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164-481: The 72-game season runs from April–October, split into two half-terms, with the division champion from each half-term meeting in a playoff at the end of the year to determine which two teams compete for the league championship. Each team carries 27 players. Typically, players earn 150,000 yen (c. U.S. $ 2,000) per month, with another 50,000 yen in potential bonuses. The league imposes a 7.2 million yen (c. U.S. $ 60,600) salary limit for team managers. Not every team has

328-487: A First World nation by the 1990s; President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela likewise launched his Le Gran Venezuela project intended to make Venezuela into a First World nation; and President Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria told his people that henceforward Nigeria's main problem would be "managing abundance". After the oil shock, Nigeria presented itself as the first African nation that would reach First World status and in Lagos

492-788: A Saudi leader since 1953 as he met King Faisal to ask him to end the embargo. Within two week of the embargo being launched, all of the foreign ministers of the nations of the European Economic Community (now the European Union) met in a conference to issue a statement calling for Israel "to end the territorial occupation which has maintained since the conflict of 1967". On December 11, 1973, the Japanese Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ōhira flew in to Riyadh to meet King Faisal for "talks on improving bilateral relations". Shortly afterwards,

656-511: A committee to review the Eisenhower-era quota program. Shultz's committee recommended that the quotas be abolished and replaced with tariffs but Nixon decided to keep the quotas due to vigorous political opposition. Nixon imposed a price ceiling on oil in 1971 as demand for oil was increasing and production was declining, which increased dependence on foreign oil imports as consumption was bolstered by low prices. In 1973, Nixon announced

820-549: A competitive export market, and tried to ensure a low exchange rate for the yen through a trade surplus . The Plaza Accord of 1985 temporarily changed this situation; the exchange rate fell from its average of ¥239 per dollar in 1985 to ¥128 in 1988 and led to a peak rate of ¥80 against the US$ in 1995, effectively increasing the value of Japan's GDP in dollar terms to almost that of the United States. Since that time, however,

984-651: A conference in Vienna when it was announced the price for a barrel of oil was to from $ 5 US dollars per barrel to $ 11.65 US dollars per barrel. Faisal was opposed to the price increase, which was largely the work of the Iranian delegation. Over the long term, the oil embargo changed the nature of policy in the West towards increased exploration, alternative energy research, energy conservation and more restrictive monetary policy to better fight inflation. For further details see

1148-519: A few months. Most scholars agree that the 1967 embargo was ineffective. Although some members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) supported the use of oil as a weapon to influence the political outcome of the Arab–Israeli conflict , Saudi Arabia had traditionally been the strongest supporter of separating oil from politics. The Saudis were wary of the tactic due to

1312-727: A fixed amount of gold. After 1971, OPEC was slow to readjust prices to reflect this depreciation. From 1947 to 1967, the dollar price of oil had risen by less than two percent per year. Until the oil shock, the price had also remained fairly stable versus other currencies and commodities. OPEC ministers had not developed institutional mechanisms to update prices in sync with changing market conditions, so their real incomes lagged. The substantial price increases of 1973–1974 largely returned their prices and corresponding incomes to former levels in terms of commodities such as gold. Arab oil producing countries had attempted to use oil as leverage to influence political events on two prior occasions—the first

1476-690: A global leader, courted by elites in both the First World and the Third World. The oil embargo led a sudden interest in the Palestinian issue. Between 1973 and 1981, Saudi Arabia donated a sum worth $ 1 billion US dollars to the Palestine Liberation Organization , which thus had a budget that exceeded that of many Third World nations. On November 8, 1973, Kissinger became the first Secretary of State to meet with

1640-549: A global recession and increased tension between the United States and several of its European allies, who faulted the US for provoking an embargo by providing what many viewed as unconditional assistance to Israel. OAPEC demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from all territories beyond the 1949 Armistice border . The embargo lasted from October 1973 to March 1974. During a summit in Cairo on November 6, Kissinger asked Sadat what Faisal

1804-779: A permanent home stadium. Instead, the team travels around its home prefecture , playing in different stadiums, each one called "home” for that game. The BC League began play in 2007 as the Hokushinestu Baseball Challenge League . It originally consisted of four teams based in the Hokuriku region : the Ishikawa Million Stars , the Niigata Albirex Baseball Club , the Shinano Grandserows , and

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1968-566: A plan to invade Abu Dhabi , Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Kissinger publicly threatened "countermeasures" in a Nov 21st, 1973 press conference if the embargo was not lifted, and the Saudis responded with threatening further oil cuts and to burn their oil fields if the US military invaded. After the CIA confirmed these threats, Kissinger gave up military intervention and decided that dealing with Israel's troop withdrawals and settled on diplomatic solutions to

2132-429: A post-war recession. Coins worth 1 and 5 rin were eventually officially taken out of circulation at the end of 1953 and demonetized. Color The issuance of yen banknotes began in 1872, two years after the currency was introduced. Denominations have ranged from 1 yen to 10,000 yen; since 1984, the lowest-valued banknote is the 1,000 yen note. Before and during World War II , various bodies issued banknotes in yen, such as

2296-465: A rise in the value of the yen would hurt export growth by making Japanese products less competitive and would damage the industrial base. The government, therefore, continued to intervene heavily in foreign-exchange marketing (buying or selling dollars), even after the 1973 decision to allow the yen to float. Despite intervention, market pressures caused the yen to continue climbing in value, peaking temporarily at an average of ¥271 per US$ in 1973, before

2460-493: A series of stately modernist buildings were erected as appropriate for a nation that saw itself as the leader of all black Africa. Much of the oil wealth in Nigeria was stolen by corrupt politicians. However, at least some of Nigeria's new oil wealth went to rebuild the areas devastated by the civil war of 1967-1970 and to address the complaints that too much of Nigeria's oil wealth went to the federal government in Lagos instead of

2624-457: A sign of the pro-Israeli slant of American foreign policy. Faisal also felt insulted that Nixon had just promised Saqqaf a "honorable" peace the day before he submitted the request to Congress for some $ 2.2 billion worth of arms for Israel, which he saw as an act of duplicity on Nixon's part. Faisal had been opposed to a total embargo and only agreed to the 5% cut on October 17 under pressure from other Arab states. Faisal felt his efforts on behalf

2788-554: A single one of its stated objectives. The ceasefire which the USA and the USSR together imposed two days later upon Israel, Syria and Egypt would have been imposed in any case; Israel ended the October war, thanks to US aid, better equipped militarily than she had ever been before, and Faisal's ambition to shrink Israel back inside her pre-1949 boundaries remains unfulfilled to this day. Nor did

2952-485: A smaller 50 yen. In 1982, the first cupronickel 500 yen coin was introduced. Alongside the 5 Swiss franc coin , the 500 yen coin is one of the highest-valued coin to be used regularly in the world, with a value of US$ 4.42 as of December 2016 . Because of its high face value , the 500 yen coin has been a favorite target for counterfeiters, resulting in the issuance in 2000 of the second nickel-brass 500 yen coin with added security features. Continued counterfeiting of

3116-507: A three-division alignment in 2020. In September 2021, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, and Shiga (the West division) announced that they would leave the league in 2022 and form a new league, the Nihonkai Ocean League . Championships Titles Yen The yen ( Japanese : 円 , symbol : ¥ ; code : JPY ) is the official currency of Japan . It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market , after

3280-498: A variety of factors. Firstly, Japan's prolonged low-interest-rate policy (to tackle domestic deflation ) has created a yield differential with other countries—notably the US—that have high interest rates (to tackle domestic inflation ), prompting investors to seek higher returns in foreign currencies. This interest rate differential directly affects the price of the Yen and serves as one of

