Topping coverage of Egypt in the foreign press this morning is an odd-looking statue of Mohamed Salah unveiled on Saturday at the World Youth Forum. Foreign news outlets and tabloids exhausted the list of synonym words for ‘odd’ to describe the monstrosity. Consider it the latest in a wave of unfortunate statues of Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona, and Luis Suarez, Sky Sports suggests.

On last night’s talk shows, El Hekaya’s Amr Adib took it upon himself to defend the piece by saying that the statue does not need to be an exact copy of the footballer to be of value, and claiming that people would have felt differently had it been created by a well-known artists, rather than a “regular” Egyptian citizen (watch, runtime: 4:16).

It may not be Salah, but the statue really does look like 1970s British musician Leo Sayer (pictured below).

Other headlines worth noting:

• The Maspero Triangle, which has for decades been a key part of Cairo’s heritage, is now “reminiscent of photographs of many a city after war,” Yasmine El Rashidi writes for the New York Times.
• International rights group Reporters Without Borders condemns Egypt’s new media law, which requires independent media outlets to pay for permits, calling it “tantamount to extortion” and a sign of independent media’s probable extinction in Egypt. The story was picked up by the NYT.
• Egyptian squash player Omar Mosaad was seeded number one and went straight to the second round of the PSA World Tour Bronze tournament, which will kick off between November 10-14, according to the tournament’s website.
• Former funnyman and ex-El Bernameg host Bassem Youssef will be performing at the New York Comedy Festival this Saturday and Sunday, Sopan Deb writes for The New York Times.