Word: jidda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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From Bedouin tent encampments to the traffic-choked streets of Riyadh and Jidda, Saudi Arabians by the hundreds of thousands turned introspective last week as religious sentiment swept their land. It was the start of Ramadan, the high holy month of Islamic fasting. But Ramadan or not, it was also pretty much business as usual in one imposing Riyadh office building. Inside the high-rise tower that houses the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), computers kept humming and clerks kept counting as petrodollars continued to cascade into the desert kingdom's coffers at a rate of $320 million...
When SAMA was founded in 1952, its headquarters was a rabbit warren of small buildings near the old Jidda airport. Decision making rested largely with foreigners. The bank's first governor was an American, and as late as 1974, at the time of the first big surge in OPEC oil prices, SAMA was headed by a Pakistani...
...impact of breakneck development and foreign influence on their ultraconservative Muslim culture. As a result, Saudi leadership views the world from the palaces of Riyadh with considerably more confidence than it has in some time-and wants the world to know it. Concludes a long-experienced U.S. observer in Jidda: "The Saudis are determined to get the message across that they are not in immediate jeopardy." Concerned officials and experts in Washington and other capitals tend to agree. The outlines of the Saudis' tripartite campaign...
...port of Jidda and the inland capital of Riyadh, each with a population of more than 1 million today have become two of the fastest growing cities in the Middle East. Skyscrapers sprout from the desert landscape. Building cranes bristle across the horizon. Multi-lane highways and ringroads girdle the cities. Old neighborhoods change dramatically in a matter of weeks; new ones spring up overnight. The din of traffic and construction, residents complain, makes it virtually impossible to sleep after...
...cacaphony, the clash of old and new, of Islamic and Western ways, is harsh and sometimes bizarre. A $500 million 200-unit apartment complex in Jidda has yet to be occupied nearly a year after completion, because religious conservatives objected to the lack of separate elevators for women. Concedes the city's young mayor, Mohammed Said Farsi, an architect educated in Egypt and Britain: "Our biggest problem has been too rapid expansion...