Last Night’s Talk Shows on 5 April 2021
The Golden Parade continued to dominate the nation’s airwaves last night: Lamees El Hadidi’s Kelma Akhira dedicated another full show entirely to covering Saturday night’s ceremony, featuring interviews with some of the event’s musicians including Nader Abbassi (who led the orchestra) and singer Nesma Mahgoub (watch, runtime 1:58:13). Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal interviewed Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled El Anany (watch, runtime 8:39), while Hadith Al Qahera featured Egyptian soprano Amira Selim (watch, runtime 9:37) as well as former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass, who said that a new archaeological discovery would be announced this Thursday (watch, runtime 9:24). Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime 27:54) and El Hekaya (watch, runtime 2:35) also had coverage.
The ongoing talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the DRC Kinshasa also got attention last night. El Hekaya’s Amr Adib described the talks as the “last chance” to reach an agreement after 10 years of failed attempts. Sudan wants to get out of the discussions with a "yes" or “no" on the question of whether Ethiopia has a political will to reach an agreement before starting any technical talks. This comes as Ethiopia wants to agree on water shares first among the countries of the Nile Basin, which would take four or five years (watch, runtime: 1:23 | 1:21 | 6:58). President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s message to the Congolese president, which expressed Egypt’s genuine intention to reach an agreement over GERD before the flood season, earned airtime on Masaa DMC (watch, runtime 1:18) and Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime 7:23). Meanwhile, former irrigation minister Mohamed Nasr Allam told Al Ghad TV that the second filling of GERD without the consent of the other two countries would deplete water reserves in the Aswan High Dam (watch, runtime 2:35).
Is Information Minister Osama Heikal being blacklisted by some state media? Some of the country’s editors-in-chief have demanded he be sacked and have said they won’t be covering anything he does in the meantime. They held a press conference that was aired in full on Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime 4:06) and got brief coverage in Masaa DMC (watch, runtime 0:38). The minister has come under fire in recent weeks over his record in office.
The unfolding of events in Jordan over the past 24 hours also earned airtime on El Hekaya (watch, runtime: 06:24) and Hadith Al Qahera (watch, runtime: 04:55). We have the latest in this morning’s What We’re Tracking, above.