World

Efforts to dislodge the stricken container ship blocking the Suez canal continue as fears mount that the operation could take days or weeks. The 400-metre-long Ever Given mega-container ship ran aground on Tuesday and has blocked traffic through one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Despite efforts to free the ship, it could take weeks to remove experts say. According to shipping data, the stranded Ever Given in the Suez Canal is said to be holding up an estimated $9.6bn (£7bn) of goods each day. This works out at $400m an hour in trade along the waterway which is a vital passageway between east and west.

Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean candidate for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General position has voluntarily withdrawn from the race as a candidate. With this new development, the Nigerian candidate, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala may clinch the office as she has remained the only candidate for the position.

Chinese authority has finally congratulated United States President-elect, Joe Biden today a week after he was declared the winner of the American Presidential race saying it respect “the choice of the American people”. The US-China relation has grown sour in the last few years of the Trump administration after 40 years of a good relationship between the two giants.

A landslide on Sunday which hit Vietnam's central province of Quang Tri has killed 11 soldiers while 11 others remain missing even as frantic search is under way. The landslide hit the barracks of a unit of Vietnam’s 4th Military Region, the government said in a statement on its website, days after another landslide killed 13 people, mostly soldiers, in the neighbouring province of Thua Thien Hue. “We had another sleepless night,” a visibly emotional Phan Van Giang, Vietnam’s deputy defence minister, told reporters on Sunday. Heavy rain has pounded the region for more than a week even as the country battles its worst flooding in years. At least 64 people have been killed in floods and landslides, according to Vietnam’s disaster management authority, with concerns mounting that waters could rise further. Rocks rained down on the barracks of a military station in Quang Tri province, with 22 soldiers believed to have been buried underneath thick mud, an official government website said.

A gas pipeline explosion near a mosque in Bangladesh has killed some worshippers. Dozens of worshipers suffered severe burns while praying in a mosque, in Narayanganj district, outside of Dhaka when an apparent gas explosion hit the building. According to reports, the blast claimed the life of a seven-year-old boy. The death toll from the blast has risen to 16, police and doctors said on Saturday. At least 50 people were injured in the explosion. The mosque's imam and another senior cleric were among those with severe injuries being treated at the hospital, according to The Dhaka Tribune newspaper.

The United States consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu officially closed Monday morning, amid deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington. American diplomatic staff vacated the consulate, following the expiration of a 72-hour deadline issued by the Chinese.