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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kuwait
Index
Kuwait has a modern, well-maintained transportation
system.
The entire system suffered extensive damage in the Persian
Gulf
War, but by 1993 repairs had brought most facilities back
to
their prewar condition. The highway system comprised more
than
3,900 kilometers of road in 1993. About 3,000 kilometers
are
paved, and the rest are gravel or graded earth.
Expressways
extend south and west from the city of Kuwait to
neighboring
cities. Paved highways link Kuwait with Iraq to the north
and
Saudi Arabia to the west and south. Despite the excellent
network
of roads in populated areas, traffic congestion is a
growing
problem. Plans to build a causeway across Kuwait Bay were
delayed
by the Iraqi invasion in 1990.
Three ports handle all commercial shipping and
petroleum
exports. The principal port for nonpetroleum products in
1993 was
Ash Shuwaykh, several kilometers west of the downtown
section of
the city of Kuwait. Built in 1960, Ash Shuwaykh is one of
the
busiest ports in the Middle East, with twenty-one
deepwater
berths. In 1988 more than 1,100 vessels carried 3.7
million tons
of cargo through Ash Shuwaykh. Ash Shuaybah was built in
1967,
fifty kilometers south of the city of Kuwait, to develop
the Ash
Shuaybah Industrial Zone. By 1988, however, it rivaled Ash
Shuwaykh in size and traffic with twenty berths and 3.5
million
tons of cargo transported. Mina al Ahmadi, just north of
Ash
Shuaybah, handles most of Kuwait's petroleum exports.
Twelve
offshore berths can load more than 2 million bpd of oil
and can
accommodate the largest oil tankers.
Kuwait International Airport, sixteen kilometers south
of the
city of Kuwait, handles all international flights. The
latest
expansion to the airport, a new terminal, was completed in
1979.
Kuwait Airways, the national carrier, has regularly
scheduled
service to more than twenty-four cities worldwide.
Like its transportation system, Kuwait's modern
telecommunications system was heavily damaged during the
Iraqi
occupation. The government has made strides at
reconstruction,
but in 1993 work remained to restore the system to its
prewar
level of excellence. In 1989 there were 285,000
telephones, or
fourteen telephones per 100 inhabitants. High-capacity
coaxial
cables and radio-relay systems linked Kuwait with its
neighbors.
In 1993, however, the coaxial cable to Iraq was still
inoperable.
Before the war, the country had four ground satellite
stations
working with the International Telecommunications
Satellite
Organization (Intelsat) and the Arab Satellite
Communication
Organization (Arabsat) system. All four stations were
destroyed
in the war, however, and smaller mobile satellite ground
stations
currently handle international telephone calls, data
transmission, and live television broadcasts. The city of
Kuwait
has three AM radio stations, three FM radio stations,
three
television transmitters, and a powerful shortwave
transmitter for
international service.
Data as of January 1993
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