OSN signs new content agreement with Endeavor Content

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Updated 21 February 2022
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OSN signs new content agreement with Endeavor Content

  • Deal includes new content from HBO Max, Hulu and Peacock

DUBAI: OSN has expanded its partnership with US-based Endeavor Content, the company behind shows such as “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “Sorry for Your Loss.”

The extended agreement will have OSN adding new content to its library including the romantic comedy “Wolf Like Me,” HBO Max crime series “Tokyo Vice,” Sally Rooney’s “Conversations with Friends,” the drama series “Tell Me Your Secrets,” and the fourth and final season — as well as previous seasons — of “Killing Eve.”

“We are excited to extend our relationship with OSN with this slate of new, original and best-in-category titles that showcase dynamic storytelling with an international appeal,” said Prentiss Fraser, executive vice president of TV Distribution at Endeavor Content, in a statement.

Recently, OSN also expanded its slate of NBCUniversal television content, which will see the entertainment hub exclusively premiering more shows and films this year than ever before.

Nick Forward, managing director for streaming and chief content officer at OSN, said: “Endeavor Content has one of the most exciting slates in the business, working with some of the world’s most extraordinary creative voices. We couldn’t be more excited to expand on our partnership to bring some of 2022’s most anticipated shows exclusively to OSN subscribers in the Middle East.”

d.“In addition to an incredible line-up from Warner Bros and HBO, this deal is yet another step toward bringing the very best of TV entertainment to OSN’s customers,” he said.


France tries five for kidnapping journalists in Syria

Updated 17 February 2025
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France tries five for kidnapping journalists in Syria

  • They were charged with holding four French journalists hostage for Daesh in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago
  • The journalists were held by Daesh in Aleppo for 10 months until their release in April 2014

PARIS: Five men went on trial in France on Monday charged with holding four French journalists hostage for Daesh in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago.

Daesh emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

The militants kidnapped a number of foreign journalists and aid workers before US-backed forces eventually defeated the group in 2019.

Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013.

The journalists were held by Daesh in Aleppo for 10 months until their release in April 2014.

They were found blindfolded with their hands bound in the no-man’s land straddling the border between Syria and Turkiye.

More than a decade later, jailed militant Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, is among five men accused of their kidnapping at a trial to last until March 21.

Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a Jewish museum in May 2014, after returning from Syria.

“I was never the jailer of the Western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” Nemmouche told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.

All four journalists told investigators they were sure Nemmouche was their jailer.

Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche, then called Abu Omar, punching him in the face and terrorizing Syrian detainees. He described him as “a self-centered fantasist.”

Also in the dock are Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, who has already been sentenced in France for heading to fight in Syria in 2012, and a 41-year-old Syrian called Kais Al-Abdallah, accused of facilitating Henin’s kidnapping. Both have denied the charges.

Belgian militant Oussama Atar, a senior Daesh commander, is being tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017. He has already been sentenced to life over attacks in Paris in 2015 claimed by Daesh that killed 130 people, and Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.

French Daesh member Salim Benghalem, who was allegedly in charge of the hostages, is also on trial though believed to be dead.


West Bank booksellers say arrests reflect intensifying Israeli crackdown on Palestinian culture

Updated 15 February 2025
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West Bank booksellers say arrests reflect intensifying Israeli crackdown on Palestinian culture

  • Mahmoud Muna and his nephew Ahmed were arrested on Sunday after Israeli police raided the family-owned bookshops on accusation of selling books that supported terrorism
  • “Case is not isolated event, but part of series of attack against Palestinian cultural institutions,” Mahmoud said

LONDON: Two booksellers from the West Bank, recently arrested by Israeli police, say their detention is part of an escalating effort by Israeli authorities to suppress Palestinian culture.

In an interview with The Guardian, Mahmoud Muna and his nephew Ahmed, whose family has owned the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem for more than 40 years, described the raid on their store as part of a broader campaign to stifle Palestinian identity and free expression.

“We should not look at this as an isolated event,” Mahmoud said. “There have been a series of attacks on cultural institutions in Jerusalem and beyond. I think there is an awareness in the Israeli establishment that cultural institutions are playing a role in galvanising and protecting Palestinian cultural identity.”

The raid occurred last Sunday when plainclothes officers entered two branches of the bookshop on Salah Eddin Street — one specializing in Arabic books, the other in English and foreign-language publications. Mahmoud and Ahmed were arrested and detained for two days.

Israeli police accused the men of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism,” claiming officers found materials with “nationalist Palestinian themes,” including a children’s coloring book that contained the Israeli-contested sentence “From the river to the sea.”

The two men said that police confiscated about 300 books for examination, but all were eventually returned except for eight, including the coloring book, which they said had been sent for review and was not on sale.

After appearing in Jerusalem Magistrates Court on Monday, the charges against them were downgraded to a public order offense, but they were ordered to spend another 24 hours in detention, followed by five days of house arrest.

Their arrest sparked international condemnation, with journalists and diplomats closely following the case. In Israel, the incident also drew criticism, with journalist Noa Simone calling the raid a “fascist act” that “evokes frightening historical associations with which every Jew is very familiar.”

Recalling their time in detention, the booksellers described the conditions as “simply unfit for a human to live in.” They said they were held in overcrowded, windowless cells without heating, forced to sleep on mats on a concrete floor in near-freezing temperatures — treatment they likened to psychological torture.

While their experience was harsh, they acknowledged that their situation could have been far worse without international attention and support.

“If we were not working in a bookstore with an international outreach with good international connections, what would have happened?” Mahmoud asked. “Probably the case would have been manipulated against us.”

