The last ships stranded by the grounding of a giant container vessel in the Suez Canal should pass through the waterway on Saturday, according to the canal authority, which said an investigation into the incident would report its findings soon.
Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), said 85 ships were expected to pass the canal from both sides on Saturday.
They will include the last 61 ships out of the 422 that were queuing when the Ever Given container vessel was dislodged on Monday, thus ending the backlog of shipping that built up during the crisis, he added.
International supply chains were thrown into disarray when the 400-metre-long Ever Given ran aground in the vital trade artery on March 23, with specialist rescue teams taking almost a week to free her after extensive dredging and repeated tugging operations.
An SCA investigation began on Wednesday into what caused the vessel to run aground in the Suez Canal and block the waterway for six days, Rabie told the MBC Masr private TV late on Friday.
"The investigation is going well and will take two more days, then we will announce the results," he added.
Saudi Arabia shut its East-West oil pipeline on Friday after it was hit in a drone attack, disrupting a key route used to bypass shipping problems in the Strait of Hormuz.
BRICS members agreed on a joint declaration on Saturday, expected to condemn unilateral aggression by any country without naming individual states, according to sources cited by Reuters.
Philippine rescuers recovered 41 more charred remains from a ferry fire, authorities said on Saturday, raising the death toll to 76 and leaving 13 people unaccounted for, as forensic teams faced the daunting task of identifying the victims.
Russian air strikes in several Ukrainian regions on Saturday killed six people, injured dozens and damaged residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, officials said.
Bulgaria is investigating the cause of a fire at a weapons storage facility operated by EMCO, including the possibility of sabotage and a link to a previous blaze at another of the company's facilities in August, the interior minister said.