Quiet morning for Egypt as France denies Amnesty International allegation it supplied weapons to quash protests

It’s a relatively quiet morning for Egypt in the foreign press, with no one story stealing the spotlight.

** #9 The UK press is going berserk over an alleged case of “body snatching” in which a family claims the body of a British man who died while playing in a pool on holiday was returned from Egypt missing its heart and kidneys. The story is getting play everywhere from the Daily Mail to the BBC and has made its way to New Zealand.

Over the weekend, France’s government rejected allegations by Amnesty International that it broke its own rules over arms exports by equipping Egypt with weapons, France 24 reports. French Defense Minister Florence Parly told a Senate committee that French weapons were destined to Egypt’s military and not the police. “If Egypt uses hardware that was exported long ago […] against its own civilian population, that was not our objective,” Parly told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Amnesty International had claimed earlier in the week that analysis of open-source multimedia content showed French-made hardware being used against civilian protesters.

Other headlines worth noting in brief include:

• “Real-life tomb raiders: Egypt's USD 3 bn smuggling problem” on ABC Australia’s site is getting plenty of traffic.
• Climate change is forcing Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia towards a new agreement on Nile water sharing, writes Maged Srour for All Africa.
• Regional issues, such as the situation in Libya, far outweigh talk of tourism, investment, and Dabaa in discussions between President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and his Russian counterpart, Israel’s i24 News says.