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Al Watan Daily published a new article where they basically say I was wrong and they were right with regards to the Friday Market fiasco. Here is a recap of what has been happening the past couple of days:

On Monday, Al Watan Daily published an article where they stated that the municipality wasn’t allowing the shop owners at the Friday Market access to their animals. The article stated that the shop owners haven’t opened their stores in 15 days and all the animals were dying from hunger and lack of air. Here is a link to that article [Link]

But, according to three different sources, I stated Al Watan Daily were wrong. Here are my sources from the least credible to the most:

Source 1 – Anna (anonymous reader):

I just called a store owner there who I’ve dealt with extensively with my salt water fish tank. The good news is that all stall owners sneak in at night to feed the animals. The bad news is that the animals are there in total darkness, and sanitary conditions are even worse than usual (if you can imagine that).

Source 2 – Mrs F (a very good friend)

My husband spoke to a few shop owners and they mentioned that they were actually allowed to open their shops in order to clean and feed their animals.

Source 3 – Ayesha (founder of Animals Friends and K’s Path)

We have investigated the situation and most of the information around is incorrect. The shop keepers are able to enter their stores and care for the animals. We have a volunteer that knows many of the shopkeepers very well and he has visited them multiple times and spoken to them throughout the last two weeks of closure and they are still able to enter their shops. In fact you can even buy things from them they just can’t officially open their doors for business. On the weekends and evening you will see them outside on the road selling so clearly they can get in. Also the area has been closed for two weeks, if it was true that these animals have not been fed then they would all be dead at this point but you can hear them in the shops.

I will leave it to you to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Here is the link to their “Citizen Journalism” article [Here]

I got the below email from an editor at Al Watan Daily regarding the animals at the Friday Market post:

Hi Mark,
I’m the local editor of Al Watan Daily, and I would like to start off by saying that when I read your post last night, I was livid. No newspaper wants to print misinformation, that is not our goal, least of all mine. Our lead had actually originated from an Arab Times report that came two weeks ago, and we performed a follow up. In today’s Arab Times on page 3, you can see they were confused over the matter as well, because they had not reported that the animals were trapped. [Link] However, they do corroborate our story.

From Arab Times update: “Meanwhile Abu Sulaiman Al-Hadad, one of the shopkeepers, claimed that he, along with other proprietors, have not accessed their shops since these were shut down on Oct 15. “My animals have been imprisoned for more than two weeks and have all died from starvation,” he complained. Asked if he had entered his shop at all during this period he said it’s “impossible”. “If any of us is caught entering a shop we’d be obliged to pay a fine of KD 500, along with other legal action,” Al-Hadad said.”

Now, I did not sleep last night, I really didn’t, over your post, and the image it portrays, as well as some of the comments that followed. I planned to come in this morning and set the record straight, by either finding confirmation that our reporter had done their job correctly, or that she had failed in my trust in her. In the case of the latter, I had already informed my General Manager that I would print a retraction.

However, in the case that you were wrong in your citizen journalism, which is the case in my opinion, I feel that you should print an update, and perhaps even slant it towards recognizing that we were not printing misinformation and that perhaps you and the commenters on the post were quick to jump the gun at our expense.

Khaled Al-Ramly
Local Editor
Al Watan Daily

A blog reader also posted the following comment awhile ago:

I went there few hours ago, and the situation is:
All the shops are closed
4 or 5 from the ex employee are sitting there
I asked them about how do they feed the animals inside, and they answered with:
NO WE CANT, The shops are closed by the municipality and there is a sticker attached on each shop’s door and they cant open the door and they cant remove those stickers.
All the dogs inside are whining and barking from being without a food, water, air and also without light.

Its just a big MESS

-Ramez

I’ve contacted K’s Path regarding this issue and I am still waiting for a response. K’s Path are a Kuwaiti non-profit working to improve the lives of animals by protecting and preserving them and the places they live.

Update: I just found this article from todays Arab Times where Ayesha who is responsible for Animal Friend’s and K’s Path said the following:

Ayesha Al-Humaidhi, from Animal Friends League of Kuwait, assured that shopkeepers do have access to the shops and tend to their animals. “They do enter their shops and do conduct their business, but they can’t run their business openly until they settle the rent dispute with the Municipality,” she said. [Source]

Updates2: Ayesha emailed me back stating:

We have investigated the situation and most of the information around is incorrect. The shop keepers are able to enter their stores and care for the animals. We have a volunteer that knows many of the shopkeepers very well and he has visited them multiple times and spoken to them throughout the last two weeks of closure and they are still able to enter their shops. In fact you can even buy things from them they just can’t officially open their doors for business. On the weekends and evening you will see them outside on the road selling so clearly they can get in. Also the area has been closed for two weeks, if it was true that these animals have not been fed then they would all be dead at this point but you can hear them in the shops. Basically the welfare at the Friday Market has always been bad but it is not a whole lot worse at the moment.

