Saudi girl embraces Enrique Iglesias at Ad Diriyah concert — or does she?

A round-up of bogus reports and phony facts in the mainstream and social media.

A video on social media alleging that a young girl jumped d on stage and leapt into the arms of Spanish singer, Enrique Iglesias, during his concert in Saudi Arabia on Thursday has gone viral. Pro-Qatari Twitter users were sharing h the video widely over the weekend.

However, the video is actually a clip from the renowned artist’s concert in Baku, Azerbaijan in June 2016 when he performed at t the city’s Formula One Grand Prix, and not from his performance in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Users suggested that neither the girl, nor the security personnel attempting to remove her, were of Saudi origin.

Iglesias performed on day one of the Ad Diriyah concert festival, ahead of the inaugural Formula E race in Saudi Arabia this weekend. The race itself, which was held on Saturday and won by BMW’s Antonio Felix da Costa, marked the beginning of the fifth season of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship.

A Kuwaiti official has denied reports published by the country’s Al-Qabas newspaper claiming that forged university degrees are being issued by Egyptian universities to expat Kuwaiti students.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Mutairi, head of the Kuwait Cultural Office in Cairo, denied a report that cited the higher education minister of Kuwait.

In a phone interview with an Egyptian TV channel, Al-Mutairi claimed the minister said there had been incidents of false certificates being issued to Kuwaiti students studying abroad that are falsely attributed to Egyptian universities.

The minister, as quoted by Al-Mutairi, noted that forgery cases are very limited compared to the number of Kuwaiti students who choose to study in Egypt, which amounts to more than 20,000.

The government of Jordan has denied reports that a strong earthquake was going to hit the kingdom, citing the claims as “baseless.”

“This is not true. Seismic studies at local, regional and global levels suggest that a devastating earthquake cannot at all be predicted to hit our region,” it said on its social media platform.