Global Economy's Latest: Arab Nomads Staying Put Their Name Still Conjures a Life Traversing Hot Sands, but the Bedouin Today Even Hire Foreign Herdsmen

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Life as a Bedouin isn't what it used to be.

For thousands of years, desert nomads throughout Arabia endured searing heat and blasting sandstorms to lead their camels and sheep to sprigs of green in remote valleys.

Such men of the desert were revered as Arab icons, in part because their very existence from one day to the next was seen as a vivid demonstration that all life on earth - even in the midst of a parched wasteland - is a gift from God. But that romantic image of an Arab in the wilderness with his family, his herds, and his faith is fading away amid the economic realities of oil wealth. Today, would-be Bedouins in Kuwait sit in air-conditioned comfort and …