We are hoping this rental disagreement with the Baladiya will be resolved soon. We are waiting to see.

A few days ago someone in the forum mentioned that he passed by the animal section of the Friday market and found it closed. I figured that’s great news, they finally did something about the animal cruelty that was taking place there.

Turns out I was very wrong. Today I found out that what really happened was the municipality shutdown all the shops by force and not because of animal cruelty but because of rent issues. Not only that but since the shops were closed down 2 weeks ago they haven’t been allowed to reopen and all the animals were left inside to die!

…the business owners are helpless as the animals howl and cry for food, with every passing day the stench of death growing ever stronger…

…All the animals are inside the stalls, and most of them have died due to lack of water, food and air. These animals have been in cages within the stalls for 15 days and they have not seen any light, nor eaten anything…

Instead of making things better, they killed all the animals. Fantastic. Here is the link to the article on Al Watan Daily. [Link]

Update: A friend of mine passed by the Friday market with his wife today after reading the post to see what they could do. They spoke to a few owners and it turns out the Al Watan Daily’s story is not true. Here is the correct information:

– The municipality did shutdown the shops

– The shop owners ARE allowed to open the shop to clean, feed and air their animals

– Some shop owners were neglecting their animals and it’s NOT the municipality that’s stopping them. Some owners are just insensitive and are just leaving their animals to die

Basically unlike what Al Watan Daily reported, the municipality isn’t stopping any shop owner from taking care of the animals. I don’t know why a leading English newspaper would print misinformation like that. In any case animals are still being left to die by some shop owners who should be fined or prosecuted. For more details you can visit my friends blog where they have more information and pictures [Link]

Didn’t know it was that popular and they have a pretty active blog. [Link]

Since we don’t get that many world class sport events here in Kuwait I would think an event like this deserves a bit more publicity…

The Kuwait Men’s World Open will be staged from the 1st to 7th November 2009 and will boast a record prize fund of US$277,500.

The championship is the climax of a three year agreement with the Professional Squash Association (PSA) which has already seen the successful staging of Super Series Platinum events in 2007 and 2008.

As well as offering the largest prize money of any World Open, the championship will also include spectacular opening and closing ceremonies as well as an Official Championship Gala Dinner.

The championships will bring together all of the world’s leading players from the PSA World Tour. World No.1 Karim Darwish of Egypt will head a star-studded field including compatriots Ramy Ashour and Amr Shabana, Gregory Gaultier and Thierry Lincou from France, Australia’s former World Open Champion David Palmer and England’s British Champion Nick Matthew.

The quarter-finals, semi finals and finals will be played on a dedicated court being built on Green Island which sounds cool considering the weather is great at the moment. For more information visit the official website [Here]

Thanks Akbar!

A friend of mine found Tupac’s Centerpoint card on the floor near Ruby Tuesday. [Link]

Watan TV interviewed the bloggers p0ach and Blushberry about blogging in Kuwait the other day and now the full interview is available on YouTube to watch. One thing I think Watan TV should have done was actually display the url’s of the blogs on the screen instead of just the blog titles. So instead of writing just “4th Ring Road” they should have had www.4thringroad.com under it to make it easier for the viewers to check out. Here is the interview split into two parts:

[YouTube]

[YouTube]

I found this funny although if it happened to my dog I would also be pissed and sue:

In what must rank as one of the most bizarre lawsuits ever filed against an oil and gas company, it has been reported that Saudi Aramco are being sued for US$267,000 for allegedly causing the death of a female camel that had taken part in a beauty pageant in the KSA.

The attractive three year-old black camel died in tragic circumstances after she fell into a hole in the desert that the Saudi hydrocarbons giant had dug and filled with crude oil.

Her heartbroken owner, Abdullah Al-Saiari, had entered the animal into the Camel Beauty Contest, a hotly contested event that attracts camel breeders from all over the KSA to show off their most eye-catching beasts.

The case is currently being brought before the court in Saudi Arabia.

[Source]

via Desert Girl

I love Kuwait with all its flaws except for one, the tree cutting for no reason habit. I can never understand why beautiful green trees get cut down in Kuwait. I am also not the only one who hates this because their is a group on Facebook called “Keep Kuwait Green! Stop the Izala from cutting our trees!” which is fighting to stop this. Here is information about the group:

After the government came and removed our 35 year old Rubber trees without any warning, it made me realize that there are many other houses being effected.

