Word: saud
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While Saudi Arabia has used its oil revenues to take some steps toward economic modernization (slavery was abolished in 1963), its political system remains one of the most backward and repressive in the world. Political power is vested solely in the hands of the Saud family, as it has been for most of the 20th century. Fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of political expression are all systematically denied...
...King mixed beneficence with discipline. He could be exceedingly kind to a desert tribesman who sought the King's ear for a petty grievance. But he could also be severe with a junior member of the Saud dynasty who had discredited the royal family by gambling away huge sums of money on the roulette wheels of Monaco or Las Vegas. An aide who once asked Faisal why he did not compliment people who did good work for him received a blunt answer: "It is their duty...
Faisal had a reverence for desert ways, and strove mightily to keep alien influences from corrupting his kingdom. He had seen it founded, after all, out of a backward region of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. In 1932 his crusty father, Ibn Saud, after a series of skirmishes that ended in his defeat of Sherif Hussein of Mecca (great-grandfather of Jordan's present King Hussein), established the kingdom. Ibn Saud had 36 sons but he took an early liking to Faisal, partly because the youth displayed a notable fighting spirit and an ability to carry out his father's orders...
...Saud died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Saud; Faisal was named Crown Prince. An amiable sensualist with little talent for government, King Saud spent so profligately that by 1964 his country was deep in debt. A convocation of elder princes of the family finally packed Saud off into exile and named Faisal King. It was perhaps the most momentous decision that the family ever made...
Died. Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud, 69, austere absolute monarch of Saudi Arabia; of gunshot wounds inflicted by his nephew, Prince Faisal ibn Musaed; during a royal audience in the Saudi capital of Riyadh (see THE U.S. & THE WORLD...