No one story dominated the airwaves last night, as the nation’s talking heads discussed the nationwide internet outage, the corruption at the Supply Ministry’s headquarters, and the fast-approaching elections.

Was your internet out yesterday? Telecom services provider Telecom Egypt suffered from a technical malfunction yesterday that disrupted internet service in a number of areas throughout the country, but the service should be restored in no time, the company’s Vice President Chief Commercial Officer Mohamed Abu Taleb told Ala Maso’uleety’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 5:03). The company is assessing the situation and will be compensating its users for the service outage once the situation is resolved, he said. Abu Taleb also joined Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 8:08) to reassure her that the outage impacted less than 10% of users.

Why this matters? “Telecom Egypt owns the country’s internet infrastructure — meaning that [this outage] has impacted users regardless of their chosen internet service provider,” El Hadidi told her viewers.

ALSO ON THE AIRWAVES-

  • #1- Sugar insider trading: A group of Supply Ministry officials, including the minister’s regulation and distribution advisor, have been arrested and are now facing corruption charges related to the current sugar shortage, as well as cooking oil and rice, Moussa said (watch, runtime: 7:17).
  • #2- Adib under fire: El Hekaya’s Amr Adib is facing criticism for comments made by a guest on his show, former MP Samir Ghattas, who claimed that Egypt had to get approval from Israeli authorities before allowing Egyptians stuck in Gaza to cross the border into Egypt. The claims were denied by the Foreign Ministry and criticized by local media. “We’re at war,” DMC’s Osama Kamal said, stressing that it’s not the time for “misinformation” that could be divisive (watch, runtime: 8:04).
  • #3- Election 2023: El Hadidi interviewed the head of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s re-election campaign Mahmoud Fawzy (watch: runtime, 5:03).
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