Special GCC panel examines confederation of member states
Source: Kuwait News Agency (Read full story)
A special panel of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) tasked with examining process of establishing confederation among the six member states of the council started a meeting here on Monday. The committee is studying “movement from the phase of cooperation to the stage of confederation and this is a demand of many citizens of the council states,” said the head of the commission, Dr. Mohammed Bin Ahmad Al-Rashid, also the chairman of the Saudi consultative authority, in a statement. He also noted that the fourth article of the GCC statute stipulates that the member states should coordinate for sake of reaching integration and unity.
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Aramco to step up search for gas
Source: Arab News (Read full story)
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“Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has given instructions to carry out more gas drilling and development operations … to use gas, instead of oil, for electricity generation, as oil can be exported or kept for future generations,” he said. Al-Naimi said Saudi Aramco was carrying out drilling operations in two new wells in Tabuk. One of the two new wells, Hareed, is located northwest of Dhuba while the second named Dhuba is located near the city. “For the first time in its 80-year history, Aramco has started using an advanced drilling ship designed to carry out operations in deep waters in order to find oil and gas in the Red Sea,” the minister said.
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Special forces break up opposition protest – Women among many arrested, ex-MP wounded
Source: Kuwait Times (Read full story)
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Organizers of the demonstration, Karamat Watan 5 (A dignity of a Nation 5) had asked opposition supporters to gather at three sites in Keifan, Mansouria and Hawally, saying the protest will start from one of the three places which would be announced half an hour before the start. The police closed the three areas and prevented any gatherings in the three places but the organizers surprised everyone by announcing a fourth place in Qurtuba as the launch point.
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Qatar Pushes for a Larger Role on the Global Stage
Source: New York Times (Read full story)
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Qatar is also now the world’s wealthiest country per capita. Income was close to $100,000 per person in 2011, according to the C.I.A. World Factbook. Having so much money to spend has helped make the Qataris key global deal makers in both business and politics. “The leadership of Qatar is probably the most dynamic and ambitious of any senior leadership in the Gulf,” Tarik Yousef, chief executive of Silatech, a Qatari nonprofit that helps young people in the Middle East set up businesses, said in an interview last year. “They not only have ambitions and drive, but they have phenomenal financial resources.”
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Bahrain’s real estate market hit by unrest
Source: Al Bawaba Business (Read full story)
Part of Bahrain’s real estate sector has halved in value as a result of the unrest, said a new study, adding that only a handful of investors have gone ahead with development projects since February 2011. It will take years for the market to fully recover due to the absence of demand compared to supply, the report’s author and Manama Municipal Council vice-chairman Mohammed Mansoor was quoted as saying in our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News. The report, which focused on Bahrain’s two biggest investment hubs in Seef and Juffair, said there were no buyers despite land and property earmarked for investment halving to BD100 ($265) per sq ft.
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