Amr Diab Celebrates Qatar’s World Cup with Fans in Live Concert

View of the main ticket center for Qatar's FIFA football World
Cup, with a mural of its mascot "La'eeb", in the capital Doha on
October 16, 2022. Credit: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
View of the main ticket center for Qatar's FIFA football World Cup, with a mural of its mascot "La'eeb", in the capital Doha on October 16, 2022. Credit: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
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Amr Diab Celebrates Qatar’s World Cup with Fans in Live Concert

View of the main ticket center for Qatar's FIFA football World
Cup, with a mural of its mascot "La'eeb", in the capital Doha on
October 16, 2022. Credit: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
View of the main ticket center for Qatar's FIFA football World Cup, with a mural of its mascot "La'eeb", in the capital Doha on October 16, 2022. Credit: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP

Egyptian star Amr Diab performed a huge concert in Qatar’s Lusail Shooting Complex, on the sidelines of the World Cup that runs until December 18.

The concert was attended by a big number of Egyptians and Arabs, including Saudis, Tunisians, and Moroccans, who came to Qatar to attend the world cup.

Amr Diab took the stage with his song “Ya Ana Ya Laa”, and performed other popular hits including “Amarein”, “Leily Nhari”, and “Tamalli Maak”.

The Egyptian singer congratulated the Saudi fans attending his concert on the historic triumph of their national football team against Argentina (2-0), wishing them more victory in their games against Poland and Mexico.

Diab has also congratulated Saudi Arabia on Twitter, writing “Congratulation to the heroes of Saudi Arabia,” and shared a photo featuring some on the team’s best players including Mohammed Alowais and Salem Aldawsari.

During the game, Amr Diab took a picture with FIFA executives including Hany Abo Rida, member of the FIFA Council and former president of Egyptian Football Association, Fatma Samoura, secretary-general of FIFA, and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Thani, president of Qatar Football Association.

Diab has recently recorded his new songs which will be released in early 2023. Poet and composer Ayman Bahgat Kamar told Asharq Al-Awsat that he will be collaborating with Amr Diab and composers Walid Saad and Aziz al-Safei in three new songs.

Amr Diab is also set to take part in the MDLBEAST Festival in Riyadh on December 2, with Salvatore Ganacci, a Bosnian-Swedish D.J. and CD producer. The festival will also host other Arab artists including Saudi Rabeh Sager, Egyptian Mohamed Hamaki and Mohammed Ramadan, as well as Nancy Ajram and Miriam Fares from Lebanon.

Amr Diab recently visited the Merwas Studios in Saudi Arabia, and met with Adviser Turki Al-Sheikh, chairman of General Authority for Entertainment.

Nada Al-Tuwaijri, CEO of Merwas, revealed some details about the meeting, noting that “the Egyptian star promised her to record the songs of his new album in Merwas Studios.”



What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
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What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)

A rare New Zealand snail has been filmed for the first time squeezing an egg from its neck, delighting scientists trying to save the critically endangered meat-eating mollusk.

Threatened by coal mining in New Zealand's South Island, a small population of the Mount Augustus snail was transplanted from its forest habitat almost 20 years ago to live in chilled containers tended by humans.

Little is known about the reproduction of the shellbound critters, which can grow so large that New Zealand's conservation department calls them "giants of the snail world".

A conservation ranger said she was gobsmacked to witness a captive snail laying an egg from its neck -- a reproductive act well documented in other land snails but never filmed for this species.

"It's remarkable that in all the time we've spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we've seen one lay an egg," conservation ranger Lisa Flanagan said this week.

"We caught the action when we were weighing the snail. We turned it over to be weighed and saw the egg just starting to emerge from the snail."

Conservation department scientist Kath Walker said hard shells made it difficult to mate -- so some snails instead evolved a special "genital pore" under their head.

The Mount Augustus snail "only needs to peek out of its shell to do the business," she said.

The long-lived snails can grow to the size of a golf ball and their eggs can take more than a year to hatch.

They eat earthworms, according to New Zealand's conservation department, which they slurp up "like we eat spaghetti".

Conservation efforts suffered a drastic setback in 2011, when a faulty temperature gauge froze 800 Mount Augustus snails to death inside their climate-controlled containers.

Fewer than 2,000 snails currently live in captivity, while small populations have been re-established in the New Zealand wild.