Good afternoon, friends, the weekend is finally here and the news cycle is relatively subdued at home and abroad.
THE BIG STORY TODAY
Saudi plans to convert its deposits at the Central Bank of Egypt into investments, the Kingdom’s Investment Minister Khaled Al Falih said today. The kingdom is also looking to increase its Public Investment Fund’s investments in Egypt, which currently stands at USD 3 bn, according to Al Falih, who is currently leading a government delegation in Egypt. The Egyptian government is gearing up to finalize the Protection and Promotion of Mutual Investments Agreement between the two countries, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said during his meeting with Al Falih, adding that his government has resolved 70% of the issues faced by Saudi investors.
Remember: Saudi deposits at the CBE currently amount to USD 10.3 bn.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD
The Bank of England enacts its first rate cut in over four years, bringing down the key rate by 25 basis points to 5%. The cut, which “will bring a huge collective sigh of relief to consumers and businesses,” says investment strategist Lindsay James, comes after a 16-year high reached in August 2023, and ahead of the BOE’s quarterly Monetary Policy Report detailing projections of economic growth and inflation. (CNBC | BBC | The Guardian)
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Gov’t wants to up its hydropower capacity: The Electricity Ministry plans to carry out USD 4 bn worth of hydroelectric power projects in partnership with the private sector.
☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Mercury is peaking at a high of 38°C before simmering to a moderate low of 27°C by night, according to our favorite weather app. Sahel and Alexandria are seeing cooler weather, with a high of 31°C and a low of 24°C.
Fish have fallen victim to drug addiction. Yes, you read that right. For the first time ever, two researchers have found a percentage of cocaine and benzoylecgonine (a substance secreted by the liver after cocaine use) in the bodies of 13 Brazilian sharpnose sharks that were caught separately between September 2021 and December 2023.
The results are unprecedented: The cocaine concentration found was 100 times greater than what has been previously observed in marine animals, and is mostly concentrated in muscle tissue and the liver. The cocaine content was also about three times higher than the benzoylecgonine content, meaning that the cocaine was in its original form when the fish caught it, suggesting that it was dumped directly into the water rather than discharged from human waste.
This type of pollution is not limited to Rio de Janeiro: Although Brazil is one of the world’s largest cocaine consumers, with about 1.5 mn users — representing 8% of the world’s total — this issue has also been observed in the United Kingdom. River fish have suffered from ingesting sewage pollutants that contained drug residue, specifically methamphetamine. Scientists are urging people not to dump waste, specifically illegal and narcotic substances, into the water in order to preserve marine life.
Data harvesting has cost Meta USD 1.4 bn in fines. In 2022, the company was accused of harvesting biometric data from mns of users without proper consent through photos and videos uploaded onto Facebook. Earlier today, the parent company agreed to settle the claims with a fine to the state of Texas.
Even for a trillion dollar company, that is a hefty fine. It is the “largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single state,” said Texas’ attorney-general Ken Paxton in a statement. It also marks Meta’s second largest penalty, following a USD 5 bn settlement to the US Federal Trade Commission for the misuse of user data during the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal in 2019.
The numbers: The accusation brought against them for violating the Texas state law was for a breach of “not hundreds, or thousands, or [mns], but bns of times.” The prosecution sought a penalty of a minimum of USD 10k for each violation.
A year before this lawsuit was filed, Meta announced that it would erase biometric data gathered from 1 bn users without consent, and that they would shutter the facial recognition system for legal “uncertainty.” However, after failing to destroy the data “within a reasonable time,” alongside the possibility of still using that data in the meantime, the company decided to settle the lawsuit the evening before its scheduled trial. Whether or not the settlement stipulates or ensures that the data be erased.
If you’re into ancient mysteries, Netflix’s Mysteries of the TerracottaWarriors is a must-see. The documentary digs deep into China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who was responsible for the Great Wall of China. The main case in discussion is his mausoleum complex, where 8k clay soldiers guarding his tomb were accidentally found by farmers digging a well in the 1970s.
