they noticed he took we will never shut down even if there are no customers i want the world to know that we're fighting. even though he isn't making any sales he still orders new sculptures from local artists to keep the industry alive while they all wait for a better day just in washington al jazeera to counter. your job to serve me so robin a reminder of our top stories mere miles military has opened fire on cue protesters killing at least 10 people the violence coincides with a military parade in the capital where the leader of the ruling judge a pledge to safeguard democracy has more from bangkok we're hearing reports of crackdowns all over the country in last year and sent shan state early this morning we got news of early fatal it is with 2 protestors there shot

in the head we've been seeing in mandalay which is myanmar 2nd city the city center is really dense smoke at the moment as there is the armed forces have moved in there burning barricades anything that stands in their way quite openly using live live weapons live live rounds the delivery of vaccines to poor and middle income countries through the kovacs program could be set back by weeks because of delays from a major indian producer comes as india saw its highest number of cases this year. state elections in india's west bengal and assam states are underway polling is taking place in multiple phases lasting a month prime minister noda modi's b j p has been mounting an aggressive campaign to secure a win in west bengal for the 1st time democrats and republicans are blaming each other for a surge of people crossing the us border from mexico the number of arrivals as reached near record levels in recent weeks

a growing number of western retail giants including haitian ammonite here facing a boycott in china there are concerns about the suspected use of forced labor by weekers inching jencks cotton fields created a backlash on chinese social media with the hashtag ice the portion jeong cotton getting more than 5 and a half 1000000000 views. or as it actual building has collapsed in egypt's capital cairo it's unclear how many were in the multi-story building when it came down in the middle of the night reports say at least 3 people have died and up to 23 injured. a new attempt will be made to refloat the huge cargo vessel that's blocking egypt's sue is canal the ship's japanese owner says crews will try to take advantage of the high tide later on saturday the vessels been waged across the shipping route for 5 days those were the headlines and back with more news in half an hour next it's inside story do stay with us. it's a very bleak picture for

a lot of americans out there white supremacy impacts all of our patients here plenty of our money into the hands of some workers taking money out of the hands of other workers their own goes to their camp it becomes us versus them this is the deal about constraining their nuclear program the bottom line that they questions on out is they are. one stranded ship one giant problem for global trade it could take weeks to free a cargo vessel wedged across the suez canal one of the world's busiest shipping routes is out of action so what will be the impact of the blockage isn't cleared soon this is inside stuart. hello and welcome to the program i'm homages to him global shipping has been thrown into chaos because of a mishap on a major waterway the ever given one of the world's largest container ships was

blown sideways and became jammed on the suez canal in egypt that's created a tailback of other cargo vessels carrying billions of dollars worth of goods in both directions between asia and europe egypt says it hopes to be able to dislodge the ship soon and reopen the canal but experts fear it could be weeks before that's possible other ships may now have to reroute which would mean a much longer journey to their destination charles stratford reports 400 metres long and weighing 200000 tonnes stuck in what's often described as the most important shipping lane in the world a maritime accident with global implications the ever given container ship became wedged across the suez canal and choose day when high winds blew her off course. about 12 percent of global trade passes through the 193 kilometer long canal which connects the red sea with the mediterranean providing the shortest link between asia and europe the vessel carrying around $20000.00 containers is registered in

panama are operated by the taiwanese transport company evergreen marine it was sailing from china to the port city of rotterdam in the netherlands when it got stuck the japanese owner has apologized but says the situation is extremely difficult and there is a citizen that will present the traffic along this year's canal has been to stop to get you to the incident and local authorities are working under saddam issue using tugboats but that is most most of time for debate is all of this image posted on a ship tracking website shows the backlog of at least 150 vessels stuck in the northern entrance of the canal at ports 8 in the middle in an area called the bitter lakes and at the southern entrance at sue is the vast majority of oil from the gulf is transported to europe along the canal oil prices rose sharply on thursday industry experts are warning of a flood of insurance claims covering the vast amount of cargo being held up with

