A new IKEA store is going to give shoppers more options in the Al Salaam Mall in Jeddah. The Swedish furniture maker recently inked an agreement with Arabian Centres, the mall’s parent company, to open an anchor store in the mall, which marks a new strategy for integrated retail in Saudi Arabian shopping centers. The 23,000-square-foot IKEA store is scheduled to open next year. Read More »

Dubai-based OSN, the region’s leading pay-TV network, recently secured a deal with Lebanon’s Right & Rights (R&R) for the exclusive distribution of its premium channels. R&R is Lebanon's most prominent media aggregation company. The new deal will see R&R, in collaboration with its sister firm ECOnet, exclusively distribute OSN content in Lebanon. Read More »

Fortinet, a global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions with offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, recently announced its acquisition of AccelOps, an innovator in scalable network security monitoring and analytics solutions. Gulf News Journal spoke with Fortinet Middle East Regional Vice President Alain Penel to get more details on the acquisition. Read More »

Dubai in the United Arab Emirates already is a bustling cosmopolitan hub, complete with awe-inspiring attractions, luxury amenities and a good deal of urban engineering and social planning that leads to quality of life for residents and visitors; and now the Smart Dubai Office is literally working toward the goal of a technical utopia with something called the Happiness Agenda. Read More »

Dan Nainan took an unconventional route to stand-up comedy. As a senior engineer at Intel, he traveled all over the world to talk about the company's technology. He said he found public speaking terrifying, but after taking a stand-up comedy class he bacame more confident, so much so that he does comedy for a living. In the course of his travels, Nainan often ends up in places like Dubai. Read More »

Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, recently won top honors at the Treasury Today Adam Smith Awards 2016 for setting a world-class standard in treasury and financial best practices in all areas of its operations. The company garnered the Top Treasury Team award as well as awards for Best Financing Solution and Best Cash Management Solution at the awards event in London. Read More »

Air travel to and from the small Gulf Coast country of Kuwait seems to be growing - but with the recent abandonment of London-JFK routes by the country's leading airline, Kuwait Airways, that growth is not likely to be coming from the West. Recently released statistics show that the passenger volume through Kuwait International Airport is up 7 percent from 2015 as of May. Read More »

If you believe a recent quality-of-life study, Ras al Khaimah (RAK) is really a pretty nice place to live. The study is a collaboration between the Ras al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority and Nielsen. For the study, RAK-TDA commissioned research initiatives to look at the overall quality of life for RAK residents with an eye toward the global World Happiness Report. Read More »

The British vote to exit the European Union, or Brexit, on Friday has sliced markets, sending oil prices crashing approximately 5 percent within the day. An update posted on U.K. site The Week posits $45 oil prices following a sudden slide that has reversed gains on expectations earlier in the week that the EU referendum could have turned out differently. Read More »

Some tech leaders are pointing to bold new initiatives by hotel chains in the Middle East region as a kind of renaissance for advanced products and services. Avaya, for one, cited 40 percent growth within a six month period. In a June 19 press release, experts attributed the rise in Avaya’s business to investments that hoteliers are hoping will reap dividends. Read More »

The founders of a small startup called KOOOT.com have a mission to change the way that women in the Gulf Coast region access local markets, as well as to improve their interactions with global brands.  Read More »

Hydroponics is radically changing agriculture around the world, and one company has received a seal of approval from the Shariah Supervisory Board (SBB), making its investment product an example of Shariah-compliant agriculture. Read More »

Saudi officials are bringing some of their vision for 2030 to America's Silicon Valley in hopes of attracting more economic power to rebuild a national economy. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and other Saudi leaders are stopping in San Francisco for talks with tech companies. The Saudi delegation is pitching Vision 2030, the plan to overhaul the country's economy. Read More »

IBM and Emirates Airline are partnering to give fliers better service and support when they book flights through the UAE-based international airline. Under the 10-year technology services agreement worth $300 million, IBM will provide the airline with mainframe and storage services delivered through an infrastructure-as-a-service model to provide a variety of assistance. Read More »

As a result of its endeavors in green building practices in the Middle East, the Emirates Green Building Council (EmiratesGBC) is gaining growing recognition. This was evident in the recent appointment of Habiba Al Marashi, EmiratesGBC co-founder, to the Membership Committee of the World Green Building Council, the largest international organization influencing the green building marketplace. Read More »

A contract between technology firm Sabre Corp. and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is the latest example of major disruption in the airline industry - changes that are bound to affect global air travel in a good way. Etihad Airways' recently signed agreement will allow passengers to book different types of travel and select options for seating, baggage and handling of airline points. Read More »

A recent agribusiness conference in Nairobi highlighted the desire of United Arab Emirates officials to expand trade with African nations and how leaders from Dubai are looking closely at continuing to expand trade with East African nations, including Ethiopia. Dubai imports 85 percent of its food and much of that comes from Ethiopia, according to Informa Middle East. Read More »

As tech journalists, finance professionals and others try to read the tea leaves on the advancing technology and practices of the banking industry, researchers are getting mixed signals from some consumer markets. One example is a recent study of smartphone users in the Gulf Coast region which uncovered trends among banking customers in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. Read More »

For those unfamiliar with the season of Ramadan, the prospect of interacting with practicing Muslims during that month can be daunting. Many know that these Islamic holy days require fasting from dawn to dusk. Others might know that Ramadan is based on the revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, information that can be found on Wikipedia. Read More »

An Aster IVF & Women Clinic study, conducted by Aster DM Healthcare, attributes the higher Infertility rate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to a shifting demographic trend of late marriages and a sedentary lifestyle. The research study, published during the inauguration of the Aster IVF & Women Clinic in Dubai, said 1 in 5 couples in the UAE face fertility issues. Read More »