News

Disney+ Confirms Its Middle East Launch Date

With a single Disney+ subscription, subscribers can watch films and television series on up to 4 devices at the same time and create profiles for up to 7 people.

Published

4 years ago

March 31, 2022

David Morelo

disney+ confirms its middle east launch date

Disney+, a video streaming service owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company, has just confirmed its Middle East launch date: June 8th.

In the UAE, the service will cost 29.99 AED a month or 298.99 AED a year. Disney+ subscribers can access a large library of content produced by The Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Television, including original films and television series.

disney+ middle east

“Subscribers will have access to Star Wars’ The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian from executive producer and writer Jon Favreau,” Disney+ highlights some of its content. “Subscribers will also be able to enjoy Disney and Pixar’s Academy Award-nominated Luca and from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Academy Award-winning Encanto.”

With a single Disney+ subscription, subscribers can watch films and television series on up to four devices at the same time and create profiles for up to seven people. Parents can create special kid-friendly profiles for the youngest family members to enable a child-friendly user interface and restrict access to potentially inappropriate content.

Also Read: 4 Smartphones Coming To The Middle East This Spring

Disney+ started in 2019 in the United States, Canada, and several other countries. The service has been steadily expanding to other markets since then.

All countries (and price guide) where Disney+ is launching on June 8th:

disney+ middle east north africa prices

As of January 2022, Disney+ has around 130 million global subscribers, making it the third-largest video streaming service in the world, after Netflix (222 million) and Amazon Primo Video (175 million).

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.