Elyanna performed the song We Pray along with British band Coldplay on Saturday. Photo: Saturday Night Live / NBC
Elyanna performed the song We Pray along with British band Coldplay on Saturday. Photo: Saturday Night Live / NBC
Elyanna performed the song We Pray along with British band Coldplay on Saturday. Photo: Saturday Night Live / NBC
Elyanna performed the song We Pray along with British band Coldplay on Saturday. Photo: Saturday Night Live / NBC

Palestinian singer Elyanna makes surprise Saturday Night Live debut with Coldplay ahead of Abu Dhabi shows


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Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna recently made her debut on Saturday Night Live, joining frequent collaborators Coldplay on stage to sing their new song, We Pray.

Argentine singer and actress Tini, also a featured artist on the track, joined Elyanna and Chris Martin for the live performance too. The British band also sang All My Love. Both songs are part of the band's new album Moon Music, which was released on Friday.

The television appearance comes just days after Elyanna, 22, also appeared at iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas to perform the same song. While the official track, which also features rapper Little Simz and Nigerian singer Burna Boy, was originally released in English, the singer released her own Arabic-language version of the song on September 20.

In previous performances, Elyanna often dedicates the anthemic track to Palestine. In an Instagram post in August, after performing We Pray at a Coldplay concert in Dublin, she wrote: “I sang We Pray in Arabic. I sang for hope, and most importantly for my hometown Palestine! I pray for my people. I’m proud to represent our culture everywhere!”

Elyanna performs onstage with Chris Martin of Coldplay during the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival. AFP
Elyanna performs onstage with Chris Martin of Coldplay during the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival. AFP

The performances are sure to stir excitement for the Abu Dhabi leg of Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour in January, for which Elyanna will serve as opening act. A record run of four shows is on schedule at Zayed Sports City Stadium.

Elyanna has often championed Palestine in her music. In April, she made her US television debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, proudly wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh headscarf against vivid projections of Arabic poetry.

She also made headlines last year when she sang in Arabic at the popular music festival Coachella in California, at one point waving a keffiyeh on stage.

Coldplay has also shown support for Palestine amid the Israel-Gaza War. Just recently at the Glastonbury festival in the UK, the band brought Elyanna to the stage to sing 2019 song Arabesque, which was inspired Chris Martin's 2017 visit to Palestine, where he met the oud group Le Trio Joubran.

PAKISTAN v SRI LANKA

Twenty20 International series
Thu Oct 26, 1st T20I, Abu Dhabi
Fri Oct 27, 2nd T20I, Abu Dhabi
Sun Oct 29, 3rd T20I, Lahore

Tickets are available at www.q-tickets.com

The%20specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.8-litre%204-cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E190hp%20at%205%2C200rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20320Nm%20from%201%2C800-5%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeven-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%206.7L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20From%20Dh111%2C195%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The biog

Favourite hobby: I love to sing but I don’t get to sing as much nowadays sadly.

Favourite book: Anything by Sidney Sheldon.

Favourite movie: The Exorcist 2. It is a big thing in our family to sit around together and watch horror movies, I love watching them.

Favourite holiday destination: The favourite place I have been to is Florence, it is a beautiful city. My dream though has always been to visit Cyprus, I really want to go there.

Hotel Data Cloud profile

Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

War and the virus
ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

TOUCH RULES

Touch is derived from rugby league. Teams consist of up to 14 players with a maximum of six on the field at any time.

Teams can make as many substitutions as they want during the 40 minute matches.

Similar to rugby league, the attacking team has six attempts - or touches - before possession changes over.

A touch is any contact between the player with the ball and a defender, and must be with minimum force.

After a touch the player performs a “roll-ball” - similar to the play-the-ball in league - stepping over or rolling the ball between the feet.

At the roll-ball, the defenders have to retreat a minimum of five metres.

A touchdown is scored when an attacking player places the ball on or over the score-line.

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