Category: News

A car that was stolen four months back was found not by the police parked behind a police station. Hilarious. [Link]

Anwar Jawhar took part in an Ironman competition at the beginning of this month and he ended up qualifying for the Ironman World Championships. Anwar took part in Ironman 70.3 Cebu in Philippines and qualified for the world championship by winning in his age group 25-29 years old. He finished 1st place in the group out of 150 triathletes and was ranked 28th overall out of 2500 total participants including professional triathletes and the current world champion.

The Ironman 70.3 race held in Cebu Philippines consisted of a 1.9km swim followed by a 90km bike and finished off with a 21km half marathon run. Anwar Jawhar became the first Kuwaiti and GCC national to ever qualify to the world championships which will be held in Las Vegas on 8th September 2013.

I’ve run with Anwar before and after like 8KM I would be dead on the floor and he would have already run like 15KM as his warmup without breaking a sweat. Super fit is an understatement.

If you’re interested, you can follow Anwar on Instagram @anwarjawhartriathlete to keep up to date with his progress in the world championships and his triathlon career.

Last week the Kuwait Sporting Club revealed their new football kit only turns out it was plagiarized from the popular Paris Saint-Germain team. Not sure what they were thinking since they must have known people would notice. Yesterday the French media picked up on this and it’s now spreading everywhere with side by side shots. Seriously how hard would it have been to come up with a unique design? [Link]

As much as we like to highlight how some things in Dubai are better than Kuwait, they still have their own share of problems.

Norwegian woman: I was raped in Dubai, now I face prison sentence

Dubai police arrest ‘shock video’ uploader (Guy who uploaded video above)

Kinda reminds me how at one point Dubai had Flickr blocked but kept the prostitute hangout Cyclone open. It’s like they’re not sure if they’re an open liberal country or a closed one and they just flip flop between the two.

Update: The Norwegian woman has been freed. [Link]

With the recent crackdown on expats, one of the rumors making its rounds was that if you were caught with any VOIP app on your phone you would get deported. According to the Ministry of Communication, Kuwait has no plans to ban any app be it Whatsapp, Viber or anything else for that matter. [Source]

According to Al-Qabbas newspaper Kuwait is the third largest consumer of gasoline in the world per capita after Canada and the United States. The average per capita consumption in Kuwait is 0.9 gallons while in Canada it’s 0.93 and the United States 1.22. Keep in mind both Canada and the US are advanced industrial nations so the fact we came third is just insane. [Link]

This is something completely random I just fell upon but found really interesting. It seems there was a series of UFO sightings in Kuwait at the end of 1978 and it was supposedly the first time UFO’s were sighted in our region. Reports of the sightings were published in newspapers and even the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) got involved. Below are some quotes I got from various places but at the end of the post is a link with a lot more details.

Finally, the investigating committee established by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research held a press conference on January 23, spurred on, they said, by the Arab Times photograph, to which “The committee attaches special importance….” They admitted that they were “groping in the dark,” and said they could neither confirm nor deny the appearance of UFOs over Kuwait. – The Muffon UFO Journal 1979

Some local wags have made light of the first UFO sightings which came near the end of the long and traditionally exuberant holiday celebrations of Eid-al-Adha. However we have learned recently of an event coincident with one of the UFO sightings which has confounded some of our most level-headed Kuwaiti friends, and may have been what persuaded the GOK to make a serious investigation of the matter. A senior Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) official told us the the “UFO” which first appeared over the northern oil fields seemingly did strange things to KOC’s automatic pumping equipment. This equipment is designed to shut itself down when there is some failure which may seriously damage the petroleum gathering and transmission system and it can only berestarted manually. At the time of the “UFO’s” appearance the pumping system automatically shut itself down and when the “UFO” vanished the system started itself up again. This event was not addressed by the KISR committee report – Message sent by the American Embassy in Kuwait City to the State Department in January 1979

I believe. Check out these two links for more [Link 1] [Link 2]

Found this funny headline along with a 10 day weather forecast for Kuwait on Reddit. In case you missed it, Arizona has been all over the news because of the heatwave they’re currently facing which, when compared to the weather in Kuwait really is just another summer day.

