The Shams Power Company opened their Shams 1 concentrated solar power station this week in Abu Dhabi. The station generates 100 MW and can power 20,000 homes while reducing CO2 emissions by 175,000 tons per year. [Source]
Kuwait is currently in the process of building a solar power station as well and is expected to be completed by the end of this year (2013).
The project took about two years and $600 million to build. [Source]
Now this is what I find interesting. Their solar power station is costing $600 million to build while ours is costing just $16 million. So our power station is either going to be super tiny or they got ripped off pretty badly.
On a similar subject, here is a link to vintage photos of the Shuwaikh Power Station taken back in the 1950s. [Link]
Under the change, Kuwaitis will be given priority for medical checkups at public hospitals and clinics during the morning, with foreigners only able to access doctors in the afternoon, unless it is an emergency.
Staff also will be segregated according to their nationality, with Kuwaitis working in the morning and expat doctors in the afternoon. [Source]
Even though this doesn’t apply to emergency treatment it still doesn’t make it less racist.
That article is currently on CNN’s main page under “Editors Choice”. The ranking is based on the ‘Attitude of population toward foreign visitors’ category in the latest report by the World Economic Forum. Not good. [Link]
According to Arabian Business Kuwait ranked 101st place out of 140 when it came to travel and tourism, the lowest amongst the Gulf countries. No surprise there, not even sure how we didn’t even rank lower since its practically impossible to get a visa to Kuwait. Dubai obviously ranked the highest in the region coming in 28th place out of 140. [Link]
Arabian Business released their “100 most powerful Arab women 2013” list and 11 Kuwaiti women made the top 100. This year the most powerful Kuwaiti women was Suad Al Humaidi who came in at number 10. Compared to last year, 13 Kuwaiti women made it to the list in 2012 with the most powerful being Sheikha Al Bahar at number 8. Below is the current ranking of all the powerful Kuwaiti women who made the top 100.
Members of Parliament have proposed increasing the minimum wage for Kuwaitis to KD1,500. According to Arabian Business that would be by far the highest in the world beating Luxembourg (which currently has the highest) by three times! That’s just mind-blowing. [Link]
Kuwait is still leading in the Arab world when it comes to freedom of the press. In this years Press Freedom Inde, Kuwait moved up one point from #78 to 77 while Lebanon who was second last year at #93 dropped down to 101. Check out the full list and more information [Here]
The British Daily Mail have an article on all the Arab motorists who flock to London with their super cars. The locals hate them due to their unruly driving, lack of respect for local laws and general hooliganism on the British streets. The Daily Mail also had the video below attached to the article although it seems like it was shot this past summer. You can read the whole article on the Daily Mail [Here]
Gallup measured positive emotions in 148 countries and areas using the following five questions:
– Did you feel well-rested yesterday?
– Where you treated with respect all day yesterday?
– Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?
– Did you lear or do something interesting yesterday?
– Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday? How about enjoyment?
The percentage in Kuwait who answered yes to all the questions above was 79% placing Kuwait in 17th place. Impressive. [Link]
This time it took place at a gas station. I don’t have any details on why the altercation took place or what happened to the victim. If I find out anything will update this post. [YouTube]
Note: Sorry for the bloody photos below but The Avenues cleaners weren’t available to mop up the mess.
Update: I added a second video below
Update2: Kuwait Times has “some” information on this attack. [Link]
The video above is a TV interview with Colonel Adel Alhashash who shared facts regarding the stabbing that took place last night at The Avenues. According to the Colonel the incident started over a parking spot at around 10PM. The victim and the killer got into a heated argument over a parking spot in the basement and the confrontation then continued inside the mall. The victim was a Lebanese citizen, Dr Jaber Yousef who’s a dentist while the killer was with three other friends. During the confrontation in the mall the killer went and purchased a knife from Carrefour and then headed towards the victim and proceeded to stab him. Dr Jaber Yousef passed away an hour after arriving to the hospital.
According to the Colonel, The Avenues helped the investigators out a lot by providing them photos and CCTV footage of the aggressor. Because of those images the investigators were able to identify the killer but when they went to his home they didn’t find him there. They finally found him at a campsite in Bnaider where he was arrested. He’s 22 years old. The three friends who were with him have still not been caught but they will be soon.
When the Colonel was asked about the lack of presence of police officers at the mall the Colonel responded saying that with private locations such as malls the security is provided by the malls themselves and not the police. But, from what I understood in the interview this might change soon because of this incident and previous violent incidents that have taken place at malls.
There is a memorial page set up for the victim on Facebook and you can visit it by clicking [Here]
No idea what happened, supposedly it was over a girl but that’s still unconfirmed. There are also some graphic pictures of the victim currently circulating Whatsapp, Instagram and Twitter but I won’t be sharing them here.
A 48-year-old passenger who owns a reptile shop in Kuwait smuggled a cobra onboard an Egypt Air flight to Kuwait from Egypt. Right after takeoff the snake bit the guy and then escaped slithering under the passenger seats. That’s pretty freaky. CNN has the full story [Here]