People started calling about the same thing happening to them, and told me stories of horrible murder like incidents of the trees they once planted.

The mission of this group is to report and post pictures of all wrong doing by our government and the removal of trees. Please post the address of the places that you see them removing trees that were not used as a personal garden. If possible post your pictures also.

We will be posting and sending the pictures to all newspapers and blogs and anyone willing to listen to us. Some of the trees in Kuwait are a part of our history.

They have been here long before we have.
Let’s unite and try to keep Kuwait greener!

I would like to add one more thing which is the trimming of the trees and bushes. The Gulf Road area near Burj Hamam was looking pretty green and natural for awhile now and then suddenly yesterday they started trimming all the trees and bushes into cubes. Can someone tell whoever is responsible for that to stop. Trees that look like cubes might look pretty at Disney Land but not on the Gulf Road and they definitely don’t give any shade or protection.

So if you think the government should stop cutting trees down then please join the facebook group and voice your support. Here is the [Link]

I first saw this video on q8blackmarket a few days ago but just got around to viewing it after seeing it on Frankoms blog. For those of you who don’t speak Arabic what happens in the video is that a woman goes to see a doctor at a local hospital, she enters the room but then leaves shortly after very upset. She heads to the security department and files a complaint (they never tell us what the complaint was) but it seems it wasn’t a big deal because security never left their desk. She got more upset and called a guy who comes to the hospital and attacks the doctor and then escapes. All of this is caught on security cameras and what is very troubling is the fact that security didn’t stop the attacker. Watch the video. [YouTube]

British Business in Kuwait is holding an introduction to Kuwait event tomorrow (Tuesday, 13th October) at the Hilton Hotel. According to the flier it’s a free event and 70 companies are participating. If you’re interested in attending, the event is from 6:30PM to 10PM. Here is the flier [PDF]

Thanks Desert Girl

q8blackmarket took a picture of this classified ad on the street in Kuwait City. I just tried calling the number to see how much they wanted for the kidney but the phone was closed. [Link]

Update: I messaged the guy asking about the price and he replied saying how much I would pay, I replied asking what the best price was. He then replied saying for a Kuwaiti KD1000 while for a non Kuwaiti just KD800.

Update2: When I didn’t reply he messaged me back asking if it was too much. I told him it was and the best I could offer was KD500. Surprisingly he went down to KD650.

Update3: I asked him why he wanted to sell it, he wouldn’t tell me just said it was a personal problem. It’s sad, he must be desperate. Told him not to sell it and that it was very illegal to do but he just responded with a “Thank You”.

The creator of Grendizer will be holding a lecture this month here in Kuwait. I found the following on the blog electronish:

Go Nagai, is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He made his professional debut in 1967 with Meakashi Polikichi, but is best known for creating the seminal works UFO Grendizer, Cutie Honey and Mazinger Z in the 1970’s.”

Mr. Go Nagai will visit the middle east in October, he will be visiting Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt!! I’m glad to be nominated to be one of the coordination team members for this event. The event will be held on two days the 10th and the 11th of Oct. ‘09. The 10th will be exclusive for VIP “LIMITED SEATS”, to have the opportunity in attending the VIP event you should register with Mr. Wael Abdulsamad ‘cos you need to pass a certain contest/draw managed by him under the supervision of the Embassy of Japan. For the second day, 11th of Oct., the event will be for PUBLIC, everyone can attend. So you don’t have to contact Mr. Wael Abdulsamad for a registration to attend the second event. However, the attendance will be taken in a FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED basis, the capacity of the hall will be approximately 330-350. Anyhow, more details will be announced during Aug. and Sep., so if you’re really concerned just contact The Embassy of Japan in Kuwait or email Mr. Wael Abdulsamad ([email protected]) for further information.

Special thanks to the Embassy of Japan in Kuwait for hosting this event and for the opportunity in meeting Mr. Go Nagai in JAPAN KUWAIT!

Q8Sultana posted about a Mirror House located in Qadsiya a few years back and now the owner has a website up with a ton of pictures and information on the house.

The house belongs to Lidia Qattan, an Italian lady who got married to a Kuwaiti (Pioneer artist/painter, Khalifa Al-Qattan), and has been living in Kuwait for decades. She has decorated her entire house, inside and outside, with pieces of mirrors. – Q8Sultana

Lidia’s website has pictures of every room and every angle of the house from the outside and inside. You can tell she put a lot of effort into fulfilling her dream of a “Mirror House” and it’s really one of a kind. Check out her website for more pictures and details. [Link]

How much has car safety come in 50 years? Autoblog has pictures and a video of a crash test between two cars, one a 1959 model and the other from 2009. The result? We’ve come a long way. [Link]

Update: Link fixed!