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Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al-Nahyan, one of the lower-profile sons of UAE President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ), was due to list his company Ethmar International Holding on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) as GSN was going to press.

Almost 5,000 people have been evacuated from Sudan to Saudi Arabia since fighting broke out between rival generals in Khartoum on 15 April, the vast majority of them citizens of other countries.

The Islamic Republic has largely suppressed the wave of protests that emerged in September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, but the opaque political system remains under pressure, both from the Iranian public and from signs of internal division. The tensions point to a period of uncertainty ahead of the eventual succession to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene.

Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah submitted her credentials as Kuwait's ambassador to the United States during a meeting with President Joe Biden in April. She is Kuwait's first female ambassador in Washington. 

The Iranian parliament voted to impeach industry, mine and trade minister Reza Fatemi Amin late April, a few weeks after education minister Yousef Nouri had resigned.

Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga forces continue to be controlled by the KDP and PUK, despite efforts over many years to wrest control away from the region’s two main political parties and hand them over to the non-partisan Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. The encouragement of foreign governments – who have spent years and significant resources on support and training programmes to modernise and professionalise the Peshmerga – have not yet resulted in meaningful change.

Omani officials are working on reforms to the welfare system and drawing up measures to encourage more private sector activity, in plans that offer further evidence of Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said’s efforts to move the economy away from state paternalism.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) said on 2 May that it would develop its liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Al-Ruwais Industrial City in Abu Dhabi, as the site offered “significant synergies” with its existing operations.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) is to invest £25m ($31m) in Xlinks, which is developing an ambitious project to lay the world's longest high-voltage direct current (HVDC) subsea cable, from Morocco to the UK.

Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) has appointed his son Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohammed as second deputy ruler of the emirate, while also naming existing deputy Sheikh Maktoum Bin Mohammed as first deputy ruler.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is to host the 2024 Confederation of Independent Football Associations (Conifa) World Football Cup, with 16 teams competing. Conifa caters for teams representing ethnic or linguistic minorities, indigenous groups and unrecognised territories.

Ratings boost: Fitch Ratings revised its outlook on Oman’s rating to positive from stable on 11 April, while affirming it at BB. S&P Global Ratings had announced the same move on 31 March. Fitch said the change reflected the improvements made in the government debt to gross domestic product ratio, with high oil prices and spending restraint reducing the external liquidity risk. Debt/GDP fell from 61% at end-2021 to 40% a year later and Fitch said it should reach 37% by end-2024.

UAE relations with South Africa have soured after a Dubai court rejected a request from Pretoria to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta to face charges of money laundering, fraud and corruption.

New government, further elections=political risk downgrade: Kuwaiti politics and government remain in flux after Crown Prince Mishaal Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah announced the dissolution of the National Assembly (parliament) on 17 April, setting the scene for a third general election in as many years.

An unnamed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) air defence commander has been sentenced by a Tehran military court to 13 years in prison for their role in the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS 752 shortly after it took off from Tehran in January 2018.