06-10-2012, 01:53 PM
Suez Canal
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History
2nd millennium BC
Perhaps as early as the 12th Dynasty, Pharaoh Senusret III (1878 BC–1839 BC) may have had a west-east river dug through the Wadi Tumilat, joining the Nile with the Red Sea (which in ancient times reached north to the Bitter Lakes. See [1] and [2]) This allowed direct naval trade with Punt, and, indirectly, linked the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
The reliefs of the Punt expedition under Hatshepsut depict sea-going vessels carrying the expeditionary force returning from Punt. This has given rise to the theory that, at the time, a navigable link existed between the Red Sea and the Nile.[1]
Evidence indicates its existence by the 13th century BC during the time of Ramesses II
Numerous geological surveys conducted since the mid-1960s have found no physical evidence of any ancient man-made canal (as opposed to natural tributaries) existing in the region and extending from the Nile to the Red Sea.
Napoleon considers repair
At the end of the 18th century while in Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte contemplated the construction of a canal to join the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But his project was abandoned after a first survey erroneously concluded that the Red Sea was 10 meters higher than the Mediterranean, making a giant locks-based canal much too expensive and very long to construct. The Napoleonic survey commission's error came from fragmented readings mostly done during wartime, which resulted in imprecise calculations.[
Re-construction by Suez Canal Company
In 1854 and 1856 Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Said Pasha, the viceroy of Egypt, to create a company to construct a maritime canal open to ships of all nations, according to plans created by Austrian engineer Alois Negrelli. The company was to operate the canal by leasing the relevant land, for 99 years from its opening, for navigation. De Lesseps had used his friendly relationship with Said, which he had developed while he was a French diplomat during the 1830s. The Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) came into being on December 15, 1858.
The excavation took nearly 11 years, mostly through the forced labour of Egyptian workers—a form of labour which was not unique to the French, nor the British before them. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were forced to work on the canal.
The British recognized the canal as an important trade route and perceived the French project as a direct menace to their geopolitical and financial interests. The British Empire was the major global naval force and its power had increased during the American Civil War. So the British government officially condemned the forced work and sent armed bedouins to start a revolt among workers. Involuntary labour on the project ceased, and the Viceroy soon condemned the slavery, and the project stopped.
Suez Crisis
After the UK and the United States withdrew their pledge to support the construction of the Aswan Dam due to Egyptian overtures towards the Soviet Union, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Canal in 1956, intending to finance the dam project using revenue from the Canal, and cut off this vital international waterway to all Israeli shipping. This provoked the week-long Suez Crisis, in which a military alliance between the UK, France, and Israel invaded Egypt. To stop the war from spreading and to save the British from what he thought was a disastrous action, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson, proposed the creation of the very first United Nations peacekeeping force to ensure access to the canal for all and an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. On November 4th, 1956, a majority of nations at the UN voted for Pearson's peacekeeping resolution, which mandated the UN peacekeepers to stay in the Sinai Penninsula unless both Egypt and Israel agreed to their withdrawal. The US backed up this proposal by putting immense financial pressure on the British government which only then agreed to withdraw its troops. Pearson was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As a result of damage and sunken ships, the canal was closed until April 1957, when it had been cleared with UN assistance. A UN force (UNEF) was established to maintain the neutrality of the canal and the Sinai Peninsula.
The Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973
In May of 1967 President Nasser ordered the UN peacekeeping forces away from the canal and out of the Sinai Penninsula altogether. Despite Israeli objections in the UN, the peacekeepers were withdrawn and the Egyptian army marched to the border of Israel and again closed the canal to Israeli shipping. This action was a key factor in the Israeli decision to launch an all out attack on Egypt in June of 1967, and again to the Israeli capture of the Suez Canal. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, also called the Six Day War, the canal was closed until June 5, 1975. In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, the canal was the scene of a major crossing by the Egyptian army into Israeli-occupied Sinai, which was followed by an Israeli counteroffensive which ended in the cutting off of the Egyptian Third Army. Many pieces of sun-bleached destroyed military equipment from this conflict can still be seen along the edge of the canal.
Operation
The canal has no locks because the terrain through which it passes is flat, and the minor difference in sea level at the ends is easily coped with through the length of the canal.
The canal allows the passage of ships of up to some 150,000 tons displacement, with cargo. It permits ships of up to 16 m (53 ft) draft to pass, and improvements are planned to increase this to 22 m (72 ft) by 2010 to allow passage of fully-laden supertankers. Presently, supertankers can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned boat and reload at the other end of the canal. There is one shipping lane with several passing areas.
On a typical day, three convoys transit the canal, two southbound and one northbound. The first southbound convoy enters the canal in the early morning hours and proceeds to the Great Bitter Lake, where the ships anchor out of the fairway and await the passage of the northbound convoy. The northbound convoy passes the second southbound convoy, which moors to the canal bank in a by-pass, in the vicinity of El Qantara. The passage takes between 11 and 16 hours at a speed of around 8 knots. The low speed helps prevent erosion of the canal banks by ship's wakes.
Egypt's Suez Canal Authority (SCA) reported that in 2003 17,224 ships passed through the canal. The canal averages about 8% of the world shipping traffic.
By 1955 approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal. About 7.5% of world sea trade is carried via the canal today. Receipts from the canal July 2005 to May 2006 totaled $3.246 billion. In 2005, 18,193 vessels passed through the canal