Good afternoon friends, and HAPPY THURSDAY. We have some exciting news from our SCZone along with more renewable energy news as we welcome COP28.
THE BIG STORY TODAY
A new USD 2 bn green complex in SCZone: The Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) has signed a letter of intent today with China’s Befar Group to establish a green chemical complex in East Port Said, according to an SCZone statement. The USD 2 bn complex will be powered by renewable energy, with the first phase to cost USD 500 mn.
ALSO- Cabinet green lights two solar projects: The Madbouly Cabinet signed off on a contract for Norway’s Scatec to set up a 1 GW solar power plant with battery energy storage system, according to a statement. The ministers also agreed to allow China’s State Grid to begin feasibility studies on a 10 GW solar project.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD
It’s a mixed bag in the international press today. The recent talks between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt and Qatar culminated in a last minute agreement for a one-day extension of the temporary ceasefire after Hamas sent in a list of hostages to be released today, reports Reuters.
IN THE BUSINESS PRESS- The Eurozone’s annual inflation sunk to 2.4% from last month’s 2.9%, surprising the economists polled by Reuters. They had expected it to be at 2.7%. But it is good news, nonetheless, as it comes as a relief to customers hoping interest rates will soon be cut. (CNBC | Financial Times)
** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:
United Bank stake sale could be announced this year: The United Bank is expected to pull back the curtain on its sale agreement in mid-December as it currently awaits mandatory tender offers (MTO) from the bidders, a source at the state-owned lender told Enterprise. Most of the potential buyers have completed due diligence on the bank.
🌥️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Anticipate cloudy skies as the mercury rises to a high of 25°C during the day and drops to a colder 15°C in the evening, our favorite weather app tells us.
Olive harvest gone before it even began. As the season that nearly three mn Palestinians rely on for income comes to a close, families have been unable to reach their olive trees due to attacks and intimidation by Israeli settlers, reports The Guardian. No harvest also means no oil, soap, and none of the previously expected USD 70mn in earnings this year.
But it’s not just economic: These trees — which can take up to 50 years to grow — along with being the largest agricultural product on the West Bank, are inherent to the Palestinian identity and culture. Usually, the harvest is coordinated between local authorities and the Israeli military, but following the events of 7 October, all requests by Palestinians to reach their trees have been denied, says the head of the village council Mahmoud Ahmed.
Now, locals are left with no options. With no way to reach their olive trees, blocked main roads, and threats of violence, the debts are racking up and Palestinians don’t know what to do. Even those who once worked in Israel, most commonly as builders, are denied crossing from the West Bank.
Maria Callas,one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, known for her unique and strong voice, is being celebrated globally to commemorate her 100th birthday.
A short yet legendary career. Her timeless voice is described as “a shadow that remains after a shock, after anger, the sound of a woman realizing she has nothing left to live for,”the New York Times recalls. With a short yet impactful time in the spotlight, she has been able to make a resounding impression on the craft of opera singing and remains an emblematic figure in operatic history, the NYT adds.
In honor of her centenary, the Guardian has shared some of her top performances to grace our ears:
#1- LA TRAVIATA– It is one of Verdi’s famed operas that featuresa tragic tale of a courtesan known as Violetta which was masterfully played by Callas. Violetta left everything behind searching for true love.
#2- LA NORMA (means normal in Italian)–This performance marks one of the diva’s signature roles, even though she witnessed a decline at that time. It is a tragic opera that comes in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with the libretto by Felice Romani from the play Norma.
#3- TOSCA–It is Puccini’s 1899 opera. Coming in three acts, it tells the story of a strong opera singer called Floria Tosca, who fought to save her lover Cavaradossi from the sadistic police officer Scarpia.
#4- LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR–It is a tragic opera that comes in three acts from the ScottishWalter Scott’s 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor. It features the hard times Lucia went through when she was caught up in a family feud for loving their sworn enemy.
#5- PARSIFAL– This opera comes in three acts writtenby the German composer Richard Wagner. It tells the story of a young archer whose main mission is to save the knights of the Holy Grail by returning the Holy Spear.
BY THE WAY, YOU CAN SEE AND HEAR THEM HERE, IN OM EL DONIA…Next week, our very own Cairo Opera House, in collaboration with the Greek Embassy, will host a concert by Egyptian and Greek performers to celebrate the diva’s 100th birthday. Check out our Out and About section below for more infomation.
Jackson Lamb and his crew of spy-rejects are back in season three of Slow Horses. Based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels, Slow Horses follows MI5 discards doomed to live in purgatorial administrative service after massively messing up. They are known by the series’ name, slow horses, and are periodically suffering mental abuse from their misanthropic leader, Jackson Lamb (Oldman). And as you may expect, trouble finds them quite quickly.
