A dark, cold, hungry winter? Pundits think twin energy and food commodity crises could be brewing.

How slow of a news day is it? Let’s put it this way: We’re really worked up that the cabinet has signed off on amendments to the Traffic Act that, if passed by the House, would make it legal for 16-year-olds to ride e-bikes on city streets. That’s about the best we can do in the manufactured-outrage department.

(The Madbouly government recently launched a campaign headlined “Your bike, your health” to sell subsidized bicycles and e-bikes. The link for reservations is here.)

The only business-relevant stories of note so far today are no more thrilling: The EGX30 closed down 0.5% today in notably light trading. Conventional wisdom on the street has it that (a) retail investors are still letting us know they’re brassed off about the prospect of paying capital gains on their portfolios starting next year and (b) that some folks are exiting positions to make available the liquidity they need to buy into e-Finance’s ongoing IPO.

ALSO: EGX boss Mohamed Farid inked an agreement (pdf) to work with the Egyptian Businessmen's Association to build a database of companies that are good prospects to IPO in the future.

See what we mean? As it was this morning, THE BIG STORY TODAY is abroad, not here at home:

HAPPENING NOW- Health Minister Hala Zayed is on a visit to Germany to discuss cooperation in the health sector, according to Youm7. Zayed is set to talk with officials at Mercedes about the supply of 1k ambulances and some 1k medical mobile clinics. The minister will also be meeting with execs from health tech outfit Siemens.

Will we be making BioNTech / Pfizer here in Egypt? Zayed had previously said that she will be meeting with BioNTech officials to discuss the possibility.

ALSO HAPPENING NOW- Don’t hold your breath — consumer activity in the eurozone is back to pre-pandemic levels, but… high energy prices and supply-chain disruptions could upend all of that.

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Which brings us to our BIG STORY OF THE DAY: The world could be looking at twin energy and food crises this winter, developments that are of particular interest to us here in Egypt, where we export natural gas to Europe — and import the vast majority of our foodstuffs.

Food and agricultural commodity prices are at risk of rising as China looks at a difficult harvest season, Bloomberg reports. China is currently facing power shortages that are hitting industrial hubs just as the fall harvest gets underway — and “among the worst hit [regions] are northeastern provinces where about half of China’s corn and soybeans are grown. … The power shortage has forced soybean processors in northern regions to shut … [and there’s] also concern that the electricity crunch could cut operating rates of corn processors.”

Throw in a bad year for crops in Brazil, which as we noted yesterday have been “scorched, frozen and then dried out by the worst drought in a century,” and it could be a nasty winter for food prices globally.

The latest on a (simultaneous? global?) energy crunch: With winter fast approaching, officials in Beijing are looking to “quell power crunch fears” by “demanding railway companies and local authorities raise their game in shipping vital coal supplies to utilities. One continent over, the UK has followed through on a plan to have soldiers drive tankers to replenish filling stations with petrol as panic buying continues to see long lines and empty pumps.

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** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• Abu Auf could debut on EGX in 2Q2022: Healthy food brand Abu Auf’s parent company AUF could offer up to 49% of its shares on the EGX.
• SFE could embark on new desalination projects: Orascom Construction and Hassan Allam Holding are in early talks with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) for contracts to build several new desalination plants.
• Gov’t pushes employees to get vaccinated: Government employees who remain unvaccinated in two months time will be banned from entering their workplaces.

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WATCH THIS SPACE- Economists, traders and politics geeks alike are firmly fixated on Washington, DC, where “Democrats in Congress are scrambling to find a way to raise the US debt ceiling and avert what a chorus of executives and policymakers are warning would be a ‘catastrophic’ default in less than three weeks.” The story leads the front page of the Financial Times.

Markets are topsy-turvy: Global bond markets have taken a beating as many nations signal that interest rate rises are incoming, sparking the steepest price declines since the beginning of the year, writes the Financial Times. The US and Europe have come under particular pressure as they grapple with increasing inflation that seems unlikely to be transitory — a notion experts had been touting in the past period. The wave of bond selling has pushed yields sky high, which in turn has hit stocks in key markets such as the US, according to the Wall Street Journal. Major players including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia have seen their stock prices drop 4.5% or more so far this week, dragging down major indices.

CLOSER TO HOME- Saudi renewable energy player ACWA Power has priced its Tadawul IPO at the top end of the range, saying it will sell its shares at SAR 56 apiece in a transaction that will raise USD 1.2 bn and value the company at USD 10.9 bn. The Saudi outfit has operations here in Egypt. Our friends at EFG Hermes KSA are bookrunners on the transaction.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING- Former foreign minister Fumio Kishida is set to become Japan’s new prime minister after winning the leadership of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Kishida will lead the LDP into Japan’s elections in November.

