Etisalat, Vodafone join Orange in acquiring 4G licenses

To mark our 500th issue, we’d like to ask you a handful of questions. There are nine of them in all: four on the economy, five about Enterprise. We’re running the survey through next Sunday afternoon; we’ll compile your answers to the economy questions and run the results on Monday, 24 October. You don’t need to answer all of the questions, and even if you do, it won’t take you more than a minute. We’ll be so pathetically grateful for the feedback that we’re going to send 10 readers who complete all nine questions a set of Enterprise mugs.

Tap here to zip through our inaugural survey. It won’t take you more than a minute unless you want to write us an essay — we promise.

MPs will vote today to appoint chairs for 25 committees in the House of Representatives. Reps will also vote for two deputy chairs and one secretary-general for each committee, Al Wafd reports.

The government committee set up to determine policy for next wheat collection season will decide today on the terms for the harvest, Al Borsa reports. As we noted last week, the ministries of agriculture and supply are at odds over how to dispense subsidies, with agriculture wanting to pay farmers EGP 420 per ardib, while supply is trying to resurrect a plan to pay them international market prices with a EGP 1,300 top-up per feddan. If we were so inclined, our wager would be on agriculture: The Supply Ministry has little chance considering four members of the House sit on the committee. As panderers who care little for rationalising subsidies, they have been pushing for a further increase in the price per ardib.

A Saudi man has been found dead in his Cairo apartment;foul play is suspected, Al-Arabiya’s English-language service reports. Khalil al-Omayrin, a 47 year-old teacher, was last seen at his own going-away party. An Arabic-language story on the case has gone viral in Saudi Arabia. The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Cairo and Riyadh.

Return your Galaxy Note 7. Now. EgyptAir became the latest airline to ban the device on its flights after receiving a request from US authorities, Ahram Online reports.

SCA talking to big lines about pre-payment: The Suez Canal Authority is meeting with Maersk, CMA, and MSC to discuss a proposal floated last week that would see the operators pre-pay the authority USD 4 bn as a three-year advance to boost international reserves, unnamed sources tell Al Mal. The terms stipulate a 3% discount on transit expenses, with the advances deposited at the Central Bank of Egypt.

The Digital Media Forum in Cairo takes place on Wednesday at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza; registration is still open.

The Egyptian Businessmen’s Association will discuss the second phase of feed-in tariff projects with New and Renewable Energy Authority executive chairman Mohamed El Sobky on Thursday, Al Masry Al Youm reported.

Also on Thursday: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump square-off in the third and final debate of the 2016 US presidential election. They’re set to clash starting 9pm Eastern on Wednesday, 19 October (that’s 3am CLT on Thursday, 20 October). Two national polls put Clinton in the lead, but by wildly different margins: One gives her an 11 point lead, the other a four-point advantage, CNN reports. Reports on early ballot requests suggest Democrats are gaining ground compared to four years ago. Trump is dialing up the “rigged election” rhetoric. The Orange One is also very unhappy with Alec Baldwin’s latest skit on Saturday Night Live, it seems. The Washington Post has a nice rundown on the NSL angle.

FiT phase two deadline on Friday: Companies qualified to participate in the second phase of the feed-in tariff program for renewable energy have until Friday, 21 October to accept or reject new terms. The original deadline was 7 October.

Will MNOs soften on renting TE their existing infrastructure? Telecom Egypt’s has until Halloween (that’s 31 October) to agree with the existing mobile network operators on the fees it will pay to use their 2G and 3G infrastructure. The MNOs had said they would not rent their infrastructure to TE; is that changing in light of their signing of 4G licenses?

Etisalat and Vodafone Egypt signed 4G license agreements yesterday with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Reuters and Bloomberg report. Etisalat will take 10 MHz of spectrum at USD 535.5 mn, while Vodafone acquired 5 MHz at a cost of USD 335 mn, Al Mal reports. Both operators agreed to pay USD 11.262 mn for a license to operate a “virtual” fixed-line network, presumably using Telecom Egypt’s infrastructure. All three incumbent mobile network operators had rejected 4G license terms set by the NTRA, citing insufficient spectrum. The NTRA has since re-priced the license in USD and prioritized whoever could pay the full amount in FCY.

