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Dubai’s latest property craze: luxury underground bunkers

A Swiss design firm is tapping into the latest must-have property desire for the UAE’s super rich – luxury underground bunkers. Prices start from $10 million and the developments are used for everything from pools and garages to panic rooms and secure meeting rooms. Oppidum, a design firm established in 2015 in Lucerne by entrepreneur […]

Venture capital firms back female business founders in MENA

Playfair Capital and Dubai-based Global Ventures have launched ‘Female Founder Office Hours’ across MENA – with 150 leading venture capital funds hosting virtual mentoring sessions for more than 400 women founders on November 10. The eighth edition of Female Founder Office Hours since it was launched in the UK in 2019 is part of a […]

Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al-Arifi

New CEO named for Saudi’s $1.3trn private sector push

A new CEO has been appointed to the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement Program which aims to facilitate investments of $1.33 trillion from Saudi private sector businesses by 2030. Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al-Arifi, advisor to the Secretariat General of the Cabinet and a former CEO of finance at Jadwa Investment, has been hired to lead the […]

Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, wears the Queen's Bahraini pearl earrings

Bahrain pearls given royal stamp of approval

The UK’s Princess of Wales put Bahraini pearls back in the spotlight this week when she wore a pair of earrings made from the precious stone for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Her timing was perfect as Bahrain aims to re-establish itself as the global centre for sustainable pearls. Catherine, Prince William’s wife, sported […]

Person, Human, Suit
  • In pictures

Arab leaders attend Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral

Royals and leaders from the Middle East are among the dignitaries attending the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in London. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch died on September 8 aged 96. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is not expected to attend the funeral, Reuters reported, citing a source at the British […]

Medhat Karam, ArpuPlus

Medhat Karam, ArpuPlus

Medhat Karam is CEO and managing director of ArpuPlus, a telecommunications service which provides entertainment and communication solutions across the Middle East and North Africa. ArpuPlus was set up in 2003 and is a subsidiary of A15, a Cairo-based venture capital firm. What does your company do? Entertainment-wise, we specialise in affordable music, video, gaming, […]

Clothing, Apparel, Hat

Queen Elizabeth’s death: Reaction from politicians and officials

State heads and officials from around the world have offered their condolences for Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, after she died on Thursday 8 September. Middle East royals and leaders pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II The world mourns Queen Elizabeth II: 1926 – 2022 UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the queen was widely […]

Hamish Harding, chairman of Action Aviation

Hamish Harding is the founder of Action Aviation, a UAE-based international aircraft brokerage company. He is also chair of the Middle East chapter of The Explorers Club, an international organisation dedicated to advancing field exploration and scientific enquiry – and has just been into space on Jeff Bezos’s rocket… What do you look for when hiring […]

Person, Human, Word

‘House of the Dragon’ renewed for second season

“House of the Dragon”, the highly anticipated “Game of Thrones” prequel, has been renewed for a second season after its first episode proved a hit. Based on George RR Martin’s “Fire & Blood”, the drama is set 200 years before the events that played out in “Game of Thrones” and focuses on how the House […]

UAE biofuel firm in talks with global investors

A Dubai-based company which converts waste cooking oil into biofuel is in investment talks with major energy firms, as demand grows among climate-conscious global companies. The sector is expected to be worth over $200 billion by 2030. “I moved to Dubai in 2009. I’d been working for three years by then on sustainability, so it’s […]

Tokyo diners can nosh on food at ‘Stranger Things’ cafe

Japanese fans of the sci-fi hit “Stranger Things” can chow down on demonic pasta and rock out to retro 1980s tunes at a pop-up cafe inspired by the Netflix Inc horror drama. The shop, a partnership with local restaurant chain Pronto Corp, recently extended its run in the fashionable Shibuya district of Tokyo several months […]

Sara Chemmaa, founder, Citron

Founded in 2018, Dubai-based Citron creates sustainable lifestyle products for toddlers, children and adults. What do you look for when hiring talent?   Having built Citron from the ground up, I know just how important it is to surround yourself with the right “village” to help things progress. My first priority when hiring is to find people […]

Meet the Irishman selling ice in the desert

In the ever-competitive Dubai bar and restaurant market, a new supplier has launched this week, aiming to offer venues another unique selling point: high quality, hand-cut ice. Since he officially launched on August 1, John Gillespie, founder of Artisan Ice Co., has been targeting the top 30 venues in the city and he said the […]

Dubai record label launches as Arab music appeal grows

Galaxy Racer (GXR), the media giant focused on e-sports, music and sports, has announced the launch of GXR Records, an independent music label based in Dubai.  GXR and Empire, the global independent label, distributor and publisher, said the new venture will be led by Elia Mssawir and will focus on developing talents in West Asian […]

New $800m ‘ultra app’ aims to shake up crowded Gulf market

A Dubai-based serial entrepreneur has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a new digital platform that he claims will disrupt the way people communicate, shop, pay, and transact, when it launches later this year. Abdallah Abu Sheikh, founder of Dubai-headquartered Astra Tech, calls his product, which is as yet unnamed, an ultra […]

Shares in Twitter plunged after Musk pulled out of the deal to buy the social network

Twitter tells Musk no deal obligations were breached

Twitter Inc fired back at Elon Musk on Monday, accusing the world’s richest person of “knowingly” breaching an agreement to buy the social media firm, days after the Tesla Inc chief sought to back out of the $44 billion deal. In a letter sent to Musk, dated Sunday and filed with regulators on Monday, Twitter […]

Make UK's Stephen Phipson hopes the UK-GCC trade talks reduce non-tariff barriers

UK manufacturers see non-tariff barriers as key to GCC trade

Make UK CEO Stephen Phipson advises the British government on behalf of 20,000 UK manufacturers. He talks to AGBI about trade with the GCC As negotiators begin to thrash out a UK-GCC free trade deal, there’s one thing above all else dominating the minds of British manufacturers as they seek growth opportunities in the region: […]

Sky Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of Pure Harvest Smart Farms, a fast-growing agtech business

Pure Harvest aims to grow UAE’s next $1bn unicorn startup

“Why did such a promising young man leave Silicon Valley to grow tomatoes in the desert?”. It’s a question Stanford University business graduate and former private equity investor Sky Kurtz says he gets asked a lot, even by his own father-in-law.  “My wife’s father thought I’d lost my mind. He was literally like, ‘there’s something […]

Mamad Kashani Akhavan, CEO, Powerhouse Real Estate

What does your company do?  We’re aiming to reinvent real estate by educating brokers and expanding their knowledge in the field. We’ve implemented a simple training programme for each new joiner to ensure their quality of performance in the market. Once they’re released into what we call “the sales floor”, they’re ready to enter the […]