Good morning, friends, and welcome to the slowest news day in forever. It’s the end-of-Ramadan slowdown here in Egypt, running headlong into Memorial Day weekend in the United States and the late-May bank holiday in the United Kingdom.

We’re not holding our collective breath, but don’t discount the odds of a late-week news pickup as folks look to finish things up prior to next week’s Eid El Fitr holiday.And as journalists everywhere know, the best time to take out the trash (or release, but minimize the impact of, bad news) is late on the day before a national holiday, so keep an eye on your trading screens and the news tickers next week.

So, when is Eid? The collective aspirations (delusions?) of the masses are calling Ramadan at 29 days this year, meaning the Eid would start next Monday night, giving us a five-day weekend. Otherwise, the last day of the Holy Month will be Tuesday.

UK International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will be in town today and tomorrow for meetings with senior administration officials on boosting trade and investments.

Keep your eyes on:

AmCham’s annual general meeting and iftar tomorrow. Members can register for the event here.

30 Saudi stocks will join the MSCI Emerging Markets Index at the end of tomorrow’s trading session.

The locusts are still heading our way. Readers may remember that we reported back in February the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s warning that a swarm of locusts was headed toward Egypt. Well, they’re here, with local officials in Luxor and Aswan governorates fighting “the advance of locust swarms … coming from Sudan [that] appeared on Friday night in the southern border region,” Ahram Online reports. The FAO’s Locust Watch site has yet to be updated with the new.

Why it’s a big deal: A square-kilometer swarm of 40 mn locusts can eat the same amount of food as 35,000 people, 20 camels, and six elephants in one day.

The international story of the morning: Populists failed in their assault on the European Parliament elections that wrapped yesterday. Heavy turnout favored the Greens and Liberals and gains by right-wing parties were moderate. Axios has a solid 6 key takeaways from the critical European elections. See also coverage from Politico, Reuters, Financial Times and Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia upgrade to emerging market status doesn’t have global investors salivating: MSCI will include Saudi stocks in its benchmark EM index at the end of tomorrow’s trading session, and while passive inflows are expected to flood the Tadawul, active investors are taking a more critical look at the Saudi market, Bloomberg writes. Analysts think Saudi companies are overvalued in a market in which earnings expectations have continuously fallen since the start of the year. And remember this warning: FIS Group’s Adam Choppin suggested earlier this year that the pre-inclusion bump would fade as traders looked to sell and lock-in gains after with the arrival of passive inflows.

The Bloomberg Opinion writer who got the world talking about a “Digital Iron Curtain” last week is back, arguing fairly cogently that the Tech Cold War will force the world to choose sides. Stop us if this doesn’t resonate readers based in Egypt or other emerging markets: “US technology still leads the world … but China has shown a willingness to engage and help developing nations in ways the US once did. … It’s not just high-tech networks. Numerous developing nations want high-speed rail lines, efficient ports and airports, and energy-saving, low-pollutant electric vehicles. Each of these could be provided by America or its allies. Japan, Europe and Canada have the technology and skill to help. But in addition to being capable of offering those items, China has the political and fiscal capital to do so. The will already exists in the form of its Belt and Road Initiative.”

Speaking of China: A Chinese video downloader has been hijacking phones in Egypt and 14 other countries: Actis-backed Upstream’s security platform Secure-D has found that “hidden software” in Android app VidMate “hijacks mobile devices, eats up data, incurs unwanted charges, and collects personal user info,” a company document seen by Enterprise shows. The app, which has been downloaded by an estimated 500 mn people, has cost users around USD 170 mn in unwanted charges. Egypt users have suffered the highest concentration of “suspicious activity” flagged by Secure-D, with 43 mn transactions and 1.1 mn affected users. BuzzFeed also has the story, minus the Egypt angle.

What We’re Tracking Today, the Ramadan edition:

A pre-iftar reading list to kill time between your post-workout shower and the breaking of the fast:

• The US Navy is taking UFOs seriously. Or at least taking seriously the procedures for how pilots should report “what the military calls unexplained aerial phenomena.” A cool piece, worth a read if only so you can justify watching the included videos in which Navy pilots freak out (kind of joyously) over two encounters with what are literally unidentified flying objects (but not necessarily extraterrestrial objects).
• The rich world is enjoying an unprecedented jobs boom, the Economist writes, arguing that “the left” needs to give capitalism a little bit of credit for that, at least — even though the boom won’t outlive the recession. As for income disparities, the lot of workers in emerging and frontier markets, and the prospect of the robot-led Jobs Apocalypse? Look away, look away…
• It’s nearly time for WWDC, one of two (or sometimes three) annual holidays on the calendars of iSheep everywhere as they wait to see what goodies Apple has in store for them. This year’s iteration takes place on Monday, 3 June, so you’ll start your Eid with visions of Apple’s latest software features dancing in your head. Bloomberg and iMore have excellent rundowns on what you can expect.

Random note #1- Airbnb in Arabic. Airbnb has made its website and mobile app available in Arabic, via our friends at MENAbytes.

Random note #2- The top five brands for Gen Z kids in the US of A are Google, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and … Oreo cookies. We kid you not. The cookies beat out PlayStation, Marvel comics, Instagram and Spotify for the number five spot.

Random note #3- The Toronto Raptors will make their first-ever appearance in the NBA finals, playing the Golden State Warriors (coached by Cairo American College alum Steve Kerr) after coming from behind to wing the Eastern Conference final by winning four straight games. The resident 11-year-old reports that she is very pleased.

RAMADAN PSA- Bank hours are at 9am-2pm for employees; doors are open from 9:30am until 1:30pm for customers. The trading day at the EGX runs 10:00am until 1:30pm.

So, when do we eat? Maghrib is at 6:48pm CLT today in Cairo. You’ll have until 3:13am tomorrow morning to caffeinate / finish your sohour.

WEATHER- Look for a high today of 36°C and an overnight low of 21°C.