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In Suez Canal, Tides Rise and Fall, Salvagers Toil, but Ship Remains Stuck
A new tugboat has joined the ranks of those struggling to free the giant cargo ship blocking the crucial Suez Canal maritime route. Syria, citing the blockage, rations fuel, and Lebanon warns of a similar problem.
With the costs of the closure of one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries growing by the day, salvage teams hoped on Sunday to take advantage of the full moon and swelling tides to dislodge the giant cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal.
Late Saturday, tugboat drivers sounded their horns in celebration of the most visible sign of progress since the ship ran aground late Tuesday:
The 220,000-ton Ever Given had moved.
Granted, it did not go far — just two degrees, or about 100 feet, according to shipping officials. But that came on top of progress in the days before, when canal officials said dredgers had managed to dig out the rear of the ship, freeing its rudder.
By Saturday afternoon, they had dredged 18 meters down into the canal’s eastern bank. But officials cautioned that the ship’s bow remained firmly planted in the soil and that the operation still faced significant hurdles.
The company that oversees the ship’s operations and crew, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said a dozen tugboats were helping, the latest a specialist tug registered in the Netherlands, the ALP Guard, arrived on the scene on Sunday.
“Further attempts to refloat the vessel will continue this evening once the tug is safely in position along with the 11 tugs already on site,” the company said.
Several dredgers, including a specialized suction dredger that can extract 2,000 cubic meters of material per hour, were digging around the vessel’s bow, the company said.
Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, said that water had started running underneath the vessel. “We expect that at any time the ship could slide and move from the spot it is in,” he told a news conference on Saturday.
Salvagers are determined to free the vessel this weekend, but their best chance may be on Monday, when a spring tide will raise the canal’s water level as much as 18 inches, analysts and shipping agents said.
It is a delicate mission. Salvage crews are trying to move the ship without unbalancing it or breaking it apart.
With the ship sagging in the middle, its bow and stern both caught in positions for which they were not designed, the hull is vulnerable to stress and cracks, according to experts. Just as every high tide brings hope the ship can be released, each low tide puts new stresses on the vessel.
Teams of divers have been inspecting the hull throughout the operation and have found no damage, officials said.
The ship’s manager said that in addition to the tugboats and dredgers, high-capacity pumps will draw water from the vessel’s ballast tanks to lighten the ship.
But with each passing day, the situation is bringing global supply chains closer to a full-blown crisis.
Vessels packed with the world’s goods — including cars, oil, livestock and laptops — usually flow through the waterway with ease, supplying much of the globe as they traverse the quickest path from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the East Coast of the United States.
Some ships have already decided not to wait, U-turning to take the long way around the southern tip of Africa, a voyage that could add weeks to the journey and mean more than $26,000 a day in fuel costs.
If the Ever Given breaks free by Monday, the shipping industry can absorb the inconvenience, analysts said, but beyond that, supply chains and consumers could start to see major disruptions.
From the deck of a tugboat in the Suez Canal, where the Egyptian authorities allowed journalists to glimpse the salvage operation for the first time on Saturday, the Ever Given looked like a fallen skyscraper, lights ablaze.
Three boats that barely reached halfway up the word EVERGREEN painted on the ship’s side, for its Taiwan-based operator, had nosed up to its starboard side, keeping it stable.
A powerful tugboat sat near the ship’s stern, waiting for the next attempt to push and pull it out.
Together, the armada of tugboats — their engines churning with the combined power of tens of thousands of horses — have been pushing and pulling at the Ever Given for days.
Late Saturday, there was a brief celebration when the tugboats managed to move the 1,300-foot ship. The tugboats let the horns blow, hopeful that they could build on their progress when the high tide returned on Sunday, when the increased water level could help the ship break free.
With the ship too heavy for tugboats alone, the effort on the water was being aided by teams on land, where cranes that look like playthings in the shadow of the hulking cargo ship have been scooping mountains of earth from the area where the ship’s bow and stern are wedged tight.
As the dredgers worked, a team of eight Dutch salvage experts and naval architects overseeing the operation were surveying the ship and the seabed and creating a computer model to help it work around the vessel without damaging it, said Capt. Nick Sloane, a South African salvage master who led the operation to right the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that capsized in 2012 off the coast of Italy.
If the tugboats, dredgers and pumps cannot get the job done, they could be joined by a head-spinning array of specialized vessels and machines requiring perhaps hundreds of workers: small tankers to siphon off the ship’s fuel, the tallest cranes in the world to unload containers one by one and, if no cranes are tall enough or near enough, heavy-duty helicopters that can pick up containers of up to 20 tons — though no one has said where the cargo would go. (A full 40-foot container can weigh up to 40 tons.)
All this because, to put it simply: “This is a very big ship. This is a very big problem,” said Richard Meade, the editor in chief of Lloyd’s List, a maritime intelligence publication based in London.
