It was around 5:30 a.m. when my cameraman Ramil knocked on the door of my room. “We have to go now. Romeo has arrived and is waiting outside the hostel,” he said. I was already up, well prepared for the meeting with one of the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Sulu Island. Romeo was the guide and driver set to take me and my team into the island’s jungle to meet this leader.
The plan was to return within three hours to Jolo, the island’s main city. I had promised Jolo’s mayor to attend the Philippine Independence Day ceremony. This was on June 12, 2012. I was working on a documentary about Mindanao and the Muslims of the southern Philippines, which required me to travel from Manila to Sulu Island.
My Filipino coordinator said he was tied up with his work in Manila but had arranged all the interviews and made all the arrangements for my visit to Zamboanga City and Sulu Island, including the interview with the ASG leader. He kept saying: “My brother, you will be in good hands.”
The night before I was kidnapped, he sent me a text saying the same thing. Something inside me warned me of a lurking threat but I ignored the feeling. My coordinator arranged the accommodation for me and my team at Sulu Students Hostel and insisted that I refuse to stay with the governor of the island or with the mayor of Jolo. “They should not know about our plans to meet with the ASG leader,” he said.
As Romeo drove toward the jungle, I had a feeling I would not return soon. The car crashed three times during the journey; the third time, Romeo left the car on the road and told us (I and my team) to continue on foot. This added to my feeling that something was not right; you cannot just leave the car on the road and continue with your journey unless it is serious.
The journalist in me ignored every sign of threat and kept me going. “You should do this scoop, meet the ASG leader in the jungle and get a first-hand account of the conflict in Mindanao,” I thought to myself. I had interviewed all the other parties involved in the conflict of Mindanao by then.
We were deep inside the Patikol area, ASG’s stronghold. Armed men from every side of the jungle appeared with guns and munitions. Abu Rami, an ASG leader who was later ambushed and killed by the Philippine army, gave money to Romeo, who left us with our kidnappers.
I spent 18 months in captivity, in the heart of the Sulu jungle, living among ignorant people, to say the least. When Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, appealed to my kidnappers to release me, they had hardly heard of Jerusalem. One of them asked me about it, to which I said: “Have you heard about Al-Aqsa Mosque?” He said: “Yes, that is in Spain?” I could barely keep myself from bursting into laughter.
I was astonished by their ignorance and could hardly believe what I heard from them in the first six months of my kidnapping. But soon I realized the jungle had its own world disconnected from the outside. I appeared alien to them. During the first month of my kidnapping, all the men, women and children would gather around my hut watching me carefully, as if I was a new creature that landed in their world.
When the mufti of Sulu, Abd Al-Baqi Abu Bakr, contacted them via a local mediator and asked them to release me, denouncing their act, they said about him: “He is not an honest man, he is astray and wants to take ransom money for himself.” I told them: “But is it right for you to deprive me of my freedom and demand to have my money, which you have no right to?”
Five years since my kidnapping, the situation in the southern Philippines does not seem to be getting any better. Kidnappings and executions of hostages continue. Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall were beheaded in April and July 2016, respectively, by an ASG thug named Ben who was an illiterate and former drug addict at best.
The ASG has declared its allegiance to Daesh. In addition to groups that split from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), such as the Maute Group and a faction of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), groups from ASG joined Daesh in the Philippines and formed the State of the Philippines led by Insilon Hapilon, a former ASG leader not very different from Ben.
The Philippine government and armed forces are not innocent. They are part of the problem and their policies over the years have resulted in a sense of anger, grievance and hatred toward the state among the Muslim population in the south.
The ASG element that joined Daesh found its new umbrella very similar in its actions, as both have the same traditions and mindset. These people have been kidnapping, robbing and killing, apparently for the cause of the Moros, and allowed their ignorance to justify their ugly deeds.
People who do not respect their word, they promised to give me an interview but betrayed my team and I. They never kept a single promise they made regarding my release. Even Romeo, whom Shakespeare made a symbol of love and loyalty, turned out to be a traitor by being associated with the ASG.
• Baker Atyani can be reached on Twitter @atyanibaker.
Journalist Baker Atyani looks back on kidnap ordeal in Philippine jungle
Journalist Baker Atyani looks back on kidnap ordeal in Philippine jungle
Netflix says 50 million households worldwide tuned in for Paul-Tyson match
Netflix said on Saturday that 60 million households worldwide had tuned in for the highly anticipated boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, and the event peaked at 65 million streams, according to a statement.
The bout between the 27-year-old social media influencer-turned-prize fighter Paul and the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion Tyson, which Paul won, was streamed live on Netflix.
