Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and happy THURSDAY. With the weekend finally here, we’re more than ready to put our feet up and get some well-deserved r’n’r.
THE BIG STORY TODAY
FRA gives UAE’s Electra the green light for Elsewedy Electric acquisition: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) approved Abu Dhabi-based electrical equipment manufacturer Electra Investment Holding ’s bid to acquire a 24.5% stake in Elsewedy Electric, according to a statement (pdf).
The pricing: Electra will pay USD 1.05 (EGP 49.63 at today’s exchange rate) a pop — marking a premium to Elsewedy Electric’s Wednesday share price of EGP 44.3 (USD 0.94). The pricing means Electra will pay a total of USD 560 mn for the stake.
What’s next? Elsewedy Electric will need to tap a financial advisor and clarify the board’s decision within the next 15 days, according to the statement. The share sale will be conducted via the special operations market (OPR) within the next 20 days.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD
South Africa’s current government is on the brink of losing majority control: A tumultuous political transition shows the governing African National Congress (ANC) polling at just 41.77%, losing votes to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Projections from the results of 8.5% of polling stations show the DA poll at 26.52%, and the EFF at 7.2%. The loss of majority may encourage the ANC to strike an alliance with other parties, muddying the future political direction of the country. (Reuters | CNBC | Bloomberg | Financial Times)
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Gov’t raises the price of subsidized bread starting Saturday: The government will hike the price of subsidized bread to EGP 0.20 from its current price of EGP 0.05 at the beginning of June.
Electricity bills will rise this summer: The government will hike electricity prices in July with the beginning of the new fiscal year.
El Sisi, Xi talk Gaza: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi discussed the ongoing situation inRafah, Egypt’s water security, as well as efforts to strengthen ties between the two countries, with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during his time in Beijing.
☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- We’re getting a balmy Friday, complete with sunny skies punctuated with a few clouds as the mercury rises to 34°C in Cairo before dipping to 23°C, according to our favorite weather app.
Netflixis soon to enter its sports era as it looks at subscriber acquisition: The world’s biggest streaming platform will be streaming two NFL games on Christmas Day this year, making it the latest to adopt the use of sports broadcasting as a strategy to attract more subscribers, Netflix said recently.
What are we expecting to see? Last January, Netflix announced becoming the exclusive platform for WWE’s Raw, their flagship weekly wrestling show, starting next January. This seemingly ideal investment cost them USD 5 bn. “Raw is year-round, which is part of what makes it such an attractive property,” Tom Richardson, senior vice president of Mercury Intermedia, told Front Office Sports. “It delivers a ton of content.”
Netflix has slowly started diversifying its live action events: “Last year, we decided to take a big [leap] on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more,” says Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria tells the New York Times. One of these was Selective Outrage, their live comedy special with Chris Rock, which was later nominated for an Emmy.
There’s already a ton of similar agreements out there between all sorts of streaming platforms and sports associations, including Apple and FIFA, Amazon Prime and the NBA, as well as Walt Disney Company and Fox Corp who have joined to create a Sports-Streaming Venture. These agreements are all based on the same goal of giving their viewers the streaming rights to their favorite sports and attracting new sports fans to their platforms.
The strategy makes sense: Media consumers (read: the entire human race) have been shifting away from traditional cable TV. What usually brings them back to it is live sports. This was clear with the start of the US’s national football season, where broadcast sports viewership rose by 360%, in comparison to 222% during the same period the year before, according to CNBC.
Sci-fi thriller goes a step further when a physicist switches lives with hisparallel-universe self in Dark Matter. Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own book, Dark Matter, for the screen presents a fascinating premise: In this nine-part series, a physics genius discovers a way to travel to a parallel universe and switch places with his less successful self.
Physics professor Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), referred to as Jason 1, leads a seemingly content life with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and their teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). Yet, a latent envy stirs when his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) earns a prestigious physics prize.
This dissatisfaction sets the stage for a dramatic twist: Jason 1 is kidnapped by his parallel universe counterpart, Jason 2 (also played by Edgerton), who has sacrificed personal happiness for scientific success. Jason 2 has developed a method to traverse universes and decides to swap lives with Jason 1, leaving his doppelgänger to navigate the complex, unfamiliar terrain of Jason 2’s world.
From this point, the series splits into two engaging narratives: The first is a domestic thriller where Jason 2 tries to blend into Jason 1’s life without being exposed. The second is a science fiction odyssey as Jason 1 embarks on a multiverse journey, determined to return to his original universe and reunite with his wife.
The downside: The plot is stretched and could be boring if you’re looking for something action-packed. Crouch and Edgerton’s adaptation, while making some improvements to character development and addressing book loopholes, unnecessarily extends the story over nine episodes. This bloated structure results in a slower pace filled with repetitive scenes and excessive exposition.
