Saudi Arabia’s MBC launches new video streaming service

MBC Group Chairman Waleed Al-Ibrahim
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Updated 17 January 2020
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Saudi Arabia’s MBC launches new video streaming service

  • MBC’s top-rated channels are also included in the new Shahid, which includes nine HD channels, streamed live, as well as a catch-up service

LONDON: MBC Group has unveiled the all-new version of its video on demand (VOD) service, Shahid.

It comes as the Saudi-owned broadcaster seeks to boost its original content to fend off growing competition from global players such as Netflix and Amazon.

“As we look ahead, we strive to take control of our own narratives, showcasing our stories to the rest of the world through the very best in original films, series, and other media content, produced and marketed via MBC Studios,” MBC Group Chairman Waleed Al-Ibrahim said.

“We’re immensely proud to provide the region with an advanced digital platform that is on par with the best in the world. Shahid is a global brand that is worth watching.”




Faces at the Shahid relaunch, from left: Seba Moubarak, Tamer Habib, Ahmed Malek and Amr Youssef; MBC Managing Director Johannes Larcher; Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, MBC Chairman Waleed Al-Ibrahim and Mona Al-Marri.

Recently appointed group CEO Marc Antoine d’Halluin revealed plans to raise investment into home-grown drama productions at the broadcasting group.

Shahid Premieres will focus on first-look exclusives from cinema and television, while Shahid Originals will offer local and regional productions, with long-form content such as drama series as well as short-form content.

Shahid also announced a content partnership with Disney and Fox as well as streaming platform Spotify.


Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians in central Gaza

Updated 1 min 24 sec ago
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Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians in central Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday where witnesses said a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit that had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys. Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.
The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza’s population, which has been thrown into turmoil over the past month. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
The strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah on Thursday appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices. The unit is part of Gaza’s Hamas-led Interior Ministry, but includes members of other factions.
A horrific scene
Witnesses said the Sahm unit was distributing bags of flour and other goods confiscated from looters and corrupt merchants, drawing a crowd when the strike hit.
Video of the aftermath showed bodies, several torn, of multiple young men in the street with blood splattering on the pavement and walls of buildings. The dead included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where casualties were taken.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has accused the militant Hamas group of stealing aid and using it to prop up its rule in the enclave. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Gaza’s police, considering them a branch of Hamas.
An association of Gaza’s influential clans and tribes said Wednesday they have started an independent effort to guard aid convoys to prevent looting. The National Gathering of Palestinian Clans and Tribes said it helped escort a rare shipment of flour that entered northern Gaza that evening.
It was unclear, however, if the association had coordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities. The World Food Program did not immediately respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press.
“We will no longer allow thieves to steal from the convoys for the merchants and force us to buy them for high prices,” Abu Ahmad Al-Gharbawi, a figure involved in the tribal effort, told the AP.
Accusations from Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz in a joint statement Wednesday accused Hamas of stealing aid that is entering northern Gaza, and called on the Israeli military to plan to prevent it.
The National Gathering slammed the statement, saying the accusation of theft was aimed at justifying the Israeli military’s “aggressive practices.” It said aid was “fully secured” by the tribes, which it said were committed to delivering the supplies to the population.
The move by tribes to protect aid convoys brings yet another player in an aid situation that has become fragmented, confused and violent, even as Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians struggle to feed their families.
Throughout the more than 20-month-old war, the UN led the massive aid operation by humanitarian groups providing food, shelter, medicine and other goods to Palestinians despite the fighting. UN and other aid groups say that when significant amounts of supplies are allowed into Gaza, looting and theft dwindles.
Israel, however, seeks to replace the UN-led system, saying Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies from it, a claim the UN and other aid groups deny.
Israel has backed an American private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has started distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza for the past month.
Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds.
Health officials say hundreds of people have been killed and wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots.
A trickle of aid
Israel has continued to allow a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for UN distribution. The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had been able to deliver its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, with nine trucks bringing blood, plasma and other supplies to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still functioning in southern Gaza.
In Gaza City, large crowds gathered Thursday at an aid distribution point to receive bags of flour from the convoy that arrived the previous evening, according to photos taken by a cameraman collaborating with the AP.
Hiba Khalil, a mother of seven, said she can’t afford looted aid that is sold in markets for astronomical prices and was relieved to get flour for the first time in months.
“We’ve waited for months without having flour or eating much and our children would always cry,” she said.
Another woman, Umm Alaa Mekdad, said she hoped more convoys would make it through after struggling to deal with looters.
“The gangs used to take our shares and the shares of our children who slept hungry and thirsty,” she said.
Separately, Israeli strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least 28 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. More than 20 dead arrived at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, while the bodies of eight others were taken to Nasser Hospital in the south.

Liberia holds funeral for ex-leader Doe decades after assassination

Updated 14 min 54 sec ago
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Liberia holds funeral for ex-leader Doe decades after assassination

  • Samuel Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars
  • The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history

ZWEDRU, Liberia: Hundreds of people gathered Friday in rural Liberia for the state funeral of authoritarian former president Samuel Doe 35 years after his assassination, part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation efforts over its violent past.

Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars that killed around 250,000 people and ravaged Liberia’s economy.

He is being commemorated at his home compound in southeastern Grand Gedeh County alongside his wife, Nancy, who died in May and will be buried at the estate.

Liberians gathered along the route Friday as the couple’s caskets – his symbolic, and hers containing her body – were slowly driven through the county capital of Zwedru on the bed of a truck decorated in bunting in the country’s red, white and blue colors.

The state ceremony is being attended by President Joseph Boakai, who declared a period of mourning this week from Tuesday to Friday, with flags flown at half-mast.