The third season starts uncharacteristically fast-paced: An action-packed sequence making a jarring introduction in Istanbul throws us head-first into the show. The shocking death of an agent who is leaking a sensitive document punctuates this scene before we’re transported to the following year, thrusting us into the disintegration of the Slough House staff.
Members of Slough House are coping with the aftermath of season two, either through drink or accepting their purgatory, up until some of Lamb’s horses begin to disappear.
Aside from Oldman, Kristen Scott-Thomas’ performance of the stoic, purse-lipped second chair of MI5 has received plenty of commendations, and after seeing a few episodes we can see why.
WHERE TO WATCH- Season three of Slow Horses, along with the first two, is streaming exclusively on Apple TV+.
Related
⚽ Nile League scheduled matches today and tomorrow:
Al Ittihad Alexandria v Zed (4pm, Thursday)
Pharco v Arab Contractors (7pm, Thursday)
El Gaish v El Gouna (7pm, Thursday)
Enppi v Al Masry (4pm, Friday)
Al Dakhiliyah v Baladiyat El Mahalla (4pm, Friday)
National Bank v Ceramica (7pm, Friday)
The red devils will host the Tanzanian Young Africans in the second round of the group stage of the African Champions League. The match is scheduled on Saturday at 6pm.
Al Ahly occupies the top spot in the group, as did the Algerian CS Belouizdad, as they both won in their opening matches by three clean goals.
Across the pond, Liverpool will host the Austrian LASK in the fifth round of the Europa League group stage, the match will be held tonight at 10pm.
Key matches in the Europa League tonight:
AEK Athens v Brighton (7:45pm)
Marseille v Ajax (10pm)
Roma v Servette (10pm)
Friday carries new rounds of the European leagues matches:
La Liga: Las Palmas will face Getafe in the first match of gameweek 15 at 10pm.
Serie A: Juventus will host Monza at the start of gameweek 14 at 9:45pm.
Bundesliga: Darmstadt hosts Koln in the opening of the week 13 at 9:30pm.
Ligue 1: Stade de Reims and Strasbourg will meet at the opening of gameweek 13 tonight at 10pm.
A killer play will be Newcastle and Man United’s game on Saturday at 10pm. The two teams have only one point difference in the league standings.
Be part of the action and join the Enterprise Fantasy Football Premier League by clicking on this link and entering abd0f7.
More Premier League meets to catch:
Arsenal v Wolverhampton (5pm)
Brentford v Luton Town (5pm)
Burnley v Sheffield United (5pm)
Nottingham Forest v Everton (7:30pm)
Real Madrid, LaLiga’s current top leader, will host Granada on Saturday at 7:30pm. The team aspires to keep its leading position strong after Girona snatched the lead last week after it won a match to nab the second place spot. This match was supposed to be an easy one against Granda, the one occupying the last place.
LaLiga matches to see:
Girona v Valencia (3pm)
Athletic Bilbao v Rayo Vallecano (5:15pm)
Osasuna v Real Sociedad (10pm)
Upcoming plays in the European leagues on Saturday:
Bayern Munich v Union Berlin (Bundesliga, 4:30pm)
Milan v Frosinone (Serie A, 9:45pm)
Nantes v Nice (Ligue 1, 10pm)
Related
🎤 OUT AND ABOUT- (all times CLT)
ART-
In solidarity with Gaza, there will be an art exhibition held on Tuesday, 5 December in The Atrium in Arkan, Sheikh Zayed, between 5-10 pm where well-known artists and art collectors can donate some of their art to be sold and the proceeds of which will be donated to Gaza.
The Cairo Art Book Fair is in its second edition in the cultural city of Ghurnata in Heliopolis. The exhibition will display prints and books alongside a series of lectures and artistic discussions. The event will take place between 7-9 December.
Meet the virtual Tutankhamun. The Grand Egyptian Museum is hosting an interactive Tutankhamun exhibition, in partnership with the Spanish Madrid Artes Digitales Foundation. The exhibition kicked off and will continue until Saturday, 16 December. You can book your tour from here.
Syrian-German band Shkoon is performing in Egypt for Gaza. The concert will be held at the Pyramids on Friday, 1 December. Part of the concert’s proceeds will be donated to humanitarian aid dedicated to Gaza. Tickets are available here.
Wael Al Fashni x El Sawy Culturewheel. The Egyptian singer Wael All Fashni will be performing at El Sawy Culturewheel, Zamalek on Saturday, 2 December. Tickets are available here.
