Good afternoon friends and welcome to this Monday that brings us closer to the end of October. The focus of the local and international news cycle remains fixated on the continuing assault of Gaza.
THE BIG STORY TODAY
Your favorite car scheme is officially back: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has signed off today on a bill that will bring back the expat car-for-FX initiative for a renewable three-month period.
FX, please: The Madbouly government expects to drum up between USD 450 mn and USD 1 bn via the new iteration of the program, a government source told us earlier this month.
You only have three months or six: Egyptians living abroad will have three months starting today to apply to import tax-free cars. But this comes with the condition that they deposit the equivalent of the saved duties and taxes in a five-year FX certificate of deposit. The new law allowed the Prime Minister to renew the initiative for another three months.
WHERE CAN I SIGN UP FOR THE INITIATIVE? You can use the apps on Google Play and the App Store.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD is still Israel’s neverending assault on Gaza, and the IDF looks like it wants to be seen as ready to fight a multi-front war. Tanks and infantry have pushed to the outskirts of Gaza, the WSJ reports. Troops are approaching Gaza from two sides, Reuters adds. Israeli forces are also raiding the West Bank, have struck targets in Syria, and are girding for more intense skirmishes along the border with Lebanon, according to the Financial Times.
The US is still not ready to call for a “pause,” let alone a ceasefire, and Joe Biden has been silent since his suggestion yesterday that Israel needs to try to “protect civilians” in this phase of the war. (Like the IDF are doing by telling folks in a hospital to evacuate before it shells it.)
** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:
US does not support Palestinian displacement, Biden tells Sisi: Speaking with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi yesterday, US President Joe Biden expressed opposition to the displacement of Palestinians into Egypt and agreed on the need to accelerate aid deliveries to Gaza.
?️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Look for a cloudy day with the mercury rising to 31°C during the daytime and dropping to a cooler 22°C in the evening, tells us our favorite weather app.
If it’s Monday, then it’s time for your constitutionally-required AI chatbot update:
#1- Let’s start with something you can use: ChatGPT customers will soon be able to upload and analyze files. The latest beta update rolling out to ChatGPT Plus consumers includes the ability to upload files and receive multimodal support from the AI. If your super-ultra-generous Egyptian credit card allowance of EGP 7,750 permits, access to the plus-tier features will cost you about USD 20 per month.
The perks: The “advanced data analysis” feature can summarize data from uploaded files, answer questions you might have about the included information, and even generate data visualizations at your request.
The new features rolling out will also see ChatGPT try to guess whether you want it to use its “browse with Bing” feature instead of prompting you to go select it from a menu, The Verge reports.
This feature is just a taste of the ChatGPT Enterprise suite (no relation). This ChatGPT offering gives companies and their employees access to fast responses from GPT-4, more security, and unlimited queries. This version of the AI chatbot also promises to protect business data, encouraging companies to consider using the platform.
Data security and privacy will be key for OpenAI to win over corporate clients, and OpenAI is promising that what happens on ChatGPT Enterprise stays on ChatGPT Enterprise — any queries and files uploaded onto the platform will not be used to train GPT, minimizing the risk of exposing sensitive data.
#2- It’s a big day for AI regulation, as we noted this morning. G7 leaders are scheduled to announce later today a (voluntary?) code of conduct for companies developing AI systems. This includes regulatory edicts that aim to promote safe AI practices and unify AI governance. The Biden White House is also due to release its own AI guidelines this week — perhaps as early as today — but is expected to tighten the reins more drastically than the G7.
Look for the Biden administration to be particularly interested in the intersection of AI and Planet Finance. An alphabet’s soup of regulators will be asked to look into everything from systemic risk arising from the adoption of AI to whether AI is biased against anyone in particular (say … Arabs, black or brown folks … or women … or…) in making financial decisions.
#3- AI hasn’t cracked slang — and maybe we can’t consider it truly intelligent until it does. If you’re worried about a global AI takeover, we still have a long way to go before the rise of the machines. The proof? AI isn’t hip. The likes of ChatGPT have trouble understanding slang, and while many of us may relate to this, we don’t have the access to information AI does. If AI really did exhibit natural intelligence, it would be able to tap into the complexities of human experience and social context that makes slang intelligible.
…But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take precautions. While it might be too late to scrub the internet of our digital footprints, we may still be able to spare our kids. Facial recognition tech and AI generators are plaguing the interwebs, spawning terrifyingly realistic AI-generated images and deepfakes that are harder to identify with each passing day. Photo manipulation can easily be misused by anyone with access to AI and any pictures shared online. Go deeper with Kashmir Hill, arguably one of the world’s top reporters on the intersection between privacy and tech, as she asks in the New York Times whether you can hid your kid’s face from artificial intelligence.
