How slow a news day is it for Egypt in the international press? UK tabs are back to one of their favorite memes: Brit goes on holiday to a sunny destination peopled by non-melanin-challenged people. Brit gets a tummyache. Brit’s holiday is absolutely ruined. The perfidy. Per The Sun: An English couple honeymooning suffered food poisoning while staying on the Red Sea. After returning home, Cristina Calafateanu was diagnosed with the bacterial infection shigella, which then caused her to suffer severe arthritis. The couple, who had booked through a noted tour operator, have sought legal advice.

Read that alongside: Egypt has called on the UK to lift its ban on direct flights between the UK and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt’s Ambassador to the UK Tarek Adel told the BBC. Adel noted that Egypt has worked hard to upgrade facilities and improve security within its airports in coordination with British technical and security teams.

Ah, Orientalism, courtesy of the BBC: As if looking to justify the continued ban on direct flights, the BBC sought the opinion a random former police officer who visited Sharm, who (challenging his Victorian-era ancestor) had this to say: “We have to be careful because what we may perhaps consider suitable security is not considered the same elsewhere.” A former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office also said that Sharm El Sheikh “will always be at the top end of the threat level for holiday.” He also did say, however “that doesn’t mean to say you shouldn't go because there are other places that we go to similar to that.”

And FYI, low cost carrier Air Arabia has launched two weekly flights to Sharm El Sheikh from Amman, according to the company’s website. Air Arabia launched direct flights between Sharm El Sheikh and Beirut last June.

Other headlines worth a glance this morning:

• Egypt is turning into a prime competitor to Russia for gas exports to Europe as it targets export agreements withItaly, Spain, and France, the Arab Weekly reports.
• The former head of the Glasgow Museums called on Scotland to meet its “ethical duty” and repatriate artefacts, including a block of stone from the Giza Pyramids, that weretaken during times of slavery and colonialism, according to Scotland’s The National.