⚽ All is quiet on the pitch today and tomorrow, but Saturday will bring us the long-awaited Champions League final.
The Merengues and the Westphalia Lions fight to hoist the cup: Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund will meet at Wembley Stadium in London at 10pm on Saturday. The Blancos are looking forward to its fifteenth UEFA victory, while Dortmund, reaching the finals for a third time, hopes for a second chance to hoist the cup after losing it to Bayern Munich on the same pitch in 2013.
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? OUT AND ABOUT- (all times CLT)
Get ready for the eighth edition of the Manasat Film Festival, set to kick off at ZawyaCinema in Downtown Cairo from tonight to this Saturday. This year’s festival promises a captivating lineup of films, panel discussions, workshops, and more. Secure your tickets now online or by messaging Manasat Film Festival and Zawya Cinema on their official Instagram accounts.
The Italian Cultural Institute in Cairo Italian Cinema in Cairo film festival has begun. It's a 10-day affair, showcasing Italian films. The screenings started this past Tuesday and continue until Sunday, 9 June. They’re bringing classics and some 2023 releases to explore Italian cinematic heritage. The screenings are at Zamalek Cinema and the Italian Cultural Institute, and you can check out their schedules here and here.
Brazilian DJ/Producer Mochakk will be performing at Saqqara Pyramidstonight. This performance is part of his world tour, calling on different cities to perform, including New York and Dubai. Get your tickets here.
The return of SoldOut Comedy shows. Mohamed Helmy and Alaa El Sheikh, accompanied by Mark Fanous and Ahmed El Hareedy, will grace the Falaki Theater at AUC Tahrir, tonight at 8 pm, and tomorrow at 5pm and 8:30pm. Tickets for the first show, second show, and third show can be purchased here.
Shababco is celebrating its third birthday with a bazaar tomorrow at ZED Park. This one-day event is dedicated to showcasing the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of young local brand owners with a diverse array of unique products ranging from handmade crafts and fashion. In addition to the bustling bazaar, enjoy live performances throughout the day from both up-and-coming and well-known local artists. Tickets can be found here.
Cairo Comedy Club presents a special comedy evening at Boom Room in Open Air Mall Madinaty tomorrow. The show is presented by Omar Kintt, Amgad El Shawshy, Khaled El Shoky, Hatem El Sokkary and will start at 9pm. Tickets can be found here.
For all you MMA enthusiasts, get ready for an adrenaline-pumping night with QADYA 04 at Madinaty Golf Club tomorrow. Experience the thrill of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as they bring you a night of intense fights, incredible athleticism, and unforgettable moments ringside as top fighters from around the world step into the octagon, ready to showcase their skills and determination. Get your tickets here.
Egyptian rapper Marwan Moussa will perform with Jordanian singer Aziz Maraka tomorrow at Zed Park in Sheikh Zayed. You can also enjoy the concert online through the Minly app. (Zed Park Tickets | Online Tickets)
HAPPENING LATER-
If creating content is an interest of yours, you can join this online workshop with MarwanImam and Sync School. The workshop will introduce different types of content, how to start a profile, and other digital marketing basics. It will take place over four days (5, 6, 12, and 13 June), from 7:30 to 10:30pm. Reserve your place by contacting Sync School via their Facebook or Instagram page.
Take your seat as the curtains pull away for The Greek National Opera Βallet at the CairoOpera House on Thursday, 6 June and Friday, 7 June. In cooperation with the NGO Greek Action Africa, prepare for two nights of ballet in the Opera’s Main Hall. Get your tickets on Tazkarti for first night and second night.
El Galsa: Healing Is Not Linear is a play that will make you feel all the emotions. It navigates through a therapy session and discusses challenges, childhood, hopes, and dreams. It is quite a comfort show with moments of comedy and emotional moments. Catch the play at Rawabet Art Space from Thursday, 6 June to Saturday, 8 June.
Ahmed Helmy returns to the stage with his play Memo at Grand Nile Tower Hotel in Cairo, after the success of the show in Saudi Arabia. The show will be on Sunday, 16 June at 9pm. Get your tickets here.
In celebration of Eid Al Adha, Tamer Hosny will hold a concert at Zed East in New Cairo, on Monday, June 17th. The show starts at 8:30pm. (tickets)
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? EARS TO THE GROUND-
No topic is too controversial: Brain in a Vat is a philosophical series, hosted by Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff, that opens intimidating, thought-provoking debates up for discussion.
