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Asharq News Network Celebrates 3rd Anniversary

Asharq Network expanded its platforms to keep pace with the audience (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Asharq Network expanded its platforms to keep pace with the audience (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Asharq News Network Celebrates 3rd Anniversary

Asharq Network expanded its platforms to keep pace with the audience (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Asharq Network expanded its platforms to keep pace with the audience (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Asharq News Network celebrated this week its third year launching its multiplatform economic news services, including Asharq News and Asharq Business with Bloomberg.

 

The 24/7 multiplatform Arabic news service broadcasts across the Arab world and beyond with news and an in-depth analysis reported through the lens of the economy.

 

The platform was launched in 2020 with an exclusive content agreement with Bloomberg Media, the business and financial information news leader, to broadcast Asharq Business with Bloomberg, airing content daily.

 

On the anniversary, Asharq News General Manager Nabeel al-Khatib said the company witnessed exceptional growth in audience figures from Asharq News and Asharq Business with Bloomberg.

 

"The successful growth is a testament to the quality of Asharq platforms, and the objective is to meet our audience demands by providing the information they need, in the places they want to view, to inform, inspire and empower decision making," Khatib said.
He indicated that the new free-to-view platforms, Asharq Documentary, Asharq Discovery, and Asharq audio offerings, are a natural new phase in the Asharq expansion journey.

 

Asharq News and Asharq Business with Bloomberg are the leading Arabic-language business news providers, appealing to business leaders and a younger generation that understands the importance of global economic, financial, and corporate information.

 

The exclusive content agreement provides access to Bloomberg's extensive financial and economic content, analysis, and market data.

 

The content is delivered through a dedicated television channel and multiple digital platforms, offering continuous insights into the people, events, organizations, and ideas that impact the MENA region and international markets.

 

The platform is unique in its exceptional variety of programs, rich in in-depth and accurate analyses.

 

Popular programs include the first business morning show in the Middle East, ' Assabah Maa Cyba,' 'East Indices,' 'Aswaq Asharq,' 'East-West,' and the 'Evening Session.'

 

Programming also includes two weekly business shows that cover energy and technology topics: 'Taqa Plus' and 'Tech Plus.'

 

Asharq News Network also covers specialized topics on dedicated social media accounts such as Asharq Business Sports, Asharq Business Crypto, Asharq Business Technology, and Asharq Business Green, focusing on climate change, sustainability, and green news and Asharq Bloomberg Businessweek.

 

Asharq News has established itself as a leading Arabic platform for the past three years. It is now the fastest-growing news channel on social media in the MENA region, with 50 million followers across all platforms.

 

Since its launch, the platform has won over 35 global and regional awards.

 

Asharq News is headquartered in Riyadh, with central offices in the Dubai International Financial Center, UAE, and Washington DC, and major hubs and studios in Cairo and Abu Dhabi.

 

It has an extensive network of regional offices and correspondents across key Arab countries and in global capitals and access to the content produced by hundreds of reporters from Bloomberg's network worldwide.

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Varieties

Italy Oyster Farmers Dream of Pearls from Warming Mediterranean 

A pearl oyster called Pinctada radiata is shown next to a farming site in the gulf of poets at La Spezia, Italy, August 29, 2024. (Paolo Varrella/Handout via Reuters) 
A pearl oyster called Pinctada radiata is shown next to a farming site in the gulf of poets at La Spezia, Italy, August 29, 2024. (Paolo Varrella/Handout via Reuters) 
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Italy Oyster Farmers Dream of Pearls from Warming Mediterranean 

A pearl oyster called Pinctada radiata is shown next to a farming site in the gulf of poets at La Spezia, Italy, August 29, 2024. (Paolo Varrella/Handout via Reuters) 
A pearl oyster called Pinctada radiata is shown next to a farming site in the gulf of poets at La Spezia, Italy, August 29, 2024. (Paolo Varrella/Handout via Reuters) 

Pearls may soon be cultivated in European seas for the first time ever, as Italian oyster farmers seek to exploit an unexpected opportunity offered by the rapidly warming Mediterranean.

In late 2023, the first specimens of Pinctada radiata, a pearl oyster native to the Red Sea, were spotted in the Gulf of Poets, a popular tourist area around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Genoa on Italy's north-western coast.

Less than a year later, they are proliferating in what have always been some of the Mediterranean's coldest waters, more normally associated with other types of oyster used for food rather than jewellery.

"We are looking into the possibility of producing cultivated pearls here," said Paolo Varrella, the head of a cooperative that has been breeding food oysters in the area since 2011.

The group has already made contact with pearl oyster farmers in Mexico to get tips on production techniques, Varrella said.

"The Pinctada radiata has been reported in the Ionian Sea around the island of Sicily since the 1970s, but only in the last decade has it moved north" to the cooler Tyrrhenian and Ligurian seas that lap the western Italian mainland, said Salvatore Giacobbe, professor of ecology at the University of Messina.

It is the latest in a succession of alien warm-water species to enter the Mediterranean as it heats up due to climate change.

Manuela Falautano, a scientist at the Italian environmental research and protection institute ISPRA, said this trend had seen "an exponential increase" in the last decade.

Some of these species are aggressive and disrupt delicate ecosystems. In a few cases, such the spotted puffer fish and the scorpion fish, they are also dangerous to humans.

The 2.5 million square kilometer (970,000 square mile) expanse of water that separates southern Europe from Africa and the Middle East is heating up faster than the average of the world's seas, Falautano said.

BIG MONEY

Pearl production, more readily associated with Polynesian atolls than the northern Mediterranean, has an annual global turnover of 11 billion dollars, and Italian oyster farmers are keen to cash in.

Adriano Genisi, a pearl importer for more than 30 years, said the Radiata may produce gems similar to Japan's renowned "Akoya" pearls which have a diameter of 5-9 millimeters and a white color with shades of grey, pink and green.

If all goes well the first pearls could be harvested in about a year, he said.

The rising temperature of the Mediterranean is also blamed for an increase in violent storms such as the one that sank the luxury yacht of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch off Sicily last month, killing six passengers and the boat's cook.

Franco Reseghetti, a researcher at Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, said measurements taken in the Tyrrhenian in December at depths of between 300 and 800 meters showed the highest temperatures since 2013, and he expected to see a further increase this year.

"The huge amount of energy behind this heating can act as a fuel for devastating atmospheric phenomena" such as the violent storm which appeared to have sunk the yacht off Sicily, Reseghetti said.