The Daily Mail has photos and an article about the two executions that were carried out yesterday. Their article also has over 900 comments so far with the majority of the commentators praising the executions. Here are some of the “Best Rated” comments on the article:

Well – THEY won’t be raping and killing again… what a concept!
– John

Nice one Kuwait …… hanging is the ‘green option’…. hardly any carbon footprint.
– Captain Calamity

Rape a child, you need to die. Period.
– farsideoftheworld

People may say that it’s inhuman and barbaric, but crimes like these are very rare in Kuwait due to the death penalty. Sadly in this Country of ours, there are no deterrents for any crime!
– UK was great

Now why can’t we do the same here in Britain.
– david

Check out the photos, article and all the comments [Here]

Thanks Kashif

The Daily Mail Online have an article on the tire graveyard out in Sulaibiya. According to the article the tire graveyard is so big it can be seen from space. That’s not really true though since the tire graveyard is actually visible on Google Maps which is not really the same as being seen from space. A bit exaggerated but then again this is the Daily Mail. You can check out their article [Here]

Two traffic officers in Kuwait are to spend one week behind bars for parking their patrol car in a spot reserved for the physically challenged.

Abdul Fattah Al Ali, the assistant undersecretary for traffic, said that the two uniformed men be transferred to a new department after they serve the seven-day sentence in jail, Kuwaiti daily Al Qabas reported on Wednesday.

“The official has given instructions that all legal measures be taken against the two men for flouting the rules,” a source quoted by the newspaper, said. “He said that there would be no leniency towards violators whether they are civilians or members of the police force,” the source, that the paper did not identify, said.

Abdul Fattah Al Ali has gained an impeccable reputation in Kuwait for his strict application of the law, regardless of the names or status of the violators.

No effing way. I’m super impressed. That’s pretty cool that they’re actually punishing two cops for this. [Link]

The Economist have an article on smoking and how even with all the warnings on the packets and the increase in knowledge that smoking is bad for you, in some countries smoking is still on the rise. Kuwait happens to be one of those countries. We’re definitely not nearly as bad as Myanmar and Lebanon but still bad enough to warrant a position on their chart above. Check out the full article [Here]

Thanks Narain

The Kuwaiti criminal court sentenced on Sunday four suspects to death for killing a Lebanese doctor with a cleaver in December last year.

Samir Yousef Jaber, 26, a Lebanese dentist born of a Kuwaiti mother, was repeatedly stabbed with the cleaver following a disagreement with the four young men at Avenues Mall.

It seems all four individuals involved in the murder will be getting the same sentence. [Link]

A fire that caught a Kuwait University (KU) facility early on Saturday has been quenched, a university official said.

Firemen responded immediately to a call from Kuwait University warning that there was a fire at an under­ construction KU building, and managed to put the conflagration under control within a record time, Dr. Rana Al­ Fares, the chief of the construction program of the Sabah Al­Salem University City, said in news remarks.

The fire initially caught the 8­000­sqm College of Education for Girls and then moved to the 9,000­sqm nearby College of Arts for Girls due to winds, she said. [Source]

The fire looked huge I’m surprised they were able to put it out by evening time. [YouTube]

Kuwait Airways plane, bound to Cairo, has returned after taking off from Kuwait International Airport due to technical error on Monday, the state-­run carrier said.

The captain of the airplane discovered a technical error after taking off and returned to the airport in line with international standards, Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) public relations and media director Khaled Al-­Khulaifi said.

The captain dumped some of the fuel to decrease the weight of the plane, a well-­known procedure in such cases, landed normally and all passengers left the plane, Al-­Khulaifi said in a statement to KUNA.

The passengers were well received by the ground staff until an alternative plane is provided, he added. [Source]

The video above was taken by one of the passengers showing the fuel dump. [YouTube]