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Kuwait has a new national council following elections held last week, marking at least a partial return to parliamentary democracy for the first time since the national assembly was dissolved by the ruler, Sheikh Jaber al Ahmed, in 1986. The vote, however, will not resolve the confrontation between the government and ex-members of the last parliament about the restoration of constitutional democracy.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has taken a step closer to attaining the role (at least as the first among equals) of spokesman of the Arab world and the defender of its interests. That was about all the emergency summit in Baghdad achieved – which was just as Saddam wanted it. The final communique looked suitably aggressive as a script, fitting yet devoid of any actual decisions on policy measures which, if applied, could prove divisive within the Arab community which he clearly aspires to lead

A couple of months ago it looked as if the Kuwaiti government (or, to be more precise, the ruling family) might actually be prepared to revive the parliament it suspended in 1986. Pro-democracy activists, led by 32 former members of parliament, have been holding a series of diwaniyas – or traditional gatherings at people's homes – calling for elections to a new National Assembly.

The release of a second US hostage in Beirut at the end of April was welcome news and evidence that the mass kidnapping drama may indeed be gradually nearing its end. As Gulf States Newsletter has argued in the past, the hostage takers seem to have realised that they have gained virtually nothing from holding their prisoners and it will profit them little to hold onto them interminably. Indeed, the chief quid pro quo for liberating them – which appears to be the release of some 300 Lebanese Shia and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel – is more likely to be achieved 85 a result of freeing the hostages than by hanging onto them.

Over the past month there have been Some extraordinary revelations about Iraq's international military procurement procedures. Nuclear bomb trigger devices en route to Baghdad have been seized in Britain and large sections of specialist tube piping, allegedly for a giant rocket launcher, were confiscated by British Customs officers.

King Fahd had a great many guests last month at the Hafr al Batin military base. Among a stream of important foreign visitors, the Saudi monarch received North Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Lebanon's President Elias Hrawi, Senegal's President Abdou Diouf, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Sultan Qabus of Oman. The comings and goings may have looked like little more than normal routine diplomatic exchanges. However, they could also signify something more.

The ultimate fate of Farzad Bazoft, the Iranian journalist working for The Observer in London, was unclear as Gulf States Newsletter went to press. The week before last he was condemned to death by an Iraqi court as a spy for Israel and his alleged accomplice, the British nurse Daphne Parish, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Nothing is simple in Iranian politics. Less than a year ago, the pragmatic Ali Akbar Rafsanjani was overwhelmingly elected to the post of president with hugely strengthened executive powers. His success was widely greeted with relief at home (where it was taken to signify more practical economic policy-making) and abroad (where it seemed to imply the possibility of a rapprochement with the West and the Arab world, and – of course – progress towards the release of the hostages in Lebanon).

Sharjah's ruler has removed his brother from his posts of crown prince, deputy ruler and deputy chairman of Sharjah's supreme council. 

Last week's stormy session of the Israeli Likud party's central committee, at which the hardline prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was brazenly challenged by the even more hardline Ariel Sharon, may not seem to have particular immediate relevance to the Gulf. But if matters proceed as they now seem set to do, the repercussions for the region could be very nasty.

Kuwait has become the focus of the Arab world's answer to Eastern Europe's democratic upheavals – but so far with little positive response from its rulers. On of the most remarkable aspects of the political turmoil among the Soviet Union's former satellites in Europe has been the upsurge in criticism of the way Arab governments conduct themselves.

The recent widespread rioting in Soviet Azerbaijan, which Moscow itself has said is approaching the intensity of civil war, has received considerable attention in the foreign press. The upsurge of ethnic tension between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis Is the most violent demonstration of what Stalin used to call the Soviet Union's "nationalities problem". Nationalism is not the only factor. Inevitably, there is a religious element to the clashes, even if it is subordinate to the ethnic dimension, since the Armenians are Christians and the Azerbaijanis are Muslim.

North and South Yemen have been talking about unity ever since Aden won independence from Britain in 1967. For most of the period, however, their relations have been more quarrelsome than cooperative. Now there are signs that the two countries may actually be serious about unification. A draft constitution has been drawn up for the unified state and joint delegations have been dispatched to other Arab countries to test their reaction. The most concerned of the latter will be the Yemen's' neighbours in the Arabian peninsula.

Throughout the mid-1980s, the Arab Gulf economies began to look definitely shaky as oil prices performed almost acrobatic manoeuvres. With large financial reserves inherited from more buoyant times -- and plenty of crude reserves to rely upon for the future -- the big Opec actors in the Gulf could afford to bide their time. The smaller producers faced a more problematic outlook. Oman was a case in point.

Iran and the United States are locked into a curious process of trying to show "goodwill" to one another in order to improve relations -- but not so much goodwill as to antagonise their respective domestic constituencies. There is little question that Presidents George Bush and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani both want to set in motion events which lead to the resumption of ties. Bush wants to get US hostages out of Lebanon; Rafsanjani wants Western assistance in Iran's post-war reconstruction effort. But there are plenty of American Congressmen who do not want the United States to have anything to do with a country involved in "state sponsored terrorism", just as there are plenty of Iranian radicals who still adhere to the rejection of the Great Satan.