Word: portly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Roughly once a week, a flotilla of half a dozen or so tankers heaves into the steamy southern Iraqi port of Khur al-Zubar, and the normally sleepy docks jump to life. Teams of workers scramble over ships arriving mainly from Dubai, Bahrain and other points around the Persian Gulf to connect hoses for the flow of diesel, kerosene and gasoline. Old-fashioned gas-station tickers beside the ships clatter as thousands of liquid tons begin moving...
...years ago for exporting oil, takes in roughly 66,460 metric tons of fuel a month, only slightly less than the amount of oil the area pumps for sale on the world market. (Iraq, as a whole, imports roughly a fifth of its oil.) "It's a problem," says port manager Hussein Hamid al-Maliki, who's working on building another jetty to up the inflow still further. "Iraq bringing benzene and gasoline from outside? It's a joke...
...concerned about reports that Russian forces have entered and taken positions in the port city of Poti, that Russian armored vehicles are blocking access to that port, and that Russia is blowing up Georgian vessels," Bush said. Gates, on Thursday, corrected the impression created by the President 24 hours earlier: "We have found that a lot of the initial reports that we have received on things going on in Georgia have not been accurate," the Defense Secretary said, diplomatically ignoring the fact that his boss had given those reports credence by reiterating them from the Rose Garden. "Our latest information...
Equally forceful, and potentially more confrontational, is the humanitarian mission. Bush noted that Russian armored vehicles were blocking access to the port city of Poti and that Russia was blowing up Georgian vessels. Bush said Gates would launch a "vigorous and ongoing" humanitarian mission by both air and sea. "In the days ahead we will use U.S. aircraft as well as naval forces to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies," he said...
...Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman, 49, was shot dead last Friday at his chalet in the Rimal al-Zahabieh luxury resort nine miles north of the port city of Tartous on the Mediterranean. Press reports in the Arab world claimed that the assassin had fired the shots from a boat out at sea, thus evading security at the prestigious holiday resort regularly frequented by top regime figures. Some analysts, however, suspect that the killer fired from close range - they note the fact that Suleiman was hit in the head, neck and stomach, and also the difficulty of firing that accurately from...