The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen continued attacking targets in Saudi Arabia on Monday, prompting Saudi authorities to issue civil defense alerts in several southern cities — including, for the first time, the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping was greeted at the airport in Cairo by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and his wife Entisar Amer on Tuesday, as Xi flew from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Kazakhstan to make a state visit to Egypt.
The United States on Wednesday night launched another round of heavy airstrikes against Iran, which apparently sought to widen the war by attacking an Egyptian port with a kamikaze drone.
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Iran are reportedly considering a plan to extort “fees” for safe passage of international shipping vessels in the Red Sea, modeled on Iran’s plans to collect ransoms for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz caused immediate shocks to the world oil market, but analysts are also afraid that rising food prices and fertilizer shortages could increase the risk of famine in struggling nations.
The idea that the United States might accept an Iranian fee regime in the Strait of Hormuz has produced something close to panic in the usual quarters.
The shipping industry is concerned that the war in Iran could disrupt worldwide supply chains, far beyond the loss of oil and liquid natural gas (LNG) shipments moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
Shipping giant Maersk announced on Friday that one of its ships successfully navigated the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the first time in almost two years, potentially signaling a return to using the cost-effective trade route after the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen shut it down with missile and drone attacks.
Shipping giant Maersk said on Tuesday that it was close to resuming shipping through the Suez Canal almost two years after terrorist attacks from the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen forced many transport companies to avoid the route through the Red Sea that leads to the canal.
President Donald Trump called for military and commercial ships from the United States to be able to travel through the Suez and Panama Canals without facing a fee, and added that he had directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take care of the issue.
The U.S. was wrong to neuter European power and create vassal states in the 1950s, Vice President JD Vance has said.
The United Kingdom accepts “the Americans have absolutely got a case” on lack of military spending on the continent.
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen said on Sunday they will begin limiting their wanton attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea to Israeli vessels, but added they could resume attacking ships from other countries if the Gaza ceasefire agreement does not hold.
Shipping giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd told reporters on Thursday they are not yet prepared to return to the Red Sea shipping lanes after the peace deal announced between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking said on Thursday that leaders of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen have decided to keep lower profiles following the devastation of Iran’s other regional proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, at the hands of Israel, followed by the overthrow of Iran’s client Bashar Assad in Syria by a Sunni Islamist insurgency.
Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen seizing the car carrier MV Galaxy Leader and taking its crew hostage.
Maersk said that disruptions to global shipping that attacks from the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen have caused are worsening.
The chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) warned on Thursday that the pivotal shipping passage lost nearly 25 percent of its revenue in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, largely as a result of attacks on civilian commercial ships by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi terrorists.
Egypt is selling real estate to the United Arab Emirates for $24 billion to make up for the Suez Canal shortfall from Houthi terrorism.
Insurance costs for Red Sea transit have risen by up to 50 percent since the Houthi terrorists began attacking commercial vessels.
The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development reported that the volume of freight passing through the Suez Canal has dropped by 45 percent.
Chinese exporters are feeling the pinch of rising shipping costs due to Red Sea terrorist attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen, to the point that Premier Li Qiang made an oblique reference to the crisis in his speech to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The White House said on Wednesday that additional U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen destroyed at least four anti-ship missiles the Houthis were preparing to launch at ships in the Red Sea.
Shipping costs rose over 300 percent due to the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday that container ship traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal was down an astonishing 90 percent year-on-year for the first week of January – meaning attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist of Yemen have almost completely shut down one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes.
Danish shipping giant Maersk suspended Red Sea shipping again on Sunday, calling a 48-hour pause to reconsider its plans for resuming Suez Canal routes after the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen attacked one of its container ships.
The U.S.-led task force President Joe Biden is looking to form for the protection of Red Sea commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks is in trouble.
The effort by shipping companies to reroute traffic from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope, thus avoiding drone and missile attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen, is running into major logistical hurdles because African ports are not ready to accommodate the surge of massive container ships and tankers.
The Pentagon said more than 20 countries have signed up to protect Red Sea shipping against the Iran-backed Houthis, but it only named 12.
Sources in the shipping industry told Reuters on Thursday they are “in the dark” about the Biden administration’s new Operation Prosperity Garden, a multinational effort to protect Red Sea shipping from terrorist attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen.
Shipping rates from China to Europe are soaring as a growing number of companies suspend and restrict transit through the Red Sea.
The Maersk shipping company suspended shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Houthi terrorists launched a string of attacks.
Australia is considering a U.S. request to send a warship to the Red Sea to help protect shipping from attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Europe, the Middle East and India will on Saturday unveil plans to create a modern-day Spice Route, in a challenge to China’s Belt and Road.
Two tankers carrying oil products and gas collided in the Suez Canal, disrupting traffic through the globally important waterway.
Russian tankers that would normally carry oil to European customers are instead being rerouted through the Arctic to China, according to an OilPrice report Friday.
A container ship carrying over 65,000 metric tons of Ukrainian corn ran aground in the Suez Canal on Monday, evoking nervous recollections of the March 2021 disaster in which a similar ship called MV Ever Given blocked the vital canal for six agonizing days.
The huge container ship that blocked the Suez Canal earlier this year finally reached the Netherlands on Thursday to begin unloading cargo.
CAIRO — Egypt on Tuesday announced plans to widen and deepen the southern part of the Suez Canal where a hulking vessel ran aground and closed off the crucial waterway in March.
Egypt is refusing to release the container ship Ever Given, which blocked billions of dollars in trade from passing through the Suez Canal from March 23-29, until the ship’s owners and insurers compensate the Egyptian government for losses incurred from the incident.