officials say at least 8 tug boats are trying to dislodge the vessel which experts say could take days if not weeks containers may have to be offloaded in order to lessen the weight. ships now face the prospect of having to travel thousands of additional kilometers around the southern tip of africa a huge cost and potentially delaying delivery of goods by weeks the ships that are stuck throughout the canal and it's the north band are in a precarious position and they name may not be able just to turn around and take another course as long as it's an expensive as it is to go from the mediterranean around africa and vice versa the suez canal authority says around $20000.00 ships pass through the canal last year earning egypt billions of dollars in total fee revenue the ever given is $1.00 of the largest container ships in the world but for every hour and every day it remains stock and stationary there are concerns about

the financial fallout and impact on global trade foot which is arrow let's take a look at why the suez shutdown is creating more than a few ripples in the business world about 30 percent of global container ship traffic sails through the waterway an assessment by lloyd's list shows $9600000000.00 worth of daily marine traffic is being blocked the canal is a big earner for egypt's economy contributing more than 5 and a half 1000000000 dollars last year. all right let's bring in our guests from oxford guy platen secretary-general of the international chamber of shipping here in doha with mustardy an egypt analyst and associate professor of media and cultural studies at the doha institute for graduate studies and from brussels james moran former european union a bastard to egypt jordan and yemen thank you all so much for joining us guy let me start with you today this incident really shows just how much global supply chains

rely on shipping doesn't it and also let me ask you just how massive are the implications for global trade right now. well i think you know your figures if you're shown but 12 percent of total cargo volumes pass through the suez canal each year that's over a trillion dollars a year and as your report said $10000000000.00 is held up each day and so it's been 3 days so far so you can do the math on that and also they've got the hundreds of ships now which are now lying anchor waste to pass through the canal and ship owners and managers have to now take that difficult judgment do they now switch routes and take the long route around which adds another 3 and a half 1000 nautical miles the journey and between $5.12 days to the journey times with the knock on the lace that will that will result in that so it's actually a huge nothink it shows you how strategic the suez canal is in terms of waterway and how dependent. we are on it to have a the best most efficient supply chains in goods coming from asia to europe

mohammed just how important strategically and economically is the suez canal for egypt. it's critically important i mean you just you just can't overstate that point i mean it's important for strategic reasons for symbolic reasons egypt has fought multiple wars over control over the suez canal and so egyptians view it sort of as a source of national pride a source of national or a symbol i should say of national independence but the neck anomaly you know egypt brings in more than $5000000000.00 in annual revenues as a result of the suez canal so it's a main source of foreign currency for the country and you know it's one of the reasons why sisi one of the very 1st things he did in 2014 when he took over as as president was announced this great expansion of the suez canal that he said would

greatly you know he said it would double or more than double the revenues from the from the suez canal and that just underscores the extent to which this is really just critically important for egypt's economy james the ever given is massive it's almost as big as the empire state building should a ship that huge actually be passing through the suez canal. well since they made the improvements to the canal a few years ago there deepened the draft in the waterway and. part of the reason for doing that was so that they could accommodate these very large ships but of course the challenges of navigating through the canal and if you've been on a diver many times are in knots and you have to have very precise. serious techniques and support to get the ships through especially when they're that size something has gone wrong whether it was the weather whether there was

a technical issue you're going to perhaps from the piloting the navigation which is provided by the suez canal authority we don't know but it is a challenge that normally should work. guy who is ultimately going to be held responsible for all this. well clearly at the start the heart of it will be the ship owner but in fact all the people involved in the voyage and i think it as james just said we don't know yet what actually went wrong so we need to establish those facts before you can start apportioning blame that there is clearly as many many claims are going to go in addition all the different cargo interests the more the ships which are delayed so there's some huge litigation coming down the line on this one and of course the knock on attacks to trade as well and how much as you mentioned in your previous answer the egyptian government ordered the suez canal to be expanded in 2015 but judging just by what's happened was enough done in that expansion i mean if enough had been done would an accident like this would an

