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The UAE is having to battle another wave of negative publicity about its police and legal system, after a British-Sudanese man was detained in Sharjah in January. Ali Issa Ahmad, who was in the UAE on holiday, claims he was beaten by local football fans after they saw him wearing a Qatari football shirt and cheering on the Qatari national side during the Asian Football Cup.

The European Union is to open an official delegation in Kuwait City at some point in 2019. The European Commission’s high representative for foreign affairs Federica Mogherini said on 5 December that the move would “allow us to further step up our political, economic and sectoral engagement.

Saudi economy and planning minister Mohammed Bin Mazyad Al-Tuwaijri and UAE cabinet affairs minister Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al-Gergawi co-chaired the first meeting of the executive committee of the Saudi-Emirati Co-ordination Council in Jeddah on 15 September.

Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said spoke to US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on the phone on 15 May. They reiterated support for UN special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths and the Stockholm agreement signed in late 2018. They also “discussed Iranian threats to the Gulf region more broadly”, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

A meeting of foreign ministers from the League of Arab States was held in Cairo on 10 September, under the chairmanship of Iraqi foreign minister Mohammed Ali Hakeem. In his opening speech, Hakeem urged support for the new Sudanese government and for Palestinian rights and for a coordinated approach to tackling terrorism and extremism.

Chargé d’affaires in Damascus Abdul-Hakim Naimi offered praise for Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad in a speech to mark UAE National Day on 2 December. Naimi was quoted as saying “security and stability prevails throughout the Syrian Arab Republic under the wise leadership” of Assad, in reports filed by Reuters and Russian broadcaster RT. Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Maqdad responded to Naimi’s remarks by saying: “We cannot forget that the United Arab Emirates stood by Syria in its war against terrorism.”

The surprise drawdown of UAE forces from Yemen is not heralding a wider scaling back of Abu Dhabi’s ambitions to project power and influence in its ‘near abroad’. Indeed, the shift in strategy in Yemen may be a sign Abu Dhabi is being forced to prioritise, given the UAE’s limited manpower and shifting fortunes for its allies. Among the most recent developments, GSN hears that the extent of UAE support for Libyan rebel Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar is now in question, following his Libyan National Army (LNA)’s failure to take Tripoli this summer.

Media regulator the Communications and Media Commission has suspended Reuters’ licence to operate for three months and fined the news agency ID25m ($21,000) in response to a story it ran on 2 April which said the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country was far higher than the 772 cases officially reported. Reuters said it stood by the story, which claimed the true figure was in the thousands.

Denmark has taken Saudi Arabia to task after three members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) – a violent separatist movement in Iran – were charged on 10 June with terror-related activities, with the authorities saying they had received funding from an unnamed Saudi intelligence service.

King Salman Bin Abdelaziz on 8 January received the credentials of another eight new ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, representing Costa Rica, Chile, Kosovo, Hungary, Montenegro, Tanzania, Mauritania and Mauritius. Officials attending the ceremong included foreign minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Bin Abdullah.

King Tupou VI of Tonga visited Abu Dhabi in late September to open his country’s first embassy in the UAE, located in Etihad Towers. The limited extent of opportunities with the Pacific island nation was clear by the fact that the UAE only sent minister of state Zaki Nusseibeh as its representative to the occasion. The UAE has a non-resident ambassador to Tonga, Saleh Ahmed Salem Al-Suwaidi, who is usually based in New Zealand.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani approved a $150m aid package for Gaza on 22 March. To be distributed over the next six months, the money is directed towards supporting United Nations relief and humanitarian programmes in the territory and helping with efforts to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

In an unusual move, the UAE and Barbados have agreed to co-chair three major United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) events next year. They had made separate bids to host the Unctad quadrennial conference but decided to join forces, with Barbados hosting the quadrennial conference in Bridgetown while Abu Dhabi hosts the World Investment Forum and the eCommerce Week for Asia. Uncta’s Trade and Development Board endorsed the plan on 25 June.

Ambassador to UK Hamid Baeidinejad has said talks are under way between Tehran and London to settle a longstanding debt owed to Iran for Chieftain tanks ordered before the 1979 Islamic revolution which were never delivered. In an interview with Sara Massoumi of the Iranian daily Etemad, Baeidinejad said talks had begun to set out the details of an agreement.

The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Josep Borrell travelled to Iran on 3-4 February for talks with President Hassan Rouhani, foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Majlis-e Shura-ye Eslami (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani. The aim was to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf and it followed on from the Spanish diplomats’ visit to Jordan on 2 February where he met King Abdullah II and foreign minister Ayman Safadi.