3444-417: A yen called "rin" were first introduced in 1873. One rin coins were very small, measuring 15.75 mm in diameter and 0.3 mm in thickness, and co-circulated with mon coins of the old currency system. Their small size was eventually their undoing, and the rin was abandoned in 1884 due to unpopularity. Five rin coins worth one-two hundredth of a yen also used a bronze alloy. These were successor coins to

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3608-462: Is so large that it is expected to double the money supply, but this move has sparked concerns that the authorities in Japan are deliberately devaluing the yen to boost exports. However, the commercial sector in Japan worried that the devaluation would trigger an increase in import prices, especially for energy and raw materials. Since 2022, the yen has depreciated significantly against its peers, due to

3772-480: The "drain America first" policy. Some scholars believe the policy contributed to the decline of domestic US oil production in the early 1970s. The cheapness of oil compared with coal led to the decline of the coal industry. In 1951, 51% of America's energy came from coal, and by 1973, only 19% of America's industry was coal-based. When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he assigned George Shultz to head

3936-640: The 1964 games . The largest issuance by denomination and total face value were 10 million gold coins of ¥100,000 denomination for the 60th anniversary of reign of the Shōwa Emperor in 1986, totalling ¥1 trillion and utilizing 200,000 kg fine gold. ¥500 commemorative coins have been regularly issued since 1985. In 2008 commemorative ¥500 and ¥1,000 coins were issued featuring Japan's 47 prefectures. Even though all commemorative coins can be spent like ordinary (non-commemorative) coins, they do not normally circulate, and ¥100,000 coins are treated with caution due to

4100-650: The Bar Lev Line in the Sinai Peninsula and Syria launched an offensive in the Golan Heights , both of which had been occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War . The war began during the height of the Watergate scandal and Nixon largely let Kissinger manage foreign policy as he was distracted by the scandal. On 8 October 1973, Faisal told two Egyptian envoys: "You have made us all proud. In

4264-533: The Japanese asset price bubble and continued to do so afterwards, reaching a low of ¥134 to US$ in February 2002. The Bank of Japan's policy of zero interest rates has discouraged yen investments, with the carry trade of investors borrowing yen and investing in better-paying currencies (thus further pushing down the yen) estimated to be as large as $ 1 trillion . In February 2007, The Economist estimated that

4428-577: The Meiji period and later are printed on Japanese banknotes. The reason for this is that from the viewpoint of preventing forgery, it is desirable to use a precise photograph as an original rather than a painting for a portrait. Series E banknotes were introduced in 2004 in ¥1000, ¥5000, and ¥10,000 denominations. Series F banknotes were introduced on 3 July 2024. They were announced on 9 April 2019 by Finance Minister Tarō Asō . The ¥1000 bill features Kitasato Shibasaburō and The Great Wave off Kanagawa ,

4592-774: The Ministry of Finance and the Imperial Japanese National Bank. The Allied forces also issued some notes shortly after the war. Since then, the Bank of Japan has been the exclusive note issuing authority. The bank has issued five series after World War II. Japan is generally considered a cash-based society, with 38% of payments in Japan made by cash in 2014. Possible explanations are that cash payments protect one's privacy, merchants do not have to wait for payment, and it does not carry any negative connotation like credit. At present, portraits of people from

4756-434: The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War , which began after Egypt and Syria launched a large-scale surprise attack in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover the territories that they had lost to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War . In an effort that

4920-587: The Toyama Thunderbirds . In 2008 the league added two teams, Gunma Diamond Pegasus and the Fukui Miracle Elephants , and split into two divisions, Jōshin'etsu (Gunma, Shinano, and Niigata) and Hokuriku (Fukui, Ishikawa, and Toyama). Ishikawa Million Stars Infielder Kensuke Uchimura led the league in steals in 2007, which led to him being drafted by Nippon Professional Baseball 's Rakuten Golden Eagles . In 2008, he became

5084-490: The United States dollar and the euro . It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. The New Currency Act of 1871 introduced Japan's modern currency system, with the yen defined as 1.5 g (0.048 troy ounces) of gold, or 24.26 g (0.780 troy ounces) of silver, and divided decimally into 100 sen or 1,000 rin . The yen replaced the previous Tokugawa coinage as well as

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5248-603: The [je] pronunciation. Walter Henry Medhurst , who had neither been to Japan nor met any Japanese people, having consulted mainly a Japanese-Dutch dictionary, spelled some "e"s as "ye" in his An English and Japanese, and Japanese and English Vocabulary (1830). In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn , following Medhurst, spelled all "e"s as "ye" in his A Japanese and English dictionary (1867); in Japanese, e and i are slightly palatalized, somewhat as in Russian. That

5412-518: The pattern stage . The first gold yen coins consisted of 2, 5, and 20 yen coins which were struck throughout 1870. Five yen coins were first struck in gold for the Japanese government in 1870 at the San Francisco Mint . During this time a new mint was being established at Osaka , which did not receive the gold bullion needed for coinage until the following year. Gold bullion was delivered from private Japanese citizens, foreigners, and

5576-401: The "Energy crisis" series by Facts on File. The effects of the embargo were immediate. OPEC forced oil companies to increase payments drastically. The price of oil quadrupled by 1974 from US$ 3 to nearly US$ 12 per 42 gallon barrel ($ 75 per cubic meter), equivalent in 2018 dollars to a price rise from $ 17 to $ 61 per barrel. Saudi Arabia had 25% of the world's oil, but only 4% of the oil used in

5740-535: The "oil weapon". It came in the form of an embargo and production cutbacks from the Arab states. The weapon was aimed at the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Japan and the Netherlands. These target governments perceived that the intent was to push them towards a more pro-Arab position. Production was eventually cut by 25%. However, the affected countries did not undertake dramatic policy changes. The risk that

5904-508: The "peace of the brave" (i.e. a victorious leader being magnanimous to his defeated opponents) meant there was a possibility that Sadat at least would make peace with Israel provided that the war ended in such a way that Egypt was not perceived to be defeated. Likewise, Kissinger regarded Meir as being rather arrogant and believed that an armistice that ended the war in a manner that was not an unambiguous Israeli victory would make her more humble. As both Syria and Egypt lost much equipment during

6068-636: The "yen" as Japan's modern unit of currency on June 27, 1871. This Act formally stipulated the adoption of the decimal accounting system of yen (1, 圓 ), sen ( 1 ⁄ 100 , 錢 ), and rin ( 1 ⁄ 1000 , 厘 ). The new currency was gradually introduced beginning from July of that year. Japanese yen denominated paper currency was also conceived with the coins in 1870 as Meiji Tsuho notes by Italian engraver Edoardo Chiossone . These were released as fiat currency in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, and 100 yen along with subsidiary notes of 10, 20, and 50 sen in 1872. Almost concurrently,

6232-421: The $ 850 million worth of arms requested sent a request to Congress for some $ 2.2 billion worth of arms to Israel, which was promptly approved. Nixon, whose administration was being badly battered by the Watergate scandal, felt that a bold foreign policy move might resuscitate his administration. Nixon later boasted in his memoirs that the U.S. Air Force flew more sorties to Israel in October 1973 than it had during

6396-702: The 1973 "oil price shock" and the accompanying 1973–74 stock market crash as the first discrete event since the Great Depression to have a persistent effect on the US economy. The embargo had a negative influence on the US economy by causing immediate demands to address the threats to U.S. energy security. On an international level, the price increases changed competitive positions in many industries, such as automobiles. Macroeconomic problems consisted of both inflationary and deflationary impacts. The embargo left oil companies searching for new ways to increase oil supplies, even in rugged terrain such as

6560-431: The 1990s to redenominate the yen by introducing a new unit or new yen, equal to 100 yen, and nearly worth one U.S. dollar. This has not happened to date, since the yen remains trusted globally despite its low unit value, and due to the huge costs of reissuing new currency and updating currency-reading hardware. The negative impact of postponing upgrades to various computer software until redenomination occurs, in particular,

