Iraqi Airways Resumes Flights to Kuwait for First Time Since Saddam Hussein's 1990 Invasion

 

An Iraqi Airways flight landed in Kuwait on Wednesday for the first time since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of the tiny emirate as the neighboring states try to repair more than two decades of strained relations.

Government ministers from both countries were on hand for the ceremonial landing at the international airport in Kuwait City shortly before noon.

Iraq's Transportation Ministry spokesman, Karim al-Nouri, said the flight will open "important horizons for cooperation based on brotherhood" with Kuwait. Passenger demand will determine the number of flights in the future, he said.

In January, Kuwait's parliament approved a deal under which Baghdad will pay $500 million in compensation to Kuwait's national carrier for damages caused during the Iraqi occupation. The accord seeks to end a long-running dispute over reparations for Kuwait Airways.

The disagreement had centered on Kuwait's accusations that Saddam's regime stole 10 airplanes and millions of dollars' worth of equipment and spare parts during the invasion. Kuwait earlier wanted $1.2 billion in reparations, which Iraq's postwar leaders resisted.

The chairman and managing director of Kuwait Airways Corp., Captain Sami al-Nisf, said all outstanding issues between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi carriers have been completely and fully resolved, Kuwait's state news agency reported. He suggested that there could be interest in Kuwait resuming flights to Baghdad, but an aircraft shortage hinders those plans for now.

Although the airline dispute appears settled, there are other disputes over war reparations between the two nations.

LWDLIK- I have such mixed feelings about this. Be interesting to hear how Kuwaitis are feeling.



 

One World Presents Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

'New Blues For Piano' performed by Marcel Worms

The Embassy of the Kingdom the Netherlands in Kuwait & Kuwait Chamber
Philharmonia presents New Blues For Piano a performance by Marcel Worms at 

Radisson Blu Hotel, Hashemi Ballroom on March 7, 2013.

Tickets are KD 8 available at Radisson Blu Hotel, tel.25673000
for more information: www.kuwaitcp.com

The 4th Green Caravan Film Festival

For Schedule www.greencaravan.com

Location

KUWAIT VENUE
Bayt Lothan
Salmiya Kuwait
Tel. +965 2575 5866
www.baytlothan.org

 

Hollywood Watch Out for This Talented Stunt Driver in Kuwait

These pics were sent to me by a friend who happened across this very 'talented' stunt driver in Mangaf, Kuwait just 3 days ago. Amazing! Apparently he was driving very slowly and had great control of the vehicle even going over the bumps in the road!

 



 

Ummm..What is that going around the corner?

 

 

Happy National & Liberation Day from Me and Google

L'Occitane Avenues Celebrates Early with a Saxophonist, Games and Giveaways

 
 

Al Sadu Children's Workshop

'Reviewing the Situation' by Hassan Rawas from Staged in Kuwait's MM8 Musical

Viva 512 Playstation Football Tournament

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kuwait 512 in association with VIVA Telecom, are proud to announce the VIVA 512 PlayStation Football Tournament to be hosted at 360 Mall Exhibition Hall on March 21st to March 23rd 2013
Online registration started on: www.512kuwait.com

