Search results

Qatar will hold elections for the Central Municipal Council (CMC) on 22 June. The first election for the council was held in March 1999 and polls have been held every four years since then.

A five-day meeting in Aden concluded with leaders from other factions joining the Southern Transitional Council (STC), prompting warnings from Houthi rebels and others about the growing risk of the secessionist movement gaining ground in Yemen.

There are clear signs of fatigue and apathy among both voters and candidates, as the Kuwaiti electorate and candidates gear up for yet another National Assembly (parliament) election on 6 June. It will be the third national poll in as many years.

The Bahraini government has rowed back on changes to its school curriculum involving Jews and Israel, after criticism from local preachers, Shura Council members and others. While heavily promoted by the government, Bahrain’s normalisation deal with Israel remains deeply controversial among the population. 

Bashar Al-Assad's regime in Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League after more than a bloody decade on the sidelines, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE orchestrated a vote in favour ahead of a 19 May summit in Jeddah. Regional opposition to Syria hasn't disappeared, but Qatar and Kuwait decided not to stand in the way of readmission, in a further indication of Riyadh's new-found desire to flex its diplomatic muscles whatever western allies might think.

Iran officially welcomed Syria’s return to the League of Arab States, but the eagerness with which Damascus is accepting the renewed Arab hospitality may be a cause for concern in Tehran, which has been one of the Assad regime’s few consistent supporters throughout the civil war.

MBC Group Holdings, a British Virgin Islands-registered company connected to Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ibrahim family, has submitted a petition to a Cayman Islands court to wind up its partnership with a son of Saudi Arabia's late King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz. The move offers an insight into how lucrative deals were awarded in the later years of Abdullah’s reign and how those deals were treated when King Salman Bin Abdelaziz took over in 2015.

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.

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.

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.

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.

National security advisor, Supreme Defence Council secretary-general and Royal Guard commander Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa was promoted from major general to the rank of lieutenant general in an order by his father King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa on 30 April.

The outbreak of fighting between rival generals in Sudan in mid-April has been met with an increasingly active diplomatic stance by Saudi Arabia, which has taken a clear lead among Gulf countries in responding to the crisis  – offering further evidence of the new approach being taken to international relations by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS).

The Saudi authorities have launched a new anti-drugs campaign, amid continued concern about the use of narcotics, in particular fenethylline hydrochloride, an amphetamine better known by the brand name Captagon, which is being smuggled in large quantities into Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mishaal Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah formally dissolved the National Assembly (parliament) via decree on 1 May, setting in motion the move towards another general election.