Thursday, December 26, 2013

Chokepoints - Suez Canal

21-3-29 Suez Canal reopens after giant stranded ship is freed - BBC N > .
24-6-6 Egypt is a Ticking Time Bomb - gtbt > . skip > .
24-4-3 Maritime Chokepoints: Panama Canal, Red Sea & Baltimore - Shipping > .
24-2-25 Impact on Global Trade: Disruptions in Red Sea, Black Sea, Panama Canal > .
24-1-29 El Niño & Houthis Negatively Impacting Panama Canal - Real > .
24-1-26 Saudi Arabia's Catastrophic "Iran" Problem - Hindsight > .
What Really Happened during the Suez Canal blockage? - PrEn > .
Why Egypt’s Geography Might Be Too Good For its Own Good - KhAnubis > .
Chokepoints - Suez Canal ..Suez Crisis - Propaganda Film (1956) ..

Suez Canal: Ever Given container ship finally freed: A giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week has been freed after a huge operation. Tug boats honked their horns in celebration as the 400m-long (1,300ft) Ever Given was dislodged on Monday March 29th, 2021.

Traffic is set to resume in both directions through the canal at 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT), officials say. Hundreds of ships are waiting to pass. Suez, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea through Egypt, is one of the world's busiest trade routes.

In May 1967, Nasser ordered the UN peacekeeping forces out of Sinai, including the Suez Canal area. Israel objected to the closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. The canal had been closed to Israeli shipping since 1949, except for a short period in 1951–1952.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli forces occupied the Sinai peninsula, including the entire east bank of the Suez Canal. Unwilling to allow the Israelis to use the canal, Egypt immediately imposed a blockade which closed the canal to all shipping. Fifteen cargo ships, known as the "Yellow Fleet", were trapped in the canal, and would remain there until 1975.

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, the canal was the scene of a major crossing by the Egyptian army into Israeli-occupied Sinai and a counter-crossing by the Israeli army to Egypt. Much wreckage from this conflict remains visible along the canal's edges.

The Suez Canal (قناة السويس‎ qanāt as-suwēs) is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. It was built between 1859 and 1869 under the rule of the Ottoman Empire by the Suez Canal Company, which in turn was formed in 1858 by Ferdinand de Lesseps. The canal officially opened on 17 November 1869. It offers watercraft a more direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, thus avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reducing the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by approximately 8,900 kilometres (5,500 mi), or 8 days at 24knts to 10 days at 20knts. It extends from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. Its length is 193.30 km (120.11 mi) including its northern and southern access-channels. In 2020, over 18,500 vessels traversed the canal (an average of 51.5 per day).

The original canal featured a single-lane waterway with passing locations in the Ballah Bypass and the Great Bitter Lake. It contained, according to Alois Negrelli's plans, no lock systems, with seawater flowing freely through it. In general, the water in the canal north of the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. South of the lakes, the current changes with the tide at Suez.

While the canal as such was the property of the Egyptian government, European shareholders, mostly French and British, owned the concessionary company which operated it until July 1956, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized it—an event which led to the Suez Crisis of October–November 1956. The canal is operated and maintained by the state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of Egypt. Under the Convention of Constantinople, it may be used "in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag." Nevertheless, the canal has played an important military strategic role as a naval short-cut and choke-point. Navies with coastlines and bases on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea (Egypt and Israel) have a particular interest in the Suez Canal. After Egypt closed the Suez canal at the beginning of the Six-Day War on 5 June 1967, the canal remained closed for precisely eight years, reopening on 5 June 1975.

The Egyptian government launched construction in 2014 to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass for 35 km (22 mi) to speed up the canal's transit-time. The expansion intended to nearly double the capacity of the Suez Canal, from 49 to 97 ships per day. At a cost of 59.4 billion Egyptian pounds (US$9bn), this project was funded with interest-bearing investment certificates issued exclusively to Egyptian entities and individuals. The "New Suez Canal", as the expansion was dubbed, was opened in a ceremony on 6 August 2015.

The Suez Canal Authority officially opened the new side channel in 2016. This side channel, located at the northern side of the east extension of the Suez Canal, serves the East Terminal for berthing and unberthing vessels from the terminal. As the East Container Terminal is located on the Canal itself, before the construction of the new side channel it was not possible to berth or unberth vessels at the terminal while a convoy was running.

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sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...