Category: Kuwait

So this is why the government isn’t fixing up the public schools, makes perfect sense now. [Link]

Can anyone here recommend a good car sound system place. I am looking for a place that has either JL Audio, Bazooka or Rockford Fosgate. I passed by the places in front of Al Raya and they have neither.

Tonight I passed by Sultan Center and noticed they no longer had Indian eggs and instead have replaced them with fresh locally produced eggs by KUPCO selling for a very reasonable KD1 for a tray of 30 eggs. I guess the local egg crisis is nearly over?

Badar Al Badoor increased the price of their Kebab and shawerma sandwiches to 300fils.

The box on the left is the original Kellogg’s Cornflakes with their signature rooster thats been on the front of their boxes since 1957. The box on the right is the Sultan Center generic brand of cornflakes.. with a green rooster. Next up, Sultan Center canned vegetables with a green giant as the mascot.

We were at work yesterday when someone came in and told us there were firemen downstairs trying to rescue a cat that was stuck on the second floor of a building. So I took my camera and headed downstairs even though I thought it might be a dumb prank but surprisingly it turned out to be true.

There was one large fire truck and two small ones parked in the middle of the street and wen I got closer I spotted the everyday street cat trapped on a small ledge on the second floor of the building. It was pretty weird seeing the firefighters there planing out the rescue of a regular street cat. I never imagined the firefighters in Kuwait would care about saving pets yet alone a street cat.

Everything was going smoothly and the firefighters on the ground looked like they had figured out a way to bring the cat down safely when suddenly this other firefighter popped his head outside the second floor window and with a large stick started pushing the cat off the side of the ledge. This idiot was trying to push the cat off the ledge and the other firefighters below were yelling at him to stop but he kept on pushing the cat off the ledge.

Finally once the cat got to the far end of the ledge it tried to escape the stick by stretching out and down towards the window below. Then suddenly the firefighter pushed the cat off and the cat landed hard on the windows ledge and fell into the building. The cat was lucky. Once the firefighter came back down he got a yelling at from his superior below for disobeying him and nearly getting the cat killed.

Even though the dumb firefighter ruined what could have been the perfect rescue it was still great to see them answer a call to come rescue a cat. I thought that only happened in movies.

The other day I posted about the great offer that the SONY dealer had where you can buy a 60GB Sony PS3 plus a get a game of your choice and an extra controller for KD139 and a PS3 by itself for KD135. Well it turns out the salesman was an idiot. For KD139 you get a 40GB PS3 with one joypad and the movie Spiderman and here is the best part, for KD135 you get a 60GB PS3 by itself BUT it doesn’t come with warranty! I spoke to a salesman over the phone after I heard about this just to confirm and it turned out to be true.

Even stores in Rihab who are selling grey market PS3’s give customers at least 3 months warranty, how come the official SONY dealer doesn’t provide warranty on the PS3’s they’re selling? This is just wrong in so many ways, its really a bad business decision. There is a lot of piracy in Kuwait and if the SONY dealer wants people to purchase proper Middle East versions of the PS3’s and not the grey market USA and Japanese version this is really the wrong way to go about it. Why should I buy from the official dealer if the grey market versions have warranty and theirs don’t?

Thank you MYK!

After reading the post below by Nibaq on The Local Egg Crisis I am suddenly very disgusted by Sultan Center. I just recently noticed that we have an egg problem, I had heard something about an egg crisis from a friend but only when I was at Carrefour this past weekend and noticed their eggs section was completely empty that I realized how severe the crisis was.

I do all my shopping at Sultan Center and awhile back I noticed they were suddenly getting eggs made in India. I decided to get a pack and later in the evening while making dinner I cracked open a few eggs only to find some strange black stuff inside some of them. It was really disgusting and I ended up throwing away the whole pack. I now don’t buy eggs from India and instead buy the more expensive locally produced organic eggs.

After reading Nibaqs post below I just found out that the fresh eggs Sultan are selling are NOT fresh and instead are over a month old! Thats really gross and no wonder the eggs I got were rotten. I usually don’t keep anything in my fridge for long and to find out that the eggs from Sultan are a month old is just shocking specially when eggs last only 5 weeks. Sultan Center should do what Carrefour is doing and not bring in Indian eggs at all! I would rather see the shelves empty instead of buying eggs only to find them rotten.

The egg crisis in Kuwait is a mix of market forces, bird flu, production issues, feed prices and inaction from government forces. The Kuwait egg market is pretty huge; we consume over a billion eggs a year and we just produce around 40% of that. The rest we have to import from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and India.

Production in the gulf has dropped dramatically this year due to the bird flu epidemic. Kuwait was hit first which led to 6 out of the 8 farms to stop production, cutting our production levels to 15%. These farms have just recently started production and will take another 12 months to reach their full levels.

Saudi Arabia has recently been hit by the bird flu virus which has cut their production. This has also led to Kuwait placing an import ban on Saudi eggs in order to protect our local farms and people.

Due to the high demand from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries our other exporters like Jordan and Syria have placed an export ban to keep the remaining eggs in their own country to avoid their own crisis.

