2 tugboats speed to Egypt's Suez Canal as shippers avoid it
Suez (Egypt): Two additional tugboats sped Sunday 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 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 over 9 billion a day has been halted, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the coronavirus 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 Sunday, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed.
The tugboats will nudge the 400-meter-long (quarter-mile-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.
Workers planned to make two attempts Sunday to free the vessel coinciding with high tides, a top pilot with the canal authority said.
Sunday is very critical," the pilot said. It will determine the next step, which highly likely involves at least the partial offloading of the vessel.
Taking containers off the ship likely would add even more days to the canal's closure, something authorities have been desperately trying to avoid. It also would require a crane and other equipment that have yet to arrive.
The pilot spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists.
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. Lt. Gen. 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 some 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 Ltd., the company that owns the vessel, said it was considering removing containers if other refloating efforts failed. The Ever Given is wedged about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) 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. Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10% 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 early Sunday, over 320 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 A P 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., 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 containerized goods, disrupting supply chains beyond the existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. (AP)
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International Federation of Journalists says 128 journalists killed worldwide in 2025
Majority killed in conflict zones
Brussels, Belgium: A total of 128 journalists lost their lives across the world in 2025, with more than half of the deaths recorded in the Middle East, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on Thursday.
According to the global press body, the Palestinian territories accounted for the highest number of fatalities, with 56 media professionals killed as Israel’s war with Hamas continued in Gaza. IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger described the situation as unprecedented, saying the concentration of deaths in such a small geographical area over a short period had not been seen before.
“This is not just a statistic. It is a global red alert for our colleagues,” Bellanger told AFP, warning that the scale of violence against journalists reflected a deepening crisis for press freedom worldwide.
Journalists were also killed in several other countries during the year, including Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan, Peru and India. This shows the risks faced by media workers in both conflict zones and politically volatile regions.
Bellanger also criticised the lack of accountability for attacks on journalists, arguing that impunity continued to fuel violence against the press. Without justice, he said, those responsible for targeting journalists are emboldened to continue.
The IFJ report said 533 journalists were currently imprisoned, a figure that has more than doubled over the past five years. China remained the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with 143 reporters detained, including several in Hong Kong, where the imposition of national security laws has drawn criticism from Western governments.
The IFJ noted that its death toll is typically higher than figures released by other watchdogs due to differences in methodology. Its count for 2025 includes nine journalists who died in accidents. In comparison, Reporters Without Borders reported 67 journalists killed in the line of duty during the year, while UNESCO placed the number at 93.
