Well, friends, we’ve nearly made it through another (M&A-heavy) workweek together. We hope the week has been good to you — and that if you’re sneaking off early to Sahel, that you’re able to do it early enough to sidestep congestion at the bawabet.

PSA #1- It’s not just you — Microsoft Teams is down for plenty of users worldwide as of dispatch time this morning. Enterprise has always run on Slack, but our sister company uses Teams and has been unable to connect since about 3:20am CLT. Microsoft acknowledged the issue here and you can use Down Detector to see how other users are faring if you’re still unable to log in. Maybe that’s your cue to head to the coast early? “Sorry, dude, I can’t get into Teams to join our meeting.”

PSA #2- Teens might have to get their ID cards a year earlier under a draft law approved by the cabinet yesterday that would lower the legal age to 15 from 16, according to a cabinet statement.

WATCH THIS SPACE #1- An Egyptian-foreign consortium has been awarded the Cairo Transport Authority development project, which includes adding 100 electric buses to its fleet, a senior government official told Enterprise. This comes as part of the USD 200 mn World Bank loan to fight air pollution we got last year and it marks the beginning of transforming our transport system to rely on natural gas and electricity instead of diesel. Look for an announcement as early as the end of next week, the source tells us.

WATCH THIS SPACE #2- Paints company Pachin should announce today whether its board has approved a takeover bid from Saybad. We have more in this morning’s news well, below.

CORRECTION- Islamic New Year falls this year on Saturday, 30 July. We got the date wrong in yesterday’s EnterpriseAM. Our expectation remains the same: Islamic New Year will fall on a weekend, and we won’t have a weekday holiday to replace it, suggesting our next (and final) weekday holiday of the year will likely be Thursday, 6 October. We’ll have more for you as soon as we hear from cabinet.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES-

#1- You’re paying a lot more for your next Big Mac: McDonald’s Egypt has hiked meal prices by up to 50% in response to rising inflation. The price of a share box has risen from EGP 40 to EGP 165, a Big Mac meal now costs EGP 78 (up from EGP 52), and even the price of a small bottle of water has gone up 33%. At the old pricing, the Economist’s Big Mac Index suggested the EGP was undervalued about 52.9% against the USD.

#2- More US tech layoffs: Ride-hailing service Lyft has laid off about 60 employees from its rental division as the company struggles with rising costs, according to an employee memo seen by the Wall Street Journal.

#3- And Microsoft appears to be heading towards a hiring freeze: Microsoft is cutting many of its open jobs ahead of an expected economic slowdown, according to Bloomberg.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

The government’s public consultations on its state ownership policy continue today with representatives from manufacturers of medical devices having their say. The wholesale and retail sectors took part in discussions on Tuesday this week. Every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday sees workshops on how privatization plans will affect specific industries. You can find more details on the schedule of the meetings here.

It’s going to be an interesting day in the European bond markets: The European Central Bank (ECB) will likely exit negative interest rates for the first time since 2016 when it meets for its policy meeting today. Policymakers are considering a larger-than-expected 50-bps hike, according to the Financial Times, which if true, would lift rates in the euro area to zero. The Bank of Japan also meets today, and is expected to remain one of the only central banks to leave its monetary policy on easy mode.

But on the day of the meeting, the sick man of Europe is about to get sicker: Italy’s government is close to collapse after Prime Minister (and ex-ECB chief) Mario Draghi failed to secure the backing of his coalition partners in a parliamentary vote on his future. Politico has more.

Asian markets are mixed ahead of the central bank meetings: Shares in China, Hong Kong and Japan are comfortably in the red, while the Kospi is seeing slight gains. Shares in the US and Europe are poised to fall later today, while Italy is on course for a major sell-off.

THE BIG STORIES ABROAD-

Tesla earnings are dominating the business front pages this morning: The EV-maker witnessed its first quarterly fall in profits in over a year in 2Q but still managed to beat estimates as price hikes helped it overcome production and supply chain disruptions caused by the covid lockdowns in China, according to its earnings release (pdf) out yesterday.

Turns out Musk isn’t the diamond-handed crypto bro we thought he was: A year after becoming one of the biggest cheerleaders for DeFi, Musks’s company reacted to the ongoing crypto winter by dumping around 75% of its BTC holdings, netting it USD 936 mn in cash. (FT | Reuters | Wall Street Journal | Bloomberg | CNBC | Washington Post)

*** THE LOCAL ANGLE- People who are definitely not crypto bros are the folks over at the Financial Regulatory Authority, who yesterday issued a warning (pdf) to investors and NBFS players not to participate in initial coin offerings (ICOs). Referring to crypto as a form of gambling, the regulator said that investors risk being scammed or losing their money due to its highly-volatile nature. Though crypto trading is illegal under banking and Islamic law, the asset class became more popular in Egypt last year as people sought to get a piece of the BTC bubble.

Russia wants to expand the borders of Novorossiya: Russia is now eying Ukraine’s south, extending its objectives beyond the eastern Donbas region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “It is far from being only DPR (Donetsk People's Republic) and LPR (Luhansk People's Republic), it is also Kherson region, Zaporizhzhya region and a number of other territories, and this process continues, it continues steadily and persistently,” he said. The US said this week that Moscow is preparing to stage referendums in territories outside of the Donbas region and annex them. (FT | CNN | Reuters | Politico)

No breakthrough yet on wheat blockade as Putin visits Tehran: Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for trying to broker an agreement to get Ukrainian grain past Russia’s blockade of its Black Sea ports, but said “not all the issues have been resolved,” Bloomberg reports. Sources close to the talks have reported progress in the negotiations but earlier this week said that Ukraine remains wary of Moscow’s intentions and has not agreed to demine Odessa port and release the grain. There had been murmurs that an agreement could be announced sometime this week.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The national dialogue board is set to meet again before the end of the month, marking its third meeting since the board convened earlier in July. The session will see the board decide on heads and members of the three political subcommittees it agreed on during a meeting earlier this.

IDG to host cultural festival with sustainable waste in focus at Alamein: Our friends at Industrial Development Group (IDG) are hosting a cultural festival at their eco-sustainable industrial park, e2 Alamein, on the North Coast, according to a statement (pdf). The “Locale” festival, which IDG is hosting in partnership with Art d’Egypte, will showcase nine art installations made with recycled materials to raise “awareness around waste management and encouraging waste prevention, reuse, and recycling behavior.” The event launches this Thursday, 21 July and runs through the summer.

Calling tech startups: Universities of Canada in Egypt-based incubator DMZ Cairo has opened applications for its second eight-month incubation program for tech startups, which begins in November, according to a statement (pdf). The incubator — which is backed by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology and the National Technological Incubators Program — is accepting applications for the cycle until 29 September.

Further afield, leaders from across Africa are scheduled to convene in Washington for the US-Africa Leaders Summit from 13-15 December. The summit will bring together leaders to discuss pressing matters including food security and climate change, according to a White House statement.

Thirty fashion scholarships are up for grabs: City Centre Almaza and fashion school ESMOD Beirut are joining forces to offer 30 local designers one-month scholarships, which will include courses in fashion design, pattern making and styling and image consulting, according to a statement (pdf). You can register for the scholarship here and the chosen candidates will be announced on 15 August.

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