Specifically "Fifth Freedom" flights, but they are a minority of Emirates flights, often with a subset of the people that flew the Dubai connecting section.
Yes, they have a few routes like that where it makes sense to have dogleg at the end of a distant destination instead of two direct flights. I took Emirates from Rio to Buenos Aires, which is a route that presumably exists so they don't have to fly to both cities directly from Dubai. Still, the vast majority of their flights are hubbed in Dubai.
