We enter August a week from tomorrow, with all of the earnings season insanity that entails. It’s then a quick slide into the Eid Al Adha long weekend (starting Thursday, 31 August — TBD) and then planning for 2018. Anyone else feeling this year went by awfully quickly? If you, like at least one of us, are already contemplating 2018 in terms of health / waistline resolutions that you hope might pay dividends during next year’s Sahel season, you’ll want to go read Gary Taubes’ “Are You a Carboholic? Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough” for the New York Times. It’s the latest in his crusade to prove to us all that Big Sugar is behind global health problems ranging from obesity to diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Egypt’s economy is expected to grow by 4% this fiscal year before accelerating to 4.3% in FY 2018-19, a Reuters poll of 15 economists showed. The expectation for FY2017-18’s is in line with the government’s forecast, but respondents’ estimate of 3.5% for the year that just ended is a bit lower than the government’s projection of 3.8-4.0%. The poll also sees median annual core inflation dropping to 12.2% in FY 2018-19 from the projected 17.2% during the current year. Interest rates are also set to fall, economists believe, seeing the overnight lending rate drop to 16.5% by the end of this fiscal year from 19.75% currently, and falling further to 13.50% by the end of FY 2018-19.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry heads to Brussels today for tomorrow’s EU-Egypt Association Council meeting — the first such event since 2010. Amnesty International is telling the EU not to turn a blind eye to the human rights situation by focusing solely on regional security during the meeting.

The second round of elections for the EGX’s board of directors kicks off today, Al Masry Al Youm reports. The first round was held in June.

PSA- Zamalek residents should expect Ismail Mohamed Street and Brazil Street to be shut down for preliminary work on the Cairo Metro (face it, folks, it’s coming), according to Egypt Independent. Perhaps more alarming is the Cairo Traffic Administration’s announcement that the Autostrad will be closed from Gabalein to the 15th of May area from this morning and for a period of 30 days, reports Al Masry El Youm.

More “do as I say, not as I do” from the Mad Turk: That Turkish fellow is cross with Germany for its alleged interference in his domestic affairs. This comes as he traveled to KSA and Kuwait yesterday to try to meddle in their affairs under the guise of mediating a resolution to the woes presently faced by his pals in Qatar. (The Financial Times, meanwhile, counts the cost to business of the boycott.) But the best thing you can read on Turkey this morning? That would be the New York Times’ piece on the more than 950 businesses worth a combined USD 11 bn that Erdogan’s government has seized in its yearlong political crackdown. Read “Turkey Sees Foes at Work in Gold Mines, Cafes and ‘Smurf Village’.”

Finally, two pieces of note from the FT: Vanguard is closing in on BlackRock as the world’slargest asset manager (thanks in no small part to inflows into ETFs) and the salmon-colored newspaper’s inimitable Lucy Kellaway has penned her (kind of) final column as she prepares to leave the paper and go teach at an inner London school.