GCC summit: more grand plans

The 35th Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit took place in Doha on 9 December, ending with an announcement that the bloc would create an Interpol-style regional police force, GCC-POL, based in Abu Dhabi, and also a “unified marine force”, which Bahraini media said would be based there. The police force is an idea that has been around for some time; interior ministers approved it more than a year ago. Plans to set up a unified military command, announced at the December 2013 summit, do not seem to have advanced much eithe