Also worth noting in brief today:

• Websites blocked: Egypt has reportedly blocked access to the website of media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, with users unable to access the website since 14 August, the Associated Press reports. Qantara, an Arabic-language news and culture website operated by Germany’s Deutsche Welle, has also recently been blocked in Egypt, the website’s spokesperson tells the AP.
• Advocacy group Coptic Solidarity refutes suggestions that the government has made the situation for Copts better, according to Business Insider.
• Omar Robert Hamilton talks to The Scotsman about his new novel The City Always Wins. He says his book “just happened. I knew that it came from a place of responsibility. I knew a lot of about what had happened, I had a very detailed experience … If it can stand as a record of what happened then I will be satisfied.”
• North Africa is re-emerging as a major travel and tourism force in Africa, after a dip in the last few years, Yomi Kazeem writes in Quartz.
• The Irish government is “determined” to see the release of Ibrahim Halawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney says, according to Irish Times. Halawa, an Irish citizen, has marked four years of incarceration on Thursday and his trial has been adjourned “at least 30 times.”