Auditions for the Sensational 'Seussical the Musical' at Staged in Kuwait

SiK will be ending their first season with the hugely popular musical based on the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss. Seussical is a musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty based on the books of Dr. Seuss that debuted on Broadway in 2000. The play’s story is an amalgamation of many of Seuss’s most famous books. After a Broadway run, the production spawned two US national tours and a UK tour. Auditions for the production will be held during the first week of March (exact dates and times to be posted soon) at the SiK Studio in Fintas. We are casting for a whole range of wonderful characters with parts for all ages and abilities. Principal characters are as follows: •  The Cat in the Hat – The mischievous, imaginative, comedic narrator of the show. The Cat acts as a mentor to Jojo throughout the play. The Cat also plays several other characters in the story, including the Bailiff in “The People vs. Horton The Elephant,” Jose the pool boy in “Mayzie in Palm Beach,” Doctor Dake in “Amazing Gertrude,” a piano player, an auctioneer, and others. • Horton the Elephant – A thinker, the outsider, caring, gentle, main character. He tries to protect the Whos and care for the egg Mayzie leaves behind even though the animals think he is crazy. He and Gertrude become the parents of the elephant-bird. • JoJo – A thinker, the child of The Mayor and Mrs. Mayor, gets into trouble for thinking. He and Horton bond over the fact that they are outcasts because of what they do (Horton protecting the Whos and Jojo’s “thinks”). He is appreciated in the end. • Gertrude McFuzz – The loyal bird-neighbor of Horton, she loves him but is shy due to having only one feather for a tail. Horton eventually falls for her and she becomes the mother of the elephant bird in the end. • Mayzie LaBird – A vivacious and vain bird who tells Gertrude to take pills so her tail will grow longer, forcing Horton to love her (Gertrude). She is the mother of the elephant-bird Horton and Gertrude adopt but she abandons him and goes to Palm Beach. • The Mayor of Whoville – The Mayor of Whoville and the father of JoJo. • Mrs. Mayor – The Mayor’s wife and mother of JoJo. • Sour Kangaroo – The Leader of the Jungle that tells all that Horton is a fool for thinking there are people living on a dust speck. Also the mother of Young Kangaroo • General Genghis Khan Schmitz – The General of the Academy, leads JoJo to war. • The Bird Girls (3)– A type of Greek chorus of birds that are Mayzie’s friends. They often act as narrators when The Cat is absent. • The Wickersham Brothers (3)– Three mischievous monkeys who steal Horton’s clover from him. • Young Kangaroo – Sour Kangaroo’s baby. Can be played by a puppet attached to the Sour Kangaroo’s costume or a person. Does everything Sour Kangaroo does. Cameo characters • Yertle the Turtle – The Judge of the Jungle during the scene “The People Versus Horton the Elephant”. • The Grinch – Tells his famous Christmas tale • Vlad Vladikoff – Hired by the Sour Kangaroo to get rid of the Whos; steals the clover from Horton and drops it in a patch of clovers • Cindy Lou Who – Listens to the Grinch’s tale • Max the Dog – Acts in the Grinch’s tale Choruses • Hunches – Visual representations of Jojo’s thoughts or hunches • The Fish – The fish that Jojo imagines are in McElligot’s Pool • The Whos – An ensemble • The Jungle Creatures – An ensemble • The Hunters – They hunt and take Horton to the ship to the circus (sometimes doubled with the Wickersham Brothers) • Circus Performers – These are the acts from “Circus McGurkus This is sure to be one of the biggest, brightest and bounciest musicals to land in Kuwait for quite some time. We operate an open auditions policy meaning that everyone is welcome. Performances will be held mid to end May 2013. More info and details on www.stagedinkuwait.com

Super Brands Sale

CROWN PLAZA AL FARWANIYA - AL BARAKA BALL ROOM
FROM 21-24 FEBRUARY 2013

H&M and Mentor Arabia Anti-Drug Initiative Competition Win KD 500 for Your T-Shirt Slogan

 

 

H&M Middle East is proud to announce a collaboration with Mentor Arabia to promote the prevention of drug abuse in a T-shirt slogan competition! #hmMentorME

 

This partnership is part of H&M’s commitment and responsibility to strengthen communities and develop young people for a better future. The partnership also reflects H&M’s commitment to social responsibility in all its markets, including the Middle East.

 

The T-shirt slogan competition will be held in Mentor Arabia’s Facebook page, between the dates February 18-28, to encourage young people to express what keeps them motivated and drug free, now and in the future. The winning anti-drug slogan will be featured and produced on a cool T-shirt designed by H&M.

