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  • UAE ‘aggressively’ lobbying US to designate Yemen’s Islah as a terror group, sources say

    UAE ‘aggressively’ lobbying US to designate Yemen’s Islah as a terror group, sources say

    A diplomatic rift is brewing in the Middle East after multiple anonymous regional, U.S. and Yemeni sources confirmed to Middle East Eye that the United Arab Emirates has waged an aggressive, four-month lobbying campaign to push the former Trump administration to designate Yemen’s Islah Party as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) – a move that would directly undercut Saudi Arabia, the group’s main international backer.

    The push from Abu Dhabi came after the Trump administration designated three national branches of the Muslim Brotherhood – Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese – as terrorist organizations earlier this year. While the UAE issued a muted public statement praising the decision as a positive step for global counter-terrorism efforts, senior Emirati officials privately expressed deep frustration that the action failed to meet their longstanding demand: a blanket terror designation for the entire Muslim Brotherhood movement, a goal Abu Dhabi has pursued for more than a decade across Washington and European capitals.

    A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic deliberations, noted that Emirati leaders genuinely believed the Trump administration would move forward with the proscription at some point. While it remains unclear whether Abu Dhabi secured a formal timeline from U.S. counterparts, a terror designation would carry severe consequences: a SDGT label would force U.S. financial institutions to freeze all assets linked to the party and bar all its members from entering the United States. If the more severe Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation was adopted, any individual anywhere in the world suspected of providing material support or resources to Islah could face prosecution under U.S. anti-terrorism law.

    The lobbying push sets the stage for a major escalation between Gulf rivals Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have seen their once-aligned alliance fracture sharply over divergent strategic interests across the Middle East in recent years. Founded more than 30 years ago as the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, Islah is an independent Yemeni political party that blends Islamist, tribal and conservative ideological currents. While often characterized as ideologically sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, the party has repeatedly denied any formal affiliation with the movement. Two members of the Saudi-backed Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council – Marib Governor Sultan Ali al-Arada and Abdullah al-Alimi Bawazeer – currently hold seats as Islah representatives.

    A senior informed Saudi source confirmed the kingdom is well aware that the UAE’s broader campaign to ban all Muslim Brotherhood branches targets Islah specifically. “They see Islah as the most dangerous branch of the Brotherhood because of its political weight and its role in Yemen,” the source told Middle East Eye. The U.S. official added that while the administration had not formally assessed Riyadh’s reaction, pushing through the designation would almost certainly trigger fierce pushback from the kingdom.

    Longtime coalition partners in the 2015 Yemen intervention, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have grown increasingly at odds over their strategic priorities in the country. Tensions boiled over in late 2022 when Riyadh forced the dissolution of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist group that Abu Dhabi has supported to politically and militarily marginalize Islah. Since that showdown, Saudi Arabia has moved to push Emirati forces and their local proxies out of key Yemeni territory. The rift extends beyond Yemen: the two Gulf powers also back opposing sides in Sudan’s ongoing civil conflict, with Riyadh supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces alongside Egypt and Turkey, while Abu Dhabi backs the Rapid Support Forces.

    Following a November executive order from the Trump administration that launched the process of designating specific Muslim Brotherhood chapters, the State Department began reaching out to regional stakeholders to gather input on a potential Islah blacklisting. Administration officials sent a series of questions about the party to both Saudi officials and Islah representatives as part of internal deliberations. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the outreach, telling Middle East Eye that the agency does not disclose details of internal designation discussions.

    Islah has not issued an official public response to the UAE’s lobbying offensive, but a senior party member told Middle East Eye the move did not come as a surprise. “We expected certain people to come after us after the Trump administration first unveiled the directive in November,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity amid a recent rise in targeted assassinations of Yemeni political figures. The party is currently pushing back against the terror allegations and is communicating with the State Department through a third-party intermediary. “Islah is a Yemeni party, and it isn’t a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It doesn’t have any links to them,” the source said. “We are happy with what the Muslim Brotherhood is doing in supporting Palestine, but that doesn’t mean Islah is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

    Abdullah al-Arian, an associate professor of history at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, explained the divergent approaches of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the Muslim Brotherhood. While both nations have formally designated the movement as a terrorist organization, al-Arian noted that the UAE maintains an uncompromising zero-tolerance policy for any group linked to the Brotherhood, “irrespective of what short-term political advantages it might offer.” “There is a far deeper, ideologically driven agenda on the part of the UAE that we don’t see necessarily manifesting from the Saudis,” al-Arian said. “Not because the Saudis are more amenable to these groups or their actual political projects or programmes, but more because they see in them the possibilities for tactical political advantages.”