Neither company has made clear how they will finance their licenses, but NTRA CEO Mostafa Abdel Wahed says the companies will pay for the license in full within a month, Al Borsa reports. Orange Egypt acquired its 4G license for USD 484 mn (and expects help from head office with the financing), while Telecom Egypt agreed to pay EGP 7.08 bn in LCY.

Windfall for state coffers: In total, the 4G license auction will see the state take in USD 1.1 bn in hard-currency license fees and a further EGP 10 bn in local currency, according to CIT Minister Yasser El Kady speaking with CNBC (watch, run time 1:42). Those figures don’t include the potential acquisition by the MNOs of international gateway licenses, which El Kady says operators are still debating.

Fate of TE’s stake in Vodafone still up in the air: Bloomberg notes that Vodafone Egypt CEO Stefano Gastaut “expressed confidence that a potential conflict of interest over government-owned Telecom Egypt’s 45 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt would be resolved in the future.”

Meanwhile, TE completed its first trial run offering 4G mobile services using fiber optic cables just weeks after acquiring the license, Managing Director Tamer Gadalla tells Al Borsa.

Citi gets AAIB mandate –Bloomberg. Egypt has reportedly appointed Citigroup as financial advisor on the potential sale of the state’s stake in the Arab African International Bank (AAIB), unnamed sources told Bloomberg. Citigroup is studying the asset’s potential value and how to conduct the sale, the sources added. The Central Bank of Egypt has yet to decide how much of AAIB it plans to sell — and whether to do so via IPO or sale to a strategic investors. An AAIB official told Al Borsa yesterday that an IPO won’t take place before 1Q17. The move comes as part of a strategy to offload stakes in key state-owned firms and banks. CBE Governor Tarek Amer had previously stated the CBE and sovereign wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority were looking to each offer up to 20% of AAIB by the end of the year. The CBE and the Kuwait Investment Authority each hold a 49.37% stake in AAIB.

Brazilian food industries giant BRF is reportedly interested in opening up shop in Egypt, head of market relations Adriano Zerbini told Ahram Gate. The company is looking to export to the GCC and Africa through Egypt, he added. BRF’s Sadia chicken brand has already been a success in Egypt. BRF is clearly interest in the region, having acquired Oman-based frozen food distributor Al Khan Foodstuff back in April. It acquisition spree includes earlier transactions in Qatar, Argentina and Thailand. The story doesn’t specify whether BRF — the world’s largest poultry exporter — is looking to set up a greenfield of acquire an existing producer, but its pattern in other markets points to the latter.

Saudi committee arrives in Egypt for electricity tender: A Saudi government delegation arrived in Egypt on Sunday as expected to jointly review for a component of the project to link the two countries’ power grids. There had been speculation that tensions between Cairo and Riyadh would see the delegation scrap the trip. A tender for transformers needed for the project is due to begin today, a source at the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company told Al Shorouk. The project will begin trial operations in mid-2017 to exchange 3,000 MW at peak times, company head Gamal Abdel-Rehim said. Siemens, ABB Group, and Alstom are believed to be in the running.

Meanwhile, Saudi ambassador Ahmed Ben Abdel Aziz Qattan is back in Cairo from Riyadh, where he was locked in meetings on ties between the two countries since the flap boiled-over late last week, Al Masry Al Youm reported. His trip came in the middle of the [insert your preferred term for your last spousal spat here] between Egypt and Saudi Arabia following Egypt’s vote for a Russian-backed resolution on Syria at the UN Security Council. There is no word yet on whether a high-level Egyptian delegation, reported to be in the works, will fly to Riyadh or whether Saudi and Egypt will work on a follow-up Syria resolution.

Boycott of parallel market off to slow start? Members of the Federation of Egyptian Industries have not taken the proposed 21-day boycott of the parallel market for FX with enthusiasm for want of liquidity and fear of missing payment deadlines, FEI’s Pharma Division head Ahmed El Ezaby told Ahram Gate. Still, El Ezaby thinks the initiative will gain enough support to put a dent in the parallel market. The Food Industries Division’s Ashraf El Gazayerli echoed El Ezaby’s concerns, saying manufacturers with foreign obligations have no choice but to source FX from the parallel market. Mohamed Badran, CEO of dairy and juice producer Beyti, hit the nail on the hammer last week when he stressed the problem is availability of FX, not price.

