Social Slave

I was surprised to read in the news that the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fish Resources (PAAFR) are planning to build a safari-style zoo in Jahra. It’s about time they realized that the Omariya zoo is extremely old fashioned and in a terrible state. They’re still studying the best layout for the new safari zoo though but it will be sixteen times the size of the current one and like a drive-thru safari adventure where the animals will roam freely and you will be able to explore through it by car or specially designed trains. They are even planning to turn the old place into an aquarium or an insect zoo probably.

Hope this project turns out as interesting as it sounds and goes through soon enough.

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One of our readers emailed us that The Avenues Mall management published a notice on the front page of Al-Rai newspaper that no one is allowed to mention, talk about or post pictures of The Avenues Mall, the company or the logo without getting written permission from the management. This goes to any form of text or visual advertising, through the internet, social networking or mobile phones.

This is weird, how do they plan on restricting the thousands of mall visitors from mentioning about “The Mall” in their regular social networking life? I guess it will just fade away like their “No Smoking” policy pretty soon.

Thanks Eman

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Two days ago a teenager damaged the extremely expensive orange glass chandelier (which is about half a million KD) at 360 Mall by throwing his Crocs sandal at it. No one know why he did it and when he was questioned for it he said that “he didn’t expect the action to be strong enough to knock the huge chandelier to the ground”.

I was just reading on Kuwait Times that the mall management charged the kid with damage to the property but they are considering dropping the charges. Why would they drop the charges? There has to be some sort of punishment for the recklessness.

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A driver in Hawally got a ticket for having his car impounded for two months because he had ‘bad breath’! Is personal hygiene on the list of traffic violations now? What about the serious offenses like reckless driving, arrogance, road rage, eve teasing and all other insanities we see on the road everyday? These kind of traffic violators should have their cars impounded and licenses revoked rather than regular people with personal hygiene issues that don’t really cause road accidents.

Police sources said they were extremely surprised by the ticket but did not know what to do and whether the bad mouth smell warranted the seizure of the car for two months. They were also more shocked when they learned that the police man complained that he was harmed by the smell.

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Update: The MOI is saying the photo was doctored and no such citation was issued. [Link]

Back in April I had posted about the Kingdom Tower which would soon be the world’s tallest skyscraper in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Well they just released the official design by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture which is quite different than the initial one.

Read more about the project [Here].

This is a short video clip I found on YouTube which is CNN’s report on the 1st day of the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990. I still remember that morning quite clearly. My parents had traveled to London at midnight and we were staying with our grandmother. No one went to work and we were confused as to what’s going on when one of our aunts told us that Iraq has invaded Kuwait and there is a war going on. Later we found out that soon after Mom’s plane took off, the next BA flight was held by the Iraqi forces.

Mom was frantic in London and we were scared here in Kuwait. The Iraqi troops made small bunkers in the empty ground behind our building, we could hear gun fire and helicopters and we were forbidden to go near the windows. Somehow our family managed to get out of Kuwait in a minibus all the way through Iraq and then to Jordan where we finally met our parents.

I remember I wrote a diary about the whole journey even though I was little and I’m going to try to dig it out of the boxes and maybe post a few entries later.

[Here] is the link to our earlier post on the photographs taken by Adel Al-Yousifi as evidence of the destruction left behind by the Iraqis.

Hamleys, one of the world’s largest toy shops from London is finally going to open up in Kuwait within the next 6 to 12 months. The Gulf franchise partner, Retail Arabia Company has confirmed this and it’s about time too since Dubai has had two store openings in the past three years.

I hope they have a huge Lego collection here like their flagship store in London which is going to make Hash very happy.

There is a bit of confusion going on about the Azkals goalkeeper being lasered in Kuwait. It’s being said that a Kuwaiti fan was directing a laser pointer at the Azkals goalkeeper Neil Etheridge to distract his vision. The image above looks like it could have been photoshopped and besides how come the goalkeeper didn’t complain about it right then?

Read more about it [Here], [Here] and [Here].

McDonald’s is trimming their Happy Meal to make it more ‘healthier’. Well it is a first tiny step since the changes are not that big really. The new Happy Meals will roll out in April 2012 and will have half portion of the fries and few small slices of apple by default and a choice of low-fat chocolate or white milk. Customers can still get all fries or all apples if they choose and soda also remains an option. The toy stays too in spite of all the heat they’ve been getting for attracting kids to junk food.

Here’s the change in the nutritional information IF the customers go for the split portion of apples and fries with low fat milk:

 
They have also planned to reduce 15% sodium by 2015 and cut sodium, added sugars, saturated fats and calories by 2020. But all this change is ONLY for their US restaurants and menus in response to Michelle Obama’s action against childhood obesity. What about the rest of the world? Obesity in Kuwait is one of the highest in the world with about 80% either overweight or obese. If they are making a healthier change, shouldn’t it be for everyone?

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This year we’re going to have the longest day of Ramadan in 26 years because the fasting time will be more than 15 hours long in the first ten days and will gradually go down to a little more than 14 hours towards the end. It is also going to be the hottest month of summer with temperatures between 45-50 degrees. So we are going to see tempers flaring, traffic jamming and hunger striking at the drop of a hat which is going to be the real challenge of practicing patience and tolerance.

The only good news is that it is more likely going to be a dust-free month. So brace yourselves everyone and stay cool and calm.

Image Courtesy Lucie Debelkova