LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Bahrain: Middle East
built 630 days ago
Bahrain is the hub logistics site in the NAVCENT AOR for distributing all passengers and cargo and mail originating in CONUS. It is served by AMC for cargo and CAT-B missions coming from the east coast via the Mediterranean. Full transient services are available to personnel arriving in Bahrain.
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Bahrain's development as a major financial center has been the most widely heralded aspect of its diversification effort. Bahrain is a regional financial and business center; international financial institutions operate in Bahrain, both offshore and onshore, without impediments, and the financial sector is currently the largest contributor to GDP at 27.6%. Some 370 offshore banking units and representative offices are located in Bahrain, as well as 65 American firms. Bahrain has ... made a concerted effort to become the leading Islamic finance center in the Arab world, standardizing regulations of the Islamic banking industry. It currently has 32 Islamic commercial, investment and leasing banks as well as Islamic insurance (takaful) companies--the largest concentration of Islamic financial institutions in the Middle East.
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In a region experiencing an oil boom, Bahrain has the fastest growing economy in the Arab world, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia found in January 2006[30]. Bahrain ... has the freest economy in the Middle East according to the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal, and is twenty-fifth freest overall in the world[31].
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Bahrain is still basking in the glory of having been ranked first for e-government implementation in the Arab world by a UN report. According to the UN’s Global E-Government Readiness Report 2004: Towards Access for Opportunity, Bahrain stands second only to Israel in West Asia, and is ahead of Cyprus and Turkey. Among projects that earned Bahrain its brownie-points were King Hamad's Future Schools Project, a Smart Card project ... initiated by His Majesty, a Government Data Network, which connects all government departments through a single network, and an e-voting project. Bahrain also claims to be the first government in the Middle East to adopt open standards for its e-government initiatives.
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The Hawar Islands, 20 kms to the south-east of mainland Bahrain, form a rich and interesting area, topographically quite unlike that of the parent island. Made up of a group of 16 islands, some flat and some with low but steep cliffs falling to the sea, Hawar is home to some locally rare avian species. Eight to ten pairs of the beautiful Sooty Falcon nest on the cliff ledges between August and October each year. The flat island of Sowad al Janibiyah is the breeding ground of up to 200,000 Socotra Cormorants, between October and February. These islands ... support about a hundred pairs of Western Reef Herons and Breeding Caspian, Bridled, White-cheeked and Saunders Little Terns. Add to this a wintering population of 800 - 1000 Greater Flamingos, up to 25 pairs of ground-nesting Ospreys, and a stark physical beauty seen nowhere else in Bahrain, and these islands are well worth visiting (special permission required).
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The main port of Bahrain is Mina Salman. The port is located on the north-eastern side of the island and is fully equipped for all kinds of cargo including container operations. The Port can handle container vessels up to 300 metres long with pilotage available 24 hours and a minimum depth of 35 feet at low water
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