Egypt’s row with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is getting plenty of ink in the foreign press. Reuters and Bloomberg both noted yesterday that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry accepted the US’ invitation to meet in Washington alongside the Ethiopian and Sudanese foreign ministers. Importantly, Ethiopia has not yet said whether it will attend the talks, which would effectively kill the US’ mediation efforts before they’ve even begun. Other outlets focused on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s hints that Addis Ababa is prepared for a military confrontation over the dispute (AFP | Asharq Al Awsat | Sputnik | Africa Times | Stratfor).

Mohamed Ali has been busily chatting with the international press: Mohamed Ali sat down for a 30 minute interview with BBC Arabic in which he rehashed his allegations of corruption and call for people to take to the streets. As we noted in yesterday’s talk show coverage, the Egyptian media are not best pleased: The anti-Beeb campaign continued yesterday, with Ahram Gate accusing the British broadcaster of trying to sow chaos in the country and Youm7 editor Dandrawy Elhawary making generous use of the exclamation mark to attribute “brazen crimes” to the broadcaster. It didn’t stop there though: Ali also gave an interview to the New York Times and the Guardian in what has the hallmarks of a concerted public relations campaign.