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Chairman of the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority (ACTA) Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah has been granted the ‘rank’ of prime minister in what some believe is an attempt to counter the powerful premier and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al Thani (HBJ).

A family feud among the Al Ghanim, one of Kuwait’s most high-ranking billionaire business clans, has been aired in public, following media coverage of a New York court case. While some say it has long been an open secret that brothers Bassam and Kutayba Al Ghanim do not get along, the allegations in the case brought by the younger Bassam are astonishing.

A change of leadership within the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) could mean stronger opposition to Baghdad, but prime minister in waiting Nechirvan Barzani faces a raft of problems

Second deputy prime minister and interior minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdelaziz was installed as crown prince in November in a reshuffle that saw Riyadh governor Prince Salman Bin Abdelaziz appointed defence minister. Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdelaziz was made Salman’s deputy.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani (HBJ) has filed a libel suit against former Kuwaiti MP Saadoun Hammad and three Kuwaiti journalists – the editors-in-chief of Al Shahed and Al Watan newspapers (Sheikh Sabah Al Mohammad and Sheikh Khalifa Ali Al Khalifa, and Othman Al Saeed, a Scoop channel presenter.

Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah has appointed outgoing defence minister and deputy premier Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah as prime minister. The appointment, on 30 November, came just two days after the government of Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah resigned due to pressure from the opposition, which had refused to co-operate.

Alwaleed Bin Talal is launching a 24-hour news channel with the same talk of ‘press freedom’ that Al-Jazeera pioneered but with more potential political pitfalls than the Qatari-owned channel faced. The station will probably be based in Bahrain or Dubai, but Alwaleed is giving highest priority to building an audience in his national market

It is not just Russian billionaires who have been fighting their business battles in UK courts. Saudi magnate Sheikh Mohammed Bin Issa Al-Jaber (MBI) has failed to get success in the latest round of his High Court battle with South Africa’s Standard Bank, which he accused of a conflict of interest when it recruited his personal adviser Salim Khoury while he was still employed by the tycoon.

The merger of Norway’s DNO International and Ras Al-Khaimah’s RAK Petroleum (RAK-P) remains on course despite a pair of shareholder rebellions apparently motivated by commercial and personal interests.

Confronted with long-term concerns over the budget’s ability to support such huge levels of public spending (GSN 906/12), and more immediate criticism over governance issues – highlighted by new reports of corruption linked to subsidiaries of European aerospace giant EADS  – how wealth is shared out in Saudi Arabia is a hot issue that will not go away, with the ‘Arab Spring’ adding urgency to complaints that many citizens are excluded from jobs and social benefits. 

A mini cabinet reshuffle and the resignation of Wadah Khanfar as director general of satellite channel Al-Jazeera after eight years at the helm – both on the same day – has caused much discussion among Qatar watchers used to a relatively quiet politcal scene.

After infuriating MPs and the clerical elite by installing himself as oil minister following the 12 May dismissal of Massoud Mirkazemi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bowed to pressure by appointing ally Mohammed Aliabadi as caretaker minister in early June.

The state-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) has fired almost 300 oil workers for taking part in a week-long strike in March in support of pro-democracy demonstrators.

A dispute between Taqa and its former boss has revived speculation about a contract to expand Morocco’s biggest power plant, fanned by politicking over the issue in Morocco, as the kingdom works through its own Arab Spring.

Saad Group launched an $8.2bn counterclaim against the Al-Gosaibis on 22 April over promissory notes, real estate and money allegedly owed to Maan Al-Sanea’s companies. The Al-Gosaibis claim that all the promissory notes are forged. The counterclaim follows the filing of Ahmed Hamad Al-Gosaibi and Brothers (AHAB)’s $9.2bn claim against AHAB’s The International Banking Corporation (TIBC, now in administration) on 28 March, which it alleges was de facto run by Al-Sanea (GSN 898/12).