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YOUR STATUTORILY REQUIRED COVID STORY- Are we going to have an anti-covid pill? Pfizer says oral antivirals have the ability to prevent covid-19 infection in people exposed to the virus, the company announced. Results from an early-stage trial suggest the pill “was safe and well tolerated.” Pfizer is now launching a mid-to-late-stage clinical trial with over 2.6k participants who are living with someone who tested positive for covid-19.

We’re (many) months away from an anti-covid pill. Swiss pharma firm Merck and Miami-based Ridgeback Biotherapeutics are also testing an antiviral tablet to treat covid-19 and are expecting results by the end of the year, reported the Financial Times.

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FOR TOMORROW- The Cairo International Fair opens tomorrow at the Cairo International Conference Center, running through 8 October.

The Egypt Projects 2021 construction expo also opens tomorrow at the Egypt International Exhibition Center and wraps on Saturday, 2 October.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Winter retail opening hours in effect from Thursday: Shops and malls will close one hour earlier at 10pm (11pm on Thursdays, Fridays and national holidays) while cafes and restaurants will shutter at midnight rather than 1am. As during the summer, essential services such as grocery stores, supermarkets and pharmacies are exempt from the rules and can open and close their doors when they want.

Dubai’s Expo 2020 starts Friday, 1 October. The event, which takes place somewhere on the planet once every five years, runs for six months and will be open seven days a week. You can learn more here.

PSA #1- Next week is a short work week. You can expect to have a three-day weekend 7-9 October in observance of Armed Forces Day, which is on 6 October. Folks whose workdays are tied to banks and the market can expect confirmation from the Central Bank of Egypt and EGX early next week.

PSA #2- We’re probably also looking at a long weekend starting Thursday, 21 October in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday, which is formally Monday, 18 October.

Google for Startups’s MENA accelerator is accepting applications until 14 October. The three-month digital accelerator program for seed to Series A tech startups based in the region will run virtually starting January 2022.

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

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☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect a daytime high of 34°C and a low overnight of 21°C, our favorite weather app tells us. Your weekend outlook: Beautiful fall weather, with a high of 32°C on Friday and 31°C on Saturday.

THE WORLD IS NOT ENDING- Covid-19 is no more our “new normal” than was the 1890 pandemic. We know this to be true not because we studied a hell of a lot of virology in our youth (which we did), but because Zeynep Tufekci tells us so: “Do people know that the 1890 pandemic was likely caused by another coronavirus, OC43 (that was then novel?) Nowadays, no longer novel, it is one of the causes of the common cold. We're obviously not living in the OC43 pandemic since, and we won't live in a COVID pandemic forever.” Follow her nuanced Twitter thread on the subject if you’re so inclined.

Do you love dogs? And Star Wars? Even Mark @HamillHimself thinks you should watch this short, super-adorable clip. (Turn the sound on. It’s totally SFW.)

Men over the age of 45 are the most likely to panic-sell stocks during a downturn, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study that analyzed more than 600k brokerage accounts. These men were also usually married, have multiple dependents, and self-identify as having excellent investment experience. The researchers defined panic selling as “a plunge of 90% of a household account’s equity assets over the course of one month, of which 50% or more is due to trades.” The larger scope of the research could help create predictive models that would help identify people prone to freaking out and selling off large parts of their portfolio instead of weathering the storm. Bloomberg has the story.

Current object of desire: The Keychron K2 wireless mechanical keyboard (version 2 in a Mac layout, please), which could yet force us to break out that laptop stand we have kicking around here somewhere. Bonus: With the right adaptor, you can use it on your iPad Pro, too.

We’re not sure we’re allowed to make this joke, but what the hell: If there’s a Watergate-style break-in at the Canadian embassy anytime soon, y’all can save yourself the trouble and come find us. And even then, it will be the fault of Canadian ambassador to Egypt Louis Dumas because of this tweet. 250 kg of maple syrup and tennis?

Speaking of tennis: The recent Laver Cup meeting between teams led by John McEnroe (Team World) and Bjorn Borg (Team Europe) was the prompt for this piece in the New York Times: John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg: A rivalry that ended too soon. Why is this so cool, you ask? Go watch their legendary 1980 tie break in the Wimbledon final (a time capsule for that year in fashion alone…) and then watch the full match here (runtime: 3:58:17). You’ll then have some sense.

The latest James Bond flick, No Time to Die, opens in Egypt tomorrow, and it’s getting excellent reviews. Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 is “an up-to-the-minute, down-to-the-wire James Bond thriller with a satisfying neo-classical edge,” according to Variety. The industry rag goes so far as to suggest (but not quite declare) that it’s the best Bond film ever, certainly up there with Sean Connery’s early days. The Financial Times, meanwhile, says that it’s Craig’s best Bond film, writing, “The long-delayed movie juggernaut delivers a biohazard plot, a cast full of capable women and a giddy sense of madcap.”

