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In a major breakthrough for Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s combative MPs have approved a national five-year development plan, the first for decades, and the creation of a Capital Market Authority (CMA). But, with confrontation looming over MPs’ insistence on passing a $13bn measure to buy up unpaid consumer debts, it remains too early to talk of a lasting transformation of the political atmosphere.

Dubai has responded strongly to the 20 January killing in the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel of Hamas official Mahmud Al-Mabhuh.

Highlighting the Obama administration’s growing engagement with Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states, secretary of state Hillary Clinton was to visit

Emirati foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahayan has been in Australia for talks.

Geopolitics; Reappointed in Qassim; Football club talks; Compensation; Marriage

The shortfalls in Tehran’s proposal of a new deal on uranium enrichment, even while it intensifies its nuclear programme, has forced long-standing allies like Russia, as well as the Obama administration, to consider taking a much harder line against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his friends

The regime’s hardliners thought its critics were a disparate bunch who would melt away under assault from the Basij militia. The fact that protests continue has surprised President Ahmadinejad’s allies as much as outside observers, forcing the regime and other key players – including the United States – to reassess their options

Warning to ministers

Pair jailed over death; Foreign travel

Thousands of investors have been swindled out of OR88m ($220m), the Omani prosecutor’s office said on 27 January. “So far, as many as 3,254 people fell prey to the swindlers and the total amount swindled by the cheats so far stands at OR88.4m,” the prosecutor said in a statement.

A ban on 511 candidates and 15 political lists so close to the election has caused widespread alarm and raised sectarian tensions, but a last-minute deal could still contain the fall-out

United States policy on Iran is little clearer than it was the day President Barack Obama took office, according to GSN’s soundings among US diplomats and Central Command (Centcom) planners. Central tenets of policy, the means and ends, continue to be blown around by the storm of events in the Islamic Republic. And engagement has been thrown decisively off course by Iran’s festering domestic political crisis.

Islamist campaigners for constitutional reform have managed to sustain a permanent and openly declared organisation in the Kingdom for three months. Protests have usually consisted of one-off petitions or statements by groups of intellectuals, but the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) is maintaining a campaign presence through a series of statements and ‘letters to the King’ on its website www.ksaright.org.

Despite high levels of domestic unemployment, the Bahrain government is continuing to recruit foreign Sunnis to a wide range of posts in the public services. Opposition sources even accuse the authorities of giving preference to Egyptian,

It is clear the UAE disagrees with Qatar over its overtures to Israel, even if the differences are politely stated. Talking to GSN in Abu Dhabi, minister of state for foreign affairs Dr Anwar Gargash made plain his exasperation at the international community’s failure to take serious action over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements. “Israel, at the end of the day, is an ideological right-wing government,” he said. “The settlement issue is very important.