British TV airs live footage of New Suez Canal

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi kicked off a lavish ceremony yesterday to unveil a “new” Suez Canal, as Egypt sought to boost its economy and global standing by expanding the vital waterway. It also includes a deepening and widening of 37 km of the existing canal, which will cut transit times and allow larger vessels easier passage. The work was initially supposed to take three years, but President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi ordered it completed in one, saying the country urgently needed the economic boost it’s expected to provide.

“It’s not about capacity, it all depends on trade between East and West, growth in the world economy, especially in Europe, and how the (authority) handles its fees”, said Xu Zhibin, managing director for the Egyptian affiliate of China’s state-owned COSCO, one of the world’s top container shippers. At the ceremony, the president publicly signed an order allowing ships to pass through the canal.

With an hours-long pageant of soaring jets and singing schoolgirls, Sissi on Thursday inaugurated what he called “the new Suez Canal” and portrayed it as the cornerstone of his plans for an economic turnaround.

Sisi said that his government has fought what he described as “the most unsafe extremist, terrorist ideology”. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Kuwait’s Emir Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also attended, as well as Yemen’s exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

In this picture provided by the office of the Egyptian Presidency, President el-Sissi smiles at a boy as he waves the national flag from a monarchy-era yacht that sailed to the venue of a ceremony for extension of the Suez Canal, 6 August. 2015.

The new extension involved digging and dredging along 45 miles of the 120-mile canal, making a parallel waterway at its middle that will facilitate two-way traffic.

People cheer in front of a military convoy passing by to secure central cairo as Egyptians gather in …

The new section, built at a cost of $9bn and funded entirely by Egyptian investors, runs part of the way alongside the existing canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The crackdown, which has largely targeted Morsi’s supporters and members of his Muslim Brotherhood group, has seen hundreds killed and tens of thousands thrown behind bars.

As journalists waited to be shuttled to the banks of the Suez Canal, a group of female police officers took turns posing with the cake, a huge creation of pink and white icing in the shape of a boat.

Egyptian army planes performing aerial manoeuvres during the canal’s opening ceremony yesterday.

Merrit Kennedy, reporting for NPR from Cairo, says the center of Cairo is festooned with lights and that Egypt has declared a national holiday.

It is targeting all kinds of projects as part of its confidence that all the projects to be offered for the development of the Suez Canal Axis will be essential and basic for the Egyptian economy’s development.

Whether British tourists in Tunisia, Egyptian workers in Libya or Egyptian armed forces in North Sinai, both of our nations have experienced evil terrorism inspired or directed by ISIL.

The man, identified as Croatian citizen Tomislav Salopek, was kidnapped last month as his vehicle left Cairo. He noted that, for the government’s projections to prove correct, global trading volumes would have to rise by a level unseen even during the prerecession boom years.