FRENCH CHEESE-
French cheese is under threat. Like Bordeaux wine-makers, cheesemakers are grappling with the inevitably of climate change and the endless rules governing their trade, the New York Times explains.
Cheese holds a sacred place in French culture — and in our hearts.Cheese shapes the regional identity and global reputation of French people. With an astounding variety of nearly 1.2k different types of cheese, the country boasts 46 varieties that bear an AOP (appellation d'origine protégée) label, indicating a “protected designation of origin.” Think of it as one part cheese mafia that doesn’t let anybody else muscle in on its turf, one part certificate of authenticity.
Getting an AOP quality stamp is not easy. Cheese with the label must adhere to specific rules to command a premium price in the market. These rules include the breeds, the milking animals feed, various cheese production stages, and aging. Take Picodon: to be so designated, a cheese needs to satisfy a list of requirements 13 pages long.
Salers cheese was not there in the summer of 2022 for the first time in 2k years... The production of salers cheese, a semi-hard cheese with an AOP label produced in France's Auvergne region, has been disrupted by severe heat waves and drought caused by climate change last year, The Washington Post reports.
…because of grass? A crucial requirement for the production of salers cheese is that local cows must be fed with a minimum of 75% grass from pastures. Unfortunately, the scorching temperatures experienced during last year’s summer have left the 76 farmers contributing milk for salers production in a state of despair. Moreover, salers was not the only cheese that suffered — over half of the AOP cheese associations have received ‘Carte Blanche’ from the authorities because their product did not comply with the rules.
Winter and indoor farming might be temporary solutions. Making use of the mild or cold temperatures before the high temperatures hit might help the farmers produce their cheese at the required standards. The region’s increasing heat and dryness have led farmers to bring goats indoors during the whole summer instead of just August. While some AOP associations are advocating for rule changes, others express concerns about the potential impact on the brand’s reputation and the taste of the products.
Mac fans won’t want to miss the tech giant’s “Scary Fast” prime time (in the USA…) event — if they can stay awake long enough. The livestream will be airing at 8pm Eastern time / 5pm Pacific — which is 2am tomorrow here in Cairo. Most pundits expect M3 processors to roll out to existing products, offering plenty in the way of performance improvements, but no new products.
Look for M3, M3 Pro and M3 Ultra processors to make their debut. If you’re not running compute-intensive tasks — think rendering video, modeling, high-end games — then most of us can get away with the M2 or M3 tiers (no adjectives) for email, web browsing, photo editing and the like.
We’d be surprised if they don’t unveil M3 processors. While M2 chips are still fresh out of the foundry, we expect that Apple is playing catchup with recent advances by Intel and Qualcomm. Expect M3 chips to appear in refreshed 14- and 16- inch MacBook Pros.
What we’re hoping for- The iMacs are due for an update, and we’re crossing our fingers that it will include the much-awaited 27-inch iMac.
WHERE TO WATCH- Night owls can tune into the event on Apple’s YouTube channel or on their events page. Both will be available to play again tomorrow.
Related
⚽ Thrills in the major European leagues will keep fans busy on this rather quiet night:
Empoli vs Atalanta (Serie A, 7:30pm)
Lazio vs e Fiorentina (Serie A, 9:45pm)
Granada vs Villarreal (La Liga,10pm)
Round 5 in the Egyptian League is coming to a close: El Ismaily will be the guest of El Dakhleya at 4pm, while National Bank will meet Modern Future at 7pm.
Related
?EAT THIS TONIGHT-
Our love affair with Lebanese baked goods lives on with Kaakeh Square. Found in New Cairo’s Arabella Plaza, the Lebanese place opened in September, just in time for the change of seasons. Coming to us straight from Lebanon’s Achrafieh district, Kaakeh’s menu features a range of options that might wean you off of manouchehs for a spell.
You start off by selecting plain white wheat, rye, oat, or brown Kaakeh dough. Stuffing can be either savory and sweet. The must-tries were the zaatar halabeh and the akkaweh cheese and sumac — the cheese stretch was long and the flavor of the dough (we picked oat), was subtle and complemented the pie. Other options include turkey cheese, sojouk, and labneh baladiyeh.
