Word: kuwait
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ahmed Shukairy, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was outraged that not a single one of the 13 Arab League states had paid the assessments levied last September in Alexandria to build a Palestinian-Arab army, and only Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt had paid their dues for the political arms. In response, the deadbeat states demanded that Shukairy account for the funds he had already received, and one member accused Shukairy of spending $8,400 for custom-made suits at Rome's chic Caraceni tailors...
...already operating around the world, including nine in the U.S., they have yet to surmount one vexing problem: cost. The desalting plants have been unable to produce fresh water for much less than $1 per 1,000 gal., which may be economical in a parched country such as Kuwait, but can scarcely compete against the average 350 per 1,000 gal. that U.S. communities pay for water...
Such problems are a bit hard for Kuwait's neighbors to take seriously, considering that Kuwait's immense oil royalties have created more than 1,000 native millionaires and made the country a big source of funds for most of the Middle East. Kuwait has given other Arab states at least $1 billion in grants and loans, most of which will never be repaid...
Stung by criticism that this policy amounted to little more than bribery to insure noninterference by Kuwait's powerful neighbors, the government has decided henceforth to make all grants through the $280 million Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, which will allocate money only for specific, economically sound projects in other Arab countries. For their part, wealthy Kuwait residents have invested $1.5 billion of their own outside the country, own $350 million in real estate in Beirut alone. The government has another $1.2 billion on deposit in foreign countries, but has done the pound no favor by cutting down...
Welfaring Natives. The capital city of Kuwait, a mud-walled, back-desert town before 1946, when the country's oilfields were first tapped for export, is now a modern city. It has broad, tree-lined boulevards, starkly modern office and apartment buildings and 2.3 window air conditioners (some placed in mud walls) for every resident. Kuwaitis have no taxes, receive free education and medical service, pay as little as $1.40 a month for modern, government-erected housing. Anyone who needs employment is hired by the government, often in such make-work jobs as operating automatic elevators and opening...