    Middle East Eye reached out to the UAE embassy in Washington and the Saudi foreign ministry for comment on the lobbying campaign, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

  • China clones 10 healthy yaks in livestock breeding breakthrough

    China clones 10 healthy yaks in livestock breeding breakthrough

    In a major milestone for agricultural science and high-altitude livestock improvement, Chinese researchers have successfully produced 10 fully healthy cloned yaks, a first-of-its-kind breakthrough that promises to reshape traditional yak breeding practices across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The successful births of all 10 cloned calves took place between March 25 and April 2026 at a specialized breeding base located in Damshung county, Lhasa, in the Xizang Autonomous Region. According to official announcements from the county, every cloned yak was carried to full term and delivered through natural birth, with no reported health complications for the new calves.

    The cloning project was led by a research team from Zhejiang University, headed by lead researcher Fang Shengguo. The work relies on an indigenous, self-developed somatic cell cloning technology that creates exact 1:1 genetic replications of high-performing parent yaks. Prior to this breakthrough, conventional selective breeding for desired yak traits took approximately 20 years to produce a stable, improved breed. This new cloning technology cuts that waiting period dramatically, reducing the breeding cycle to less than five years.

    Beyond accelerating the development of improved yak breeds, the breakthrough also addresses a longstanding challenge facing local yak herds: gradual genetic decline that has reduced productivity and hardiness in regional populations over generations. By replicating the genetics of the strongest, most productive native yaks, the technology provides an effective tool to reverse this decline and preserve valuable native yak genetic resources.

    Yaks are a foundational livestock species for communities across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, providing meat, milk, fuel, and transportation for local herder populations, and supporting the livelihoods of millions of people living in high-altitude regions. This scientific advance is expected to deliver widespread economic and livelihood benefits to Xizang and other high-altitude pastoral areas, boosting the sustainability of local livestock industries while supporting conservation of the unique plateau ecosystem.

  • Canada’s Carney launches a sovereign wealth fund. What is it?

    Canada’s Carney launches a sovereign wealth fund. What is it?

    OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced the launch of the nation’s first-ever government-owned sovereign investment vehicle, the Canada Strong Fund, an initiative designed to inject capital into large-scale domestic development projects and shore up the country’s economy amid looming U.S. tariff pressures.

    Backed by an initial seed investment of C$25 billion (equal to roughly $18.4 billion USD or £13.5 billion GBP), the new fund will target projects across five high-priority sectors: energy, transportation infrastructure, mining, agriculture, and technology. In a departure from the structure of most established sovereign wealth funds globally, the Canada Strong Fund will also open direct investment opportunities to ordinary Canadian citizens who have disposable capital to contribute.

    Carney framed the launch as a long-overdue step to align Canada with other resource-rich nations that have built national wealth through dedicated sovereign investment vehicles. Speaking at the official announcement in Ottawa on Monday, he noted: “Many countries that are blessed with natural resources like Norway have sovereign wealth funds. Canada hasn’t had one, until now.” The prime minister also credited other nations for the decades-long foresight that allowed them to build their own successful funds, pointing to Norway’s $2.1 trillion fund, the largest of its kind globally according to 2025 Bloomberg data, as a prominent example.

    Unlike Norway’s fund, which was established in 1990 to invest surplus oil and gas revenues exclusively in international markets, the Canada Strong Fund differs in two fundamental ways, according to independent economic experts. University of Toronto economics professor Joseph Steinberg explained that Canada currently operates with significant national debt, meaning the initial capital for the fund will not come from surplus natural resource revenue – the standard funding model for most sovereign wealth funds – but from borrowed money. Additionally, while most global sovereign wealth funds invest the majority of their capital overseas, the Canada Strong Fund will allocate nearly all of its resources to domestic “nation-building projects”, partnering with private sector stakeholders to deliver upgrades to port infrastructure, expand natural resource development, and advance other domestic priorities. The option for direct individual Canadian investment is also a unique feature not seen in other sovereign wealth funds around the world.

