Category: News

This story broke out over the weekend and it’s been picking up A LOT of media traction internationally. Local Instagram celebrity @sondos_aq recently went on a rant on the new local regulations requiring a weekly day off for Filipino domestic workers. You can watch her rant in the video above. To summarize, she thinks its ridiculous that domestic workers have to get a day off every week and that she doesn’t believe domestic workers should be able to keep their passports. Pretty racial comments and the worst part is, she has over 2.3 million followers.

Last month the Instagram celebrity 3bodka was caught abusing his dog, and now we have another influencer posting racial comments. Looking at how this is blowing up I wouldn’t be surprised if local authorities decide to create new laws or regulations to prevent situations like this from occurring again.

If you want to read more about this incident, check out the articles on CNN, Independent and Buzzfeed amongst other.

So last week there was a case of mass food poisoning in Kuwait because of a falafel restaurant in Hawalli. Supposedly the former partner of the restaurant conspired with an employee to poison the falafel and today Kuwait Times mentions they found the food to be contaminated with salmonella and other types of bacteria. Around 300 customers got food poisoned and yet none of the newspapers or news outlets have mentioned which restaurant had their food contaminated (at least none of the English outlets). I really don’t understand why news media continue to shy away from posting the name of the restaurant especially in a case like this where many other people might be infected and not know they are.

When there was an E. coli outbreak at Chipotle in the States, all the news outlets wrote about it, but if the same outbreak had taken place in Kuwait they’d probably just describe Chipotle as an American franchise.

Kuwait is on its way to become “a country with the strongest and fastest Internet in the Arab world” through the use of optic fiber cables, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting a source close to the Sate Ministry for Services. The source pointed out that majority of the advanced countries provide Internet with a speed of 50 gigabytes, whereas the ministry will provide 100 gigabytes starting from August. [Source]

And somehow I’m still stuck barely getting 10Mbps because I live in Salmiya.

Kuwait’s Public Prosecution have arrested popular social media influencer 3bodka for misusing the platforms and abusing the Kuwaiti people.

3bodka, whose real name is Abdulla Al-Jassir, is being investigated for a video he posted on his social media page using an insulting word to describe the Kuwait people, after receiving criticism previously for posting a video of his dog that drowned in a swimming pool. The authorities received complaints from 20 different individuals about the video. The crimes that are being investigated carry a prison sentence of five years and KD100,000 fine.

He has been detained for three days as investigations continue, however, his detention is expected to end today. [Source]

I have to say, I am pretty surprised they actually arrested him. I thought for sure nothing was going to be done about it. If you’re out of the loop on what this is all about, check out my previous post [Here]

Cinescape just signed a deal with the company CJ 4DPLEX to bring their ScreenX theater technology to the Middle East.

ScreenX is cinema technology that brings a 270-degree viewing experience to the movie similar to the picture above. The technology projects the film onto the screen in front of you as well as the walls on the left and right of you and then seamlessly connects the three. Movies need to be filmed with ScreenX technology in mind for this to work and since the technology is new, not a lot of movies support it yet. Black Panther was a recent movie that had ScreenX support and the upcoming movie Ant-man and the Wasp will also support it so it’s going to start picking up.

I personally enjoy watching my films in 2D on a large iMax screen but ScreenX might be interesting since it doesn’t involve the use of 3D glasses and isn’t as gimmicky as 4DX. Check out the press release [Here]

We made it to BBC. [Link]

The new Jazeera Airways Airport Terminal is expected to start accepting passengers as early as mid-May. The new terminal is meant to alleviate the current overcrowding at Kuwait International Airport but like Sheikh Saad Terminal, it also means you don’t have to fly in and out of the main airport. I might just start flying with Jazeera again once this terminal opens up. Oh, and the new terminal has it’s own parking as well!

BBC posted a short video (watch above) on a team of European and Arab women who are trekking to the North Pole. One of the woman taking part in this trek is Lamees Nijem, a Kuwaiti who applied to be part of this adventure and got accepted. To prepare for the trip Lamees went on three training trips, one in Oman and two in Iceland. The trainings covered the basics of cross-country skiing, pulling sleds, sharing a tent with 3 other people and dealing with cold weather and extreme climate conditions such as snowstorms and very low temperature.

