Bahraini.TV

Tehran’s talks with the West on the Iranian nuclear programme failed because the Arab states of the Gulf were not involved, Bahrain’s foreign minister told a security conference on Saturday.

Because the process was flawed, its failure should not result in new sanctions on Iran, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa told the sixth Manama Dialogue.

“Somebody’s trying to do business while we’re not there, while we’re not present in that room,” he said. “This is a fundamental mistake of how these talks were conducted. I think that is the main reason of why the talks failed.”

Construction halted, westerners jailed for adultery – but prostitutes do well By Rod Liddle Andrew Blair says he will pick me up from outside my sleaze-bucket of a hotel, give it 20 minutes or so, got some work to finish off. He has a job again, contracts apparently “coming out of his ears”, which is [...]

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed ahead with his sales pitch to Gulf ‎Arab nations Wednesday, telling oil-rich Mideast allies Washington is committed to ‎keeping the dollar strong and promoting sustainable growth as the world pulls out of a ‎recession.‎ Geithner is seeking to convince Arab leaders on the Obama administration’s efforts to ‎fix the [...]

A sharp fall in crude prices is expected to depress the combined nominal economy of Gulf oil producers by nearly $236 billion (Dh837bn) in 2009 despite a projected growth in their non-oil sectors, according to independent estimates. Saudi Arabia and the UAE will likely be affected the worst as they could account for nearly 87 [...]

Saudi Arabia and three other Gulf states will proceed with their monetary union plan and the location of a Gulf central bank would not be open for renegotiation, the Saudi finance minister said. “It is not derailed, it will continue. The monetary union will proceed as planned,” Ibrahim al-Assaf told Reuters in an interview in [...]

Gulf Cooperation Council immigration chiefs are expected to approve a single visa application system for Gulf states, Kuwait’s immigration chief said. The visa will enable visitors to tour all of the six GCC member countries, Kuwaiti General Administration for Immigration Director-General Kamel al-Awadhi told the Kuwait news agency KUNA on Sunday. Gulf states will also [...]

They may be the poorest Gulf state, but Bahrain have a better shot at qualifying for the 2010 World Cup than the UAE or Qatar

Over the past couple of months, authorities across the Gulf have stepped up their attack on software pirates.

The number of frequency modulation (FM) radio stations in the 18 Arab countries increased to 316 from 211 in February last year, a 49.76 percent rise. Liberalisation in several Arab countries was a key factor in fuelling the boom in private FM radio stations, the Gulf News said citing a report by the Jordan-based Arab [...]

Gulf countries yesterday loudly signalled their opposition to any military option against Iran.”We want the military factor to be eliminated,” GCC Secretary-General Abdulrahman Al Attiyah told the Manama Dialogue security conference. “What we care for in the GCC is finding solutions that enhance security and stability … and believe in dialogue as a way to [...]