News stories by Cam McGrath, page 12

Hajj Khodari lifts a defiant fist at the demolition machinery now just meters away from his front door.

A salty, crunchy salad herb known to gourmands as samphire could revolutionise agriculture in the Middle East by providing food, fodder and fuel without using a single drop of freshwater.

Not long ago an editorial like the one that appeared in the independent Al- Dustour newspaper this week might never have made it into print.

A stalemate between labour unions and business associations is preventing Egyptian authorities from setting a minimum wage that could improve the lot of millions of citizens living in poverty.

Renewable energy projects in the Middle East could be scaled back or scuttled unless fresh sources of financing are found.

In one of the poorest and most populous neighborhoods of Cairo, Hussein Soliman and his family live in a small apartment that is a model of clean energy living.

At a small bakery in Cairo's Boulaq district, dozens of hands thrust through a barred window waving coins and small banknotes. The clerk inside deftly takes the money and deals loaves of round flatbread into plastic bags.

People might expect fresh-faced Noha Atef to spend a lot of time writing blogs and perusing social networking sites, but they are often surprised by the content of her posts and tweets. The 25-year-old Egyptian journalist uses the Internet to expose police abuse and torture in her home country.

As the sun rises over the Nile delta, workers at a fish farm in northern Egypt open a sluice gate and sort through the thousands of wriggling tilapia that pour out of a concrete holding tank. The fish are sorted, packed into crates and sent to supermarkets in Cairo and Alexandria, where they are sold as 'the catch of the day'.

Self-appointed guardians of public morality are invoking an ancient instrument of Islamic jurisprudence against those whose ideas they deem immoral or heretical - or simply to gain fame.