The European Union and Qatar signed a broad air services pact on Monday allowing Qatari and EU member state airlines unlimited airspace access between each other's territories.

Bahrain's Foreign Minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, attacked Qatar again in a statement made to an Emirati newspaper on the sidelines of the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Abu Dhabi.

The Qatari force participating in the joint Peninsula Shield drill (10) arrived at the King Abdulaziz Air Base in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the Qatari Defense Ministry said.

The United Arab Emirates has eased a ban on the shipping of goods between it and Qatar enforced under a political and economic boycott of Doha, according to port circulars and an industry source.

Barclays' former chairman, giving evidence in a landmark London fraud trial, said he first saw a document detailing agreed fees for Qatari investors in the British bank four years after the payment was agreed.

The Qatari government accused Bahraini forces of violating its sovereignty by continuous breaches of Qatari airspace, stressing on reserving the right to respond and taking the necessary measures to stop these violations.

A Bahraini court sentenced Waheed Al-Dossari, head of the Bahrain Fishermen Society, and Hasan Al-Araibi to 5 and 3 years in jail after accusing them of receiving money from a former Qatari MP. Meanwhile, the two were acquitted of colluding with Qatar charge.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the weakness of Mohammed bin Salman may reflect on the Bahraini issue positively, noting that what is preventing the start of a dialogue between the authorities and the opposition in Bahrain is Saudi Arabia.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Tuesday it would investigate Qatar’s allegations of intellectual property breaches against Saudi Arabia, despite the kingdom’s objection that the WTO had no standing to hear the case.

Qatar has said on Saturday (December 15, 2018) that it is committed to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) but that the bloc needed to enforce its own rules, signalling that a reformed alliance could help end the Gulf crisis.

Saudi Arabia has told the WTO that national security concerns mean it cannot allow the world trade body to settle an intellectual property dispute with Qatar, according to a transcript seen by Reuters.

Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has received a written invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to attend an annual Gulf Arab summit being held in Riyadh on Dec. 9, the Qatar News Agency said on Tuesday.

Qatar said today it was quitting Opec from January to focus on its gas ambitions, taking a swipe at the group's de facto leader Saudi Arabia and marring efforts to show unity before this week's meeting of exporters to tackle an oil price slide.

Qatar will more than double its naval forces by 2025 as a massive new base comes online and it expands a national service program amid a protracted dispute with neighbors which it says requires greater self-reliance.

Advocate General Ahmed Al-Hammadi said that the Public Prosecution concluded its investigations about two Bahrainis who received money from abroad without authorization from the competent authority, in breach of the law. The High Criminal Court set a hearing on December 3.

Qatar Airways will add more flights to Iran from January, the state-owned Gulf airline announced on Monday just weeks after the United States re-imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Tehran's economy.

Qatar’s foreign minister said on Thursday that “whoever is responsible” for the murder of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi should be held accountable.

Qatar has escalated a dispute against Saudi Arabia at the World Trade Organization, a WTO filing showed on Monday, with a request for adjudication of its complaint that Saudi Arabia had violated its intellectual property rights.

Saudi Arabia is defying U.S. calls to mend ties with Qatar despite signs that pressure to end another regional crisis, the Yemen war, has had an impact on Riyadh since the killing of a prominent journalist.

The list of safest banks in the Middle East was free from any Bahraini institution, although the kingdom includes dozens of local, regional and international banks.