Word: worldly
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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Kuwait's foreign-asset portfolio approaches a monumental $100 billion, which is invested in a bewildering array of stocks, bonds and entire companies around the world. Almost 70% of the total has been segregated for use when the wells run dry. The Fund for Future Generations, as it is called, is a model of enlightened policy and smart politics. "Other rulers in other places have kept the money for themselves and their friends, doling out just enough to keep their populations contained during their reigns," says Jasem Mohammed al-Hussein, a wealthy Kuwaiti businessman. "Our rulers, the Sabahs, have earned...
While Kuwait's investments bring in about $20 million a day, the economy-in- exile is driven by another engine as well, the Kuwait Petroleum Corp., the world's 12th largest oil company. From its London office on New Bond Street, KPC and its subsidiaries own and operate a fleet of tankers, oil and gas exploration companies in 22 countries on five continents, and 6,500 Q8 gas stations situated throughout Europe...
...single rooms. One can find the Finance Ministry, for example, in Room 311. Surrounded by six chairs, two card tables in the middle of the room offer all the flat work space available. Several phones and a single fax machine connect the ministry with the rest of the world. There are two currency counters and enough calculators to ensure that Kuwait Inc. functions to the proper decimal points. A shredder sits near a large safe, opposite a small television set. But CNN, which everyone is eager to watch, is available only on another TV, two floors up -- a Saudi concession...
Without a country to govern, many in Taif have little to do but worry. They dial around the world in search of news, play countless rounds of hand, the 14-card Kuwaiti version of gin rummy, and recall receiving Iraqi television transmissions at home in Kuwait. "Saddam was on all the time," says a Kuwaiti minister. "On any given day you could see him instructing women on how to make tomato paste, or children on how to brush their teeth. It was some of the best comedy around...
...onerous the occupation, Iraq's control of the city is not total. Neighborhood committees provide a range of services one would think impossible in the circumstances: food that was secreted in the early days of August is distributed according to need, rudimentary medical service is available, and as the world now knows, scores of foreigners were successfully hidden from Iraqi authorities for more than four months...