Social Slave

Just saw this today and it’s great to see that Middle East dominated the Power 500 list with 63% of the World’s Most Influential Arabs.

Africa follows in second place with 15 percent of entries, while the Americas and Europe account for 13 and 7 percent respectively.

This year’s Power 500 shows the highest concentration of figureheads is in the UAE. Saudi Arabia made a good showing with 62 entries. Egypt generated 45 entries, with Syria, Kuwait and Jordan notching up 30, 21 and 21 entries respectively.

Although just 27 entries from the Power 500 are based in Lebanon, the country has the highest contribution when it comes to country of origin. A massive 83 entries – 16% of the list – count their roots back to Lebanon.

[Here] is the list of the World’s Most Influential Kuwaitis:

And the [List] of the 100 Most Powerful Kuwaiti Women for 2011:

You can check the links for more details on each of the entries.

[Link]

I just came across a very interesting website.

The ‘T-Walls’ or ‘Texas Walls’ are portable concrete walls that are used for blast protection around the US military camps in Kuwait and Iraq. The US soldiers turned these concrete walls into pieces of art. They would wait for nightfall and then paint the walls in the floodlight with their Unit insignia, cavalry scenes, American icons or sports mascots.

George Hauer, the editor of the book,  first learned of the walls when his friend sent him an e-mail and three photos. He then set out to photograph these walls before they were lost forever since they were already being damaged by the sun, sand and mortar rounds fired at them. He then edited a 208-page hardcover book called “The T-Walls of Kuwait and Iraq” with a massive collection of those walls, a photographic footprint that will exist after the walls are gone for good.

“It’s a document of our presence and who was there and how the soldiers felt about their time there,” Hauer said.

Seven military photographers crisscrossed Kuwait and Iraq, using their cameras to capture the images on these walls.

One wall is designed to resemble the Terrible Towels that Pittsburgh Steelers fans wave at home games. Another includes the word “Transporters,” sketched to appear similar to the logo from the hit series “Transformers.” A Las Vegas unit put Elvis on its wall; a Massachusetts unit painted the Boston Celtics’ leprechaun on its wall.

“We’ve been getting orders of the book from soldiers now, because it’s part of their life,” Hauer said. ” ‘We were there. That was us.’ “

Click [Here] for more information and if you would want to buy the book. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to help severely wounded service men and women.

Nobu Hospitality has entered into a joint venture with Dhaliliyah, a Saudi investment and development group, to develop Nobu-branded hotels and restaurants in Saudia Arabia and Kuwait. So far you can find the only Nobu restaurant in the Middle East at the Atlantis Palm Jumeirah and soon they will be opening a hotel in Abu Dhabi by 2014.

For those who don’t know, Nobu is an upmarket Japanese restaurant chain which is part-owned by Robert De Niro and is one of the premier luxury lifestyle brands in the world created by the celebrity chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa. Basically, the world’s best Japanese restaurant.

“You can tell how much fun a city is going to be if Nobu has a restaurant in it.” – Madonna

“Nobu is the world’s hippest restaurant chain.” – Vogue

“The world’s sexiest restaurant” – The Observer

 Here are some of the photos of Nobu at the Atlantis.

This is something very interesting.

Unlike their American counterparts, Soviet cosmonauts went into space armed. Specifically, they carried the TP-82, pictured above. It had three barrels, the top two which fired approximately 40 gauge shotgun rounds. The lower barrel was chambered for the 5.45×39mm rifle round. If that didn’t do the job, there was a machete built into the stock — just in case….

Why did the cosmonauts carry this gun? It wasn’t to fight off aliens, but protect themselves from human threats if they landed in unfriendly territory at the end of their missions.

This gun was used until 2006, when it was replaced with a standard semi-automatic handgun.

[Link]

Recently FBI released this memo that was sent to their director in 1950 describing the crash of three ‘flying saucers‘ and the recovery of alien bodies from the New Mexico desert.

Check out the Official FBI Record Vault

CB Richard Ellis released their 2011 edition of “How Global is the Business of Retail?” in which they mapped the global footprint of 323 of the world’s top retailers across 73 countries to identify trends in global retail expansion.

• Kuwait ranked 13th on the world’s most international retail market same as in 2010.
• Kuwait also ranked 13th on the most popular retail city in the world, one place up than 14th last year.
• Kuwait got the 3rd spot on the top five markets in the Middle East with the presence of 43% of European retailers. Dubai came in first with 63% and Riyadh followed with 45%.
• Kuwait also came in at 3rd position as one of the countries that attracted the most new retailers with six new entrants in 2010 shared by UAE, Ireland, Romania and Belgium. India came in first with 8 new retailers, followed by Turkey with seven.

The results seem pretty good since Kuwait tied with Singapore for the ‘Most International Retail Market’ outranking countries like Belgium, Japan, Canada and Switzerland. And for the ‘Most Targeted Retail Destination’ Kuwait tied with Berlin and Istanbul and beat major cities like Milan, Munich, Las Vegas and Miami.

Download the full report [Here].

If anyone’s looking to make last minute plans for Valentine’s Day, here’s a look at some of the dinner specials at various restaurants and hotels as well as ideas for Valentine’s Day gifts.

Read more »

The Sultan Group will be opening a third ‘Pizzetta’ as well as a brand new restaurant concept called ‘Pickles’ to be developed by Thomas Klein Intl, the Dubai-based hotel and restaurant consultants, for their food and beverage division, Epicure Group.

Pizzetta’s new outlet design will be based on the existing concept but it will feature a few unique twists.

Pickles will be a ‘gastro burger joint’ serving burgers and sliders based on the concept of home-made pickles and radishes served as traditional condiments. It will be a very different concept from the existing burger joints in Kuwait by having their main focus on the freshness of the ingredients. It will showcase the actual process of making French fries including the cleaning, portioning, and blanching of the potatoes. Diners will also be able to see their freshly-baked buns baking in the oven and the menu will include a maximum of 15 to 20 burgers along with 5 to 10 appetizers and 10 kinds of home-made pickles and relishes.

Both the outlets will be located next to each other in the previous venue occupied by Tumbleweed in Al Bidaa.

Hotel Missoni Kuwait is on schedule to have their soft opening on March 1 to unveil the hotel to the public and an official launch will be held in summer attended by the lead designer Rosita Missoni. The hotel’s decor features Missoni’s trademark stripes and flamboyant colors and it will also include a Six Senses Spa.

It is located on the Salem AlMubarak street connected to the Symphony Mall opposite the American University of Kuwait. Prices for the rooms are expected to start from KD125 a night and guests can also expect to be chaperoned in a Maserati limo. Sweet.

Here is the [Article] and [First pictures: inside the Hotel Missoni Kuwait]

The last remaining Internet service provider in Egypt, the Noor Group, shut down today four days after the Internet blackout on Friday. The cell phone service was back on Saturday but the text messaging services have been disrupted. Looks like the Egyptian government really wants to keep its people and the world in dark.

Google Inc. developed a new speak-to-tweet service over the weekend to help the Egyptians be heard by using just a voice connection. They worked with a small team of enginners from Twitter, Google and SayNow and the service is now live with no Internet connection required.

Anyone can tweet by dialing one of these three phone numbers: +1-650-4194196, +390662207294, or +97316199855 and leaving a voicemail message and the service will instantly tweet the message using the #Egypt hashtag. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.