PRO TIP- The sojouk’s seasoning was a bit on the spicy side, but the creamy dressing that topped the meat balanced it out nicely.
If you still have room for dessert,the knefeh kezebeh — or lying kenefeh — had a smooth cheese mixture. It was drenched in a simple syrup that made it more on the heavy side when paired with one or two kaakehs.
Related
? OUT AND ABOUT- (all times CLT)
The exhibition Forever Is Now is back again at the Pyramids, open 9am until 4pm daily through 18 November. Book your ticket here or buy one on arrival.
Cairocomixfestival is back, kicking off this coming Friday, 3 November, and running through Sunday, 5 November, at the Mahmoud Mokhtar Cultural Center. There is no admission fee. You can explore the program here.
Great Symphonies III x Cairo Opera House. The Cairo Symphony Orchestra headed by the maestro Ahmed El Saedi will be performing at the Main Hall, Cairo Opera House next Saturday, 4 November. The concert will start at 8pm sharp. Book your ticket here.
Music enthusiasts, this one’s for you: The annual Cairo International Jazz Festival is still going at AUC’s Tahrir campus and will continue until Friday, 3 November. More here.
Sayed Ragab x Lina Chamamyan x “El hekaya b aswatna”. TV presenter Mahmoud Saad will host actor Sayed Ragab and singer Lina Chamamyan live on stage at Theatro Arkan, Sheikh Zayed, on Thursday, 2 November at 8:30pm. You can book with Tazkarti.
TV personality Mahmoud Saad will host comedian Ahmed Helmy on Saturday, 4 November, followed by a concert featuring Wust El Balad, also at Theatro Arkan. Click here to reserve your tickets.
The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-Caf) has kicked off and will continue until Sunday, 5 November. The festival is taking place in several places and art centers in the downtown area. You can check the events and buy the tickets through D-CAF’s website.
Russia’s Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra is coming to Egypt for the first time, with three concerts scheduled in Cairo and Alexandria. The Cairo concerts are scheduled for Sunday and Monday (5 and 6 November) at the Cairo Opera House in Zamalek, while the Alexandria concert will follow on Tuesday, 7 November, at Sayed Darwish Theater. You can book your tickets for the concerts from here, here and here.
The Christmas Charity Bazaar will bring on the season’s warmth on Saturday, 1 December at All Saints’ Cathedral, Zamalek. The bazaar will start from 10:30am until 4pm. Note, the event’s profits will be given to a variety of charitable organizations in Egypt.
Related
? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-
This round up of the latest in crime and mystery thrillers from the Financial Timesis bound to keep you company at night as the days get shorter and shorter.
Robert Galbraith’s (J.K Rowling’s crime-novel pseudonym) The Running Grave, is the seventh and longest volume in her Strike series so far, giving Proust’s brick of a book a run for its money. The 1k-page thriller brings back Cormoran Strike and Robin Elacott as they take on a religious cult in the Norfolk countryside.
The dean of crime / legal thrillers, John Grisham, is back with a sequel to The Firm.The Exchange, set 15 years after the first novel, sees Mitchell McDeere getting involved in an international incident when a senior partner’s daughter is kidnapped while he is on an assignment in Rome. Did we mention that the novel is set in the 2000s, that Ghaddafi is involved, and that there are no courtroom scenes? Well, now you know.
Gothic + crime = A great read. Palace of the Shadows by Ray Celestin brings us to the English countryside, again. This novel deliberates the precepts of beauty as a misunderstood artist is assigned to design a wing for a house that is steeped in stories of madness and death.
Other special mentions go to M.R MacKenzie, the legendary Scottish author who squeezed out a fourth volume, Women Who Kill, featuring criminology lecturer Anna Scavolini, who investigates a woman who slaughtered her entire family.
Lilja Sigurðardóttir’s latest novel, White as Snow, takes place in the freezing plains of Iceland with a chilling crime to boot: A container filled with dead women is discovered on the coast.
To warmer climes, Shot with Crimson by Nicola Upson is set in Hollywood and on Alfred Hitchcock’s set of Rebecca, where a murder takes place. Upson’s focus on real life characters, such as Hitchcock, his family, and actors such as Laurence Olivier.
The EGX30 rose 1.5% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 5.0 bn (111.9% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net sellers. The index is up 60.5% YTD.
In the green: Eastern Company (+11.6%), MOPCO (+11.0%) and AMOC (+5.1%).
In the red: Alexandria Containers and Goods (-4.3%), Heliopolis Housing (-4.1%) and Palm Hills Development (-3.5%).
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