    The new initiative has already drawn criticism from independent economic think tanks. The Montreal Economic Institute issued a statement on the same day of the announcement warning that the fund “risks costing taxpayers dearly while generating limited returns.” Other industry analysts have echoed this concern, noting that the fund’s focus on domestic projects and reliance on borrowed capital creates unusual market risk not present in most traditional sovereign wealth structures.

    The Carney administration has indicated that it will conduct open public and stakeholder consultations over the coming months to finalize the fund’s operational rules, governance structure, and investment eligibility criteria. The initiative forms a core plank of the government’s broader economic strategy to strengthen Canada’s economic resilience ahead of potential trade barriers from the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner.

    Globally, sovereign wealth funds with assets exceeding $1 trillion are currently operated by Norway, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. The United States has also moved toward exploring the creation of its own sovereign wealth fund in recent months: shortly after taking office for his second term, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order last February directing the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments to draft a framework for a U.S. fund within 90 days, with a stated goal of “help maximise the stewardship of our national wealth.”

  • Taiyuan’s 400-year-old peonies draw crowds to annual culture month

    Taiyuan’s 400-year-old peonies draw crowds to annual culture month

    As spring unfolds across northern China, 400-year-old living treasures have turned a historic Taiyuan cultural site into a major tourist draw for the kickoff of the city’s beloved annual peony celebration. The 43rd Taiyuan Shuangta Peony Culture Month officially opened recently at Yongzuo Temple, located within the grounds of Taiyuan’s Shuangta Museum in Shanxi province, and seven ancient peony trees that have stood for more than four centuries have emerged as the event’s unrivaled centerpiece. These centuries-old botanical specimens, which have survived generations of political, environmental and social change, now draw thousands of flower enthusiasts, culture lovers and curious tourists from across the country each spring when they burst into full, vibrant bloom. For many returning visitors, the annual pilgrimage to see these ancient peonies has become a cherished intergenerational tradition. Eighty-two-year-old Hao Guixiang is one such visitor who has maintained a decades-long connection to the trees. She recalled visiting the site to admire the peonies starting from her childhood, and in her later years, she regularly returns to the temple grounds to sketch the plants, drawing natural inspiration from their lush blooms for her traditional Chinese fine brushwork paintings. First-time visitors are equally enchanted by the unique experience of seeing flowers planted centuries before the modern city took shape around them. Thirty-six-year-old Deng Li, who made her first trip to the celebration this year, chose to wear a traditional Tang Dynasty-style Hanfu garment to match the elegant, stately grandeur that peonies have long symbolized in Chinese culture, turning her visit into an immersive celebration of natural beauty and cultural heritage. The annual culture month, now in its fifth decade of operation, has grown from a small local gathering of horticulture fans into a major regional cultural event that highlights Taiyuan’s long history and blend of natural and cultural heritage, supporting local cultural tourism and creating a space for people to connect with both centuries-old natural treasures and living Chinese cultural traditions.

  • Trains collide near Indonesia’s capital, killing at least 3 people

    Trains collide near Indonesia’s capital, killing at least 3 people

    On Monday morning, a devastating high-speed collision between two passenger trains shook a suburban station just outside Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, leaving at least three people dead and dozens more injured, local law enforcement confirmed. The crash unfolded at Bekasi Timur Station in the Jakarta satellite city of Bekasi, where the long-distance intercity service Argo Bromo Anggrek struck the back of a stationary commuter train, inflicting catastrophic damage on the rear carriage, said Jakarta Police Chief Asep Edi Suheri during an on-site press briefing. “A total of 29 injured victims have been evacuated to three medical facilities located within close proximity of the station,” Suheri told assembled reporters, adding that a full official investigation into the root cause of the incident is already underway.

    Notably, the damaged rear carriage of the commuter train was a women-only carriage, a widely implemented policy across Indonesia’s public transit systems designed to reduce sexual harassment and improve safety for female passengers. Footage captured by local broadcast networks and shared widely across social media platforms captured the chaotic aftermath of the crash: passengers stranded on station platforms fled in panic, while first responders worked alongside local civilian residents to extract trapped passengers from the wrecked train cars. Outside the station, dozens of anxious family members gathered, waiting for updates on the status of their loved ones who had been aboard the trains at the time of the collision.