Whether the FEI moves ahead with the initiative or not, the parallel market rate appears to have been cooled slightly this week after last week’s record spikes. Fading hype of an imminent devaluation saw the EGP hold steady at EGP 15.05-15.20 on Sunday morning, weakening to EGP 15.40 by the evening, according to Al Shorouk.

Also yesterday: The FEI signalled it will continue to push to allow those who are sourcing FX on the parallel market to record the full variance from the official rate as an FX expense. The issue is due to come up at a meeting today between the FEI and Tax Authority chief Abdel Moneim Mattar, Al Borsa reports.

Lufthansa will continue operating in Egypt “even in the most dire circumstances,” said Soren Stark, a member of the airline’s executive board who spoke at a Lufthansa event at Cairo International Airport attended by German Ambassador to Cairo Julius Georg Luy, Al Mal reports. The airline is committed to Egypt despite ongoing problems with repatriating funds, added Luy. The reassurances come following statements made last month by Lufthansa country sales manager Zied Gueblaoui that the carrier was considering an exit strategy or selling tickets in Egypt in USD or by credit card. Lufthansa been unable to get as much as EUR 15 mn out of Egypt since January. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced earlier this fall that it will indefinitely suspend flights to Cairo starting 8 January.

Early sign of progress on deregulation of power industry? The Electricity Ministry has contracted ESB International to advise on the demerger of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company from the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company, Al Borsa reports, citing unnamed sources. The ministry is looking to transform EETC into an independent regulator as part of the Electricity Act, Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said. Under the act’s executive regulations, the EETC would manage the national grid and develop a strategy that would open it to use by private electricity producers.

Al Borsa’s car price guide is back, this time with a roundup of prices on European models, with an emphasis on increases in sticker prices this month versus last. Among the more notable price hikes: the 3L BMW 740Li, which now goes for EGP 2.64 mn (a 400k increase from last month) and the 3.5L Mercedes Benz S400 which, if you can find one, will set you back EGP 2.015 mn, an increase of EGP 336k from September. View the full guide here. Then cry that we’re at a point at which people seriously look at automobiles as short-term investments.

The BRICS are dead. Long live … the CIVETS? No, not the “small, lithe-bodied, mostly nocturnal mammal native to tropical Asia and Africa,” but “Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa.” It’s one of the next “acronyms and country groupings invented by bankers and consultants to help investors and companies work out where they should be investing,” the Wall Street Journal writes. What other lists does Egypt appear on? The WSJ notes:

The Next 11 (like BRICs, a Goldman Sachs construct) that includes Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam). Goldman’s marketing brochure for the Next 11 is here (pdf).

The EAGLES, or Emerging and Growth-Led Economies, as BBVA has termed them. Members include China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, Taiwan and Turkey. BBVA’s piece on the Eagle (we can only do the all-caps thing once, really is here (also in pdf).

(Oh, and was anyone else aware that Egypt had “applied” to become a member of the BRICs? No? Neither had we. The notion that Cairo and Buenos Aires both want to become BRICs cropped up almost as a throwaway line in a Daily Mail pickup of an AP story on the BRICs meeting in Goa yesterday.)

MOVES- Ahmed Abdel Razak has been appointed the new chairman of the Industrial Development Authority, succeeding Ismail Gaber, Al Borsa reported. Gaber leaves office on 20 October.

Were we really the world’s fifth-largest recipient of FDI in 7M2016? We took note last week of a Financial Times data point suggesting we indeed were, with inflows of USD 20.7 bn. Reader Alex W. wrote in the next day, questioning the math, noting (among other things) that “If you look at the most recent CBE data, total FDI inflows were about USD 9.5 bn for the period from July 2015-March 2016, including USD 3.5 bn for the January-March 2016 period.” The nice people at fDi Markets, the FT company that compiles the stats, had this to say: “Thank you for your query regarding the greenfield investment figures from our database fDi Markets. There are discrepancies with government statistics due to the differing ways of calculating FDI. Our figures include announced as well as launched projects, and the full projected investment amount is included in the year of announcement; this is a key reason why our figures are higher in some years than the government figures.”

