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Qatar has a self-imposed moratorium on developing new hydrocarbon projects until 2015, a policy which will see hydrocarbons income slow in the coming years. Non-hydrocarbon growth is predicted to rise (to around 9% in 2011, according to the IMF) on the back of manufacturing, financial services, trade and hotels.

Towering over the London skyline, the gleam of the Shard can be seen for miles around. When Western Europe’s tallest building, a 310 metre (1,016ft) vertical city of offices, restaurants, apartments and luxury hotel rooms, is officially inaugurated on 5 July, Britons can expect a spectacle: lasers and searchlights will striate the night sky as the London Philharmonic thrashes out the dramatic crescendos of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

Shareholders at Bahrain-based Islamic banks Capivest, Elaf Bank and Capital Management House will vote on a proposed merger this month.

A suicide bomber killed senior Yemen military commander Major General Salem Ali Qatan in Aden on 18 June.

Rumbling discontent at the slow pace of reform has tipped over into a series of strikes and demonstrations in the past two months, resulting in a number of detentions.

Kuwait’s limited parliamentary democracy has often been held up as the most democratic political system in the region, but it has also led to a string of political crises; there have been four elections in less than six years.

The announcement on 20 June that the February election in Kuwait was unconstitutional was an unexpected twist in a political drama already thick with confrontations, resignations and involuntary vacations.

Most of the 12 blocks on offer in Iraq’s reworked and delayed fourth licensing round attracted no bidders, but of the three that did, two had a high level of security risk

Two thirds of business executives in the Middle East believe corruption is widespread, with backhanders, facilitation payments and bribes often used to win contracts, according to an April report by Ernst & Young, the Middle East Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Survey.

Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is continuing his campaign to establish total control over Iraq’s political institutions, including parliament, the judiciary, security forces, electoral oversight mechanisms and economy. In recent months, he has successfully marginalised the Sunni-backed Iraqiya coalition and is manoeuvring the Kurdish bloc into an isolated position against which he hopes to range a broad Iraqi Arab nationalist coalition.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki seems determined to thwart basic Kurdish political objectives, including the development of an autonomous energy sector and incorporating disputed territories into the province. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is dependent on Baghdad for much of its budget, which is paid via a gross 17% share of oil revenues.

Iran has become increasingly isolated in recent months, as the West applies sanctions intended to pressure it into halting its nuclear activities. Washington and its allies fear Iran’s uranium enrichment programme is an attempt to build atomic weapons, while Iran says it is refining uranium for a network of nuclear power plants.

Saudi Arabia has pledged $3.25bn in aid to Yemen, at the start of a one-day donor meeting in Riyadh.

It was on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 that Rudyard Kipling penned his ‘Recessional’, a hymnic warning about the inevitable decline of the British Empire. “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday/ Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!/Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,/Lest we forget – lest we forget!” wrote the poet of the Empire, as Britain’s redoubtable monarch marked 60 years on the throne.

Aspects of Dubai’s economy are looking much brighter, according to the authorities, but there are still serious concerns over other economic factors. Tourism appears to be recovering. But in the real estate market, property values are as much as 60% lower than at their 2008 peak and there are serious concerns over the refinancing of debt at Dubai’s government- related entities (GREs).