Search results

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani was in Vienna in early December to present awards to winners of the Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani Anti-Corruption Excellence Award at the International Anti-Corruption day held under the auspices of the United Nations. While in Vienna the emir held talks with the outgoing UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in a meeting also attended by the director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Yury Fedotov.

UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia John Jenkins has completed his report on the Muslim Brotherhood, commissioned by the UK government in March, but its conclusions are uncomfortable for Number 10 and its Gulf allies, especially the UAE. A UK Foreign Office source told GSN that, after exhaustive enquiries, the “scholarly” Jenkins found the Brotherhood should not be proscribed as a terrorist organisation and that its members are generally not involved in terrorist activity. The source said former foreign secretary William Hague had been reluctant to produce the report in the first place, fearing the damage to bilateral relations with Gulf friends.

The National Dialogue Conference, a crucial component of Yemen’s GCC-backed political transition plan, could begin by the end of February, following the completion of a key preparatory report. But uncertainty over who will attend is just one of several potential obstacles to success.

Following recent setbacks for the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the central Al-Dhale province and on Socotra, where control has been seized from the national government by forces loyal to the separatist Southern Transition Council (STC), Hadi has been trying to push back and regain some momentum. On 22 May, the Riyadh-based president wrote to United Nations secretary-general António Guterres with a series of complaints about UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, including “his insistence on dealing with the Houthis as a de facto government”.

Tehran has been making clear its displeasure with Poland for planning to co-host an anti-Iran meeting with the United States on 13-14 February in Warsaw. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced the event in an interview with Fox News on 11 January, saying it would be “a global ministerial on Middle East peace and freedom and stability. We’ll bring together dozens of countries from all around the world… an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilising influence.”

Humanitarian concerns have forced a ceasefire in Yemen’s murderous Al-Houthi conflict amid signs that the Arab-Iranian ‘cold war’ is hotting up. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt joining the US in seeing wider regional significance in what has long been understood as a localised conflict, Ali Abdullah Saleh is looking to exploit a difficult situation

Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has taken the first step towards a long-awaited cabinet shuffle, installing new interior and oil ministers. On 7 March, a presidential decree appointed Major General Abdo Hussein Al-Tareb as interior minister, replacing Abdel-Qader Qahtan. At the Ministry of Oil and Minerals, the new minister is Khaled Mahfouz Bahah, who fills the post vacated by the January resignation of Ahmed Abdullah Dares. Bahah was recalled from Canada, where he had been ambassador since 2008. He is a former oil minister (2006-08) of Hadhrami origin; holding a Masters of Commerce from the University of Pune in India, he has private sector experience and is known for pushing Yemenisation of the oil industry.

As the holy month of Ramadan began, the rulers of the UAE emirates received well-wishers at their palaces, and exchanged greetings with Muslim leaders around the world. Notable for his absence was UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who had a stroke in January 2014, and has not been seen in public since. Official news agency Wam said the president had sent cables of greetings to various leaders, but he does not seem to have engaged in any telephone exchanges of congratulations, and was the only one of the seven Emirati rulers not to attend an iftar banquet in Abu Dhabi on 20 June.

Elections for the Council of Representatives (Majlis al-Nuwab) are to be held on 24 November. King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa set the election date in Royal Order 36, issued on 10 September. Voting will take place across Bahrain from 8am to 8pm on the day. Overseas citizens will be able to vote at Bahraini embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions on 20 November.

Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) minister Prince Miteb Bin Abdullah is maintaining a high public profile after months of low visibility when he was only seen publicly on SANG-related business – notably visiting injured troops or talking about the sacrifices of martyrs in the Yemen conflict. Miteb’s long career in SANG is thought to have endowed him with considerable loyalty within the guard, making him the most prominent of the late King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz’s sons. His low profile until recently led to speculation that he had been sidelined by Al-Salman rivals.

One of the most surprising elements to the string of arrests made on 4 November, following the announcement of a new Supreme Committee to tackle corruption, was the seniority of some of the princes detained. They include the following:Miteb Bin Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz – the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) minister was sacked by King Salman before being arrested. He was replaced as SANG head by Prince Khalid Bin Abdelaziz Bin Mohammed Al-Muqren.

The economy weathers a year of ‘seige’: Qatar has arguably emerged as a more robust economy – and with a more defined sense of national identity and interest – from the crisis that began with the planting of ‘fake news’ stories on the Qatar News Agency website in May 2017 and saw erstwhile Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) allies Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE boycotting the economy from 5 June.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan hosted President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on 25 September, during a visit by the Egyptian leader to the UAE that was notable for its exceptionally warm welcome. According to a statement published by the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the leaders discussed “combatting terrorism and eliminating the financing of extremist groups” – no doubt Qatar was high on their agenda. The two sides also agreed to concentrate efforts on “eliminating interference in the internal affairs of various Arab countries”.

Deputy minister for foreign affairs Abdelaziz Bin Abdullah in February attended a White House summit on countering violent extremism. The three-day summit, from 17 February, included ministers from more than 60 countries, and leaders including US President Barack Obama, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh. Foreign minister Saud Al-Faisal is still not back at work following back surgery in January. On 23 February, foreign ministry undersecretary for multilateral relations Prince Turki Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Kabeer attended a ministerial conference on regional security in Cairo on his behalf.

It is not just Russian billionaires who have been fighting their business battles in UK courts. Saudi magnate Sheikh Mohammed Bin Issa Al-Jaber (MBI) has failed to get success in the latest round of his High Court battle with South Africa’s Standard Bank, which he accused of a conflict of interest when it recruited his personal adviser Salim Khoury while he was still employed by the tycoon.