 

These one-off T-shirts, for both men and women, will be sold in the H&M store in Grand Avenue - The Avenues, Kuwait in April this year. The T-shirts will retail for 4.900KD and 50% of the sale proceeds will be donated to the work of Mentor Arabia. The first place winner will also receive a 500 KD gift voucher from H&M.

 

These H&M and Mentor Arabia T-shirts will communicate an important message about drug prevention and provide an engaging and creative way for youth to express themselves in regards to this issue and help influence their peers to develop healthy and positive lifestyles.

 

The second place winner will receive a 300KD gift voucher from H&M. The third place winner will receive a 150KD gift voucher from H&M. 

 

Please find the competition facebook application link below:

 

http://www.facebook.com/MentorArabiaOrganization/app_522006144506765

 

Twitter hashtag: #hmMentorME

 

 

 

 

 
LWDLIK - Love it!

National Day Celebrations in Kuwait: Fun & Games at Green Island 17-26 Feb

It's party time at Green Island KD 2.500 entry tickets (price per day all shows free). The events and activities will include 'The Crazy Dunkers Show', Kid's Circus Show, Dinosaur Park, Magic Show, Hanging Musicians Show, Sand Castle Building Contest, Marathon, Graffiti Contest, Quiz Shows, Religious Seminars and Meet and Greet Characters (Dora, Sponge Bob). There is a website (feb.kuwait.tt) mentioned but as usual nothing in English :O( or you can try calling 97259662 for more info (good luck with that).


 

History of the Bisht by Reyad Al Baghli at Sadu House

In this month of celebrating Kuwait's proud heritage and independence KTAA are
delighted to have Mr. Reyad Al Baghli speak about one of Kuwait's oldest trades started by his family more than 150 years ago. KTAA hopes you will join them on February 19th to learn about the history of the bisht, how and when to wear one and how the delicate gold braiding "zari" is woven into every bisht. 

The Al Baghli family roots come from the famous oasis area in Saudi Arabia called Al Ahsa. (As a side note it is one of the largest oasis in the world). At the time, most of all of the family members worked as traders and tailors of the bisht and Al Ahsa was the center of the bisht trade. They migrated to Kuwait in the 18th century. 

 The bisht trade was very popular everywhere in the Gulf Area especially in the island of Bahrain and villages along the coast. The Bisht was, and still is, considered traditional clothing for men. People in Kuwait and other Gulf countries used to criticize the man who did not wear a bisht. A man wearing a bisht was seen as a person of authority and respect. It was said in the old days that one Bisht was more valuable than all other items in the closet.

The Al Baghli family established a factory for making bishts which is considered the oldest factory in Kuwait and the family continued working this way until the 1950s.

As the country began slowly to modernize and more trades and job opportunities appeared in Kuwait, the number of the workers in the bisht trade started to decrease. But the founder of the company, the speaker's grandfather, was determined to keep the art of bisht making alive. And so it is that Mohammed Al Baghli, Reyad's father, and Reyad himself continue the proud tradition of bisht making in Kuwait.

Tuesday, 19th of February, 2013      at the Sadu House               Doors Open at 6:00pm for 6:30pm start    RSVP: wovenpieces @yahoo.com               or   SMS 9758 4757

Al Sadu House   Gulf Road in front of the National Museum Kuwait City, Kuwait

 

Bungee Jumping Event at Marina Crescent

Meteorite Impact Injures a Thousand in Russia

Fragments from a passing meteor hurt at least a thousand people in central Russia on Friday, according to news reports.



