The Section
World.
World stories that wash up on Gulf shores first. Diplomacy, diaspora, supply chains, and the global currents that nobody saw coming except, occasionally, us.
How to Rent Your First Apartment in the UAE
Check the landlord or agent authority, contract terms, payment schedule, building condition, chiller and utility responsibilities, maintenance rules, and registration requirements. A quick viewing is not enough.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Move Pets to the UAE
Pet relocation depends on import permits, microchips, vaccinations, health certificates, airline rules, and timing. The safest plan starts weeks before travel, not at the airport.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Prepare a UAE Arrival Checklist for a Family
The first month should be organized around status, housing, school, healthcare, banking, transport, and emergency contacts. A written checklist prevents one missing document from blocking several services.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Attest a Marriage Certificate for UAE Use
UAE authorities usually need foreign marriage certificates to be legally recognized through the proper attestation chain and translation where required. Starting this before the visa application prevents the most common family-sponsorship delay.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Choose Health Insurance for a Family in the UAE
Families should compare network, emirate coverage, maternity, chronic conditions, dental, pharmacy, approval rules, direct billing, exclusions, and renewal price behavior. The cheapest plan can become expensive when the network is wrong.
By Lena Holloway
WorldJun 9
How to Connect DEWA and Utilities After Moving
Utilities should be planned before move-in day. In Dubai this often means DEWA activation plus any building cooling or internet steps; other emirates have separate providers and timelines.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Register Ejari or a Tenancy Contract
Registered tenancy records are often needed for utilities, family sponsorship, dispute protection, and official address proof. Dubai uses Ejari, while other emirates have their own systems and processes.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
Cross-Border Ecommerce Depends on Customs Data Quality
The next delivery improvement may come from cleaner descriptions, HS codes, seller records, and value logic rather than faster vans.
By Lena Holloway
WorldJun 9
Gulf-India Sourcing Now Runs on a Retail Calendar
The sourcing relationship is no longer only about price and availability. Promotional peaks, delivery windows, and influencer cycles are shaping the trade rhythm.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Find a School Seat After Moving to the UAE
Start with location, curriculum, year group, fees, transport, and regulator ratings. Availability is the constraint, so parents should shortlist several schools and prepare documents before arrival.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 9
How to Transfer School Records to the UAE
Families should collect reports, transfer certificates, conduct letters where required, vaccination records, and curriculum details before travel. Getting documents after arrival is slower and can delay placement.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldJun 8
The Airport Lounge Is a Diplomatic Weather Station
In a region built on movement, the lounge often reveals the temperature of relationships before the official calendar does.
By Mira Faraj
WorldJun 8
The Red Sea Delay That Changes the Calendar
Supply-chain delays are usually priced as costs. For regional businesses, the larger effect is often the calendar they force everyone to rewrite.
By Marcus Okafor
WorldJun 4
The Second Passport Has Become a Piece of Furniture, Not a Decision
Why the regional professional class has stopped treating the second citizenship as an ambitious life choice and started treating it as a moderately interesting drawer in the desk.
By Priya Chen
WorldJun 4
The Airport Transit Zone Is Now the Region's Most Underrated Soft Power Instrument
Forget the embassies. Forget the cultural attaches. The first impression of a country is now formed in the eight minutes between the jetbridge and the connecting gate.
By Mira Faraj
WorldJun 3
The Suitcase Economy of the Arrivals Hall Is Bigger Than the Trade Statistics
Why a quietly enormous category of regional cross-border commerce is moving in passengers' checked baggage, and why nobody who tracks trade data is counting it.
By Mira Faraj
WorldJun 3
A Global Shipping Route Just Quietly Rerouted Itself
It was not in any communique. It was not announced. It happened in the AIS data three weeks ago and the only people who have noticed are the people who pay for AIS data.
By Mira Faraj
WorldJun 3
Central Asia Is Quietly the Next Pipeline of Pipelines
Why a region nobody in Gulf finance was thinking about three years ago is suddenly on every infrastructure desk's whiteboard.
By Marcus Okafor
WorldJun 3
The Diaspora Is Banking Differently. The Banks Have Not Quite Noticed.
Why the remittance corridor between a particular pair of countries is being quietly disintermediated, and what the incumbent banks are doing about it, which is mostly nothing.
By Lena Holloway
WorldJun 3
The Embassy Iftar Is the Most Underestimated Instrument of Regional Foreign Policy
Why a single carefully assembled guest list, served on a single carefully assembled plate, can do more strategic work in three hours than a year of communiques.
By Lena Holloway
WorldJun 3
North African Renewables Are Quietly Becoming a Gulf Investment Story
Why several Gulf funds have started buying meaningful positions in renewables projects across North Africa, and what the local governments are doing about it.
By Lena Holloway
WorldSep 17
The Majority That Cannot Vote: The Gulf's Expat Question
In several Gulf states, foreign workers outnumber citizens, creating a society and an economy built on a population with no path to belonging.
By Sara Qureshi
WorldSep 5
Growing Dinner in a Dune: The Gulf's Food and Water Gamble
States that import most of what they eat and manufacture much of what they drink are treating supply security as a matter of survival.
By Mira Faraj
WorldAug 26
Stadium Diplomacy: The Logic Behind the Gulf's Sports Spree
Hosting tournaments and buying clubs is not vanity; it is a calculated bid for relevance, tourism and a softer global image.
By Diego Arroyo