Good morning, wonderful people. Remember how we talked a couple of weeks ago about signs of rising investor interest in Egypt? The roadshows coming through, the listed companies being peppered with meeting requests, the torrent of funding coming into ever-larger startup fundraising rounds?

The latest sign: EFG Hermes held its first Egypt Day since the start of the pandemic yesterday, as global institutional investors met with officials from the Madbouly government as well as C-suite execs from top Egyptian companies. Group CEO Karim Awad sounded an optimistic note on the sidelines of the gathering, and Planning Minister Hala Said used the occasion to raise the government’s growth forecast. We have chapter and verse in the news well this morning, below.

THE BIG STORIES ABROAD- It’s a mixed bag on the international front pages this morning:

Across the Atlantic, many news orgs are running with the federal jury verdict that ordered the organizers of the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlotteville to pay USD 26 mn in damages to people injured during the demonstration. (Reuters | NYT | AP).

David Cameron hasn’t escaped the Greensill scandal: The Financial Times is adding colour to the lobbying scandal that ensnared the former UK prime minister earlier this year regarding his ties to doomed financial services company Greensill Capital.

More covid: Bloomberg is leading with a US covid update, reporting that even in highly-vaccinated states, hospitals are starting to come under pressure as cases rise.

Qatar 2022 just keeps getting shadier: Host of the 2022 World Cup Qatar has for years employed ex-CIA officers to spy on Fifa officials in an effort to host the tournament, an investigation by the Associated Press has found. The Gulf state is widely regarded to have bribed officials at football’s governing body to vote for their bid, allegations denied by Qatar and Fifa.

MORNING DISTRACTIONS-

NASA is setting out to save the planet today as the US space agency launches a “planetary defense mission” to see whether it might be possible to shove an asteroid off a collision course with our planet. We’ll know next fall whether the “DART” mission successfully changes the course of a harmless asteroid about 9.6 mn kilometers away in a “test of a technology that may one day save the world.”

Why should you care? Go ask the dinosaurs whether they’d have preferred shoving off-course the asteroid that saw them go extinct after it slammed into Earth. The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the BBC all have more.

Even the youts among us love the New York Times’ It’s Never Too Late series. The latest installment: It’s never too late to pick up your life and move to Italy. Sounds good to us. (Or maybe it’s simply that we’ve not travelled outside the nation’s borders in going on two years?) Whether you’re having a quarterlife or midlife crisis, the series has inspiration for you.

From the dumpster fire that is our social media: A reminder from pre-swole Bezos that sometimes, PowerPoint isn’t the answer. Long-form writing is (watch, runtime: 1:18).

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

Cairo dwellers may soon be able to hitch a ride with DiDi: Chinese ride-sharing app DiDi is set to start operating in Cairo next month, Moenes Amin, an advisor to the company, told Al Mal. The company is currently adding “final touches” before making its debut in the capital, Amin said. The news comes a few months after DiDi entered Egypt’s rideshare market with its launch in Alexandria. Amin did not reply by dispatch time this morning to a request for comment and a DiDi customer service rep was unable to provide any information.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Startup gathering RiseUp starts tomorrow and runs through Saturday.

The Cairo International Film Festival kicks off its weeklong run this coming Friday.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

*** It’s Hardhat day — your weekly briefing of all things infrastructure in Egypt: Enterprise’s industry vertical focuses each Wednesday on infrastructure, covering everything from energy, water, transportation, urban development and social infrastructure such as health and education.

In today’s issue: Although the scenes of mass food stockpiling and supply chain disruptions that accompanied covid-19 brought Egypt’s food security into greater focus than before, these are issues that long predate the pandemic. Today, in the first part of a two-part series, we look at the underlying stressors — including land and water scarcity, food import dependency, rapid population growth, and unhealthy changes to diets from urbanization — that strain our food system. Next week, we look at which infrastructure upgrades we need to start solving these problems.