Last night’s talk shows: Food prices and news of the release of six Egyptians kidnapped in Libya got a lot of attention on the talk shows, while the aftermath of the Syria-Turkey earthquakes continued to get coverage.

It looks like the government has ended its price cap on rice a month early: A decree by Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly signed last week has ended the government’s rice price cap despite the three-month extension approved by ministers in mid-December. The lifting of the measure — which since September has capped rice prices at EGP 12-18 per kg — will allow producers to sell the staple food at higher prices and fuel further food inflation which is already accelerating at a record rate.

What sort of prices are we looking at? Ragab Shehata, the head of the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ rice division, expects big rice brands to raise prices to EGP 25 per kg, he told Kelma Akhira last night (watch, runtime: 6:32). The price per-ton of barley rice spiked more than 7% to a record high of EGP 15k, Al Mal reported yesterday, citing sources in the FEI’s rice division.

Why is the government lifting the cap? It didn’t stabilize the market or lower prices, Assistant Supply Minister Ibrahim Ashmawy told Kelma Akhira (watch, runtime: 13:04). “This signals the need for other approaches [towards the crisis],” he said, suggesting that this could involve increasing rice imports and reimposing the caps. The FEI’s Shehata told El Hekaya on Friday (watch, runtime: 3:50) that “the government capped prices without taking into consideration that it doesn't have access to the raw material.” Rice producers were not in favor of the set prices and withheld supply from the market, he explained.

Watch this space: Rice will be offered on the Egyptian Mercantile Exchange (EMX) by the beginning of March, said Ashmawy, who heads the exchange. This would lead to an increase in supply, he said.

The poultry crisis also got coverage, with Abdel Aziz Al Sayed, head of the Poultry Division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, telling El Hekaya that increased poultry imports would help in narrowing the gap between supply and demand (watch, runtime: 4:27).

The release of six Egyptians abducted and then illegally detained earlier this month in Libya also got coverage: In an interview on Kelma Akhira, Khaled Okasha, general manager of the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies, blamed the kidnapping on insecurity in the west of the country (watch, runtime: 9:10). “They are victims to [high levels] of insecurity in some parts of Libya’s west,” he said, urging Egyptians traveling to Libya for work to abide by the country’s strict instructions on residing in the east of the country, which is under the control of Cairo-backed Khalifa Haftar’s forces. Their release also got attention from Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 17:46) and Masa’a DMC (watch, runtime: 0:35).

The earthquake in Syria + Turkey was still being talked about on the airwaves as the death toll from the disaster surpassed 46k. El Hekaya’s Amr Adib accused Western nations of double standards in their decisions to supply bns of USD and military equipment to Ukraine but refuse to provide proper relief to Syria (watch, runtime: 4:27). The rising death toll of the deadly quake in Turkey and Syria also got a mention from Masa’a DMC (watch, runtime: 2:18).