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Monday, 27 August 2018

FM’s Ethiopia trip in the spotlight, Mo Salah lashes out against EFA, man accused of harassment to sue alleged victim

It was another patchwork night on the airwaves, with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and spy chief Abbas Kamel’s trip to Ethiopia today taking center stage.

Bilateral talks will center around the establishment of a mutual investment fund between Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum that will be used to fund infrastructure development, according to Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary. The fund, which was set to be launched in July, came about as a result of talks to resolve a deadlock on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The visit comes after Ethiopia announced it was facing delays on the GERD construction timeline that could push the start of operations to 2020. In addition to a holdup in civil engineering work on the USD 4 bn project, a pair of turbines that were set to come online this year have yet to be installed, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told a news conference on Saturday, the Ethiopian News Agency reports. Ahmed had hinted that work could be awarded to a different contractor if the delay persists.

The Egyptian delegation is likely to try and offer solutions to Ethiopia’s current challenges, former assistant foreign minister Soaad Shalaby told El Hosary (watch, runtime: 4:43). Water resources expert Diaa Al Qousi also thought as much, telling Hona Al Asema’s Reham Ibrahim that the issue could serve as an opportunity to expedite stalled talks (watch, runtime: 8:38).

The arrest of former diplomat Masoum Marzouk also received some airtime yesterday. Marzouk was arrested earlier this week pending investigations into alleged ties to the Ikhwan (watch, runtime: 5:15).

Cabinet econ group meets to discuss investment promotion: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly met with the Cabinet’s Economic Group yesterday to discuss plans to attract new foreign investment to Egypt, Cabinet spokesman Ashraf Sultan told Al Hayah fi Misr. The meeting touched on the EGX’s performance, Sultan said without elaborating (watch, runtime: 9:21).

Mo Salah lashed out at the Egyptian Football Federation (EFA) in a tweet yesterday for “ignoring” messages from him and his lawyer. The Liverpool forward didn’t specify what the messages were about, but he had had a previous falling out with the EFA over an image rights issue that caused a problem with sponsor Vodafone. Sports critic Essam Shaltoot urged the EFA to respond to Salah’s messages when he spoke to Hona Al Asema’s Ibrahim yesterday (watch, runtime: 6:13).

[Redacted] harassment got plenty of airtime last night. A man who claims to have been wrongly accused of harassing a woman is suing his alleged victim for defamation. Mahmoud Soliman — who gained celebrity status overnight after a woman posted a video of him asking her out for coffee — had the internet buzzing last week, arguing over whether he was innocently flirting or really harassing a complete stranger. His lawyer Tarek Gameel told Hona Al Asema that his client did nothing wrong and had even apologized after the woman turned his offer down (watch, runtime: 5:58).

Women’s rights proponents disagreed, labeling the case as clear harassment (watch, runtime: 3:16). Tadwein Research Center Managing Director Amal Fahmy told Masaa DMC’s El Hosary that any unwanted advance is viewed as harassment (watch, runtime: 3:00). “The diverging responses reflect a long-running debate in Egypt over what constitutes [redacted] harassment and who is at fault,” according to the Associated Press.

Man stabbed to death for confronting harasser: This comes as a 40-year-old man was stabbed to death on a beach in Alexandria last weekend after he confronted a man he believed was harassing his wife, according to Al Masry Al Youm. One person has been remanded to custody for 15 days pending investigation and the man’s lawyer claims his client is mentally unstable. El Hosary spoke to House Rep. Hala Aboul Saada and former assistant interior minister Ashraf Amin about Egypt’s widespread harassment problem (watch, runtime: 5:30).

Programming note: You know what word we’d like to use for [redacted] in [redacted] harassment —we’re all adults here. We don’t use it because the algorithms that govern our deliverability to your inbox don’t like it.

Meanwhile, Yahduth fi Misr’s Sherif Amer interviewed Council of State (Maglis Al Dawla) boss Ahmed Aboul Azm about the history of the judiciary (watch, runtime: 2:02).

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