Italian oil and gas company Eni said on Wednesday that it had begun producing gas from Egypt s giant offshore gas field Zohr, the Mediterranean s largest ever gas discovery. The mammoth gas field began production in record time, less than two-and-a-half years since its discovery in 2015, with potential gas reserves of 850bn m3, the company said on its website.

Egypt s defence and interior ministers have returned to Cairo after a visit to North Sinai during which an airport was targeted in a missile attack, the military said in a statement on Wednesday. The military published video footage early on Wednesday morning showing the two ministers stepping off a military aircraft.

Egypt says Arab countries are considering taking the Arab draft resolution on maintaining the status of Jerusalem to the United Nations General Assembly after the US vetoed the resolution at the Security Council on Monday. The failed resolution had demanded US President Donald Trump rescind his 6 December decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

After two days of heated discussion, Egypt s parliament finally approved with a two-thirds majority a government-drafted law on national health insurance on Monday. Minister of Health Ahmed Emadeddin said "the day parliament approved this law should be considered a historic day." "In December 2015, Minister of Finance [Amr El-Garhy] and I received orders from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to draft a law that should pave the way for implementing a comprehensive national health insurance law in Egypt," Emadeddin said, adding that "today is a historic day as we were able to get the approval of MPs on this landmark law."

Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria reiterated on Sunday their support for the Libyan Political Agreement – signed in Skhirat in December 2015 – as a political solution for the country, just hours after it was declared expired and no longer binding by Gen. Khalifa Hafta, head of the Libyan National Army (LNA). In a joint press statement issued following tripartite talks held in the Tunisian capital on the security and political situation in Libya, Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry and his two North African counterparts – Tunisian FM Khemaies Jhinaou and Algerian FM Abdel Kader Messahel – said the Skhirat agreement is essential to acheiving a political solution.

The Support Egypt Coalition, a pro-government parliamentary coalition that controls 350 parliament seats, welcomed the visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to Egypt to address the Egyptian people in the House of Representatives. The coalition considered it an opportunity to improve relations between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, while some opposition MPs have refused the visit and continued to collect signatures refusing to receive Desalegn.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed with Italian interior minister Marco Minniti during a meeting in Cairo boosting Egyptian-Italian ties as well as the ongoing probe into the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, El-Sisis office said. El-Sisi and Minniti discussed "means to bolster ties between the two countries and exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual interest," a statement by the Egyptian presidency said.

Egypt President Abdel-Fattah discussed in a Cairo meeting with EU Commissioner for Home and Migration Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos Egyptian efforts to curb illegal immigration, the presidency said on Saturday. El-Sisi expressed Egypt s desire to reinforce its relations with the EU in different fields, including in efforts to combat illegal immigration.

The Support Egypt Coalition, a pro-government parliamentary coalition that controls 350 parliament seats, welcomed the visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to Egypt to address the Egyptian people in the House of Representatives. The coalition considered it an opportunity to improve relations between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, while some opposition MPs have refused the visit and continued to collect signatures refusing to receive Desalegn.

Egypt s Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that extraction in the Zohr gas field, which is set to start in days, will see the country achieve self-sufficiency in the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) before the end of 2018. Egypt was a net exporter of LNG until 2014. However, it turned into a net importer in recent years due to a declining output and power shortages amid political turmoil.

Egypt’s aviation minister will travel to Russia to sign protocol agreements as early as Friday to allow the resumption of Russian flights that were suspended after the 2015 bombing of a tourist jet, Egyptian sources and Russia’s minister said on Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin met Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo this week to discuss resuming flights and to sign a deal for a nuclear power plant as part of growing bilateral cooperation.

A delegation from Russia s lower house of parliament – the Duma – arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for meetings with the Speaker of the Egyptian House of Representatives Ali Abdel-Al and MPs aimed at enhancing bilateral relations, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. The Russian delegation, which will be in Egypt for several days, consists of six members of parliament led by Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the Duma s defence committee.

Work with establishing Egypt’s first nuclear reactor in the Dabaa nuclear power plant will start after Russian experts return to Egypt after Christmas holidays, informed sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday. Officials at Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) held a meeting on Tuesday with representatives of Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom to discuss ways to initiate the construction of the first nuclear reactors.

The Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation has signed an agreement with the UK Department for Transport to supply Egypt with 12 bomb detection devices for airports in the country, the company said in a statement as reported by state news agency MENA on Tuesday. A cooperation agreement was signed between the company s chairman Mohamed Saeed Mahrous and the UK Department for Transport s Aviation Security Operations Director Kashif Chaudry.

The representative of the Egyptian side at the Egyptian-Russian Business Council Alaa Amin said that a feasibility study on establishing an Egyptian trade hub in Russia is set to be complete within two months, state-run MENA news agency reported. The logistical centre, which was first announced by Egypt s Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2016, is to serve as a hub to sell Egyptian products in Russia in parallel with Egyptian exports to the country.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin attended a ceremony of signing an agreement on Monday in Cairo officially launching work on Egypt s first-ever nuclear power plant at Dabaa on the north coast. Egypt s Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker and the Russian Rosatom Director General Alexi Likhatchev signed the document to officially start the project.

Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer denied on Sunday that reports that Egyptian banks and other banks operating in the local market are financing the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). During the past two days, a photo of a document went viral on social media showing a list of banks, which allegedly has financed the construction of the GERD through the purchasing of bonds from the Ethiopian government with a 36% interest rate.

A political agreement is the cornerstone for restoring stability in Libya, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told the chairman of the Libyan Presidential Council Fayaz Al-Sarraj during a meeting in Cairo on Sunday. In an official statement, Egyptian presidency spokesman Bassam Rady said El-Sisi received Al-Sarraj in the Egyptian capital, where El-Sisi was presented with the latest developments in the Libyan political scene.

An Egyptian-Russian document to commence work on the Dabaa nuclear power plant will be inked during a meeting between Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Cairo on Monday, the Egyptian president s spokesman was quoted by the official news agency MENA. The authorisation to start work on the Dabaa plant in western Egypt, the country s first-ever nuclear energy project, comes two years after El-Sisi and Putin signed a tentative agreement in November 2015 to start the project.

Egypt s foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday US President Donald Trump s announcement that the US will recognise Jerusalem as Israel s capital and will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In a statement issued shortly following the US president s speech in Washington, the Egyptian foreign ministry said that such unilateral decisions violate international resolutions.

The spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said that an Egyptian-Arab response will take place in the upcoming period after US President Donald Trump proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Abu Zeid stated that Egypt had called upon the UN Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to discuss the matter, and to hear a statement from the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.