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Qatari forces have surprisingly taken part in military exercises in Saudi Arabia, alongside the countries that have been ranged against Doha in the diplomatic and economic dispute that began last June. A Qatari armed forces delegation led by Brigadier General Khamis Mohammed Deblan took part of the Joint Gulf Shield 1 drill, held at Ras Al-Khair in Eastern Province from 21 March to 16 April.

Tens of thousands of Houthi supporters massed on the outskirts of Sanaa in the second half of August to try to pressure the government to quit, and to restore fuel subsidies, news agencies said. On 2 September, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi dismissed his government and proposed a national unity administration in a bid to halt the conflict, but the Houthis rejected his proposals. There have been several deaths in clashes between Houthis on one side and Yemeni soldiers and local militias on the other.

A decision to allow shops to stay open around the clock has sparked confusion over what that means for prayer times. Following a cabinet meeting on 16 July, the government said businesses would now be able to chose their own opening hours, leading some to speculate that shops would be allowed to stay open during prayers. This is a reform that many retailers have been seeking, given the inefficiencies created by having to pull down the shutters several times a day.

Conversations in Paris have turned of late to the richer Gulf states, where President François Hollande has successfully hawked defence sales in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while elite vendors from the Louvre to up-market real estate agents have been structuring deals that shine out in an indifferently performing Eurozone economy.

Parliamentary sessions resumed on 16 October following a five-month holiday; its agenda includes 27 draft laws: five bilateral agreements, four new laws, 14 replies to law proposals previously submitted by MPs and four laws previously presented by the Shura Council upper chamber. MPs will also review the government’s reply to 20 parliamentary proposals submitted to the previous legislative session. These include building schools and specialised autism centres, paying students monthly allowances, building car parks and other services-related requests. There was no mention of the crisis with Shia communities or regional tensions in official communiqués.

Royal Court advisor and former economy and planning minister Mohammed Bin Maziad Al-Tuwaijri has been nominated by Saudi Arabia for the post of World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general. He is competing against seven others for the job, after his nomination was filed just ahead of the deadline on 8 July.

Prime minister and interior minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al-Thani travelled to the UAE in late November for meetings with the senior leadership there. During the trip he met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, UAE deputy prime minister and interior minister Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, prime minister and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum and Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum. Qatar and the UAE have not always had the easiest of relationships but there have been a number of high-level meetings of late.

The king of Bahrain’s son, Prince Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, is not immune from prosecution, and may face investigation and potentially trial in Britain over allegations that he tortured a number of political prisoners in Bahrain in April 2011, a British court has ruled. After a two-year court case, details of which only emerged in May, High Court judges Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Cranston quashed a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that the prince was immune from arrest and prosecution, at a divisional court hearing in London on 7 October.

The Bahraini government has clarified a court ruling on 28 October that seemed to suspend opposition group Al-Wefaq for three months. As GSN reported at the time, a statement from the justice ministry seemed to suggest the ruling would not be enforced if Al-Wefaq fulfilled its legal obligations (something Al-Wefaq says it has already done).The government has since confirmed that the suspension would not take place “if the society puts things right at its general conference”, a spokeswoman at the Bahrain embassy in London told GSN.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani travelled to Belgium on 4 March at the start of a two-leg trip to Europe which will also take in a state visit to Bulgaria. A number of co-operation agreements and memoranda of understanding are due to be signed over the course of the trip.

Saudi Arabia has launched its first advertising campaign against the abuse of women, with a striking poster of a women, in niqab, with one bruised eye. The damaged eye, peeping through the black fabric that covers all of her body and most of her face, is paired with the slogan: “What is hidden is greater – together, fighting violence against women”. A more idiomatic translation might be “the tip of the iceberg”; an English version of the poster read: “Some things can’t be covered, fighting women’s abuse together”.

Reports suggesting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s illness could lead to a major internal power struggle within the next few weeks, if the rahbar (supreme leader) departed the political scene, were premature. Khamenei (born 17 July 1939 in Mashhad) left hospital on 15 September, one week after undergoing prostate surgery. He immediately spoke to state media – and made headlines worldwide – stating that in no way would Iran join the US-led coalition combating Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Reports that he had been suffering an aggressive form of prostate cancer seemed to have been much overstated.

As the rift between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his supporters grows, one of the head of government’s apparently waning number of allies, foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, faces impeachment over his controversial 19 June appointment of Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh as his deputy. Conservative politicians, and particularly the Intelligence Ministry headed by Heidar Moslehi – a close Khamenei ally who Ahmadinejad unsuccessfully attempted to remove in April – were infuriated by the Malekzadeh appointment, at a time when corruption charges were hanging over him.

Sweden sent special envoy Baron Bjorn von Sydow to Riyadh on 27 March, in an attempt to defuse the row sparked by foreign minister Margot Wallström’s criticism of the kingdom’s treatment of women and flogging of Raif Badawi. Saudi Arabia had withdrawn its ambassador, Ibrahim Bin Saad Al-Ibrahim, from Sweden, and said it would no longer issue business visas to Swedes, to the alarm of many in Stockholm.

Parliament reconvenes: Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah reopened the National Assembly (parliament) on 30 October. The session was due to start with a grilling of prime minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, but the motion was withdrawn by MPs Mohammed Al-Mutair and Shuaib Al-Muwaizri the day before. In a further sign of compromise, the government has reinstated citizenship to a number of opposition figures and said it is willing to discuss the status of bidoon (stateless residents) later in the session.