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Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal Bin Fahd Bin Abdelaziz was relieved of his post as head of the General Presidency of Youth Welfare on 26 June, apparently at his request, and replaced by Prince Abdullah Bin Musaid Bin Abdelaziz, the prominent businessman. Nawaf Bin Faisal had been in the role since January 2011, and had previously been vice-president, under his predecessor and uncle Sultan Bin Fahd. Nawaf is also the president of the Saudi Olympic Committee and until March 2012 headed the Saudi Arabia Football Federation.

Catering not only to his love of classical music, but also to the genre’s reported popularity among Omanis, Sultan Qaboos has ordered the construction of a 16th century Italian-style opera house due to open in October 2011, according to Agence France-Presse.

Saudi Aramco continues efforts to improve the efficiency of its operations ahead of its planned, but slow-moving, stock market listing. On 27 May, it signed an unconventional gas stimulation services contract with US firm Halliburton. This is part of Aramco’s plans to develop unconventional gas resources in the north of the country, South Ghawar and the Rub Al-Khali areas to serve the domestic market and contribute to regional economic development. It will involve major hydraulic fracturing and well intervention operations from Halliburton. Work is due to begin this month.

As so often belying his 88 years, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah left for the United States on 1 September, on a trip which will include a meeting with President Donald Trump on 7 September. The emir’s delegation includes foreign minister Sheikh Sabah A-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, interior minister Sheikh Khalid Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah, finance minister Anas Khaled Al-Saleh, and National Guard deputy chairman Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

On 2 November, King Abdullah appointed Prince Mansour Bin Mitab Bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud as municipal and rural affairs minister. Mansour's father, Prince Mitab, who has a record of government service dating

Efforts to contain the blaze engulfing the Iranian tanker MV Sanchi were continuing as GSN went to press, but just one body had been recovered from a crew of 32 Iranians and Bangladeshis aboard the ship.The Sanchi, which is registered in Panama and operated by National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), collided with the Hong Kong-flagged CF Crystal at 8pm local time on 6 January, around 160 nautical miles off the coast of China close to Shanghai.

Abu Dhabi has become the latest Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) government to tap into the debt market; a $5bn bond offering on 25 April was the wealthy emirate’s first since 2009. Split into two $2.5bn tranches with five- and ten-year maturities, the issue was priced at the tighter end of expectations, with rates of 2.125% and 3.125% for the five-year and ten-year issues respectively.

A well-placed source in the region told GSN of an encounter in 2012 with Qatar’s then emir (now father emir) Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who revealed at a meeting that he had been close to brokering a settlement between the Al-Khalifa regime and opposition groups. According to the source, Sheikh Hamad said the deal had been scuppered by the Saudis – and he used some particularly colourful and critical language to describe the senior figures in Riyadh who had derailed his initiative.

UAE ambassador since 2008, Yousef Al-Otaibi is seen as a smooth, smart operator in Washington DC. The Qatar crisis has further raised the envoy’s profile and shown the influence wielded on the Trump administration by his boss Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ).Much has been made of Al-Otaibi’s cultivation of presidential son-in-law turned Middle East envoy Jared Kuchner. The men meet regularly, a Washington think-tanker observes.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal attracted a lot of attention with the announcement he would donate all of his $32bn wealth to philanthropy over the coming years. The prince – who said he had donated an average of $100m a year for the last 35 years – told a 1 July news conference that his main aim was to institutionalise his charitable giving. He told reporters gathered at his company headquarters in Riyadh that the announcement was not motivated by any ill health. “I can assure you I’m very healthy, enough to bike every day for three hours.

Prince Abdullah Bin Musaid has been appointed a director of Alara Resources, an Australian Securities Exchange-listed minerals exploration and development company with copper-gold projects in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Alara Resources said on 29 October: “Prince Abdullah is keen to be part of and assist in the advancement of the Khnaiguiyah Project...[he] feels the development of this project is of strategic importance to the country.” Born in 1965, Prince Abdullah is a businessman – founder, chairman and majority shareholder in the Saudi stock exchange-listed Saudi Paper Manufacturing Company – and is known for his passion for sports, particularly American football.

Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was forced to postpone a 12 September meeting with US President Donald Trump after being admitted to hospital on 8 September for unspecified health checks. He was discharged on the evening of 12 Septembe. Emiri Diwan minister Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah (apparently back in post after a short absence) said the check-up had shown “reassuring results”. National Assembly speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim on 17 September said Sheikh Sabah would return home “soon”.

After a solid performance by Al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s secular liberals now face a critical challenge in the run-off contest for the lower house. For the first time since parliament was restored eight years ago, the opposition has a tangible chance of winning half the seats in the national assembly, after the results of the first-round vote on 23 October.

Many critical questions remain to be answered as the Dubai crisis unfolds

State-owned Saudi Arabia Military Industries (Sami) announced on 7 November that it had signed a joint venture with Spain’s firm Navantia to produce five Avante 2200 corvettes. It is the first major arms deal to make progress since the Jamal Khashoggi affair came to light; given that a €2bn ($2.3bn) contract was inked by the two sides in July, the decision to stage another formal signing at this time was perhaps motivated more by Riyadh’s desire to portray a sense of ‘business as usual’ rather than any commercial imperative.