This is Beirut, 19:55 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Music AI Growth Britain Culture
Britain's music industry contributed £8 billion ($10.5 billion) to the UK economy in 2024, but the effects of Brexit and AI have clouded the sector's outlook, an industry report showed Wednesday. UK tours by Taylor Swift and Take That helped lift the industry's contribution to the UK economy last year, according to the annual report from UK ...
This is Beirut, 14:00 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Cinema Beirut Film Culture UK Metropolis
Beirut welcomes a new landmark cultural event this November: Intersections – The UK Film Festival in Lebanon, a major collaboration between the British Council, the British Embassy in Beirut, and the Metropolis Cinema Association, supported by the UK Government’s Great Britain and Northern Ireland Campaign. Running from 13 to 19 November 2025 ...
This is Beirut, 10:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
AI Music Singer Country Culture Art
An artist suspected of being virtual, with a voice generated by Artificial Intelligence, has reached the top of one of the most popular country-music download charts in the United States, marking a first. Walk My Walk, by Breaking Rust, an act with no known identity, is now the most downloaded country track, according to the data published on ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 18:10 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Music AI Copyright Court Germany US Culture
OpenAI has infringed copyright law in Germany by using song lyrics to train its artificial intelligence models, a court in Munich ruled on Tuesday. "Both the memorization in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright law," the court ruled in a case brought by the ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 14:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Museum Art Theft Ancient Artifacts Heritage Syria Culture
Thieves made off with several ancient gold ingots from Syria's national museum in Damascus, a security source and another close to the institution's management said Tuesday. The museum was spared during Syria's destructive civil war that ran from 2011 to late last year and houses priceless artifacts dating back to antiquity. The robbery took ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 13:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Demon Slayer Tokyo US Culture Cinema Art
Shares in Japanese giant Sony jumped more than five percent Tuesday after it hiked full-year profit forecasts thanks to the latest Demon Slayer anime blockbuster. The company also attributed the improved forecasts to higher expected sales of its PlayStation console and a smaller-than-anticipated impact from US tariffs. For the 2025-26 financial ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 12:50 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Film Obituary Homayoun Ershadi Iran Culture
Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi died at 78 on Tuesday after a battle with cancer, state news agency IRNA reported. Ershadi rose to international fame with his breakout role in the late Abbas Kiarostami's Palme d'Or-winning Taste of Cherry (1997), which tells the story of a hopeless man looking for someone to bury him after his planned ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 11:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Netflix US Film Culture Art Park
Pretending to be a pirate in an immersive game inspired by the manga One Piece, or wandering through a carnival hosted by Wednesday Addams, is now part of the experience offered inside Netflix’s first theme parks in the United States. For its first “Netflix House,” opening Wednesday, the American streaming giant chose one of the country’s ...
This is Beirut, 11/11 10:20 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Booker Prize David Szalay Literature Culture Art Novel
British-Hungarian writer David Szalay won the Booker Prize on Monday for his novel Flesh, a tortured story of a Hungarian emigre who makes and loses a fortune. Szalay beat five other shortlisted authors, including Indian novelist Kiran Desai, who won in 2006, and Britain's Andrew Miller, to claim the £50,000 ($65,500) award at a ceremony in ...
Marie-Christine Tayah, 10/11 18:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Sabah Music Lebanon Culture Art Heritage
Sabah, born Jeanette Georges Feghali in 1925 in the hilltop village of Bdadoun near Wadi Chahrour—the mysterious “Valley of the Blackbird”—was destined for artistry. Poetry ran in her family; her uncle, Anis Feghali, earned the nickname Shahrour El Wadi for his mastery of the traditional Arabic poetic form, zajal. Jeanette inherited this ...
This is Beirut, 10/11 17:35 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Painter Erik Bulatov Obituary Contemporary Art Russia Culture
Erik Bulatov, a pillar of Russia's contemporary art scene known for works mocking Soviet propaganda, has died in Paris at the age of 92, the Russian Academy of Fine Arts told AFP Monday. Bulatov was best known as one of the creators of the Sots Art movement that made use of Soviet slogans and shot him to fame in the final years of the USSR. "One ...
This is Beirut, 10/11 16:30 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Literature Boualem Sansal Health Germany Algeria Culture
Steinmeier's office said he had asked Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to pardon Sansal as "a humanitarian gesture." "Given Sansal's advanced age and fragile health condition," Steinmeier also "offered Sansal's relocation to Germany and subsequent medical care in our country." A pardon for Sansal ...