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Iranian envoy Ali Akbar Velayati arrived in Moscow on 11 July, carrying a verbal message from Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a written one from President Hassan Rouhani, both addressed to President Vladimir Putin. From the Russian capital Velayati was due to head to Beijing to convey Tehran’s message to President Xi Jinping. Putin’s Syria envoy Alexander Lavrentiev was due in Tehran on 18 July.

Prime Minister Haidar Abadi’s government has clamped down on a wave of protests that began in Basra on 5 July and spread to eight other provinces. The first demonstrations focused on a lack of jobs, but complaints about corruption, lack of electricity and other poor public services also featured.

The Saudi government has at last signed the contract to buy five corvettes from Spanish ship-builder Navantia, according to local media.

Kuwait foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah signed an agreement with his Saudi counterpart Adel Al-Jubeir to set up a bilateral co-ordination council on 18 July. The new council’s role has not been clearly defined. However, it’s the second time in recent months that Riyadh has set up a new bilateral mechanism with a neighbour in an initiative that is bound to raise questions about Riyadh’s commitment to the Gulf Co-operation Council. In June, it finalised a co-ordination council with the UAE.

President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan has continued to hold meetings with Emirati dignitaries while on holiday in France, proviking considerable comment after the UAE head of state’s many years of staying out of the limelight. Following his publicised meeting with his Bani Fatima half-brother Sheikh Hamed Bin Zayed on 9 June, Sheikh Khalifa held talks on 15 July with Ajman Ruler and Supreme Council Member Sheikh Humaid Bin Rashid Al-Nuaimi at his residence in the French spa town of Evian.

The standoff between Qatar and its GCC-3 rivals Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE seems intractable more than a year after the embargo began, with new fronts in the dispute steadily opening up in other nearby regions. The battle for diplomatic influence and control of strategic assets in the Horn of Africa – enlivened by the UAE’s desire for military bases close to the Yemen conflict – has been one notable arena.

A flagship art show patronised by King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s wife Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al-Khalifa and supported by development agency Tamkeen has been criticised by dealers and contractors who complain the organisation was chaotic and some participants haven’t been paid after the March 2017 second edition.

Gulf grandees arrived in Beijing for the Arab-China Cooperation Forum (ACCF) in early July, but the country that appeared to take the event most seriously was Kuwait, whose Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was the only Gulf ruler to attend. The emir was in China from 7-10 July, holding bilateral talks with President Xi Jinping before heading on to the ACCF. In an interview with the local Xinhua News Agency, Sheikh Sabah said he hoped China would help to establish industrial and high-tech park in northern Kuwait.

The assault on Derra by government forces and their allies is expected to drive out the last elements of organised resistance from the southern Syrian city that launched the rebellion to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad in the heady ‘Arab Spring’ year of 2011. Derra’s recapture will confirm Assad’s mastery of large swaths of his tortured country and the primacy of his key sponsor, President Vladimir Putin, in shaping events in a longstanding Russian ally.

The Financial Action Taskforce’s late-June meeting also decided that Iraq would no longer be subject to FATF monitoring under its global AML/CFT compliance process. This was a result of the “significant progress” made by Baghdad in addressing deficiencies previously identified by the FATF, the Paris-based group said.

Since entering the cabinet as first deputy prime minister and defence minister on 12 December 2016, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s eldest son has acquired a highly visible profile, publicly engaging with heads of state in the region, while simultaneously unfolding plans to reform the economy. Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah Al-Sabah’s elevation to become the most senior cabinet member after prime minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah has underlined his status as a serious contender for the eventual succession.

Following a period of tensions between Oman and the UAE, senior Emirati officials including deputy prime minister Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan were prominent in offering their condolences to heritage and culture minister Sayyid Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said, Sultan Qaboos’ advisor Sayyid Shihab Bin Tariq Al- Said and other family members on the death in mid-June of their mother Sayyida Shawanna Bint Hamoud Al-Busaidiyah.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait said on 26 June they were preparing another round of financial support for Bahrain’s beleaguered economy. Just how much will be offered – and with what conditions – remains to be seen, but the promise alone was enough to halt a worrying slide in market confidence in the island kingdom’s finances. The news of a fresh bailout came after several days of pressure on the financial markets.

The Financial Action Taskforce (FATF), a Paris-based intergovernmental group that acts as a global watchdog for anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT), has again decided not to impose sanctions against Iran while still keeping the Islamic Republic on its list of “high risk” jurisdictions. However, the FATF has also said it expects Iran to be in full compliance with its standards by October. If Tehran fails to meet that deadline the FATF says it will decide on “appropriate and necessary actions” at that time.

In economic terms, the Northern Emirates continue to stake out independent policies, underscoring autonomy from the central government – despite the centralising grain of recent UAE policy. Sharjah, poised to benefit from the tourism and construction boom associated with nearby Dubai’s Expo 2020, has made more effort than most to create its own institutions independent of the sovereign. In November, Sharjah issued a law regulating its own pension fund, the Sharjah Social Security Fund. This was seen as a clear example of enhancing economic autonomy.