Arabic calligraphy has recently begun to fire the imagination of artists striving to create street art with an Arab identity, India Stoughton writes for 1843, The Economist’s sister magazine. Stoughton points to now-famous Manshiyat Naser mural “Perception” that spans more than 50 buildings. “They seem abstract and random,” Stoughton writs, “But stand in the cafeteria on top of Mokattam, a nearby hill, and all these mismatched patches of paint suddenly come together, forming a single phrase written in Arabic calligraphy and thus transforming a collection of ugly buildings into a poem that celebrates the neighbourhood’s history and culture.”

Other international news stories worth noting this morning include:

• Residual shade from some outlets on Hosni Mubarak’s release, including one from Canada’s Global Research Centre for Research on Globalization, and one pitiful moaning by the Eurasia Review on the fate of the Arab Spring.
• A weird set of stories are seeping in as well including the frantic accusations by a UK mother that her Egyptian husbands kidnapped her daughters to perform FGM, and pickups of the [redacted] assault of a 20-month old toddler in Egypt. We also expect to hear reports of an Egyptian court decision barring a man who likes other men from entering Egypt. (Apologies for the circumloquacious verbiage and lack of links, but the terms involved upset the algorithms that govern our deliverability to your inboxes.)