The effort behind building the tomb was fascinating to see. Each soldier from the colossal Terracotta army was crafted with a unique face and weapon, showing that they were created to protect the emperor even in the afterlife. The documentary uses expert insights and dramatic reenactments to bring ancient China to life.
How have they been preserved all these years? They weren’t. Director James Tovell captures how none of the soldiers were in good condition, and showed the comprehensive restoration work that was needed on these ancient artifacts, revealing the challenges of preserving China’s rich cultural heritage.
WHERE TO WATCH- You can watch the documentary on Netflix or catch the trailer runtime1:53).
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🥇Welcome to Day 6 of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
On the homefront: Last night, our handball team drew against double Olympic champion France, holding the lead after an impressive showing in the first half of the game. The results mean that Egypt now ranks third in Group B. Team Egypt will face Norway on Friday and Argentina on Sunday. Our football team is set to face Paraguay in the quarterfinals, with the match scheduled for tomorrow at 8:00 pm.
Highlights from Day 5: Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz — who pushed Rafael Nadal out of the competition — have each made it through to the quarter-finals in the men’s singles, potentially setting themselves up for a golden showdown. In swimming: The US’ Katie Ledecky brought home another gold for the 1.5k meters freestyle; while French Leon Marchand brought home two golds, putting France second to the top on the medals table.
The medal table at the Paris Olympics at time of publication:
China (11 gold, 21 total)
France (8 gold, 26 total)
Japan (8 gold, 15 total)
TODAY
Sailing: Men’s Skiff Medal Race (3:43 pm), Women’s Skiff Medal Race (4:43 pm).
Canoe Slalom: Men’s Kayak Single Finals (6:30 pm).
Artistic Gymnastics: Women’s All-Around Singles Final (6:30 pm).
Swimming: Women’s 200m Butterfly Final (9:30 pm), Men’s 200m Backstroke Final (9:38 pm), Women’s 200m Breastroke Final (10:11 pm), Women’s 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay Final (11:03 pm).
TEAM EGYPT:
Sailing: Khloud Mansy in the Women’s Dinghy (4:35 pm).
Swimming: Men’s 50m Freestyle Final (9:30 pm), Women’s 200m Backstroke Final (9:36 pm), Men’s 200m Individual Medley Final (9:43 pm).
Athletics: Men’s 10k m Final (10:20 pm).
Cycling BMX Racing: Men’s Final (10:35 pm), Women’s Final (10:50 pm).
TEAM EGYPT:
Shooting: Nour Abbas in the 25m Pistol Women’s Qualification Precision (10:00 am), Omar Ibrahim and Azmy Mehelba in the Men’s Skeet Qualifiers (10:30 am).
Rowing: Abdelkhalek Elbanna in the Men’s Single Sculls Final (10:30 am).
Athletics: Mostafa Elgamel in the Men’s Hammer Throw Qualification (11:10 am).
Trampoline Gymnastics: Malak Hamza in the Women’s Qualifiers (1:00 pm).
Volleyball: Egypt vs. Brazil (2:00 pm).
Fencing: Egypt vs. France (2:30 pm).
Football: Egypt vs. Paraguay (8:00 pm).
Handball: Egypt vs. Norway in the Men’s Preliminary Round Group B (10:00 pm).
SATURDAY-
Tennis: Women’s Singles Gold Medal Match (1:00 pm), Men’s Doubles Gold medal Match (1:00 pm).
Table Tennis:Women’s Singles Gold medal match (3:30 pm).
Judo: Mixed Team Finals (5:00 pm).
Artistic Gymnastics: Men’s Floor Exercise Final (4:30 pm), Women’s Vault Final (5:20 pm), Men’s Pommel Horse Final (6:16 pm).
Athletics: Men’s Shot Put (8:35 pm), Mixed 4x400m (9:55 pm), Women’s 100m (10:20 pm), Men’s 1.5k m Decathlon (10:45pm).
