n Kuwait, the new cabinet led by the Prime Minister Shaikh Jaber Al Mubarak Al Sabah has decided to reinstate the 2009 parliament. The newly appointed cabinet in its first meeting approved decrees to implement the Supreme Constitutional Court Orders to reconvene the session of 2009 parliament . The court had held the February 2012 parliamentary elections invalid, scrapped the parliament and reinstated the 2009 legislative assembly. 

The court in its ruling on June 20 ruled had held unconstitutional the decree issued by the Emir of Kuwait to dissolve the then parliament and hold elections in February 2012. The Kuwait parliament speaker , Jasem Al Khorafi said that the session would be convened on July 31. In case there is a lack of quorum, a second session would be called on August 7. A failure to hold a parliamentary session could result in the dissolution of the parliament and in calls for fresh elections. Media reports suggest that the dissolution of the 2009 parliament would be announced in mid-August and that fresh elections may be held in early October.

United Arab Emirates shipped its first oil cargo from its Fujirah oil export terminal on Sunday bye passing the strait of Hormuz to Pakistan. The export terminal has the capacity to pump up to 1.8 million barrels per day. Exports from the new facility would start at a few hundred thousand barrels a day and rise gradually over the next few months. 

Until now, the UAE, like Qatar and Kuwait, had been entirely dependent on Strait of Hormuz to export its crude.The Fujirah pipeline ends its dependence on the strait of Hormuz. The 370-km Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline carries oil from fields in the UAE's western desert to Fujairah, a major oil storage and fuel bunkering hub on the east coast. The new terminal has eight crude oil storage tanks each with a capacity of one million barrel. The bulk of UAE's oil is exported to Asia.

The move is significant in the context of repeated warnings of closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran over the sanctions imposed by the western nations. Flows through the Strait of Hormuz last year accounted for almost 20 percent of oil traded worldwide.

The UAE Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli said that it is a very strategic project which gives the options to its clients to transport larger quantities of oil.

He underlined the importance of the project by saying that it is a complementary project so that it has an alternative choice for more than one trade route. The head of state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) Abdulla Nasser Al Suwaidi, said it will make other projects viable in the area, and will also avoid more insurance and will give access to the open sea.

In Kuwait, the Cabinet has resigned. The Information Minister, Sheikh Abdullah Al Sabah said, the Cabinet met yesterday to discuss the situation in the wake of Supreme Court's recent ruling which held the February 2 elections invalid, and decided to resign. 

The resignation has been handed over to the ruler of Kuwait. He said that the Cabinet stepped down to clear the way for a new Government to take the necessary legal and Constitutional procedure to implement the orders of the Supreme Court. 

The apex court had declared the newly elected Parliament unconstitutional and reinstated the earlier Parliament which was dissolved by the Emir of Kuwait amidst protests and charges of corruption against the then Prime Minister and his colleagues by the Opposition.

In Kuwait, the stand off between the Government and the Islamist opposition dominated parliament continues. A scheduled parliament meeting was cancelled on Wednesday after the cabinet boycotted it following a row over the plans by opposition MPs to quiz the embattled finance minister.

Local media and analysts reported that the Finance Minister Mustapha al-Shamali may step down rather than face a vote of no confidence. But, the Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Mubarak Al-Sabah made it clear that the Finance Minister Mustapha al-Shamali will not resign before being quizzed by opposition on charges of financial irregularities in departments under his control.

Shamali has repeatedly rejected the allegations and said he was willing to face questions as per the parliamentary rules. The cabinet walked out of the session on Tuesday, saying the current plan to question Shamali was unconstitutional. On Wednesday, the cabinet did not arrive for the session, indicating a simmering tension between Kuwait's government and parliament. 

The new parliament was constituted after the snap polls in February in which majority of the seats were won by the Islamist opposition.

The Arab summit meeting began on a low key note in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Thursday. Only 10 of the leaders of the 22-member Arab League are attending the conference amid a divide among the Arab countries on how to tackle the crisis in Syria. The Emir of Kuwait was the lone head of state to attend from the six GCC countries. Two explosions were heard in the capital Baghdad as the summit opened.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official said a mortar hit near the Iranian Embassy, just outside the Green Zone where the summit was being held. There has been no word on the second explosion and no casualties have been reported so far. The explosions during the summit have once again exposed the fragile security in Iraq.

Baghdad had hoped that the summit would mark its return to the Arab fold after two decades of isolation. But the absence of more than half of the Arab leaders have raised questions over the importance of the meet. Experts say it might be an indication of the increased Sunni-Shia tensions across the region in the aftermath of last year's Arab Spring uprisings. The fault lines have been exposed in Syria where a minority Shiite offshoot Alawite sect is ruling over the majority Sunnis On the other hand, the majority Shiites Bahrain are ruled over by the minority Sunnis.