Who has the sovereignty over the Harwar Islands? [originaltext] [26]Strung ou

[26]Strung out along the west coast of the Gulf state of Qatar, the Hawar Islands have long been the subject of disputed sovereignty with neighboring Bahrain, which controls them. But the territorial row created some unexpected beneficiaries, as Jonathan Fryer has been discovering. The sixteen islets of the Hawar archipelago used to be a favored base for pearl-fishing. [27]In the days before oil, pearls were the major source of wealth for Bahrain and its near neighbor Qatar. [28]But the natural pearl trade collapsed in the 1930s, in the face of competition from cheaper cultured pearls from Japan. These days, the bitter life of the divers who would plunge into the sea at the height of summer, in search of pearl-bearing oysters, is just a distant memory. But Bahrain’s ruler, King Hamad, likes to talk of the Hawar Islands as the "Priceless Pearls of Bahrain". That’s not just because Bahrain has consistently rebuffed efforts by Qatar to gain sovereignty of the islands. [26]Since 1996, Hawar has been Bahrain’s most important nature reserve. And the archipelago offers both naturalists and eco- tourists [27]a rich diversity of birds, animals and sea-creatures that is most unusual for the region.