A pipeline the UAE is building to pump oil from east coast terminals and bypass the Iran-threatened Strait of Hormuz will be fully operational in August, an Abu Dhabi oil official said Tuesday.

The Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, which will carry oil from fields in Abu Dhabi on the Gulf to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, is "approaching the phase of continuous operation," said Ali Jarwan, CEO of oil and gas producer, Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co ADMA-OPCO.

“Malaysia's longest-serving Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has been named the recipient of 2012 Rafik Hariri U.N.-Habitat Memorial award, recognizing leadership, statesmanship and good governance, a press release said Tuesday.

The Award’s steering committee announced the winner on Monday in Paris after an international jury selected Mohamad over 13 other nominations from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, United States, Canada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, India, Bangladesh, UK, Japan and the Philippines.

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect over a rate rigging scandal at the British banking giant, the company said in a shock announcement on Tuesday.

Although Diamond had faced growing calls to step down, it was thought that he would ride out the storm due to the resignation of Barclays' chairman Marcus Agius on Monday.

Spain said Tuesday its jobless numbers tumbled by nearly 100,000 people in June, traditionally a bumper month for employment as the tourism season kicks in.

The number of people registered as unemployed fell by 98,853, or 2.1 percent, to 4.62 million in June from the previous month, the Labor Ministry said in a statement.

European aerospace giant Airbus will build its first airplane factory in the U.S., aiming to compete better against archrival Boeing in the battle to dominate the global aviation industry.

The Mobile, Ala., factory — due to start up in 2015 —is expected to employ 1,000 people when it reaches full production two years later. Airbus hopes the plant will lower costs and improve its chances of winning business from the U.S. military. Last year, Boeing beat out Airbus' parent for a major Air Force contract.

Egypt on Sunday signed an accord with the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank for $1 billion in funding for the purchase of energy and food products.

State news agency MENA said the deal was signed by International Cooperation Minister Faiza Abul Naga and an affiliate of the IDB, but the mechanism of the financing was not specified.

Italy's Fiat Industrial will close five European plants of its truck subsidiary Iveco before year end to concentrate production at one German site, the firm's director told the Ansa news agency Sunday.

According to Alfredo Altavilla, plants in France's Chambery, Austria's Graz and Germany's Weisweill, Goerlitz and Ulm will close.

The chairman of Barclays Bank will on Monday step down after the group was fined for attempting to manipulate the inter-bank lending rate, British media reported.

Marcus Agius will announce that he is to leave his post in the face of public and political fury over the bank's efforts to distort the rate at which banks lend to each other, according to the BBC.

China's manufacturing activity contracted for the eighth consecutive month in June, British bank HSBC said Monday, which analysts say will prompt more government moves to boost the flagging economy.

The bank's purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China, which gauges the manufacturing sector, fell to 48.2 in June from 48.4 in May, according to an HSBC statement.

The Israeli government on Sunday voted to go ahead with plans to raise the 2013 budget deficit target to three percent of GDP, despite objections from the governor of the central bank.

The weekly cabinet meeting agreed to seek to fast-track the plan through parliament with a view to passing it into law as early as possible, the government said in a statement.