6724-724: The Algerian state to end many of its more generous social policies between 1986 and 1988, leading to an unemployment rate of 30% by 1988 along with the knowledge that the FLN regime had stolen millions. In the aftermath of the October riots, President Chadli Bendjedid began a transition to democracy. The first free elections in Algeria in January 1992 were won by the Islamist FIS, which led to a military coup and an outbreak of civil war that

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6888-558: The American nuclear industry as a way to achieve "energy independence" from the Middle East. On 7 November 1973, Nixon in an address to Congress called for Project Independence to make the United States self-sufficient in energy by 1980, which called for a massive investment in the nuclear industry. Nixon seems to have assumed that nuclear energy was economical, and was encouraged by the faddish enthusiasm of many officials who more on

7052-427: The American oil imports came from the Middle East. Throughout the 1960s, the price for a barrel of oil remained at $ 1.80, meaning that with the effects of inflation considered the price of oil in real terms got progressively lower and lower throughout the decade with Americans paying less for oil in 1969 than they had in 1959. Even after a price for a barrel of oil rose to $ 2.00 in 1971, adjusted for inflation, people in

7216-464: The Americans simply imported more oil from nations that were not part of the embargo such as Iran, but the 400% increase in the price of oil caused by the embargo did damage the American economy. A number of nations such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran and Iraq increased their oil production during the embargo, but just sold their oil at a higher price. The leader who pushed the most for higher oil prices

7380-497: The Arab oil embargo of 1973–74 that for people in the West life suddenly become "slower, darker and chiller" as gasoline was rationed, the lights were turned off in Times Square, the "gas guzzler" automobiles suddenly stopped selling, speed limits became common and restrictions were placed on weekend driving in a bid to conserve fuel. As the American automobile industry specialized in producing heavy "gas guzzler" vehicles, there

7544-855: The Arctic. Finding oil and developing new fields usually required five to 10 years before significant production. The average US retail price of a gallon of regular gasoline rose 43% from 38.5¢ in May 1973 to 55.1¢ in June 1974. State governments asked citizens not to put up Christmas lights. Oregon banned Christmas and commercial lighting altogether. Politicians called for a national gasoline rationing program. Nixon asked gasoline retailers to voluntarily not sell gasoline on Saturday nights or Sundays; 90% of gas station owners complied, which produced long lines of motorists wanting to fill up their cars while they still could. The "oil shock" provided considerable impetus to

7708-600: The Berlin Airlift of 1948–49, flying in a gargantuan quantity of arms, though he also admitted that by the time the arms lift had begun, the Israelis had already "turned the tide of battle" in their favor, making the arms lift irrelevant to the outcome of the war. In an interview with the British historian Robert Lacey in 1981, Kissinger later admitted about the arms lift to Israel: "I made a mistake. In retrospect it

7872-517: The Chinese had traded silver in mass called sycees , and when Spanish and Mexican silver coins arrived from the Philippines , the Chinese called them "silver rounds" ( Chinese : 銀圓 ; pinyin : yínyuán ) for their circular shapes. The coins and the name also appeared in Japan. While the Chinese eventually replaced 圆 ; 圓 with 元 , the Japanese continued to use the same word, which

8036-683: The Egyptian Sinai Peninsula , which resulted in Egypt closing the Suez Canal for eight years . Following the Yom Kippur War , the canal was cleared in 1974 and opened again in 1975. OAPEC countries cut production of oil and placed an embargo on oil exports to the United States after Richard Nixon requested $ 2.2 billion to support Israel's war effort. Nevertheless, the embargo lasted only until January 1974, though

8200-645: The French foreign minister Michel Jobert arrived to sign an agreement that provided oil for France for the next twenty years. On January 24, 1974, as the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , was coming off the ski slopes of St. Moritz , he was met by the British Chancellor of Exchequer, Anthony Barber , and the Trade Secretary, Peter Walker . In a role-reversal, Barber and Walker paid homage to

8364-738: The Fukushima Hopes, would also join the league for the 2015 season. Late in the summer of 2014, along with the Shikoku Island League Plus , the Route Inn BCL formed the Japan Independent Baseball League Organization. With the addition of two new teams, in 2015 the league realigned and renamed its divisions, replacing the previous divisions Jōshin'etsu and Hokuriku with Future—East and Advance—West. The team adopted

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8528-549: The Grand Mosque and the surviving "renegades" as the rebels were labelled were executed. Likewise, the perception that that most of the wealth being generated by the now higher price of oil was being stolen by a corrupt Shah along with the unfulfilled promises of the "Great Civilization" project played a major role in causing the Iranian Revolution of 197–1979 that toppled the Shah and led to the establishment of

8692-435: The Iranian delegation left Kuwait City as the Shah of Iran was only interested in higher oil prices. The Oil Minister of Iraq, Sa'dun Hammadi demanded the "total nationalization" of all assets of American oil companies in the Middle East, the withdrawal of all Arab funds from the United States and for all Arab states to break diplomatic relations with the United States. The Libyan Oil Minister, Izz al-Din al-Mabruk, called for

8856-786: The Iraqi and Libyan demands for an embargo as Yemani maintained that forcing through an increase in the price of oil was the best way to influence the United States. Hammadi and the rest of the Iraqi delegation left in a huff as Yemani had won over the majority of the delegations to the Saudi viewpoint. The statement issued after midnight at the Sheraton Hotel was handwritten and reflecting the tense talk had several paragraphs crossed out while other paragraphs were written in by different hands. On October 17, Arab oil producers cut production by 5% and instituted an oil embargo against Israel's allies:

9020-495: The Islamic Republic of Iran in February 1979. In Algeria, the "oil shock" led to the establishment of a welfare state where none had existed previously. The lower oil prices of the 1980s along with cutbacks and the belief that the FLN regime was corrupt helped cause the riots of October 1988 against the FLN regime that killed at least 500 people. The riots were largely caused by the fact that the low oil prices had forced

9184-409: The Japanese government. Initially the government opted for silver, which would become the standard unit of value leaving gold coinage as a subsidiary. While gold coinage couldn't be produced domestically in 1870, the mint at Osaka could produce silver coins which included denominations of 5, 10, 20, and 50 sen. None of these coins dated "1870" circulated until the Meiji government officially adopted

9348-446: The Middle East could become another superpower confrontation with the USSR was of more concern to Washington than oil. Further, interest groups and government agencies more worried about energy were no match for Kissinger's dominance. In the US production, distribution and price disruptions "have been held responsible for recessions, periods of excessive inflation, reduced productivity, and lower economic growth." Some researchers regard

9512-538: The Middle East. In the early 1960s Libya , Indonesia and Qatar joined OPEC. OPEC was generally regarded as ineffective until political turbulence in Libya and Iraq strengthened their position in 1970. Additionally, increasing Soviet influence provided oil producing countries with alternative means of transporting oil to markets. Under the Tehran Price Agreement of 1971 , signed on February 14,

9676-477: The Ministry of Finance, seeking to introduce a modern monetary system into Japan. Ōkuma eventually proposed that coins, which were previously square, be made into circles, and that the names of the traditional currencies, ryō (両), bu (分) and shu (朱), be unified into yen (円), which was accepted by the government. Other rejected proposals included physical weight units of "Fun" and "Momme" which never made it past

9840-778: The October War more in terms of the Cold War rather than Middle Eastern politics, both seeing the Soviet arms lifts to Egypt and Syria as a Soviet power play that required an American answer. On October 12, 1973, US president Richard Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass , a strategic airlift to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel in order to replace its materiel losses, after the Soviet Union began sending arms to Syria and Egypt. The first American weapons to Israel arrived only on 15 October 1973, and despite Nixon's orders

