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Aramco started pumping oil from its Manifa field on 10 April, with a view to relaxing output from some of its more mature fields. Production capacity at the field, which lies around 200km north-west of Dammam, is expected to reach 500,000 b/d of Arabian Heavy crude by July 2013, with a goal of 900,000 b/d by 2014. “First-phase production start-up at the Manifa field commenced on April 10, three months ahead of schedule and well under the programme’s approved budget,” Aramco said in a statement. Aramco’s overall capacity will be maintained at pre-Manifa levels, it added.

Deputy defence minister Prince Khalid Bin Sultan was sacked on 20 April, and replaced by a former naval chief from a less prominent branch of the Al-Saud – a surprise to many, even though Khalid had long been considered unpopular with the king. The enfant terrible of Saudi military politics, his 12-year stint at the ministry of defence ended with a brief statement from the Saudi Press Agency that reflected once again the opaque nature of decision making in the kingdom. “King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz issued today a royal order relieving Prince Khalid… deputy defence minister of his post and appointing Prince Fahd Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Abdelrahman Al-Saud, as deputy defence minister at the rank of minister,” the statement said.

On 20 April, Iraq held its first countrywide elections since the withdrawal of US troops in late 2011. The vote for provincial councils, widely touted as a litmus test for Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki ahead of parliamentary elections in 2014, was seen also as a test of how well Iraq’s political institutions and security forces could handle nationwide polls.

Iraqi Kurdistan has sold its first cargo of crude oil on the international market, according to industry sources. In defiance of Baghdad, which views such trade as illegal, crude pumped from Genel Energy’sTaqTaq field was trucked into Turkey, and sold via tender for loading in April, according to Reuters.

Prince Badr Bin Abdelaziz, a half-brother of King Abdullah, died in late March. He was in his early 80s. He was communications minister in the early 1960s and Saudi Arabian National Guard deputy commander from 1968 to November 2010, when he reportedly retired for health reasons.

Following on from UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s fence-mending visit to the UAE last November, Queen Elizabeth II has invited UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to pay a state visit to the UK from 30 April to 1 May. Sheikh Khalifa will stay at Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, last paid a state visit to the UAE in 2010, at Sheikh Khalifa’s invitation. The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan made a state visit to Britain in 1989.

The Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, belonging to Saudi Arabian National Guard head Prince Miteb Bin Abdullah, is to close its doors for a two-year renovation by the Lebanese architect Aline d’Amman. The Crillon was French-owned until 2005, when ownership passed to US group Starwood Capital and then, in 2010, to Prince Miteb for a reported €250m ($327m). Prince Miteb’s first cousin Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal owns the GeorgeV Hotel in Paris.

Taking to the stage to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Halabja chemical attack, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) president Massoud Barzani began by saying it was not the time to speak about tensions with Baghdad - before focusing his speech on just that. In yet another sign of the political crisis between Erbil and federal Iraq, he demanded that Baghdad choose whether it is ally or foe, and said that, at the moment, it appeared to be choosing the latter.

Any discussion of Saudi politics and business quickly turns to questions about the influence of Al-Saud princes and other key players in the royal pecking order, and who will succeed King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz. For those seeking to understand the trajectory of Saudi politics, there is meaning to be found (or, at least, sought) in appointments and dismissals. The naming of Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as head of the court of his father Crown Prince Salman, for example, may shed a glimmer of light on what lies ahead for him and other ‘third-generation princes’, as they move closer to the pinnacles of power.

Former police chief and minister of economy and industry Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Hamad is being sued by his ex-wife Meshkah Tawfik for £100m ($153m) in maintenance for their children Sultan and Sheikha. Tawfik told the Sunday Times: “I am suing him not for me but to get maintenance for the children. As members of the royal family they should not be living like this.”

Thousands of labourers went on strike on 12 March in Oman, to demand better safety conditions after a worker died in an accident. According to Reuters, an Indian working on the expansion of Muscat airport was run over by a bus belonging to contractor BEB on 11 March. “We will not go to work today unless our company assures us that they will revise safety standards in our workplace,” Mohan Raman told the newswire.

An interesting snippet on Ras Al-Khaimah (RAK) appeared in South Africa’s Mail & Guardian on 15 March, in an article on how foreign interests are hoping to get commercial deals in Zimbabwe in return for helping the cash-strapped government fund elections (an estimated $132m is needed). RAK ruler Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al-Qasimi visited Zimbabwe in late February, and was pictured with First Lady Grace Mugabe.

Saudi Arabia has arrested 18 people it accuses of spying for a foreign country, including one Iranian, one Lebanese and 16 Saudis. On 19 March, the interior ministry said that the suspects had “gathered information on vital installations which they provided to the country” they had been working for, and that they would be handed over to judicial authorities.

King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa appointed his son, Crown Prince Salman, first deputy prime minister on 11 March, a move widely perceived as conciliatory towards the opposition. Royal decree 14 named Salman, who is already deputy supreme commander of the Bahrain Defence Force, “First Deputy Premier for the Development and Performance of the Executive Authority’s Bodies”. 
It is a role with potential, given the urgency of institutional reform

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) finds itself at the centre of another Gulf-related crisis. Following the furore triggered by the UAE’s decision to stop LSE academic Kristian Coates Ulrichsen from discussing Bahrain at the American University of Sharjah , the university has now cancelled a major Gulf conference planned for London on 25-26 March. The conference, hosted by the LSE Kuwait Programme, was to look at ‘The Arab Spring and the Gulf: Politics, economics and security’; the trigger for the late cancellation was the withdrawal of sponsorship from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS).