Pompeo to visit occupied West Bank in first US trip to the settlement

• Jebel Akhdar is a two-hour drive from Muscat airport or a six-hour drive from Dubai. It’s impossible to visit by car unless you have a 4x4. Phone ahead to the hotel to arrange a transfer.
• If you’re driving, make sure your insurance covers Oman.
• By air: Budget airlines Air Arabia, Flydubai and SalamAir offer direct routes to Muscat from the UAE.
• Tourists from the Emirates (UAE nationals not included) must apply for an Omani visa online before arrival at evisa.rop.gov.om. The process typically takes several days.
• Flash floods are probable due to the terrain and a lack of drainage. Always check the weather before venturing into any canyons or other remote areas and identify a plan of escape that includes high ground, shelter and parking where your car won’t be overtaken by sudden downpours.

France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.

Chitrabhanu Kadalayil: Singapore election is more than just a family feud over LKY's legacy

Sholto Byrnes: Robert Mugabe and Lee Kuan Yew: two leaders with very different legacies

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan: UAE and Singapore can be partners for a world in transition

Nick March: Singapore and UAE are on the move – in airport development

Tales of Yusuf Tadros

Adel Esmat (translated by Mandy McClure)

Hoopoe

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

Tomato and walnut salad

A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.

Badrijani nigvzit

A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.

Pkhali

This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.

Dr Nawal Al-Hosany: Why more women should be on the frontlines of climate action

Shelina Janmohamed: Why shouldn't a spouse be compensated fairly for housework?

Samar Elmnhrawy: How companies in the Middle East can catch up on gender equality

Justin Thomas: Challenge the notion that 'men are from Mars, women are from Venus'

Fiction

• ‘Amreekiya’  by Lena Mahmoud
•  ‘As Good As True’ by Cheryl Reid

The Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award

• ‘Syrian and Lebanese Patricios in Sao Paulo’ by Oswaldo Truzzi;  translated by Ramon J Stern
• ‘The Sound of Listening’ by Philip Metres

The George Ellenbogen Poetry Award

• ‘Footnotes in the Order  of Disappearance’ by Fady Joudah

Children/Young Adult

•  ‘I’ve Loved You Since Forever’ by Hoda Kotb 

Andrew Wilks: Turkey’s promised reforms could recast US relations under Biden administration

David Lepeska: How two 16th-century pirates inspired Erdogan's foreign policy

Con Coughlin: Grandstanding in Turkey leads to terrorism in France

David Powell: Thanks to Brexit, support for independence is growing among Scots

Damien McElroy: Johnson must take heed to Churchill's comments on Irish divisions

Gavin Esler: For British territories, Brexit will amount to being cut off from Westminster

Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)

Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp

Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm

On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region

Price: Exact regional pricing TBA

Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor

Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh590,000

Hend Al Otaiba: A year ago, Covid-19 forced us apart – now, vaccines can bring us back together

National Editorial: Iata travel pass – 'digital passports' will get the world moving again

Lucy Sherriff: Covid vaccine passports: safeguard or ethical nightmare?

Women are on the front line of the coronavirus fight, and we should all remember that by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Coronavirus: How the world can end the pandemic by Bill Gates

Famine on the rise in the Middle East and North Africa

Inside the UN's Dubai aid facility delivering support to people in need across the globe

Price, base / as tested: Dh275,250 / Dh328,465

Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder

Power: 245hp @ 5,500rpm

Torque: 370Nm @ 1,300rpm

Transmission: Nine-speed automatic

Fuel consumption, combined: 7.0L / 100km