Today’s Google homepage in the Middle East showcases an illustration created by the talented Kuwaiti illustrator, Ahmed Al-Refaie (owaikeo).
Google is celebrating the Kuwaiti comedian and national icon Abdulhussain Abdulredha on his 83rd birthday. Abdulhussain Abdulredha is widely considered to be one of the Arab community’s most significant actors and playwrights.
Ahmed has uploaded the process behind the illustration as well as some more information which you can check out on his Instagram account @owaikeo
The garbage situation next to my house isn’t anything new, I mean, I’ve been complaining about it for over a decade now. But last week I had an interesting interaction with the Kuwait Municipality (baladiya) over it. At one point the garbage overflowed as it usually does due to the limited number of bins, but the garbage men were emptying the bin and leaving the overflowed garbage on the floor. The trash was just lying there for 4 days straight and the stench was horrible, you couldn’t drive by it without having to roll up your windows.
Eventually, I had enough and decided to contact the municipality over their WhatsApp number. I sent them a message at 8:22 AM, it was a photo of the garbage taken from my window and the location pin. A minute later they asked for more information which I replied with.
An hour later (9:36 AM) while leaving my house I noticed there was a baladiya bobcat and workers picking up the garbage and throwing it into the bin. They actually acted on the issue super fast. I wasn’t sure if the whole send a complaint thing over WhatsApp was still active so glad it was. If you want to also WhatsApp the municipality over a problem you have their number is 24727732.
Alqabas newspaper published a list of 7 different things that could get you deported. A redditor translated the 7 things and they are:
Fishing in the Kuwait Bay without permission
Littering or Dumping waste in non-approved areas
Driving without a valid license
Taxi drivers who commit Serious traffic violations
Indecent public behavior
Working a different job than what’s on your work permit
Not renewing annual residency
I like the idea of deporting people if they litter but if that were actually enforced, Kuwait’s population would probably be reduced to a million or less. I guess you could just enforce it for a short time, maybe deport a few hundred people to make a point and that would probably stop people from littering.
Yesterday the Dubai-based developer URB unveiled plans for XZERO CITY, a net zero carbon destination for 100,000 population that is planned for Southern Kuwait.
XZERO is a planned sustainable community, providing a net zero carbon lifestyle for 100,000 residents, in balance with nature. The city will provide food & energy security whilst promoting a green circular economy in an eco-friendly live, work & visit destination.
The development will provide 30,000 residential units and 30,000 jobs as well as tourism through its various eco-friendly hospitality assets, including a 5-star eco-resort and eco-lodges.
Sounds too good to be true?
I hadn’t heard of the developer URB until last night and looking through their Instagram and website it seems none of the projects they’ve proposed have actually been approved yet. So sadly this looks like a nice presentation but I don’t think anything will come of it.
For more details on the proposed project, click here.
A friend just sent me the video above he took of 360 Mall on fire. Looks like it’s in the new extension near IKEA but hard to tell from the video if its the mall parking that’s on fire or the actual mall. Will post an update once I get more details.
Lessons of Darkness is a film about the Kuwaiti oil fields in flames directed by Werner Herzog and released in 1992. I posted about the movie 8 years ago but it wasn’t available to stream online back then, and now it is.
The style is similar to movies Baraka and Samsara where footage is combined with beautiful music except, in this case, the beautiful footage is mostly of horror and destruction. The first few minutes look like a scene out of a sci-fi film and it’s really an epic-looking film overall.
The film is available on YouTube and in HD. I have no idea how long it will be up there until it gets pulled for copyright reasons so if you haven’t watched the film this is your chance to do so. Here is the link.
Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the 1990 Kuwait Invasion. Every year on the anniversary I like to share some links related to the war, here they are:
Free Kuwait
This is a website that focuses on the campaign that was led by Kuwaitis in exile and is loaded with photos and information.
Kuwait Invasion – The Evidence
This is a website that contains over 1,200 pictures taken right after the 1990 invasion as photographic evidence to all the destruction caused by Iraq.
Short movie: Hearts of Palm
Hearts of Palm is a short movie set on August 2nd 1990 and deals with Kuwaiti students living in Miami Florida during the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait.
The Class of 1990
This is a short documentary about reuniting classmates years after the 1990 Iraqi invasion.
BBC Documentary: The Last Flight to Kuwait
A series of documentaries on Iraq begins with a look at the fate of British Airways flight BA149 to the Far East in 1990. As the plane landed in Kuwait, Saddam Hussein invaded, capturing its crew and passengers.
Lessons Of Darkness
This film surveys the disaster of the Kuwaiti oil fields in flames, with little narration and scarcely any interviews. Hell on Earth is presented in such transcendent visions and music that one can only be fascinated by it.
A couple of days back I posted about the lack of an English option in the Sahel App and clearly a lot of people are frustrated by this. But I bring you good news!
According to a source involved in the project, the app has had the English option available for a while now but are unable to launch it just yet because some of the entities that are in Sahel have not finished adapting to English and English data. That’s why it’s taken longer than expected to roll out the English version, but it will eventually roll out.
That actually makes a lot of sense. For some reason, I thought it was just about translating the text inside the app to English but I didn’t consider the fact that the English data we input would then have to work with the various different ministries that all deal with Arabic paperwork. The fact that the ministries are now working to have English be an option is actually impressive.
