For many, the idea of US broadcaster-turned-podcaster Tucker Carlson and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa sharing a stage might once have seemed unlikely.

But that was precisely the scene on Wednesday at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where the two men engaged in a wide-ranging on-stage discussion covering China’s role in Africa, Western sanctions, land reform and economic sovereignty.

Carlson, the former Fox News host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, now runs The Tucker Carlson Show, an independent interview-led programme distributed via YouTube, X and podcast platforms. On YouTube, he has 5.6 million subscribers.

Carlson, who also interviewed the presidents of Sierra Leone and Botswana during the summit on-stage, opened by asking Mnangagwa to contrast Chinese and Western engagement on the continent.

“In as clear terms as you can, I wonder if you would contrast your experience with China versus the Western powers? Do you think that Zimbabwe and other African countries, to be totally blunt, get a better deal from Chinese investment than they have with Western powers over the last 150 years?”

Mnangagwa pointed to Zimbabwe’s post-independence trajectory and evolving partnerships.

“Well, my view is that initially as we became independent, most of our development thrust was from the West. But as we evolved, we’ve also benefitted from investment and cooperation from countries like China.”

Carlson pressed further, arguing that the underlying structure of foreign involvement had not fundamentally changed.

“But the basic structure seems the same. Foreign powers extract mineral wealth from various African countries, but do you think the arrangement that Zimbabwe and other countries currently have with China is better or worse for Zimbabwe than it was under, say the Brits.”

Mnangagwa rejected the premise of the comparison.

“I think the premises upon which you construct your question, I don’t think is perfect.”

After Carlson replied “Not surprised,” the Zimbabwean leader shifted the focus to sovereignty.

“Zimbabwe is a sovereign state, you understand. And we move on the basis that given the best results of our resources, whether it is relations with the West or the East, what is primarily important is what we as ourselves side with. We don’t need to please the West or please the East to please ourselves.”

The discussion later turned to Zimbabwe’s turbulent economic history, including land reform and long-standing Western sanctions.

“Our economy has faced challenges. Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for decades as a result of us claiming our land from the British and making ourselves independent,” Mnangagwa said. “We seized the land and gave it to our people. So sanctions were imposed on us. But in spite of all that constraint, we have developed… we feel very independent.”

Carlson questioned whether land seizures were racially motivated.

“Well, some of the land was seized from people who were born there. So I wonder if there’s a lesson about targeting people based on their skin colour, do you think.”

Mnangagwa pushed back.

“No, land did not belong to a race… when the colonialists took land from us, the time came when we asserted ourselves to take back our land. Those who wanted to have land on the same basis as the African people of Zimbabwe remained. But those who felt they were superior left.”

Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed in the early 2000s following land seizures, triggering hyperinflation, food shortages and a mass exodus of citizens to neighbouring countries. While structural challenges remain, recent data point to tentative stabilisation.

Inflation fell sharply to around 4.1 per cent in January 2026, returning to single-digit levels for the first time since the late 1990s, while GDP is estimated to have grown by about 6.6 per cent in 2025, supported by mining, agriculture and services. However, external debt, currency policy and investor confidence continue to weigh on the outlook.

Sunset Hospitality Group (SHG), a multinational lifestyle hospitality company, has acquired a majority stake in Solutions Group, one of the UAE’s most awarded operators of nightlife, dining, and entertainment venues, as part of a strategy to accelerate global growth.

The acquisition brings 15 venues under SHG’s portfolio, including Asia Asia, Lock, Stock & Barrel, Ula, The 305, Wavehouse, Papas, Central, and En Fuego, adding to SHG’s existing 100 sites across 26 countries.

Solutions Group’s senior management will remain in place to oversee operations and maintain the group’s brand identity while leveraging SHG’s scale and international reach.

Solutions Group and Sunset Hospitality Group to enhance market reach

Antonio Gonzalez, chairman and group CEO of SHG, said, “Bringing Solutions Group into the SHG family reflects our commitment to investing in operators with proven creativity and international potential. Their portfolio attracts millions of guests each year and has a strong foundation for future expansion.”

Paul Evans, CEO and founder of Solutions Group, described the deal as “a supernova moment; a collision of stars that will fuel exponential growth, unlocking new global chapters for our much-loved homegrown brands, and elevating the careers and aspirations of our exceptional teams.”

Chris Spiliopoulos, chief development officer at SHG, added that the acquisition broadens SHG’s reach into new segments, adding award-winning concepts with strong customer appeal that complement the existing portfolio.

The deal aligns with SHG’s broader investment-led strategy, which focuses on partnering with high-performing operators with scalable concepts and strong brand equity.

It follows recent SHG milestones, including a strategic investment from Goldman Sachs in April 2025 and an investment in Maximal Concept Limited in August 2025.

Solutions Group, established in 2013, manages a diversified portfolio of restaurants, entertainment, retail, and wellness venues.

Its brands are recognised for approachable, experience-driven concepts and creative hospitality management.

The acquisition is expected to drive operational synergies, enhance market reach, and accelerate geographic expansion for both groups in the global lifestyle hospitality sector.

