In 2019’s Ad Astra, a somewhat glum portrayal of space travel set in the near future, Brad Pitt plays Maj Roy McBride, a US military astronaut who is sent to Neptune to uncover the truth about his missing father. The first stop on McBride’s journey is the recently settled Moon. Eschewing any Star Trek-style utopias, the film presents humanity’s first space colony as a dangerous, commercialised and anarchic outpost.
Its eerie but resource-rich moonscape is peppered with militarised bases belonging to competing countries and McBride is briefed that some zones are “in a state of extreme lawlessness”. The dark side of the Moon is especially perilous, being home to thermonuclear reactors and mining bandits who in one gripping scene ambush McBride’s military escort in a deadly – and entirely silent – low-gravity lunar shootout.
Ad Astra is one of the newer depictions of a space-faring humanity who instead of using groundbreaking technology and scientific discoveries to put aside political differences and economic rivalries instead transfers them to the heavens. It is not the first film to have done so: the Moon in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is divided into American and Soviet sectors whose Cold War secrecy and suspicion cloud humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.
But as human beings inch closer to longer, perhaps permanent stays in space – the US-led Artemis programme has the establishment of a lunar space station and a Moon base as its two primary objectives – I would argue that the time has come to think harder about agreed rules to avoid the dystopian predictions of Ad Astra, 2001 and others.
The UAE – a committed and ambitious newcomer to the space race – is dealing with this very topic. This month, the Emirates set up a new organisation, the Supreme Space Council, to oversee the development of its booming space sector. The new council will look at approving regulations and set priorities in investment, acquisitions and infrastructure. Interestingly, it will also have the power to approve plans aimed at achieving space security in co-operation with international partners.
Such plans cannot come too soon. As global society continues to draw on limited and diminishing natural resources on Earth, some governments and private companies are already considering new and vast sources of energy, water and minerals relatively close to our home planet, such as in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The potential rewards are enormous: research published in 2022 by the Harvard International Review included findings from aerospace companies Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. These businesses designed satellites that identified about 15,000 asteroids “with significant potential for mining”. Just last week, a UAE mission to travel to the asteroid belt reached a milestone when an agreement was signed to provide services for the 2028 launch of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Explorer spacecraft. This will perform close fly-pasts of six asteroids to gather data before landing on a seventh in a years-long journey of more than five billion kilometres.
The Moon is another highly strategic destination; the European Space Agency says its lack of atmosphere makes it an ideal place to generate electricity from solar power and its reserves of iron, titanium and uranium could be used to produce rocket fuel to “make it viable to refuel spacecraft in the lunar vicinity”.
How close are we to having rules about space that have widespread international acceptance? According to some legal experts, too much remains unsettled
If used in a spirit of co-operation – buttressed by effective rules and laws – such resources could revolutionise life on Earth and establish a toehold for humanity in space. If fought over, they could end up merely adding to humanity’s long and ignoble history of conflict. This is what makes realistic and far-sighted preparation for space exploration so important. Thankfully, the UAE is not alone in working to make space a safe, rules-based place.
On October 4, the Dominican Republic became the 44th country to sign the Artemis Accords, a series of multilateral agreements that Nasa says “provide a common set of principles to enhance the governance of the civil exploration and use of outer space”. Already signed by the UAE and the US, the Accords build on the work of earlier international co-operation, such as the UN’s 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
But how close are we to having rules about space that have widespread international acceptance? According to some legal experts, too much remains unsettled. In March, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, Memme Onwudiwe, said that the 1967 UN treaty remained the only binding legal framework for space exploration, despite it being “pretty vague” and mostly aimed at preventing the US and former Soviet Union from using space to launch nuclear weapons.
“There’s a lot to yet be decided on because we don’t really have a well-articulated space law,” Mr Onwudiwe told Harvard Law Today. “We have that Outer Space Treaty from 1967 that I mentioned, and everything else is domestic or bilateral in nature.”
However, as we get closer to being able to harness the natural resources in our solar system, questions of rights, ownership and use will become more pointed. “These questions are really big, and the only reason we haven’t grappled with them is because we haven’t had to,” Mr Onwudiew said. “But the second we do, it’s going to dwarf terrestrial issues, because of the vast size of the opportunity out there in space.”
Such questions may arrive sooner than we think – and not necessarily from space. As part of Ad Astra’s depiction of what could happen in the near future, it also reveals that Pitt’s character earned his military stripes during three years of war in the Arctic. In the real world of 2024, global warming is speeding up the melting of polar ice at record levels, possibly uncovering trillions of dollars’ worth of hitherto unavailable gas, oil and minerals. This, some analysts say, could start a race for dominance in the Arctic and even a superpower conflict. If humanity is going to share space together, now may be the time to lay down some ground rules for a resource bonanza that’s closer to home.
