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Tuesday, 12 December 2017

Talk of Egypt’s role in Putin’s Mideast ‘victory lap’ dominates Egypt in the News on 12 December 2017

The new Cold War: It’s a single-story news day for Egypt as the international press frames Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cairo in the context of a new Cold War with the US — a war in which Russia is largely presented as having an edge. Some outlets, including the Associated Press and Reuters, suggest that stronger bilateral ties with Egypt would come at America’s expense, noting that the signing of new agreements, especially on military cooperation, comes at a time when the US is withholding military aid to Egypt on humanitarian grounds.

In a rare over-reach, the Financial Times leads with the notion that Putin agreed to allow the resumption of Russian flights to Egypt, a theme also popular with Bloomberg. Both the AP and the Washington Post hit the nail on the head, with the latter noting that, “the question of resuming flights between Egypt and Russia remains unsolved after Putin’s visit, a significant setback for Egypt.” The New York Times also gets the flights angle wrong, but its piece by Neil MacFarquhar and Anne Barnard is otherwise one of the best on yesterday’s developments.

Also getting a little bit of ink this morning: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ stop in Cairo for coffee with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi; the upcoming Christmas Day trial of a UK woman charged with smuggling opioids into Egypt; and the Luxor tomb discovery we noted earlier this week.

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