MANAMA (Reuters) – Japan feels in crisis over North Korea’s attack on a South Korean island and plans to step up its cooperation with the United States and South Korea in response, a Japanese defense official said Saturday.

Last month North Korea dramatically raised tensions in east Asia when it shelled the island of Yeonpyeong, hitting a South Korean military base and killing four people. South Korea said it was conducting military exercises at the time but insists test firings were not directed toward North Korea.

“In Japan we have a strong sense of crisis over the North Korean artillery attack on the island of Yeonpyeong,” Hajime Hirota, parliamentary vice-minister of defense, told Reuters on the sidelines of a security conference in Bahrain.

“It is an act that we in Japan we cannot tolerate … For other countries of northeast Asia, including Japan, this act is seen as a large threat.”

Hirota said the attack would see Japan forging stronger ties with South Korea and the United States and that the key was to avoid further escalation. “We don’t know how North Korea will react to the situation going forward,” he said.

Japan has long taken a hardline stance against Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs and its kidnappings of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 80s to train North Korean spies — still a highly emotive issue among the public.

The country has pledged to cooperate closely with South Korea and the United States and said it is discussing with them on how to deal with the issue in the U.N. Security Council.

MANAMA (Reuters) – Iran told Gulf Arab states on Saturday it was not a threat and wanted cooperation, in an apparent attempt to lower tensions after revelations that Gulf Arab leaders are deeply anxious about its nuclear program.

In his first trip to the region since WikiLeaks published U.S. diplomatic reports of Gulf Arab worries about Tehran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a Gulf security conference in Bahrain a more powerful Iran was nothing to fear.

“Our power in the region is your power and your power in the region is our power,” he said in a speech to an audience including Gulf Arab officials and ministers.

“Our growth will only pave the way for others to grow.”

His speech did not mention the publication by the WikiLeaks website last week of hundreds of U.S. embassy cables including several quoting Arab leaders as expressing strong opposition to the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

But he said “We must not allow Western media to tell us what we think of one another …. We have never used our potential to become powerful against any neighbours especially because our neighbours are Muslims.”

“There should be no suspicion or ambition by one country over another because that would undermine efforts to establish cooperation,” he told the Manama Dialogue conference of UK-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

MANAMA (Reuters) – WikiLeaks disclosures have had no effect on Washington’s Gulf Arab allies because it is clear the cables do not reflect official U.S. policy, two senior ruling family members said on Friday.

The royals, one from Bahrain and one from Saudi Arabia, suggested in a debate at a Gulf security conference that final judgment on the leaks would have to await publication of all the quarter of a million cables obtained by the website.

Cables about U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East have provided some of the most controversial aspects of the disclosures.

One notable document cited Saudi King Abdullah as urging the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. He was reported to have advised Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

The disclosure that Gulf Arab leaders want Washington to destroy Iran’s nuclear program exposed long-hidden views. The leaks confirmed the depth of suspicion of Shi’ite Muslim Iran among Sunni Arab leaders, especially in Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power.

“These are leaks, not official statements,” former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal told the debate at the Manama Dialogue conference organized by the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

“They don’t affect decision-making or policy-making or strategic thinking in the area.”

DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemen faces a series of trials, including rising al Qaeda militancy spreading beyond its borders, violence from southern secessionists and crushing poverty.

Yemen, a neighbor of top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, shot once more to the forefront of global security concerns in October when two air freight packages containing bombs — both sent from the country and addressed to synagogues in Chicago — were intercepted in Britain and Dubai.

Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based regional branch, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claimed responsibility for the parcel plot, just under a year after the group’s failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane that also caused global alarm.

Worries about instability and corruption have deterred significant foreign investment in Yemen beyond the oil industry, limiting economic growth and worsening unemployment.

Nearly a third of the workforce is out of a job. More than 40 percent of Yemen’s 23 million people live on under $2 a day.

AL QAEDA AND ISLAMIC MILITANCY

The parcel bomb plot sealed AQAP’s reputation as one of the most aggressive arms of al Qaeda’s globally scattered sympathizers and affiliate groups. Its most recent attack outside Yemen had been a failed attempt by a Nigerian Islamist to down an airliner heading for Detroit on December 25, 2009.

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) – The disclosure in leaked U.S. cables that Gulf Arab leaders want Washington to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme exposes long-hidden views that will kill any chance of detente with Tehran.

From Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to tiny Bahrain, Gulf Arab rulers revealed a reality they had spent years trying to hide publicly.

The views in the cables released by the WikiLeaks website contrast with the public stance of those Sunni rulers whose statements on their religious rivals in Shi’ite Iran and its nuclear programme have until now been far more conciliatory.

The revelations, however, do confirm the depth of suspicion and hatred of the Shi’ites among Sunni Arab leaders, especially in Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power and which regards Iran as an existential threat.

That concern was intensified by the rise of the Shi’ites in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 — the first time the Shi’ites have controlled an Arab heartland country for nearly a millennium.

For Sunni Gulf rulers, seeing Iraq fall under Shi’ite influence was shocking enough, but the fear of a nuclear Iran is something they find even more alarming.

According to the leaked cables, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly exhorted the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. He has never publicly called on Washington to use force against Iran.

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) – The disclosure in leaked U.S. cables that Gulf Arab leaders want Washington to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme exposes long-hidden views that will kill any chance of detente with Tehran.

From Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to tiny Bahrain, Gulf Arab rulers revealed a reality they had spent years trying to hide publicly.

The views in the cables released by the WikiLeaks website contrast with the public stance of those Sunni rulers whose statements on their religious rivals in Shi’ite Iran and its nuclear programme have until now been far more conciliatory.