    PT Kereta Api Indonesia, the state-owned national railway operator that manages all intercity and commuter rail services across Indonesia, has issued a formal public apology to affected passengers and their families. “Right now, every available resource is being directed toward evacuating passengers and crew, and providing urgent support to victims at the scene. Safety remains our absolute top priority,” Anne Purba, the company’s vice president for corporate communications, said in an official statement. Purba also confirmed that regular commuter rail operations through the affected area have been temporarily suspended, with major service disruptions expected for daily commuters while investigators work to clear the crash site.

    This latest collision has drawn renewed attention to longstanding safety concerns over Indonesia’s aging national railroad network, where accidents are far too frequent. Just 10 months prior to this incident in January 2024, another collision between two trains in Indonesia’s West Java province claimed at least four lives. Looking further back, a 2013 collision between a passenger train and a minibus at an unmarked, unguarded level crossing in West Java killed 13 people, and a 2010 rear-end crash at a Central Java station, nearly identical to this week’s incident, left 36 people dead.

  • Venice opera house drops incoming music director after nepotism remarks

    Venice opera house drops incoming music director after nepotism remarks

    One of Italy’s most iconic cultural institutions, Venice’s historic La Fenice opera house, has cut ties with its incoming music director Beatrice Venezi just months before she was set to assume the role, capping off months of escalating controversy that pitted the 36-year-old conductor against the theater’s musicians, staff, and even segments of the audience. The final break came after Venezi gave an inflammatory interview to an Argentine newspaper that reignited long-simmering tensions with the La Fenice community. In the conversation, Venezi implied that open positions in the opera’s orchestra were effectively passed down through familial nepotism, arguing that many long-time orchestra members opposed her appointment because they feared disruption to their closed system. “I have no godfathers. That is the difference. I do not come from a family of musicians,” Venezi said in the interview, adding that critics of her selection were “afraid of change, of renewal”. Days after the interview went public, La Fenice’s leadership released an official statement announcing Venezi’s dismissal, citing her “repeated and serious public statements, which were offensive and damaging to the artistic and professional standing” of both the theater and its orchestra. Controversy has dogged Venezi’s appointment ever since it was first announced in September of last year. Critics immediately raised two core objections: first, that Venezi, unusually young for such a prestigious role and with far less professional experience than past holders of the post, lacked the qualifications to lead one of Italy’s most celebrated opera houses. Second, widespread speculation that the appointment stemmed not from Venezi’s artistic resume, but from her close personal ties to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Venezi, whose father was a former leader of the far-right neo-fascist party Forza Nuova, has served as a musical consultant for Italy’s Ministry of Culture since 2022. In her recent Argentine interview, Venezi praised Meloni as a “powerful, competent woman” and confirmed the pair have known each other since before Meloni rose to national political leadership. She pushed back against claims of political favoritism, however, insisting she has never been involved in politics and has no desire to enter the field. From the moment the appointment was announced, resistance from within La Fenice was swift and sustained. In October, the theater’s workers’ union held a strike to protest Venezi’s selection. In an open letter to La Fenice General Manager Nicola Colabianchi, staff argued that Venezi’s resume was “not remotely comparable to that of the great conductors who have previously held the post of Music Director of this theatre”. By convention, La Fenice’s general manager holds the formal authority to appoint a music director unilaterally, but long-standing institutional practice requires consultation with the orchestra to ensure collaborative alignment between musicians and leadership. Colabianchi broke with this norm, only notifying the orchestra of Venezi’s appointment after the decision was already finalized. Tensions remained high through the end of last year: during La Fenice’s traditional televised New Year’s Eve concert, orchestra members, choristers, and technicians wore matching golden pins to publicly signal their disapproval of the appointment. Discontent also spilled over to audiences, with multiple spectators dropping flyers reading “Music is art, not entertainment” from the upper stands of the theater following several performances in 2025. Even after Venezi’s dismissal, questions of political involvement remain unresolved. Italy’s leading daily newspaper Corriere della Sera reported this week that Meloni’s office had authorized the termination, responding to the steady accumulation of controversy surrounding the appointment. Meloni’s office quickly issued a public statement denying the report, pushing back against claims that the national government intervened in the institutional decision. Venezi, who began her career as a conductor at age 22, has led performances across Italy and in multiple international venues, including Armenia, Uruguay, and Argentina, though she has never held a top leadership post at a major European opera house.