incident like this have taken place. i'm not a technical expert on can now so i can now begin canal expansions and so i can't speak to that but when i can say is that c.c. presented this as an economic revival project and revenues in i have the numbers here in front of me the revenues in 201320142015 the were just over $5000000000.00 in 2014 for example they were $5500000000.00 not only have revenues not doubled they have stagnated in 2020 the revenues were $5600000000.00 so there hasn't been really any increase in revenues certainly nothing like the 13 and a half $1000000000.00 that c.c. promised would be coming in by 2023 so that adds to i think the tension here i think it adds to the nature of the political crisis and i think it's interesting that at least as far as i'm aware you know walking over here to do this

interview sisi hadn't spoken on this and i think that's that's very striking james we've we've spoken about this already a little bit in this program but you know the suez canal it provides much needed foreign cash to the egyptian economy which has been struggling for quite a while now how bad and how embarrassing is this incident for egypt and what's the importance of trade right now for their economy. well how embarrassing we don't know because we go back to this point that some no one really knows how this occurred and we won't know for quite some time but one thing we're going to do about it i think is very important as some point once so the issue is resolved in the coming days or weeks there has to be a transparent international investigation into what happened that will be typical as 100 percent. regard the suez canal with a very special. it is a symbol of the nation some of the dependence of the center for egypt so

sovereignty is a big issue when it comes to these things but in order to restore confidence in the canal operations there will have to be international had to rescue can actually hold the button so organizations are going down going down the track so embarrassing perhaps we don't yet know guy i saw you nodding along some of what james was saying there did you want to jump in yeah i think the most important thing is we do a full and thorough investigation to establish the facts exactly what happened and only then can we learn the lessons and maybe see if there was negligence or failure at some point but i think that's the most important point we don't know exactly what happened we've got lots of speculation at this point what we do know is the ship is stuck fast aground and really the focus at the moment must be on refloating air and getting that waterway open again mohammed what are the broader implications for the region. well i think it's it goes beyond the region the global

implications in your lead up you talked about how much money is is being comprehension we lost on a daily basis from the canal and i do want to just underscore the point that was made about the investigation i think this is going to be critically important that it saddens me as as an egyptian i mean egyptian american but saddens me as an egyptian that i have to acknowledge that this investigation does have to be international i quite frankly if i'm going to be perfectly honest about it i don't trust any gyptian led investigation because this is a government that has proven itself to be corruption corrupt and complicit in and crimes against against the egyptian people and others so it's very important that this is an international you know sort of collaborative investigation i think it's also worth underscoring that this is happening

tragically armond day when there is a there is news of a horrible passenger train crash in egypt that killed dozens of people and we have to highlight that the egyptian government is authoritarian and authoritarianism and corruption and inefficiency and incompetence and unfortunately egypt has become a place of disasters it is a place unfortunately where buildings collapse where trains crash and we're seeing what's happening in the in the suez canal where these past few days james looked to me like you were reacting to some of what mohammed was saying maybe wanted to jump in please go ahead. well it wasn't so much what mattered was saying about the situation and certainly if you had asked about the region there are people who say that this sort of thing might actually have an upside of what has been going on the last couple of years of course is that in europe anyway people become extremely

concerned about being too dependent on the far east and china for their supply chains now this incident shows just how fragile their supply chains can be now on the other side of the region could be although i'm not going to i'm not saying it's going to happen but it could be that the so-called near shorey now the west reading supply chains closer to home either back into europe or perhaps in the middle east and north africa might get a boost from this incident although i don't want to be too optimistic about the but i think it might be one of the aspects to be looking out in the longer term i was already something which is beginning to happen. on china in particular has reached a stage in europe and elsewhere the americans to have a problem where people are thinking very seriously about rebalance this incident may just be one amongst the other factors that excited or is that person's guy this situation is really only further compact complicating the supply chain problems

