Egypt in the news on 14 July 2019: Lucette Lagnado, plastic ban, Egypt’s heritage
The conversation on Egypt in the foreign press is not being led by any single story this morning.
Lucette Lagnado, a Wall Street Journal reporter and Egyptian-Jewish prize-winning writer, has died aged 63, the Jerusalem Post reports. Her family memoir, “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit,” depicts “the lost, cosmopolitan world of Cairo’s Jewish community before and after World War II,” and was awarded the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. In an obituary, the Wall Street Journal describes her as “a courageous and brilliant reporter and writer.”
A ban on single-use plastic products in the Red Sea governorate has come into effect, the National reports. The ban is the first of its kind in Egypt, and marks a “revolutionary step” given the widespread apathy towards environmental issues and the Red Sea’s importance for Egypt’s tourism sector.
Other headlines worth a quick skim this morning:
- What does the future hold for Tahrir Square’s “salmon pink” landmark museum? The inauguration of the modern, “state-of-the-art” Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) could slowly render its neoclassical counterpart, the Egyptian Museum, obsolete, Dene Mullen writes in an interesting read for the Daily Beast.
- Internationally-acclaimed film critic Youssef Cherif Rizkallah passed away yesterday at 76, Voice of America reports.
- Kuwaiti authorities have arrested eight individuals previously sentenced in Egypt on charges of belonging to Ikhwan, according to the National.