10004-658: The Red Sea port of Jeddah , there were so many ships queuing up laden with cement for the construction boom in Saudi Arabia that construction contractors hired helicopters to fly the cement in, twenty bags per flight. A number of families engaged in the Saudi construction industry such as the Juffali, Alireza, al-Khasshoggi and the bin Laden families all become very wealthy as a result of the construction boom. The period after

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10168-417: The Shah, who promised them that his nation would sell the United Kingdom 5 million tons of oil in exchange for some £100 million of British goods to aid his plans to industrialize Iran. Saudi Arabia experienced an upsurge of prosperity and affluence after the oil embargo whose consequences horrified King Faisal. Faisal who was devoted to a harsh puritanical strain of Sunni Islam known in the West as Wahhabism

10332-436: The Soviet military personnel in Egypt in a signal that he wanted better relations with the United States. Kissinger was taken completely by surprise by Sadat's move, saying: "Why has he done me this favor? Why didn't he demand all sorts of concessions first?" Sadat expected as a reward that the United States would respond by pressuring Israel to return the Sinai to Egypt, but after his anti-Soviet move prompted no response from

10496-401: The Suez War. If the United States had done the same after 1967, we would not have witnessed the this deterioration... Before the Jewish State was established, there existed nothing to harm good relations between Arabs and Jews. There were many Jews in Arab countries. When the Jews were persecuted in Spain, Arabs protected them. When the Romans drove the Jews out, Arabs protected them. At Yalta, it

10660-400: The United States forced prices to raise, which in turn led prices to rise everywhere all over the world as oil producers that had not joined the embargo such as Iran, Venezuela, Libya and Iraq demanded higher prices in Japan and Europe as an initiative to ship oil to those places instead of the United States, thus settling off a worldwide inflationary spiral. The only European nations subject to

10824-419: The United States in 1973 came from the kingdom. However, Saudi Arabia plays an over-sized role within the Arab world, and as a Beirut oil consultant noted in 1974: "If Saudi Arabia moves from A to B, then every other oil producer must move at least as far, if not to C." In 1973, about 25% of the oil used in the United States came from Arab countries. The mere shortage of oil caused by the Arab oil embargo within

10988-517: The United States were not being appreciated in Washington, which increased his fury at Nixon. Saudi Arabia only consented to the embargo after Nixon's promise of $ 2.2 billion in military aid to Israel. On the afternoon of October 19, 1973, Faisal was in his office when he learned about the United States sending $ 2.2 billion worth of weapons to Israel, and discussed the issue with two of his closest advisers, Abdullah ibn Abdul Rahman and Rashad Pharaon. The king called Yamani at about 8 pm, and told him he

11152-469: The United States were significantly higher than the global average. After it was implemented, the embargo caused an oil crisis, or "shock", with many short- and long-term effects on the global economy as well as on global politics. The 1973 embargo later came to be referred to as the "first oil shock" vis-à-vis the "second oil shock" that was the 1979 oil crisis , brought upon by the Iranian Revolution . Ever since Israel declared independence in 1948 there

11316-437: The United States' actions in 1971. Following the United States' measures to devalue the dollar in the summer of 1971, the Japanese government agreed to a new, fixed exchange rate as part of the Smithsonian Agreement , signed at the end of the year. This agreement set the exchange rate at ¥308 per US$ . However, the new fixed rates of the Smithsonian Agreement were difficult to maintain in the face of supply and demand pressures in

11480-503: The United States, by November 1972 Sadat moved again closer to the Soviet Union, buying a massive amount of Soviet arms for a war he planned to launch against Israel in 1973. For Sadat, cost was no object as the money to buy Soviet arms came from Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Faisal promised Sadat that if it should come to war, Saudi Arabia would embargo oil to the West. In April 1973, the Saudi Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani visited Washington to meet Kissinger and told him that King Faisal

11644-413: The United States, the Netherlands, Rhodesia , South Africa, and Portugal. On October 17–19, 1973, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Omar Al Saqqaf , visited Washington together with the foreign ministers of Algeria, Kuwait and Morocco to warn that there was a real possibility of an oil embargo being imposed. Saqqaf complained to King Faisal that Nixon seemed more interested in a dispute about "a burglary" (i.e.

11808-468: The Watergate scandal) than about the October War. During a press conference, an American reporter mocked the threat, contemptuously saying the Saudis "could drink their oil", leading Saqqaf to reply in anger "All right, we will!". Joined by the foreign ministers of Algeria, Kuwait and Morocco, Saqqaf met with Nixon in the Oval Office who promised him that the United States would mediate a settlement to

11972-518: The Western nations were paying less for oil in 1971 than they had in 1958. The extremely low price of oil served as the basis for the " long summer " of prosperity and mass affluence that began in 1945. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), was founded by five oil producing countries at a Baghdad conference on September 14, 1960. The five founding members of OPEC were Venezuela , Iraq , Saudi Arabia , Iran and Kuwait . OPEC

12136-559: The availability of oil from non-Arab oil producing countries, and in the decades leading up to the crisis, the region's conservative monarchies had grown dependent on Western support to ensure their continued survival as Nasserism gained traction. On the other hand, Algeria, Iraq and Libya had strongly supported the use of oil as a weapon in the conflict. Arab newspapers like the Egyptian Al-Ahram , Lebanese An-Nahar and Iraqi Al-Thawra had historically been supportive of

12300-510: The basis of faith than rationality saw nuclear energy as the technology of the future. By the late 1960s, a lively environmentalist movement had emerged in the United States, and the Project Independence nuclear program was the subject of much debate in both the media and Congress. The ensuing debates revealed that many of the claims made for nuclear power vast underestimated the true costs of nuclear reactors. Equally problematic

12464-403: The case for nuclear power in the ensuring debates. By 1989, only 18% of American energy came from nuclear power plants, which was a faction of what Project Independence had envisioned in 1973. The "oil shock" led to anti-Arab feelings becoming common. Cartoons published in American newspapers during the "oil shock" depicted Arabs as disgusting, ugly, obese, corrupt and greedy. In the cartoons,

12628-582: The currency. The sharp fall in the value of the currency has led some companies, including Modec , to stop presenting their financial statements in Japanese yen. However, this weakness has had some benefits for Japan's tourism industry, as the low exchange rate makes its purchasing power attractive for travellers, particularly those from foreign nations. The name, "Yen", derives from the Japanese word 圓 ( en , [eɴ] ; "round") , which borrows its phonetic reading from Chinese yuan , similar to North Korean won and South Korean won . Originally,

12792-453: The demand being made that the government find some other community to store the rods. Many of the nuclear reactors ordered in 1973 were cancelled due to the horrendous cost overruns while over 100 nuclear plants were shut down as uneconomical over the next 10 years. Unlike nations that tried to use nuclear power as a way for "energy independence" such as France and Sweden, the United States had substantial reserves of its own oil, which weakened

12956-597: The discovery of counterfeits. The 1 yen coin is made out of 100% aluminum and can float on water if placed correctly. Subsidiary coins of "sen" (one hundredth of a yen) were initially introduced in 1870 with a silver alloy in denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 sen. Copper sen coins in denominations of half, 1, and 2 came three years later, as Japan acquired the technology needed to mint them. The removal of silver from sen coinage began in 1889, when Cupronickel 5 sen coins were introduced. By 1920, this included cupro-nickel 10 sen and reduced-size silver 50 sen coins. Production of

13120-550: The dollar inconvertible to gold directly, except on the open market, and was soon dubbed the Nixon Shock , leading eventually to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1976. Because oil was priced in dollars, oil producers' real income decreased when the dollar started to float free of the old link to gold. In September 1971, OPEC issued a joint communiqué stating that from then on, they would price oil in terms of