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Sri Lanka World Cup squad
Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera, Kusal Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Kusal Mendis, Isuru Udana, Milinda Siriwardana, Avishka Fernando, Jeevan Mendis, Lahiru Thirimanne, Jeffrey Vandersay, Nuwan Pradeep, Suranga Lakmal.
SQUADS
India
Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur
New Zealand
Kane Williamson (captain), Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Ross Taylor, Tom Latham (wicketkeeper), Henry Nicholls, Ish Sodhi, George Worker, Glenn Phillips, Matt Henry, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Adam Milne, Trent Boult
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
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How to come clean about financial infidelity
- Be honest and transparent: It is always better to own up than be found out. Tell your partner everything they want to know. Show remorse. Inform them of the extent of the situation so they know what they are dealing with.
- Work on yourself: Be honest with yourself and your partner and figure out why you did it. Don’t be ashamed to ask for professional help.
- Give it time: Like any breach of trust, it requires time to rebuild. So be consistent, communicate often and be patient with your partner and yourself.
- Discuss your financial situation regularly: Ensure your spouse is involved in financial matters and decisions. Your ability to consistently follow through with what you say you are going to do when it comes to money can make all the difference in your partner’s willingness to trust you again.
- Work on a plan to resolve the problem together: If there is a lot of debt, for example, create a budget and financial plan together and ensure your partner is fully informed, involved and supported.
Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
'Laal Kaptaan'
Director: Navdeep Singh
Stars: Saif Ali Khan, Manav Vij, Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain
Rating: 2/5
Sri Lanka's T20I squad
Thisara Perera (captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.
'Midnights'
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Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Who is Mohammed Al Halbousi?
The new speaker of Iraq’s parliament Mohammed Al Halbousi is the youngest person ever to serve in the role.
The 37-year-old was born in Al Garmah in Anbar and studied civil engineering in Baghdad before going into business. His development company Al Hadeed undertook reconstruction contracts rebuilding parts of Fallujah’s infrastructure.
He entered parliament in 2014 and served as a member of the human rights and finance committees until 2017. In August last year he was appointed governor of Anbar, a role in which he has struggled to secure funding to provide services in the war-damaged province and to secure the withdrawal of Shia militias. He relinquished the post when he was sworn in as a member of parliament on September 3.
He is a member of the Al Hal Sunni-based political party and the Sunni-led Coalition of Iraqi Forces, which is Iraq’s largest Sunni alliance with 37 seats from the May 12 election.
He maintains good relations with former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s State of Law Coaliton, Hadi Al Amiri’s Badr Organisation and Iranian officials.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday, May 16 (kick-offs UAE time)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (4.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Freiburg (4.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin (4.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn (4.30pm)
Augsburg v Wolfsburg (4.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach (7.30pm)
Sunday, May 17
Cologne v Mainz (4.30pm),
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich (7pm)
Monday, May 18
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen (9.30pm)
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
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Company%20Profile
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
8 traditional Jamaican dishes to try at Kingston 21
- Trench Town Rock: Jamaican-style curry goat served in a pastry basket with a carrot and potato garnish
- Rock Steady Jerk Chicken: chicken marinated for 24 hours and slow-cooked on the grill
- Mento Oxtail: flavoured oxtail stewed for five hours with herbs
- Ackee and salt fish: the national dish of Jamaica makes for a hearty breakfast
- Jamaican porridge: another breakfast favourite, can be made with peanut, cornmeal, banana and plantain
- Jamaican beef patty: a pastry with ground beef filling
- Hellshire Pon di Beach: Fresh fish with pickles
- Out of Many: traditional sweet potato pudding
CONFIRMED%20LINE-UP
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UAE squad to face Ireland
Ahmed Raza (captain), Chirag Suri (vice-captain), Rohan Mustafa, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Waheed Ahmad, Zawar Farid, CP Rizwaan, Aryan Lakra, Karthik Meiyappan, Alishan Sharafu, Basil Hameed, Kashif Daud, Adithya Shetty, Vriitya Aravind
UAE rugby in numbers
5 - Year sponsorship deal between Hesco and Jebel Ali Dragons
700 - Dubai Hurricanes had more than 700 playing members last season between their mini and youth, men's and women's teams
Dh600,000 - Dubai Exiles' budget for pitch and court hire next season, for their rugby, netball and cricket teams
Dh1.8m - Dubai Hurricanes' overall budget for next season
Dh2.8m - Dubai Exiles’ overall budget for next season
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
More coverage from the Future Forum
