Word: sahara
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that the shortest route to enhanced power is through a neighboring country's land. In his determination to annex the phosphate-rich Spanish colony, King Hassan has ignored an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice that denied Morocco's claim of outright sovereignty over the Sahara. Spain, after promising to hold a referendum on independence among the colony's 70,000 people -mostly nomadic tribesmen-now seems willing to renege on its pledge rather than risk confrontation with the adventuristic Hassan. After a flurry of diplomatic moves, Madrid reportedly agreed last week to recognize Morocco...
Sybaritic Swath. He was going into the Sahara, Hassan explained, "so that my children and grandchildren may take pride in inheriting a real crown and a true scepter." They also stand to inherit Hassan's fortune (estimated at more than $500 million) and his eight palaces, four of them with golf courses designed by Robert Trent Jones. When Hassan dies, he expects to be ensconced in the mausoleum he has had built for himself in Rabat, a $7.5 million structure that looks like a cross between a pagoda and the Taj Mahal. Not bad for a onetime playboy prince...
...Western in foreign policy and open toward European and American investments. Since 1973 Hassan has emulated his oil-rich Arab allies by pushing up the price of phosphate rock from $14 to $68 a ton. Morocco controls 60% of world trade in the vital fertilizer ingredient even without the Sahara deposits, and the price increase last year meant an added $1 billion to a booming economy...
Healing Powers. Franco frequently became quite lucid, occasionally chatting with his family and even discussing with Premier Carlos Arias Navarro the lineup of military forces that might confront each other in the Spanish Sahara. At one point the Archbishop of Zaragoza, Pedro Cantero Cuadrado, spread across Franco's bed the gold-embroidered cloak that usually adorns the wooden statue of the Virgin Mary in Zaragoza's Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar. As the archbishop described it, the dictator opened his eyes, wept and kissed the cape-which is reputed to have healing powers...
...only by the Cabinet and only when the Chief of State presides; moreover, all decree laws must be signed by him to take effect. With Franco so gravely ill, the government was unsure whether it had clear-cut authority to make decisions-even on matters as pressing as the Sahara crisis. Said a government official last week: "We cannot go on without an active leader...