Social Slave

According to the UN’s Financial Tracking Service, Arab states donated very little to UN’s emergency fund for the evacuation of 5,000 civilians from Misrata and emergency medical aid for people trapped in other towns in western Libya.

Kuwait is the only Arab nation in the top 25 contributors which has donated $1 million, 0.8% of the total.

The biggest donor is the US, which has pledged $32.1 million. Second was the European Commission, pledging $17 million. Britain contributes around 12% of the European Union budget.

The UN figures show that “Others” – which could include other coalition members including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – have collectively pledged only $944,000.

Considering Kuwait’s recent decision to donate five million barrels of oil worth over 550 million dollars to Japan as an expression of solidarity with the earthquake and tsunami struck nation, it definitely fits the bill as The Good Samaritan of the Middle East.

[Link]

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]

Back in February I had posted about the first Kuwaiti woman to set foot in Antartica. Well she returned home last month and held a press conference yesterday to describe her expedition and experience at the South Pole.

Maryam Al-Joaan was the first Kuwaiti woman on the Antarctica expedition ‘Students on Ice’ as a representative of Kuwait Science Club and sponsored by VIVA as part of their social responsibilities for supporting ambitious Kuwaiti youth.

You can check out her [Blog] and [Facebook Page] about her journey and experiences on the Antarctic Peninsula with some pretty interesting photographs.

[Link]

Dow’s Marine Conservation Program was launched on Saturday April 16th  in partnership with K’S PATH with the Sulaibikhat beach clean-up and they collected a surprising 280 kg of trash in 4 hours covering about 6,000 square meters of the shoreline! That’s a lot of trash which included loads of plastic bottles littering the beach. The trash was put into biodegradable bags and then sorted for recycling.

What’s wrong with the people? I can’t even imagine what Kuwait would look like if it wasn’t for the ‘Tokais’.

[Link]

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.

Richard Branson is going to put on a sexy red AirAsia female flight attendant uniform on May 1st for a 13-hour London – Kuala Lumpur flight after losing a bet with AirAsia’s owner Tony Fernandes. The two of them had gambled over whose F1 racing team would finish higher at the 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix – Branson’s Virgin Racing or Fernandes’s Team Lotus and whoever lost would have to serve as a flight attendant on the other’s airline.

Branson’s gonna have to shave his legs since Fernandes’ airline doesn’t allow “hairy stewardesses” but he can keep his beard though. He’ll be serving meals and drinks to Tony Fernandes and 250 other passengers. Besides, this is not the first time that Branson would be dressing as a woman. He wore a white wedding dress for the launch of Virgin Brides in 1996 which doesn’t exist anymore.

Both airlines bosses came up with the idea of a party in the sky with live music and entertainment. A total of 160 seats are being sold for a charity of Branson’s choice at £4500 (about $6300) each and he’s being positive about the stunt since he’ll be able to get some promotion for AirAsia X in which he has a 20% stake.

Anyone interested in joining the party can book one of the three packages being offered on [AirAsiaGo.com].

The Kingdom Holding Company in Saudi Arabia are set to build the world’s tallest building leaving Burj Khalifa in Dubai look really short next to it. This tower is going to be a Mile High!

Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, head of Kingdom Holding Company recently gave his approval for construction of what will be billed as the world’s tallest man-made structure — the Kingdom Tower.

Designed by Adrian Smith, the Kingdom Tower will be built in Saudi Arabia’s city of Jeddah. The tower will stretch one mile up into heavens and include 12 million cubic feet of space, several stories of office space, several stories for a hotel and four tiers of residential space, with the upper most tier reserved for “alternative energy generation” solutions (perhaps including a pendulum to keep the entire tower from collapsing).

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Several shocking billboards popped up in Dubai’s busy roads stating that May 21, 2011 will be the ‘judgment day’ according to the Bible. The Dubai Municipality is having them removed because of their sensitive nature and contradiction with the Islamic religion. These advertisements were actually put up by a Christian organization based in California called Family Radio whose leader, Harold Camping, calculated this date which is apparently hidden in the Bible.

Family Radio’s media representatives, Marie Sheahan and her husband, came to Dubai to advertise and “warn people about it, regardless of nationality, religion or anything else because this will affect everybody”. They said they were doing this because they were commanded in the Bible to warn people. These ‘judgment day’ rumors are spreading all across the US in a mobile campaign called Project Caravan and CNN has the coverage [Here].

Read the full story [Here].

Mariam Al Joaan will attempt to become the first Kuwaiti woman to set foot in Antarctica this week. She is representing Kuwait Science Club Forum (KSCF) among a team of 90 scientists, researchers and students from around the world taking part in the scientific mission in Antarctica on February 14-28.

She said she hopes to be able to put up the national flag in Antarctica on February 25 -26 to coincide with Kuwait’s National Day.

While reading about the two upcoming restaurants by Sultan’s Epicure Group, I came across another one of their restaurants that is supposed to open early this year – Butcher’s Den – also designed by Thomas Klein International and Chicago architectural office PS Studio.  I was quite amazed to read about the design concept behind this steakhouse that celebrates the ‘food chain’ – the sourcing, the aging and the carving of quality meat.  It will be located in Al Bidaa as well.

The design will feature many unique and unusual elements like a wall that pays tribute to Andy Warhol’s famous Cow Wallpaper, a ‘live grass’ wall, a 7-metre high glass aging room where the meat is hung in a refrigerated environment for the natural ageing process to improves the meat’s tenderness and flavor, a porcelain ‘cow parade’ on the upper level, a theatre kitchen and a private teaching room where Chef Ahmed Al Bader, the Director of Culinary Development for the Epicure Group, will personally take participants on an extraordinary gastronomical tour.

It will definitely be a treat for the meat lovers to experience being the end of the food chain that devours it all!

Read the details about the design [here]