Word: sabah
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Kuwait paid the final installment of its $16.5 billion Desert Storm debt to the U.S. in December, relying partly on the country's Fund for Future Generations. Nevertheless, the Emir Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah ordered the government to write off $5 billion in consumer debts and assume responsibility for an additional $25 billion owed by commercial banks. Despite these obligations, a $5 billion reconstruction loan sought last fall was oversubscribed by a consortium of international banks...
...swept the first round of voting on Dec. 26, the military was hardly alone in its fears that the fundamentalists might wield their legislative clout to impose an Islamic republic. Nearby African and Arab states breathed a sigh of relief after the military intrusion, which the Tunisian daily As-Sabah characterized as "a last-minute change of direction by a train heading toward the abyss...
...here if our leaders are trembling? And what interest rates will we have to pay when the government borrows in the international markets if Kuwait is deemed a security risk? Nothing Saad could have said would have been dumber." What is now certain as well, admits Salem Abdulaziz al-Sabah, the governor of Kuwait's Central Bank, "is that there will be a run on bank accounts when the current withdrawal restrictions expire...
...Emir has called for an entirely new parliament to be elected in October 1992. "Too far away," says Abdullah al-Nibari, an opposition leader. But again, few seem to care so long as a date has been set. "In all of this," admits a U.S. diplomat, "the anti-Sabah factions have been hurt by President Bush's saying that the gulf war was not fought in order to bring democracy to Kuwait. The Secretary of State has admitted that Kuwait's government is not 'the optimum type of regime,' but when the President, who's considered a saint in Kuwait...
Despite their managerial incompetence, the Sabahs appear to have the political savvy necessary to perpetuate their rule well into the next century. Exactly how they use their power is anyone's guess, but growing xenophobia is one likely effect. For years Kuwait's goal has been to reach a fifty-fifty ratio of Kuwaitis to foreigners by the year 2000 (vs. the 30-to-70 ratio before the Iraqis rolled in). The invasion has made the government more loudly determined than ever to reach that goal -- but getting there will probably prove impossible. After a whirlwind shopping spree...