Foreign affairs, including developments with our upstream neighbor and US Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the region, continued to be of particular concern to most talking heads last night.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abou Zeid told Kol Youm host Amr Adib that Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry got in touch with his Ethiopian counterpart to “express his concern” over Addis Ababa rejecting Egypt’s proposal to include the World Bank in negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Abou Zeid noted that Egypt had specifically nominated the World Bank since it has prior experience with similar projects. Cairo will wait for the African Union summit in Addis Ababa later this month to further discuss the GERD issue with Ethiopia and Sudan, he added (watch, runtime: 8:42).

Al Hayah Al Youm’s Tamer Amin sat down with Cairo University political science professor Tarek Fahmy for some insight into Pence’s Middle East tour (watch, runtime: 17:18).

Former Arab League Secretary-General Nabil El Araby told Yahduth fi Masr’s Sherif Amer that a multilateral agreement between the US, Russia, the EU, and China could be the key to resolving the Palestinian crisis. El Araby also said that Arab countries must work on drumming up international support for Palestine and its claim to Jerusalem.

Supply Ministry spokesperson Mamdouh Ramadan told Hona Al Asema’s Lamees Al Hadidi that raising the price the state pays farmers of sugarcane to EGP 720 per tonne will encourage an increase in cultivation and eventually plug the production gap. Through some miracle of socialist economics, he insists that paying more for sugarcane won’t affect the retail price of sugar. Ramadan says Egyptians consume around 3.2 mn tonnes per annum (watch, runtime: 2:14).

Farmers Syndicate head Hussein Abou Saddam told Lamees a better price from the state should give farmers a satisfactory profit margin without pushing up retail prices, which would be burdensome for citizens. By his calculations, each tonne of sugarcane costs EGP 22,000 to cultivate, meaning farmers’ profit margin between EGP 7,000 and 10,000 per tonne with the new supply price in place (watch, runtime: 2:32). Not bad margins when you can get them.

Samsung exports 80% of its Egyptian production to 35 countries across MENA: Lamees had a chat with Samsung Egypt Vice Chairman Sherif Barakat about President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s visit to his company’s factory in Beni Suef, which exports 80% of its output to 35 countries in the MENA region. According to Barakat, the factory’s exports reached USD 500 mn in 2016. He also discussed his company’s CSR program, which has seen it develop some 80 schools in Beni Suef. The appearance is over two clips (watch, runtime: 3:51) and (watch, runtime: 1:51)

Meanwhile on Planet Inshallah: The Education Ministry plans to install high-speed WiFi in all schools across the country “soon,” Assistant Education Minister Mohamed Omar said in a phone-in to Mehwar TV’s 90 Minutes. This comes as part of the ministry’s plan to overhaul public schools’ technological infrastructure (watch, runtime: 7:35).