Nearly 50 million households tuned in for the co-main event between Ireland’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor and Puerto Rico’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano, according to Netflix.
“The bout is likely to be the most watched professional women’s sporting event in US history,” Netflix said in its statement.
There were some hiccups during the live-stream of the match, with over 90,000 users reporting problems on Netflix at its peak, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.
However, the streaming platform was back up on Saturday after the outage that lasted roughly 6 hours in the United States.
Renowned Lebanese journalist quits MTV over death threats by alleged Hezbollah supporters
- ‘I decided to leave MTV because of the intimidations that reached the point of death threats,’ says Dr. Eman Shweikh on X
- Samir Kassir Eyes Center reports that since Nov. 12 Shweikh had been subjected to a campaign of threats, incitement, accusations of treason
DUBAI: A renowned Lebanese journalist has taken to social media platform X to announce her departure from MTV following alleged death threats believed to have been made by supporters of Hezbollah.
Not mentioning the Iran-backed group by name, Dr. Eman Shweikh, a TV presenter at MTV, journalist and university professor, wrote: “I decided to leave MTV because of the intimidations that reached the point of death threats and the harassment that I am exposed to, which reached the point of following me home and chasing me on the road, in addition to harassing my family.”
The Samir Kassir Eyes Center reported that since Nov. 12 Shweikh had been subjected to a campaign of threats, incitement and accusations of treason due to her political opinions that she publishes on X, and because of her work for MTV.
The purported threats and harassment prompted her to leave her job at the channel.
The TV presenter added in her tweet: “The (Lebanese) state is absent, and laws are inexistent, and I do not want to expose my life and the lives of my family to danger. I want to live in safety and peace. Thank you to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of MTV Michel Murr.”
Shweikh’s tweet received thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets and comments.
Replying to her tweet, advocate Tarek Chindeb said: “The threat to kill journalist Eman Shweikh makes us believe at every moment that we cannot build a state in Lebanon in the presence of illegal weapons and militias outside accountability.”
Expressing solidarity, Chindeb hoped that the Lebanese security and judicial authorities would do their duty to protect her, and arrest the culprits.
Political analyst Magdi Khalil also replied to Shweikh’s tweet, saying: “Ideological militias do not know participation, but rather overpowering. They do not know dialogue, but rather the threat of violence.”
MTV journalist Nawal Berry and cameraman Dany Tanios were attacked in July while attempting to cover the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold.
It was not the first time Berry and her team had been assaulted by Hezbollah loyalists. During the early days of the Oct. 17 revolution in 2019, she and her team faced a violent attack and had their camera smashed.
Supporters of Hezbollah have a history of assaulting and threatening journalists. Targets have included Layal Alekhtiar, who received death threats in 2021 and faced legal action last year for interviewing an Israeli spokesperson; Dima Sadek; Ali Al-Amin; and others.
At the time of publishing, Shweikh could not be reached for comment.
What is Bluesky, the fast-growing social platform welcoming fleeing X users?
- Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online
SAN FRANCISCO: Disgruntled X users are again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of the former Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took it over in 2022. While it remains small compared to established online spaces such as X, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood, lighter and friendlier and less influenced by Musk.
What is Bluesky?
Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.
Why is Bluesky growing?
Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online. The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. The platform gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August — 85 percent of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.
Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of Twitter more than a decade ago.
Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after the election that it had “dominated the global conversation on the US election” and had set new records.
Beyond social networking
Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X. Beyond the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls “a protocol for public conversation” — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.
Currently, you can’t cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone’s account. Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if they want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which helps serve their advertising-focused business models.
Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and working toward interoperability.
Media group IMI and UAE Media Council sign deal to recruit and train local talent
- Collaboration is part of the Media Apprenticeship Program launched last year by the Media Council and the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council
- It targets existing Emirati media professionals, as well as graduates and final-year students in media-related studies
DUBAI: IMI, a media group in the UAE formerly known as International Media Investments, has signed a cooperation agreement with the UAE Media Council to train and recruit local talent and develop media infrastructure in the country.
The initiative is part of the Media Apprenticeship Program, an initiative launched in May 2023 by the UAE Media Council and the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council. It targets existing Emirati media professionals, as well as graduates and final-year students in media-related studies, with the aim of developing the next generation of talent in the nation’s media sector.
The agreement was signed at IMI’s new headquarters in Abu Dhabi by Mohammed Saeed Al-Shehhi, secretary-general of the UAE Media Council, and Rani Raad, CEO of the recently rebranded IMI Group, which owns several news outlets including Sky News Arabia, The National newspaper, Al-Ain News and CNN Business Arabic.
