Word: abadan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...century. Since the holy month of Ramadan began Aug. 5, the conflict between Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and an unlikely coalition of left-wing extremists and conservative Muslims who oppose his modest modernization campaign had reached new zeniths of terror. Before arsonists set fire to the Rex cinema in Abadan, killing 377, Iran had been rocked by sectarian violence that resulted in at least 16 other deaths. Outraged by Western-style diversions that they consider affronts to Islamic tradition, fanatic Shi'ites had set fire to 29 movie houses and scores of restaurants and nightclubs. In Babol on the Caspian...
...Abadan, meanwhile, was anything but subdued. The Rex tragedy unleashed a flood of bitterness, aimed equally at the arsonists who ignited the theater and the incompetent local authorities whose bungling had surely contributed to the death toll. Witnesses reported that nearly half an hour elapsed before the first fire fighters arrived at the burning theater. Once they got there, they discovered that none of the hydrants were working. The mobile water tanks they brought to the scene ran dry before the fire could be brought under control. The screams of the dying carried into the streets as would-be rescuers...
...Ayatullah Khomeini, a Shi'ite mullah (religious leader) who has lived in exile in Iraq since 1963. Khomeini swore unrelenting enmity to the Shah after hundreds of his followers were killed while protesting the monarch's land-reform program. Alone among Shi'ite leaders, Khomeini failed to condemn the Abadan atrocity...
Iran quite simply wants to do too much too fast. The trouble can be most easily seen anywhere needed imports arrive. Every Iranian port on the Persian Gulf, from Abadan to Bandar Abbas, has become not a gateway but a bottleneck. Dock facilities are totally inadequate to handle the volume of goods that have been ordered. Despite round-the-clock shifts for longshoremen and feverish construction of new piers, the average time for a ship to get a berth is an almost incredible 150 days...
...Iran is now producing 6.1 million bbl. of oil daily and is the world's second-greatest oil-exporting nation, after Saudi Arabia. Iran's refinery at Abadan is the world's largest. More important, the Shah was one of the first oil potentates to take complete control of production and reserves: since 1954 all income from production has gone to the National Iranian Oil Co., which is completely controlled by his government...