  • Japan’s prime minister launches a panel to review her country’s defense policies as threats escalate

    Japan’s prime minister launches a panel to review her country’s defense policies as threats escalate

    TOKYO – In a landmark move signaling a major shift in Japan’s post-war security posture, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi officially launched a high-level expert panel Monday to conduct a comprehensive review of the nation’s core security and defense strategies. The initiative comes as mounting geopolitical tensions across East Asia, from intensifying military activity by China to heightened provocations from North Korea and expanded Russian military presence in the region, have pushed Tokyo to accelerate its long-planned military expansion.

    Takaichi, who assumed the premiership in October, has positioned defense upgrading as the centerpiece of her administration’s agenda, framing the expanded military capability as a critical deterrent against growing regional threats. In opening remarks delivered at her official residence at the panel’s inaugural meeting, Takaichi emphasized the urgent need to reorient Japan’s defense priorities to counter emerging threats. “The relatively stable post-Cold War international order has become a thing of the past,” she told the gathered experts. “The international situation has completely changed.”

    Drawing global lessons from ongoing conflicts, Takaichi argued Japan must adapt its military doctrine to account for new styles of combat, including asymmetric tactics and the widespread use of unmanned drone systems, while building capacity to withstand prolonged large-scale conflicts. “We need to learn the lesson from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war in the Middle East,” she added. “As the world enters an era of turbulence and Japan faces many challenges, the upcoming revision … is a crucial effort that affects Japan’s fate.”

    The security policy review is the latest step in Takaichi’s push to expand Japan’s military reach. Just one week before launching the panel, her cabinet approved a historic rollback of long-standing restrictions on lethal weapons exports, a policy shift that marked a major break from Japan’s post-World War II pacifist framework that restricted the country to self-defense-only military activity. The rollback has been widely praised by the United States and other regional defense allies, who say it will open new avenues for deepening military-industrial cooperation and integrated defense production. However, the move has drawn sharp criticism from domestic pacifist groups and the Chinese government, which argue it deviates dramatically from Japan’s post-war commitment to pacifism.

    The 15-member review panel brings together leading specialists in diplomacy, national defense, and economic policy. Over the coming months, the group will examine Japan’s existing defense frameworks against a range of plausible emergency scenarios, evaluate the current defense budget and long-term funding mechanisms, and prepare concrete policy recommendations for revision. Japan’s current national defense strategy, adopted in December 2022, set a target of doubling defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027, a commitment that totals roughly 43 trillion yen ($270 billion). Takaichi’s administration has already hit that spending target ahead of schedule, leaving analysts widely expecting the panel to consider additional increases to military outlays in its final report.

  • Draft law targets faster, easier social assistance access

    Draft law targets faster, easier social assistance access

    China’s top legislative body is moving forward with a landmark piece of social policy legislation that seeks to transform how vulnerable residents access life-changing support. The draft Social Assistance Law was tabled this Monday for its third reading at the ongoing session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s highest legislative organ. Under China’s standard legislative process, most bills receive final approval following three readings by the NPC Standing Committee, putting this legislation one step away from becoming official law.

    Social assistance forms a foundational pillar of China’s social safety net, designed to address sudden hardships, chronic poverty, and urgent basic needs for low-income households, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. In its latest iteration, the draft legislation retains existing requirements to maintain full transparency and procedural fairness in the allocation of assistance. It also adds a new, explicit mandate that regulatory authorities must streamline and adapt application and approval workflows to local conditions, cutting unnecessary red tape to make it simpler for eligible people to submit applications and receive their benefits in a timelier manner.

    Alongside the social assistance bill, the legislative session is also reviewing several other key pieces of legislation aligned with China’s ongoing policy and economic priorities. These include a revised draft of the Law on State-owned Assets of Enterprises, an amendment to the Agriculture Law, and a proposed new law on national healthcare security. This slate of legislative reviews underscores the government’s ongoing push to update its legal framework to better serve public needs and support long-term social and economic development.

