Leading coverage of Egypt in the foreign press this morning is (at long last) aneconomic story: GE’s USD 575 mn agreement to supply Egypt with locomotives. By far the most interesting coverage is coming from Bloomberg’s Deena Kamel, which places the agreement in the wider context of GE’s expansion in the region, including in Turkey and Algeria, and across a wide array of sectors. GE “is interested in railway opportunities in Turkey and Algeria as well as the next phase of Egypt’s transport expansion,” GE’s Vice Chairman John Rice told Bloomberg. “Demand for infrastructure continues unabated, the region is shifting to renewables, which is becoming more and more important, and health care is significant.”

Tying for first place are wire pickups of the sentencing to death of 31 Islamists for the assassination of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat, with many, including the BBC, stressing Hamas’ continued denial of its involvement and accusations that the suspects confessions were coerced.

Repression of basic freedoms in Egypt is intensifying, Human Rights Watch says. It claims that “authorities in recent weeks have arrested at least 50 peaceful political activists, blocked at least 62 websites, and opened a criminal prosecution against a former presidential candidate … The actions are further closing any remaining space for free expression.”

Claims that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi reportedly suggested expanding the blockadeof Qatar to include Turkey are being widely picked up in the Turkish press. Newspapers including Yeni Safak and A News are citing as their sources the New Arab, which Egypt has banned.

The AFP ran a facile piece on gated communities in the Greater Cairo area as a focal point for class warfare and inequality. Upward mobile Cairenes are increasingly looking to buy into exclusive gated communities that shield them from social pressure just as the percentage of Egyptians unable to provide for themselves or their family’s basic needs rose to 27.8% in 2015, from 16.7% in 2000. Egypt faces significant challenges on the inequality front, but the story unfortunately does little to advance debate.

The Arab world’s intellectual leaders would, in a perfect world, “think collectively and the nations act in concert to ease the situation,” Nabeel Khoury writes for the Atlantic Council, commenting on the schism with Qatar. “Unfortunately, this is an age of intellectual decline in the Arab world. There are no literary giants or political philosophers to offer guidance, no benevolent rulers to persuade rather than coerce, and no solidarity among the big powers to help ease the pain—conditions which are likely to endure and fester for years to come.”