13284-441: The dollar. In light of the dollar's reduction in value from ¥360 to ¥308 just before the reversion, an unannounced "currency confirmation" took place on October 9, 1971, wherein residents disclosed their dollar holdings in cash and bank accounts; dollars held that day amounting to US$ 60 million were entitled for conversion in 1972 at a higher rate of ¥360. In the 1970s, Japanese government and business people were very concerned that

13448-510: The drivers behind its depreciation. Widely held expectations of yen depreciation can become self-fulfilling prophecies, affecting the currency's exchange rate. To counter this, the BOJ conducted currency interventions of more than JPY 9 trillion selling the dollar and buying the yen in the September–October 2022 and April–May 2024 periods respectively. Numerous proposals have been made since

13612-417: The embargo of 1973–1974 had caused about 500,000 Americans to lose their jobs and caused a GNP loss between $ 10 billion–$ 20 billion. This price increase had a dramatic effect on oil exporting nations, for the countries of the Middle East who had long been dominated by the industrial powers were seen to have taken control of a vital commodity. The oil-exporting nations began to accumulate vast wealth. Some of

13776-618: The embargo was a failure because the countries that were targeted by the embargo did not change their policies on the Arab–Israeli conflict. Licklieder believed that any long term changes were caused by the OPEC increase in the posted price of oil, and not the OAPEC embargo. Daniel Yergin , on the other hand, has said that the embargo "remade the international economy". Lacey wrote: "King Faisal's momentous oil embargo of 20 October 1973 did not achieve

13940-534: The embargo. The crisis eased when the embargo was lifted in March 1974 after negotiations at the Washington Oil Summit, but the effects lingered throughout the 1970s. The dollar price of energy increased again the following year, amid the weakening competitive position of the dollar in world markets. The Arab oil embargo ended the long period of prosperity in the West that had begun in 1945, throwing

14104-407: The end of the quota system. Between 1970 and 1973 US imports of crude oil had nearly doubled, reaching 6.2 million barrels per day in 1973. Until 1973, an abundance of oil supply had kept the market price of oil lower than the posted price. In 1970, American oil production peaked and the United States began to import more and more oil as oil imports rose by 52% between 1969 and 1972. By 1972, 83% of

14268-469: The equally valued half sen coin which had been previously minted until 1888. The decision to bring back an equally valued coin was in response to rising inflation caused by World War I which led to an overall shortage of subsidiary coins. The mintage period for five rin coins was brief as they were discontinued after only four years of production due to their sharp decline in monetary value. The overall demand for subsidiary coinage ended as Japan slipped into

14432-415: The establishment of a centralized banking system. The Bank of Japan hence commenced operations on October 10, 1882, with the authority to print banknotes that could be exchanged for the old Government and National Bank Notes. By May 1883, another act provided the redemption and retirement of national bank notes. The National Bank Act was amended again in March 1896, providing for the dissolution of

14596-454: The fact that The Protocols had been exposed as a forgery in 1921. Initially, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger suggested to Kissinger that the USA invade Saudi Arabia and another Arab countries and seize their oil fields. Kissinger stated in a private state department meeting that it's “ridiculous that the civilized world is held up by 8 million savages... Can’t we overthrow one of the sheikhs just to show that we can do it?” They formed

14760-507: The fighting, the Soviet Union began to fly new equipment in starting on October 12, and the Soviet flights to Syria and Egypt were recorded by the British radar stations in Cyprus. Though the Soviets were flying in an average of 60 flights per day, exaggerated accounts appeared in Western newspapers speaking of "one hundred flights per day". At this point, both Nixon and Kissinger began to see

14924-470: The fighting. So we agreed to cut back production by just 5 percent per month. A full embargo, we agreed, was something we would implement only if we felt that things were absolutely hopeless". At an OPEC summit at the Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait City on October 16, 1973, it was announced the price of oil would go from $ 3.01 U.S. dollars per barrel to $ 5.12 per barrel. After agreeing to the price increase,

15088-597: The first player to reach NPB after playing in the BC League. In February 2014, the league agreed to a naming rights deal with Route Inn Group, becoming the Route Inn BC League . That same month, it was announced that a new team, the Musashi Heat Bears, based out of Saitama Prefecture , would join the league in time for the 2015 season. In July 2014, it was announced that a second new team,

15252-530: The followers of the Mahdi (a messianic figure said to appear at the dawn of every Muslim century to strike down the enemies of Islam). The leader of the uprising, Juhayman al-Otaybi , read out a list of grievances as he accused the House of Saud of being corrupt and degenerate as he listed by name a number of Saudi princes who were engaged in dubious business dealings and/or who drank alcohol. The Saudi Army recaptured

15416-519: The foreign-exchange market. In early 1973, the rates were abandoned, and the major nations of the world allowed their currencies to float . After World War II the United States-administered Okinawa issued a higher-valued currency called the B yen from 1946 to 1958, which was then replaced by the U.S. dollar at the rate of $ 1 = 120 B yen. Upon the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 the Japanese yen then replaced

15580-618: The former entity. During this unstable period, the confusion caused by this form of exchange caused economic turmoil. The gold (counting money) system of eastern Japan and the silver (weighing money) system of the western Japan were not unified, and the difference in the gold-silver ratio caused a large amount of gold to flow overseas at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Emperor Meiji responded to this by appointing Ōkuma Shigenobu as head of Japan's monetary reform program. He worked with Inoue Kaoru , Itō Hirobumi , and Shibusawa Eiichi to run

15744-481: The government established a series of national banks modeled after the system in the United States which issued national bank notes. Massive inflation from the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 caused a glut of non-redeemable fiat currency notes. The issuance of national fiat banknotes was ultimately suspended in 1880 by then prime minister Matsukata Masayoshi . New policies were put into place which included

15908-424: The impact of the 1973 oil crisis was felt (this was retroactively called endaka , although the term was only coined in 1985). The increased costs of imported oil caused the yen to depreciate to a range of ¥290 per US$ to ¥300 per US$ between 1974 and 1976. The re-emergence of trade surpluses drove the yen back up to ¥211 in 1978. This currency strengthening was again reversed by the second oil shock in 1979 , with

16072-477: The income was dispensed in the form of aid to other underdeveloped nations whose economies had been caught between higher oil prices and lower prices for their own export commodities, amid shrinking Western demand. Much went for arms purchases that exacerbated political tensions, particularly in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia spent over 100 billion dollars in the ensuing decades for helping spread its fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism , throughout

16236-403: The king end the oil embargo after Sadat, whom he trusted, reported to him that the United States was being more "evenhanded" and after Kissinger had promised to sell Saudi Arabia weapons that it had previously denied under the grounds that they might be used against Israel. More importantly, Saudi Arabia had billions of dollars invested in Western banks, and the massive bout of inflation set off by

16400-518: The latter ceased in 1938, after which a variety of base metals were used to produce 1, 5 and 10 sen coins during the Second World War . While clay 5 and 10 sen coins were produced in 1945, they were not issued for circulation. As with the Rin, coins in denominations of less than 1 yen became invalid at the end of 1953 and were demonetized due to inflation. Bronze coins worth one-one thousandth of

16564-485: The latter resulted in the issuance in 2021 of the third bi-metallic 500 yen coin with more improvements in security features. Due to the great differences in style, size, weight and the pattern present on the edge of the coin they are easy for people with visual impairments to tell apart from one another. Commemorative coins have been minted on various occasions in base metal, silver and gold. The first of these were silver ¥100 and ¥1,000 Summer Olympic coins issued for

