Last Night’s Talk Shows on 23 November 2020
On the talk shows last night: You customary covid coverage, the House run-off elections and an awkward question posed about Telecom Egypt’s quest for market domination.
TE’s conflict of interest: Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi talked to Communications Minister Amr Talaat about a range of topics from data protection (watch, runtime: 3:13) to the roll-out of network upgrades across the country (watch, runtime: 2:53). The most interesting part of the discussion came when Lamees brought up Saudi Telecom’s bid to acquire a majority stake in Vodafone Egypt and asked Talaat whether there would be a conflict of interest if WE-owner Telecom Egypt exercised its right of first refusal and bought out the remaining 55% stake it doesn’t own ahead of STC. Talaat claimed that owning two separate companies in the market would not create a conflict of interest and said that it is the responsibility of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to make the call (watch, runtime: 1:38).
You can catch the full interview here: (watch, runtime: 49: 52).
A third covid-19 wave? Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal contacted Amjad El Khouly, an epidemiology consultant at the World Health Organization (WHO), who warned of the potential for a third wave of the virus should people ignore precautionary measures. El Khouly added that the WHO had concluded several agreements to ensure that all countries have access to covid 19 vaccines. (watch, runtime: 11:57). Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary phoned Adel Khattab, member of the Health Ministry’s covid-19 committee, who discussed the new symptoms in the covid 19 second wave. Khattab pointed out that doctors should deal with any seasonal flu as being potential covid-19 cases, and must isolate them (watch, runtime: 9:03). Meanwhile, Education Minister Tarek Shawki was back on the airwaves with El Hosary, reiterating that there are no plans to close schools and that infection rates remain at safe levels (watch: runtime: 10:35).
House run-off elections: Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi highlighted the start of the runoff stage of the parliamentary elections across 14 governorates today (watch, runtime: 3:42), while Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal phoned Deputy Local Development Minister Khaled Kassem, the deputy Local Development Minister, who talked about the ministry’s preparations for the vote (watch, runtime: 5:43).