UAE and Saudi Arabia lead Arab nations in 2022 Global Soft Power Index

Expo 2020 Dubai has been hailed as a model of soft power. (Shutterstock)
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Updated 17 March 2022
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UAE and Saudi Arabia lead Arab nations in 2022 Global Soft Power Index

  • Saudi Arabia comes in second place among Arab states, making notable improvement in its Global Soft Power Index score
  • By embracing innovations and sound business practices, 13 MENA countries featured in the 2022 Brand Finance Global index

LONDON: The UAE and Saudi Arabia have emerged as the leading Arab nations in the 2022 Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index, which was inaugurated at the Global Soft Power Summit in London on Tuesday.

Soft power practitioners and researchers came together at the forum to launch the Global Soft Power Index, the world’s most comprehensive study on perceptions of nations as brands.

Of the 13 Arab countries featured in this year’s index, the UAE ranked 15th, the highest position for any nation brand in the Middle East and North Africa.

Saudi Arabia came second among Arab nations with a global ranking of 24, maintaining last year’s position, but with a notable improvement in its index score, which climbed to 47.1 out of 100.




Saudi Arabia came second among Arab nations with a global ranking of 24, maintaining last year’s position. (Supplied)

Globally, the US bounced back to first place this year, recovering from a major deterioration in its public perception in late 2020 and 2021, while the UK also moved up to second after overcoming the the fallout from COVID-19 and the Brexit debate.

According to Andrew Campbell, managing director of Brand Finance Middle East, the new rankings show that Saudi brands are growing and leading right across the Middle East.

“Each of the major Saudi brands is working toward Vision 2030 in its respective sector, recording impressive growth,” he told Arab News.

“Ma’aden is the fastest-growing brand in the entire region and Saudi brands across different industries are making their mark. These include Saudia Airlines, the Middle East’s fastest-growing airline brand this year.”

Indeed, Saudi Arabia has made soft power and nation branding key priorities in its Vision 2030 social and economic reform agenda.
 




King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) is a key international aid brand. (SPA)

The Kingdom is considered the center of the Arab, Islamic and international energy world, imbued with a rich history and culture. By promoting these qualities, it has used soft power as part of its foreign policy strategy for many years.

Meanwhile, in the UAE, exhibitions such as Expo 2020 Dubai have been used to cement the country’s role as a global soft power, and as a tool to connect nations and build bridges through innovation and inspiration.

Speaking at the Global Soft Power Summit, Sarah bint Yousef Al-Amiri, UAE minister for advanced technology and chair of the UAE Space Agency, said that her country claimed its place in the index by embracing change.

“It’s not by chance that the UAE is the strongest from a soft power perspective in the Middle East and North Africa. It is due to complete dedication and evolution, and embracing change and embracing innovation.”

The UAE also recognizes “the importance of leading, not by dictating what is right and wrong, and what form of governance is right and wrong,” she said.

Instead, it leads by “demonstrating how you create opportunities, leading by demonstrating how you create change, leading by demonstrating how you build growth within your own nation.”

Index scores were determined through a range of metrics across seven fields: Business and trade, governance, international relations, culture and heritage, media and communication, education and science, and people and values.

The Brand Finance Index also added a special metric to measure how nations responded to the challenges of COVID-19.

Soft power, a term coined by US political scientist Joseph Nye in 1990, is defined as the ability to obtain preferred outcomes by attraction rather than through coercion or payment.
 

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Nye argued that there is an alternative tool of foreign policy for states to win the support of others. Instead of the traditional hard power approach, which relies on military and economic means, soft power, achieved through shared values and norms, can be utilized to appeal to states rather than coerce them.

“Soft power will reduce some of the future needs for hard power and, ultimately, should lead to more peace and prosperity,” Scott McDonald, CEO of the British Council, told the London summit in his opening remarks.




The Global Soft Power Summit was held in London on March 15, 2022. (Supplied)

According to the 2022 Global Soft Power Index, the UAE performed best on the business and trade pillar, ranking among the top 10 globally. It came fourth for being “easy to do business in and with,” and ranked eighth for being a “strong and stable economy.”

Performing well on a variety of other metrics, the UAE made the most rapid improvement this year in education and science. The UAE’s focus on high-tech industries and its leap into space exploration with the Emirates Mars Mission are likely to have influenced its score in this field.

“Innovation for us is not a choice,” Al-Amiri told Arab News. “It is actually an imperative mechanism of development, just by the fact that five decades ago, we didn’t have access to basic education, basic infrastructure, or any of the ways of modern life that we have today.”

In that time, the UAE has “transitioned from a country that has focused entirely on building infrastructure, because that didn’t exist, to a nation that is building what I call the intangible infrastructure that is based on talent and on the utilization of science and technology, that utilizes research and development as the engine of economic growth and sustained economic growth,” she added.

The UAE is also emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger than before, with its trade and investment accomplishments underscored by the success of Expo 2020 Dubai.

However, embracing change and innovation does not mean the UAE has lost sight of its authentic character. Instead, the nation has allowed its identity to develop in tandem with its economic diversification.




Brands such as Saudia Airlines have played a role in building Saudi Arabia’s national brand. (Supplied)

“We have no problem looking retrospectively with regards to culture, with regards to values, understanding what works, understanding what needs to continue to evolve and develop it moving forward,” Al-Amiri said.

“We are about understanding and appreciating the differences between people. Legislations are there, but never set in stone.”

Besides the UAE and Saudi Arabia, 11 other Arab nations were included in this year’s Global Soft Power Index.

Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, and Morocco ranked third, fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, followed by Oman, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon and Iraq ranked from seventh to 13th.


