Category: Kuwait

The Kuwait national women volleyball team will head to China Saturday to participate in the third Asian beach volleyball tournament, scheduled June 12­-22. In statements KUNA, Chairwoman of Kuwaiti Women Sports Federation Sheikha Naeema Al­Ahmad Al­Jaber Al­Sabah said Kuwait will be represented in the event with two teams, each comprises two players Sheikha Naeema that the Federation was keen to participate in the Asian tournament to show the progress of women’s sports in Kuwait and to enrich players expertise to improve their performance in coming international championships.

But out of adherence to Islam’s teachings and Kuwait players will wear modest uniform,” she said” Sheikha Naeema noted that the Federation had prepared well for the tournament through an intensive training program for players and the participation in the Arab women volleyball championship that was held recently in Jordan. [Source]

Firstly I didn’t know Kuwait had a women’s beach volleyball team and secondly what exactly is a modest uniform? It’s a sport that takes place on the beach so I can’t imagine them being covered up too much. I tried to find pictures online of the team but didn’t have any luck. I also tried to find a random picture of a women’s beach volleyball match that didn’t involve a skimpy two piece swimsuit but also didn’t have any luck. I imagine they might be wearing a burkini (pictured above)?

The total number of active Twitter users in Arab countries is now up to 1,311,882, says new data through to March of this year. Kuwait leads the way with a Twitter population penetration of some 8.13 percent, ahead of Bahrain (4.28 percent), Qatar (2.22 percent), the UAE (2.16 percent) and Saudi Arabia (1.37 percent).

Kuwait sent almost sixty million tweets in the month of March. The most popular topic across all Arab countries was the #Bahrain hashtag.

That’s alot of tweets. [Source]

The other day I posted about the new camera system that’s going to be active starting the 15th of June, well I just found out from The Buz Fairy that they’re talking about the First Ring Road average speed cameras that were installed back in 2010. Not sure what took them so long to activate them.

Taken from Arab Times:

Last weekend in Kebd, farm areas: Volunteers found a horse in a terrible condition in front of a farm on a paddock. When we arrived the horse was lying lifeless in the middle of the sun, that time we had about 46 Degrees Celsius. We tried to inform the people inside of the farm but nobody answered. Without hesitation we went inside and tried to motivate the horse to move into the shaded area at the corner of the paddock. When the horse got up we realized his terrible constitution …he was sighing under great pain and was not able to stand on his front legs, he tried to jump on his shivering back legs into the direction we asked him to…after an hour for us endless time the horse made the 4 m distance and fell down in the shade with a scream of pain and desperation. We fixed provisionally fences around him that he couldn’t roll back into the sun, then we immediately pored cool water over his whole body and had a closer look on his front leg hoofs…the picture was indescribable…

He was obviously suffering of an advanced laminitis, the coffin bone becomes detached from the horny wall and may rotate or sink. In lay terms, this is known as “founder,” from the maritime term meaning to sink.

Early treatment of a Laminitis is necessary, a delay of even a few hours can literally be the difference between continued healthy living and euthanasia. This horse was obviously not treated properly or at all for days or even weeks…

I sent the pictures of the hoofs to a horse vet, he never saw a laminitis in this stage, the sole of the hoofs were already gone…

We tried as good as possible to disinfect the raw feet, padded the hoofs and applied bandages to protect it from further infections. Actually in this stage there is no other solution than to euthanize a horse. He was in agony, his eyes were broken and he was the whole time sighing that we all had to fight our tears.

After half an hour finally the staff of the farm came out and were quiet surprised about the activity outside. We asked for the number of the owner and asked them to move the horse inside but they were unable to do anything, they haven’t be aware of the serious situation. They told us the horse was treated a while ago and showed us some old medicine, they didn’t even have betadine, bandages or anything else which was appropriate.

After taking care of the horse we had to leave and hoped to reach the owner at least to euthanize the horse in a humane way as it was his duty…but the following hours taught us cruely about the ignorance and arrogance of some human beings.

A few hours later I was called back and was accused to have stolen dogs from the property, I was accused of entering a private property without permission. The Kuwaiti lady was threatening me to send me to jail, she could find out my place of living and tonight her brother would show up with the police to arrest me…I offered her to meet her brother at the police station, because I just helped an animal in pain and asked her if she would be able to pray tonight with a clear heart and without any regrets to leave a creature of GOD/ ALLAH in this condition outside without any medical support or even supervision; her answer was:

“This is my country and I can do whatever I want with my animals, it’s not your business!’’

Really? Is she right? Is it that what this country wants and needs?

I explained to her that any suffering animal or human is our all business, education, empathy and humanity are the keywords for a modern world, for a modern society..

The threats and calls continued, I begged her to euthanize the suffering horse, but she refused. At least her brother, the owner, went out that night to have a closer look….

