Word: kingdom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...conducted last week for visiting American Vice President George Bush, displayed the impressive might of a Saudi Arabian air force that has been largely trained and equipped by the U.S. Yet the show of strength was also a reminder of the dangers that confront Saudi Arabia, a fabulously wealthy kingdom that sits atop the largest proven oil reserves on earth. Faced with plunging revenues at home and increasingly ominous military threats abroad, the Saudis are passing through anxious times. Declared King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz last month in a nationwide address: "We are surrounded by the most critical conditions...
Indeed, the Saudis find themselves staring at a double-barreled gun. While their policies caused the drop in oil prices from $28 per bbl. to $10 per bbl. over the past six months, that decline has cut deeply into the kingdom's revenues. Compounding its woes has been the continued collapse of a building boom that transformed the desert nation (pop. 6 million) into a land of superhighways, high-rise offices and shopping malls. At the same time, recent successes of Iran in its war against Iraq (see following story) have made the security-conscious Saudis extremely nervous. By invading...
...frightened are the Saudis of foreign intrusion that they have embarked on a substantial military buildup. Growing concerns about the safety of its oil fields have led the kingdom to boost defense outlays every year since the Iran-Iraq war started in 1980. Allocations for defense and internal security are now Riyadh's largest single expenditure. They totaled $17.7 billion last year and represented nearly a third of all government spending...
...government has found many ways to spend money. To ensure ample supplies < of grain, Riyadh has paid growers six times the world price for their output. But since the kingdom consumes only about half the nearly 2 million tons that farmers produce annually, Saudi Arabia has a grain glut. Efforts to raise livestock have been troubled. The Saudi Arabian Agriculture and Dairy Co., which opened in 1980, managed to breed 15,000 cows over the following five years. But the $100 million total cost was so great that the firm had to refinance its debts...
Though oil prices have been drifting downward since 1981, the current price war began when Saudi Arabia got fed up with its OPEC partners. For years the kingdom, which holds about one-fourth of the world's oil reserves, tried almost single-handed to prop up prices by curbing its production. The country wound up slashing its output from a peak of 10.3 million bbl. a day in 1981 to ! a low of 2 million bbl. a day last June. During that time its annual oil revenue fell from $113 billion to $28 billion. Many of the other twelve countries...