SUEZ CANAL TEMPORARILY HALTS NAVIGATION

The owners of a giant container vessel blocking the Suez Canal said on Thursday that they were facing “extreme difficulty” refloating it, prompting Egypt to suspend navigation through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it was trying to refloat the Panama-flagged MV Ever Given, a 400-metre-long vessel that veered off course and ran aground in a sandstorm on Tuesday.

Satellite pictures released by Planet Labs Inc show the 59-metre-wide container ship wedged diagonally across the entire canal.

Japanese ship-leasing firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha said it owned the giant vessel and was facing “extreme difficulty” trying to refloat it. “In co-operation with local authorities and Schulte Shipmanagement, a vessel management company, we are trying to refloat [the ship], but we are facing extreme difficulty,” Shoei Kisen Kaisha said in a statement on its website.

As shipping specialists warned it could take days or even weeks to budge the vessel, the Suez Canal Authority announced it was “temporarily suspending navigation”.

Maritime sources told AFP on Thursday that a new dredger had been deployed to speed up the operation while northern convoy ships remain docked in the waiting areas of the canal.

The blockage has already hit world oil markets. Crude futures surged 6% on Wednesday as traders assessed the likely impact on deliveries.

The container is holding up an estimated $9.6bn (£7bn) of goods each day, according to shipping data.

This works out at $400m an hour in trade along the waterway which is a vital passageway between east and west.

JOE BIDEN HOLDS FIRST SOLO PRESS CONFERENCE, TALKS ABOUT CHINA ISSUES & MORE

United States President Joe Biden on Thursday held his first press conference since assuming office and revealed he plans to seek a second term in the White House in 2024 and he said he expects Vice President Kamala Harris would again be his running mate.

Biden doubles goal of Covid vaccines

He made an ambitious pledge of administering 200 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days and would be detailing an infrastructure plan on Friday.

On China

"I made it clear that US is not looking for confrontation, although there will be steep competition."

I also told him that China must play by the international rules and honour fair competition," he said. He warned that China seeks to become the world's wealthiest and most powerful country – and to impose its repressive autocracy across the globe.

"Xi doesn't have a doesn't have a democratic – with a small ‘d’ – bone in his body," Biden said. He compared Xi to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said they both think "autocracy is the wave of the future" and that democracies can't function in an ever-more complex world.

On North Korea

Biden said there will be responses to North Korea if they choose to escalate their nuclear programe.

"But I'm also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization."

On re-election

When told that President Trump has already set up his reelection committee, Biden laughed and quipped, "My predecessor ... I miss him".

Biden confirmed his plans to run for White House again in 2024.

'Unlikely that US troops will remain in Afghanistan'

President Joe Biden said it will be hard for the United States to meet the May 1 deadline to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan but said he did not think the US soldiers would still be in the country next year.

Biden was asked if it was possible there would be US troops in Afghanistan next year. He said: "I can't picture, that being the case."

Biden defends handling of border

Biden defended his handling of a rise in migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, saying the vast majority are turned back and that some families had been allowed into the country because Mexico would not accept them.

Biden also said the increase in arrivals was part of a seasonal trend and happened under former President Donald Trump.

TECH CEOS TOLD ‘TIME FOR SELF-REGULATION IS OVER’

The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared before Congress on Thursday to answer questions about extremism and misinformation on their services in their first appearances since pro-Trump rioters assaulted the US Capitol on January 6.

Facebook Inc chief executive Mark Zuckerberg; Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc; and Twitter Inc CEO Jack Dorsey are testifying before the joint hearing by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Lawmakers began the hearing by criticising the social media platforms for their role in the riot and in the spread of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.

“You failed to meaningfully change after your platform has played a role in fomenting insurrection and abetting the spread of the virus and trampling American civil liberties,” said Democratic Representative Frank Pallone, chair of the Energy and Commerce committee.

“Your business model itself has become the problem and the time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” he added.

“The witnesses here today have demonstrated time and again that promises to self-regulate don’t work,” said Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, in an opening statement. “They must be held accountable for allowing disinformation and misinformation to spread across their platforms, infect our public discourse, and threaten our democracy.”

WITH ALL VOTES COUNTED IN ISRAEL’S POLLS, ARAB LEADER SEEMS TO BE EMERGING AS ‘KINGMAKER’

Mansour Abbas, an Arab leader in Israel seems to have emerged as the unusual “kingmaker” whose possible support has split open differences not only in the ruling Likud party, but also in its right-wing coalition, making the road to the government formation even more bumpy for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s Likud party has emerged as the largest party, with all votes counted in Israel’s unprecedented fourth election in less than two years. However, it still does not have a clear path to a 61-seat majority needed to form a coalition in the 120 member Knesset (Israeli Parliament).

