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Former ambassador Peter Galbraith, who retired from the US State Department in 2003, and who recently made headlines after resigning as deputy head of the United Nations in Afghanistan, has admitted that he was negotiating a potentially lucrative oil deal in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2004 at the same time as he was advising the regional government on constitutional issues.

Several Gulfis were among the latest batch of officers to pass out of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Bahraini graduates included

For all their power and wealth, few among the Saudi merchant class attained the level of fame of Khalid Bin Mahfouz

Lawsuits and rating downgrades have set three significant Gulf business families – Saudi Arabia’s Al-Gosaibis, Al-Saneas and the UAE’s Al-Ghurairs – against each other (GSN 855/13). Recently, the Dubai-based, Al-Ghurair-owned Mashreq Bank filed lawsuits in New York against AHAB and its subsidiary TIBC involving a failed $75m currency exchange.

Sharia considers conventional insurance haram because it involves the transfer of risk.

Maan Abdelwahed Abdelmajid Al-Sanea was relatively little known outside the region until he bought a high-profile stake in HSBC in 2007 (GSN 804/10, 803/9). Al-Sanea, in his mid-50s, holds Kuwaiti and Saudi nationality. According to a Kuwaiti source, he grew up in Shamiya, a middle class suburb of Kuwait City. But his maternal family is the Al-Gosaibi, from Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Al-Ghanim & Sons has signed a MoU with Russian state-owned power trader Inter Rao and VTB Bank to invest up to

Nasser Al-Shaikh, head of the Dubai government's finance department, has been removed from his post, reportedly after a dispute with a senior

Considerable speculation persists about the government reshuffle announced by federal Prime Minister and Vice President, and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) on 11 May.

The Shibam bomber, Abdulrahman Mehdi al-Ajiri, has been quickly profiled, giving an interesting insight into the new generation of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Al-Ajari was born in the Al-Salam (Peace) district of Sanaa in 1990. He spent most of his life in the Al-Jamhori Hospital area in Taiz, a city associated with strong recruitment of Islamist militants for the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and 1990s. Al-Ajiri is not the only

A two-year inquiry by the UK's Charity Commission into the operations of The Palestinians Relief and Development Fund (Interpal) was completed on 26 February. It concluded "that it could not verify that the material it examined suggesting certain partner organisations funded by the Charity may be promoting terrorist ideology or activities." The inquiry was opened on 13 December 2006 after a BBC documentary called Faith, Hate and Charity alleged that the majority of Interpal's funding was sent to local partners in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs), and that a number of these promoted the ideology of Hamas (GSN 803/7). However, the Commission found that "the charity maintained clear financial audit trails in its delivery of aid for humanitarian purposes." But it does say that Interpal's close ties with the Union for Good must end.

Attention has focused on Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed following his appointment as education minister. For several years he has served as the General Intelligence Directorate deputy chief and before that was long involved with the Saudi Arabian National Guard at a senior level.

King Abdullah’s reshuffle has brought in new ministers, a change of central bank governor and other senior officials across a wide range of government departments and official agencies. Below, GSN lists the newcomers. Ministerial changes:

Kingdom Holding Company posted a $8.26bn net loss in Q4 08, compared with a gain of $68.2m in Q4 07.

Until Barack Obama makes key appointments to his foreign policy team, there is little way to gauge exactly how he is thinking about Iran. One early set of indicators will include his choice of leadership figures such as his secretaries of state and Defence.