Don’t bet against the investment bankers. “The ‘last man standing’ strategies could be paying off,” the Financial Times notes, explaining that while “second-tier banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche have made cuts in investment banking,” JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup stayed the course with their IB teams — and those teams are now core drivers of earnings growth. The paper thinks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will do the same when they report their figures later this week.

Iran’s next challenge to GCC countries will be economic, FTfm argues, pointing out that everyone from Ashmore to Lazard Asset Management taking a close look at Iranian opportunities. The latest move in the regional chess match: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has invited the 20-20 Investment Association to come for a visit. The group hasn’t accepted the invite — yet. It’s waiting for US sanctions to ease. But with European banks, companies and investors actively looking for entry points to Iran, it’s only a matter of time. (The 20-20 Investment Association that focuses on “opportunities in emerging and frontier markets.” Its members include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Lazard, the Heinz family office, Fidelity and Capital Group, among others. It has about USD 7 tn in AUM.)

Even if it’s not Iran, asset managers need to look for compelling opportunities somewhere: The pension fund for California teachers recently — which declared earlier this year that the standard 2 and 20 hedge fund model is dead — is now pulling some USD 20 bn from external fund managers, arguing it’s cheaper to manage the money in-house.

It’s an incredibly quiet morning for Egypt in the international press, with the lead story being largely confined to the business pages with wire coverage of the end of the saga that was the 4G license sale. Also worth noting: The Associated Press has picked up on a report in Sada Al-Balad that a “high-level Syrian delegation has arrived in Cairo for talks with unnamed senior officials.”

Also worth noting: NPR’s Jane Arraf uses the rising cost of weddings for lower-income citizens as a compelling way into the story of Egypt’s economic challenges. Read the piece here or look for the “play” button in the top left of the page to listen to the audio report (listening time: 4:14).

Egypt’s economic reform program is in the spotlight in the UAE’s The National. Veteran financial writer Patrick Werr’s weekly column suggests it’s time the Ismail government rip the band aid off: “Even though the inevitable austerity measures could trigger a groundswell of discontent, the government must move quickly and decisively, since delays will make the financial mess even harder to resolve down the road.” The EGP, he suggests, should be devalued “aggressively,” noting that Arqaam Capital is suggesting 14.00 to the greenback. Elsewhere in the paper, Riyadh-based analyst John Sfakianakis argues for a managed float, bringing back investment incentives including UAE-style tax breaks, and spending cuts that he admits will be “hugely unpopular.” And that’s the risk that’s surely giving policymakers pause, as Werr notes: “Activists have already called for a mass demonstration on November 11 to protest against the rising cost of living. In a speech on September 26, Mr El Sisi said the military could deploy across the entire country in six hours if needed, a remark Egyptians in the street interpreted as a warning to would-be protesters.”

The Daily News is in heaven, “exclusively revealing” that Dastardly Frenchmen and Conniving Egyptians (sarcasm ours) nearly thwarted “the UK’s historic Tutankhamun show with a string of impossible demands.” In 1972. Yes, 44 years ago. Hit the link if you must.

Elsewhere this morning:

• Former Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy writes for Project Syndicate that “The Trump and Sanders phenomena suggest that American voters are uncomfortable with traditional political choices
• Egyptian intelligence helped Australia arrest a would-be terrorist, The Australian reports.

Egypt’s commentators try to look beyond current spat with Riyadh: Al Masry Al Youm columnist Amr El Shobaky says that Egyptian-Saudi relations should not be predicated on economic support. He added that Egypt and Saudi always had differences when there was no external threat. By nature of the differences in the regimes of both countries, Saudi and Egypt disagreed regularly on inter-Arab issues especially during the spread of Pan Arabism in the 1960s. Also speaking on the subject, El Watan’s Emad El Din Adib who declared the issue resolved. He says that it would be disastrous for the GCC to consider Turkey as a valuable ally instead of Egypt.

