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Mecca region governor Prince Khalid Al-Faisal attended a 31 March ceremony at King Abdulaziz Airport’s railway station in Jeddah to mark a resumption of services on the 450km Haramain high-speed line between Mecca and Medina.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government has claimed success in its efforts to change a highly critical report by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Panel of Experts. Published in January, it pointed to large-scale corruption and money laundering, including at Central Bank of Yemen and also by the powerful local Hail Saeed Anam (HSA) Group.

A report by former UK director of public prosecutions David Calvert-Smith, released on 7 April, urged members of the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) to reject UAE general inspector of police Major General Al-Raisi as a candidate for its presidency.

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) signed $4bn-worth of contracts with two local firms on 24 March, covering work in Block 6. Arabian Industries Projects will carry out project delivery in the north of the block and maintenance and integrity (M&I) work in the south.

GSN Risk Grade – C↑3↓ Overview Politics: The Al-Khalifas came to power in 1783, driving the Persian empire from the archipelago. The British empire entered into an alliance with the Al-Khalifa 200 years ago; only in 1971 did Bahrain declare independence.

Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force deputy commander Brigadier General Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Hejazi died on 18 April, aged 65. The cause of his death is not clear, with a number of potential reasons being hinted at in Iranian media. Hejazi served on the frontline for the entire eight years of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), where he was believed to have been exposed to chemical weapons; he had a heart disorder which may have been related to that, but he had also contracted Covid-19 relatively recently.

The Ministry of Defence announced on 10 April that it had executed three soldiers in the Southern Region Military Command after they were convicted of high treason.

Dubai Culture & Arts Authority chair Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum will lead the committee developing the new Al-Quoz Creative Zone, which aims to bolster Dubai’s position in the creative industries. Among its roles, it will serve as an incubator for designers and innovators. It is part of the wider Dubai Creative Economy Strategy. Roads and Transport Authority chairman Mattar Al-Tayer has been named deputy chair of the new Al-Quoz body.

Canadian digital asset management firm 3iQ has received regulatory clearance for a dual listing of its Bitcoin Fund on Nasdaq Dubai, Reuters reported on 20 April. Already listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, it would become the Middle East region’s first indexed cryptocurrency digital asset-based fund when trading starts, probably in Q2 2021, 3iQ chairman and chief executive Frederick Pye said.

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) managing director Raoul Restucci has retired after a decade in post that has seen crude output steadily increase, notwithstanding the huge technical challenges associated with some Omani oilfields and predictions that declining output was inevitable.  

GSN Risk Grade – D↓4 Overview Politics: Disagreements between the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and the federal Iraqi government in Baghdad have been a source of major tensions. The 2005 constitution gave the KRI an identity distinct from Iraq, as a federal entity recognised by Iraq and the United Nations; the 2010 Erbil agreement outlined how power would be shared.

Officially Tehran denies having any military links to Yemen’s Houthis, despite ample evidence to the contrary collated by the United Nations and others. However, in an indication of heightened self-confidence, some in Tehran have become far more open about the issue.

There has been confusion about the status of a number of dual-nationals held in Iranian prisons, amid conflicting reports of potential diplomatic breakthroughs which could see some released. Local media reports on 2 May claimed the UK government had agreed to pay a debt of £400m ($555m) it owes to Tehran for tanks ordered by pre-revolutionary Iran but never delivered, and that the payment would be followed by the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Crown Prince Sayyid Theyazin Bin Haitham Al-Said laid the cornerstone of a Oman Football Association (OFA) building at the Aseeb Sports Complex on 29 March, in his role as culture, sports and youth minister.

Fujairah Ruler Sheikh Hamad Bin Mohammed Al-Sharqi presented the Al-Urooba (sometimes Al-Orouba) football team with a gift of Dh2m ($545,000) on 29 April for winning the 2020-21 First Division title, in the second tier of UAE football.