16728-410: The long hooked Semitic noses that had traditionally been featured in anti-Jewish cartoons were applied to the Arab sheiks as a way to illustrate their supposed greed. American public opinion did not see the use of the "oil weapon" as due to politics, and tended to explain the embargo as only due to the excessive greed of King Faisal and the other Arab leaders, hence the use of the hooked Semitic nose in

16892-519: The national banks on the expiration of their charters. This amendment also prohibited national bank notes from circulating after December 31, 1899. In that year, Japan adopted a gold exchange standard , defining the yen as 0.75 g fine gold or US$ 0.4985. This exchange rate remained in place until Japan left the gold standard in December 1931, after which the yen fell to $ 0.30 by July 1932 and to $ 0.20 by 1933. It remained steady at around $ 0.30 until

17056-579: The nationalization of all the assets of all Western oil companies in the Middle East. The news about the war on October 16 was grim from the Arab viewpoint with the Syrians steadily being pushed back while Israelis had opened a counter-offensive against the Egyptians and crossed the Great Bitter Lake. The Saudi delegation led by Yemani, supported by the Algerian delegation, fought hard against

17220-586: The number of American planes flying into Tel Aviv were initially limited. After the first week of the war, the Israelis had halted the Syrian offensive in the Golan Heights and were pushing back the Syrians back towards Damascus, but along the Suez canal, there was heavy fighting with the Egyptians holding their own. Yamani stated in a 1981 interview: "The king still wanted to give America a chance to stay out of

17384-498: The odds of making peace along the lines of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 calling for a "land for peace" deal if an armistice was signed with Egypt and Syria gaining some territory in the Sinai and the Golan Heights respectively. Nixon had ordered an arms lift to Israel on 12 October 1973, but Kissinger used the excuse of bureaucratic delays to limit the amount of weapons and ammunition sent to Israel. The Arab concept of

17548-494: The oil embargo was a threat to this fortune as inflation eroded the value of the money, giving Faisal a vested interest in helping to contain the damage he himself inflicted on the economies of the West. Since Israeli forces did not withdraw to the 1949 Armistice Line, the majority of scholars believe that the embargo was a failure. Roy Licklieder, in his 1988 book Political Power and the Arab Oil Weapon , concluded that

17712-594: The oil embargo were the Netherlands (because the Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel was strongly pro-Israeli) and Portugal (in a support of show for the independence movements in Portugal's African colonies), but the shortage of oil in the United States led to sharp price rises in all of the European nations. The embargo itself did not cause much economic difficulty in the United States as

17876-474: The oil embargo, oil exports from the Middle East to the West were down by 60–70% by November 1973. Japan and the nations of western Europe imported some 75% of their oil from the Near East, and the embargo led to immediate and sharp price raises as Lacey noted that "competing desperately for dwindling supplies, consumers showed themselves willing to pay unparalleled money for their oil". Saudi Arabia had 25% of

18040-530: The oil embargo. On November 7, 1973, Kissinger flew to Riyadh to meet King Faisal and ask him to end the oil embargo in exchange for promising to be "evenhanded" with the Arab-Israeli dispute. As the plane carrying him prepared to land in Riyadh, Kissinger was clearly nervous at the prospect of negotiating with the stern Wahhabi Faisal who had a marked dislike of Jews. Kissinger discovered that King Faisal

18204-423: The oil shock of 1973–1974 is still fondly remembered in Saudi Arabia as the "age of abundance" where nearly everyone had a significant increase in their standard of living. The wealth and corruption generated by the oil shock led to a fundamentalist backlash in Saudi Arabia. On 20 November 1979, Islam's most holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, was seized by a group of fanatics who proclaimed themselves to be

18368-552: The past we could not lift our heads up. Now we can". Faisal promised to give to Egypt a quality of aid worth $ 200 million US dollars to assist with the war effort, and stated he was willing to use the "oil weapon" if necessary to support Egypt. Kissinger promised the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir the United States would replace its losses in equipment after the war, but sought initially to delay arm shipments to Israel as he believed it would improve

18532-433: The people. In Iran, the Shah who was aware by 1974 that he had developed the cancer that was to ultimately kill him in 1980 pushed very strongly for his "Great Civilization" for rapid modernization not the least because he wanted to see the "Great Civilization" before his death, which explained his grandiose announcements. The new wealth generated by the "oil shock" allowed for Chairman Houari Boumédiène of Algeria to become

18696-405: The posted price of oil was increased and, due to a decline in the value of the US dollar relative to gold, certain anti-inflationary measures were enacted. Because of a severe drain on U.S. gold reserves, leading to higher inflation and lack of confidence in the strength of the dollar, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11615 on August 15, 1971, closing the " gold window ". This action made

18860-567: The price of oil by 400% within a matter of days threw the world's economy into a sharp recession with unemployment mounting and inflation raging came as a profound shock. The end of what the French called the Trente Glorieuses ("Glorious Thirty" [years]) led to a mood of widespread pessimism in the West with the Financial Times running a famous headline in late 1973 saying "The Future will be subject to Delay". Kurt Waldheim,

19024-574: The price of oil remained high afterwards. By 1969, American domestic output of oil was peaking and could not keep pace with increasing demand from vehicles. The U.S. was importing 350 million barrels (56 million cubic metres) per year by the late 1950s, mostly from Venezuela and Canada . Because of transportation costs and tariffs, it never purchased much oil from the Middle East. In 1973, US production had declined to 16% of global output. Eisenhower imposed quotas on foreign oil that would stay in place between 1959 and 1973. Critics called it

19188-522: The second summit of Islamic states in Lahore (which, unlike the first summit that Faisal had chaired in 1969, was not boycotted by Iraq and Syria ) where he was acclaimed as a conquering hero who humiliated and humbled the West by wrecking its economy. The prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, opened the conference by stating: "The armies of Pakistan are the armies of Islam. We shall enter Jerusalem as brothers-in-arms!" Only on March 18, 1974 did

19352-643: The secretary-general of the United Nations in an address to the General Assembly complained about "the note of helplessness and fatalism creeping into world affairs". The sudden and abrupt end of the "long summer" of prosperity in 1973-1974 played a major role in the pessimistic mood that characterized the culture of the rest of the 1970s. In 1975, a report to Congress from the Federal Energy Administration estimated that

19516-475: The start of the Pacific War on December 7, 1941, at which time it fell to $ 0.23. The sen and the rin were eventually taken out of circulation at the end of 1953. No true exchange rate existed for the yen between December 7, 1941, and April 25, 1949; wartime inflation reduced the yen to a fraction of its prewar value. After a period of instability, on April 25, 1949, the U.S. occupation government fixed

19680-502: The use of oil as a weapon. In 1970, President Nasser of Egypt died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat , a man who believed in the diplomacy of surprise, in engaging in sudden moves to upset the diplomatic equilibrium. Sadat liked to say that his favourite game was backgammon , a game where skill and persistence was rewarded, but was best won by sudden gambles, making an analogy between how he played backgammon and conducted his diplomacy. Under Nasser, Egypt and Saudi Arabia had engaged what

19844-473: The value of the yen at ¥360 per USD through a United States plan, which was part of the Bretton Woods system , to stabilize prices in the Japanese economy . That exchange rate was maintained until 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard, ending a key element of the Bretton Woods system, and setting in motion changes that eventually led to floating exchange rates in 1973. By 1971,

20008-406: The value of the yen. From its average of ¥239 per US$ in 1985, the yen rose to a peak of ¥128 in 1988, virtually doubling its value relative to the dollar. After declining somewhat in 1989 and 1990, it reached a new high of ¥123 to US$ in December 1992. In April 1995, the yen hit a peak of under 80 yen/US$ , temporarily making Japan's economy nearly the size of that of the US. The yen declined during