Walk into any retail store in the Middle East today, and you will probably notice one or more IoT devices such as handheld POS systems, electronic shelf labels, and modern security tools. However, what many of us don’t see is the amount of data being processed by retailers today on account of the digital transformation in recent years.

Thanks to initiatives and investments designed to establish an advanced digital economy, combined with a tech-savvy population, the Middle East, today, is a hub for innovation in retail. As the sector continues to prioritise omnichannel retailing, e-commerce, and personalised experiences, data centre infrastructure is becoming an increasingly vital component to managing data. For example, retail companies in the region are increasingly utilising IoT devices to measure real-time inventory tracking, customer traffic analysis and predictive maintenance. In fact, it is estimated that the UAE’s digital technology sector, including IoT, will grow by $3.8bn this year alone.

To enable these operations, data centres provide the backend infrastructure to collect, process, and analyse the monumental amounts of data generated by these devices. Consequently, an increasing amount of importance has been placed on modernising data centres for a more simplified and integrated approach to IT operations. No longer defined by physical facilities, data centres have become a core part of an infrastructure that needs to be resilient, flexible, and secure.

Shifting from a centralised to a distributed modern edge-to-cloud data centre network can benefit retail organisations and their customers while aligning with a few common industry priorities:

1. Customer loyalty – The Middle East’s tech-savvy customers increasingly expect real-time information, personalisation, and seamless shopping experiences, whether they’re browsing, buying, or making a return. Having the right data is essential to obtaining a 360° view of the customer and their preferences. The first step in being able to derive these types of insights is having the right infrastructure in place to collect, store, and segment the data effectively, in a non-invasive manner.
2. Securing sensitive data – As the digital transformation in retail continues, unfortunately, so do the threats of various types of cybersecurity threats. The 2024 UAE Retail Report revealed that both cyber attacks and data breaches had cost the sector a loss of approximately Dhs11m. Retailers need to ensure point-of-sale, scanners, IoT and other devices are secure in real-time with role-based policies across corporate, store and warehouse locations. Combined with artificial intelligence, retailers can take a more proactive approach and respond to potential incidents in real-time.
3. Operational efficiency – With evolving IoT devices, increased security threats, and ever-changing customer expectations, retailers need to be able to respond quickly to risks at all levels. The risk of a system outage could jeopardise anything from supply to frontline workforce tools. The ability of retailers’ data centres to align with strategic innovation can help retailers seamlessly meet the operational demands of today’s digital era.

That’s where data centre network solutions can help retailers evolve from sprawling, costly legacy systems to a unified, more efficient data centre.

Distributed architecture

Retailers have enough to worry about with the industry landscape rapidly changing and more data than ever at their fingertips. Distributed architectures implement software-defined services that improve security posture, optimise network performance, and simplify network provisioning by distributing intelligence closer to workloads.

It’s becoming infinitely more difficult for retailers to secure data and see into blind spots as data grows and sprawls across on-prem and cloud footprints. With switches that provide built-in security capabilities, customers can apply policies consistently across both users and workloads. Dynamic segmentation reduces the risk exposure associated with east-west traffic patterns, which traditional approaches of physically separating network traffic cannot.

Unified orchestration

Innovations around cloud-based orchestration offer a single pane of glass for multi-site, multi-geography branch, campus and data centre network management. This benefits organisations with limited technical resources by not having to staff and fund dedicated on-site IT resources.

Moreover, overall end-to-end network and security policies can be vastly simplified with consistent global policies that span various locations and network fabrics, with fully stateful services that are delivered in-line, at scale, with wire-rate performance, and critical mission workloads are managed securely. Applying advanced intelligence to modernise data centre operations, retailers can overcome the challenges of inefficient, costly, and complex legacy systems by making the transition to a unified, intelligent, and automated data centre network.

Retail’s digital transformation is underway, and with it, the need to address ever-increasing data volumes that must be processed, secured, and analysed.

The right data centre solutions can give retailers full visibility and know with confidence that each application gets the right mix of network services and security.

The writer is the regional director – Middle East & Africa at HPE Networking.

UAE-based car-sharing company Udrive has partnered with AGMC, the official importer of MINI vehicles in Dubai, Sharjah and the Northern Emirates, to introduce MINI cars into its shared mobility fleet, the companies said on Tuesday.

Under the agreement, Udrive will add up to 100 MINI vehicles to its platform, with an initial batch already available to users across the UAE. The rollout will include MINI Convertibles as well as other models designed for urban use.

The partnership marks MINI’s entry into the UAE’s car-sharing segment and reflects growing demand for flexible, short-term access to vehicles rather than private ownership, particularly in major cities.

Udrive allows customers to locate, book and unlock vehicles through its mobile app, offering rentals by the minute or by the day. The service includes fuel and parking, with no deposit required.

The platform‘s founder and chief executive, Hasib Khan, said the partnership would expand customer choice by offering access to premium vehicles on a flexible basis. AGMC MINI head Ziad Boghdady said the tie-up reflected changing mobility preferences in the UAE, where access and flexibility are increasingly prioritised.

Udrive recorded more than 554,000 trips in 2025

The MINI vehicles available on the platform will include Cooper S, John Cooper Works and Convertible variants, Udrive said.

