Word: kuwait
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Through a swirling sandstorm, robed Bedouin sheiks poured in from the desert wastes of Kuwait last week in their two-toned American sedans, sitting on the back seats clutching rifles between their knees. Their bodyguards wore pistols in heavy holsters that sagged down to their knees, and the bullets in the bandoleers had been filed arrow-sharp. Almost all of Kuwait's tiny, 1,600-man army of tough Bedouins roared up to the northern bor der with Iraq in British-built armored cars, thoroughly alarmed at reports that Iraq was massing tanks just across the border. Only...
...nomadic ancestors once roamed the ground in question. Backward Yemen claims all of the Aden Protectorate, whose border is disputed in turn by Saudi Arabia, which has claims on Muscat and Oman as well. Iran claims Bahrein, and Iraq's rulers have always coveted the desert sheikdom of Kuwait, currently the richest country per acre and per capita in the Middle East. But nobody ever took the claim seriously until General Abdul Karim Kassem, "sole leader" of Iraq, announced during the course of a three-hour tirade that he was bent upon "liberating" Ku wait and returning...
...Hamburg for minor surgery last month, Sheik Abdullah Al-Jabir As-Sabah, 65, Justice and Education Minister of oil-rich Kuwait, received tender loving care from a 19-year-old secretary, casually married her, quickly got a telephone squawk from one of his three other wives. But by last week, the contrite ("It was beyond my control") sheik was back at his palace near Beirut, had shucked his German bride of ten days and placated his complaining spouse with gifts among them a $10,000 diamond ring. Neither action came hard. The divorce was his 27th, and the baubles were...
Free Water. Making all the opulence possible is the $500 million that Kuwait gets for its oil exports yearly. In its 6,000 square miles, Kuwait contains one-quarter of all the world's proven oil reserves-half again as much as the U.S.'s. Kuwait currency is 100% gold-backed, and the ruler keeps a reserve of $2 billion in British banks. There is nothing else to do with the money as Kuwait's development has already surged far ahead of its capacity to make use of it. New office buildings stand empty, new roads trail...
...Rich. For all that, not everybody is happy. Rich young Kuwaitis with fresh Egyptian college diplomas (scholarships are government provided) are restive and so is the growing commercial community, which includes a large number of Palestinian Arabs. They resent the sheiks' autocratic rule (nobody has a vote in Kuwait, and sheiks head all the government offices) and listen avidly to the inflammatory broadcasts from Cairo. They bewail the fact that membership in Nasser's "One Arab Nation" is still denied them. Declared one of the disgruntled: "How can we be happy when so many other Arabs are miserable...