Billboard Arabia launches its website and music charts, creating the ultimate destination to spotlight and discover Arab artists and music

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Updated 14 December 2023
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Billboard Arabia launches its website and music charts, creating the ultimate destination to spotlight and discover Arab artists and music

  • Billboard Arabia aims to bridge the historical gap in the MENA music market infrastructure, fostering greater global recognition for Arab artists
  • Billboard Arabia has launched two global flagship charts, Billboard Arabia Hot 100 and Billboard Arabia Artist 100 for Arab music

RIYADH: Billboard Arabia, a partnership between SRMG and Billboard, has announced the launch of its website and flagship charts, highlighting the transformation taking place in the Arab music industry.

Billboard Arabia will champion Arab artists, providing a new platform to tell their stories and gain worldwide recognition and popularity. This launch aligns with SRMG’s strategy to provide content that meets the demands of audiences and nurtures aspiring talent in the MENA region. It also represents the Group’s dedication to supporting content creators in the Arab world, elevating them onto a global stage. 

This launch comes at a time when the MENA region is recognized as one of the world’s fastest-growing music hubs, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The region’s music industry is set to increase to $670 million by 2027, driven by the region’s talent, with Saudi Arabia leading this growth as a prominent music market in the Middle East. 

The newly launched website will be the go-to source for music enthusiasts to discover Arab artists and their music through insightful reviews of the latest releases, exclusive artist interviews, event coverage, original photography, and special video content – all in one centralized location. Billboard Arabia is focused on delivering timely and evergreen content that celebrates the past, spotlights the present, and inspires the future. The website will also spotlight music legends and emerging stars with iconic digital cover stories, celebrating the diversity of the Arab music landscape. 

Central to Billboard Arabia’s launch are two global flagship charts – the Billboard Arabia Artist 100 and the Billboard Arabia Hot 100 for Arabic music. The Hot 100 showcases the most streamed Arabic songs, featuring Sherine Abdel Wahab's “Kalam Eneih” (1st) and “El Watar Al Hassas” (2nd), Al Shami's “Ya Leil W Yal Ein” (3rd), Ayed’s “Rdy” (4th) and ElGrandeToto's (FT. Hamza) “Dellali” (5th) rounding out the top 5. The Artist 100 highlights the most popular Arab artists, with Sherine Abdel Wahab (1st), ElGrandeToto (2nd), Marwan Pablo (3rd), Amr Diab (4th) and Ahmed Saad (5th) at the top. These weekly charts will be released on the Billboard Arabia website and social media platforms every Thursday.

The Billboard Arabia charts follow the well-established parameters set by Billboard over eight decades, making it the global benchmark for chart compilation. Drawing data from leading digital streaming platforms like Spotify, Anghami, YouTube, and Apple Music, spanning over 200 territories, the charts reflect Arab music preferences globally. Additionally, starting in early 2024, Billboard Arabia will introduce eight genre-specific charts to showcase the diversity of Arab music, including Khaleeji, Egyptian, Magharabi, Levant, Arabic HipHop, Arabic Indie, Shelat, and Mahraganat.  

Billboard Arabia’s weekly charts provide critical structure to the Arab music industry, enabling both established and new artists a platform to reach wider audiences within the region and beyond. For the first time, the Arab music community will have well-defined genres, recognition for its artists, and an essential point of reference – all driven by what fans love and stream. ​

Rami M. Zeidan, Managing Director of Billboard Arabia, said: “This marks an exciting new chapter in the region’s music infrastructure, establishing a centralized platform to spotlight the thriving Arab music scene. By continuing to elevate fan engagement and commemorate the evolution of Arab music, Billboard Arabia is committed to providing both established and new Arab artists and genres access to the global music market. Already, we’ve seen an increasing number of collaborations between Arab stars like Mishaal Tamer, Nancy Arjam, and Myriam Fares with global icons like Marshmello, Nicki Minaj, and Maluma. Billboard Arabia aims to further enhance this with the launch of our website and charts.”  

Mike Van, President of Billboard, stated: “With a rich 130-year history and a focus on blending a passion for music with data-driven insights, Billboard is honoured to play a role in a transforming Arab music scene. Billboard Arabia symbolises the beginning of a new era—one where Arab artists are heard around the world. Our commitment to ensuring artists have a platform to resonate and engage with music fans has always defined Billboard, and we look forward to bringing this same passion to Billboard Arabia.” 

Since launching in June, Billboard Arabia has built an engaging community, bridging the gap between Arab artists and music lovers. In a short period, Billboard Arabia has gained significant traction with nearly 90K followers across its social channels. From established icons like Mohammed Abdo, Elissa, Hiba Tawaji, Carmen Sulaiman and Bader Al Shuaibi, to rising stars such as Bashar Al Shati, Isham Al Najjar, Ali Loka and Abeer Nehme, the Arab music community has expressed their excitement for Billboard Arabia’s launch in the Arab world. Over the next year, Billboard Arabia will introduce more iconic Billboard franchises to the MENA market, including Music Awards, Women in Music, Billboard NxT, The Billboard Stage, Arab Music Week, and much more.


Trump restricts AP access over Gulf of Mexico issue

Updated 59 min 46 sec ago
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Trump restricts AP access over Gulf of Mexico issue

  • Associated Press said it would continue to use the gulf’s established name disregarding the Trump administration’s effort to rebrand it as Gulf of America

LONDON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will block the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One until the news agency stops referring to the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump signed an executive order in January directing the Interior Department to change the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America. The AP, citing editorial standards, said it would continue to use the gulf’s established name.
The White House has kept the AP out of several press pool gatherings during the past week, calling the news agency’s decision divisive and misinformation.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Tuesday in his first public comments on the issue.
The agency has retained access to the White House complex itself.
The AP says in its stylebook that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. As a global news agency, the AP says it will refer to the gulf by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
“This is about the government telling the public and press what words to use and retaliating if they do not follow government orders,” said AP spokesperson Lauren Easton.
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents journalists covering the president, has protested the Trump administration’s actions against the AP.
Most news organizations, including Reuters, continue to call the body of water the Gulf of Mexico, although, where relevant, Reuters style is to include the context about Trump’s executive order.
“Reuters stands with the Associated Press and other media organizations in objecting to coverage restrictions imposed by the White House on the AP, because of the AP’s independent editorial decisions,” Reuters said in a statement on Saturday.


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.