Udrive currently operates a fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles across the UAE. The company has completed over three million rentals since launch.

In 2025, it recorded more than 554,000 trips and over 45 million kilometres driven, according to company data.

Car-sharing services are being promoted across the UAE as a way to improve vehicle utilisation, reduce traffic congestion and lower emissions by reducing reliance on private car ownership.

Airport retail is undergoing a structural shift, with spending increasingly driven by younger travellers and passenger behaviour rather than overall traffic volumes, according to a new study by Airports Council International Asia-Pacific & Middle East (ACI APAC & MID).

The industry body, which represents more than 600 airports across 44 countries and territories, said its Travel Retail Study in the Post-Pandemic Era shows that although passenger traffic has recovered beyond 2019 levels, commercial performance now depends on who is travelling and how they spend.

The study, developed with consultancy firms Auran and Steer, covers 36 major airports in 21 countries and is based on input from retailers and passengers.

It found that 56 per cent of airports reported commercial revenues stronger than in 2019, while 44 per cent expect higher commercial revenue per passenger over the next 12 months.

Perfume and cosmetics were identified as the strongest-performing retail category since 2019.

Passenger demographics and price competitiveness were cited as the main factors influencing retail outcomes.

Generation Z, Millennials travellers are key buyers

Younger travellers, particularly Generation Z and Millennials, have overtaken older age groups as the biggest spenders at airports when measured against Baby Boomers. Generation Z and Millennials spend 3.5 times more than Generation X and Boomers.

Generation Z travellers are four times more likely than Boomers to buy electronics and 2.5 times more likely to purchase luxury products. Boomers are 2.5 times more likely than Generation Z to buy alcohol and 1.4 times more likely to buy confectionery.

The study found that Millennials and Generation Z are driving spending on luxury goods, perfumes and cosmetics, and show a stronger preference for local and culturally relevant products. This has increased demand for destination-linked purchases supported by local identity and storytelling.

Passenger behaviour is evolving

Stefano Baronci, director general of ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East, said airports can no longer rely on passenger volumes alone to drive commercial growth.

“As passenger behaviour becomes more segmented, revenue outcomes depend increasingly on who travels, not simply how many travel,” Baronci said. He added that with high fixed costs and long investment cycles, non-aeronautical revenues such as travel retail and duty free play a growing role in financial resilience.

Regional data shows differing patterns between traffic recovery and passenger spending.

In Asia-Pacific, domestic traffic rose two per cent between January and October 2025 compared with 2019, while passenger spend increased 13 per cent. International passenger spend rose five per cent, even though traffic remained two per cent below pre-pandemic levels. Luxury goods sales increased nine per cent and local product sales rose seven per cent.

In the Middle East, domestic traffic increased 14 per cent over the same period, but passenger spend fell 17 per cent. International traffic rose 17 per cent, while passenger spend increased two per cent. Electronics spending climbed 14 per cent, supported by tax advantages and demand for airport-exclusive products.

Revealed: Here’s what travel will look like in 2026

Duty-free is a major revenue driver for travel retail

Duty-free retail continues to be a major revenue driver across both regions. In the Middle East, duty-free accounts for between 31 per cent of total retail sales in Saudi Arabia and Oman and 38 per cent in Qatar, with the UAE at 36 per cent.

Revenue dependence is higher still, at around 60 per cent in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and more than 50 per cent across the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.

Middle East duty-free baskets are dominated by confectionery and perfumes, while airports in Asia-Pacific and Oceania see stronger demand for premium products and alcohol.

The highest-spending travellers originate from China, India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Chinese travellers lead the recovery in domestic and international spending, with luxury spend running at double the Asia-Pacific average.

Indian travellers are recording strong growth in international and duty-free spending, driven by brand aspiration and pricing advantages. Outbound travellers from the UAE and Saudi Arabia are among the top spenders globally, supported by high disposable incomes and a strong gifting culture.

Despite rising digital engagement, most airport retail purchases remain in-store.

Around 70 per cent of buying decisions are impulse-led, with digital interaction currently generating only two per cent of incremental sales.

Product choice accounts for 39 per cent of purchase motivation, while pricing and promotions account for 29 per cent. Experience influences 20 per cent of buying decisions, with ease of access and time efficiency ranking higher than store ambience.

While 65 per cent of Generation Z travellers say they are willing to pay more for sustainable products, only 20 per cent of airports currently view sustainability as a core driver of retail decisions.

Across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, luxury goods and perfume and cosmetics are the top two retail categories by spend, followed by electronics. These three categories generate the highest margins for airports.

Beyond these, regional differences emerge, with local products performing strongly in Asia-Pacific and confectionery showing greater strength in the Middle East.

Top contributing product categories by spend

Asia-Pacific

1. Luxury goods
2. Perfume and cosmetics
3. Electronics
4. Local products
5. Alcohol
6. Confectionery
7. Tobacco
8. Books and magazines

Middle East

1. Luxury goods
2. Perfume and cosmetics
3. Electronics
4. Confectionery
5. Local products
6. Alcohol
7. Tobacco
8. Books and magazines