Ramadan mosalsalat are a “bellwether for politics” in Egypt

The swearing-in yesterday of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi for a second term in office tops coverage of Egypt in the international media this weekend. We have chapter and verse in Speed Round, above.

Meanwhile: Ramadan mosalsalat are a “bellwether for politics” in Egypt and other Arab countries, where “governments wield political and financial power over producers,” the Economist says. The magazine points to the 2015 hit series “Harat Al-Yahoud,” which portrayed Egyptian Jews in the 1940s as “patriotic and pious,” as a match with Egypt’s recently warming ties with Israel. This year, mosalsalat are fixated on terrorism and earning viewers’ sympathy for security forces, which mirrors the real-life struggles Egypt is facing with the Islamist insurgency, the magazine notes.

Other headlines worth noting in brief include:

• Regini footage doctored? NYT’s Declan Walsh and Gaia Pianigiani allege that the surveillance footage that Egypt recently handed over to italian prosecutors on murdered Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni was doctored.
• Population strain: Egypt will be home to an estimated 99 mn by 2018, straining resources and raising concerns over the ability to fulfill basic services, Jacob Wirtschafter writes for The National.