BEIJING: A Iranian oil tanker burst into flames from end to end and sank Sunday, eight days after a collision with a cargo ship off China, state media said.
A Tehran official said even before news of the sinking that there was no hope of saving some 30 missing crewmen. But Chinese officials played down fears of a major environmental disaster.
The Sanchi, carrying 136,000 tons of light crude oil from Iran, had been in flames since colliding with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, on January 6.
Around midday Sunday the ship “suddenly ignited,” with the entire vessel burning fiercely and a pall of smoke around 800-1,000 meters high, China’s transport ministry said, releasing dramatic pictures showing the entire vessel obscured by thick black smoke.
The ship later sank, the official news agency Xinhua cited the State Oceanic Administration as saying.
“There is no hope of finding survivors among the members of the crew,” Mohammad Rastad, spokesman for the Iranian rescue team dispatched to Shanghai, told Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran before the tanker went down.
Rastad said information from members of the Crystal crew suggested all the personnel on the Sanchi were killed in the first hour of the accident “due to the explosion and the release of gas.”
“Despite our efforts, it has not been possible to extinguish the fire and recover the bodies due to repeated explosions and gas leaks,” he said.
The Sanchi, which was headed to South Korea to deliver its cargo, had a crew of 32 — 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis. Only three bodies have so far been recovered.
Chinese rescuers Saturday also recovered the tanker’s “black box,” the transport ministry said without specifying exactly what had been retrieved.
A reporter with China’s state television CCTV aboard a plane from the State Oceanic Administration reported seeing wreckage from the Sanchi and oil on fire, and spilt fuel covering a 10 square kilometer area.
“The oil spill situation is very serious,” CCTV quoted the reporter as saying on social media.
But the television earlier also cited Zhang Yong, a senior engineer with the State Oceanic Administration, as playing down fears of a spill.
“Because this is light crude oil spill, relatively speaking it has a much smaller impact than other oil spills, because this kind of oil is especially volatile — most of it has entered the atmosphere, so it’s had less impact on the ocean...,” Zhang was quoted as saying.
“This area should be considered the open sea, very far from places where people live, so the human impact should be minimal.”
Rescue efforts had been particularly difficult because at 89 degrees Celsius, the vessel’s compartments were too hot for workers to withstand for long, CCTV quoted He Wang, an expert from Chinese oil company Huade Petrochemical, as saying.
Iranian oil tanker ablaze off China coast has sunk: state media
Iranian oil tanker ablaze off China coast has sunk: state media
Trump says he thinks Israel should ‘hit’ Iran nuclear facilities
- “When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump said
WASHINGTON: Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Friday he believes Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to the Islamic republic’s recent missile barrage.
The former president, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Democratic President Joe Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
“They asked him, what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.
Biden was asked on Wednesday whether he would support strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and the US president told reporters: “The answer is no.”
“I think he’s got that one wrong,” Trump said Friday, in response to a participant’s question about the issue. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” he said.
“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.
“If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. But we’ll find out whatever their plans are.”
Biden on Wednesday expressed his opposition to such strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, in response to the firing of nearly 200 Iranian missiles toward Israel.
“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do,” he said, adding that all G7 members agree Israel has “a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.”
Trump, locked in a tooth-and-nail presidential election battle with US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East.
He issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.
American killed in Lebanon was a US citizen, State Dept says
- State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller earlier this week said it was Washington’s understanding that Jawad was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. On Friday, the department said that he was a US citizen
WASHINGTON: An American killed in Lebanon this week was a US citizen, a State Department spokesperson said on Friday, adding that Washington was working to understand the circumstances of the incident.
Kamel Ahmad Jawad, from Dearborn, Michigan, was killed in Lebanon in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, according to his daughter, a friend and the US congresswoman representing his district.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller earlier this week said it was Washington’s understanding that Jawad was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. On Friday, the department said that he was a US citizen.
“We are aware and alarmed of reports of the death of Kamel Jawad, who we have confirmed is a US citizen,” the spokesperson said.
“As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy.”
Israel says it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, who have been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began a year ago.
Its recent military campaign in Lebanon has killed hundreds and wounded thousands, according to the Lebanese government, which has not said how many of the casualties were civilians versus Hezbollah members. The Israeli bombardment has also driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes.
The governor of Michigan has urged the US government to do more to rescue Americans stuck in Lebanon, many of them from Michigan, during Israel’s military offensive in the country.
Tunisians protest against President Saied two days before presidential vote
- The opposition’s anger flared after presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was handed down three prison sentences totalling 14 years
TUNIS: Hundreds of Tunisians marched in the capital on Friday, escalating protests against President Kais Saied, two days before what they say is an unfair presidential vote in which Saied has removed most other candidates to remain in power.
