Search results

Bahrain’s leadership was busy bolstering ties with its most important partners in early March. While King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa went to Riyadh on 2 March, his son Prime Minister and Crown Prince Salman went to Washington.

Reports persist of arms shipments into the Ethiopian conflict zone, including drones from Iran and the UAE, which have been flown in to support Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s army against the rebel Tigray Defence Forces.

The Houthi movement has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations to allow 1.1m bbl of crude oil to be taken off the stranded SFO Safer, the rusting tanker close to Hodeidah port.

King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa was in the UAE in mid-March, following on from his recent trip to Saudi Arabia.

Bahraini Prime Minister and Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa held a number of business meetings while in the United States in early March for the Second US-Bahrain Strategic Dialogue.

GSN understands that Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said’s decision to extend his trip to Germany in February was due to the Omani ruler’s family being captivated by the pleasure of their first stay in a mountain-top villa in Garmisch-Patenkirchen, which the sultan inherited from his cousin Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said.

Some SR29.7bn ($7.9bn)-worth of contracts and 22 localisation agreements were signed at the first World Defence Show (WDS), held on the outskirts of Riyadh on 6-9 March. GSN takes a closer look at the contracts awarded  and provides brief profiles of leading Saudi defence companies.

The United Nations raised less than one-third of the amount it had aimed for at the High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen on 16 March, which was co-hosted by the governments of Sweden and Switzerland.

UCC has come to dominate Qatar’s construction market since it was registered in Doha just over a decade ago. Middle East Economic Digest in 2021 ranked it as the fourth largest contractor in the Gulf, with $4.7bn of work.

Much recent attention has focused on King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s fourth son, Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad, who – in his mid-30s – is nearly 20 years younger than his half-brother Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad.

The mid-2021 revelations about widespread use of the Pegasus spyware platform, developed by well-connected Israeli company NSO Group, have been followed by claims that Bahrain continues to hack the electronic devices of key opposition and other figures.

The Council of Representatives (parliament) failed to elect a new federal president for a third time on 30 March, four days after the previous abandoned effort, which followed an initial failure in February.

GSN Risk Grade: B↑1 Recent developments- Doha Forum: Numerous international dignitaries visited the Doha Forum, which ran from 26-27 March at the Doha Sheraton. Among those to attend were...

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a prominent shareholder in Twitter through his Kingdom Holding Company, has rejected a bid for the social media platform by Tesla founder Elon Musk.

In the latest sign of GCC states warming up ties with Syria, Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said held a phone call with President Bashar Al-Assad on 2 April, swapping Ramadan greetings and discussing bilateral ties.