Reuters sets the tone for coverage of Egypt in the international press this morning on the strength of Ahmed Aboulenein’s investigation of how “How Egypt’s crackdown on dissent ensnared some of the country’s top judges” as well as Eric Knecht and Arwa Gaballa’s look at how “soaring sugar prices [caught the] government off guard.” The latter notes that “traders said high global sugar prices, which surged 50 percent over the past year, combined with a rising black market rate for USD has made it too expensive and risky for many importers to obtain sugar in recent months.”

The piece on judges is getting the most pickup. It claims that nearly half of the 75 or so judges who signed onto a 2013 statement calling for a return to “constitutional legitimacy” (but who were careful not to criticise the military or demand Morsi’s reinstatement) have been forcibly retired.

Also worth reading this morning: Eric Trager gets at the heart of what’s bedeviling relations between Cairo and Riyadh, suggesting in a piece for the WSJ that Egypt’s refusal to send troops to Yemen or to intervene militarily in Syria may be behind the current rift. Then, Egypt invited Syria’s intelligence chief (no friend of KSA’s) to Cairo for talks this week. Add that to the US decision to re-task more than USD 100 mn of USD 150 mn in non-military aid, he suggests, and “changes might be afoot.”