I was just wondering what the situation is like in Bahrain these days. I was thinking of applying for a job there. Is it safe again? What the law-and-order situation? Do expats have a good quality-of-life or are people still trying to leave?

I know quite a few who have stayed behind and are not reporting much. I also know people who have gone out there for jobs from Europe in the past year. Sounds like its back to normal mostly.

Pretty much back to normal, still some instances of civil disobedience, burning tyres on the roads etc., planned marches are announced on UK in Bahrain Facebook page. Have been backinthesand since October last year and feel more comfortable in Bahrain than West Africa. Days around Feb 14th might be interesting.

It's fine

In your extensive experience?

Having only recently left, I was speaking with someone who lives close to Barbar last night. It's basically the same as it was. Kicking off in the villages on a regular basis but you won't see any of it if you're in Adliya, Juffair etc. I love the old girl and would move back like a shot but as a place to bring up kids......

My boss has a close friend there who told him only yesterday that rioting still takes place and that he would never risk bringing his family back there. Just what I was told.

Very unstable. 70% + Shia but State is avowedly Sunni. Police and army recruited from Baluchistan to control locals who are not trusted by ruling family. Millions spent on nonsensical Formula 1 while many locals live in miserable and sqaulid conditions.

Yuk !

I spent the first twenty years of my life in the Middle East and it's a part of the world that I love. I'm British, but when I sleep at night and think of "home" I think more of sand dunes than I do of green fields - that's not me being unpatriotic, that's just the way it is. I first lived in Iraq in the 50s, Aden (Yemen) in the 60s (you may be seeing a pattern emerge here!), Lebanon in the 70s and Bahrain in the midst 70s.

Of all the parts of the Middle East that I've lived in and spent a lot of time visiting, the Gulf States are the most soulless. It's just a great big money machine that rides roughshod over the local population for, at present, the benefit of rich rulers and expats brought in to do their bidding. And the locals, such as there are in the Gulf, are trampled.

In places like Bahrain and Dubai you will rarely meet a local, they import effectively slave labour from Asia, and even with the backing they get from Saudi and the US because of the strategic position, it will blow up before very long. You simply cannot get away with treating people like that for ever.

I wouldn't go back there, whatever they paid me. Which is frightening, really, given that Bahrain is considered one of the less backward of the Gulf States.

That's rubbish, at least in the UAE anyway. Everything is geared towards the 'locals'. Yes, the ruling family is hugely wealthy, but then so are plenty of other people.

Seriously??? That's NOT the Bahrain that I know.

Just had delete all the cr*p I just wrote as it came out as verbal diarrhoea so let's just say that I have an opposing opinion.

I am living in Bahrain for a year now. The place is safe and I don't really know why they consider it unsafe.. I am living in the north part of Bahrain in an artificial island named Amwaj.. It is really nice here to live. The rest are depending on the job that you are going to do.. If it will be stable or not..

Have you ever been to Bahrain?? You'll meet locals every day, starting at the airport when you hop in a taxi.

What an absolute, total load of bollocks darling

What are you talking about ?

Go spend a weekend in Saar, Budaiya, Sitra, Barbar etc. Amwaj is the Bahrain equivalent of living on Mars....