  • UAE ranks first globally in GEM report for fifth year

    UAE ranks first globally in GEM report for fifth year

    For the fifth year running, the United Arab Emirates has retained its position as the world’s leading nation for entrepreneurship, according to the newly released 2025/2026 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report. Outperforming dozens of advanced economies across the globe, the country has once again solidified its reputation as the world’s most favorable environment for launching and scaling new business ventures.

    Across eight core performance metrics for high-income economies, the UAE claimed the number one spot. These metrics span physical infrastructure development, targeted and supportive government policy frameworks, tax and administrative procedural policies, national government-led entrepreneurship programs, research and development knowledge transfer, market dynamic-fueled ease of new entry, regulatory burden reduction for new market entrants, and formal entrepreneurial education.

    On two additional key indicators – entrepreneurial financing and access to startup capital – the UAE took second place globally, showcasing the strength and adaptive capacity of its national financial system. This strong performance confirms that the UAE’s economic landscape is fully prepared to empower early-stage startups and expand their opportunities for sustainable growth and regional or global expansion.

    Notably, the UAE is one of only four countries worldwide that have met or exceeded the “sufficiency” benchmark across every foundational framework condition measured by the GEM entrepreneurship index. This achievement underscores its status as a global leader in entrepreneurial ecosystems, underpinned by world-class infrastructure, efficient and proactive government policies, and robust digital readiness.

    Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism, emphasized the country’s pride in this milestone, noting that the consecutive top ranking reflects the nation’s longstanding commitment to strengthening its entrepreneurial ecosystem and locking in its status as the world’s most entrepreneur-friendly economy and top global destination for business establishment.

    He attributed the sustained success directly to the UAE leadership’s forward-thinking vision, which centers entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as core pillars of building a competitive, innovation-driven knowledge economy. Al Marri also highlighted the UAE economy’s proven high resilience and its proven ability to adapt rapidly to shifting regional and global economic conditions.

    The minister added that the GEM results reflect the strength and cohesive integration of pro-competitive policies and regulatory reforms rolled out by the UAE to nurture a supportive entrepreneurial landscape. Key initiatives driving this success include the national “UAE: Global Entrepreneurship Capital” campaign, which has successfully positioned the country as the premier destination for global talent, innovators, and founders.

    These outcomes also align directly with the goals of the UAE’s “We the UAE 2031” national vision, which aims to establish the country as a global hub for the new economy by supporting high-growth potential sectors including advanced technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, space exploration, and financial technology.

    In the 2025 National Entrepreneurship Context Index (NECI), which measures a country’s overall entrepreneurial climate based on independent expert assessments, the UAE scored a robust 7.0 out of 10. This high score reflects the deep robustness of the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and the high level of confidence among local business owners and international investors operating in the UAE.

    The GEM report also highlighted that the UAE is among just six countries where entrepreneurs uniformly identify artificial intelligence as a critical driver of growth over the next three years, demonstrating the nation’s advanced preparedness for the transition to a digital, knowledge-based economy.

    In the “international access” metric, the UAE ranked among the top five countries worldwide for startups’ ability to enter and scale in external global markets. The report attributed this success to the UAE’s world-class physical infrastructure and integrated logistics network, which it described as exceptional in connecting local entrepreneurs with global consumer markets.

    Data from the report confirms the UAE has built a dynamic, fast-growing entrepreneurial ecosystem: more than one in five UAE adults (over 20 percent of the adult population) are currently engaged in launching new business ventures. This high participation rate reflects the strength of the incentives and enabling frameworks the country has put in place to support early-stage founders.

    The UAE’s Total Early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate hit a strong 19.2 percent, signaling a healthy, consistent pipeline of new ventures. The GEM report notes that this steady flow of new entrepreneurial projects stems from a supportive ecosystem where launching a business is widely viewed as an attractive career choice, facilitated by streamlined registration processes and backed by robust government and financial support.

    The UAE continues to draw global entrepreneurial talent, with 19.6 percent of citizen adults and 22.4 percent of resident adults engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity. This gap highlights the country’s success in attracting skilled, ambitious founders from across the globe and encouraging entrepreneurial participation across all segments of society.

    The report also singled out the UAE’s success in advancing female entrepreneurship, noting that the country’s integrated ecosystem guarantees women founders equal access to critical resources and growth opportunities.