“I don’t think there’s any question they’ve got everything they need,” he said. “It’s just a question of, it’s a very big problem.”
Sources:nytimes
ലണ്ടന്: ഓസ്ട്രേലിയക്ക് പിന്നാലെ 16 വയസിന് താഴെയുള്ള കുട്ടികളില് സോഷ്യല് മീഡിയ നിരോധനം കൊണ്ടുവരാന് യുകെയും. ഓണ്ലൈന് സുരക്ഷ ഉറപ്പാക്കാന് തനിക്കാവുന്നത് ചെയ്യുമെന്ന് യുകെ സാങ്കേതിക വിദ്യ സെക്രട്ടറി പീറ്റര് കൈലേയെ ഉദ്ധരിച്ച് ബിബിസി റിപ്പോര്ട്ട് ചെയ്യുന്നു. എല്ലാത്തിന്റെയും രേഖകള് കയ്യിലുണ്ടെന്നും തനിക്ക് ആദ്യം കൂടുതല് തെളിവുകള് ലഭിക്കണമെന്നും അദ്ദേഹം വ്യക്തമാക്കി. യുവാക്കളിലെ സോഷ്യല് മീഡിയകളുടെയും സ്മാര്ട്ട്ഫോണുകളുടെയും സ്വാധീനത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് കൂടുതല് ഗവേഷണം നടത്തുമെന്നും കൈലേ പറഞ്ഞു.
16 വയസുവരെയുള്ള കുട്ടികളില് സോഷ്യല് മീഡിയ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നത് നിരോധിക്കുന്നതിനുള്ള നിയമം ലോകത്തിലാദ്യമായി ഓസ്ട്രേലിയ അവതരിപ്പിച്ചിരുന്നു. ഓസ്ട്രേലിയയിലെ കമ്മ്യൂണിക്കേഷന് മന്ത്രി മിഷേല് റോളണ്ട് അവതരിപ്പിച്ച ബില്ല് ഓണ്ലൈന് സുരക്ഷയുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ടുള്ള രക്ഷിതാക്കളുടെ ആശങ്കയ്ക്ക് പ്രാധാന്യം നല്കുന്നു. ബില്ല് പാസായാല് നിയന്ത്രണമേര്പ്പെടുത്താന് ഒരു വര്ഷം വരെയെങ്കിലും സമയമെടുക്കും.
കുട്ടികള് അക്കൗണ്ട് എടുക്കുന്നത് തടഞ്ഞില്ലെങ്കില് സാമൂഹ്യ മാധ്യമങ്ങള് നഷ്ടപരിഹാരം നല്കേണ്ടി വരുമെന്നും ബില്ലില് പറയുന്നുണ്ട്. ഇങ്ങനെ സംഭവിച്ചാല് ടിക് ടോക്, ഫേസ്ബുക്ക്, സ്നാപ്ചാറ്റ്, റെഡ്ഡിറ്റ്, എക്സ്, ഇന്സ്റ്റാഗ്രാം തുടങ്ങിയ പ്ലാറ്റ്ഫോമുകള് 3.3 കോടി ഡോളര് പിഴ നല്കേണ്ടി വരും. സോഷ്യമീഡിയ പ്ലാറ്റ്ഫോമുകളില് സംരക്ഷണം ഒരുക്കേണ്ട ചുമതല കുട്ടികള്ക്കോ മാതാപിതാക്കള്ക്കോ അല്ലെന്നും മൈക്കിള് റോളണ്ട് പറഞ്ഞു. 18 വയസിന് താഴെയുള്ളവർക്ക് ഓണ്ലൈന് പോണോഗ്രഫി നിരോധിക്കാനുള്ള നിയമവും ഓസ്ട്രേലിയ ആലോചിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്.
Sources:azchavattomonline.com
LONDON – An ex-Muslim turned Christian evangelist has been beaten, chased by angry mobs, unlawfully jailed and even stabbed, all for the sake of the Gospel.
This is not in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. It is officially happening in Christian Britain.
Her name is Hatun Tash, and what has been done to her has even caught the attention of the British media.
Tash grew up in Turkey as a Muslim and became a Christian after moving to England. And being an ex-Muslim speaking out against Islam has made her a target.
She told us she has changed residences more than 50 times in the past four years because she knows Muslims are looking for her in order to kill her. One man has already been sentenced to 24 years in prison for trying.
Because of this ongoing danger, she asked that we interview her from a secret location.
Tash told us her conversion to Christ began when she learned the truth about Islam and Mohammed.
“As I read biography, it was very disturbing to me. So, the man you grew up to love and honor suddenly turns out to be like, yeah, not good, not good. And I decided, I can’t be Muslim.”
