al jazeera, daca. ♪ anchor: this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. ethiopia says eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces from the northern region where they have been accused of killing, raping, and torturing civilians. ethiopian prime minister finally admitted that forces are there. after months of denials. the latest attempt to refer -- move the ship has failed. follow-up grows for global trade. it's been wedged across that crucial shipping route for three days. the german health officials are

warning that its latest wave of the coronavirus could be the worst so far. there are fears that there could be as many as 100,000 new cases every day unless the spread is curbed. brazil has reported more than 3600 coronavirus deaths, a new record for a single day. she was have been growing for intensive care beds as infections search. the most popular state has extended lockdown measures until april 11. u.s. politicians have been visiting border facilities in texas following the record surge of migrants arriving in recent weeks. democrats blame the trump administration for leaving behind a broken system while republicans accused biden of encouraging asylum-seekers to make that journey. we have more from tijuana, mexico. reporter: in the time we have been here over the past few days, we have seen a steady flow of people continuing to arrive. this first line of tense we have behind us just popped up

overnight. people here are impressed with the news. many folks we've been speaking to say that they did listen to that press conference yesterday where president biden made it very clear that the border is closed. he said he expects mexico to share in the burden of taking care of migrant families that will be inevitably deported from the united states. anchor: two trains have collided in central egypt, killing 32 people and injuring 106 t5 others. railway authorities say someone triggered the emergency brakes on one of the trains. those are the headlines. next up, inside story. ♪ >> 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. what will be the impact if the blockages and cleared soon? this is inside story. ♪ hello and welcome to the program. 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. that 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. experts fear it could be weeks

over that's possible. other ships may now have to reroute which would mean a much longer journey to their destination. charles stratford reports. reporter: 400 meters long and weighing 200,000 tons. it's 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 on tuesday when high wind blew her off course. about 12% of global trade passes through the 193 kilometer long canal which connects the red sea with the mediterranean, providing the shortest length between asia and europe. the vessel, carrying 20,000 containers, is registered in panama and operated by taiwanese transport companies. 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. >> the traffic along the suez canal has been disrupted due to the incident and local authorities are working on resolving the issue. there's no time for it to be resolved. reporter: this image shows the backlog of at least 150 vessels stuck in the northern entrance of the canal. in the middle, an area called the bitter lakes. at the southern entrance, at suez. the vast majority of oil thrgh the gulf is transported to oil along the canal. we'll prices rose sharply on thursday. industry experts are warning of a flood of insurance claims covering the vast amount of cargo being held up. addition officials say at least eight tugboats 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 at the north end are in a precarious position. they may not be able just to turn around and take another course as long and expensive as it is to go from the mediterranean around africa and vice versa. reporter: the canal authorities say 20,000 ships pass through the canal last year, earning egypt billions of dollars in total revenue. the ever given is one of the largest can -- container ships in the world. for every day or remain stuck in stationary, there are concerns about the financial flout and impact on global trade. al jazeera. anchor: let's take a look at why this away shut down is creating more than a few ripples in the business world. about 30% of global container ship traffic sales through the waterway. an assessment by lloyd's list

shows $9.6 billion worth of daily marine traffic is being blocked. the canal is a big earner for egypt's economy, contributing more than $5.5 billion last year. it's ♪ ♪ let's bring in our guest from oxford. secretary-general of the international chamber of shipping. here into ohio, and egypt analyst and associate professor at the doha institute for graduate studies. from brussels, the former european union ambassador. thank you for joining us. let me start with you today. this incident really shows just how much global supply chains rely on shipping, doesn't it? just how massive are the implications for global trade right now? >> i think the figures, you have just shown. 12% of volumes passed through the suez canal each year.

10 billion is held up each day. it has been three days so far. you can do the maths on that. hundreds of ships are now lying at anchor, waiting to pass through the canal. ship owners and managers have to make that difficult judgment. do they switch roots, which adds 3.5 thousand nautical miles? delays will result in that. it's huge. it shows you how strategic the suez canal is in terms of a waterway and how dependent we are on it to have the most efficient supply chains and goods coming from asia to europe. anchor: how important strategically and economically is the suez canal for egypt? >> it's critically important. you can't overstate that point. it's important for strategic regions -- reasons.

