progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule and has again made Myanmar the focus of international scrutiny.

The Saturday killings by police and soldiers took place throughout the country as Myanmar’s military celebrated the annual Armed Forces Day holiday with a parade in the country’s capital, Naypyidaw.

The bloodshed quickly drew international condemnation, both from diplomatic missions within Myanmar and from abroad.

READ: Myanmar junta warns protesters at risk of being shot in the head

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by the killings of civilians, including children.

“The continuing military crackdown is unacceptable and demands a firm, unified & resolute international response,” he wrote on Twitter.

In the United States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet that his country was “horrified by the bloodshed perpetrated by Burmese security forces, showing that the junta will sacrifice the lives of the people to serve the few".

The military chiefs of 12 nations issued a joint statement condemning the use of force against unarmed people.

“A professional military follows international standards for conduct and is responsible for protecting — not harming — the people it serves,” it said. “We urge the Myanmar Armed Forces to cease violence and work to restore respect and credibility with the people of Myanmar that it has lost through its actions."

The statement was issued by the defense chiefs of Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

READ: Myanmar's economy to contract 10% this year amid turmoil: World Bank

The human rights group Amnesty International revived criticism that the international community was not doing enough to end the state violence in Myanmar.

“UN Security Council member states’ continued refusal to meaningfully act against this never-ending horror is contemptible,” said Ming Yu Hah, the organisation’s deputy regional director for campaigns.

The Security Council has condemned the violence but not advocated concerted action against the junta, such as a ban on selling it arms. China and Russia are both major arms suppliers to Myanmar’s military as well as politically sympathetic, and as members of the council would almost certainly veto any such move.

In recent days the junta has portrayed the demonstrators as the ones perpetrating violence for their sporadic use of Molotov cocktails. On Saturday, some protesters in Yangon were seen carrying bows and arrows. It has said its use of force has been justified to stop what it has called rioting.

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2021-03-28 12:20:12Z
CBMibWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy9hc2lhL215YW5tYXItcHJvdGVzdHMtY29udGludWUtYS1kYXktYWZ0ZXItbW9yZS10aGFuLTEwMC1raWxsZWQtMTQ1MTA2OTjSAQA

2 tugboats speed to Egypt's Suez Canal as shippers avoid it - CNA

SUEZ, Egypt: Two additional tugboats sped on Sunday (Mar 28) to Egypt's Suez Canal to aid efforts to free a skyscraper-sized container ship wedged for days across the crucial waterway, even as major shippers increasingly divert their boats out of fear the vessel may take even longer to free.

The massive Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck on Tuesday in a single-lane stretch of the canal.

In the time since, authorities have been unable to remove the vessel and traffic through the canal — valued at more than US$9 billion a day — has been halted, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called in to help tugboats already there, reached the Red Sea near the city of Suez early on Sunday, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed.

The tugboats will nudge the 400m-long Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever Given.

READ: Strong wind not main reason for Suez ship grounding - canal chief

Egypt Suez Canal — Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, that is wedged across the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in the vital waterway is seen on Mar 27, 2021. (Photo: AP/Mohamed Elshahed)

On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told journalists that strong winds were “not the only cause” for the Ever Given running aground, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments offered by others. Lieutenant-General Osama Rabei said an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement maintains that their “initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding”. However, at least one initial report suggested a “blackout” struck the hulking vessel carrying around 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.

Rabei said he remained hopeful that dredging could free the ship without having to resort to removing its cargo, but added that “we are in a difficult situation, it’s a bad incident”.

Asked about when they expected to free the vessel and reopen the canal, he said: “I can’t say because I do not know.”

Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the company that owns the vessel, said it was considering removing containers if other refloating efforts failed.

The Ever Given is wedged about 6km north of the canal's Red Sea entrance near the city of Suez.

A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipment chain.

Around 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10 per cent of world trade flows through the canal.

The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. Already, Syria has begun rationing the distribution of fuel in the war-torn country amid concerns of delays of shipments arriving amid the blockage.

As of Saturday, more than 270 ships waited to travel through the Suez, either to the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, according to canal services firm Leth Agencies. Dozens of others still listed their destination as the canal, though shippers increasingly appear to be avoiding the passage.

The world’s biggest shipping company, Denmark’s AP Moller-Maersk, warned its customers that it would take anywhere from three to six days to clear the backlog of vessels at the canal. Already, the firm and its partners have 22 ships waiting there.

“The current number (of) redirected Maersk and partner vessels is 14 and expected to rise as we assess the salvage efforts along with network capacity and fuel on our vessels currently en route to Suez,” the shipper said.

Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world's second-largest, said it already had rerouted at least 11 ships around Africa's Cape of Good Hope to avoid the canal. It turned back two other ships and said it expected “some missed sailings as a result of this incident”.

“MSC expects this incident to have a very significant impact on the movement of containerised goods, disrupting supply chains beyond the existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said.

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2021-03-28 07:17:26Z
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Cinmpring kici

Senin, 29 Maret 2021

More Myanmar violence reported as activists seek help from ethnic groups - CNA

READ: Myanmar junta warns protesters at risk of being shot in the head: State TV

COMMENTARY: Can Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement overturn the coup?

READ: Myanmar bloodshed 'absolutely outrageous', Biden says after deadliest day

Minggu, 28 Maret 2021

Myanmar bloodshed 'absolutely outrageous': Biden - CNA

READ: Myanmar protests continue a day after more than 100 killed

READ: Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup, UN investigator condemns 'mass murder'

READ: Top military officers from US, allies to condemn violence by Myanmar security forces

READ: More than 100 protesters killed in Myanmar as junta puts on show of force for Armed Forces Day

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