2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
According to Kuwait’s KUNA news agency, five Kuwaiti racers were attacked by a group of Emiratis armed with knives during a break in the fourth round race of the UAE Jet Ski Championship on Saturday.
That’s too much drama for a jet ski race. Fully story [Here]
A man was arrested in front of a bank in Salmiya recently where he faked disability to help him in begging. The man was apprehended by police who monitored his activity for days during which they discovered his apparent disability was fake. Investigations revealed that the man came to Kuwait from his home country Egypt on a visitor’s visa to practice begging. It was also revealed that he managed to collect KD 1,356 within only two days of begging. He remains in custody pending legal procedures. [Source]
1,356 in two days is actually pretty awesome.
At least it’s helping local producers.
Meanwhile, Kuwait Dairy Company (KD Cow) announced on Monday, that it increased its production capacity to meet shortage of dairy products in markets.
The company’s Director-General Saleh Al-Attiqi told KUNA that in order to maintain food security, under the current customs strike that paralyzed the market, the company doubled its production.
[Source]
Hawally Municipality Manager Fahad Al-Fahad urged citizens and expatriates to maintain cleanliness at public facilities along the seafront by refraining from littering and leaving barbeque remains, ash and charcoal.
Speaking during a three-day campaign, his teams along with the Touristic Enterprises Company (TEC), Al-Zayyani Company, Bayan and Mishref Co-opeartive Societies launched a campaign to prevent the practice of holding barbeque events in these areas. Al-Fahad stressed that such violations can be observed during weekends.
He stressed the need to create more active awareness campaigns and strict law enforcement. He also noted that special signs would be placed in such areas to enlighten visitors with by-laws and the penalties. Abdul Aziz Al-Yahia, Cleaning Department Manager said that his inspectors issued 125 citations over the weekend, explaining that fines ranging between KD 100 and 300 would be levied. [Kuwait Times]
My biggest issue with seaside BBQ-ers other than the trash they leave behind is the BBQ smoke. On Saturdays when I ride my bicycle to the gym I have a hard time breathing because of all the smoke. By the time I get to the gym the trainers think I was pigging out on kebabs and kill me with exercises. Not very fun.
Yesterday the first steps to creating a Kuwait Preparatory Youth Council which will be made up of young Kuwaiti youth and be part of the local government was announced. In preparation for the creation of this council, NGO’s from around Kuwait were asked to put forward a list of names of their best people who could help out on this project. In total 40 people were chosen from a variety of background and ages and they have now been given the task to find out what the Kuwaiti youth need and expect from their country. They will be spending the next few months meeting people and surveying them and based on the answers they get they will have to come up with ideas and projects.
In November a conference is going to be held where these ideas and projects are going to be shared with the Emir who will then give a go ahead on them. Following the conference a Kuwaiti Permanent Youth Council will be created to monitor and make sure the projects are being worked on and executed properly. If for some reason an approved project is not being executed, the permanent Youth Council will have direct contact with the Emir to inform him of the problems so that he could intervene and get things moving again.
I don’t think there has ever been a Kuwait Youth project so I’m actually pretty excited to see what comes out of this. The youth generally have a lot more energy and ideas than the adults which is why I’m interested to see what they will be proposing. You can read about this more in English [Here] and in Arabic [Here]
1. Kuwait City, Kuwait
2. Ahwaz, Kuwait Iran
3. Jizan City, Saudia Arabia
4. Bangkok, Thailand
5. Aziziya, Libya
6. Illizi, Algeria
7. Mecca, Saudi Arabia
8. Marrakech, Morocco
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. Dallol, Ethiopia
The only one that looks a bit odd in this list is Bangkok. Check out the list with more details [Here]
Update: The list has Ahwaz in Kuwait while it’s actually in Iran. Looks like a mistype.