20172-409: The various hansatsu paper currencies issued by feudal han (fiefs). The Bank of Japan was founded in 1882 and given a monopoly on controlling the money supply. Following World War II , the yen lost much of its pre-war value. To stabilize the Japanese economy , the exchange rate of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per US$ as part of the Bretton Woods system . When that system was abandoned in 1971,

20336-574: The war that would be "peaceful, just and honorable" to both sides. Saqqaf reported to King Faisal that Nixon told him that he ended the Vietnam war on an honorable basis and now intended to end the October war in the same manner. Israel took heavy losses in men and material during the fighting against Egypt and Syria, and on October 18, 1973, Meir requested $ 850 million worth of American arms and equipment to replace its material losses. Nixon decided characteristically to act on an epic scale and instead of

20500-416: The war, brass 50 sen, 1 and 5 yen were introduced between 1946 and 1948. The current-type holed brass 5 yen was introduced in 1949, the bronze 10 yen in 1951, and the aluminum 1 yen in 1955. In 1955 the first unholed, nickel 50 yen was introduced. In 1957, silver 100 yen pieces were introduced, followed by the holed 50 yen coin in 1959. These were replaced in 1967 by the current cupro-nickel 100 yen along with

20664-417: The warning that Faisal was considerably tougher, more intelligent and more ruthless than his half-brother Saud whom he had deposed in 1964, and his threats were serious. Kissinger declined to meet the four CEOs. In an assessment done by Kissinger and his staff about the Middle East in the summer of 1973, the repeated statements by Sadat about waging  jihad against Israel were dismissed as empty talk while

20828-478: The warnings from King Faisal were likewise regarded as inconsequential. In September 1973, Nixon fired Rogers as Secretary of State and replaced him with Kissinger. Kissinger was later to state he had not been given enough time to know the Middle East as he settled into the State Department's office at Foggy Bottom as Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on October 6, 1973. On October 6, 1973, Egypt attacked

20992-448: The way his subjects had been seduced into a consumerist lifestyle, becoming lost in a sense of "melancholia". Faisal's son, Crown Prince Mohammad told Lacey in 1981: "The profligacy, the greed, he felt he could not stem it. He become so bound up in his work, there was almost nothing private of him left". A sign of the changed values was that despite the total ban on alcohol in Saudi Arabia that drinking along with drug use become common with

21156-533: The withholding of the 638,500 barrels of oil which the Saudi Arabia had been selling to America every day for the first 10 months of 1973 ever come, in itself, to jeopardizing the power or diverting the policies of the United States, since it accounted for less than 4 percent of America's daily 17 million barrel consumption. It was the interaction which Faisal's embargo had with other forces that made it so decisive. Arab politics had an immediate multiplier effect". Because every Arab state except for Iraq and Libya joined

21320-494: The world price of the yen has greatly decreased, falling to an average of almost ¥158 per dollar and ¥171 per euro in July 2024. The Bank of Japan maintains a policy of zero to near-zero interest rates and the Japanese government has previously had a strict anti-inflation policy. From late 2020 to first half 2024, the yen depreciated against the dollar by about 60%, giving rise to serious concern in Japan about long-term prospects for

21484-468: The world's economy into the steepest economic contraction since the Great Depression. The "long summer" of prosperity in the post-war years had made possible the "swinging sixties" and the related rise of a rebellious youth culture as it was very easy to be hedonist and/or in rebellion against traditional values in a time of unprecedented affluence and prosperity. Lacey wrote about the impact of

21648-452: The world's oil reserves and the embargo imposed on the United States led to shortages of oil in the United States, which set an inflationary spiral as the new high prices for oil in the American market led to sharp increases of the price of oil in nations not subjected to the embargo. When the Iranian state oil company held an auction on December 16, 1973, bids for some $ 17 US dollars per barrel of oil were made. In late December 1973, OPEC held

21812-553: The world, via religious charities such as the al-Haramain Foundation , which often also distributed funds to violent Sunni extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The 400% increase in the world oil prices led to extravagant promises being made by the leaders of oil-producing nations. The Shah of Iran told his subjects in a speech in December 1973 that he was launching "Great Civilization" project that would make Iran into

21976-501: The year of mintage, which is not shown in Gregorian calendar years, but instead in the regnal year of the current emperor's reign , with the first year of an era called gannen ( 元年 ) . Imperial portraits have never appeared on Japanese coins, as the image of the emperor remains sacred. In 1897, the silver 1 yen coin was demonetized and the sizes of the gold coins were reduced by 50%, with 5, 10 and 20 yen coins issued. After

22140-413: The yen became undervalued and was allowed to float. The yen had appreciated to a peak of ¥271 per US$ in 1973, then underwent periods of depreciation and appreciation due to the 1973 oil crisis , arriving at a value of ¥227 per US$ by 1980. Since 1973, the government of Japan has maintained a policy of currency intervention, so the yen is under a managed float regime . The Japanese government focused on

22304-412: The yen dropping to ¥227 per US$ by 1980. During the first half of the 1980s, the yen failed to rise in value, though current account surpluses returned and grew quickly. From ¥221 per US$ in 1981, the average value of the yen actually dropped to ¥239 per US$ in 1985. The rise in the current account surplus generated stronger demand for yen in foreign-exchange markets, but this trade-related demand for yen

22468-428: The yen had become undervalued. Japanese exports were costing too little in international markets, and imports from abroad were costing the Japanese too much. This undervaluation was reflected in the current account balance , which had risen from the deficits of the early 1960s, to a then-large surplus of US$ 5.8 billion in 1971. The belief that the yen, and several other major currencies, were undervalued motivated

22632-513: The yen is determined in foreign exchange markets by the economic forces of supply and demand . The supply of the yen in the market is governed by the desire of yen holders to exchange their yen for other currencies to purchase goods , services , or assets . The demand for the yen is governed by the desire of foreigners to buy goods and services in Japan and by their interest in investing in Japan (buying yen-denominated real and financial assets). 1973 oil crisis In October 1973,

22796-634: The yen was 15% undervalued against the dollar, and as much as 40% undervalued against the euro. However, this trend of depreciation reversed after the global economic crisis of 2008 . Other major currencies, except the Swiss franc , have been declining relative to the yen. On April 4, 2013, the Bank of Japan announced that they would expand their asset purchase program by $ 1.4 trillion in two years. The Bank of Japan hopes to bring Japan from deflation to inflation, aiming for 2% inflation. The number of purchases

22960-473: The yen weak relative to the dollar and fostered the rapid rise in the Japanese trade surplus that took place in the 1980s. In 1985, a dramatic change began. Finance officials from major nations signed an agreement (the Plaza Accord ) affirming that the dollar was overvalued (and, therefore, the yen undervalued). This agreement, and shifting supply and demand pressures in the markets, led to a rapid rise in

23124-461: The younger members of the House of Saud. James Akins, the American ambassador in Riyadh reported; "the sky over Riyadh is black with vultures with new get-richer-quicker plans under their wings". In 1974, property prices in Riyadh doubled on a weekly basis for the entire year as the prosperity led to a real estate speculation bubble that was often compared to the Klondike gold rush of 1898–1899. At

23288-487: The ¥5000 bill features Tsuda Umeko and Wisteria flowers, and the ¥10,000 bill features Shibusawa Eiichi and Tokyo Station . The Ministry decided to not redesign the ¥2000 note due to low circulation. The EURion constellation pattern is present in the Series D, E and F banknotes. Beginning in December 1931, Japan gradually shifted from the gold standard system to the managed currency system. The relative value of

23452-646: Was conflict between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East , including several wars . The Suez Crisis , also known as the Second Arab–Israeli war, was sparked by Israel's southern port of Eilat being blocked by Egypt , which also nationalized the Suez Canal belonging to French and British investors. As a result of the war, the Suez Canal was closed for several months between 1956 and 1957 . The Six-Day War of 1967 included an Israeli invasion of

