An Egyptian court will decide on a claim by Suez Canal Authority on Sunday against the owner of the massive container ship that blocked the vital waterway for almost a week in March.
The 400-metre Ever Given is owned by Japan's Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd and was chartered by Taiwan's Evergreen Line when it got stuck in the southern end of the waterway for six days.
The Suez Canal Authority wants compensation to cover the loss of transit fees, damage to the waterway during the dredging and salvage efforts and the cost of equipment and labour. Dredging work to extend a second lane of the Suez Canal began last week with hopes to complete it by 2023.
The operator’s legal team has argued it should receive $916 million in compensation.
However, the ship’s insurers have said that amount is too high.
The Egyptian court will also issue a ruling about an appeal by the owners of the ship against a May 4 decision that upheld an order preventing the giant container ship from leaving the country.
The Ever Given is still anchored in the Suez Canal with authorities refusing to allow it to leave the country until a compensation amount is settled.
The Ever Given was on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 23 and battled strong winds before it slammed into the bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal.
A massive salvage effort by a flotilla of tugboats, helped by the tides, freed the Panama-flagged Ever Given six days later, ending the crisis, and allowing hundreds of ships in waiting to pass through the canal.
The blockage of the canal forced some ships to take the long alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip, requiring additional fuel and other costs.
Hundreds of other ships waited in place for the blockage to end.
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
