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Ambiguous statements over the UAE’s commitment to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen may have created some confusion over the Emirati leadership’s intentions, but the federation continues to wrack up casualties in the conflict. Lieutenant Rashid Ahmed Abdullah Al-Habsi was killed while on duty in Yemen on 5 September and Lance Corporal Saeed Anbar Juma Al-Falasi was buried on 22 September, having received treatment in Paris, France before succumbing to his wounds. The official death toll among Emirate forces involved in the conflict has now reached 97, according to GSN’s research, with the majority of casualties coming from the Northern Emirates.

The Shora-ye Negahban-e Qanun-e Assassi (Guardian Council) in late July announced that the next presidential election will be held on 19 May 2017. It will be a critical moment as the Islamic Republic is likely to be asked to choose between critics of the nuclear deal drawn from conservative/revolutionary factions (GSN 1,008/6) and President Hassan Rouhani’s more outwardly-oriented pragmatic/moderate agenda. The polls will come at a potentially febrile moment, as the new US president beds in and the region’s several proxy wars place Iran at the forefront of efforts to bring order to a dangerously destabilised Middle East/North Africa area.

The National Assembly and Cabinet of Ministers passed an amendment to the election law on 28 June barring anyone convicted by a final court ruling of insulting God, the prophets or the emir from running in parliamentary elections. The amendment is likely to affect dozens of opposition members, including several prominent former MPs. Judging from the timing, that is exactly what was intended.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco)’s future has come under intense scrutiny as potentially momentous reforms to the Saudi economy unfold, driven by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). The increased transparency implied by Aramco’s much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) could force a significant change in the way the national oil company (NOC) does business. More detailed reserves and production data might emerge that would confirm whether skeptics – such as the late oil investment banker Matthew Simmons, who over a decade ago questioned the giant Ghawar field’s performance – are correct in arguing that Saudi reserves are much diminished from the authorities’ claims. This, in turn, would explain the urgency of the MBS team’s efforts to develop the non-oil economy and pose further questions about the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec)’s relevance.

The United Kingdom’s 23 June referendum shocked the established order world-wide, as the electorate voted 51.9% to 48.1% on a 72.2% turnout. It has left the Conservative and, potentially, Labour parties facing leadership elections, the government rudderless until a new prime minister takes over, Scotland itching for a (probably successful) new independence referendum and severe questions about the future of peace in Northern Ireland. A blame game is under way in an already weakened EU that even its most talented leaders, not least German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will find hard to control – let alone the European Commission in Brussels headed by veteran Luxemburgish politician Jean-Claude Junker.

A court ordered the closure of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society on 14 June, following a two-hour hearing prompted by a request from the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments. A full court case is due on 6 October, but the headquarters of Bahrain’s main opposition party have been closed and its assets frozen in the meantime. The move followed a week of arrests that was leavened by the departure of dissident Zainab Al-Khawaja for Denmark, where she has dual citizenship. As she left, claiming intolerable pressure on herself and her family, another prominent Shiite activist, Bahrain Commission for Human Rights president Nabeel Rajab, was taken into custody.

The deal for India to invest $500m in the development of Chabahar port, signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Iran which began on 22 May, is a useful fillip to President Hassan Rouhani’s efforts to show the nuclear deal, which came into effect in January, can deliver real benefits to the economy. It promotes a project in Iran’s south-east which will compete with Pakistan’s Gwadar port scheme across the border, which has attracted Saudi as well as Chinese support.

The reshaping of economic policy and changing of the guard in senior government ranks continues to gather momentum in Riyadh, with new ministers in charge of oil, electricity, commerce and transport, as well as a new central bank governor. The changes consolidate the rise of younger generation officials, many of them in the orbit of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). In a reshuffle that clearly carried MBS’s fingerprints, coming only days after his Vision 2030 document was released, Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) chairman and health minister Khalid Al-Falih was appointed to replace octogenarian petroleum and mineral resources minister Ali Al-Naimi on 7 May. At the same time, the Ministry of Water and Electricity was discontinued – its minister Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al-Hussein having been sacked in April. The ministry’s power sector activities were folded into Falih’s enlarged portfolio, the new Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources.

The influential and sometimes intimidating role in overseeing and brokering oil exploration contracts played by a senior Talabani family member Bafal Talabani – now a leading figure in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s fight against Islamic State (IS or Daesh) – has been exposed in the English Commercial Court. To considerable embarrassment for the participants, the mid-April hearing explored the dealings underpinning the Kurdamir PSC, one of the longest-running production-sharing contracts in the region, over six days. Depending on the result, it could be extremely costly for Canada-based international oil company (IOC) WesternZagros Resources Ltd (WZR). The episode adds to concerns over governance in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) area, which is central to efforts to counter IS.

Security comes at a high cost in Bahrain, but exactly how high is difficult to ascertain. “Significant areas of government activity, including the security services and the Bahrain Defense Force, lacked transparency”, the US Department of State’s new Report on Human Rights Practices in 2015 observed in its section on Bahrain. Unsurprisingly, the 2015/16 budget approved last July (like budgets before it) provides only the broadest of outlines on government spending. As the State Department comments: “The government generally did not provide citizens access to government-held information.

In little over one year, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has become one of the region’s most prominent leaders, promising accelerated economic reform and hope for under-employed young Saudis, but also championing the GCC’s muscular response to the Hadi government’s overthrow in Yemen. He is surrounded by expensive advisors but seems to have relatively few close Saudi allies, which make his key relationships – with his father King Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed – especially important

The Saudi leadership’s announcement that it was ending $3bn financial support for Lebanon to buy French arms under a controversial deal struck in 2013 and signed in November 2014, together with a further $1bn to support Lebanon’s security services, has brought to a head a long period of deteriorating relations between Riyadh and its Sunni allies in Beirut. King Salman Bin Abdelaziz has previously told Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam the French arms deal – lobbied for by President François Hollande – was “on track” and “irreversible”, but for several months it has been increasingly apparent the three-way Don Arabie Saoudite (Donas – Saudi Arabia Gift) was going nowhere.

The cabinet reshuffle announced by Dubai Ruler, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) on 11 February made headlines for restructuring government – with fewer ministries but more ministers – and introducting some interesting new posts: the UAE now has ministers for happiness, tolerance and youth. Below the surface was a further shift towards Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ) who is projecting ever more influence across the federation.

The ability of the Islamic State group (IS or Daesh) to finance its military operations in Iraq, Syria and its growing franchise in Libya using revenue from oil production in Iraq and Syria is in great doubt – putting into question the international focus on the jihadist group’s supposed hydrocarbons-driven business model. Far from controlling an informal but highly profitable export business – as it likes to claim – IS, and the area it controls, may be importing fuel from its neighbours

Plans to overhaul the economy unveiled in The Economist’s scoop interview with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) offer the prospect of a more open economy that the kingdom’s current dominant policy-maker wants to deliver, and that McKinsey & Company and other advisers believe is essential if Saudi Arabia is to better employ and house its young population. In the Finance and Energy and industry sections, GSN sets out MBS’ economic ambitions, with analysis of planned subsidy and budget cuts, and the introduction of VAT and other indirect taxes – but no income or other direct imposition (so “there are going to be no income taxes, and no wealth taxes”).