The Fires of Kuwait Documentary الفيلم الوثائقي: حرائق الكويت

May 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

 

 

There is a new documentary called Fearless Encounters, and it’s about the Fires of Kuwait that happened right after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, when the Iraqi Army burned Kuwaiti oil fields during their retreat and surrender of Kuwait.

The documentary is almost an hour-long, and is made mostly of never before seen footage. I personally remember the fires (and their subsequent pollution) first hand, as me and my family had stayed in Kuwait during the whole invasion period. The whole of Kuwait was covered by dark smoke all day and night. Noon and early afternoon looked more like twilight and dawn, than bright day light days.

The fires and their heavy smokes were very much a huge part of our lives during the months after the liberation, but they still were the heaviest and darkest the closer you got to the oil fields.

I remember driving up to the Chale area just a few weeks after the invasion, and we could literally see the smoke and darkness get thicker by the minute as we get closer to the chales. We were there around early afternoon and spent only a couple of hours tops there, but ever since we crossed Fahaheel\Ahmadi, the place was too dark to navigate without lights or masks. And in addition to the dark and the smoke, the whole beach was dug into trenches and underground bunkers. The whole scene was heartbreaking, Kuwait was destroyed in a very savage way.

Almost everyone said that the oil fires would take years to put out, so everyone in Kuwait felt very proud and patriotic when the fires were put out in just 8-9 months. This documentary shows the hard work the firefighters and engineers put in to accomplish this patriotic work.

It opens in Kuwait on thursday the 10th of May, across all KNCC\Cinescape cinemas:

Fearless Encounters is a new documentary film honoring the Kuwaiti Oil Firefighting Team. The film was never edited or released until 2011. Shot 20 years ago by the Kuwaiti filmmaker, Talal Showaish-Salem, who spent 6 weeks with the team in the horrific inferno. Telling the inside untold story of the Kuwaiti oil firefighters’ heroic Fearless Encounters .

When the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was forced out of Kuwait by the world coalition forces in February 1991, out of spite and hatred he ordered his defeated retreating army to blow up all Kuwaitis” oil wells. More than 650 oil wells were on fire for 8 months, burning on average 6 million barrels of oil P/Day. In total, more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil was burnt.

The Kuwaiti firefighting team started 180 days after the main 4 world famous, American and Canadian oil firefighting teams. The Kuwaiti team overwhelmed the world by their unmatched speed in killing the fiercest oil well fires, reaching temperatures of 2000C. Against all bets, the Kuwaitis managed to extinguish the biggest well in Kuwait BG160, which was burning 60,000 barrels of oil per day. With their speed and relentless enthusiasm, they ignited the competitive spirit amongst all the other firefighting teams, which lead to extinguishing all the fires in 7 months only, compared to the initial world expert predictions of 5 years.

Filed under Kuwait, Movie, Politics, Problems, Trailers

Self Help Courses دورات تدريبية في علم النفس

May 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Click [here] for more details.

Filed under Personal, Problems, Tips & Solutions

The Biting Beast: My Saved Street Kitty

May 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I found a small tiny kitten wondering the streets of Salmiya, so I decided to rescue her and take her in. She was only 6 weeks old, and weighed under a half kilo, and was basically was starving on the streets. Two weeks later, under our care, she managed to gain 400 grams, and now weighs close to 900 grams.

However, the problem with her is that she’s aggressive. She bites and scratches all the time. Us, my other cat (eight years old), stuffed toys. You name it, she fights with it. Fight is not the word. She jumps on you, clutches to you like a monkey with those pointy claws, and then bites you legs and arms like she was biting onto a succulent turkey leg.

I’m trying to train her, because she’ll ultimately be an indoor house cat. But I seriously doubt that’ll ever happen. I don’t think I can stand any more injuries. She’s cute and all, as you can see in this vid, but she’s also scary and fierce with sharp pain causing claws, which you can clearly see in the pics. For now, I’m keeping her. But I might need someone to adopt her in a few weeks.

Filed under Cute, Personal, Pets, Problems

Mohammad Hayef and the Ministry of Interior

April 28, 2012 by 2 Comments

You might have noticed the news reporting of increased raids on parties and drinking in Kuwait, on the hands of Al-Maba7eth and the M.O.Interior. The latest happened just this night, when a huge corporate party held in Olympia was busted.