Then she learned about a very different God than the one of Islam, telling us, “As you dig into it, you get to meet with a God who is not silent or far or distant from you, but you meet with a God who loves you, who pours out himself on you. And not only that, He just puts himself on the cross and then says, ‘I love you from everlasting to everlasting, Come to me.'”
Tash began sharing this message to Muslims at Speakers Corner, in London’s Hyde Park, where speakers climb atop stepladders and vigorous debates ensue, often between Muslims and Christians.
Her preaching and criticism of Islam has sometimes enraged Muslims, and three years ago a man slashed her face with a knife. He has never been caught.
She however has been arrested unlawfully more than once. The London Police have twice paid her damages for wrongful arrests, including two years ago when she refused to leave the area where she was preaching. Tash was forcibly marched through Hyde Park, followed by Muslims celebrating her arrest. She was placed in a police van, strip-searched, and jailed.
This has not stopped Tash from going to mosques and sharing the Gospel daily.
“I would simply stand in front of the mosques, and I’d say ‘Muhammad is a false prophet. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Tell me, what is your objections?’ Hundreds of Muslims just stop and then they want to talk to you. Sometimes you get harmed, sometimes it gets dangerous. Sometimes you end up in hospitals, sometimes you end up in people’s homes for a cup of tea,” Tash said.
“I don’t care whether people reject me or not. They need to hear the gospel,” she said.
Christian Concern’s Christian Legal Centre has defended Tash. Christian Concern’s Andrea Williams told us, “The truth is that those that have attempted to kill her have been caught on camera. The police know who they are, but they have not been arrested. She is feared by and targeted by Muslim groups because she is fearless for the gospel. She loves Jesus so much that nothing will halt her.”
Tash says she will continue to preach and continue to challenge Islam.
“Things are dangerous. Should I choose to stay silent? Like when people are spending 5,000 Pounds to buy a gun, to shoot you and shoot your loved ones? The Gospel is so glorious, I cannot be silent. And the Lord is the giver of life. So, when it’s my time, He will take me home. But until He gives me breath, we continue to preach.”
Sources:CBN News
us news
‘Christ Laid His Life Down for Me’: Greg Laurie Gives Powerful Gospel Presentation to Jordan Peterson
Christian megachurch leader Greg Laurie recently appeared on psychologist Jordan Peterson’s podcast, where he gave the professor-turned-cultural commentator a powerful presentation of the Gospel.
“When everything’s said and done, what’s more important than the afterlife?” the California-based pastor asked Peterson. “What’s more important than where we spend it? According to the Bible, I believe there’s a literal heaven, a literal hell, and I believe we choose in this life where we will spend the afterlife.”
Laurie added he’s going to spend eternity in heaven “not because I’ve lived a good life — because I failed in many ways — but because Christ laid His life down for me on the cross.”
“Coming back to Abraham, and what a picture, the son was willing to go and be sacrificed by the father,” the pastor continued, referring to the Old Testament story of Genesis 22. “[Isaac] knew what was going on: ‘Hey, Dad, where’s the sacrifice?’ ‘My son, God will provide for Himself a sacrifice.’ But Isaac made that sacrifice, too. The Son Jesus made that sacrifice for us, because He knew there was no other way that we could reach God, no other way we could satisfy the righteous demands of God. So Heaven isn’t for good people, as it’s often said; heaven is for forgiven people.”
The conversation between Peterson and Laurie stemmed from the 71-year-old minister opening up about the death of his son, Christopher, who passed away in 2008 as a result of a tragic car accident.
He described that day in July of 2008 as the “worst” day in his life. Nevertheless, Laurie said he is not without hope — because of his faith in the redemptive work of Jesus.
“I believe I’ll see my son again, because he believed in Jesus,” Laurie explained. “He won’t be in heaven because I’m his dad; he’ll be in heaven because he put his faith in Christ and he had that relationship. He’s a part of my future as well, so that gives me hope. But, also, I realize that God can allow these things in our life. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it. I don’t even try to explain it.”
Peterson, author of the new book, “We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine,” admitted to Laurie he struggles to intellectually reconcile a desire to perfect the earthly world with the knowledge the Christian life is heavily weighted toward considering eternity.
The famed psychologist and podcast host asked, “How do you reconcile, in your own mind, the insistence that part of the Christian moral pattern is to perfect the world and to raise the material up to the heavenly with the notion of the afterlife and immortality?”
Laurie referenced 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, in which the Apostle Paul wrote about experiencing a “third heaven,” as well as the thief on the cross next to Jesus, Who promised the man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:42-43, NIV).
The pastor explained he has felt closest to God — and His promises of eternity — through life’s trials.
“God made a lot of promises,” said Laurie. “I’ve put those promises to the test, including the worst thing of all, to lose a child. And I’ve seen how God had come through for me. If He hadn’t come through for me after my son died, I would have given up preaching, for sure. Why carry on? But He came through for me.”
Sources:faithwire
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