Word: omani
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...Stone Town is the historic center of the present capital, Zanzibar City, and is a UNESCO World Heritage area. The showpiece is the waterfront, a line of whitewashed palaces and forts beside clear, green waters. Here the British Old Dispensary sits next to Portuguese cannons, a fort built by Omani Arabs, and the Victorian clock tower of the Beit al-Ajaib - the first building in Africa with running water, electricity and a lift...
...which were inaugurated as female Olympic sports only as recently as 2000. (In the first modern Olympics in 1896, women were excluded altogether.) But today, with Title IX - the education amendment that allocates funds equally between genders - an entrenched part of American schools, and even Afghan and Omani women competing in the 100m dash, does it make sense to keep a pair of women-only sports in the Olympics...
...danger of an Iranian blockade has lent special importance to Oman, which lies on the strait's southern shore. An Omani naval base at Ras Masandam monitors all ship movements through the channel, while the sultanate's fast and flashy Province-class patrol ships, each armed with eight radar-guided Exocet missiles, are on constant alert, occasionally shooing away Iranian intruders. Qaboos has also seen to it that Oman's 21,500-man volunteer army, navy and air force do not lack for equipment. He lavishes 46% of the national budget on the military and keeps it supplied with...
More important to the U.S. is a complex 1980 agreement that grants it limited access to four strategic Omani air bases. These facilities serve as a supply and deployment base for the U.S. Central Command, formerly called the Rapid Deployment Force, should a crisis develop in the region. Washington has spent $256 million to lengthen runways, harden concrete aircraft hangars and install storage tanks capable of holding 1.1 million gal. of jet fuel at the bases. American C-141 and C-5A cargo planes routinely land at the Masirah Island base, off Oman's southeastern coast, dropping off supplies...
...strong British military presence helps the U.S. keep its distance. Some 1,000 British officers and men serve in the Omani armed forces on contract. Until last year, a Briton was commander of the army; British expatriates still run Oman's navy and air force. When Qaboos faced a Communist insurgency in the south in 1974, British troops helped to suppress...