Word: abu
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. For centuries the tribes along the southern gulf coast embodied the essence of Araby. Bedouins roamed the desert in the vast inland stretches of Abu Dhabi. Savvy merchants turned Dubai into a notorious smuggling port. A great seafaring tribe, the Qawasim, ruled Sharjah and dominated the gulfs coastal routes until feudal intrigue and British colonial meddling fractured their holdings into independent emirates...
Today the same people incarnate modern Arab lore emerging from the magic elixir of oil. The oil price boom in 1973 began barely two years after seven gulf emirates-Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al Qaiwain, Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah-set aside tribal quarrels to form a loose federation. The cornucopia of oil money has yielded perhaps the highest per capita income in the world for Emirates citizens (in excess of $100,000 a year) and created a cradle-to-grave welfare state. But the Emirates face the most serious population imbalance in the region: of a population...
...open antiSemitism. Says one bitter intellectual in Amman: "You know why I hate the American Government? Because it is not an American government, it is a Zionist government." Frustrated Palestinians often warn of the likelihood of a serious Arab use of the "oil weapon" by mid-1981. Adnan Abu Odah, a Jordan-based director of the World Affairs Council explains, "This is the question: How to make America's awareness of its liabilities outweigh its commitment to Israel...
Arab banks have also set up bases in Western money centers like Paris and London. On the elegant Champs Elysees, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi has taken over the former offices of Merrill Lynch. Near the Ritz Hotel on Place Vendome, discreet brass plates in Arabic script announce the presence of Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissement. All told, 32 Arab-controlled banks now operate in Paris. Some of London's toniest locations are occupied by eleven Arab banks, including the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. With 45 branches scattered throughout the country...
...surprisingly, the anti-American forces in Islamabad were led by a group of pro-Moscow hard-liners such as Syria, Libya and the P.L.O. Declared P.L.O. Delegate Abdel Mohsen Abu Maizer: "Why do you want to compare the Soviet Union, which is offering help and support to the Palestinian people and the Arab cause, to America, which is feeding Israel with weapons in order to kill the Palestinian people?" Among the leading opponents of this pro-Soviet faction was Ghotbzadeh, who asserted that "the liberation of Afghanistan is not less important than the liberation of Palestine." But the U.S. found...