Word: sabah
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...everyone in Taif is idle, of course. With critical chores to perform, the Finance Ministry, for one, churns almost around the clock. The Finance Minister, Sheik Ali al-Khalifa al-Sabah, 45, known to all as Abu Khalifa -- and to a few close friends as Ali Cash -- is highly regarded among both Kuwaitis and foreigners. "He can sell you the shirt off your back while you're wearing it," says a friend, affectionately. "He is absolutely one of the smartest, shrewdest people I have ever...
Although born into the ruling Sabah family, which now numbers about 1,000 extended relatives, Khalifa worked his way up through various jobs in the Finance and Oil ministries. Over the past 12 years he has held each of those crucial Cabinet portfolios several times, and was once minister of both simultaneously...
...most prominent members -- the echo startles. "Ours was a culture of dependency," says Tareq al-Suwaidan, a leader of the opposition Islamic Trend movement. "We were the pampered product of an affluent society taken to the nth degree," says Minister of Planning Sulaiman Mutawa. "Everywhere," remarks Ali Jaber al-Sabah, a KPC managing director, "there was the spirit of ba'dain, of 'tomorrow.' Any real change was put off. 'Why bother?' people would say. 'We're making money, the country as a company is making a good return. We'll decide the hard things tomorrow.' But of course tomorrow never...
...Most Kuwaitis were spoiled beyond imagination," says Saud Nasser al- Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S. Except at KPC and the investment office, lean and mean because they were (and still are) the lifeblood of the country, merit counted for nothing. "There was no accountability," says Khalifa, "because government employees were promoted automatically. It was impossible to fire civil servants. Several years ago the parliament passed an amazing law. In effect, it said that if someone was performing poorly, he would have been fired. But, says this law, since he was not fired, then by definition he was performing...
...Lamb," the final chapter of the book, the authors discuss Iraq's claim to Kuwaiti territory. Both Kuwait and Iraq belonged to the Ottoman empire until World War I, and then to the British. Britain set up monarchies in both countries; in Kuwait they merely supported the Sabah monarchy which had been in place since...