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Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah returned to Kuwait on 30 September from the United States, where he had attended the Leaders’ Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis, held on the margins of the UN General Assembly. The emir had been in the US since 12 September. He was accompanied home by his brother, National Guard deputy chief Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber. A very large group of dignitaries turned out to welcome him home.

A remote farm in the Scottish borders is set to become a falcon breeding and training centre for the Qatari ruling family. According to BBC Scotland, planners have given the go-ahead for the development by Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Bin Jassim Al-Thani at Weensmuir Farm

Prime Minister Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa was admitted to hospital on 11 October for what were described as “successful medical check-ups,” prompting a wave of congratulatory cables from cabinet ministers including recently appointed electricity and water affairs minister Wael Bin Nasser Al-Mubarak and education minister Majid Bin Ali Al-Nuaimi as well as diplomats such as Oman’s ambassador to Bahrain Abdulla Bin Rashid Al-Medelwi and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s special envoy to the Gulf Co-operation Council countries Amable Aguiluz.

The Four Seasons Toronto, owned by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), has been put on the market with a price tag of $156-195m, according to media reports. The hotel is owned by KHC and Cascade Investment, owned by Bill Gates. In early June, the billionaire prince became the first Arab to take the ‘Giving Pledge’, an initiative set up in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates with Warren Buffet to encourage the world’s wealthiest families to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

It is Houbara bustard hunting season, and the Pakistani government has made its annual announcement of which lucky Gulfis will get licences. Each year, the federal government hands out licences to favoured Gulf sheikhs, many of whom have held the same permit area for years, or inherited it from another family member.

King Salman Bin Abdelaziz on 21 March received a US congressional delegation headed by Senator Benjamin Cardin (Democrat-Maryland). Other members included Senators Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and Cory Gardner (Republican-Colorado). This comes ahead of President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the kingdom in April (see Politics). The royal audience was attended by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, state minister Musaid Al-Aiban, culture minister Adel Altoraifi, foreign affairs and minister Adel Al-Jubair. Defence minister and second deputy premier Prince Mohammed Bin Salman separately met with the delegation.

Hot on the heels of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ) and a high-ranking delegation undertook a two-day official visit to Japan on 25-26 February, meeting Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a number of other senior officials. He was greeted at Tokyo’s Haneda airport by Crown Prince Naruhito. While in Japan, he also met the Japanese minister of economy, trade and industry Toshimitsu Motegi. MBZ’s delegation included the chief of his court, Sheikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Ras Al-Khaimah ruler’s court in mid-September announced the death of Sheikha Ghaya Bint Sultan Bin Salem Al-Qasimi

The family of the late Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdelaziz are selling palaces and other assets in Morocco, as they resolve inheritance issues and reorient the Al-Sultan’s interests. Prince Sultan spent long periods in his Agadir palace before his death on 22 October 2011

Interior minister Prince Abdelaziz Bin Saud Bin Naif Al-Saud has been on a short tour of south-east Asian nations. He arrived in Malaysia on 13 March and held talks with defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein, interior minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and foreign affairs minister Anifah Aman the following day. On 15 March he met Prime Minister Mohammed Najib Tun Abdul Razzaq and House of Representatives speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia.

Mohammed Bin Nayef (MBN) was born in August 1959 to Jawahar Bint Abdelaziz Bin Musaid Bin Jiluwi. He is married to Reema Bint Sultan Bin Abdelaziz, consolidating links with the Al-Sultan.

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah welcomed his Qatari counterpart Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani for talks on 4 February. The high-ranking welcoming party at the airport also included Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim and Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah. Sheikh Tamim’s delegation included his personal representative Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al-Thani and others.

Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was co-president of the Arab-African Summit held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, which opened on 23 November. The summit placed Kuwait in an unexpectedly difficult situation, as other other GCC states pulled out on the summit’s eve in solidarity with Morocco, which boycotted the event because of the presence of the Polisario Front’s Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. Kuwait could hardly leave an event it hosted last time out, in 2013, and which the emir was committed to chair and then hand over the co-chairmanship to President Mohammed Ould Abdelaziz of Mauritania.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani hosted Angola’s President João Manuel Lourenço on 8 September, throwing a lunch banquet and witnessing the signing of a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding covering maritime transport, port development, investment promotion and economic co-operation.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani made a two-day trip to Moscow in late March, labelled a ‘working visit’. The agenda included talks with President Vladimir Putin on Palestine, Syria, Yemen and other conflicts in the Middle East.