Gulf boycott

LONDON - Six Arab Gulf states have been asked to boycott 487 of Egypt's leading writers, artists and lawyers because they criticised Kuwait during and after the Iraqi invasion in 1990, writes John Bulloch.

In a letter to information ministers of the six Gulf Co-operation Council states - Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait - the secretary-general, Abdullah Bishara, notes that under the alliance's rules, media campaigns against one state must be regarded as an attack on all, and he asks them to take action against the Egyptians.