A conversation with a local horse vet confirmed me in my believe that Kuwait needs urgently regulations, screening, registration, statistics, research when it comes to animal husbandry or breeding.

Animal Pharmacies allow every private person to treat their animals by their own good will, with or without medical background. Thousands of animals are suffering in farms and breeding stations due to wrong diagnoses, wrong treatment and unprofessional care. Most of the animals which are later sold are suffering from incurable diseases, cost the owner a lot of money to cure these diseases or lead to abandoning cases.

I would love to tell you a happy end of this tragic story, but there is none…when we visited the place at the next day the horse was gone…

By: M. Winkler

I spent nearly two months on a really strict diet and working out at Core Fitness 5 times a week trying to bring down my body fat percentage to 12% before I traveled to Lebanon and hit the beach. That didn’t happen (I blame Geneva) and I ended up at 13.6% which is still pretty cool just not what I wanted. I’ve now been in Lebanon for 5 days, I still haven’t gone to the beach and I also haven’t been able to hold my diet.

Whenever I travel I find it impossible to stick to my diet. The only way I actually stick to my diet in Kuwait is with routine, I know I am going to have eggs with turkey for breakfast, grilled chicken cutlets with grilled zucchini for lunch and turkey again for dinner. I don’t mind having the same thing every day but once I’m out of Kuwait I just can’t stick to that very simple plan. It’s been 5 days since I’ve been here and I think I’ve probably put on weight. Sucks.

BTW if you’re curious/nosy, I was 84.7KG when I first joined Core 2 years ago and I had a body fat percentage of 20%. My weight back in 2005 was 90.6KG.

The new food court called Tick-it Lounge 6 that includes Potbelly, Pinkberry, Starbucks and a new place called Tick-it has finally opened up at the airport. Local blogger Baba 3od has more pictures and information [Here]

A reader (Cajie) spotted a notice on those digital highway billboards on the 5th Ring Road stating that starting on the 15th of June a new camera system will be active. Does anyone have any information on this? Are these the new emergency lane cameras?

Last week I had a shipment of wireless surveillance cameras get confiscated by Kuwait Customs. For some odd reason they’re cracking down on the import of any kind of surveillance equipment and to get an exception you’ve got to do a small runaround. This post will show you how to get that done quickly.

Aramex passed me my package clearance paperwork on Wednesday and I headed to the Kuwait Airport cargo area the following day. At first I thought clearing the package was a similar process to clearing other packages from customs so I printed a map I had created and instructions I had posted a few years back and started using it as my guide. But I quickly found out that was the wrong process for this case and instead I needed to head to the Aramex office in the cargo area.

[Google Maps]

The Aramex office is located right at the other end of the cargo area and you need to walk there under the sun since there is no shaded pathway. I highly recommend you go there in shorts, a tshirt and a baseball cap. Seriously it’s a miserable walk. Once I got to the small Aramex office the guy there signed the documents and told me I should head to another office back on the other side of the cargo area where they will have my package. So I walked back in the blistering heat and quickly found the second office by asking someone. Once inside I handed my paperwork to an officer who then went to a back room and brought out my shipment. He filled up a bit of paperwork, handed me one of my cameras from the box (I had ordered 3) and told me I should now take the paperwork and the camera and head over to the Kuwait security department near the VIP airport.

[Google Maps]

I walked back to my car and drove around the airport twice until I found the building. It’s located opposite the long term parking lot but to get to it you need go in by car from near the airport arrivals entrance. Once I got to the heavily protected compound (it has high walls topped with barbed wire and security cameras pointing in every direction) I then had trouble finding parking space. They have a tiny parking lot that was fully packed so I was forced to park in a no parking zone right next to a your car will be towed signed. Once inside I headed into the first building but turned out it was the wrong one and needed to go into the second white building that was a short walk away.

I went inside to this second building and headed up to the first floor and then walked all the way down to the end of the corridor and into an office on the left side (before the couch). There were two officers sitting, as soon as they saw me they told me I needed to go into another office two doors down on the left where someone would fill in a request for me. I did that and came back to him and he looked at my box and asked me why I got the camera? I told him I wanted to be able to monitor my apartment in Lebanon while I’m in Kuwait. He was like why didn’t you buy it locally? I told him I couldn’t find this specific model locally and it’s always cheaper online anyway. He was like ok, go next door and photocopy your civil id card and come back. I did and two minutes later I get back only to find the officer gone. The second officer who was sitting on the couch told me he’d be back. 10 minutes later some other officer comes and decides to finish up my paperwork. I had to write a letter stating that I was planning to use the cameras for personal use and then had to sign it and give it to him. He then finalized my paperwork and I had to go back to the Kuwait Airport cargo area back to the office that had my package. I showed them the paperwork there and was then allowed to take my cameras and leave.

