Author: Arabian Media staff
As part of the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Japan, the Abu Dhabi Civil Defence Authority has unveiled Suhail, the world’s first jet-powered firefighting drone — a groundbreaking UAE innovation that signals the future of smart and safe emergency response. Read-Masdar to build world’s first 1GW baseload renewable plant in the UAE Equipped with advanced smart systems, the drone can access hotspots unreachable by conventional means, significantly improving the speed and effectiveness of fire response efforts, a WAM report said. Suhail represents a major breakthrough for the UAE as the world’s first jet-powered unmanned aircraft designed exclusively for firefighting…
The UAE Future 50 has brought together 50 startup entrepreneurs to showcase business development in a range of industries ranging from Fintech to creative industries and renewable energy to cybersecurity. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, witnessed the launch of the “UAE Future 50” initiative, featuring a list of future-focused Emirati companies. Jointly developed by the Government Development and the Future Office in collaboration with the Ministry of Economy, the initiative is part of the Riyada entrepreneurship ecosystem, which aims to enhance the national startup and innovation…
European private equity group EQT should capitalise on investor fears about the US to build up its business in the country, buying up rival firms if necessary, its founder and chair has told the Financial Times. “We probably need to get more presence in the US,” said Conni Jonsson, who started the asset manager in 1994 and built it into Europe’s largest private equity firm with €273bn in assets. “Everybody is now running away from the US. And that might be a good time for us to do more”, he said, adding that the firm could either expand in the…
The outcome of Sunday’s presidential vote is more uncertain than investors had hoped. Source link
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is an adviser on Islamic finance, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council The global sukuk market for Islamic finance faces a pivotal moment. A new framework from the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions threatens to destabilise a $1tn market that has become a vital funding source for sovereigns and corporates across the Middle East, Asia and beyond.The spiritual imperative behind proposed changes to AAOIFI’s Shariah Standard 62 is deeply respected. They seek to…
Image credit: Getty Images In a significant move for businesses worldwide, WhatsApp Business has announced a revamped pricing model for its WhatsApp Business Platform, set to take effect on July 1, 2025. The update introduces per-message billing, revised rates, and volume-based discounts for utility and authentication messages—aligning the platform with industry-standard practices seen on other messaging channels. Per-message pricing: Shift in billing strategy WhatsApp will now charge businesses per template message sent, rather than relying on broader session-based models. This means that if a company sends a single marketing and one utility message, they’ll incur separate charges for each message…
Deep inside Elidir Fawr mountain, a bright green telephone connects workers manning the Dinorwig pumped hydropower station to grid operators hundreds of miles away, trying to keep Britain’s lights on by requesting last-minute adjustments to the electricity supply.“If that rings, you answer it,” says Evan John Evans, shift manager at the station in north Wales. Pumped hydropower stations store energy by using electricity to pump water from a reservoir at the bottom of the mountain up to one at the top. When electricity is needed, the water is released, flowing back down through turbines to generate power.Built just over 40 years…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab has launched a criminal complaint against the whistleblowers whose accusations led to his ousting, as he steps up a campaign to clear his name of alleged impropriety at the organisation he led for more than half a century.Schwab, who established the WEF in 1971, stepped down last month after its board launched a probe into his conduct following an anonymous letter that claimed he had received inappropriate financial benefits, manipulated research and mishandled sexual harassment cases.…
US banks are lending less and less to companies these days. But the business of lending to so-called shadow banks — such as private credit funds, insurers, asset managers and credit hedge funds — is booming.On the face of it, bank lending to “commercial and industrial” companies (C&I loans) has merely stagnated in recent years, at about $2.8tn at the end of March. However, as a percentage of bank assets and relative to the size of the US economy, C&I loans have now been shrinking for half a decade. That’s not because US companies have suddenly discovered the virtues of…
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region surged in Q1 2025, with 225 deals valued at $46bn, according to EY’s latest MENA M&A Insights 2024 report. This marks a 31 per cent increase in deal volume and a 66 per cent rise in deal value compared to Q1 2024. Cross-border transactions remained the key driver of M&A activity, accounting for 117 deals worth $37.3bn — 52 per cent of total volume and 81 per cent of total value. This represents the highest quarterly cross-border activity in both value and volume in the past five…