Twitter and news agencies made it sound like it was a lurid party, where all kinds of satanic actions and frolicking is happening; not that it really was just a private corporate party. I would say logic prevents organizers from supporting illegal stuff like that, let alone to do it in public.

It’s great that the police are cracking crime like they’re doing these days, there’s definitely nothing wrong about that. In fact, it should be the case all year round: to crack crime and bust criminals.

But when the process becomes highly selective, concentrating police efforts on a very few (usually drinking, gambling, and sex)  crimes, then the process becomes a little questionable. We have other more serious crimes out there.

Al-Qabas newspaper mentioned, back in Jan 2010, that more than 80 thousand court verdicts were still outstanding, that the offenders are still free at large. Do you know how much 80 thousand people is? Do you think that all of them have secret hideouts where they can escape the eyes of the police? Don’t you think having more than 80 thousand verdicts and rulings outstanding and not fulfilled diminishes people’s sense of justice and righteousness?

So instead of listening to the threats of the likes of Hayef and his pals, shouldn’t the M.O.Interior focus on other more serious kinds of crime and prevention? Like better monitoring of traffic, patrolling neighborhoods, putting more police at malls and other crowded places? Catching those 80 thousand runaways?

Filed under Kuwait, News, Politics, Problems

Misbehaving in Movie Theaters

April 18, 2012 by 6 Comments

I went to see the Hunger Games movie last night. The movie opened up a few weeks ago, but I only decided to see it yesterday. So on my way back home from the gym, I opened up Cinescape’s iPhone app, checked if it was still on, and booked myself a ticket for the 10 o’clock show.

I’m not a movies lover. Part of it is the boredom & quietness, another part is getting stuck there with friends if the movie is bad, and a huge part is due to other people’s behavior and rudeness. My experience last night pretty much sums up why I hate going to places like movies, malls on weekends, or any other crowded place.

I find most people rude and ill-mannered, especially if you cram them together in closed or tight spaces. They just turn to wild obnoxious creatures. They start to forget their manners and civility, and begin to think that their behavior will go unnoticed among all the noisy masses around them.

My horrible experience last night is because of the rude loud people sitting in row C, seats 3-12. It was a mixed middle aged husband\wife lebanese or Syrian group. The men were the loud ones, though the ladies were quite chatty too. I don’t mind a couple quietly whispering or laughing, I honestly don’t care about such stuff. But last night was different.

The men, in seats 3 & 4 were talking (in outdoor voices) to everyone else in their row. Chatting away, commenting, laughing; just as if they were sitting in their backyard shouting to someone away from them. You don’t usually see such behavior from grownup mature people, and definitely not from a group who looks married or in relationships. The whole group laughed, talked to each other, and pretty much socialized in the middle of the movie; like a bunch of teens on the prowl to catch the opposite sex’s attention and attraction.

I’m not saying that they talked for the whole two-hours the movie was showing, but they definitely talked a lot and over and over again, very loudly and without concern to nearby people.

Obviously I wish I had said something. I wish that Cinescape had a night manager to deal with these things. I wish the ushers had more authority in directly dealing with people like these. I think I wish, the most, that I hadn’t went to the movies in the first place.

I didn’t have a problem in telling them to stay quite. But with the way they were yapping, I would’ve more likely told them to shut the hell up. I also could’ve thrown my icy drink on the obnoxious dude. I also could’ve repeatedly kicked the lady in the seat in front of me, to see how she likes that.

See what happens when you misbehave in public? You open yourself to all kinds of fair actions, including verbal blows. I personally was thinking of going combat vocal on you guys last night. Why put yourselves in silly situations like these?

My request goes to Cinescape. I bet you have this group’s reservation details on record, I saw their reserved seats when I was booking my own ticket, which probably means they did it online. Maybe you can try and call them, inform them that you’re aware they were loud and disturbing others, and that you expect them to behave in much better fashion next time.

That would be so lovely. Btw, I was sitting far and away in row B seat 10, but I still was disturbed by their noise.

Filed under KNCC, Movie, Personal, Problems

Millions of Tires Are on Fire in Jahra حريق كبير بالجهرا

April 17, 2012 by 6 Comments

 

Update: According to FroyoNation, it looks like the fire was arson:

وتشير المعلومات الأولية إلى تدخل أيادٍ عابثة بإشعال النيران، حيث أن مكان اشتعال النيران جاء بمنتصف الإطارات ومن ثم بعض الزوايا

Many politicians and enviromentalists warned about the dangers of the five million abandend car tires in Jahra area. They’ve repeatedly warned that Kuwait will face a huge polution catastrophe if the tires ever catch fire and burn.