This isn’t creepy at all… Amazon has basically created its own “real life” version of Wall-E, a “home robot” named Astro that it unveiled yesterday, promising it will “will keep a watchful eye on your home — and you.” The USD 1k robot — available now “by invitation only” — comes complete with microphones, cameras and the ability to follow you from room to room.

We find Greta Thunberg really irritating. Not wrong. Just … irritating. But it’s hard not to nod along with her in agreement as she spoke at climate talks in Italy this week: “30 years of blah blah blah.”

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

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Streaming sites are big on biographies and documentaries this week, releasing portraits of everyone from Trump and R. Kelly to Britney Spears: Limited series The Comey Rule is adapted from former FBI director James Comey’s memoir, A Higher Loyalty, which explores his fraught relationship with then-US President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning looks at the escalating case against the musician as more women come forward with allegations. The release of the documentary couldn’t have been more timely as R. Kelly was found guilty of [redacted trafficking] yesterday and faces life in prison. Finally, Britney Vs Spears takes a deeper look at the #FreeBritney movement as the singer tries to break out of a years-long conservatorship handed to her father.

⚽We have another eight matches this evening in the UEFA Champions League: At 6:45 pm it’s Atlanta vs Young Boys and Zenit taking on Malmo FF. Later, at 9 pm, Benfica and Barcelona will hit the field, Bayern Munich and Dynamo Kyiv will face each other, Juventus will look to put down Chelsea, Man Utd will play Villarreal, Salzburg kick off against Lille and Wolfsburg will take on Sevilla.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

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Massar Egbari is taking the stage at Cairo Jazz Club 610 in El Guezira Plaza tonight at 9 pm with their alternative rock, jazz and blues tunes, which have become fixtures of the local music scene.

It’s Afrobeat and reggaeton night at Cairo Jazz Club in Agouza, with BubbleGum Kollectiv taking the stage at 8 pm (postponed from this past Monday).

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Pulitzer Prizewinning author Richard Powers is out with a new novel that tackles climate change with an enchanting narrative: Bewilderment follows astrobiologist and single father Theo Byrne and his nine-year-old son Robin, who has a strong love for nature that he inherited from his late mother, an environmental lawyer. While usually warm-natured, Robin is given psychoactive meds to control his temper, so when Bryne learns of a neurological treatment he jumps at the chance to help his son. The treatment involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain, ingraining in him a rebelliousness against the climate change-denying government and putting the young boy in the center of ongoing political strife. Powers paints a haunting picture of life as it might be years from now and poses a question for readers through his narrative: What kind of world do we want our children to inherit? The book is this month’s Oprah’s Book Club pick, for better or for worse.

The EGX30 fell 0.5% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 986 mn (37.8% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is down 4.2% YTD.

In the green: AMOC (+7.7%), Ezz Steel (+3.3%) and Fawry (+2.5%).

In the red: Eastern Company (-3.3%), Pioneers Holding (-2.7%) and Credit Agricole Egypt (-2.7%).

There could be people from four different generations working in your office: Multigenerational workplaces are becoming increasingly commonplace as people choose to work past retirement age, the University of Massachusetts writes in this blog post. There are at least four generations now in the workplace: baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and Generation Z. Each generation has different perspectives, experiences, values and goals, which can equally lead to conflict and innovation, depending on how well the company creates a cooperative environment.

The challenges of multigenerational workplaces… Communication: Maybe the biggest challenge faced is the different communication styles preferred by different generations. Younger folks prefer texts, abbreviations, and informal language while boomers might be more prone to more formal ways of communicating — preferences that can spell out serious communication breakdowns between parties. Leaders should be flexible to communicate in a matter each employee is more comfortable with, according to Dana Brownlee, founder of training and management consulting firm Professionalism Matters. Bringing staff members face-to-face for informal get-togethers and team-building sessions also helps break down barriers, she says.

Negative stereotypes: We’ve seen it happen before. Young generations are seen as lazy, entitled, overeager and tech-obsessed — while older folks are more stubborn, inflexible, and hard to train. It falls on management to actively look for dysfunction in the workplace and intervene if necessary. However, there’s also a big matter of company culture to be prioritized in this aspect as firms with a more competitive environment can push employees to focus on the negatives of their coworkers as opposed to seeing what they can learn from the other.

Expectations: Different generations expect different things from their employers. From work-life balance to a respect of mental health, younger generations may demand more from managers than their predecessors. For leaders and HR teams, a good way to approach this issue is to allow for flexibility in policies for each employee. Maybe an employee is more productive working from home or at night. Or another employee is looking for different benefits. It’s okay to customize employee’s work situations in a way that suits them as long as everyone feels the right to approach management with their individual demands, according to the University of Southern California.