The revelations, however, do confirm the depth of suspicion and hatred of the Shi’ites among Sunni Arab leaders, especially in Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power and which regards Iran as an existential threat.

That concern was intensified by the rise of the Shi’ites in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 — the first time the Shi’ites have controlled an Arab heartland country for nearly a millennium.

For Sunni Gulf rulers, seeing Iraq fall under Shi’ite influence was shocking enough, but the fear of a nuclear Iran is something they find even more alarming.

According to the leaked cables, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly exhorted the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. He has never publicly called on Washington to use force against Iran.

KUWAIT/DUBAI (Reuters) – Every Friday in the Muslim Gulf Arab state of Kuwait, 2,000 Christians cram into a 600-seat church or listen outside to the mass relayed on loudspeakers, prompting their Catholic bishop to worry about a stampede.

“If a panic happens, it will be a catastrophe … it is a miracle that nothing has happened,” said Bishop Camillo Ballin.

These churchgoers represent only the tip of the iceberg. Ballin reckons his flock in Kuwait numbers around 350,000 out of a total of half a million Christians in the country.

At least 3.5 million Christians of all denominations live in the Gulf Arab region, the birthplace of Islam and home to some of the most conservative Arab Muslim societies in the world.

The freedom to practice Christianity — or any religion other than Islam — is not always a given in the Gulf and varies from country to country. Saudi Arabia, which applies an austere form of Sunni Islam, has by far the tightest restrictions.

“In the Gulf, excluding Saudi Arabia, government attitudes are more religious tolerance than religious freedom,” said Bill Schwartz, canon of the Church of the Epiphany in Doha, Qatar, an Anglican church serving Protestants of various denominations.

Christians in the Gulf are almost all expatriate workers, mostly Catholics from the Philippines and India.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Once filled with the cacophony of cranes and construction labourers, Dubai today hums to the work of a quieter crowd. The brash Gulf emirate, renowned for extravagant real estate projects and flashy living, has turned into a city of auditors.

As they pore over the detritus of last year’s debt crisis, the city-state’s accountants and lawyers face a task as huge as Dubai’s ambitions. The emirate’s flagship firm Dubai World has agreed to repay $25 billion of debt — borrowings that nearly brought down the emirate’s economy.

The auditors’ task is to investigate exactly where the money went, who lined whose pockets, and what other financial landmines might lie in store. Forensic audits at state-linked firms, such as Dubai Holding, are part of a wider corruption probe that has targeted senior figures from Dubai’s boom years.

But even as the accountants work to get to the bottom of the financial mess, Dubai is changing. Its rescue last year by Abu Dhabi — details of which Reuters reports here for the first time — has encouraged the city-state to become more conservative, both politically and socially. Dubai’s crisis prompted a shift of power to the rulers in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Now a chastened Dubai is recovering some of its confidence as it seeks to convince international investors it can deliver now where last year it failed.

Questions remain. With Dubai’s old guard at the helm rather than the young high-flyers who many blame for the crisis, can Dubai ever achieve the sort of growth it once boasted? Or, given that the economy depends so heavily on trade and tourism, could it be tempted to return to the excesses of the past?

“The Dubai growth model that was talked about so much and propagated in the media — all that has changed now,” says Christian Koch, director of international studies at the Gulf Research Centre. “The crisis forced Dubai to take on a much more realistic approach.”

DUBAI (Reuters) – Once filled with the cacophony of cranes and construction laborers, Dubai today hums to the work of a quieter crowd. The brash Gulf emirate, renowned for extravagant real estate projects and flashy living, has turned into a city of auditors.

As they pore over the detritus of last year’s debt crisis, the city-state’s accountants and lawyers face a task as huge as Dubai’s ambitions. The emirate’s flagship firm Dubai World has agreed to repay $25 billion of debt — borrowings that nearly brought down the emirate’s economy.

The auditors’ task is to investigate exactly where the money went, who lined whose pockets, and what other financial landmines might lie in store. Forensic audits at state-linked firms, such as Dubai Holding, are part of a wider corruption probe that has targeted senior figures from Dubai’s boom years.

But even as the accountants work to get to the bottom of the financial mess, Dubai is changing. Its rescue last year by Abu Dhabi — details of which Reuters reports here for the first time — has encouraged the city-state to become more conservative, both politically and socially. Dubai’s crisis prompted a shift of power to the rulers in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Now a chastened Dubai is recovering some of its confidence as it seeks to convince international investors it can deliver now where last year it failed.

Questions remain. With Dubai’s old guard at the helm rather than the young high-flyers who many blame for the crisis, can Dubai ever achieve the sort of growth it once boasted? Or, given that the economy depends so heavily on trade and tourism, could it be tempted to return to the excesses of the past?

“The Dubai growth model that was talked about so much and propagated in the media — all that has changed now,” says Christian Koch, director of international studies at the Gulf Research Center. “The crisis forced Dubai to take on a much more realistic approach.”

DUBAI, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Rising al Qaeda militancy, a surge in violence in a secessionist south and crushing poverty will be this year’s critical tests for Yemen, neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

Yemen, also trying to cement a truce to end a northern civil war, has been a major Western security concern since a Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a December attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane.

Worries over instability in Yemen along with widespread corruption mean there is no significant foreign investment outside the country’s oil industry and little chance of attracting any in the near future.

This is further exacerbating high unemployment in Yemen, with nearly a third of the workforce out of a job, leaving more than 40 percent of the country’s 23 million strong population surviving on under $2 a day.

“Yemen’s problems are all simultaneous and would be overwhelming for any state,” said Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

“Only after the central government is able to address some of these issues more sharply will they start to go away. A lot of the international aid promised is not materialising so Yemen will remain a basket case, if you will, in the short term.”

AL QAEDA AND ISLAMIC MILITANCY