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Former Eastern Province governor Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd Bin Abdelaziz is reportedly the new owner of a New York penthouse which belonged to the late actress Joan Rivers. The 5,100ft2 property was bought for $28m and comes with a resident ghost, Mrs Spencer (JP Morgan’s niece and the original resident). According to the New York Post, Prince Mohammed is not impressed with the penthouse’s Versailles-inspired décor and is overseeing a large renovation.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, settling into his new role as supervisor of foreign affairs rather than minister, had a meeting in Paris on 12 May with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, in which he briefed them on “previous contacts he made”, ahead of the GCC-US summit in Washington/Camp David the next day. He was also at a meeting of GCC foreign ministers in Riyadh on 30 April – which Adel Al-Jubeir, appointed foreign minister just the previous day, did not attend.

King Salman Bin Abdelaziz on 2 October welcomed King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa on a brief visit to Jeddah. Lunch was held and the two leaders held talks on “regional issues and ways of boosting GCC work”, the official Bahrain News Agency reported. The Bahrain monarch was bid farewell at King Abdelaziz International Airport by Mecca deputy governor Prince Abdullah Bin Bandar Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and other officials.

For a short while the visits to Doha of two African leaders overlapped. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari arrived on 27 February, held talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani the following day and left on the 29 February. Buhari has visited other Gulf capitals in recent weeks, seeking support to help Nigeria’s economy – one of the Organisation Petroleum Exporting Countries’ most stressed by slumping oil prices - and for his anti-corruption campaign (see Politics).

Ahead of his planned trip to Pakistan, Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani hosted Nepalese foreign minister Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat and the new Lebanese President Michel Aoun. Aoun had been to Riyadh first for a meeting with King Salman.

Funeral prayers were performed at the Grand Mosque in Mecca in early July for Princes Badr Bin Mohammed Bin Abdelaziz and Mansour Bin Faisal Bin Saud. Prince Badr was born in 1935, the son of Prince Mohammed (who became known in the West as the prince who ordered the 1977 execution of his granddaughter Mishail for adultery) and full brother of King Khalid. Many senior princes turned out for Badr’s funeral including his first cousins Khalid Al-Faisal, Turki Al-Faisal, Mansour Bin Saud, Khalid Bin Fahd, Sattam Bin Saud, Sultan Bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef.

On 18 March, Maldives President Abdullah Yameed Abdul Gayoom flew into Riyadh, where he was received at the airport by King Salman Bin Abdelaziz. King Salman has excellent relations with Gayoom, and spent considerable time in the Maldives at the end of his 2014 Asia tour – at the time, there was some controversy over the size of the then crown prince’s retinue and the associated displacement of tourists. King Salman hosted a banquet for Gayoom, and the two men held official talks, also attended by Crown Prince Miqrin, defence minister Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), deputy foreign minister Abdelaziz Bin Abdullah and Riyadh governor Faisal Bin Bandar.

A Saudi prince accused of failing to pay Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) a $3.5m medical bill for the treatment of an Egyptian child has denied he owes the sum. In his 12 June answer to an April 2019 complaint filed by the hospital, Prince Abdelilah Bin Abdelaziz Bin Abdulrahman Al-Faisal Al-Saud admitted to agreeing to sponsor the patient’s care at BCH, but with a one-time donation of $750,000.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and UAE Armed Forces deputy supreme commander Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ) took part in the Astana International Financial Centre’s official inauguration on 5 July, in the company of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Also in the MBZ delegation was deputy prime minister and minister of presidential affairs Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash. A day earlier MBZ held talks with Nazarbayev in Astana, where they witnessed the signing of agreements on the transfer of prisoners and cultural co-operation.

Also attending the ambassadorial swearing-in ceremony (see above) was new envoy to Austria Prince Abdullah Bin Khalid Bin Sultan. Not yet a prominent figure, he was appointed advisor to the Royal Court in June 2017, so has been attending government meetings and travelling with King Salman Bin Abdelaziz (for example to Tunisia in late March). His elder brother Prince Faisal has been governor of Northern Borders province since April 2017. Their high-profile father Prince Khalid Bin Sultan was deputy defence minister (2011-13) and before that assistant defence minister.

Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani has been seen several times in the company of his father, former emir (1995-2013) Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Together they received well-wishers at Al-Wajba palace on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr. Alongside them were some of Sheikh Tamim’s brothers and uncles including the rarely seen Sheikh Abdelaziz Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad (Tamim’s elder full-brother and personal representative), Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalifa (former prime minister), Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa (former deputy prime minister) and Sheikh Jassim Bin Khalifa (younger half-brother of the father emir). Sheikh Tamim and his father also performed the Eid prayer together, alongside Qatari citizens.

King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz returned earlier than expected from his recuperative private holiday in Morocco, arriving in Jeddah on 14 June. A statement on the state news agency said he had concluded his “private holiday and recovery period… due to the repercussions of the events that are currently taking place in the region”.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani began a three-day trip to Russia on 17 January – his first visit to the country. He had meetings with President Vladimir Putin, State Duma chairman Sergey Naryshkin, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) chief executive Kirill Dmitriev (who has made building relations with Qatar and other Gulf sovereign wealth funds a priority since RDIF’s establishment in 2011).

Allegiance Commission chairman Prince Mishaal Bin Abdelaziz left Riyadh for a trip abroad in February. He was seen off at the airport by his son Sultan. Prince Mishaal often travels abroad for medical treatment, and returned from an extended trip only in mid-October.

Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Al-Thani has asked the Public Prosecution to investigate allegations made by British newspaper The Guardian about the mistreatment of Nepalese workers in Doha. Attorney-general Dr Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri told the Al Jazeera programme Fi’l-Umq (In Depth) that the government wanted to know if the allegations were true; if investigations show them to be false, legal action will be taken against the newspaper. According to The Peninsula newspaper, Al-Marri said that, in more than 3,000 court cases filed by workers in Qatar, rulings were made against the employers.