Egypt has finished building its New Suez Canal, its overseer said on Wednesday, a project President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi sees as a symbol of national pride and a major chance to stimulate an economy suffering double-digit unemployment. The army led work 11 months ago on the $8-billion (£5.1 billion) canal, flanking the existing, 145-year-old waterway and part of a larger ...

Something stinks in Lebanon. For a week, 3,000 tons of garbage per day have piled up on the streets, left to rot in the heat wave while Beirut sorts out problems with waste disposal. The trash crisis prompted demonstrations and protests, and some residents burned garbage in the cans, sending toxic fumes into the already reeking city. The government has ...

Director-General Dore Gold says Israel and some regional states are on the same page when it comes to concerns about Iran The director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called the Middle East’s Sunni Arab nations “Israel’s allies.” Gold used the term twice in a presentation Wednesday in New York focused on the shortcomings of the Iran nuclear deal. ...

Bronwyn Bishop has made a grovelling on-air apology for her excessive use of parliamentary entitlements, conceding her interstate travel bills do “not look right” and agreeing to repay money spent on attending friends’ weddings. Mrs Bishop’s apology comes more than two weeks after revelations she billed taxpayers for private aircraft to attend three Liberal Party fundraisers — including $5227 for ...

DEPUTY Commissioner Nick Kaldas has claimed the former NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour referred him for possible criminal charges in an act of retaliation and wants him investigated for alleged bias. A submission by lawyers for Mr Kaldas contains sensational criticisms of Mr Barbour including that he was wrong to “secretly” tell Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione that he had referred Mr ...

Former United States vice-president Al Gore has flown into Australia for a whistlestop tour that includes meetings with state government ministers and senior business figures as part of efforts to build global momentum towards the Paris climate change summit later this year. Mr Gore arrived in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, heading to a speaking engagement and then dinner with Victorian ministers and senior ...

As quintessentially an English sporting event as tennis at Wimbledon or cricket at Lords, the Glorious Goodwood horse racing festival starts tomorrow with a distinctly Middle East flavour. The course’s lush setting on the Sussex Downs of southern England has known the thunder of hooves for more than 200 years. But with the 2015 meeting offering Arabian pure-bred runners from ...

Representatives from the Bahraini National Space Science Agency visited the UAE Space Agency’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi. According to state news agency Wam, Dr Khalifa Al Rumaithi, the UAE Space Agency chairman, and Dr Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, director general, along with other senior officials welcomed the Bahrain delegation led by chairman Dr Mohammed Al Amer. The two sides discussed ...

Demonstrators blocked Lebanon’s main Mediterranean coastal highway on Sunday to protest against a rubbish collection problem in the capital Beirut that led the prime minister to threaten to resign. The havoc disrupted tens of thousands of weekenders and residents leaving Beirut for resorts and mountain villages, and also cut off inhabitants of southern towns heading back to the city. Residents ...

A five-day humanitarian truce went into effect in Yemen overnight Monday, hours after forces allied with a Saudi-led coalition fought Houthi militia for control of the country’s largest air base north of Aden. The fighting at the al-Anad base, 50 km from the southern port city, and lack of a clear acceptance to its terms by the Iranian-allied Houthi movement ...