The anti-Netanyahu bloc, comprising left, right and centrist factions which is boosted by some “friends turned foes” determined to oust Israel’s longest-serving premier, is also short of a majority in a highly-divided Israeli political spectrum.

Most of the analysts predicted a Netanyahu-led coalition, based on the exit polls on Tuesday, with the support of Yamina party led by former defence minister Naftali Bennett, who has not declared his support for anyone but his political inclination is more likely to draw him towards the Prime Minister led right-wing bloc.

However, in a surprising twist to the tale, the Islamist United Arab List party (UAL), headed by Abbas, managed to cross the threshold belying all predictions and secured four Knesset seats, spoiling the turf for the Netanyahu camp which finds itself at 59 seats, in the best-case scenario including Bennett’s Yamina party, making Abbas’ support indispensable if the Prime Minister does not manage to split other parties opposed to him and draw the required support to form the government.

The UAL and Yamina have not yet declared their support for either bloc.

PHILIPPINES DEPLOYS MORE NAVY SHIPS TO DISPUTED SEA AMID ROW WITH CHINA

The Philippine military ordered the deployment of more navy ships to the South China Sea on Thursday amid a growing diplomatic row over a fleet of Chinese boats parked near a disputed reef.

China claims almost the entirety of the resource-rich sea, and was accused by the United States this week of efforts to "intimidate and provoke others" by parking its vessels near Whitsun Reef.

Manila has ordered Beijing to recall 183 boats at the boomerang-shaped reef around 320 kilometres (175 nautical miles) west of Palawan Island, describing their presence as an incursion of its sovereign territory.

Around 220 boats were detected by the Philippine coast guard on March 7 but only made public last weekend. A military aerial patrol over the reef on Monday found 183 were still there.

China says the fishing boats are sheltering from poor weather near the reef, which it claims is part of the contested Spratly Islands.

A spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines said the additional navy ships would carry out "sovereignty patrols" in the waterway.

He did not say if the ships would go near the reef or what type of vessels would be used.

ASTRAZENECA COVID-19 VACCINE 76% EFFECTIVE IN UPDATED U.S. TRIAL RESULTS

AstraZeneca said on Thursday its COVID-19 vaccine was 76% effective at preventing symptomatic illness, citing a new analysis of up-to-date results for its major U.S. trial.

U.S. health officials earlier in the week publicly rebuked the drugmaker for using “outdated information” when calculating that the vaccine was 79% effective.

That marked a new setback for the vaccine that was once hailed as a milestone in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but has been dogged by questions over its effectiveness and possible side-effects.

AstraZeneca reiterated on Thursday that the shot, developed with Oxford University, was 100% effective against severe or critical forms of the disease.

It also said the vaccine showed 85% efficacy in adults 65 years and older.

The latest trial data, which has yet to be reviewed by independent researchers or regulators, was based on 190 infections and 32,449 participants in the United States, Chile and Peru. The earlier interim data was based on 141 infections through February 17.

The updated 76% efficacy rate compares with rates of about 95% for vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

CHINA ATTACKS FOREIGN CLOTHING, SHOE BRANDS OVER XINJIANG

China’s ruling Communist Party is lashing out at H&M and other clothing and footwear brands as it retaliates for Western sanctions imposed on Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The attacks began when the party’s Youth League on Wednesday called attention on its social media account to an H&M statement in March 2020 that it would stop buying cotton grown in Xinjiang. The Swedish retailer said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of forced labour there.

On Thursday, a party newspaper, the Global Times, cited Burberry, Adidas, Nike and New Balance as having made “cutting remarks” about Xinjiang cotton as early as two years ago. Celebrities including Wang Yibo, a popular singer and actor, announced they were breaking endorsement contracts with H&M and Nike.

MISCARRIAGES AND STILLBIRTHS: NEW ZEALAND TO ALLOW BEREAVEMENT LEAVE

Couples in New Zealand who have a miscarriage or stillbirth will be eligible for paid bereavement leave under a new law approved by parliament.

MP Ginny Andersen, who put forward the bill, said it would allow mothers and their partners to "come to terms with their loss" without taking sick leave.

The bill also applies to those having a child though adoption or surrogacy.

New Zealand is reportedly only the second country in the world to introduce the measure, after India.