Israel's Supreme Court rejects gov't's gas deal

Israel's Supreme Court rejected a controversial deal Sunday denying a U.S.-Israeli consortium from developing Israel's natural gas fields.

The deal which was signed last year, gives the Texas-based Noble Energy company and Israel-based Delek Group control over Israel's largest gas fields.

Egypt has removed over 4,000 'encroachments' from Nile

Egypt’s irrigation ministry has “removed 4,727 encroachments” from Nile waters in Cairo and Upper Egypt’s Aswan and Assiut, as part of its campaign to protect the river, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Egypt to raze illegal buildings along Nile to help farmers

Photo: nationalgeographic.com

CAIRO - Egypt will destroy all buildings along the Nile River and its tributaries that were erected illegally, the water and irrigation minister said on Monday, seeking to protect canals needed to help grow food.
The government will "not be complacent in the face of encroachment on the Nile River and its tributaries and streams", Minister Mohamed Abdel Motteleb was quoted as saying by the state news agency MENA.

Iraqi Kurds slam Baghdad legal action over oil shipment

Iraq's Kurdish region slammed legal action filed by the central government against Turkey, saying Sunday it was illegitimate and likely to fail, the latest in worsening ties between Baghdad and Kurdistan.
 
The Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources statement came just days after Baghdad's Oil Ministry filed a request for arbitration against Ankara at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce after crude from Kurdistan was exported to international markets via a Turkish port.

Relations between Iraq and its Kurdish region, and between Baghdad and Ankara, were already fragile and are likely to chill further over the row, with the latest shipments flying in the face of the Iraqi government's insistence that it has the sole right to sell its prized natural resources.