Word: deserted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Riyadh, rows of mud houses topped with crenelated roofs are smashed to dust to make way for superhighways or high-rise buildings of chrome, glass and soaring reinforced concrete. Passenger jets land and depart from some of the Middle East's busiest airports, shattering the silence of the desert...
...dazzle of its remarkable development projects, Saudi Arabia remains a feudal monarchy. Slavery was not outlawed until 1962. Murderers are still beheaded and adulterers stoned to death under Islamic law. Yet thanks to a gift of Allah?proven reserves of 150 billion bbl. of petroleum bubbling underneath the hot desert sands?this extraordinary nation is hurtling in a blink of history's eye from a medieval past toward the 21st century...
Over the next decade, U.S. military strategists believe, the primary threat to Saudi Arabia may come from Iraq, with which the Saudis share 400 miles of a common but ill-defined desert border, enormous oil wealth and little else. Iraq, which is expected to surpass Iran in oil production by the mid-1980s is a power of the future. But even today, the radical Ba'ath regime in Baghdad has nearly three times the air capability of the Saudis, more than twice as many tanks, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, and five times as many men under arms...
...Bedouin tribal chiefs. Though he is urbane and widely traveled, he received a traditional Islamic education. His father, Abdul Aziz, taught him to ride, shoot straight and speak the truth. Like most Saudis he enjoys camel racing and soccer; perhaps his favorite recreation is to go camping in the desert with Prince Salman, the governor of Riyadh, and some of his other brothers...
...same velvet-gloved approach characterizes his conduct of foreign affairs. In the Arab world, the Saudis are resented by some of their Islamic brethren as nouveau riche desert barbarians. But Fahd is on speaking terms with almost every leader (one notable exception: Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who refuses to deal with him). On the theory that Saudi Arabia's first line of defense is diplomatic, he avoids quarrels even with Arab radicals, preferring to build as broad a range of contacts as he can. In the interests of preserving Arab unity, he has mediated between leftist Algeria and royalist Morocco...