Celebrate Maria Callas’ birthday on Monday, 4 December, at the Cairo Opera in a joint event with the Greek Embassy. The event commemorates the 100th anniversary of the diva’s birthday with a concert conducted by Nayer Nagui, alongside performances by Greek and Egyptian sopranos. Click here for more information.
Musician Omar Khairat will be performing two concerts at the Cairo Opera House. One will be held on Monday, 11 December and the other one on Tuesday, 12 December. Concerts will start at 8pm. Tickets are available here and here.
Get ready for the season with the Cairo Opera House which will be hosting a series of events celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve:
The Cairo Symphony Orchestra will host a Christmas concert on Saturday, 23 December at 8pm. You can book your ticket from here.
For Disney fans: The Disney Classics concert will be held at the Opera’s Main Hall on Monday, 25 December. The concert will start at 8pm. Tickets are available here.
Don’t miss the NutCracker ballet shows. The performances will be presented by the Cairo Opera Ballet, along with the Cairo Opera Orchestra. The first show will be held on Tuesday, 26 December, and will continue until Thursday, 30 December. Tickets are available here.
The orchestra will also put on another concert on Sunday, 31 December celebrating New Year’s Eve. Click here to book your ticket.
FILM-
Zawya cinema will be screening five movies for the late director Ali Badrakhan starting from Saturday, 2 December until Tuesday, 26 December. You can know more about the schedule from here.
Eins Christmas Bazaar is bringing you some handmade goodies, itwill kick off on Friday, 1 December and will continue until Sunday, 1 January, 2024. The bazaar will be held at the Gallery, in Maadi.
EVENTS-
Award-winning Egyptian author Ashraf El-Ashmawi will be hosting a book signing event for his latest novel Maximum Speed Zero at Bibliothek Egypt on Saturday, 9 December at 5:30pm. The novel follows the journey of an Egyptian family who experience peculiar occurrences and encounter different individuals that influence their destinies.
CEO of Future Energy Corporation, Sherife Abdelmessih, will be hosting a book signing event for his latest book Super Vision. The event will be held on Wednesday, 13 December at Bibliothek Egypt.
Related
👂 EARS TO THE GROUND-
Embrace your inner film geek with The Big Picture: In this podcast, hosts Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbing review movies that you need to see. With a rotating cast of guest hosts, they also cover their Top 5s, Oscars analysis, and more.
If you’ve ever seen a movie and felt like you needed to know more, give it a listen. They’ll take you behind the scenes and break down what worked, what didn’t work, and how it was all done.
In one episode, the pair discussed The Marvels and whether or not the MCU could make a comeback. But, aside from superhero movies, they also cover a wide range of genres with movies like Priscilla, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Dune 2. Our personal favorite was the episode on Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.
NOTE- The show hosts can get carried away and episodes can run as long as two hours, so save their episodes for that 15-minute congestion on the road home from work.
The Manor House is a crime-thriller perfect for anyone in a reading slump. The page-turner starts off tame, with childhood sweethearts Nicole and Tom living a normal life, but things turn sour when they get a massive lottery prize and their lives change overnight.
With their newfound wealth, the couple moves into a stunning, state-of-the-art Glass Barn. They flaunt what they have with expensive cars, expensive hobbies, and expensive lifestyle. Then, Tom is found dead in their swimming pool.
Feeling lonely, Nicole seeks comfort in her neighbors, the housekeeper, and Tom’s old school friend. But things are never simple when that much money is involved.
Nicole starts to wonder if the death was truly an accident, or if there’s more to the story, and if so, is she safe in her own home?
The EGX30 fell 0.6% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 4.1 bn (39% above the 90-day average). Regional investors were net sellers. The index is up 68.7% YTD.
In the green: Orascom Development Egypt (+9.9%), Amoc (+3.7%) and Qalaa Holdings (+3.3%).
In the red: TMG Holding (-3.3%), EFG Holding (-1.6%) and Eastern Company (-1.2%).
Boycotts are a common call to action when trying to impact groups or nations that are perpetrating harm on others. The term was coined in Ireland in the 1880s when Englishman, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, angered his tenants when he spiked the rental cost forcing them to leave their homes. As a result, his action spurred the community to come together and refuse to pay the exorbitant rate or work for him, an action that forced him to leave the land.
There has been much discussion about whether or not real change is possible through boycotting. Boycotts have historically made a dent — experts in the UN published a report revealing that BDS initiatives were a key factor behind a 45% drop in foreign investment in Israel in 2014 and 50% in 2015.
