Word: taif
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...auspices of the Arab League, Lebanon's parliament last week agreed on the outlines of a new national charter revising the distribution of political power, the issue at the root of the country's 14-year-old civil war. The plan, worked out in the Saudi city of Taif, won the endorsement of 58 of the 62 legislators present. Whereas Christians previously held 54 of parliament's 99 seats, an enlarged, 108-member legislature would be evenly divided between Muslims and Christians...
...surviving members of the Lebanese parliament elected in 1972 as they sat down to ponder a solution for their country's devastating 14-year civil war. In fact, failure in Lebanese peace efforts has become almost customary. But after two weeks of consultations in the Saudi Arabian resort of Taif, the parliamentarians -- 33 Christians and 30 Muslims -- were close to agreement on a plan to establish a "government of national reconciliation." It calls for Muslim-Christian power sharing and phased withdrawal of the 40,000 Syrian troops who have been in Lebanon under an Arab League mandate since...
...plan's success is far from certain, of course. General Michel Aoun, commander of the Christian forces fighting Syria and its Lebanese Muslim allies, warned in East Beirut that "the war of liberation will continue" until the Syrians are driven out. Muslim warlords also dismissed the Taif meeting and called for Aoun's ouster...
...setting for the meeting was Taif, a restful summer retreat outside the Saudi Arabian city of Jidda, but the mood of the participants was far from relaxed. Representatives from nine of the 13 feuding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries got together informally last week to debate what to do about falling oil prices. Several members of the group, including Nigeria and Ecuador, have been offering under-the-table discounts and exceeding their OPEC-decreed production quotas. As a result, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd directed Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, his Oil Minister, to deliver an ultimatum...
...only thing that the delegates could agree on was moving up the date of the next regular OPEC meeting in Geneva from July 22 to June 30. By that time, ! the group's predicament may be even worse. No sooner had the Taif session broken up than Britain announced that it was lowering the price of its high- quality North Sea Brent crude...