Swimming: Men’s 100m Butterfly Final (9:30 pm), Women’s 50m Freestyle Semifinals (9:37 pm), Women’s 200m Individual Medley Final (10:01 pm), Women’s 800m Freestyle Final (10:08 pm).
TEAM EGYPT:
Swimming: Marwan Elkamash in the Men’s 1.5k m Freestyle (12:30 pm).
Manchester United vs. Real Betis Balompié (5:00 pm).
Manchester City vs. Chelsea (Saturday, 12:30 am).
Bayern Munich vs. Tottenham (Saturday, 2:00 pm).
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🎤 OUT AND ABOUT- (all times CLT)
HAPPENING THIS WEEK-
You can still catch Ahmed Helmy on stage in Memo. If you missed the Egyptian comedy icon’s first few shows of his original play, he will be performing once again tonight, (tickets) and tomorrow (tickets) at the Grand Nile Tower.
The interactive comedy show where the audience gets a moment to shine. Attend AinGamal Vol.22 with Omar El Gamal to witness the comedian’s quick wit and clever remarks. The show will take place this Saturday, 3 August starting at 8pm at Theatro Arkan. Get your tickets here.
Sukun is taking wellness to new heights with their Cosmic Festival at Solare, Ras El Hikma tomorrow. The festival has an itinerary of good-for-the-soul activities like yoga, sound healing, breathwork, art, dance, and more — you can even bring the kids for some seaside fun too. Get your invite here.
A night of good music. Book tickets for Cords Festival: Ruby & Aziz Maraka at One Eleven in New Alamein. The festival will take place tomorrow starting 10pm, where musical staple Aziz Maraka and the iconic Ruby, will perform.
For the love of poetry. Don’t miss the Live Podcast evening with poet Mostafa Ibrahim and host Zahra Ramy at Rawabet Art Space in Downtown, tomorrow at 9pm. Book your spot here.
Ma Yatloboho Al Mostame3oon in Sahel: Esseily and Ahmed Saad will perform at Cairo Jazz Club Sea Shore in Ras Al-Hikma, tomorrow, followed by Disco Misr and DJ Anis. The event will begin at 9pm. Grab tickets here.
Superstar Mohamed Ramadan will perform a concert at Porto Golf in the North Coast tomorrow at 10pm. Grab tickets here before they sell out.
NEW ALAMEIN FESTIVAL-
Ramy Gamal will also be gracing the North Coast for the festival tomorrow at 10pm. Grab your tickets here.
Amr Diab will be taking the New Alamein Festival stage on Friday, 9 August at 10pm. Get your tickets here.
The iconic Cairokee will be performing at the festival on Friday, 23 August. Find your tickets to the band’s show here.
HAPPENING LATER-
Start of your week with a laugh at Rawabet Art Spaces Comedy Night with Comedy Kiosk. The event will take place this Sunday, 4 August at 8pm. Get your tickets here.
Love is back in the air at Rawabet Art Space. The Egyptian adaptation of the musical ” I’llLove You as You Are… If You Change ” has returned, where it explores the intricacies of love and relationships in a light-hearted and enjoyable way. Snag a ticket here.
Prepare for the sixth edition of The Marakez Pyramids Half Marathon. Pick your race of choice and start training, because the marathon will take place on Saturday, 14 December. Note: The price to register is going to keep increasing. So sign up now through this link for the lowest price guarantee.
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👂 EARS TO THE GROUND-
Griefcast, hosted by Cariad Lloyd, is a relief for those navigating the complex emotions of grief. Lloyd invites celebrities to share their heartfelt stories about loved ones they’ve lost. Lloyd, a British actor, comedian, and writer, launched the podcast in 2016 after a decision to speak publicly about her father, who passed away from pancreatic cancer when she was 15.
Speaking about his dad who passed away in 2021 from a heart attack, writer and TV presenter Tom Allen noted that having your loved one’s voice in your head can really help with the healing process. “If your relationship with them was really strong… if you have an issue, you have their voice in your head knowing how they’d respond to it.”
