With Lamees El Hadidi and Amr Adib still off the air as Amr recovers from exhaustion, the talking heads offered up a mixed bag of nuts on the airwaves last night.

Taking over the reins at Kol Youm is Amr Adib’s old airtime buddy, actress Ragaa El Geddawy, who will be filling in until the host recovers, ONTV chief Amr Rizk tells Al Mal.El Geddawy, who customarily hosts a light social segment of Adib’s Sunday episode called Ask Ragaa, played a pre-recorded interview COMESA’s competition watchdog George Lipimile, who is in town to investigate the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) alleged bid-rigging in granting broadcasting rights of CAF tournaments. Lipimile said the commission cannot definitively say whether CAF and Lagardère Sports restrained competition until the investigation is complete (watch, runtime: 9:03).

Finally, agricultural policies that make sense: There will be no cultivation of sugar cane or rice on land from the 1.5 mn feddan desert reclamation project — the crops simply consume too much water, Egyptian Rural Development Company chairman Atter Hannoura told Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary (watch, runtime: 4:04). The move follows the recommendation by FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva over the weekend that the project needs to adopt sensible crops to grow at a time where the region and country could be suffering from major water shortages as a result of poor agricultural practices. (To say nothing of climate change and a certain dam upstream in, say, Ethiopia.)

Yahduth fi Masr’s Sherif Amer hosted Deputy Housing Minister for urban development Ahmed Adel Darwish, who laid out the government’s plan for the Maspero Triangle development project and the relocation of the area’s current squatters. According to Darwish, families will be allowed to choose between purchasing residential units in Al Asmarat, to be paid off in monthly installments of EGP 300, or renting units in the Maspero area after the development is complete.

Amer then moved on to discuss the garbage recycling initiative finally picking up steam in Egypt, with Kafr El Sheikh Governor El Sayed Nasr alleging the governorate beat Cairo to the punch, and first began buying solid waste from citizens seven months ago at an average of EGP 3,000 per tonne.

Director of the state-controlled Tahya Misr Fund Mohamed El Ashmawy told Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal that the fund is coordinating with the Social Solidarity Ministry to launch a housing project for street children (watch, runtime: 1:25), and has allocated some EGP 350 mn for Hepatitis C treatment (watch, runtime: 1:30).