“We are proud to be the first global media group in the UAE to partner with the UAE Media Council on this initiative,” said Raad.
IMI Group, he added, can offer “aspiring Emirati talent unique opportunities to learn about the best media assets and standards” through its network of companies and the IMI Media Academy.
Launched in September, the IMI Media Academy employs the latest learning methodologies and offers an advanced curriculum focusing on the media industry, journalism and content creation.
Al-Shehhi highlighted the need to forge stronger partnerships with private media companies, and for cohesive country-wide efforts to develop the sector.
He said the partnership with IMI demonstrates the Media Council’s “commitment to empowering the media sector to attain global leadership by investing in the development of national skills and talents and equipping them with the latest media tools and technologies.”
It also aligns with the council’s desire “to nurture a new generation of talents capable of spearheading the sector and achieving significant accomplishments in the future,” he added.
Spotify introduces ‘Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24’ residency program for emerging talent
- Initiative covers songwriting and music production, music marketing, music rights and industry knowledge, and touring and performing
- The Kingdom is an ‘incredibly exciting market’ for Spotify, says platform’s regional managing director
DUBAI: Spotify this month introduced Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24, the first iteration of a program dedicated to the promotion and development of the emerging music scene in the Kingdom.
“We’re incredibly thrilled to launch Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 and are eager to see the impact it will have on the career growth of the selected artists,” Akshat Harbola, managing director of Spotify in the Middle East and North Africa region, told Arab News.
The program, which ran from Nov. 6 to 11, represented “a long-term investment in nurturing up-and-coming talent, starting with a residency format this year,” he added.
It brought together four local talents who feature on Spotify’s Fresh Finds Arabia playlist, a showcase of the best new music by independent artists and labels from the region: BrownMusic, known for merging Arabic and English lyrics with contemporary experimental electronic beats; hip-hop artist Grzzlee; Kali-B, a singer, songwriter and producer; and Seera, an all-female Arabic psychedelic rock band.
They were chosen by Spotify’s local editorial team as “standout talent” that had “already made an impression on our Fresh Finds Arabia playlist,” Harbola said.
Spotify seeks to showcase different musical genres through the program, he added, and so “we took special care to prioritize a diverse range of styles that highlight the new generation of creators” from Saudi Arabia. The selected artists “have proven they can connect with listeners and are ready to elevate their careers.”
The residency program provided them with support, mentorship and a host of resources aimed at accelerating their growth as artists and expanding their presence in the Saudi music industry, Spotify said.
The program’s curriculum focused on four topics: songwriting and music production; music marketing; music rights and industry knowledge; and touring and performing.
Experts such as lyricist, writer and creative director Menna El-Kiey, and musicians and producers Ntitled, El Waili, Soufiane Az and Ismail Nosrat, offered guidance to the participants on songwriting, beat-making, mixing and mastering.
Amin Kabbani, vice president of Arabic talent at entertainment company Live Nation Middle East, provided insights into planning and executing a successful tour, managing logistics and engaging with fans.
Sony Publishing MENA led the session on music rights and industry knowledge, during which the participants learned about intellectual property, and how to protect their work and navigate the business side of their art.
Spotify also worked with the artists to record new tracks at creative hub Merwas in Riyadh, and the results will be released by the end of the year. Nada Al-Tuwaijri, the CEO of Merwas, said the studio is “committed to nurturing talent and providing artists with the tools and environment they need to unlock their creative potential.”
She added: “The Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 initiative aligns perfectly with our vision of supporting emerging talent in the Kingdom, the region and beyond.”
Harbola said that the Kingdom is “an incredibly exciting market” for Spotify and although he was “unable to share specific listenership rankings, the level of engagement in Saudi Arabia is truly remarkable.”
The company is seeing a “strong surge” in the popularity of pop music, especially Egyptian pop, and Khaleeji music, “which remains central to Saudi listeners,” he added.
The platform’s focus on the Kingdom has grown in recent months through initiatives such as “Tarab,” a campaign that celebrated Khaleeji music and spotlighted Saudi-based RADAR Arabia artist Sultan Al-Murshed in New York’s Times Square.
Harbola said that the burgeoning local music scene and audience engagement on Spotify is driving the company’s efforts to introduce initiatives such as Fresh Finds Saudi: Class 2k24 and commit to them on a long-term basis
“While we don’t have set dates for future iterations (of the residency), our focus remains on curating unique experiences tailored to artists’ needs in different markets, whether through this initiative or other Spotify Music Programs across MENA,” he added.
