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Thursday, 20 June 2019

Morsi, Afcon dominate coverage

Morsi’s death and Afcon dominate the conversation on Egypt in the international press this morning: Barrels of toxic ink are being spilled on Egypt in the foreign press. There were many pickups of wire reports on the news that Egypt accused the UN of being politically motivated in its calls for an investigation into Morsi’s death. Reuters, WSJ and Bloomberg are reporting that Turkey’s cry-baby-in-chief is demanding that the Egyptian government be tried in international courts, while the BBC is asking questions after Extra News TV’s Noha Darwish mistakenly read, “This was sent from a Samsung device” on the teleprompter while covering the story.

Meanwhile, the editorial board of the Washington Post has little that’s good to say about the former president, but nevertheless calls his death “cruel and unjust” and suggests it shows how far we, as a nation, have “regressed.” Steven Cook tells us in Foreign Policy that our refusal to get involved in regional conflicts makes us “irrelevant” on the world stage, saying, “Morsi’s truncated presidency and death underline Egypt’s abject and terminal mediocrity on the world stage.”

The other big topic: Afcon 2019. Reuters is laying the negativity on thick by expecting that the heavy security and the CAF corruption scandal will cloud Afcon’s opening on Friday, in spite of hopes that the tournament’s expansion to include 24 teams and switch to mid-year hosting would help to draw positive international attention to African football.

And in the only non-Morsi, non-football-related article of note in the press: A US academic complains to Voice of America about Russian involvement in the Dabaa nuclear plant. VOA also provides an image gallery demonstrating exactly why Egypt needs countries like Russia to help it improve its energy security.

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