Well, what they were afraid of happened tonight. The tires caught fire a few hours ago. The fire is already very huge, and the Fire Dept. has asked both the Army and the KOC for immediate help.

Al-Qabas has tweeted the the fire is 70 feet high and can be seen from 15 kilometers away, and that, in the next hour, the thick smoke will be seen from as far as 70 kilometers away.

Pics from Al-Watan.

Filed under Kuwait, News, Problems

How an AIDS Infected Housemaid in Kuwait Ended Up in Saudi

April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

  

خادمة الإيدز الهاربة في السعودية ضربت أسرة في الكويت

وقع خبر إصابة خادمة أثيوبية هاربة من منزل كفيلها في السعودية بالإيدز، كالصاعقة على أسرة كويتية تقيم في منطقة صباح السالم، حيث إن الخادمة عملت لديها لمدة عامين، واكتشفت الأسرة إصابة طفلين بالمرض.
وفي التفاصيل قالت “الرأي” الكويتية: إنها تلقت اتصالاً من أسرة كويتية في منطقة السالمية، وذلك عقب نشر الصحيفة، خبر الخادمة الذي حذر فيه سعودي من إيواء الخادمة المصابة بالإيدز وعمّم صورتها على الهواتف النقالة ومواقع التواصل الاجتماعي،
وحسب الصحيفة، فقد اتصلت مواطنة كويتية بالصحيفة وقالت عن الخادمة: “إنها ريديا، ريديا خليل حسين التي عملت خادمة عندنا مدة عامين وتعلقت بها حفيدتاي الصغيرتان، وهما الآن تعانيان مرض نقص المناعة (الإيدز) بأنواعه الثلاثة، ولا أعرف إن كانت البنتان الصغيرتان قد التقطتا المرض من ريديا، ولكننا الآن بتنا نعيش حالة من القلق عليهما وعلى جميع أفراد العائلة، بعدما عرفنا بإصابتها بالمرض القاتل”.
وروت المواطنة عن مخاوفها ومخاوف أفراد أسرتها من التوجه لعرض أنفسهم على الأطباء وإجراء فحوصات لمعرفة إن كانت عدوى الإيدز انتقلت إليهم عبر اختلاطهم بالخادمة ريديا، خصوصاً أنها كانت تضمد جراحها (الخادمة) أثناء عملها في المطبخ، وقالت: “بصراحة نحن خايفين خايفين”.
وعن المكتب الذي استقدمت من خلاله الخادمة الأثيوبية ريديا، ردت المواطنة قائلة: “أخذتها من مكتب الخدم في حولي وكانت مرتجعة وسبق لها أن عملت لدى عائلة أخرى فترة من الوقت قبل قدومها للعمل لدينا، وحول مكتب الخدم إقامتها من كفيلها السابق إلينا من دون أن يزودنا بملفها الطبي أو نتائج الفحوصات التي أجرتها يوم قدمت للعمل في الكويت”.
وأضافت أن “ريديا كانت حنونة جداً على حفيدتي الصغيرتين البالغتين من العمر (6 و 7 سنوات) واللتين أصيبتا بمرض نقص المناعة، ولا نعرف إن كانت هي السبب في إصابتهما أم لا حتى الآن، وحنانها عليهما دفعهما إلى التعلق بها، حيث كانتا لا تنامان إلا في حضنها، وكانتا شديدتي التعلق بها”.
وتابعت: “وفي يناير الماضي أبلغتنا (ريديا) أنها تريد العودة إلى بلدها أثيوبيا لإكمال دراستها، فشجعناها على ذلك وقمنا بواجبنا في تسهيل أمور سفرها، خصوصاً أنها عائدة إلى أهلها”.
وزادت: “وبعد مضي شهر على مغادرتها تلقينا اتصالاً هاتفياً مصدره السعودية، وإذ بريديا تتصل من هناك، ولدى سؤالنا عن سبب وجودها في السعودية، علماً أنها كانت أخبرتنا أنها لا تريد العمل من أجل إكمال دراستها، أفصحت عن هروبها من والدها الذي يريد تزويجها بالقوة، ولم تعد إلى الكويت بحكم أن شقيقتها تعمل فيها وينوون قتلها”.
ومضت المواطنة الكويتية: “تمنينا الخير لريديا حتى فوجئنا يوم الجمعة الماضي بالخبر الذي نشرته (الرأي) عن تحذير كفيل سعودي من إيواء خادمته التي هربت من منزله إثر معرفتها بنتائج الفحوصات التي أجريت لها في السعودية والتي دلت على أنها مصابة بمرض نقص المناعة المكتسبة (الإيدز)، وحين قرأنا الخبر وشاهدنا صورتها حلت بنا صدمة وقلق، وسارعنا إلى الاتصال برقم الهاتف السعودي الذي كنا لا نزال نحتفظ به لترد علينا زوجة الكفيل السعودي قائلة: نعم هربت بعد اكتشافنا أمر إصابتها بالإيدز”. المصدر