More than 200 children were among those injured in the Chelyabinsk region, Russia’s Interior Ministry told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
“Verified information indicates that this was one meteorite which burned up as it approached Earth and disintegrated into smaller pieces,” said Elena Smirnykh, deputy head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry press office, according to RIA Novosti. Warning that there could be a meteor shower, Russian authorities have cancelled school and told people to stay inside.
The meteor was likely moving at a speed in tens of kilometers a second, resulting in a “very, very violent event” that planetary scientist Marc Fries likened to “firing a rifle bullet into a swimming pool.”
The object’s size is still unknown, although some scientists suspect it may have been car-size.
On social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, video from central Russia showed a large ball of white streaking across the sky before crashing to Earth, appearing to send out a cloud of white light. Twitter lit up with news of the meteorite, with #RussianMeteor, #Chelyabinsk, and #meteor all trending on Friday morning.
“You can see in the videos that it glows brightly—it’s actually hotter than the melting point of stone at that point,” Fries, a research associate in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, said on Smithsonian’s website.
Meteorites this size are relatively rare, occurring about once a decade, he noted.
This video uploaded to YouTube contains the explosive sound of the meteorite’s shock wave:

Russia’s Internet and airwaves on Friday were swirling with rumors that the falling debris was evidence of an American weapons test.

In this frame grab made from a video done with a dashboard camera, on a highway from Kostanai, Kazakhstan, to Chelyabinsk region, Russia, provided by Nasha Gazeta newspaper, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 a meteorite contrail is seen. A meteor streaked across the sky of Russias Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring around 100 people, including many hurt by broken glass. Photograph by Nasha Gazeta, AP

What’s a Meteorite?
There are hundreds of thousands of asteroids roaming our solar system that are the size of the Russian meteorite, noted Tim Swindle, director of the Lunar and Planetary Lab at University of Arizona at Tuscon.
“What’s going on is you have this rock that’s happily orbiting the sun—from its point of view this morning a planet ran into it.”
At that moment, the asteroid slammed into our atmosphere at 10 or 20 times the speed of sound—becoming what’s called a meteor. The impact—like hitting a wall—causes air friction that heats the meteor’s surface, shedding melted material and sometimes breaking into smaller pieces. That shattering process is what causes the sonic boom, Swindle said.
Any resulting pieces that make it to the ground are called meteorites. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, fall into the ocean, or crash into vast, uninhabited deserts, but at least every month or two there are eyewitness reports of fragments falling from the sky, Swindle said.
The number of injuries—most of them not thought to be serious, according to CNN—is the highest in recorded history due to a meteorite, according to Michael D. Reynolds, adjunct astronomy professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville and author of the book Falling Stars: A Guide to Meteors and Meteorites.
The last and only known incident in which a meteorite injured a person occurred in 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama, when Ann Elizabeth Hodges was hit by a meteorite that crashed through her living room.
Meteorite hunters are likely headed to Russia this second, Reynolds and Swindle both noted—even though most of them are currently at a gem and mineral show taking place in Tucson. “A lot of tickets will be purchased to Moscow,” Swindle said.
Though it’s unclear how many pieces of the Russian meteorite ended up on the ground, Russian law allows any people who find meteorites to keep them.
Asteroid Flyby Today
The news came on the same day that an asteroid is expected to make its closest brush by Earth for an object of its size since astronomers started keeping records.
However, the Russian meteorite’s trajectory was “significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object,” according to NASA.
“Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite, and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14′s trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north,” the agency said.
(See: Asteroid to Make Closest Flyby in History.)
The office-building sized chunk of rock, known as 2012 DA14, will come closer to Earth than most orbiting communication and weather satellites, according to NASA.
Visible to some skywatchers in the Eastern Hemisphere, the asteroid will be at its closest at 19:24 UTC (2:24 p.m. EST/11:24 a.m. PST) as it flies over the eastern Indian Ocean.
Overall, planetary scientists are keeping a close eye on any asteroid big enough to cause widespread death and destruction on the scale that likely wiped out the dinosaurs, the University of Arizona’s Swindle said.

Courtesy of Nat Geo.

Say it Sweetly on Valentine's Day with Truly Scrumptious Deliciousness

www.trulyscrumptiouskuwait.com or call, msg, whatsapp 99380307

Octium Presents For The Love of Kuwait: Showcasing Exclusive Pieces by Kuwaiti Designers

And Now For Something Completely Different - The Peruvian Festival at JW Marriott

March 10-15 from 7PM onwards. Peruvian performances, music and food.