Protesters, who held up banners reading “Farce elections” and “Freedoms, not a lifelong presidency,” marched to Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Tunis and a focus point in 2011 protests that toppled former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Political tensions in the North African country have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three other prominent candidates, and an independent court has been stripped of authority to adjudicate on election disputes by the parliament.
The opposition’s anger flared after presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was handed down three prison sentences totalling 14 years.
He has been in jail since he was arrested a month ago on charges of forging electoral documents.
Saied now faces just two rival candidates, Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, who was a former Saied ally and then turned critic.
Protesters chanted slogans against Saied: “The people want the fall of the regime” and Dictator Saied ... your turn has come.”
“Tunisians are not accustomed to such an election. In 2011, 2014 and 2019 they expressed their opinions freely, but this election does not allow them the right to choose their destiny,” said Zied Ghanney, an opposition figure.
Hamas counters abduction claim, says Yazidi woman’s Gaza departure was voluntary
- “The Yazidi woman left the government facility to the crossing on her own, with the knowledge of her deceased husband’s family and the Palestinian government
- A US defense official said on Thursday the American military did not have a role in the evacuation
CAIRO: The Islamist group Hamas rejected what it called “a false narrative and fabricated story” about a Yazidi woman Israel said was freed in Gaza in a secret operation involving Israel, the United States and Iraq.
The woman, whom Israeli officials have said was taken captive when she was 11 years old and sold to a Hamas member, had never been abducted or sold, and was able to leave Gaza with the knowledge of the Hamas authorities, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Friday.
It said the 25-year old woman, identified as Fawzia Sido, was married to a Palestinian who fought alongside the Syrian opposition forces before he was killed. She later moved to live with his mother in Turkiye before traveling to Egypt, where she continued to live with her mother-in-law and later crossed into Gaza legally.
Years after she moved to live in Gaza, she married her husband’s brother before he was killed during the ongoing Israeli military offensive, Hamas said.
“She requested to contact her family because she felt increasingly unsafe in Gaza amid the intense bombing and brutal attacks by the Israeli occupation. She asked for evacuation, especially after her husband was martyred,” the Gaza government media office said.
“The Yazidi woman left the government facility to the crossing on her own, with the knowledge of her deceased husband’s family and the Palestinian government. The occupation did not ‘rescue’ her, as falsely claimed in its statement aimed at misleading public opinion,” it added.
Reuters could not reach the woman directly for comment on Thursday, with Iraqi officials saying she was resting after having been reunited with her family in northern Iraq.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had coordinated with the US Embassy in Jerusalem and “other international actors” in the operation to free Sido.
It said in a statement her captor had been killed during the Gaza war, presumably by an Israeli strike, and she then fled to a hideout inside the Gaza Strip.
“In a complex operation coordinated between Israel, the United States, and other international actors, she was recently rescued in a secret mission from the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing,” it said.
A US defense official said on Thursday the American military did not have a role in the evacuation.
She was freed after more than four months of efforts that involved several attempts that failed due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff of Iraq’s foreign minister, told Reuters on Thursday.
Iraq and Israel do not have any diplomatic ties.
“The narrative the occupation attempted to promote is entirely false. The woman traveled to Gaza through multiple airports and official border crossings,” the Hamas statement said.
“How could she pass through all these checkpoints without security noticing, only for the occupation to later claim she was kidnapped?” it added.
Egypt’s plan to save some dough: cut the wheat in bread
- But bakers, millers and consumers fear the product will smell and taste different
RIYADH: Egypt plans to save millions of dollars in import costs by replacing a fifth of the wheatflour in the nation’s bread with cheaper ingredients such as corn or sorghum, industry sources said on Friday.
But bakers and millers reacted with anger when the plan was put to them by the Supply Ministry, and consumers fear their bread will taste different. “The change could be unpopular, producing bread with a different texture and smell,” said Hesham Soliman, a trader in Cairo.
Bakeries oppose the plan because coarser flour requires lengthier baking and would increase labor costs. Mills are also opposed because they are paid based on how much wheat they process, which would be reduced.
Egypt has tried wheat substitution to reduce imports before. Corn was used for several years two decades ago before campaigning by industry groups pushed the government to abandon it.
In another money-saving move, the government raised the price of subsidised bread this year for the first time in decades.
Egypt needs about 8.25 million tonnes of wheat a year to make subsidised bread available to more than 70 million people. It is one of the world’s largest wheat importers, mostly from Russia, at a cost of more than $2 billion a year.
