Tag Archives: UAE

The World Bank’s ease of doing business index incentives countries to do whatever they can to improve their ranking. Jongho Shin/iStock via Getty Images Fernanda G Nicola, American University The World Bank, a behemoth of an organization that provides tens of billions of dollars in aid to mostly developing countries, is in the middle of one of its biggest scandals …

Simon Mabon, Lancaster University It’s generally reckoned to be one of Donald Trump’s few major foreign policy achievements. On August 13 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel signed a historic agreement normalising relations between the two states, and in the weeks that followed, other Arab states followed Abu Dhabi’s lead in what became known as the Abraham Accords. …

Rawpixel.com via Shutterstock Elodie Gentina, IÉSEG School of Management and Emma Parry, Cranfield University Gradually over the past few years, the once-ubiquitous discussions about millennials are being replaced by an interest in the new kids on the block: generation Z – or, to give them a recently assigned alias – “Zoomers”. According to most reckonings, to be genZ means you …

Peter Malcontent, Utrecht University Israeli voters are about to head to the polls for the fourth time in two years. And, once again, the issue of Palestine has been almost completely absent from debate during the campaign. Once upon a time this would have been unimaginable. In 1992, Yizhak Rabin’s Labor Party won because of his willingness to strike a …

Mustafa Menshawy, Lancaster University Shortly after four Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt – imposed an embargo on Qatar in 2017, I flew into the country’s capital Doha. Hamad airport – usually buzzing with visitors from the Gulf countries (one of every four visitors to Qatar in 2015 came from Saudi Arabia) – was …

There seems to be a network of underground bodies of liquid water at Mars’ south pole. NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems David Rothery, The Open University Venus may harbour life some 50km above its surface, we learned a couple of weeks ago. Now a new paper, published in Nature Astronomy, reveals that the best place for life on Mars might be …

الولايات المتحدة، والصين، والإمارات العربية المتحدة يطلقون رحلات استكشافية رائدة إلى كوكب المريخ، المعروف بخطورته على البعثات الفضائية. ألكساندرا ويتزي، وسمريتي مالاباتي، وإليزابيث جيبني Nature (2020) doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01861-0 English article   المركبة الجوالة الأمريكية “بيرسيفيرانس” سوف تهبط في “فوّهة جيزيرو” على كوكب المريخ (محددة بدائرة صفراء).  Emily Lakdawalla/ISRO/ISSDC شهد العالم خلال شهر يوليو الماضي انطلاق ثلاث مركبات فضائية صاروخية صوبَ المريخ. إذ …

Sporting events and initiatives could help strengthen ties between the Gulf states and Israel. EFKS/Shutterstock Hussa Khalid, Loughborough University Back in 2016, I was excited for the Bahrain Women’s National team to compete in the Aphrodite Cup, an international football tournament held in Cyprus. Bahrain’s team, of which I was in charge, had previously participated in an earlier edition of …

GettyImages Sioux McKenna, Rhodes University International rankings of universities are big business and big news. These systems order universities on the basis of a variety of criteria such as student to staff ratio, income from industry, and reputation as captured through public surveys. Universities around the world use their rankings as marketing material and parents and prospective students make life …

Is it too soon to herald the ‘dawn of a new Middle East’? It all depends what the Saudis do next JIM LO SCALZO/EPA Ben Rich, Curtin University US President Donald Trump heralded nothing short of “the dawn of a new Middle East” as the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements normalising ties with Israel during …