Good morning, wonderful people, and welcome to a Monday that’s best described as “brisk” on the news front: There’s lots happening, but nothing terribly challenging to get your head around.

If you read nothing else this morning: Make it Last Night’s Talk Shows, wherein Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir suggests that our collective commute in the capital city is perhaps a month and a half or two months away from being a heck of a lot easier as work on key arteries wraps up.

HAPPENING TODAY-

Subscription begins for CI Capital’s CHG acquisition: Cleopatra Hospitals Group (CHG) shareholders have 10 working days, starting today, to weigh in on the voluntary tender offer from CI Capital to acquire 26% of the healthcare company. We have the full details on the next steps in the acquisition bid in this morning’s news well, below.

The UN Convention Against Corruption kicks off this morning in Sharm El Sheikh and wraps this coming Friday, 17 December.

ALSO-

• The Food Africa expo runs through tomorrow at the Egypt International Exhibition Center, after getting underway yesterday.
• It’s also the second and final day of a conference of the AU’s Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa. Egypt took over the committee’s rotating presidency during yesterday’s session.
• The Arab Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy also kicked off yesterday in Aswan and runs until Thursday.

FOR TOMORROW- The Egyptian Economic Summit takes place at the St. Regis Hotel. The one-day event will feature a range of panelists from institutions including CIB, EFG Hermes, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, Eastern Company, Oriental Weavers, Microsoft and Danone, among others. The full agenda is here (pdf).

THE BIG STORY ABROAD- No single news story is driving the global business conversation this morning, but still: It’s all about inflation, one way or another as some 20 central banks worldwide make interest rate decisions this week. See Market Watch, just a couple of scrolls below in this section for the rundown.

SIGN OF THE TIMES- Worldwide ETF inflows crossed the USD 1 tn mark for the first time ever YTD in November, surpassing last year’s total of USD 735.7 bn, the WSJ reports. The record surge has pushed global ETF assets to nearly USD 9.5 tn, which is more than double where the industry stood just three years ago.

REJOICE- Season six of Bns is back at the end of next month, and the first Axe-less season looks really good if this trailer posted by USD Bill actor Kelly AuCoin is anything to go by.

Are econ nerds the most selfish people? That’s our (admittedly oversimplified) conclusion based on this nugget from the dumpster fire that is our social media. It quotes Donut Economics (scroll down to the donut illustration) author Kate Raworth, whose book is now in our TBR pile, even if it does seem to “simply” boil down to “look after your fellow humans and the planet we all inhabit.” (Our words, not Raworth’s.)

MARKET WATCH-

Doves and hawks are set to clash on how to tackle inflation this week as around 20 central banks worldwide hold their final policy meetings of the year, Bloomberg reports. Economic policymakers face a choice between tightening policy to reign in high prices, or biding their time to protect post-covid recoveries. And with some of the world’s biggest economies tipped to come down on different sides of that fence, their announcements could mark an end to the era of more or less synchronized policy efforts to tackle the covid-induced recession. “We are set for increasing monetary policy divergence,” investment bank Natixis’ chief economist for Asia Pacific told the media outlet.

What can we expect from the big-hitters? The US Fed has taken a hawkish turn: Expect confirmation that the stimulus taper will come ahead of schedule, and perhaps even hints of an early rate rise at some point in 2022. Allianz chief economist Mohamed El Erian warns of the risks should the US stick to its characterization of inflation as temporary, a claim which he tells CBS’s Face the Nation was the Federal Reserve’s “worst inflation call” in its history (watch, runtime: 07:12). If the Fed fails to own up to its misjudgment, El Erian says, it would have to “hit the brakes hard” in a few months, which would “risk sending the economy into recession.” The Fed’s Open Market Committee meets tomorrow and Wednesday.

Elsewhere: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, meanwhile, is expected to stick to the “inflation-is-temporary” line, while the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England are also likely to lean dove-ish. China is easing policy in the face of a spreading slowdown, while Brazil and Russia are on an aggressive tightening cycle to curb inflation.

The Central Bank of Egypt will likely leave interest rates on hold when it meets this Thursday as the bank looks to protect the economic recovery and maintain attractive real rates for the carry trade, according to our regular poll.

PSA #1- Attention iSheep: Your next iOS update is coming — and it promises to be an interesting one: The release of iOS 15.2 should take pace any day now, and based on Apple’s release notes, it will include some highly-anticipated features, including a new privacy report showing which apps accessed your microphone, camera or location, a “hide my email” option that allows users to send emails from random addresses, and a “digital legacy” feature allowing users to designate a contact to whom all their data can be transferred after their death.

There are also some (potentially controversial) new controls coming for the kiddos: A new feature in the Messages app will detect nude photos in incoming and outgoing messages on children’s phones, blurring them and attaching a warning before showing them, Bloomberg reports. The setting is an opt-in feature that parents can enable on family-sharing accounts, and would allow children to contact a parent through the app if the situation requires it. Privacy advocates called out the feature over concerns it would be used for surveillance when it was first announced earlier this year, which led to its delay.

And for Mac users: Apple is adding SharePlay in macOS Monterey 12.1, which will allow users to easily share their screens and host virtual watch parties.

PSA #2- Winter is coming, with daytime highs in the 18-19°C range forecast for the week starting Wednesday. Look for single-digit overnight lows from Wednesday onward and a chance of a shower on Friday, our favourite weather app suggests.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

EgyptAir will resume weekly flights between Cairo and Johannesburg on Thursday, 16 December, the airline said Thursday. Flights were suspended from South Africa and six other countries at the end of November to prevent the Omicron covid-19 variant from entering Egypt. Current precautionary measures for travelers entering Egypt from South Africa will remain in place.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed. Blackboard appears every Monday in Enterprise in the place of our traditional industry news roundups.

In today’s issue: We look back at a truly extraordinary year for private sector education in Egypt in Part 1 of our Blackboard Year-in-Review. In it we reflect on how the private sector and the government got on the same page, together building what may be the most successful education PPP model we’ve seen to date. We also look at how this, combined with education’s defensive strength, has culminated in new investments and our first IPO of 2021.