Egypt gets no love from The Economist: The Economist’s deputy foreign editor Anton LaGuardia says Egypt is an example of leadership failure on The Week Ahead podcast. LaGuardia says the administration “…is ruling in a more repressive way … making a hash of the economy and appears not even to control his own government,” LaGuardia adds (run time 21:20). Also in The Economist this week is a report about the “endless obstacles to political freedom” in the Arab world in which Egypt is similarly pilloried. “Democracy in the Arab world faces two peculiar hurdles. The first is the fear of Islamist parties taking power… A second stumbling block for democracy is the diversity of Arab peoples. In good times it makes for an admirable multiculturalism. But these days all groups behave like embattled minorities.” It notes “democratic progress and economic reform should be encouraged in Tunisia and Morocco… Next, pressure needs to be exerted on Egypt to return to the path of reform. One in four Arabs is Egyptian. If the country does well, it will lift the region; its collapse would be a threat to all, including Europe.”