I was on the 4th Ring Road on my way to Avenues for lunch today when I spotted a large cloud of smoke in the distance. I kept driving towards it past Al-Rai until just before the roundabout at the end of the 4th Ring Road I spotted the source of the smoke. There was a large fire at a construction site. I parked my car on the side and managed to shoot a video of it with my BlackBerry which you can watch above. [YouTube]
Now later in the day around 4:30pm I was on my way to Bin Khaldoun street in Hawalli to buy some computer speakers (which I will post about later) when I spotted another fire. There was a black parked Jeep that caught fire and then the two cars parked next to it also caught fire. I was there before the fire trucks came and was able to capture all of it on my Sony camera. I would have gotten closer but I’ve watched too many movies and a car on fire always ends up in a large explosion so I kept my distance. Its a good quality video and you can watch that above. Below is a picture showing how the fire damaged the three cars. [YouTube]
Henry Surtees, 18, the son of motorsport legend John Surtees was killed in a “freak” accident during a Formula Two (F2) race. You can see the accident in the video above, a car crashes into a side barrier and one of the tires flies off and bounces towards the track and hits Henry in the head while he was racing. If he was just a bit faster or just a bit slower the tire would have missed his head and hit the car. Extremely unlucky and very very sad. [YouTube]
There was article on CNN.com today about a family in Saudi Arabia that is taking a genie to court on harassment charges. My question is this, if the family wins, how does the genie pay them? [Link]
Kuwait won 3 gold medals, 3 silver and 5 bronze at the recent Asian Youth Games that were held in Singapore. I checked out YouTube and managed to find two interviews with two Kuwaiti participants, one of them is Hessah Al Zayed (above) who won a bronze in shooting while the other is a table tennis player (below). Overall Kuwait came 9th out of 39 countries that participated in these games. Thats pretty cool.
According to a report by nef (the new economics foundation), a UK-based independent think tank and research group, Kuwait ranked 128th on the Happy Planet Index out of 143 countries researched. The happiest country in the world is Costa Rica (surprisingly not Netherlands) while Saudi Arabia ranked 13th (?????) and Lebanon ranked 110.
Here is the link to the full list. [Image]
Here is a link to the full report. [PDF]
This is too funny. A husband and wife were traveling from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia after their honeymoon. While at the Malaysian airport the wife went into the bathroom and it seemed she took too long because the husband got tired of waiting and boarded the plane without her.
The woman in question, a teacher, had gone to use the facilities at the airport before boarding a flight back to Saudi Arabia.
Quite how long she stayed in the toilet remains unclear. What is certain is she emerged to discover her husband had vanished without trace. The woman, who had paid for the holiday, began a desperate search of the airport and grew increasingly concerned that something terrible had happened to him.
When he arrived at his destination, he calmly told relatives his new wife was still in Malaysia. His bride was not so calm about his behavior. She has demanded an immediate divorce.
A fire started around 4:30PM in one of the buildings in Dajeej that contains furniture shops. Due to the size of the fire the firefighters weren’t able to tame it. He shot a video which you can see above and also pictures which you can see below. [YouTube]
Some good news, back in 2006 I posted about how Kuwait had the most corrupt diplomats in New York averaging 246.2 parking tickets per diplomat. Well the new 2009 results are out and Kuwait is no longer first, instead they’re second! The Egyptian diplomats now lead the way with the most unpaid parking tickets while Kuwait is following closely behind owing nearly $1.3 million in unpaid fines. Here is the link to the article. [Link]
On a similar note Marzouq posted about the Kuwaiti embassy thats based in the Ritz Carlton in Singapore. Looks like the best place to be if you want to be a Kuwaiti diplomat. [Link]
Note: Stop emailing me hate mail. I wasn’t the person who wrote the article or call the diplomats corrupt. Since those of you who emailed me are too lazy to click the link here is a quotation from the link that explains how not paying your tickets means you are corrupt:
“In a great paper for the National Bureau for Economic Research, two researchers have found that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats accumulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are.”
Direct all hate mail to the New York Daily News, the National Bureau for Economic Research or your diplomats.
A citizen of Kuwait has applied to Guinness World Records for his collection of over 5,000 perfume bottles to be recognized as a world record, the Kuna news agency reported on Monday.
An astronomer by profession, Adel Al-Sadoun started collecting perfume bottles some 15 years ago, as he was charmed by the unique design created by perfume companies for their fragrances.
After gaining national fame for his unusual hobby, his collection was expanded by bottles given to him by friends and well-wishers. Some of the items are around 100 years old. [Source]
Early last month I posted about a bear that was for sale here in Kuwait. People started calling Animal Friends who launched an extensive investigation aimed at locating the bear and helping the government to seize the animal.
The investigation discovered the bear living in a small cage in Kebd, exposed to the sun, chained by the neck, living on a diet of rice, and only offered water twice per day. After reviewing the evidence presented by K’S PATH, the MOI Police force, along with representatives from the Kuwait Environment Protection Agency and the Kuwait Zoo began the process of confiscating the bear and several other illegal animals being housed at the same location. The bear is now being housed in the Kuwait Zoo, and K’S PATH is attempting to find a suitable sanctuary in the natural range of the Eurasian Brown Bear. [Source]
I think that’s really great news and the group effort that went into this rescue was amazing. Thanks a lot to the MOI Police force, Kuwait Environment Protection Agency, Kuwait Zoo and of course Animal Friends. Animal Friends are a non-profit organization that run on donations so please help them out by clicking [Here]