However, it’s important not to put people in a box: While age can play a big role in how people interact in the workplace, there are other factors at play and often there are better predictors of behaviour. That’s the central thesis to What millennials want from work: How to maximize engagement in today's workforce. Young people want to make their name known while older people want their experience to be recognized and appreciated. However, at the end of the day, both sides want to be heard and respected. “The key to understanding someone's behavior is to look at the individual, and the best way to find out how to motivate and engage is to ask them what matters to them,” she told the Society for Human Resource Management.

Management should instead focus on the similarities all while respecting differences: Apollonia Poilâne has been running Paris-based family bakery Poilâne since she was 18, putting her in the position to observe both older and younger generations’ perspectives at the workplace. “Rather than focusing on the differences, I have been struck by the uniformity of feelings that people express, even though they may use different words and ways of speaking,” she told the Financial Times. She created an apprenticeship system where generations can pass on the knowledge to each other by allowing aspiring bakers to shadow more experienced bakers until they can become autonomous bakers and master the process. Apprenticeship forces a dialogue between different generations, paving the way for knowledge and perspectives to intertwine.

14-30 September (Tuesday-Thursday): 76th session of the UN General Assembly, New York.

29 September (Wednesday): DevOpsDays Cairo 2021 is being organized by ITIDA and the Software Engineering Competence Center in cooperation with DXC Technology, IBM Egypt and Orange Labs.

30 September-2 October (Thursday-Saturday): Egypt Projects 2021 expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 September-8 October (Thursday-Friday): The Cairo International Fair, Cairo International Conference Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 September (Thursday): Winter opening hours for shops and restaurants begins.

30 September: Closing of 2021’s first oil and gas tender in the Gulf of Suez, Western Desert, and the Mediterranean.

30 September (Thursday): First tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

30 September (Thursday): Direct flights between Egypt and three Libyan airports resume.

October: Romanian President Klaus Iohannis could visit Egypt in mid this month to discuss ways to boost tourism cooperation between the two countries.

1 October (Friday): Businesses importing goods at seaports will need to file shipping documents and cargo data digitally to the Advance Cargo Information (ACI) system.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

1 October (Friday): Deadline for state-owned companies and government agencies to sign up to e-invoicing platform.

2 October (Saturday): House returns from recess; new legislative session begins.

5 October (Tuesday): Senate returns from recess; new legislative session begins.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

7 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Armed Forces Day.

9 October (Saturday): Public schools begin 2021-2022 academic year

11-17 October (Monday-Sunday): IMF + World Bank Annual Meetings.

12-14 October (Tuesday-Thursday): Mediterranean Offshore Conference, Alexandria, Egypt.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

21 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday.

24-28 October (Sunday-Thursday) Cairo Water Week, Cairo, Egypt.

27-28 October (Wednesday-Thursday) Intelligent Cities Exhibition & Conference, Royal Maxim Palace Kempinski, Cairo, Egypt.

28 October (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

28 October (Thursday): Second tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

30 October – 4 November (Saturday-Thursday): The first edition of Race The Legends, Egypt.

November: The French-Egyptian Business Forum is set to take place in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

November: Egypt will host another round of talks to reach a potential Egyptian-Eurasian trade agreement, which can significantly contribute to increasing the volume of Egyptian exports to the Russia-led bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

1-3 November (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Energy exhibition on power and renewable energy, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

2-3 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

1-12 November (Monday-Friday): 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow, United Kingdom.

16-17 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): Africa fintech summit, Cairo.

26 November-5 December (Friday-Sunday): The 43rd Cairo International Film Festival.

29 November-2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo, Egypt International Exhibition Centre.

7-8 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): North Africa Trade Finance Summit.

8-10 December (Wednesday-Thursday): Global Forum for Higher Education and Scientific Research (GFHS), Cairo, Egypt.

12-14 December (Sunday-Tuesday): Food Africa Cairo trade exhibition, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

13-17 December: United Nations Convention against Corruption, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

14-19 December (Tuesday-Sunday): The Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater.

14-15 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

15 December (Wednesday): Deadline for joint stock companies and investment companies in Cairo to join e-invoicing platform.

16 December (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

14-16 February 2022 (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

1H2022: The World Economic Forum annual meeting, location TBD.

22-24 April 2022: World Bank-IMF spring meeting, Washington D.C.

May 2022: Investment in Logistics Conference, Cairo, Egypt

16 June 2022 (Thursday): End of 2021-2022 academic year for public schools

27 June-3 July 2022 (Monday-Sunday): World University Squash Championships, New Giza.

2H2022: IEF-IGU Ministerial Gas Forum, Egypt. Date + location TBA.

**Note to readers: Some national holidays may appear twice above. Since 2020, Egypt has observed most mid-week holidays on Thursdays regardless of the day on which they fall and may also move those days to Sundays. We distinguish below between the actual holiday and its observance.