His executive mansion Facebook page said the commemorations are part of a “broader effort” meant to “promote national reconciliation.”

The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history.

Infamous warlord Prince Johnson, a key player in the civil wars (1989 to 2003), appeared in a video watching his fighters slowly mutilate and torture Doe to death while he calmly sipped a beer.

Various rumors but little concrete information exists as to the fate and location of Doe’s remains following his death.

Doe’s own rise to power was also steeped in violence.

His 1980 to 1990 rule remains divisive, remembered by many Liberians as a brutal dictatorship, while others recall some transformative measures he implemented fondly.

Liberian Mercy Janjay Seeyougar said in Monrovia ahead of the funeral that she remembered how Doe once gave her a candy, and that during street cleanings he would “stop and be with the people who are doing the cleaning.”

In 1980, Doe, then an army sergeant in his late 20s, led a coup assassinating president William Tolbert, the last in a line of leaders from the Americo-Liberian ruling class comprised of the descendants of former US slaves.

Quickly establishing a regime of terror, Doe had 13 members of the government he had overthrown publicly executed on a beach and his regime subsequently jailed or persecuted many of its opponents.

He was elected in a 1985 presidential vote that many observers said was marked by fraud.

The brutality of his regime, combined with declining economic conditions and favoritism toward the Krahn ethnic group of which he was a member, led to increased unpopularity.


Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine’s southeast

Updated 24 min 47 sec ago
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Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine’s southeast

  • At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital
  • Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city

KYIV: A Russian missile attack on Friday killed at least five people and wounded more than 20 in the industrial city of Samar in Ukraine’s southeast, officials said, the second strike on the city in three days.

At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on the Telegram messaging app.

Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city, where an attack on an unidentified infrastructure facility on Tuesday killed two people.

Hundreds of kilometers to the south, in the Kherson region, authorities urged residents on Friday to prepare for extended periods without power after a Russian attack hit a key energy facility.

Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that “Russians decided to plunge the region into darkness.”

In recent weeks Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly its capital Kyiv, more than three years into the war that followed its full-scale invasion.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 363 long-range drones and eight missiles overnight into Friday, targeting a small western city of Starokostiantyniv, home to an important air base. There were no details on damage.


Oslo police announce rape and sexual assault charges against son of Norwegian crown princess

Updated 29 min 23 sec ago
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Oslo police announce rape and sexual assault charges against son of Norwegian crown princess

  • Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski said Høiby was cooperative during police questioning
  • “I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case”

OSLO: Oslo police on Friday announced charges against Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, on multiple counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm after a months-long investigation of a case that involved a “double-digit” number of alleged victims.

Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary charges of bodily harm and criminal damage.

Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski said Høiby was cooperative during police questioning, which is now complete. Evidence in the case was drawn from sources including text-messages, witness testimonies and police searches, the police attorney said.

The charges included one case of rape involving intercourse and two cases of rape without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault and two cases of bodily harm, Kruszewksi said at a news conference.

“I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,” he said.

Defense attorney Petar Sekulic, in an email to The Associated Press, said Høiby was “absolutely taking the accusations very seriously, but doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in most of the cases — especially the cases regarding sexual abuse and violence.”

The case was top news in Norway, where the royals are popular.

Høiby, 28, previously lived with the royal couple and their two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, but now lives in a separate house nearby, according to Sekulic.

Høiby remains free pending a possible trial and is entitled to a presumption of innocence until a court rules otherwise.

Norway’s future queen made headlines in 2001 when she married Haakon because she was a single mother who had lived a freewheeling life with a companion who had been convicted on drug charges.


Lebanon says 1 dead, 20 wounded in Israeli strikes in south

Updated 44 min 19 sec ago
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Lebanon says 1 dead, 20 wounded in Israeli strikes in south

  • “The Israel enemy strike on an apartment in Nabatiyeh led to a preliminary toll of one woman killed” and 13 other people wounded, the ministry said
  • An Israeli drone targeted the apartment

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said a woman was killed and 20 other people were wounded in Israeli strikes Friday in the country’s south, as Israel’s military said some raids targeted Hezbollah sites.

Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, particularly in the south, since a November 27 ceasefire meant to end over a year of hostilities, including two months of all-out war that left Hezbollah severely weakened.

“The Israel enemy strike on an apartment in Nabatiyeh led to a preliminary toll of one woman killed” and 13 other people wounded, the ministry said in an updated statement carried by the official National News Agency.

The NNA said an Israeli drone targeted the apartment.

The agency earlier reported “a wave of successive heavy strikes” in several other areas in the Nabatiyeh region that the health ministry said wounded seven people.

An Israeli army statement said fighter jets struck a site that Hezbollah used “to manage its fire and defense array in the area of the Beaufort Ridge,” near Nabatiyeh and the Israel border.

It said the site was “part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use” by the raids.

The military said it “identified rehabilitation attempts made by Hezbollah beforehand and struck terror infrastructure sites in the area,” calling the actions “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in a statement condemned the strikes and said Israel continued “to disregard regional and international resolutions and calls to stop the violence and escalation in the region,” urging “effective action from the international community.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement called the strikes “a blatant violation of national sovereignty and the cessation of hostilities arrangements” and a threat to stability.

Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.

Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.

In a letter to the United Nations requesting a one-year renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon which expires in August, the foreign ministry demanded “Israel’s withdrawal from all Lebanese territory it occupies and a stop to its ongoing violations.”

On Thursday, Israeli strikes on south Lebanon killed two people, with the Israeli military saying it targeted Hezbollah operatives.