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Salvage teams have freed a colossal container ship stuck for nearly a week in the Suez Canal, ending a crisis that had clogged one of the world's most vital waterways and halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce.

Helped by the high tide, a flotilla of tugboats wrenched the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized Ever Given from the canal's sandy bank, where it had been firmly lodged since March 23.

The tugs blared their horns in jubilation as they guided the Ever Given through the water after days of futility that had captivated the world, drawing scrutiny and social media mockery.

READ MORE: Slave labour to violent conflict – the troubled history of the Suez Canal

The giant vessel headed toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal, where it will be inspected, said Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship.

"We pulled it off!" said Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, in a statement.

"I am excited to announce that our team of experts, working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully refloated the Ever Given … thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again."

Buffeted by a sandstorm, the Ever Given had crashed into a bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal, about 6km north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. That created a massive traffic jam that held up $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.

At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, are backed up as they wait to traverse the canal. Dozens of others have taken the long, alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa's southern tip — a 5000km detour that costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.

Egypt, which considers the canal a source of national pride and crucial revenue, already has lost over $95 million in tolls, according to the data firm Refinitiv. Even as salvage work continued, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who for days was silent about the crisis, praised Monday's events.

"Egyptians have succeeded in ending the crisis," he wrote on Facebook, "despite the massive technical complexity."

In the village of Amer, which overlooks the canal, residents cheered as the vessel moved along. Many scrambled to get a closer look while others mockingly waved goodbye to the departing ship from their fields of clover

"Mission accomplished," one villager Abdalla Ramadan said. "The whole world is relieved."

The US Embassy in Cairo tweeted its congratulations to Egypt.

While the canal is now unblocked, it is unclear when traffic would return to normal. Analysts expect it could take at least another 10 days to clear the backlog on either end.

The breakthrough came after days of immense effort with an elite salvage team from the Netherlands. Tugboats pushed and pulled to budge the the behemoth from the shore, their work buoyed by high tide at dawn Monday that resulted in the vessel's partial refloating. Specialised dredgers dug out the stern and vacuumed sand and mud from beneath the bow.

The operation was extremely delicate. While the Ever Given was stuck, the rising and falling tides put stress on the vessel, which is 400 metres long, raising concerns it could crack or break.

Once the Ever Given is inspected in Great Bitter Lake, officials will decide whether the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship hauling goods from Asia to Europe would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam, or if it would need to enter another port for repairs.

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The crisis cast a spotlight on the vital trade route that carries over 10 per cent of global trade, including 7 per cent of the world's oil. Over 19,000 ships ferrying Chinese-made consumer goods and millions of barrels of oil and liquified natural gas flow through the artery from the Middle East and Asia to Europe and North America.

The unprecedented shutdown, which raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers, has prompted new questions about the shipping industry, an on-demand supplier for a world now under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.

"We've gone to this fragile, just-in-time shipping that we saw absolutely break down in the beginning of COVID," said Capt. John Konrad, the founder and CEO of the shipping news website gcaptain.com. "We used to have big, fat warehouses in all the countries where the factories pulled supplies. … Now these floating ships are the warehouse."

International trade expert Jeffrey Bergstrand predicted "only a minor and transitory effect" on prices of US imports.

"Since most of the imports blocked over the last week are heading to Europe, US consumers will likely see little effect on prices of US imports, except to the extent that intermediate products of US final goods are made in Europe," said Bergstrand, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

The former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd went on trial Monday, with a prosecutor telling the jury that the figure to remember is 9 minutes, 29 seconds — the amount of time Derek Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck as the Black man pleaded for his life and went limp.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell told jurors that Chauvin "didn't let up, he didn't get up" even after Floyd said 27 times that he couldn't breathe and went motionless.

"He put his knees upon his neck and his back, grinding and crushing him, until the very breath — no ladies and gentlemen — until the very life was squeezed out of him," Blackwell said.

READ MORE: George Floyd's family hold prayer service on eve of murder trial

He said bystander witnesses would include a Minneapolis Fire Department first responder who wanted to administer aid. He said Chauvin pointed Mace at her.

"She wanted to check on his pulse, check on Mr. Floyd's well-being," Blackwell said.

"She did her best to intervene. When she approached Mr Chauvin …. Mr Chauvin reached for his Mace and pointed it in her direction. She couldn't help."

Widely seen bystander video of the encounter sparked outrage across the US and led to widespread protests and scattered violence.

