Word: baghdads
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraq's natural resources are only now emerging as spoils of war. As U.S. troops prepare to withdraw from the country next year, some of the world's biggest energy companies, among them ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, are racing to lock up multibillion-dollar deals with officials in Baghdad that will allow them to exploit the country's giant oil fields. The deals will not only allow Big Oil to return to Iraq for the first time since Saddam nationalized the industry in 1972. By modernizing a production system wrecked by conflict and embargoes, Iraq's exports could also...
...Until recently, that change looked like it might never happen. Last summer, Iraq's government hosted an auction for eight large oil and gas fields at Baghdad's high-end Al-Rashid Hotel. There, oil executives from the U.S., Europe, Russia, China and South Korea paraded on stage and dropped their bids into a sealed box, in a ceremony broadcast live on Iraqi television. It was meant to be grand theater, but proved a p.r. failure for Baghdad. Just one bid succeeded: it was submitted by a partnership between Britain's BP and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) for production...
...auction's failure was due in part to the government's inflexibility. Baghdad is under pressure by Iraq's feisty oil unions and politicians, who have accused leaders of aiming to sell the country's riches on the cheap to gain a little short-term relief for the economy. Oil executives argued they should be paid as much as $3.99 a barrel - nearly double the government offer - because of the risks involved. Operating in Iraq means investing billions in an unstable country where foreign oil workers are routinely kidnapped and insurgents have blown hundreds of holes in pipelines. Rochdi Younsi...
...beginning," Sheik Mohammed once told an Arab journalist, "they said that Dubai was crazy." Certainly few Arab leaders have demonstrated such a relentless drive to succeed. He imagined Dubai as a great city from Islam's rich heritage, a Baghdad or a Cordoba. His immense appetite for work is matched by a passion for play. He is a world-class thoroughbred racer and breeder and, at 62, he remains a celebrated equestrian who engages in arduous endurance races across hundreds of miles of terrain. Doubtless it takes a politician of supreme self-confidence not only to write Arabic poetry...
...years the expatriates in Kabul considered themselves above their contemporaries in Baghdad. We shopped in the markets and mixed with Afghan friends. We drove freely through the city and flew kites on Friday afternoons. Yes, there were the occasional kidnappings or rocket attacks, but never did we feel antipathy from our Afghan hosts. The new expatriates moving in, usually as part of big contracting firms, are increasingly being funneled into isolated compounds surrounded by razor wire and concrete blast walls. They shop at PXs, not local markets. They go out in armored convoys that cause traffic jams. And the only...