    More than half of UAE-based entrepreneurs identify family cultural traditions as a key motivator for launching and growing their businesses, reflecting the deep embeddedness of entrepreneurial culture across UAE society.

    In school-based entrepreneurial education, the UAE also made notable gains, ranking among the top five countries globally. The country’s education system prioritizes building core entrepreneurial competencies in students, including creative thinking, complex problem-solving, risk assessment, and opportunity identification, laying the groundwork for a new generation of future founders.

    Finally, the report emphasized that UAE entrepreneurship is supported by an advanced, flexible financing landscape that offers founders a wide range of pathways to secure capital for launching and scaling their businesses. This strength is visible in the diversity of funding sources available, from government-backed grant and seed initiatives to independent investment funds and global venture capital firms. This comprehensive support boosts founder confidence and enables innovators to turn early-stage ideas into scalable, globally competitive businesses, advancing the country’s vision of building a knowledge- and innovation-led national economy.

    As one of the world’s most authoritative independent research projects tracking global entrepreneurial activity, GEM has conducted more than two million interviews with stakeholders since its launch. The 2025/2026 edition of the report covers 53 global economies, representing approximately 43 percent of the world’s population and 57 percent of total global GDP, with analysis drawn from extensive input from hundreds of entrepreneurship experts.

  • Taylor Swift files to trademark voice and image after AI concerns

    Taylor Swift files to trademark voice and image after AI concerns

    As artificial intelligence tools become increasingly accessible and capable of replicating distinct human characteristics, high-profile public figures are moving quickly to secure legal protections against unauthorized deepfakes and AI impersonation. Global pop icon Taylor Swift is the latest celebrity to take decisive action, submitting three new trademark applications with United States regulators to shield her name, iconic appearance and recognizable voice from exploitative AI misuse.

    The filings, first uncovered and published by trademark attorney Josh Gerben on his professional blog, mark one of the most high-profile recent attempts by a public figure to leverage existing intellectual property law against the fast-growing problem of AI-generated impersonations. Two of the applications center on short audio clips that Swift recorded last autumn to promote her latest album *The Life of a Showgirl* for streaming platforms Spotify and Amazon Music. The clips feature Swift’s iconic opening lines: “Hey, it’s Taylor” and “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift”. The third application is tied to a widely used promotional photograph of Swift captured during her record-breaking Eras Tour, showing the singer on stage holding a pink acoustic guitar with a black strap, clad in a multi-colored iridescent bodysuit and silver boots. This same image was previously used for official marketing of the Disney+ Eras Tour concert film.

    The push for legal protection comes amid a rising tide of problematic AI-generated content targeting Swift and other A-list celebrities. In recent years, deepfake versions of the pop star have spread across the internet in a range of unauthorized forms, from non-consensual explicit imagery to manipulated political content – including a fake election advertisement that purported to show Swift urging voters to support former president Donald Trump. These high-profile incidents have underscored the urgent need for clear legal protections for public figures against AI exploitation.

    Swift’s action follows a similar move from Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey, who became the first major celebrity to use trademark law to protect his voice and image from AI misuse earlier this 2025. Prior to this, most celebrities relied on personality rights laws to address unauthorized use of their likeness, but trademark registration offers an additional layer of legal protection that can cover more types of AI-generated reproductions.

    According to legal expert Gerben, these trademark filings offer Swift broader protection than just preventing direct copying of the exact photo and audio clips. Under U.S. trademark law, holders can challenge any use that is considered “confusingly similar” to the registered trademark. This means that even AI-generated imitations that do not directly reproduce the registered files could still be challenged legally.

    “By registering specific phrases tied to her voice, Swift could potentially challenge not only identical reproductions, but also imitations that are ‘confusingly similar,’ a key standard in trademark law,” Gerben explained. “Theoretically, if a lawsuit were to be filed over an AI using Swift’s voice, she could claim that any use of her voice that sounds like the registered trademark violates her trademark rights. Same with the image filing. If someone creates an AI-generated version of Taylor in a jumpsuit with a guitar, or something close to it, now Swift has a federal trademark claim.”

    As generative AI technology continues to advance and spread, intellectual property and entertainment legal experts expect more high-profile celebrities to follow this trend, turning to trademark law as a new tool to combat the growing threat of unauthorized AI deepfakes and impersonations.