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SRMG Launches Asharq News

SRMG Launches Asharq News
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SRMG Launches Asharq News

SRMG Launches Asharq News

The Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG) has announced the launch of Asharq News, a multiplatform Arabic-language news service that will provide 24/7 coverage across the Arab world and beyond with a focus on regional and global economic affairs.

Asharq News will present technology-enabled content in multiple formats and leverage cutting-edge tech in its delivery.

An exclusive content agreement between SRMG and Bloomberg Media will power a key component of the channel, Asharq Business with Bloomberg, that draws on Bloomberg’s comprehensive coverage from more than 2,700 journalists and analysts globally.

The services will expand to include an Arabic edition of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

Commenting on the event, Jumana Al-Rashed, CEO of SRMG, said the launch of Asharq News marks a new and exciting phase for the Arab media landscape.

"We are witnessing an unprecedented pace of change worldwide and keeping up to date with this change means recognizing the power of information and forging partnerships to harness that power,” she noted, adding: "SRMG and Bloomberg bring together the best of both worlds: the in-depth market knowledge of SRMG and Bloomberg’s rigorous, data-driven reporting.We are confident that through this collaboration, Asharq News will set new standards for business news delivery to Arabic-speaking viewers.”

For his part, CEO of Bloomberg Media Group Justin Smith stressed that the Middle East is home to many dynamic economies and business communities.

"Collaborating on Asharq Business with Bloomberg will allow us to deliver the best of Bloomberg’s insights and analysis to a new audience of business decision-makers across the Arab world.”

Also, Arif Amiri, CEO of DIFC Authority welcomed the launch of Asharq News to the Center, saying: "Being part of DIFC will provide Asharq News with access to the largest financial ecosystem in the region, allowing it to report news reflecting the important global economic, financial and corporate information being generated by our clients.”

Asharq News will offer its artificial intelligence-powered digital services via two websites.

The first is dedicated to business news in collaboration with Bloomberg Media, while the second features general news and in-depth analysis.

Remarkably, the AI integration allows readers to access content that matches their interests. Also, both portals are linked to content-rich social media accounts.

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Varieties

Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
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Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.