Author: Emirates Insight

H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum attended the 16th BEYOND Developments GLOBE SOCCER Awards held on Sunday evening in Dubai. During a glittering ceremony at the Atlantis The Royal hotel, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) forward Ousmane Dembélé was crowned Best Men’s Player for the first time and FC Barcelona midfielder Aitana Bonmatí Bonmatí made history by being named Best Women’s Player for a third consecutive year. Attended by world football’s most celebrated players, decision-makers, legends, and rising stars, the 2025 edition of the GLOBE SOCCER Awards saw more than 20 awards being presented. French giants PSG,…

The UAE has strengthened its economic footprint in Latin America through a series of comprehensive partnership agreements aimed at diversifying trade flows and expanding investment across emerging markets in the region. “The entry into force of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the UAE and Chile represents a qualitative leap in economic relations between the two countries,” said Karla Flores, Director of InvestChile. Among the most significant developments is the CEPA with Costa Rica, which came into effect on 1st April 2025. The agreement eliminates or reduces customs duties, facilitates trade in goods and services and opens broader investment opportunities…

A widening gap between VC pricing and public market caps signals a reset after narrative-driven optimism cooled. Crypto venture capital firms poured billions into early-stage tokens during 2025’s risk-on rebound, but many of those bets are now trading far below their headline fundraising values. The growing gap between private funding numbers and public market caps highlights a market reset after narrative-driven optimism cooled. Data recently shared by CryptoRank shows dozens of well-funded projects losing hundreds of millions, and in some cases nearly all, of their implied value once tokens reached open markets, raising fresh questions about pricing discipline during…

The mania around data centers has a lot of companies looking to become “picks and shovels” providers, by building profitable businesses that are ancillary to the gold rush gigs of selling server access or training leading AI models. MayimFlow, the Built World stage winner at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt, is a good example. The startup is focused on essentially one task: preventing damaging water leaks. Data centers use a lot of water, and that water can present a big risk, even if a leak is small. Founder John Khazraee told TechCrunch that many data centers only have reactive solutions for…

The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) has intercepted nearly 1,000 smuggling attempts across the kingdom’s land, air and sea ports in a seven-day period, highlighting the scale of illegal trade targeting Saudi Arabia. The authority announced that customs operations recorded 961 seizures of prohibited items in a single week, with narcotics accounting for 91 cases involving hashish, cocaine, heroin, shabu and Captagon pills. #ارقد_وآمن | #زاتكا خلال أسبوع تضبط عبر منافذها الجمركية 961 حالة تهريب، شملت مواد مخدرة ومبالغ مالية ومواد محظورة وأسلحة ومستلزماتها، وغيرها من المضبوطات. pic.twitter.com/oTFMG3v2co— هيئة الزكاة والضريبة والجمارك (@Zatca_sa) December 27, 2025 Officials also intercepted…

FIL is the next big gainer today. Bitcoin’s sluggish price performance during the last weekend of 2025 continues, as the asset has remained sideways between $87,500 and $88,000. Most altcoins are in a similar situation, with little to no volatility from the larger caps. ZEC, DOT, UNI, CC, and NEAR have marked substantial gains from the mid caps. BTC Trades Sideways After a wild period that lasted for the past 10 days or so, BTC has expectedly calmed down during and after the Christmas holidays. In the past business week, it was rejected on a couple of occasions at…

Bahrain’s economy has expanded more than fivefold over the past two decades, growing from approximately $9bn in 2000 to over $47bn by the end of 2024, according to the Ministry of Finance and National Economy. “Bahrain’s sustained economic growth over the past two decades stands as a key national achievement within the kingdom’s broader development journey,” said Maryam Al Ansari, Undersecretary for National Economy at the ministry. The growth has been distributed across productive and service sectors, with official figures reflecting steady progress throughout the economy. Al Ansari highlighted that the expansion has translated into tangible improvements in living standards,…

India’s startup ecosystem raised nearly $11 billion in 2025, but investors wrote far fewer checks and grew more selective about where they took risk, underscoring how the world’s third most-funded startup market is diverging from the AI-fueled capital concentration seen in the U.S. The selective approach was most evident in deal-making. The number of startup funding rounds fell by nearly 39% from a year earlier, to 1,518 deals, according to Tracxn. Total funding slipped more modestly — down just over 17% to $10.5 billion. That pullback was not uniform. Seed-stage funding fell sharply to $1.1 billion in 2025, down 30%…

There is something peculiarly unsettling about talking to someone who has spent decades working on a technology that might render millions of people obsolete. Sven Beiker, Managing Director of Silicon Mobility and a lecturer on the automotive industry at Stanford University, is unfailingly polite about it all. He speaks with the careful optimism of a man who has thought deeply about what he is helping to build, and who is not entirely comfortable with where it might lead. We met on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Summit in November, where the great and good of the self-driving vehicle…

The complaint alleges seven entities misused AI buzzwords and crypto promises to defraud US retail investors of $14 million. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged three entities that claimed to operate crypto asset trading platforms, along with four so-called investment clubs, for allegedly running a large-scale fraud that targeted retail investors through social media. According to the SEC, Morocoin Tech Corp., Berge Blockchain Technology Co. Ltd., and Cirkor Inc., together with AI Wealth Inc., Lane Wealth Inc., AI Investment Education Foundation Ltd., and Zenith Asset Tech Foundation, misappropriated more than $14 million from mostly US-based investors.…