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Vultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said has held talks with senior officials in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

US publication ARTnews has named Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Thani as one of the biggest art collectors in the world in the past 12 months.

Two senior royals from neighbouring states were in the Kingdom in early July. Kuwaiti prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah made a two-day official visit during which they held talks with King Abdullah and performed the lesser pilgrimage to Mecca (Umrah).

Senior appointments

Assistant interior minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Al-Saud attended a joint tactical exercise near Riyadh in late June.

The recently announced marriage of King Abdullah’s daughter Sahab to King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s son Sheikh Khalid, is highly unusual. Al-Saud women marry outside the wider family extremely rarely, and then only to trusted or established families like the Sudeiri. Genealogists canvassed by GSN said it was possibly the first time the daughter of a Saudi king had married into another royal family since an episode in the late 19th century when the Al-Saud were forced to give a female member to the Al-Rashid family. However, there have been high level marriages between the Al-Maktoum and Al-Khalifa/Al-Thani.

In an unusual move, Sheikh Khalid, the 21-year-old fifth son of Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, has married Sahab Bint Abdullah, a daughter of the Saudi monarch. As with Saudi Arabia’s $400m grant to Sunni neighbour Jordan, announced on 2 June, the move demonstrates increased regional interconnectedness during a period when Bahrain’s stability – and the wider region’s future direction – is uncertain. The dynastic marriage is “a sign of the times,” Brookings Doha Center director Salman Shaikh told GSN. The Gulf states all have serious concerns about regional stability and this is reflected in signs of growing intra-Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) unity – bar ongoing bilateral spats between some neighbours.

On 20 May, King Abdullah a number of senior appointments

International policy-makers have long been wary of large, opaque and factional ruling families, but compared to just a couple of years ago, the picture is becoming very slightly clearer.

PRINCESS SITA: Big funeral; KING ABDULLAH: Rest and meeting; KHALID BIN SULTAN meetings; FAISAL AL-FARHAN: Wedding SAUD BIN FAHD: Business interests; PRINCE AHMED: Malaysian agreement S17

Such is the desire to understand what some see as Qatar’s sudden move against Libya – after several years of apparently steady relations – that rumours of leading Qatari players’ childhood connections have emerged.

Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani has been in the US, where he held talks with President Barack Obama

Prince Abdelaziz, son of King Abdullah,was reportedly in Damascus in March to ask Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad to warn Iran to stop meddling in Gulf affairs. Prince Abdelaziz has taken a lead role in the Syria portfolio in recent years. He owns a 5.2 acre estate in Benedict Canyon, north-west of Beverly Hills, but The Los Angeles Times reported that his proposal for a 85,000ft2 compound on the site had been opposed by neighbours, including singer Bruce Springsteen.

MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN: More visible presence; MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF: Security itineraryNAYEF BIN ABDELAZIZ: Overseas trip; KHALID AL-FAISAL: Term renewed; KHALID BIN BANDAR BIN SULTAN: English wedding; ABDELAZIZ BIN ABDULLAH: Syria and property deals; TURKI AL-FAISAL: Public speaking; SATTAM BIN ABDELAZIZ: Wedding; FAISAL BIN ABDULLAH: Sri Lankan investments

SENIOR ROYALS: Return home; TURKI AL-KABIR: Munich security conference; ROYAL ORDER: Mishaal Bin Abdullah (Jiluwi); SENIOR ROYALS: Meetings with French prime minister