The annual list of “100 most powerful Arab women” has been released and for 2012, NBK’s Sheikha Al Bahar came in at number 8 after coming in 15th place last year. She was the only Kuwaiti woman in the Top 10 which was mostly dominated by UAE and Saudi Arabia. You can check the full list of powerful women on the Arabian Business website [Here]
The Repercussions of an Attack
Destroying Iran’s many reactors and processing facilities could release large amounts of radiation and create radioactive dust storms. Winds would carry this toxic miasma over Afghanistan and its large U.S. military garrison. Dangerous radiation would also extend to Pakistan, western India, Iraq, Kuwait and to the Gulf, where large numbers of U.S. military personnel are based. Equally ominous, radioactive dust could blanket oil fields in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. High-altitude winds would spread radioactivity around the globe, as occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, but at a factor of twenty times or more. [Source]
Back in 2008 Kuwait announced they were going to build a nuclear power plant to satisfy our electricity consumption. Two years later they announced they were actually building not one but four nuclear plants and they would be up and running by 2022. Well, it seems the plans to go nuclear have now been scrapped because of the Fukushima disaster [Link]
According to the latest Legatum Prosperity Index, Kuwait ranked 35th in the world. We came second only behind UAE in the MENA region although the list missed some important countries like Bahrain, Qatar and Oman due to lack of data. Lebanon ranked pretty low but what’s most surprising is Kuwait ranked better than Lebanon when it came to personal freedom.
You can check out the full list along with more details on the Legatum Index website [Here]
The entire project consists of 69 stations (16 per cent underground) with total length of 160 km. PTB is currently focusing on delivering phase 1 of the project which will include the construction network of roughly 50 km, with 28 new stations, 30 per cent of which will be underground.
The article doesn’t mention a start or end date but I guess it’s the thought that counts. [Link]
Update: Work on the Doha Metro starts in 2013 [Link]
Yesterday there was a very depressing article in Kuwait Times about how dogs are being poisoned to death in Kuwait deliberately. The poison isn’t killing only stray dogs but it’s also killing peoples pets since the poison is being placed all around the parks without any warning to pet owners. Here are some excerpts from the article:
“After a walk in the local park, my dog began foaming at the mouth and shaking. I remembered that he had run towards something that had taken his interest in the park, and realized he had ingested poison,” recalls a French expatriate. “His legs were dragging on the way home and for once he was not pulling on the leash, but I did not realize what was wrong. By the time we realized it was too late, but there is no emergency animal hospital here so there was nothing I could do but watch him die,” she added.
“I cannot let my dog run freely around the park anymore because of this. I caught him eating a pellet of poisoned food, and luckily it was not enough to harm him,” said Khaldi. “Since they are unwilling to stop placing poison in the parks, I asked that they at least put up signs to warn pet owners. They even refused that, insisting that it would be too much effort to place a sign every time they planted poison.” Unknowing pet owners have suffered the consequences as a result. “My friend’s dog ate the poisoned food and died because of it. It’s not even humane euthanasia: the dog died over the period of an hour, foaming at the mouth. It is a slow, painful death.”
You can read the full article [Here]
I find this news extremely disturbing. I have a dog myself which I take to the park every so often but there is no way on earth I would take him again. The fact they’re placing poison in parks without any warning is very dangerous. How safe is it to come in contact with these poisons considering people have picnics there? I’m gonna end this rant with a video of a puppy being saved after being trapped in a pipe overnight. Hopefully someone from the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources watches it.
[YouTube]
According to the website Box News, the Ministry of Health is withdrawing the smoking ban a day after the law got passed because it would be impossible implement. This has to be a joke. Why don’t they give it a shot and try it out for more than half a day before giving up? [Link]
I’m upset. Can we also cancel the ban on running red lights and the ban on speeding since those two seem impossible to implement as well…
Update: I just found two things: 1) I shouldn’t rely on Google Translate and 2) it’s not actually a complete withdrawal of the ban as I had understood from the article. The ban is still in place for public places like airports, malls, restaurants etc.. but now does not apply to shisha cafe’s, hotels and other designated areas. This actually makes more sense since I was actually against the idea of banning smoking at shisha cafes. I’ve gone ahead and amended the post title. I am no longer upset.
Just read on Gulf News that “Kuwait has banned smoking and shisha in all public places, including airports, cafes, restaurants, shopping centres and recreational areas.” I thought at first the law was against shisha only but it seems it’s against both smoking and shisha.
Now what’s confusing me is that in the same article it states that “Under the ban, cafes, restaurants and hotels have to allocate a secluded area for smokers.” Isn’t that basically how things are right now? [Source]