The story first broke when Al-Rai newspaper posted about the AIDS infected housemaid of Saudi Arabia, whose sponsors had posted her picture via social network sites to warn people about her decease.

The shocker is that someone in Kuwait recognized her picture. It turned out that the housemaid has previsouly worked for  few years in Kuwait, and might have possibly infected two young girls with AIDS\HIV. The girls are confirmed to have AIDS, most possibly through the housemaid.

Filed under Death, Kuwait, Problems, Saudi Arabia

How an Iraqi Father Disciplines His Kids

March 27, 2012 by 5 Comments

This is just brutal. Our kids should see this to know how great they’ve got it.

Filed under Kids, Problems

Is This Apology Enough or Acceptable?

March 26, 2012 by 4 Comments

 

The Kuwait Shooting Sports Federation played Borat’s fake Kazakhstan’s national anthem during the medal distribution ceremony a few days back.

That made Kuwait pop, in all the wrong and embarrassing ways, in every international media venue from the NY Times to CNN. The fake anthem was offensive, vulgar, and probably a direct insult to Kazak people.

The Kuwait Shooting Sports Federation saw this as an honest mistake, and issued the following apology:

The Organizing committee of the International shooting grand prix issued a statement saying “the national anthem of the friendly country of Kazakhstan was mistakenly played. The committee gave an official apology to the Kazakh delegation of the tournament, and the national anthem was replayed correctly. The Organizing Committee of the International GrandPrix expresses its utter regret for this unintentional mistake and reaffirms its great respect to the brothers and friends from the Kazakhstan republic, also affirms the deep sports relations between Kazakh and Kuwait Shooting Federations [from KSSF's twitter account].

There is no mention on how the fake anthem got played, who was responsible, why no one stopped it while it played (even though the words were clearly inappropriate, and if the person involved got punished. I’m no Kazak, but I still don’t see how this apology is enough for anyone, especially considering that it was played in an official ceremony.

Filed under Kuwait, National, Problems, Sport

Volunteer to End the Strikes in Kuwait

March 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

كلنا لها

نحن مجموعة من أبناء الكويت لا يوجهنا أو يحركنا سوى حبنا لهذه الأرض و حرصنا على مصلحتها و نؤمن إيمان مطلق بحرية التعبير عن الرأي بأي طريقة كفلها الدستور و عززتها القوانين كالإضراب أو الإعتصام بما لا يتعدى على مصالح المواطنين

و من منطلق حرصنا على خدمة الوطن و بذل كل ما بإستطاعتنا لخدمته و تطبيقا لمواد الدستور التي توجب علينا الحفاظ على المصلحة العامة و التكافل و التضامن في تحمل الأعباء فإننا نعلن عن إستعدادنا التام و في أي وقت و من أي موقع تسعفنا فيه قدراتنا البسيطة لتلبية إحتياجات أي قطاع من قطاعات الدولة لسد النقص الوظيفي إن وجد واضعين بذلك كل ما نملكه من طاقة و جهد رهن خدمة الكويت و إستهدافا لمصلحتها و حمايتها من أي ضرر

هذا و الله ولي التوفيق

حملة “كلنا لها”

الكويت في 17 مارس 2012

We’ve all seen the “Kelna Laha” campaign on Twitter during the past few days. It’s a campaign that’s trying to organize volunteers to help with the delayed work of the strikers in Kuwait, like the Customs and Kuwait Airways.

You can get more information and on how to register by visiting their website [here], or by sending an sms to 50004455.

Filed under Community, Kuwait, Problems

← Older posts