By James M Dorsey The Ukraine crisis may constitute a more impactful, historic watershed than the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall in the mind of Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “perhaps even a bigger moment than the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Balakrishnan said. “We believe we are at an inflection point,” he added. “Little Singapore is standing up for principles and […]
By Nantoo Banerjee The Russian attack on Ukraine seems to have given a wakeup call to countries in Europe and Asia to substantially step up their annual defence expenditure to protect themselves from possible external assault. Given the ominous security situation in Europe, a number of countries, including Germany, Sweden, Romania, Latvia, Finland, the Netherlands […]
The post Several Countries Plan To Step Up Military Spending first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Ashis Biswas In South Asia, size continues to matter, even for countries- never mind diplomacy. Bangladesh has been impacted by the ongoing war in Ukraine, along with India, but the Western response could not have been more contrasting. The US/EU-led bloc of countries have hit out at Bangladesh viciously, while they still assess their […]
The post Russia’s Ukraine War Impacts Bangladesh’s Trade And Development Programmes first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By K Raveendran With the Russian invasion of Ukraine already playing out, it is clear that the war between US and allies on one side and Russia on the other would be fought not just at the military and economic levels, as already manifested by the western sanctions, but with another strategic weapon as well: […]
The post Energy Is A Strategic Weapon In Russia’s War Against Ukraine first appeared on IPA Newspack.
Arabian Post Staff By 2025, privacy lawsuits and claims related to biometric information processing and cyber-physical systems will have resulted in over $8 billion in fines and settlements, according to Gartner, Inc. “Autonomous vehicles, drones that capture video, smart buildings and smart cities are cyber-physical systems that capture biometrics of all kinds,” said Bart Willemsen, research vice president at Gartner. “The collection and storage of biometric information is gaining, whether […]
Arabian Post Staff The United Arab Emirates will introduce a corporate tax from mid-2023, the finance ministry said Monday, in a major change of course as the country seeks to diversify its income. Long known as a tax haven and the regional headquarters for a swathe of multinationals, the UAE will tax business profits over 375,000 AED ($102,000) at 9.0 percent from June next year, a statement […]
By Dr. Nir Boms The new sounds of “tolerance, peace and prosperity” that come from the Gulf are often treated with suspicion – a cliche aimed at obfuscating the newfound autocratie in the region. However, while slogans might be cheap – actual changes made on the ground should be noted. The United Arab Emirates moral education curriculum reform is telling of the vision that the country’s leaders […]
By: Marc Meyer, CCO at Transmetrics The MENA region has seen a paradigm shift when it comes to online shopping and its delivery network—and the supply chain is now being asked to rise to the occasion. According to Christine Harb from the Global Brand Council at Visa, about 80% of consumers in the UAE have changed their spending habits and shifted towards online purchasing. MENA has seen […]
By James M Dorsey Increasingly, compliance with US sanctions against Iran could emerge as a litmus test of the United Arab Emirates’ close ties to the United States. At the sharp edge of a potential rift between the allies is a reportedly recently concluded agreement by a private UAE company to build gas-fired thermal, solar, and wind power plants with a total capacity of 300 megawatts in Iran’s hydrocarbon-rich […]
Arabian Post Staff The United Arab Emirates announced today that it will transition to a four and a half day working week, with Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday forming the new weekend. The new working week will commence January 1, 2022, across the federation of seven emirates (Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain) that make up the UAE. Currently the working […]
By James M Dorsey The United States has signalled in advance of next week’s Summit for Democracy that it is unlikely to translate lip service to adherence to human rights and democratic values in the Middle East into a policy that demonstrates seriousness and commitment. In a statement, the State Department said the December 9-10 summit would “set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle […]
By James M Dorsey Russia hopes to blow new life into a proposal for a multilateral security architecture in the Gulf, with the tacit approval of the Biden administration. If successful, the initiative would help stabilise the region, cement regional efforts to reduce tensions, and potentially prevent war-wracked Yemen from emerging as an Afghanistan on the southern border of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf of Aden and at the […]
By James M Dorsey Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud must have gotten his tenses mixed up when he asserted in a recently published memoir that no one should underestimate the political importance of Muslims’ commitment to helping other Muslims. Prince Turki’s memoir is focused on Afghanistan, a major preoccupation during his tenure as head of the General Intelligence Department (GID), the kingdom’s foreign intelligence […]
Erdogan Becoming a Liability for Turkey By Manish Rai Last month Turkey made it into the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog headquartered in Paris. Turkey now joins its close ally Pakistan in FATF’s crosshairs. Surprisingly Turkey becomes the largest economy to be included in this list. The FATF listing for Ankara comes on the back of […]
James M Doresy Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism is having a field day. Barely three months after the Taliban claimed victory in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim-majority state, is moving to join Kabul in becoming an outpost of religious intolerance and Muslim supremacy. In doing so, Pakistan, alongside Afghanistan, has come down on the side of countries like Turkey and Iran that advocate various forms of political […]
By James M. Dorsey The times they are a changin’. Iranian leaders may not be Bob Dylan fans, but his words are likely to resonate as they contemplate their next steps in Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan. The same is true for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The president’s shine as a fierce defender of Muslim causes, except for when there is an economic price tag […]
Arabian Post Staff The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has processed more than 9,640 requests to recover Value-Added Tax (VAT) incurred by UAE nationals on building their new residences by September 2021 – more than 107.1% growth from the figure reported in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the total number of processed requests until the end of 2020. In a press statement, the Authority highlighted […]
James M Dorsey Gulf states are in a pickle. They fear that the emerging parameters of a reconfigured US commitment to security in the Middle East threaten to upend a more-than-a-century-old pillar of regional security and leave them with no good alternatives. The shaky pillar is the Gulf monarchies’ reliance on a powerful external ally that, in the words of Middle East scholar Roby C. Barrett, “shares the […]
James M Dorsey For at least the last two decades, the United Arab Emirates, aided by some of the world’s foremost consulting and public affairs companies, has waged one of, if not the Middle East’s most successful nation branding campaign. The campaign has been supported by cutting edge technological and economic initiatives; a bold and assertive foreign policy backed by the UAE’s financial and military muscle; a […]
Financial regulators in the United Arab Emirates have reached an arrangement to officially allow and support cryptocurrency trading in an economic free zone in Dubai. The Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA) announced Wednesday that it had signed an agreement with the UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) to support the regulation and trading of crypto assets within the DWTCA free zone. The new initiative establishes a framework enabling […]
