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The AI Race Is Now a Race for Electricity, Land and Cold Water The Same Beans, Four Countries, Four Different Breakfasts Tesla and SpaceX Are Building a Chip Plant on a Dead Coal Reservoir e& Walked Away From Vodafone With $5.95 Billion and a Lesson Ful Medames: Breakfast That Has Outlasted Every Empire in Egypt Most of the Value of a Trade Show Happens in the Fortnight After It

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How AI Watermarking Actually Works, and Why It Is Two Different Things

Aug 13, 2026/4 min read

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Recipes

Ful Medames: Breakfast That Has Outlasted Every Empire in Egypt

Fava beans simmered until they collapse, crushed with garlic, lemon and olive oil, eaten out of a bowl with bread. Older than the pyramids by some accounts, and still what Cairo eats at dawn.

Aug 14, 2026/5 min read

A bowl of crushed fava beans topped with olive oil, chopped tomato and parsley, with flatbread alongside

Business

Most of the Value of a Trade Show Happens in the Fortnight After It

Firms spend heavily on stands and almost nothing on follow-up, then conclude that exhibitions do not work. The floor is the cheap part of the exercise and the least important.

Aug 14, 2026/4 min read

Two people in conversation at a trade show stand, with the exhibition hall behind them

Recipes

The Shish Tawook Sandwich, Built the Way Beirut Builds It

Bread, toum, chicken, pickles, chips. The order matters, the wrap has to be pressed, and yes, the chips go inside. This is the sandwich as it is actually sold on the street.

Aug 14, 2026/3 min read

A tightly rolled chicken wrap cut in half, pickles and chips visible in the filling

Recipes

Vegan Baklava Works, Because the Butter Was Never the Hard Part

Most filo is already vegan. Swap clarified butter for a blend of coconut oil and olive oil, use sugar syrup instead of honey, and the result is genuinely crisp rather than merely acceptable.

Aug 14, 2026/5 min read

Diamond-cut baklava pieces topped with finely crushed pistachio on a plain serving plate

Design

Big 5 Global Is Where Next Year's Buildings Get Specified

Twenty-seven hundred exhibitors at the Dubai World Trade Centre from 23 November, and three co-located shows that have quietly turned a construction fair into an urban development event.

Aug 14, 2026/3 min read

A construction industry exhibition hall with materials and equipment stands

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Small bowls of paprika, cinnamon, allspice and dried oregano on a dark surface

Recipes

What Spices Go in Shish Tawook, and What Each One Is Doing

Aug 14, 2026

A simple weeknight spread of flatbread, dips and a chopped salad

Recipes

Ten Middle Eastern Dishes You Can Actually Cook on a Weeknight

Aug 14, 2026

A tray of Middle Eastern sweets glossy with syrup and topped with crushed pistachios

Recipes

Middle Eastern Desserts, and the Syrup Rule That Governs All of Them

Aug 14, 2026

An industrial energy exhibition hall with large equipment displays and delegates

Business

ADIPEC Still Runs on Oil, Whatever the Programme Says

Aug 14, 2026

Chicken skewers on a wire rack over a baking tray, browned and blistered from the oven

Recipes

Shish Tawook in the Oven, Without Pretending It Is Grilled

Aug 14, 2026

Slow-cooked lamb shoulder resting on a platter of spiced rice

Recipes

Middle Eastern Lamb Dishes, and Which Cut Each One Needs

Aug 14, 2026

A mezze table of dips, salads and pulses with flatbread, no meat on it

Recipes

Vegetarian Middle Eastern Cooking Is Not a Compromise

Aug 14, 2026

Technology

GITEX Moves to Expo City, and Brings Seven Shows With It

Aug 14, 2026

In Pictures

Two styles of baklava side by side, one topped with green pistachio and one darker with walnut

Recipes

Turkish or Greek Baklava? The Argument Is Older Than Both States

Pistachio against walnut, sugar syrup against honey, semolina in the layers or not. The differences are real and worth knowing. The ownership question is less answerable than either side would like.

Aug 14, 2026