The only remaining eggs that we can import are Indian. Indian eggs are considered the cheapest and lowest quality eggs that you can find in the market. They take over a month to arrive from India to Kuwait via container and sometimes not qualified for human consumption. Sadly main supermarkets are marketing them as “fresh eggs”. Fresh eggs are considered by USDA and GCC law as eggs are maximum 3 days old from the farm. Indian eggs are over 30 days old from the farm.

The other factor in the egg crisis is due to feed supply. Since under Kuwaiti law chickens must be fed 100% organic feed without any chemicals, feed additives or meal. This adds up to 70% of the cost of the egg and this year has been a huge increase in feed prices leading the Kuwaiti egg producers to also increase their prices.

They have requested from the government to offer them a subsidy on the feed to reduce their cost, yet the government has not been helpful. Instead the Ministry of Commerce and Kuwait Coop Supermarket Union has been demanding from them to reduce their prices to pre-bird flu and feed increase prices or face being shut out of the supermarkets.

This is of course a guise of “protecting the consumer”, since they are still selling Indian which are over a month old as “fresh” eggs around 1KD when the real cost of Indian eggs is around 400fils. The Coops are making over 250%. Compare this to real fresh Kuwaiti eggs which are just above that price. This is so they can increase their profit margin by cheating the local consumer and leverage the Kuwaiti egg producers to submit to their control.

Other Gulf countries are facing the same shortage in Kuwait, but instead of fighting the local producers they have been offering them support by giving them bigger subsidies and allowing market forces to choose the egg prices.

So support your local egg producer by buying from their official stores in Shuwaik area near the vegetable market. They are offering real fresh eggs and at reasonable prices, and demand for the Coops to bring Kuwaiti eggs back.

– Post by Nibaq
– Picture by Kamal

I woke up early today morning to take Nat to the Villa Moda sale. She had seen this purse two weeks ago which she liked and she figured with the 50% off it would be a much better deal. After not facing any major morning traffic, we arrived to Villa Moda early at 9:40AM to find a large crowd waiting outside the closed doors. We didn’t wait for too long though before the doors opened at 9:55 and the large crowd started rushing into the building. There wasn’t any running or shoving but everyone was moving pretty fast.

The most popular stores inside were Gucci, Prada and D&G in that order. The guys store was empty since there were practically no guys there, they were probably all still asleep like I should have been.

The most surprising thing was that woman weren’t buying an item or two, they were mostly buying in bulk. Its just crazy, I saw one woman with 8 Gucci bags, a few belts and small boxes probably filled with wallets and scarfs. I saw one woman buy the same bag in 3 different colors. It was unreal, everyone was just walking around with a handful of bags and shoes as if they were buying CDs from the discount bin.

It was an interesting experience and although some of you might disagree, 50% off is a lot and makes everything much more approachable. Of course there are exceptions, a 1000KD leather Prada jacket is still expensive even after a 50% discount but a 170KD Prada nylon jacket is now much more affordable at only 85KD. There were a ton of good deals and it does make sense getting there early. The sale is going to last till Monday so it might be worth passing by although I doubt there is much left.

Villa Moda will have a 50% sale starting today (Saturday) at 10AM. I don’t know how long the sale will last for but based on previous sales all the good stuff is usually gone on the first day.

The Sony dealer is selling the 60GB PS3 for only KD135. According to the salesman at the Souk Sharq branch they also have an offer where you can get a 60GB PS3 with an extra controller and a game of your choice for KD139. Thats a pretty good deal.

Here is an updated list of current DSL pricing:

As I have said in the past; I wouldn’t suggest signing up with United Networks or FastTelco due to their incapability to deliver promised speed, provide sufficient support or maintain a stable network.

The most enticing ‘offer’ (we still pay too much) is the 4mb connection from Qualitynet at 900KD. As you would be looking at a download speed of roughly 400+ KBPS. Although, I am not sure if most telephone lines are capable of handling that speed. Come to think of it, ISPs could offer a 1000MB connection knowing that your telephone line will tap out at 3MB.

With Info-Connect 2008 only two months away, I would suggest extending your subscription until you can make use of the offers there.

Dear Students and Staff,
In response to all your questions and inquiries about the Axis of Evil Show, please be advised of the following:

– Tickets for ALL ACK STUDENTS and STAFF are: 30 KD a piece
– Tickets can be purchased Tuesday and Wednesday from 12pm – 4pm at ACK ONLY—no tickets can be purchased after these dates!
– There are only 100 tickets available…buy your tickets early—there will be NO TICKET RESERVATIONS
– Students and Staff must present their ACK ID when purchasing tickets
– Students and Staff may only purchase tickets for themselves
– Tickets for family members can be purchased for 40 KD per ticket

The event will be on:
– December 17th at 6pm (ACK Auditorium)

The night of the event:
– Without your ticket and ID, you will not be permitted entry to the event.

Please note—there will be tight security for this event; Regular ACK Rules and Regulations apply.

Thanks Mr CHoCoLaTe

Mr.CHoCoLaTe sent me the following:

The Axis of Evil Comedy Show is coming to ACK! The 4 American Comedians will be having their show on our campus December 17th at 6 p.m. in the ACK Auditorium.

Ticket Sales will be from Tuesday, December 11th from 11a.m. to 3p.m. and Wednesday, December 12th from 11a.m. to 3p.m.

Price of ticket: For ACK Students with ID presentation: 20 KD