An Egyptian Plagiarism Scandal and Sex in the African City

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If you copy and paste, you’ll be found out with haste – a new saying for the digital era? The comedian Bassem Youssef is a heart surgeon whose satirical TV programme has won him both friends and enemies. But this week he faced plagiarism allegations and admitted copying sections of a serious article from a popular American politics website, then republishing it under his own name. Of course it did not take long for social media users to notice the similarity, but while Bassem Youssef apologised, the writer he copied found himself at the centre of another social media storm. British author Ben Judah initially took the plagiarism in his stride, but later found himself the target of anti-Semitic attacks from Egyptians. The Trending team tries to make sense of the controversy and talks to an Egyptian blogger who condemns the anti-Jewish Tweets. Also on the programme, a TV series about a close-knit group of stylish female friends who talk obsessively about relationships, fashion and life in the big city – sound familiar? But wait - there’s a twist. An African City is an online TV series set and filmed in Accra. It has of course been compared to Sex in the City, but how close does it hew to reality, and how are African women reacting? Mukul Devichand is joined in the studio by Owen Bennett-Jones, Ahmed Nour from the BBC’s Cairo bureau, and BBC Trending’s Sex in the City expert commentator Anne Marie-Tomchak. Producer: Mike Wendling