have been caused by cove in 19 how exactly has the pandemic impacted shipping how dire the situation get. i think the 1st thing it is shipping throughout the day we continue to deliver the fuel the food the medical supplies everything which is kept going and i think we owe a massive debt of gratitude to the seafarers out there who've been manning those ships and its impact of the industry in so many different ways from the shutdown of china ingenue to every of 2020 which had massive repercussions on the on the sort of the factory shutting and the goods getting out and then we had that we couldn't get our crews off the ship because come to shut down the border wouldn't allow travel so we had a. shipping has proven to be extremely resilient but it has shown instance like this really do show how fragile that supply chain actually is moving forward and i think that's a lesson that we can take away from this mammoth this pandemic and all of its

related restrictions have really limited the availability of dockworkers and truck drivers it's caused delays in handling cargo all over the world i mean how is that impact on the global economy. you know i think that obviously the the pandemic has has affected. you know the global trade workers at the individual level at organizational levels and then at more macro levels at the state at the state level. that they don't know the nation the level of the nation. but what's interesting here is that egypt hasn't been as affected in some of those ways because it hasn't shut down in some of the ways that other countries have whether that's for good or bad you know in terms of the virus and how about the government has chosen to to handle the outbreaks that have that have occurred in egypt you know that's for other folks to sort of decide but egypt trauma from just from

a purely on the ground a business perspective has not been affected as as much as other places have been james is it clear yet what exactly has to happen in order to lighten the load of the ship if containers are going to have to be removed how difficult that might be and also is it clear if you gypped actually has the kind of equipment that's needed in order to accomplish this. well i'm not an expert on that but i think we know that if they have to start removing other containers from the ship is going to take quite some time and it's especially equipment will have to be shipped in and i think they need a 200. 40 high crane to start taking those containers off it is obviously going to be a very slow process on whether egypt has the equipment don't forget that the main work going on at the moment when it comes to the dredging and digging is being carried out by the dutch salvage company which has been there before and since canal knows

the area very well and they know what they're about they're extremely professional . and in fact when it comes to looking out. the likely scenarios down the track i think they're the 1st ones one ship listen to the other ones by the way who said it with weeks not 48 as to how many i saw you nodding yes now did you want to jump . yeah i mean as as he just said the suez canal $46.00 somebody came out and said that this is going to be handled within 48 to 72 hours and other international experts are saying that's perhaps too too optimistic i'm also seeing reports that there are countries that are sending help or at least offering to send help just within the last hour i saw a report that turkey is willing to send one of its massive ships that it says it can can potentially help alleviate the problem so i mean we're just going

to have to watch it over the coming hours and potentially days guy are are more and more countries going to need to look to alternative shipping routes now i mean for example russia there's there's some speculation right now that perhaps they would use this to develop routes in the northern sea arctic routes what do you think are more countries going to be trying to do this without doing that anyway regardless of they say you know the suez canal still represents a massive shortcut the trade between asia and europe so you know i have no doubt that when this blockage is removed ships will still continue to use the canal because it is just the most cost effective way of a chip in the goods but there's no doubt that route to being looked at all around the world now is as perhaps global warming some of the effects of global warning as opening up some of those more norton dates but it's what shipping is very good at is is adapting to the circumstances and that's what will happen here now is what it is goes on to days and weeks shipping will adapt and we'll just rican take it

supply routes although they will take longer and there will be delays as a result of it james it's a significant sign of all 'd the turmoil this is caused that the ship's japanese owner has offered a written apology from your perspective how how extraordinary is that. well i think the maybe a cultural element here. you know or as this where dealing with these things. and i think he's probably 'd trying to cover. down the line we need it turns out that this is the human error related to the technical error related to the ship. i don't know that we can read more into it than that but as we've said earlier there are many factors here and they really do need to be carefully looked at in order the confidence can be restored in so it's going out as a reliable conduit but as guy says in any event it's going to remain a major part of the infrastructure for well shipping the world trade in the weeks

