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A string of UAE companies – some with links to national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan – are said to be involved in a plan to develop a new Red Sea port which may, in time, be of interest to Russia too.

Kuwait Red Crescent Society secretary-general Maha Al-Barjas was elected vice-president for Asia and the Pacific of the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies -- the first Arab woman to hold the post.

Gulf Co-operation Council countries formally launched the process to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with the UK. The GCC is the UK’s seventh largest export market.

Oman's energy and minerals minister Mohammed Bin Hamad Al-Rumhi has retired from the job he held since December 1997, as part of a mini-reshuffle of the cabinet. There also have been some changes to governor positions.

Former Bahraini ministers who lost out in a wide-ranging government reshuffle, including several members of the ruling Al-Khalifa family, have been appointed to new roles, in a series of royal orders issued by King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa.

Iran has submitted an application to join the group of five major emerging economies –Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – known as the Brics.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Tehran on 22 June, for talks with President Ebrahim Raeisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, with sanctions, Syria and the consequences of the Ukraine war all on the agenda.

The head of intelligence of Iran’s IRGC Hossein Taeb has been replaced after 13 years in post, with counter-intelligence chief Brigadier General Mohammad Kazzemi taking over. The change comes after a series of mysterious deaths of IRGC personnel and a recent drone attack on a military site near Tehran.

A 60-day extension to the truce between the Houthis and Yemeni government-aligned forces offers some hope that a resolution of the region’s most destructive conflict may be getting closer, but kidnappings and attacks by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) point to another threat to stability in the south, which could yet drag the United States and others back into the crisis zone.

QatarEnergy’s selection of TotalEnergies as its first partner on the expansion of the North Field comes amid an intense period of upstream and midstream activity, with the region’s hydrocarbons heavyweights investing billions to ensure they remain world leaders in oil and gas production for decades to come.

GSN Risk Grade – B↓2. Offshore platform in once disputed waters: Kuwait appears to have completed a controversial offshore platform, which could reawaken a maritime border dispute with Iraq.

United Nations envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg told the UN Security Council on 14 June there had been no confirmed airstrikes inside Yemen, or cross-border attacks from Yemen, since the first country-wide ceasefire in six years, announced on 2 April. A 60-day extension to the truce was announced by Grundberg on 2 June.  

GSN Risk Grade - B3. Hydrogen developments: The government is among those that have seen an opportunity to be an early mover in the potentially huge global hydrogen economy.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was among senior US officials who attended a farewell reception on 13 June for long-serving Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and his wife Sheikha Rima.

After months of failed efforts to form a new government, Shia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr’s call for his 73 Council of Representatives (parliament) members (MPs) to resign has thrown the Iraqi political scene into fresh turmoil.