While there I noticed a variety of other cameras that were held. One guy I met had ordered a helicopter with a camera built in while I noticed another guy was trying to clear a spy camera. So if you’re planning to order any kind of surveillance camera you should know there is a high probability it will be held right now but clearing it isn’t too difficult. The whole process took me around an hour and a half but should take you less now that you know where to go.

Video from the last day of school at ASK back in 1988. I didn’t know they had the bubble back then. Very cool video, wish I had a Sunshine School 1988 video.. [YouTube]

The source suspects the peddlers to be cultivating marijuana inside Kuwait, “as it’s not worth the risk to smuggle it in. It is not worth it unless you are smuggling the goods in very huge quantities, running into hundreds of thousands of KD.”

Describing the hemps that are grown indoors by his friends, the source said the plants are grown in earthen pots under artificial lighting; due ventilation is provided for fresh air.”

“It doesn’t take up much space and can be grown in a closet, or on a corner in the bedroom.” One of his friends grows it in the bathroom because the plant gives off a peculiar smell, which is easy to detect.”

I guess when the oil runs out this could be Plan B? [Link]

Mariam Erzouqi grips her German-made air rifle with carefully-manicured hands, steadies her footing, eyes the target and slowly pulls the trigger until a soft crack echoes through Kuwait’s cavernous shooting range.

The 24-year-old, who is set to become the second Kuwaiti woman to compete at an Olympic Games, has an affinity for her rifle and will take dead aim at a medal in the 10 and 50 metres air rifle in London.

You can read the full article on Mariam Erouqi’s Olympic dream [Here]

Picture from Kuwait Times

I was having breakfast at The Early Bird when I spotted a new magazine called The City in their magazine stand. I brought the magazine home with me and have been flipping through it and there are things I like and things I don’t like about it.

One of the things I like is their writers. I recognized a few of the contributes including Dana Madouh who I got to meet the first time I visited Hamra Tower, and Ayeshah Al-Humaidhi and John Peaveler both of which are behind the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and their Habitat (K’SPATH). There were also a few other familiar names as well.

Now what I didn’t like about the magazine is the layout and design. The choice of typefaces, the full forced justification and the very boring grid makes it look too much like a B-rated high school magazine. But, it’s their first issue and maybe the design will improve with the next issues.

One thing I thought was strange is that according to the Chief Editor in his intro column they’re “the fastest growing magazine available across the globe”.

If you’re interested in picking up the magazine I’m guessing it’s available at various coffee shops and restaurants around Kuwait but not sure since they don’t say where you can find it in the magazine. I got mine from The Early Bird.

According to Q80 High Street there is now a miu miu “coming soon” hoarding at 360 Mall (she doesn’t mention where in the mall exactly).

Miu Miu is a high fashion brand of women’s clothing and accessories from the Prada fashion house. [Source]

I guess it’s only a matter of time before Prada opens up as well. [Link]

Over the weekend I was at the Avenues and ended up passing by Xcite’s new photography section. Two things grabbed my attention, the first is the fact they have 4 incredibly expensive Nikon lenses on display including the 400mm f/2.8 which I’d love to have at the next Gulf Run event. The second thing that grabbed my attention was the Fuji X-Pro 1 camera.

When the camera was first revealed online my heart sank into to my stomach since I had just purchased the my Panasonic GX1 and there was no way I could buy this as well. The camera was everything the Fuji X100 was except it was better in every way.

Once I got home I sent an email to my contact at Xcite and asked him if they’d be able to hook me up with one to review and they did. Not only that but I’m traveling to Lebanon for two weeks and I’m going to have the camera with me there which is perfect since the X-Pro 1 is a great camera for street photography which is something I like doing in Lebanon.

I’m going to be using the 35mm f/1.4 lens with the camera and expect a thorough review in around 10 days time.

Update: Below is a picture of the X-Pro 1 next to my GX1.

Two days ago I get an email from Smoke House telling me they’re planning to launch a Hashi burger and if I was interested to try it out. Hashi turns out means baby camel and since I hadn’t tried camel meat before I figured why not.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect, I’ve tried ostrich meat before and found it very lean and chewy so I figured camel meat would probably be the same but maybe have a stronger flavor. I wasn’t expecting it to be good but thought it would at least be worth trying just for the experience.

It turns out camel meat actually tastes pretty much like regular beef. I had the burger with caramelized onions, cheese and BBQ sauce, strong flavors which slightly overpower the patty but in this case a great combination since hashi meat is slightly drier than beef so the toppings helped keep things juicy. I’m not sure why other places don’t have Hashi burgers as well, could be a good diet patty due to the fact it contains less fat than beef.

Smoke House haven’t introduced the burger yet nor do they have a price for it but they’ll be updating their Twitter account once they do as well as their website. Fahad if you’re reading this I didn’t have lunch so I could have this burger and I won’t be having dinner. Diet still on.. kinda.