News

Anghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog

The streaming platform is packaging entire careers rather than single releases, and Egyptian singer Angham is its first test case.

Published

1 month ago

August 19, 2026

Nour Nasir

Anghami

Streaming services have spent years optimizing for what’s new: the latest single, the newest playlist, the algorithmic nudge toward whatever dropped this week. Anghami is betting there is also an audience for the long view. The platform, which bills itself as the leading music and entertainment streaming service in the Middle East and North Africa, announced Anghami Elite today, a flagship program built around artists whose influence is measured in decades rather than chart weeks.

The first edition is dedicated to Angham, represented by Believe Artist Services. Across a career spanning more than three decades, the Egyptian singer has built a catalog that has resonated with generations of listeners across the region, and her latest EP, De Rohy, sits at the center of the launch.

Each Elite edition is designed to gather exclusive content, curated listening experiences and fan-focused activations, tracing an artist’s creative journey alongside their cultural impact. For Angham, that means personal stories from across her career, listening built around the songs that defined different chapters of it, and what Anghami calls special fan moments.

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“It is always a pleasure to connect with my audience, whether through my music, on stage, or through meaningful partnerships and initiatives that allow me to share a different part of myself with them,” Angham said. “This initiative gives me another beautiful opportunity to celebrate that connection and to share De Rohy in a new and personal way”.

Salam Kmeid, Head of Music Marketing at Anghami, cast the program as a matter of scope. “Anghami Elite is about giving artists of this calibre a platform that celebrates the full breadth of what they have created and the impact they continue to have,” Kmeid said. “It is also an opportunity for audiences to reconnect with their music in new ways, while introducing their work to new generations of listeners”.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

5 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

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The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.