Ummmm has anyone noticed Google Maps recently? They’ve updated the satellite imagery of Kuwait and the satellite must have passed over during one of our duststorms because all the satellite imagery is now just yucky brown. Link
Yesterday I listed a bunch of landmarks that were demolished over the past few years but I didn’t mention Messilah Beach since I’m not really sure whats going on there. It’s meant to be closed for renovations but I don’t know if they’ve completely demolished it or not. Based on Google Maps, it looks like it’s still there but in any case, the video above is a 3D animation of what Messilah Beach will eventually look like once it’s completed.
Just going off the video it looks like it will be a less approachable more premium beach. What was great about the old Messilah Beach was how affordable and accessible it was to everyone. I used to go there when I was in school since it was the only nice beach we could afford.
The new renovated Messilah will contain:
6 Restaurant blocks
Swimming Pool and Wet Recreation areas
Jogging Track
Hard and Soft Landscaping
450 Car Parking spaces
Over the weekend the US Embassy in Kuwait posted a message by President Joe Biden in support of Pride Month and as you can imagine, that didn’t go well.
As of this post, there are over 21,000 comments under that Instagram post with the majority of people being really upset about it. The story was picked up by the international press and is now making its way around the Internet.
I was curious about whether the US Embassy in other Arab countries also posted a similar message supporting Pride Month, and if they did, what kind of reaction people had to it. Below are two lists, one relating to Instagram posts and another relating to Twitter:
A few interesting things. Firstly this wasn’t a universal message posted on all the embassies’ social media accounts. The US Embassy in Bahrain went a step further and replaced its Twitter banner with a Pride Month one. Finally, one thing is pretty apparent from the lists above, Kuwait’s social media response completely shattered the other Arab countries when it came to comments and likes. I’m now curious to see what’s going to happen next if the US Embassy doesn’t remove the post, are we going to boycott US products? Doubt it.
I’m guessing everyone felt this morning’s earthquake since, unlike the previous ones that have hit Kuwait before, this one was fairly strong.
An earthquake of magnitude 5 struck Kuwait, the ministry of information tweeted on Saturday.
The ministry said “the Kuwait National Seismic Network recorded an earthquake measuring 5 … southwest of al-Ahmadi, and it occurred at exactly 04:28:02 a.m. Kuwait time (0128 GMT), at a depth of 5 km (3 miles)”.
The Kuwait’s Fire Force also said that there was no damage as a result of the earthquake. Source
On Saturday I was at the Toyota dealer service center picking up my car. I get there early and head towards the glass office of the customer service person whom I’m supposed to pick up the car from. I knock on his door and see he’s on the phone, he tells me he’s finishing up with another customer on the phone and to give him just a few minutes. I’m like sure and I go back out and wait outside his office.
As I’m waiting, a fireman comes and stands outside the guy’s office. In my head, I’m thinking that maybe I should be nice and let him go in ahead of me since he’s a fireman and is busy saving lives, putting out fires, and helping cats down from trees. As I’m finishing that train of thought, the fireman starts banging on the glass window of the office and yelling at the service guy to hurry up and get off the phone. I realized that I probably don’t have to be nice and give the fireman my spot since it looks like he’s going to push ahead of me in line anyway. So to make it clear to him that I’m ahead of him, I tell the firefighter that I’m also waiting for the guy to finish.
A few seconds later, the fireman angrily barges into the office and yells at the customer service guy to get off the phone because there are customers waiting outside and tells him he’s going to give him five minutes to do so. The fireman leaves the office yelling loudly at how the service guy is on the phone while there are customers waiting. Another Toyota employee came out from another office to see what all the commotion was about and saw the fireman yelling so took his papers and told him he’d help him.
At that point, I had a realization, any job in Kuwait that involves having to deal with customers, is probably the most dangerous job in Kuwait. From Shop&Ship customer service people to delivery drivers, I can’t imagine how much abuse they have to deal with on a daily basis from entitled people who think the quickest way to get things done is with threats and yelling. That’s one job I don’t think I’d last a day in.
If you’re on the highway right now you might be noticing a large plume of black smoke in the distance. Turns out tent city which is located next to Friday Market in Al Rai caught fire.
Over the weekend Oula and Alfa fuel stations started closing some of their fuel pumps and operating just one for each lane due to a lack of staff. This started causing long queues at the pump with some people waiting 45 minutes just to have their car filled with fuel. It’s odd that this started happening at both stations at the same time, but they both seem to want the same thing, either to start charging for the service of filling your car up, or turn the stations to self-service ones.
Oula posted a story yesterday stating that their Al-Omariah station now operates on a self-service system. Their plan it seems is to want to charge 200 fils for people who want fuel filled up by one of their employees which makes sense but, based on the comments on their Instagram, people don’t want to pay and would rather drive to an Alfa station instead. Alfa on the other hand hasn’t posted anything on their account while KNPC posted last night saying that basically nothing will change and nobody is gonna start charging for service.
Personally, I find this whole thing just odd. We all used to fill up fuel ourselves like 20 years ago and it’s a normal thing around the world so I don’t understand why there is so much hoopla around this.