Barack Obama is loving this whole magazine thing. Too bad it’s a dead-end career. Hot off his “guest editing” of Wired, the outgoing US president writes in an essay for the Economist that capitalism has been a driver of prosperity, even if productivity growth has declined and inequality has risen. The piece mixes a look back at his domestic achievements with a critical analysis of what to about the state of the US and global economy.

“The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease,” Obama writes. His successor’s primary challenges: “boosting productivity growth, combating rising inequality, ensuring that everyone who wants a job can get one and building a resilient economy that’s primed for future growth.” Obama argues that bridging the gap between the rich and the poor brings social stability and faith in the government. He doesn’t miss the chance to criticize bipartisan politics and to blame Congress for less fiscal expansion than he wanted.

We’ll have a look tomorrow at why the next US president — whether Clinton or Trump — will have an exceptionally difficult time doing just that.

“Number one? Number one in what- juvenile diabetes?”: Comedian Sarah Silverman talks with the New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz about Donald Trump, her fear of nationalism, xenophobia, and the “whitehead the GOP has been growing for a decade.”

The EU is waiting on a report on the status of transportation infrastructure upgrades to issue the last EUR 45 mn tranche of the EUR 80 mn grant signed in 2009, head of the EU mission’s energy and transportation projects Ahmed Al Beltagy told Al Mal. On a related note, the EU recently gave Egypt a EUR 41 mn grant to support the third phase of the Cairo Metro Line Three project, he added.

The Manpower Ministry signed a CAD 5 mn Canadian-funded cooperation agreement with the International Labor Organisation for youth employment, Ahram Gate reports.

Siemens will conduct the first trial run of the Burullus power plant on Tuesday, government sources told Al Borsa. The company has already successfully tested the combined cycle plants at the new capital and Beni Suef power plants earlier this month. The Beni Suef plant will be connected to the national grid by the end of November, while the new capital’s plant will begin producing electricity within 30 days.

Abdul Latif Jameel, Enel Green Power, and OTMT are all set to be reimbursed for exiting phase one of the feed-in tariff program on Wednesday, following last week’s payout to Cairo Solar, unnamed sources told Al Borsa. Companies who have still not filed to withdraw or move onto phase two have until 21 October to contact the NREA..

Norwegian oil and gas industry association INTSOK sat down with Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla to discuss potential investments in the petroleum and natural gas sectors, according to a ministry statement.

The Red Sea Ports Authority will issue a tender to build a USD 250 mn multi-purpose station at the Safaga Port, authority chairman Hesham Abou Senna told Al Mal. The station will handle containers and general goods with an annual capacity of 1.2 mn containers and 3 mn tonnes respectively, he added. The project serves the Upper Egypt development strategy by redirecting traffic to the Safaga Port and using railroads to reduce the load on Upper Egypt road network, he said.

Thirteen companies have qualified technically for a tender to complete the second phase of upgrades to the New Aswan wastewater plant, head of the New Aswan City Authority Mostafa Saeed told Al Borsa. The project aims to boost the plant’s capacity to 29.5k cubic metres daily from 18.5k at an estimated cost of EGP 150 mn, said Saeed. A winning bid will be chosen within a month, he said.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail gave his preliminary approval to new guidelines governing the import of wheat, soybeans, and corn, according to a cabinet statement that ran in the local press. The statement gives no detail on the guidelines, which “aim to ensure that the quality of imports meet Egyptian standards,” said cabinet spokesperson Hussam Qawish. The guidelines will be announced next week, Qawish added. Anyone else having memories of ergot reading this?

The Supply Ministry is stepping-up sugar imports and is meeting with retailers and others in the industry to convince them to do the same.

