Word: qatar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...poor, belong to the Shi'ite branch of Islam. Bahrain thus is an inviting target for an Islamic revolution imported from Iran, where the Shi'ites are dominant. The island in fact was part of Persia until Sheik Isa's ancestors, who came from Qatar, drove out the Persians in 1783. Since the revolution that brought Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, Iran has stepped up its claims to Bahrain. In 1979 a prominent ayatullah loudly proclaimed that Bahrain was Iran's 14th province. In 1981 the government foiled a plot to assassinate Sheik...
...owes at least $5 billion to the governments of France, Yugoslavia, South Korea and Rumania for arms purchases and construction projects, and hundreds of millions more to banks and private companies in Western Europe. Iraq has also refused to pay bills due to companies in such gulf states as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the ground that the governments of those countries have not honored their pledges to help Iraq's war effort...
...spill endangers marine life as well as industrial installations along the shoreline. The gravest threat is to the huge desalination plants that Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the other arid nations depend on for their drinking water. From Saudi Arabia to the Straits of Hormuz last week, armies of workmen were ringing the shore with floating plastic booms designed to protect the plants' intake valves. Meanwhile, panicky shoppers in Qatar went on a hoarding spree, pushing the price of bottled mineral water to almost $1 a liter-more than five times the OPEC price for crude oil. Officials from Iran...
...have washed ashore thus far, but a small change in the predominantly southeasterly wind could drive the main body of the slick onto hundreds of miles of Arab coastline. Says an environmentalist in the gulf: "The slick is not going to go around looking for a home forever." In Qatar alone, the tide of oil could close down two desalination plants that now produce 37 million gal. of fresh water daily, most of the supply for the population of 250,000. Even small amounts of oil would jam the plants' delicate machinery...
...gulf is a fertile breeding ground for jumbo shrimp and more than 200 kinds of fish, including tuna and sea bass. Although the extent of damage to marine life is not yet known, dead fish are already washing ashore in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Some officials fear that the contamination may destroy a year's catch of some varieties...