egypt has fought multiple wars over control over the suez canal. injections view it as a source of national pride, assemble of national independence. economically, egypt brings in more than $5 million in annual rep -- $5 billion in annual revenues as a result of the canal. it's a main source of foreign currency for the country. one of the reasons why cici, the first thing he did in 2014 when he took over as president, was announced this great expansion of the suez canal that he said would greatly, more than double the revenues from the canal. that underscores the extent to which this is really critically important for egypt's economy. anchor: the ever given his massive. it is almost asig as the

empire state building. should a ship that huge actually be passing through the suez canal? >> since they made the improvements to the canal a few years ago, they have deepened the draft in the waterway. part of the reason for doing that was so that they could accommodate very large ships. of course, the challenges of navigating through the canal -- if you have been on it, it's a norma's. you have to have very precise series of techniques and so forth to get the ships through, especially when they are that size. something has gone wrong. whether it was the weather, whether there was a technical problem, difficulty perhaps from the piloting which was provided by the authority, we don't know. it is a challenge. normally, it should work as planned. anchor: who is ultimately going to be held responsible for all of this? >> clearly, the heart of it will

be the shipowner. all the people involved in the voyage. we don't know yet what actually went wrong. we need to establish those facts before you can start apportioning blame. there's clearly many claims that will go. there's some huge litigation coming down the line with this one. of course, the knock on effects to trade as well. anchor: the egyptian government ordered the canal to be expanded in 2015. judging by what has happened, was enough done in that expansion? if enough had been done, would an accident like this have taken place? >> i'm not a technical expert on canals, canal digging, canal expansions. i can't speak to that. cc presented this as an economic revival project. the revenues -- i have the numbers in front of me.

the revenues in 2013, 2014, 2015 were just over $5 billion. in 2014, there was $5.5 billion. not only have revenues not doubled, they have stagnated. in 2020, the revenues were $5.6 billion. there hasn't been any increase in revenues, certainly nothing like the 13.5 billion dollars that sisi promised would be coming in by 2023. that adds to the tension here. i think it adds to the nature of the political crisis. i think it's interesting that, at least as far as i'm aware, cc had not spoken on this. i think that's very striking. anchor: we've spoken about this a little bit in this program. the suez canal 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? what is the importance of trade right now for their economy? >> how embarrassing, we don't know. we go back to this point that no one really knows how this occurred. we won't know for quite some time. one thing that we think is very important, at some point, once the issue is resolved in the coming days or weeks, there has to be a transparent international investigation into what happened. that will be difficult. egyptians regard the suez canal with a very special i. it is a symbol of the nation. a symbol of independence, as he said. sovereignty is a big issue when it comes to these things. in order to resort -- restore confidence in the canal operations, there will have to be an internationally led investigation including all the developing organizations going down the track. embarrassing?

perhaps. we don't yet know. anchor: i saw you nodding along. did you want to jump in? >> yeah. the most important thing is that we have a thorough investigation to establish the facts of exactly what happened. only then can we learn the lessons and see if there was negative or failure at some point. that's the most important point. we don't know exact what happened. we have lots of speculation at this point. we know the ship is stuck faster ground. the focus at the moment must be on getting that waterway open again. anchor: what are the broader implications for the region? >> i think it goes beyond the region. there are global and locations. in your lead up, you talked about how much money is pitying -- being potentially lost on a daily basis. i want to underscore the point that was made about the investigation. i think this will be critically important. it saddens me as magician -- as

an egyptian that i have to acknowledge that this investigation does have to be international. quite frankly, i don't trust an ejection -- egyptian led investigation. this government has proven itself to be corrupt and complicit in crimes against the egyptian people and others. it's very important that this is an international sort of collaborative investigation. i think it's also worth underscoring that this is happening, tragically, on a day when there's news of a horrible passenger train crash in egypt that killed dozens of people. egyptian government ishat the

authoritarian. authoritarianism breeds corruption. inefficiency, incompetence. egypt has become a place of disasters. it is a place where buildings collapse, where trains crash. we are seeing what is happening in the canal. anchor: it looks like you were reacting and wanted to jump in. please go ahead. >> it wasn't what he was saying about the situation internally. you asked about the region. there are people that say that this sort of thing might have an upside. what has been going on over the last couple of years, in europe anyway, people are becoming extreme the concerned about being too dependent on the far east and china for their supply chains. this incident shows just how fragile those supply chains can be. the upside for the region could be, although i'm not saying it's

going to happen, could be that the so-called near shoring -- bringing the supply chains closer to home, either back into europe or to north africa -- might get a boost from this incident. although, i don't want to be too optimistic about that. i think it might be one of the aspects to be looking at in the longer term. it's already something which is beginning to happen. dependency on china in particular has reached a stage in europe and elsewhere where people are singing very seriously about rebalancing. this incident might be one amongst other factors that accelerates that process. anchor: this situation is really only further complicating the supply chain problems that have been caused by covid-19. how exactly has the pandemic impacted shipping? how dire did the situation get? >> i think the first thing is that shipping throughout the pandemic has continued to deliver the fuel, food, medical

supplies, everything which has kept the world going. we have a massive debt of gratitude to the sea bearers out there. it impacted the industry and so many different ways. the shutdown in china, which had massive repercussions on the factories shunning, goods getting out. then we had the fact that we couldn't get cruise off of their ships. we had shipping proving to be extremely resilient. incidents like this show how fragile that supply chain actually is. i think that's a lesson that we need to take away from this. anchor this pandemic and all of its related restrictions have really limited the availability of dockworkers and truck drivers. it has caused delays in handling cargo. how is that impacting the global economy? >> obviously, the pandemic has affected global trade, workers

