FEBRUARY 18, 2003

Bahrain parliament clears track funding

The members of the Shura Council, the upper house of the Bahrain national assembly, have voted in favour of the funding necessary for the construction of the Formula 1 circuit. The 40-member body, hand-picked by King Hamad, has endorsed plans to spend $150m on the race track and the construction of a major resort complex nearby. The bill will now go back to the Parliament, the lower house of the national assembly, and it is expected that it will be passed without drama as the initial vote against the plan was based on constitutional issues rather than on any opposition to the plan.

The bill is one of the first to go before the national assembly, which was only created last year and so it was perhaps inevitable that there would be glitches.

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