Word: gulf
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...gold medalists in recruiting foreign-born athletes are Qatar and Bahrain, tiny oil-rich Gulf states that have poached top runners from Kenya, Morocco, and Ethiopia. The effort took off in the 1990s, when Qatar began importing Bulgarian weight lifters, one of whom, Angel Popov, won a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics under his adopted Arab name, Saif Saeed Asaad. Since then, Qatar and Bahrain have each shelled out millions of dollars to persuade athletes to change their citizenship, tossing in lucrative incentives for setting world records and bringing home Olympic gold...
...Gulf states are not the only nations to benefit from athletes shifting national alliances. Some Nordic states have granted asylum to African runners who later competed for their national teams. The U.S. table-tennis team is stacked with Chinese-born players, while the three American runners competing in the men's 1,500 m are all naturalized citizens, including Bernard Lagat, who won medals for Kenya in two previous Olympics (but failed to make the finals in Beijing...
...have risen to record levels, the spiraling price of gasoline has become issue number one in the American Presidential election. That's prompted Republican candidate John McCain to make expanded offshore oil drilling a focus of his campaign. For years, offshore drilling has been illegal outside parts of the Gulf of Mexico due to environmental concerns, with public support. But that has reversed in recent months, with even green Californians moving in favor of drilling. Barring a sudden national move to adopt alternative fuels, we can expect that reversal to continue - as oil prices rise, so will pressure to "drill...
Roughly once a week, a flotilla of half a dozen or so tankers heaves into the steamy southern Iraqi port of Khur al-Zubar, and the normally sleepy docks jump to life. Teams of workers scramble over ships arriving mainly from Dubai, Bahrain and other points around the Persian Gulf to connect hoses for the flow of diesel, kerosene and gasoline. Old-fashioned gas-station tickers beside the ships clatter as thousands of liquid tons begin moving...
...fields fallow after the fall harvest, says marine ecologist Robert Howarth of Cornell University, much of the nitrogenous fertilizer that would normally get washed into waterways by spring thaws could instead be absorbed into winter grain crops. Measures of this sort, if uniformly implemented, could all but eliminate the Gulf of Mexico's famously ballooning dead zone...