 
 
 
 

K'S PATH attended the grand opening of the KOC Abduliyah Nature Preserve

Pics by Rovina Costa

K'S PATH attended the grand opening of the KOC Abduliyah Nature Preserve Tuesday 5th February 2013. They have been working closely with KOC for the past few years to assist them in transforming this once barren wasteland into a thriving natural habitat. Friday 8th February 2013 they held the first community clean-up at Abduliyah with close to 40 members of the Kuwait Indian Engineers' Association. Children took a hiking trail, documenting and learning about species and the importance of such an habitat. K'S PATH extends a big thank you to Mr. Salman at KOC and his team for facilitating the trip, Sheikha Intisar Al Sabah for her support, KIES for their enthusiasm, and the dedicated K'S PATH volunteers - Fatima Tootie M. Al-Sabah, Ching Medrano, Maryknoll Idpan, Rovina Costa and Ali Akashah - for their efforts! Get in touch with K'S PATH if your group would like to join their community clean-up at this beautiful preserve next month. — KOC Abduliyah Nature Preserve: Grand Opening & Clean-up

LWDLIK - Great job K'S PATH. Can't wait to visit.



 

Grease Auditions at BSK Theatre Too

Okay, not sure who was first to think of staging this brilliant show but tad silly for both of them (BAIA and KLT) to do it, in my humble opinion :O) Personally, I can't wait but I shall only be going to one. Maybe you people could talk and one of the theatres could put on something else? Pretty please :O)

How about  Seussical, Wicked or Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory? Any more suggestions?

Grease Auditions at Kuwait Little Theatre

Loving my Valentine's Nail Wraps Get Yours at The British Ladies Society Bazaar Today

Karen of www.NailManiaKuwait.com will be at the BLS bazaar at the Shaikha Complex BLS HQ on Balajat Street today for those of you who must have the total look for Valentine's Day. But which ones to wear?  Decisions, decisions ;O)

The British ladies' Valentine's bazaar on Monday, February 11th from 10am -1pm at the BLS premises, Basement of Sheikha Complex, Arabian Gulf street (Between Al-Seef hospital and Bida'a roundabout) Admittance: KD1 to members KD2 for non-members. This includes free refreshments and all proceeds are going to charity ♥

If you can't make the bazaar you can contact her thro her website above reserve some and arrange payment but best to try and get to the bazaar as I have a feeling they are going to sell really, really fast.

 
 

YouTube Faces Ban in Egypt for Anti-Islam Film

A court in Cairo has ordered that the website YouTube be banned in Egypt for 30 days for carrying an anti-Islam film that caused deadly riots across the world.
Judge Hassouna Tawfiq ordered the government to block YouTube because it carries the amateur film produced by an Egyptian in the United States. The film caused uproar for denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
Lawyer Mohammed Hamid Salim, who filed the lawsuit last year, alleges the film constitutes a threat to Egypt's security.
The ruling can be appealed. Past verdicts ordering the blocking of websites deemed offensive in Egypt have not been applied.
The film sparked demonstrations last September that spread to more than 20 countries, including Egypt.


 

Yay! What to do When You've Shrunk Your Favourite Expensive DKNY Cashmere Sweater

 

Ok after hearing that Findus lasagna is 100% horse meat this has cheered me up immensely. And I still have the sweater (not sure why wouldn't fit a 5 year old) couldn't bear to part with it. Going to make me some gloves and try not to think about horse meat lasagna.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Red Bull X-Fighters Jams International Freestyle Motocross 2013

Kuwait! Prepare yourselves for some of the most intriguing, insane action to take place in front of the Kuwait Towers. Red Bull X-Fighters Jams is bringing freestyle motocross to you! Some of the finest riders from the international motocross scene will be performing incredible feats one trick at a time.