2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
According to Alhamour.com; Bassam Al-Ghanim has submitted his official resignation as the Chairman of the Gulf Bank. Gulf Bank still has not announced his replacement, but they expect it to be someone from the Al-Ghanim family. This is a result of the Gulf Bank Shipwreck; which has resulted in a total loss of US$ 1.2bn (KD 313 mm), an amount that represents 70% of Gulf Bank’s Tier 1 & 2 Equity.
Update: Kutayba Al-Ghanim is the new Chairman of Gulf Bank.
Posted by K.
Legendary Kuwaiti actor Ali Al-Mufidi passed away today morning in Jordan. He originally used to work in television before he moved to acting and quickly rose to fame after staring in the popular show Darb Al Zalag.
Here is a link to YouTube where you can over 200 clips of him. [Ali Al-Mufdi on YouTube]
He will be missed.
There was a demonstration taking place on my way to work today this morning in front of the house of parliament. At first I assumed it had something to do with the current financial instability but looking at the banners now I think the demonstration was related to the naturalization of the Bedouins Bedoun’s. Here is the larger size of the picture above. [Picture]
Picture taken by ads2blog
Found this short film on YouTube, skip to the second minute since thats when the movie actually starts. The clip above is [Part 1], here is the link to [Part 2] and [Part 3]. Kinda makes me want to film my own B-rated horror with a cheesy title like Escape from Salmiya or The Shawerma Zombie. Anyone want to help me with the script?
I am standing in front of the main Gulf Bank building in Kuwait City and I can count 12 money truck parked in front of it. There are also a ton of security guards (probably the money truck drivers) all standing on the side of the building waiting. I can’t tell if they are moving money in our about to get ready to move money out but my uneducated guess is they are probably getting ready to move money to their branches around Kuwait. I took a picture which I will post here once I get back home.
update: Just added the picture to the post
I decided to stop by and check out some of the Gulf Bank branches yesterday; there was a long queue at every location. Customers almost caused a riot trying to withdraw their money. Gulf Bank were limiting the amount a person could withdraw, but the customers still managed to withdraw over 4 million KWD in cash from the bank!
The aftermath of this issue is going to result in some major overhauls at the Gulf Bank. For an explanation of what happened to Gulf Bank check out the article Gulf Bank of Kuwait Shipwrecked.
Posted by K.
I’ve heard from a number of people that a lot of Gulf Bank customers are trying to withdraw all their money from the bank in fears of losing it. The central bank already stepped in since morning and said it would guarantee the bank which means if you have your money with Gulf Bank its safe. DON’T PANIC and don’t spread rumors. Gulf Bank is not bankrupt, people are not going to lose their money and the bank won’t be closing down.
This is pretty freaky news…
KUWAIT, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Kuwait’s government will prepare an urgent bill to guarantee deposits at local banks after the central bank said on Sunday it was forced to step in to support Gulf Bank after it suffered losses.
The central bank said on the bourse website it had halted trading in the lender and would appoint a supervisor for several bank activities after some clients had refused to cover their losses from derivatives trading, leaving the bank to foot the costs.
[Link]
Update: Here are more articles [Link] [Link] [Link]
NBK customers don’t have to worry according to this article [Link]
Now that the price of oil is like the lowest in 16 months does that mean McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Hardees will drop their prices? Will products at Sultan Center cost the same as they did 16 months ago? I think it’s only fair that if they raise the prices because oil prices are up then they should drop the prices when oil prices go down.
If you’re too young to remember the original Wassup Budweiser commercials click [Here]
FIFA has suspended Kuwait from all international matches and activities because of the government interference in the affairs of the football federation.
Contrary to the road map established by FIFA and the AFC, the Kuwaiti Public Authority for Youth and Sport has continued to interfere. Elections were held on 9 October in direct violation of the FIFA Executive Committee’s May 2007 decision to the contrary. As a consequence, the committee recommend to the FIFA Executive Committee that the Kuwait Football Association be suspended. [Link]
Kuwait’s federation were to have held their general assembly in September but delayed it for Ramadan but after no meeting took place Blatter said the Kuwaitis had been “definitively suspended” from international matches. [Link]
Thanks 7ussien
The new True Value location opened up today and I passed by to check it out. I didn’t like it, I actually hated it. The old True Value never really was that great but at least it felt cozy which now it lacks. The location of the new True Value is Al-Rai. If you’re on the 4th ring road and Lexus and Toyota are on your right hand side, keep going straight and take the right turn before Alghanim Electronics. Then, keep going straight until you see True Value on the left.
Back when I was taking pictures for my Miskan project I passed by the Kuwait Stock Exchange and ended up taking some cool pictures. Since the stock market is a popular topic at the moment I figured I would upload all the pictures I had taken that day so people can download them and use them. I’ve gotten a lot of emails from magazines and newspapers asking for the hi-res pictures so here they are all compressed into one zip file.
Download stock market pictures (4.8MB)
In return, please credit the blog if you end up using any of the photos.
Animal Friends League of Kuwait if holding a charity bazaar this coming Saturday, here is the information I got by email:
Christmas Charity Bazaar
Saturday 25 of October,
from 10am to 2pmMulbarak Al Kabeer,
Block 1, Street 25, House 32.All profits in support of
Animal Friends League.Please come and browse through the tables pilled up with hand made items, fabric related decorations, Christmas ornaments, pearls, Swarovski crystals, labels… Animal Friends League will have a table promoting their work here in Kuwait with pictures of the animals in need of a friendly home.
Please DO NOT PARK on the street, there is some construction going on right in front of our house and there is plenty of room in the Co-op parking lot.
Please contact AFL if you need more information:
https://www.animalfriendskuwait.org
The Kuwait Stock Exchange, the second largest in the Arab world tumbled at opening today. I don’t know what that will mean for us regular folks (more price increases at McDonalds?) but there are currently investors outside the stock exchange demonstrating. The 4th Ring Road blog are dramatically calling this the “KSE Bloodbath” and are currently tracking things and posting pictures of the demonstration, here is their [Link]