Getty Images, Shutterstock gear up for AI challenge with $3.7bn merger

Updated 32 min 42 sec ago
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Getty Images, Shutterstock gear up for AI challenge with $3.7bn merger

  • Deal faces potential antitrust scrutiny
  • Merger aims to cut costs and unlock new revenue streams as companies grapple with the rise of generative AI tools

LONDON: Getty Images said on Tuesday it would merge with rival Shutterstock to create a $3.7 billion stock-image powerhouse geared for the artificial intelligence era, in a deal likely to draw antitrust scrutiny.
The companies, two of the largest players in the licensed visual content industry, are betting that the combination will help them cut costs and grow their business by unlocking more revenue opportunities at a time when the growing use of generative AI tools such as Midjourney poses a threat to the industry.
Shutterstock shareholders can opt to receive either $28.80 per share in cash, or 13.67 shares of Getty, or a combination of 9.17 shares of Getty and $9.50 in cash for each Shutterstock share they own. The offer represents a deal value of more than $1 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Shutterstock’s shares jumped 22.7 percent, while Getty was up 39.7 percent. Stocks of both companies have declined for at least the past four years, as the rising use of mobile cameras drives down demand for stock photography.
Getty CEO Craig Peters will lead the combined company, which will have annual revenues of nearly $2 billion and stands to benefit from Getty’s large library of visual content and the strong community on Shutterstock’s platform.
Peters downplayed the impact of AI on Tuesday and said that he was confident the merger would receive antitrust approval both in the United States and Europe.
“We don’t control the timing of (the approval), but we have a high confidence. This has been a situation where customers have not had choice. They’ve always had choice,” he said.
Some experts say US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division signal that there would be little change to the tough scrutiny that has come to define the regulator in recent years.
“With Gail Slater at the helm, the antitrust division is going to be a lot more aggressive under this Trump administration than it was under the first one,” said John Newman, professor of law at the University of Miami.
Regulators will examine how the deal impacts the old-school business model of selling images to legacy media customers, as well as the new business model of offering copyright-compliant generative-AI applications to the public.
The deal is expected to generate up to $200 million in cost savings three years after its close. Getty investors will own about 54.7 percent of the combined company, while Shutterstock stockholders will own the rest.
Getty competes with Reuters and the Associated Press in providing photos and videos for editorial use.


Israel extends closure of Al Jazeera’s West Bank office

Updated 07 January 2025
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Israel extends closure of Al Jazeera’s West Bank office

  • Israel suspended Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office for 45 days in September on charges of “incitement to and support for terrorism”
  • Announcement comes days after Palestinian Authority also suspended the network’s broadcasts for four months

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli authorities renewed a closure order for Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, days after the Palestinian Authority suspended the network’s broadcasts for four months.
An AFP journalist reported that Israeli soldiers posted the extension order Tuesday morning on the entrance of the building housing Al Jazeera’s offices in central Ramallah, a city under full Palestinian Authority security control.
The extension applies from December 22 and lasts 45 days.
In September, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah office and issued an initial 45-day closure order.
At the time, staff were instructed to leave the premises and take their personal belongings.
The move came months after Israel’s government approved a decision in May to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel, also closing its offices for an initial 45-day period, which was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court in September.
Later in September, Israel’s government announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has long been at odds with Al Jazeera, a dispute that has escalated since the Gaza war began following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7.
The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the network’s reporters in Gaza of being “terrorist operatives” affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
The Qatari channel denies the accusations, and says Israel systematically targets its staff in Gaza.


Meta replaces fact-checking with X-style community notes

Updated 07 January 2025
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Meta replaces fact-checking with X-style community notes

  • Meta cited bias and excessive content reviews as key factor in ending fact-checking program
  • The social media company also announced plans to allow “more speech” by easing restrictions on discussions of mainstream topics like immigration and gender

LONDON: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said Tuesday it’s scrapping its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with a Community Notes program written by users similar to the model used by Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Starting in the US, Meta will end its fact-checking program with independent third parties. The company said it decided to end the program because expert fact checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being fact checked.
Instead, it will pivot to a Community Notes model that uses crowdsourced fact-checking contributions from users.
“We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context,” Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in a blog post.
The social media company also said it plans to allow “more speech” by lifting some restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discussion in order to focus on illegal and “high severity violations” like terrorism, child sexual exploitation and drugs.
Meta said that its approach of building complex systems to manage content on its platforms has “gone too far” and has made “too many mistakes” by censoring too much content.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the changes are in part sparked by political events including Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in an online video.
Meta’s quasi-independent Oversight Board, which was set up to act as a referee on controversial content decisions, said it welcomed the changes and looked forward to working with the company “to understand the changes in greater detail, ensuring its new approach can be as effective and speech-friendly as possible.”


India press watchdog demands journalist murder probe

Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar. (Supplied)
Updated 06 January 2025
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India press watchdog demands journalist murder probe

  • Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing

NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation after a journalist’s battered body was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction.”
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected murder of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late Saturday.
Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.
Three people have been arrested.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India was ranked 159 last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
 

 


Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

Updated 05 January 2025
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Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

  • Ann Telnaes said that she’s never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press
  • Wapo exec says the cartoon was rejected only to avoid repetition, because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon

A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump.
Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations.
Telnaes said that she’s never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement Saturday accusing the Post of “political cowardice” and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes’ sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity.
“Tyranny ends at pen point,” the association said. “It thrives in the dark, and the Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer.”
The Post’s communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor. Shipley said in the statement that he disagrees with Telnaes’ “interpretation of events.”
He said he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another.
“Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force. ... The only bias was against repetition,” Shipley said.