at the individual level, at organizational levels, at more macro levels. the level of the nation. what's interesting here is that egypt hasn't been as affected in some of those ways because it hasn't shut down and some of the ways that other countries have. whether that's for good or bad, in terms of the virus and how the government has chosen to handle the outbreaks that have occurred in egypt, that's for other folks to decide. egypt, just from a purely on the ground, business perspective -- has not been effective as much as other places have been. anchor: 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

will that be? is it clear if egypt actually has the kind of equipment that is needed in order to accomplish this? >> i'm not an expert on that. i think we know that, if they have to start removing the containers from the ship, it will take quite some time. some special equipment will have to be shipped in. they need a 200 foot high crane to start taking those containers off. it will obviously be a very slow process. on whether egypt has the equipment, don't forget that the main work around at the moment when it comes to the dredging and taking is being carried out by the dutch salvage company which has been there before in the canal. he knows very area very well. they are extreme the professional. in fact, when it comes to looking at the likely scenarios, they are the first ones you want to listen to. they said it might take weeks, not 72 hours. anchor: i saw you nodding.

did you want to jump in? >> yeah. as he just said, the suez canal authority, some but he said this will be handled within 48 hours. other international experts are saying that is too optimistic. i'm also seeing reports that there are countries that are sending help or offering to send help. that's 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 potentially help alleviate the problem. we will just have to watch it over the coming hours and potentially days. anchor: are more and more countries going to need to look to alternative shipping routes now? for example, russia. there is 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? >> they are doing that anyway regardless of this. the suez canal still represents a massive shortcut for trade between asia and europe. i have no doubt that when this blockage is removed, ships will still continue to use the canal. it is just the most effective way of shipping goods. there's no doubt that routes are being looked at all around the world now. global warming is opening up those northern roots. shipping is very good at adapting to the circumstances. that's what will happen here now as well. shipping will adapt and configure its supply routes. they will take longer and there will be delays as a result of it. anchor: it is a significant sign of all the turmoil that this is causing that the ships japanese owner has offered a written apology. from your perspective, how extort areas that? -- extraordinary is that? >> there may be a cultural

element here. japan has its way of dealing with these things. i think he's probably trying to cover himself down the line. if it turns out this is down to human error related to the ship. i don't know that we can read more into it than that. as we said earlier, there are many factors here. they really need to be carefully looked at so that confidence can be restored. in any event, it's going to remain a major part of the infrastructure for world shipping and trade in the weeks and months to come. egypt needs to think very carefully, at the top level or everyone involved, very carefully about how best to manage this. not to take a heuristic, nationalistic line. it's very important that egypt

very carefully reflects on how best to conduct the investigation to come. anchor: picking up on how important it is for egypt to really conduct this thorough investigation, picking up on your previous answer in which you mention that there were egyptian officials that said this might be solved within 48 hours, where do you believe the shipping companies stand right now? are they moving ahead with contingency plans? do they think it's going to be weeks? are some of them prone to believe that it might actually open up within the next 48 or 72 hours? >> i don't know. maybe some of them are going to watch inside story to see what we say. i think people are probably just waiting on pins and needles. these are folks that have millions of dollars on the line. you have these varying analyses out there. it might take two or three days.

it might take a few weeks. at the end of the day, nobody really knows. we hope that we will have more clarity, more answers in the next 24 hours or so. this is sort of unprecedented, at least as far as i know, for a ship this massive to get stuck like this. i'm not sure when the last time something like this has happened. we are in uncharted waters, no pun intended. anchor: in addition to all the all -- all the economic and locations, there are security experts who have indicated that perhaps ships that are just idling in the red sea might become targets perhaps for attacks amid tensions between iran and the u.s. and other countries. is that something you are concerned about? >> we are certainly aware of it. at the moment, we are not overly

worried. that is some thing that could change. on the last point that you are asking, we know that the companies are rerouting ships to go around the long way. the longer this goes on, the more companies will make that decision. even if it was clear tomorrow, there is such a backlog now, it would take days to clear that. operational decisions being made as we speak. even if they do route, there is security issues there. they have to transit through the gulf of guinea which is a known piracy issue. security is at the forefront of minds when they are making these decisions and looking after the welfare and safety of their crew as well. anchor: let me ask you the same thing. you concerned about the security of the ships right now? >> everybody is concerned about security. on the other hand, the situation there in the red sea and through the gulf towards the suez canal

has been under control. of course, i'm sure that the shipping companies are aware of this. but i don't think there's a special reason to worry about that. i agree with guy. possible attacks further south through the coast of east africa. there has been a long issue of piracy. if they go the long way around, that is more dangerous than where they are at the moment. anchor: we run out of time. we will have to leave the conversation there. thank you so much to all of our guests. thank you for watching. you can see this and all of our previous programs again anytime by visiting our website al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. from me in the whole team here,

bye for now. ♪

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