Setting the agenda on Egypt in the international press this morning is Roula Khalaf’s “Big Read” for the Financial Times (paywall), in which she argues that Egypt has returned to a security state under the administration of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and social and economic problems continue to deepen. Khalaf dissects the various facets of Egypt’s social and economic web, from the military’s involvement in the economy to soaring inflation rates and our human rights record. The administration’s preoccupation with keeping dissenters off the streets has also led it to re-empower security agencies, which “are said to be on permanent alert.” All of these factors, she says, has dented the president’s popularity and deflated “the personality cult promoted by a sycophantic media.”