It’s not just about sharing sorrow; it’s about finding humor and humanity in the face of loss. For those who have lost someone, it’ll offer a sense of community and understanding, reminding listeners that they are not alone in their grief.
The EGX30 fell 0.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 4.6 bn (24.4% above the 90-day average). Local investors were the sole net sellers. The index is up 17.9% YTD.
In the green: Ezz Steel (+3.9%), E-finance (+3.6%), and Alex Containers and Cargo Handling (+3.4%).
In the red: Palm Hills Development (-4.5%), EFG Holding (-2.7%), and Abu Qir Fertilizers (-2.4%).
It’s the 80s, and the technological landscape as we now know it is taking shape, with new interfaces and concepts born everyday. The computer is no longer just an office processing tool, but a new home appliance. How does a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with several thousand PC units make their product — previously only used by specialized professionals — a user-friendly staple of the household?
Enter skeuomorphism, a graphical interface design that models systems after their real-life counterparts. Incorporating real-life objects and actions into the digital process meant that users with no prior experience wouldn’t have to spend as much time figuring out which button does what. The idea behind having the save function look like a floppy disk or the folder for discarding files look like a trash can was to make these interfaces easier to learn and use.
By incorporating familiar elements, skeuomorphism lowered the barrier entry for new users, leveraging their existing knowledge of the real world to navigate an intuitive digital interface. It can also be used to build trust in a brand and foster a sense of reliability, especially important when it comes to a demographic that may be hesitant to embrace change. Essentially, humans look to the past to find comfort in the future.
This concept isn’t too foreign — it might even seem like a natural progression instead of a deliberate choice. It certainly predates the coining of the term and the digital revolution itself. Early teapots made of metal were designed to resemble their ceramic ancestors, even though retaining the same shape or patterns wasn’t a necessity. But it served a purpose. Even though users would have known how to use it (unless the new system particularly deviated from the original, as with computers) making the new tool feel familiar was key to the users’ comfort.
The rise of the smartphone: As our phones took on more tasks than the basic phone call and text message, apps had to reflect their function. A lot of these elements still exist on our phones today, but some of the more on-the-nose ones were retired. Steve Jobs was a big proponent of skeuomorphism in the early days of Apple, and that was reflected in early iOS designs. Remember when the iBooks application used to look like a real wooden bookshelf ? Or when the then-built in YouTube app icon was an oldtimeyTV ?
Skeuomorphism today may not be as heavy-handed as when it was first introduced, but we can still see it being implemented in things like haptic feedback from our keyboards to mimic the tapping of a physical one. From the push away from the hyper-realistic material design and towards subtly and cleaner design, came the birth of neumorphism.
Neumorphism was meant as a departure from the familiar without taking away the comfort. Coined by UI designer Michal Malewicz based on UX designer Olexander Plyuto’s art concept in 2019, he described it as a mix of the flat and minimal design popularized by Apple’s iOS 7 in 2017, with added depth borrowed and refined from classic skeuomorphic design. Neumorphism is a texture-based design more than it is a material one.
This design was quickly implemented by the tech industry, with Apple bringing depth back with iOS 17, and Samsung using the design in their marketing. The use of neutral backgrounds and soft shadows to create soft, natural curves seems to have attempted a balance between classic skeuomorphism and flat minimalism that leaned too heavily (and for some, defeatedly) into the move towards touch screens.
But this isn’t (even close to) the end of UI and UX design evolution. Not only is neumorphism difficult to execute from a backend perspective, it also failed to hit the benchmark of widely accepted web content accessibility standards. The low-contrast colors and elements were by all professional metrics just bad design. Neumorphic interfaces confused people, especially those with vision impairments or dyslexia, due to unclear and unlabeled elements that were just a little too abstract to grasp intuitively due to their departure from the classic design elements of real-world objects.
Is skeuomorphism dead? While it’s unlikely that design will skew that way heavily enough to revive the aesthetic as it was — the use of its elements on websites or in apps crops up feelings of defunct, dated, or sluggish tech — it will always be used as a reference of a successful bridge between digital tools and physical control.
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