Their gimmick is that each episode starts with a thought experiment. They spark a debate through a hypothetical situation with an ethical dilemma, like whether observing people in a public space from the privacy of your home is an infringement of their rights in the episode titled The Privacy Paradox. The question engages the listeners and sets the scene for the rest of the episode.
Bring in the professionals: The episodes feature diverse industry experts like philosophers Eric Samson and John Martin Fischer, who bring in academic knowledge to support their theories/ideologies regarding the topic of the episode.
The EGX30 fell 0.6% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 8.8 bn (81.4% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is up 8.2% YTD.
In the green: Eastern Company (+7.4%), CIB (+2.2%) and Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals (+2.0%).
In the red: Mopco (-8.3%), TMG Holding (-4.7%) and Fawry (-4.6%).
The human desire to conquer death is as old as civilization itself. From the search for the fountain of youth in 323 BC, consuming powdered Egyptian mummies in the 1500s, cryogenic freezing in 1967, and plasma transfusions from young donors today, overcoming our own mortality has been a constant concern.
Anything short of forever isn’t good enough. In the past 120 years, we’ve more than doubled our average life expectancy. The motivators for longevity are different: For scientists, it’s a matter of curiosity, for others like Bryan Johnson, who has used up mns of USD per year (and several liters of blood from his 18-year-old son) trying to reverse his age, it’s personal.
It hasn’t been the tech-driven gimmicks that raised our life expectancy from 32 to 71 — we owe most of it to advancements in medicine, sanitation, and hygiene. In fact, the earliest attempts by transhumanists to live forever by freezing their bodies until a “cure for death” could be found, ended with them turning into sludge at the bottom of their cryogenic chambers, becoming a frozen puddle of body fluids. So in 1984, scientists pivoted to neuropreservation.
Neuropreservation is a nice way to say that scientists are hoping they can reattach your head onto a different body. The head was the one body part that was least affected by cryogenic freezing — organs had turned to mush, bones were cracked, and the spinal cord was severed — so the safest bet was to hope that someone, sometime in the future, would figure out how to safely reattach it to a body, human or not (we see your raised eyebrow there), to bring it back to life.
Head transplants have worked in the past… briefly… on monkeys. In the early 1970s, Robert White, a neurosurgeon, performed what he called “a cephalic exchange” by cutting off the head of a monkey and attaching it to the body of another. It was reported that for a few days, the head was conscious and able to see — but the body was paralyzed. Then it died.
That was in the 1970s and science has come a long way since then. The concept has been generating interest within life-extensionist circles for a while, due to slow progress on medicinal and cellular fronts. So they turned to physical, more tangible solutions, endorsed by corporations like the Longevity Biotech Fellowship, that saw body replacement as the most viable way to solve aging with the tools we have now.
And that’s why when BrainBridge reported a successful head transplantation, we believed it. People and news outlets like the New York Post were really convinced that BrainBridge had developed a viable head transplant procedure. Unfortunately, the first public billboard advertising a way to finally cheat the reaper, even hiring for positions like Neuroscience Team Leader, was just a stunt.
The video and the company were manufactured by Hashem Al Ghaili, a Yemeni science communicator. And this wasn’t Al Ghaili’s first rodeo. In 2022, he released a video from another fake facility promising to use artificial wombs to incubate 30k lab-grown babies. It seems that the purpose behind the videos was to spark a discussion around the ethics of those procedures, which it did. Alongside a lot of existential angst.
If we double or triple our lifespan… what’s next? On a societal level, the act of eliminating aging or even achieving centennial lifespans may be catastrophic. If people stop dying, what will happen to our resources? How would we manage overpopulation? Would we still have a retirement age to look forward to if pensions had to extend to accommodate an indefinite lifespan? Will there still be value in living?
To the philosophical, death is what gives life meaning — it is the single organizing principle for how we choose to live. If scarcity is what creates value, will existence have any significance? What role does mortality play in shaping human values and behavior? Even if we develop the scientific tools to conquer death, will we ever be prepared on an existential level?
The answer may be to redefine what it means to live. Moving the goalpost — or removing it altogether — means that almost all our existential questions and methods are outdated. In the age of AI, immortality may mean something much different than what we believed it would be millennia or even just decades ago. Deceased celebrities have been brought back using holograms and CGI. But what if the goal was to immortalize the people we loved?
Grief tech is being developed to help people cope with loss by preserving their loved ones’ memory in a digital afterlife. Companies behind these ghostbots, like Somnium Space’s Live Forever Mode and HereAfterAI, gather data about a person and create an AI avatar that adopts their personality. AI chatbots like DeepBrain AI and ChatGPT have also been used for the same purpose. Beyond the physical and medicinal, this tech-solutionist approach — just shy of uploading our consciousness to the cloud — may be our closest shot at living forever.
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