He also warned of the broader implications of their arrest. “The question is how far are they going to go? If they’re attacking Palestinian bookstores now, they will be attacking Israeli bookstores next.”


Bristling at ‘Gulf of Mexico’ name change on maps, Mexico threatens to sue Google

Updated 14 February 2025
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Bristling at ‘Gulf of Mexico’ name change on maps, Mexico threatens to sue Google

  • After assuming office as US president, Donald Trump declared that he was changing the name Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
  • Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the name Gulf of Mexico dates back to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations
  • Google has said that it maintains a “long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources”

MEXICO CITY: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that her government wouldn’t rule out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it maintains its stance of calling the stretch of sea between northeastern Mexico and the southeastern United States the “Gulf of America.”
The area, long named the Gulf of Mexico across the the world, has gained a geopolitical spotlight after President Donald Trump declared he would change the Gulf’s name.
Sheinbaum, in her morning news conference, said the president’s decree is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the Gulf. “We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
Sheinbaum said that despite the fact that her government sent a letter to Google saying that the company was “wrong” and that “the entire Gulf of Mexico cannot be called the Gulf of America,” the company has insisted on maintaining the nomenclature.
It was not immediately clear where such a suit would be filed.
Google reported last month on its X account, formerly Twitter, that it maintains a “long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
As of Thursday, how the Gulf appeared on Google Maps was dependent on the user’s location and other data. If the user is in the United States, the body of water appeared as Gulf of America. If the user was physically in Mexico, it would appear as the Gulf of Mexico. In many other countries across the world it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
Sheinbaum has repeatedly defended the name Gulf of Mexico, saying its use dates to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations.
She has also mentioned that, according to the constitution of Apatzingán, the antecedent to Mexico’s first constitution, the North American territory was previously identified as “Mexican America”. Sheinbaum has used the example to poke fun at Trump and underscore the international implications of changing the Gulf’s name.
In that sense, Sheinbaum said on Thursday that the Mexican government would ask Google to make “Mexican America” pop up on the map when searched.
This is not the first time Mexicans and Americans have disagreed on the names of key geographic areas, such as the border river between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Mexico calls it Rio Bravo and for the United States it is the Rio Grande.
This week, the White House barred Associated Press reporters from several events, including some in the Oval Office, saying it was because of the news agency’s policy on the name. AP is using “Gulf of Mexico” but also acknowledging Trump’s renaming of it as well, to ensure that names of geographical features are recognizable around the world.

 


124 journalists killed, most by Israel, in deadliest year for reporters

Updated 13 February 2025
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124 journalists killed, most by Israel, in deadliest year for reporters

  • The uptick in killings marks a 22 percent increase over 2023
  • Journalists murdered across 18 different countries, including Palestine's Gaza, Sudan and Pakistan

NEW YORK: Last year was the deadliest for journalists in recent history, with at least 124 reporters killed — and Israel responsible for nearly 70 percent of that total, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Wednesday.
The uptick in killings, which marks a 22 percent increase over 2023, reflects “surging levels of international conflict, political unrest and criminality worldwide,” the CPJ said.
It was the deadliest year for reporters and media workers since CPJ began keeping records more than three decades ago, with journalists murdered across 18 different countries, it said.
A total of 85 journalists died in the Israeli-Hamas war, “all at the hands of the Israeli military,” the CPJ said, adding that 82 of them were Palestinians.
Sudan and Pakistan recorded the second highest number of journalists and media workers killed, with six each.
In Mexico, which has a reputation as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters, five were killed, with CPJ reporting it had found “persistent flaws” in Mexico’s mechanisms for protecting journalists.
And in Haiti, where two reporters were murdered, widespread violence and political instability have sown so much chaos that “gangs now openly claim responsibility for journalist killings,” the report said.
Other deaths took place in countries such as Myanmar, Mozambique, India and Iraq.
“Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history,” said the group’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
“The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists,” she said.
CPJ, which has kept records on journalist killings since 1992, said that 24 of the reporters were deliberately killed because of their work in 2024.
Freelancers, the report said, were among the most vulnerable because of their lack of resources, and accounted for 43 of the killings in 2024.
The year 2025 is not looking more promising, with six journalists already killed in the first weeks of the year, CPJ said.


Roblox CEO announces Arabic version at World Governments Summit

Updated 12 February 2025
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Roblox CEO announces Arabic version at World Governments Summit

DUBAI: Roblox CEO David Baszucki announced an Arabic version of the hit game platform during the World Governments Summit on Wednesday.

Baszucki said that the new feature enabled Arabic-speaking creators to reach audiences instantly all over the world.

Through the move, everything on the platform will be available in Arabic.

“Today, we launched worldwide in Arabic, everything on Roblox: Roblox Studio, the Roblox app, automatic translation. Anyone who’s building a Roblox experience in Arabic, it will automatically translate into languages around the world,” he said.

Roblox, an online game platform and game creation system, has more than 88.9 million daily active users.

Many brands use the platform to promote their products, from cosmetics to high-end luxury goods.

“Brands are using our platforms to build 3D experiences to help promote their brands — everything from e.l.f. Beauty to Lamborghini,” he added.

“We have been growing consistently for 18 years now, over 20 percent year on year.”

In the past, the gaming platform faced criticism over safety concerns regarding children on the platform. In 2018, it was banned for several years in the UAE for exposing children to swearing, violence and sexually explicit content.

Baszucki said that child safety is a major concern for the company and that Roblox is utilizing AI technology to ensure a safe gaming experience for users.

“AI is getting so good and evolving so quickly. We have over 200 AI systems on Roblox. We are clear that we are looking at everything on the platform for safety and stability. We are so into the notion of online safety — it’s a top priority,” he said.