The Prosecutor General is apparently looking into a suit filed against Health Minister Ahmed Rady, Ahmed El Ezaby (head of the Federation of Egyptian Industry’s pharma division) and other industry association reps over the ministry’s decision to raise prices on meds priced under EGP 30 to rise 20%, Al Borsa reports. The suit alleges that industry associations conspired with the minister to deceive the public into believing the pharma industry was in trouble and would need the decision to survive despite significant profits, which as we noted last month grew 76% year-on-year in 1H16. Okay, forgetting for a moment that the stated reason for the decision was to redress shortages of key meds in the market, is the Prosecutor General’s office really wasting time with this? What’s next? Suing the government for cutting subsidies? Or better yet, for inflation? Why not even last summer’s heat wave? How about Yasser Borhamy’s zebiba? Can we sue because having seen it, it cannot be unseen?

Cairo was ranked as the fifth most traveled to city in the Middle East and Africa in terms of number of overnight tourist stays with 1.55 mn visitors by MasterCard’s 2016 Global Destination Cities Index. Overnight stays increased 1.5% year-on-year, with visitors spending USD 1.1 bn, making it seventh regionally in terms of overnight visitor spending. Thank God for small miracles.

A delegation of French businessmen and media representatives met with EgyptAir officials in Luxor and Aswan to discuss setting up a campaign to promote cultural tourism to Egypt, said EgyptAir Chairman and CEO Sherif Ezzat, according to Al Mal. French tourism company Voyageurs du Monde is offering travel packages to Egypt, EgyptAir’s Paris bureau chief Amr Sami said.

Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) is in talks for a EGP 2.5 bn syndicated facility. Among those with whom it is said to be talking: CIB, Banque Misr, NBE, AAIB, QNB, and HSBC, Al Mal reports. The company would use the facility to go after two power plants, including a 320 MW combined-cycle plant in Attaqa. Ansaldo Energia and El Sewedy Electric are also bidding on the Attaqa plant.

The Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) filed a case against Turkish-owned Hayat Egypt with the Prosecutor General on Saturday following complaints that metal pieces were found in its baby-care and affordable diaper brand Molfix Egypt, Al Masry Al Youm reports. Investigations are ongoing at Molfix’s factory, with samples of the product under review by the authority, CPA head Atef Yacoub told the newspaper.

The Leasing and Factoring Act sets a minimum capital requirement of EGP 10 mn to form a new company, said Sherif Samy, head of the board of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority. Companies looking to engage in both factoring and leasing must obtain permission to do so from EFSA, said Samy, according to Al Borsa. EFSA’s board was supposed met on Sunday to complete the review of the bill before sending it to the cabinet for approval.

Eight soldiers were killed on Sunday in North Sinai after the Armed Forces intensified its campaigns against Daesh in retaliation of attacks by Daesh over the weekend which killed 12 troops, AMAY reports.

World squash number one Mohamed Elshorbagy of Egypt won the US open on Saturday, defeating the UK’s Nick Matthew, Ahram Online reports. Nour El Sherbini, the world’s top-ranked female player, lost to France’s Camille Serme.

An Egyptian mystery in New York: Police in New York are investigating after a 16-year-old Egyptian teenager “covered in severe burns” arrived unaccompanied on an EgyptAir flight on Saturday, the New York Daily News reports. The teenager had second-degree burns on c. 40% of her body. “She suffered the burns in a gas explosion in her village, located roughly four hours from the nearest airport, sources said. There were no facilities near her home to treat her, she said, so family members gave her pain medication, wrapped her in some bandages and clothing and put her on the flight.”

It’s difficult not to cry for the lost opportunity when you read “Tutankhamun: How ITV recreated Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in South Africa.” Note to policymakers: Tax credits apparently played a role in convincing producers to shoot in South Africa instead of Egypt.

Experts have detected two ‘cavities’ inside the Great pyramid of Khufu using radiology and 3D reconstruction, Agence France-Presse reported. “We are now able to confirm the existence of a ‘void’ hidden behind the north face, that could form of at least one corridor going inside the Great Pyramid,” said scientists from Operation ScanPyramids — which began last October — in the piece published by The National. The other cavity is located on the pyramid’s north-east flank.

Ahram Online editor wins CNN African Journalist Award for culture coverage. Ati Metwaly, the editor of Ahram Online’s Arts and Culture section, won for “Music Against All Odds,” about Al Nour Wal Amal Orchestra, which she originally filed for Al-Ahram Weekly.