and months to come but egypt needs to think very carefully at the top level of everyone involved barry carefully about our best to manage them some not so not true. sort of who were sick of this line is very important in egypt seems very very carefully reflects on her best to conduct. the persecution and the helmet picking up on what james just said about how important it is for egypt to really conduct this through investigation and picking up also on your previous answer in which you mentioned that there were egyptian officials that said that this all might be solved within 48 to 72 hours i mean where do you believe that shipping companies stand right now are they moving ahead with contingency plans do they think it's actually going to be weeks are some of them prone to believe that you know it might actually open up within the next 4872 hours. you know i don't know i'd be guessing maybe some of them are going to watch inside story to see to

see what we say i mean you know i think that people are probably just waiting on pins and needles i mean these are people these are folks that have you know millions of dollars on the line. a but and you have these varying analyses out there it might take a 2 or 3 days and it might take you know a few weeks and i think that at the end of the day you know nobody really knows i mean we hope that we'll have more clarity more answers in the next you know 24 hours or so. but this is sort of unprecedented at least as far as i know for a ship this massive. to get to get stuck like this i'm not sure when the last time something like this has happened so we're sort of in unchartered waters you know no no pun intended guy in addition to all the economic implications there are security experts who have indicated that perhaps you know ships that are just idling in the

red sea might become targets perhaps for attacks you know amid tensions between iran and the u.s. and other countries is that something you're concerned about. we're certainly aware of it and at the moment we are not overly worried but i think that's something that could change but actually just on that last point that you were asking we know that companies are now rerouting their ships to go round that the long way around and the longer this goes out the more companies will make that decision and even if it was cleared tomorrow the can now that's a fact of backlog now it would take some days to clear that so i think there's operational to be decisions being made as we speak and of course even if they do route there's some security issues there because she will have to transit through the gulf of guinea which we know is a known power sea she there and also to the gulf of aden as well so security is very much at the forefront of mind when they're making these decisions and looking after of course the welfare and the safety of their crew as well james we don't

have a lot of time left just under a minute let me ask you the same thing are you concerned about security of these ships right now i think i'm like i said everybody's concerned about security of the ships wherever they are. on the other hand the situation in the red sea you know i'm not sure the gulf. was the suez canal has the whole been under control for quite some time and of course i'm sure that the shipping companies are aware it was a bit of that but i don't think it was a special reason to worry about that i agree with guy a greater danger probably would be possible attacks the south through the bubble and up and down through the coast of east africa well as for the long history. they go a long way around that's probably more dangerous than the weather at the moment in the. all right we've run other times we're going to leave the conversation there thank you so much to all of our guests guy platen mohammed musri and james moran.

and thank you for watching you can see this and all our previous programs again any time by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story for me miami gentlemen the whole team here bye for now. county be called rich countries and bomb and give developing countries the technology speed up the momentum back to. safety and mental health could be good for mobile economic growth plus find that cost of religious text counting the costs on al-jazeera. from the al-jazeera london. to people in thoughtful conversation. about race. with no

host and no limitations our society has structural racism built into it part one. and item brotherhood people tend to be migrant labor and disproportionately women in k. way he comes down supposed to be unscripted and. after days of rare freezing temperatures blanketed this 2nd largest state in the us power stations are all back on line that after unusually high demand led to rolling blackouts texas hasn't seen a storm system like this in 35 years and it's clear that system simply weren't up to the task transmission lines taken down by ice still have left nearly 200000 without power but now texans face a new crisis 7000000 people of quarter of the state or being asked to boil their water if they haven't at all because the cold weather has left broken pipes and

taken water treatment plants offline grocery store shelves are largely bare leaving residents lined up in their cars for food and water. president joe biden says he's declaring the entire state the disaster zone. there is hope sustained temperatures above freezing beginning saturday. because of. reports of at least 50 people shot dead the same day the country's military leader vows to safeguard democracy. comes home.