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Geopolitics

Risk Lessons, From A Grounded Ship In Suez To A Global Pandemic

A pandemic and a maritime accident teach us the same lessons: humility, fragility and ultimately human ingenuity. Risk is impossible to predict, except that we know it always exists.

The Ever Given, currently stuck in the Suez Canal
The Ever Given, currently stuck in the Suez Canal
Jean-Marc Vittori

-OpEd-

A monster made out of steel can also fear the elusive Aeolus. This is the case for the Ever Given. A gust of wind was enough to make this enormous container ship — longer than the Eiffel Tower and twenty times heavier — run aground in the Suez Canal.

This incident has nothing to do with the pandemic that has devastated the planet for a year ... except that these stories teach us the same lessons. First, it teaches us to be humble. Humans know how to design an artificial heart, but they are still unable to control a virus that has already killed nearly three million women and men. We also know how to build a giant ship capable of weathering storms while carrying 20,000 metal containers, a system that has revolutionized freight transport. And yet, we can't prevent this ship from blocking a vital artery of global trade.

Rescue experts are now hoping that Mother Nature will free what she has blocked and that a tide will be enough to counteract the effect of the winds on Ever Given.

Hundreds of ships are waiting at the entrance of the Suez Canal — Photo: Ahmed Gomaa/Xinhua via ZUMA Press

It's also a lesson about our own fragility. A virus invisible to the naked eye was enough to cause an unprecedented drop in global activity last year that is being counted in the trillions of dollars. A gust of wind was enough to block a channel through which more than 10% of global trade and two million barrels of oil pass every day. Hundreds of ships are already waiting at the entrance to the waterway, and may eventually have to resort to going around Africa to reach their destination. In this case too, the costs would be high. Trade journal Lloyd's List talks about a figure close to $10 billion per day.

For the virus as for the Suez Canal, the solution comes or will come from the ingenuity of a few individuals.

For companies, this is one more reason to work on risk mapping, keeping in mind that nothing is "ever a given" (as the name of the ship suggests): health, access to markets, the possibility of manufacturing here or passing through there, an offer from a supplier or funding from a investor. The most unlikely chains of events are not necessarily the most improbable. We are not done talking about agility, resilience and creativity.

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Geopolitics

How Iran's Supreme Leader Is Short-Circuiting Diplomacy To Forge Alliances In Arab World

Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei recently sent out a special envoy to ease tensions with wealthy Arab neighbors. He's hoping to end the country's international isolation and dismal economic conditions that contributed to last year's mass protests.

Image of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei smiling, a portrait of himself behind him.

Ayatollah Khamenei on March 21st, 2023, delivering his annual speech in the Imam Reza's (pbuh) shrine, on the first day of 1402 Persian New Year.

Kayhan-London

-Analysis-

Needing to revive its diplomatic options and financial ties with the Middle East, Iran's embattled regime recently sent a senior security official and former defense minister — instead of members of the diplomatic corps — to talk business with regional powers that have been keeping Iran at arm's length.

After a surprise deal in mid-March to restore diplomatic ties with the Saudi monarchy, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, traveled to the United Arab Emirates, meeting with officials including the federation's head, Sheikh Muhammad bin Zaid Al Nahyan. His meetings are expected to ease the flow of regional money into Iran's economy, which is practically on pause after years of international sanctions. After Abu Dhabi, Shamkhani went to Baghdad.

Shamkhani was effectively acting as an envoy of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and supplanting the country's diplomatic apparatus. This wasn't the first time an Iranian foreign minister has been sidelined in crucial international affairs.

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