23616-531: Was Stalin who said there had to be a Jewish state...Israel is advancing Communist objectives...Among those of the Jewish faith there are those who embrace Zionism...Most of the immigration to Israel is from the Soviet Union...They want to establish a Communist base right in the Middle East...And now, all over the world, the Jews are putting themselves into positions of authority". On February 22, 1974, King Faisal chaired

23780-552: Was a worthy companion to Lê Đức Thọ in terms of stubbornness as the king accused the United States of being biased in favor of Israel, going on in a long rant about the balefulness of "Jewish Communists" in Russia and Israel, and despite all of Kissinger's efforts to charm him, refused to end the oil embargo. Faisal told Kissinger: "The United States used to stand up to aggression-you did that in World War Two and in 1956 during

23944-422: Was also cited. The Japan Mint has issued legal tender coins from 1871 to the present. The obverse side of all coins shows the coin's value in kanji characters as well as the country name (through 1945, Dai Nippon ( 大日本 , "Great Japan") ; after 1945, Nippon-koku ( 日本国 , "State of Japan") (except for the current 5-yen coin with the country name on the reverse). The reverse side of all coins shows

24108-415: Was an immediate shift on the part of consumers to the lighter and more fuel efficient vehicles produced by the Japanese and West German automobile industries, sending the American automobile industry into decline. The years from 1945 to 1973 had been a period of unprecedented prosperity in the West, a "long summer" that many believed would never end, and its abrupt end in 1973 as the oil embargo which increased

24272-491: Was appalled by the way that his subjects became materialistic, devoted only to conspicuous consumption and greed as they lost interest in Islam. Lacey wrote: "The spiritual dangers of easy affluence distressed him more. His simple gesture of piety and honor seemed to have opened a Pandora's Box that threatened to turn his realm into a parody of all he held dear". In the last two of years of his life, Faisal fell into depression over

24436-558: Was becoming more and more unhappy with the United States, saying he wanted America to pressure Israel to return all the lands captured in the Six Day War of 1967. In a later interview, Yamani accused Kissinger of not taking his warning seriously, saying all he did was to ask him not to speak anymore of this threat. Angry at Kissinger, Yamani in an interview with the Washington Post on April 19, 1973, warned that King Faisal

24600-590: Was considering an oil embargo. At the time, the general feeling in Washington was the Saudis were bluffing and nothing would come of their threat to impose an oil embargo. The fact that Faisal's ineffectual half brother King Saud had imposed a cripplingly oil embargo on Britain and France during the Suez War of 1956 was not considered an important precedent. The CEOs of four of America's oil companies had after speaking to Faisal arrived in Washington in May 1973 with

24764-533: Was given the shinjitai form 円 in reforms at the end of World War II. The spelling and pronunciation "yen" is standard in English , because when Japan was first encountered by Europeans around the 16th century, Japanese /e/ ( え ) and /we/ ( ゑ ) both had been pronounced [je] and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them "ye". By the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced [e] as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain

24928-600: Was known as the Arab Cold War , but Sadat got along very well with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia , forming an alliance between the most populous Arab state and the wealthiest Arab state. Unlike the secularist Nasser, Sadat was a pious Muslim and he had a strong personal rapport with King Faisal, who was an equally pious Muslim. The man largely in charge of American foreign policy, the National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger , later admitted that he

25092-556: Was led by Faisal of Saudi Arabia , the initial countries that OAPEC targeted were Canada , Japan , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom , and the United States . This list was later expanded to include Portugal , Rhodesia , and South Africa . In March 1974, OAPEC lifted the embargo, but the price of oil had risen by nearly 300%: from US$ 3 per barrel ($ 19/ m ) to nearly US$ 12 per barrel ($ 75/m ) globally. Prices in

25256-561: Was like and was told: "Well, Dr. Henry, he will probably go on with you about Communism and the Jews". King Faisal's two great hatreds were Communism and Zionism as he believed that the Soviet Union and Israel were plotting together against Islam. When King Faisal was shown a translation into Arabic of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion , he instantly believed in the authenticity of The Protocols and therefore talked to anyone who would listen about what he had learned, despite

25420-480: Was needed at the Riyassa Palace immediately. Yamani told the king: "The TV news goes out at nine. If you make a decision now, we can get it announced at once". The king replied "Write this down" and announced he was placing a total embargo on the United States. The embargo was accompanied by gradual monthly production cuts—by December, production had been cut to 25% of September levels. This contributed to

25584-464: Was not the best considered decision we made". The arms lift enraged King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and he retaliated on October 20, 1973, by placing a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States, to be joined by all of the other oil-producing Arab states except Iraq and Libya. Faisal was angry that Israel had only asked for $ 850 million worth of American weapons, and instead received an unsolicited $ 2.2 billion worth of weapons, which he perceived as

25748-445: Was offset by other factors. A wide differential in interest rates, with United States interest rates much higher than those in Japan, and the continuing moves to deregulate the international flow of capital , led to a large net outflow of capital from Japan. This capital flow increased the supply of yen in foreign-exchange markets, as Japanese investors changed their yen for other currencies (mainly dollars) to invest overseas. This kept

25912-545: Was organized after the oil companies slashed the posted price of oil, but the posted price of oil remained consistently higher than the market price of oil between 1961 and 1972. In 1963, the Seven Sisters controlled 86% of the oil produced by OPEC countries, but by 1970 the rise of "independent oil companies" had decreased their share to 77%. The entry of three new oil producers— Algeria , Libya and Nigeria —meant that by 1970, 81 oil companies were doing business in

26076-589: Was so engrossed with the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam war that he and others in Washington missed the significance of the Egyptian-Saudi alliance. At the same time that Sadat moved closer to Saudi Arabia, he also wanted a rapprochement with the United States and to move Egypt away from its alliance with the Soviet Union. In 1971, the US had information that the Arab states were willing to implement another embargo. In July 1972, Sadat expelled all 16,000 of

26240-670: Was the Suez Crisis in 1956 when the United Kingdom, France and Israel invaded Egypt. During the conflict the Syrians sabotaged both the Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Iraq–Baniyas pipeline , which disrupted the supply of oil to Western Europe. The second instance was when war broke out between Egypt and Israel in 1967, but despite continued Egyptian and Syrian enmity against Israel, the embargo lasted only

26404-481: Was the Shah of Iran, and the Italian historian Giuliano Garavini has argued that the leader most responsible for the West's economic problems during the "oil shock" was not King Faisal, but rather the Shah. Some of the nations that were classified as "friendly" to the Arab viewpoint in regards to the Arab-Israeli dispute such as France and Belgium were the ones who suffered the most from the worldwide inflation caused by

26568-556: Was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and probably prompted the spelling "yen". Hepburn revised most "ye"s to "e" in the 3rd edition (1886) to mirror the contemporary pronunciation, except "yen". Although the Edo Shogunate collapsed with the Meiji Restoration and a new government was born, the monetary system still took over that of

26732-409: Was the troublesome issue of where to safety store the spent nuclear rods that emitted a toxic level of radioactivity for centuries afterward in an cost-effective manner. The issue of the spent nuclear rods was especially difficult because in a classic case of NIMBYism , communities proved very unwilling to accept a storage place for the inevitable by-product of nuclear power, the spent nuclear rods, with

26896-542: Was to kill hundreds of thousands. OPEC-member states raised the prospect of nationalization of oil company holdings. Most notably, Saudi Arabia nationalized Aramco in 1980 under the leadership of Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani . As other OPEC nations followed suit, the cartel's income soared. Saudi Arabia undertook a series of ambitious five-year development plans. The biggest began in 1980, funded at $ 250 billion. Other cartel members also undertook major economic development programs. Control of oil became known as

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