New $8.5bn Suez Canal to Open

Egypt will hold an official ceremony later today to open a new Suez Canal, which is expected to double the revenues of its strategic waterway over the next decade. It took a year to construct a new lane, which runs alongside the existing canal, at a cost of some $8.5 billion dollars.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast obliterated the city centre and is estimated to have killed about 140,000 people. People across Japan have observed a minute's silence to mark the event. A search and rescue operation is continuing in the Mediterranean after a boat carrying around 600 migrants sank off Libya.

(Photo: Ships and constriction machinery along the new stretch of the Suez Canal)