The main purpose of this expedition is to foster greater dialogue and understanding between women from Western and Arabian cultures. The team consists of 11 women that represent the countries of Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Cyprus, Kuwait, France, Oman, Qatar, Slovenia, Russia and the UK. For more information you can check out the expedition web site [Here] or follow them on instagram @northpole2018

In a bid to maintain Kuwait’s beauty, the Kuwait municipality is now imposing a fine of up to KD300 if you’re found drying your clothes on your balcony. This law doesn’t affect me since I don’t hang my clothes on the balcony anyway, but from all the issues we have, this is the one the municipality wants to fix?

How about the overflowing garbage bins in Salmiya? I would think overflowing garbage bins have a bigger impact on visual pollution as well as hygiene when compared to people hanging laundry on their balcony. Like seriously… [Article 1] [Article 2]

Top photo via Arab Times

The 2018 edition of the World Happiness Report was released last week and Kuwait moved down a few spots from 39 to 45. The highest Kuwait has ever been was 31 and that was back in 2012.

Below is a list comparing Kuwait’s ranking to some other countries in the region including the highest ranked and lowest.

1. Finland
20. United Arab Emirates
32. Qatar
33. Saudi Arabia
43. Bahrain
45. Kuwait
156. Burundi

The scoring is based on a number of factors including answers submitted by people who were asked to assess their satisfaction with their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10. For a more detailed explanation as well as the full list of rankings, you can download the World Happiness Report from [Here]

Thanks Haneen!

I thought Kuwait had canceled plans to build a nuclear power plant but a Russian company just applied for a building permit so they could construct one.

The Russian state corporation Rosatom has applied for building permit for construction of the nuclear power plant in Kuwait, announced the Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak. Currently, the main talks on the implementation of the project are under way. [Source]

I have mixed feelings about this, I’m pro-nuclear power but in our case, solar kinda makes more sense since its sunny all year round and it’s safer. Nuclear is a lot more practical though:

– Kuwait consumes around 13,000MW of electricity

– The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the USA is the largest solar station in the world and it produces 392MW

– The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan is the largest in the world and produces 7,965 MW

So one nuclear power plant could supply more than 60% of Kuwait’s power needs while the largest solar station would supply just 3%.

The administrative court recently issued a verdict by powers of which the cabinet is to issue a decision banning the usage of water guns in National and Liberation Days’ celebrations. The verdict was made in response to a case filed by lawyer Mona Al-Arbash demanding the ban for public interest, on grounds that thousands of water gallons are wasted every year during national celebrations, costing the country – which is already poor on natural water resources – a lot of money. Use of water guns and water cannons during national celebrations have become very popular in recent years after the government banned the use of spray foam for environmental reasons. [Source]

I’ve really hated what the celebrations have turned into over the past years, and I’m sure a lot of other people as well. So glad we’re finally done with this.

Image via Getty

The first phase of the metro will be completed in the year 2025 and is for one line that starts from Salmiya and heads towards the airport. It will be 50km long and have a total of 27 stations, 9 of which will be in the city center. The full metro project which comprises of five phases is expected to be completed by 2040.

2025 is not THAT far away, just 7 more years to go… [Article]

Below is the latest map I have of the metro, no idea if it’s still valid or not, but it should give you an idea of what it might look like.

Thanks lovelykuwait

Over the weekend the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) announced that they signed Nasser Alruwayeh, the first Kuwaiti ever to join the WWE. I haven’t watched WWE since back when it used to be called WWF, but I still think this is a pretty cool signing.

Nasser is a crossfiter who took part in the invitation-only tryout in Dubai last April. He managed to impress the WWE coaches and training personnel which is why they decided to sign him along with Shadia Bseiso, the first Arab woman to sign with the WWE.

For more information on the signing you can check out the WWE website [Here]

Forbes released their annual “Top 100 Startups In The Arab World” list and Tap Payments was the only startup from Kuwait that made the list coming in at #66. The majority of the startups on the list are based out of UAE, Lebanon and Egypt.

It’s pretty impressive that Tap made the list, but pretty disappointing overall for Kuwait that we don’t have more successful startups (also why isn’t Carriage on that list?). For the full top 100 list, click [Here]