Today, the movement at the forefront of our collective minds is the Boycott, Divestments,Sanctions (BDS) movement. The initiative was launched in 2005 by a coalition of 170 groups calling for the boycott of all Israeli products, and specific companies that aid the occupation or contribute to the Israeli economy.
ISRAEL HAS A STORIED HISTORY WITH BOYCOTTS-
Since the Israeli economy is heavily dependent on international trade and investment,they are vulnerable to boycotts on a large scale. The theory at the heart of BDS is that mounting economic pressure on Israel can provide enough leverage that the occupation leaders will be forced to bow to international demands for a ceasefire and end to the conflict.
Boycott campaigns against Israeli companies have led to the liquidation of CarmelAgrexco, Israel’s largest agricultural export company, and have forced SodaStream to close operations when BDS campaigns led retailers like Macy’s in the US and John Lewis in the UK to take its products off their shelves.
Even major European companies are susceptible to change due to international pressure. French multinationals Veolia and Orange, as well as Ireland’s largest company CRH all exited the Israeli market in 2016 after high-profile campaigns over their involvement in Israel’s crimes.
Food manufacturers General Mills and Ben and Jerry’s both ended operations and sales in Occupied Palestine, though Ben and Jerry’s was slapped with a lawsuit for explicitly attributing its exit to Israel’s war crimes.
BOYCOTTING IN EGYPT-
Will buying boycotted products really hurt the cause? Boycotting is an effective tool when used in collective coordination, says Mohamed Ramadan, an economics researcher in his interview with Ahram Online.With Egypt’s strong consumer market within the MENA region, the diminishing rate of consumption can make a considerable dent in those companies’ bottom lines, says Cairo University economics professor Omnia Helmi.
A diverging view: On the other hand, financial analyst Nadi Azzam believes that the boycotts will not makea substantial impact on the income or stock prices of multinational companies, and that the initiative is a matter of moral expression rather than a tool for effective change.
While official sanctions at the national level are the quickest method to produce enough economic pressure to enforce political change, it would be almost impossible to enforce a cold-turkey ban on commercial goods that contribute to the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians.
Consumer behavior on a large scale is what informs business decisions. Companies are unlikely to take the plunge to exclude pro-Israel products of their own accord, but they will do so under significant pressure if their sales are hurting. Long story short: It’s a bottom-up operation.
A major point of contention is that many of the popular franchises being boycotted are Egyptian-owned.Egyptian companies managing these franchises — such as McDonald’s franchisee Manfoods — have released statementsdistancing themselves from the pro-Israeli sentiments and actions of their parent companies.
While their activities are indeed independent from the franchisors, their money isn’t. Their net income may be exclusive to the Egyptian company, but annual royalties are paid in exchange for the use of trademarks and the right to manufacture specific commodities.
But this could still bring about positive changes to the economy. Boycotting multinational corporations does mean restricting the money they inject into the national economy, but the sales they miss out on are redirected mostly towards local businesses, where the money will make its way into the national market.
Aside from allowing local businesses and startups to flourish, the shift towards local products is indubitably beneficial from an economical standpoint. Developing the local economy will provide Egypt with more self-determination and security, alleviating some of our dependence on international commerce.
One example of local market growth is Spiro Spathis. The company is over a century old, predating the Israeli occupation. While it was established by a Greek expat, the company was founded and developed in Egypt. Over the years, it has struggled to keep up with foreign competitors, but it has seen a sales growth of 300% as a result of the boycott.
THE REAL CONCERN IS THE FATE OF THE EGYPTIAN WORKER-
Egyptian businesses have rallied to support workers that may be affected by the boycott, promising to prioritize the employment of those leaving international conglomerates. Executives have also promised employment to anyone affected by the movement to boycott Israel.
No layoffs have been reported as of yet here in Egypt,and none of the boycotted companies have made any statements that indicate that their employees are at risk. Helmi believes that it is unlikely that international companies will resort to dismissals.
While the increasing search for Egyptian alternatives was galvanized by the boycott,political sociologist Said Sadek told The New Arab that it will persist for more reasons than public opinion. He believes that the rising FX rates and subsequent inflation provide more incentive to gravitate toward local products, and that this behavior would have existed as a natural trend even without moral motives.
Local alternatives for food products are readily available, but commodities with few or inaccessible substitutions are difficult to replace. As the BDS movement gains momentum globally, Egyptians participating in the initiative aim to boycott what they can and minimally use what they can’t avoid.
These efforts will spur social consequences and economic pressure that may bring about change that lays the groundwork for seeking justice for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the destructive occupation of their land.
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