A jury of 14 people will hear the case — eight who are white and six who are Black or multiracial, according to the court. Two of the 14 will be alternates. The judge has not said which ones will be alternates and which ones will deliberate the case.

Legal experts said they expected prosecutors to play the video to the jury early on.

"If you're a prosecutor you want to start off strong. You want to frame the argument — and nothing frames the argument in this case as much as that video," said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor and managing director of Berkeley Research Group in Chicago.

Floyd, 46, was declared dead after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd's neck as he lay handcuffed on his belly on the pavement, crying "I can't breathe."

Chauvin, 45, is charged with unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Almost all of the jurors selected during more than two weeks of questioning said they had seen at least parts of the video, and several acknowledged it gave them at least a somewhat negative view of Chauvin. But they said they could set that aside.

About dozen people chanted and carried signs in the middle of the street outside the courthouse entrance as Floyd family attorney Ben Crump, the Rev. Al Sharpton and members of the Floyd family passed by on their way inside. The group also carried a makeshift coffin, on top of which they placed flowers.

Crump said the trial would be a test of "whether America is going to live up to the Declaration of Independence." And he blasted the idea that it would be a tough test for jurors.

"For all those people that continue to say that this is such a difficult trial, that this is a hard trial, we refute that," he said. "We know that if George Floyd was a white American citizen, and he suffered this painful, tortuous death with a police officer's knee on his neck, nobody, nobody, would be saying this is a hard case."

The trial is expected to last about four weeks at the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, which has been fortified with concrete barriers, fencing, and barbed and razor wire. City and state leaders are determined to prevent a repeat of damaging riots that followed Floyd's death, and National Guard troops have already been mobilised.

The key questions at trial will be whether Chauvin caused Floyd's death and whether his actions were reasonable.

For the unintentional second-degree murder charge, prosecutors have to prove Chauvin's conduct was a "substantial causal factor" in Floyd's death, and that Chauvin was committing felony assault at the time. For third-degree murder, they must prove that Chauvin's actions caused Floyd's death, and were reckless and without regard for human life.

The manslaughter charge requires proof that Chauvin caused Floyd's death through negligence that created an unreasonable risk.

Unintentional second-degree murder is punishable by up to 40 years in prison in Minnesota, with up to 25 years for third-degree murder, but sentencing guidelines suggest that Chauvin would face 12 1/2 years in prison if convicted on either charge. Manslaughter has a maximum 10-year sentence.

Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, was expected to use his opening statement to tell jurors that medical testimony and use of force experts will show a different view. Nelson has made clear that the defence will make an issue of Floyd swallowing drugs before his arrest, seeking to convince the jury that he was at least partially responsible for his death.

The county medical examiner's autopsy noted fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd's system, but listed his cause of death as "cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression."

"This case to us is a slam dunk, because we know the video is the proof, it's all you need," Floyd's brother Philonise said Monday on NBC's "Today" show. "The guy was kneeling on my brother's neck … a guy who was sworn in to protect. He killed my brother in broad daylight. That was a modern-day lynching."

A graphic novel for children from the wildly popular "Captain Underpants" series is being pulled from library and book store shelves after its publisher said it "perpetuates passive racism."

The book under scrutiny is 2010's "The Adventures of Ook and Gluk" by Dav Pilkey, who has apologised, saying it "contains harmful racial stereotypes" and is "wrong and harmful to my Asian readers."

The book follows about a pair of friends who travel from 500,001 BC to 2222, where they meet a martial arts instructor who teaches them kung fu and they learn principles found in Chinese philosophy.

READ MORE: Six Dr Seuss books nixed over racist and insensitive imagery

Scholastic said it had removed the book from its websites, stopped processing orders for it and sought a return of all inventory. "We will take steps to inform schools and libraries who may still have this title in circulation of our decision to withdraw it from publication," the publisher said in a statement.

Pilkey in a YouTube statement said he planned to donate his advance and all royalties from the book's sales to groups dedicated to stopping violence against Asians and to promoting diversity in children's books and publishing.

"I hope that you, my readers, will forgive me, and learn from my mistake that even unintentional and passive stereotypes and racism are harmful to everyone," he wrote.

"I apologise, and I pledge to do better."

The decision comes amid a wave of high-profile and sometimes deadly violence against Asian Americans since the pandemic began.

Earlier this month, the estate of Dr. Seuss said six of his books would no longer be published because they contained depictions of groups that were "hurtful and wrong," including Asian Americans. The move drew immediate reaction on social media from those who called it another example of "cancel culture".