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The Kuwaiti Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the September 2022 general election and reinstate the previous National Assembly (parliament) has wide-ranging implications, going beyond its immediate impacts of wiping out any legislation passed since the poll and returning Marzouq Al-Ghanim as speaker.

If it were a small nation, Basra could be a wealthy petrostate like Abu Dhabi or Kuwait. Instead, it is Iraq’s poorest province, despite producing 90% of government revenues. It has though been growing in stature and influence – underlined by the success in hosting the Gulf Cup football tournament in January.

Overall, the Iraqi delegation - led by foreign minister Fuad Hussein, and included  bankers, businessmen and spin-doctors - left Washington satisfied by the positive optics around the US-Iraq partnership and broad acceptance of prime minister Mohammed Al-Sudani's agenda.  

Saudi Arabia's King Salman Bin Abdelaziz appointed a well-known local journalist - Salman Bin Yousef Bin Ali Al-Dosari - as media minister, in a minor reshuffle of officials. Al-Dosari is a former editor of London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

Free trade deal taking Tehran further into Russia’s orbit: Tehran continues to negotiate a free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with local media suggesting an agreement may be signed later this year. Six rounds of talks have been held, following a temporary agreement signed in May 2018 which came into force in 2019.

In rare public criticism of the authorities, Grand Mufti of Oman Ahmed Bin Hamad Al-Khalili has voiced his objection to a recent decision to open Omani airspace to Israeli planes.

Qatar rapprochement: Efforts to rebuild relations between Manama and Doha are continuing, following a series of contacts between leading figures from both countries in January and February, including a phone call between Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani and Bahrain’s Prime Minister and Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa in late January and a meeting between their foreign ministers in Riyadh in early February

The late Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi believes opposition groups can unite to remove the Iranian ruling system in a constitutional coup, while the Mojahedin-e-Khalq remains committed to armed revolution. But, along with the reformists tolerated by the regime, none of these actors seem to have great traction on Iran’s streets, where Ayatollah Ali Khameini has most to fear from the combination of younger protestors and workers.

The Kuwaiti political scene is undergoing another of its periodic resets, with Sheikh Ahmed Nawaf Al-Sabah reappointed as prime minister, following the resignation of his government. He is expected to announce his new cabinet in the coming days, but few significant changes are expected in what will be his third government in eight months.

The overwhelming might of Iran’s internal security apparatus has ruthlessly suppressed the demonstrations which broke out in September 2022, following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The regime has dug in at home and abroad to protect the system of clerical rule, with hardliners as dominant as ever. But the protests have continued despite this onslaught and the regime’s critics have found new ways to express their discontent, from widespread strikes (including in the Tehran bazaar, a bastion of the 1979 revolution), to cyberattacks on state banks and other institutions.

Relations between the two heavyweight Gulf monarchies – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – appear to have succumbed to a renewed period of tension, amid rising economic competition and a growing list of differences over regional diplomatic issues.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani named foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani as prime minister in March, following the resignation of Sheikh Khalid Bin Khalifa Bin Abdelaziz Al-Thani, who had been premier since January 2020. Tamim’s youngest full-brother Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani  was named interior minister, a position Khalid Bin Khalifa had also held.

Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel's book "Dead in the Water: Murder and Fraud in the World's Most Secretive Industry" chronicles the proceedings that uncovered a jaw-dropping international conspiracy to commit what would have been the world's largest-ever maritime insurance fraud.

Saudi Arabia celebrated its recently created Founding Day on 22 February – the second year it has been officially marked. It marks what is referred to as the creation of the ‘First Saudi State’, on the day ancestor Mohammed Ibn Saud took control of Diriyah in 1727.  It is different from National Day, which marks “the unification” of Saudi Arabia on 23 September 1932.

Control of the Asir region has fluctuated between different groups over the centuries. By the 1830s, the Al-Ayed dynasty was in control, until the area was captured by the Ottomans in the late 1860s. Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdelaziz (Ibn Saud) brought Asir under his direct rule in the early 1920s.