{"id":647151,"date":"2017-05-03T03:57:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T03:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/05\/03\/mixed-bag-for-egypt-in-the-international-press-on-3-may-2017\/"},"modified":"2017-05-03T03:57:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T03:57:30","slug":"mixed-bag-for-egypt-in-the-international-press-on-3-may-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/05\/03\/mixed-bag-for-egypt-in-the-international-press-on-3-may-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed bag for Egypt in the international press on 3 May 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a mixed bag for Egypt in the global press this morning.<\/strong> Pickup of wire copy<\/a> on the killing of three police officers in Cairo in a drive-by shooting was surprisingly muted. Meanwhile, mild echoes of the papal visit continue to be heard (see the New York Times\u2019 editorial \u201cA Humane Papal Message in Egypt<\/a>,\u201d complete with gratuitous \u201cdictatorship\u201d dig), but no story has yet emerged to take its place. It\u2019s almost as if the Western press has gotten its fill (for the moment).<\/p>\n

Without question, the most significant story out of Egypt yesterday was a Reuters piece by Ahmed Hassan and Lin Noueihed contending that Daesh affiliate Wilayit Sinai are seeking to impose religious rules in North Sinai<\/strong><\/a>. The investigative piece found the group \u201cis seeking to impose its hardline interpretation of Islam on the local populace for the first time\u201d with evidence it has \u201ccreated a morality police force, known as a Hisba, to enforce strict rules against such behaviour as smoking, men shaving their beards or women exposing their faces.\u201d Hassan and Noueihed say this is part of a development that marks a strategic change and the militants had previously focused on attacking the police, soldiers, and informants only. A security source told Reuters, however, that the militants were unable to impose themselves on society: \u201cThey come out for two minutes and film two cars and say, \u2018We set up a checkpoint.\u2019 This was all for the media, for people like you to write things that bear no relation to the reality on the ground.\u201d One activist from Rafah says that, while the militants are not in control of the region, \u201cthey are present, they pop up like a jack-in-the-box, they kill or kidnap someone and go back into hiding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, UK tabloid the Sun<\/a> reports that Egyptian officials are losing patience with the<\/strong>Britain\u2019s travel ban on Sharm El Sheikh. <\/strong>And in a complete shocker, a UN study of 10k men in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine is being used to declare that \u201cMen in the Middle East are slow to embrace gender equality<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d Young men surveyed were no more \u201cprogressive \u2026 than their fathers and the older generation.\u201d Also notable: That these four countries apparently make up \u201cthe Middle East,\u201d likely because the odds of doing a similar survey in the GCC without being tossed in the slammer or deported is about the same as our chance of being elected Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n

And after US President Donald Trump said nice things about the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte \u2014 accused of sanctioning the mass extrajudicial killing of [redacted] dealers \u2014 plenty of US media outlets with a liberal bent to them are wondering at why \u201cTrump keeps praising international strongmen,\u201d as the Washington Post<\/a> puts it. Our president\u2019s strong relationship with Trump just about inevitably comes up.<\/p>\n

(And while you\u2019re on the Sun\u2019s website, check out its story on the UK dad<\/a> who paid using<\/strong>pennies a GBP 60 fine for taking his six-year-old out of school for a holiday in Egypt<\/strong>, saying, \u201cWhere is he going to learn more about the world? Sitting in a classroom in Swansea or at an Egyptian temple? He was so excited to be in Egypt and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to deny him that opportunity.\u201d)
\nOther international coverage of Egypt worth noting in brief included:<\/p>\n