Salmiya

This is (almost) the title of a wonderful production of Tareq Rajab Museum , written by Mr. Rajab’s wife Sehan in 1999. When I had moved to Kuwait in 2001, the island, about 20 km east of the shores, mesmerized me from the beginning. Interested in the archaeology of the region, the at least two archeological sites there, one from the Bronze Age and a small Greek Temple dating to Alexander the Great, immediately attracted my attention. Amazingly, none of my new colleagues had visited the island and very few others I asked had ever been there. It was said that it was no longer inhabited since the Iraqi invasion and expulsion in 1991. I was told that there was a ferry boat from Ras Salmiya every now and then. So, I decided to make a trip on the first Eid holidays after I had settled in Kuwait. The Island was first mentioned by Greek geographer Strabo (d. 25 CE). The Greek, who had built an outpost on the island during Alexander’s conquest of Asia (336-323 BCE), called it Ikaros...

The almost four-decade-old territorial dispute about the Persian Gulf islands Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs again culminated this week when the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Abdulrahman AlـAttiyah, compared Iran with Israel occupying Arab land, as Kuwait’s Al Watan reported on Thursday this week, quoting the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. The statement reveals, if not simply stupidity, exorbitance in arguments and the usual striking double standard of Arab leaders and authorities whenever dealing with US interests and issues regarding Israel. Here are some facts about the islands. Greater (Tonb-e Bozorg) and Lesser Tunb (Tonb-e Kuchak) are two tiny islands about 20 km south of the larger Qeshm Island. The Greater Tunb (about 10 km2) might be inhabited by a few dozens of people. The Lesser Tunb (about 2 km2) is uninhabited. The islands are lying in the middle of the main sea lanes of the Persian Gulf making them strategically important. As re...

Everything is connected. Exactly 100 years ago, in May 1908, the first oil in the Middle East was discovered in a huge oil field near Masjed-e Soleiman in the Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran. It was William Knox D’Arcy, a British millionaire, who negotiated an oil concession with Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar, the ruler of Persia. He got the exclusive rights to prospect for oil for the next 60 years in a territory including most of Iran. The British government paid ₤2 million for the controlling interest in the field. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was founded and became the British Petroleum Company (BP) after the 1953 CIA coup d’état when the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh, who had nationalized the oil industry, and his cabinet were overthrown and the extremely unpopular Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlevi re-installed. One has to question whether Great Britain ever gave the Iranians a fair deal when exploiting the country’s wealth, still about 5% of the world’s oil pr...

Students are different but, in a way, they are similar to handle. I have seen and educated dental students from many countries in the world and I always noticed a great enthusiasm, curiosity, keenness and wholeheartedness. And becoming older, I more and more admire their broad spectrum of interests and capacities of achieving different aims at the same time. Tromsø University is a multicultural place with students from about one hundred nations. The Dental School is brand new and was officially opened in August last year with a rather sober ceremonial act, not really comparable with the colorful inauguration of my previous Dental School or graduation ceremonies at Kuwait University. The students’ clinic is the most modern in the world. Students are in fact online and can solve any problems in real-time evidence-based. Thus, there might be soon a revolution in dental education.

When Kuwait University Dental School was established there was soon a demand for a special animal teaching model for oral surgical methods. Dental students throughout the world are frequently trained in different flap designs and suturing techniques by using mandibles of freshly slaughtered pigs. But they were, of course, not available in an Islamic country. What is available and can be seen hanging on hooks in the numerous butcheries in Kuwait are sheep. Arabs love eating mutton and lamb. I quickly learned that the animals were not slaughtered in these places. Early in the morning the butchers are supplied with the slaughtered sheep by the local slaughterhouses. But where are those? Not being able of reading Arabic signs, I was too new in Kuwait, as to be able to find easily every place in the vast industrial areas where I assumed the slaughterhouses to be. Somebody had told me that the main slaughterhouse of the State of Kuwait is located in Shuwaikh, close to the main fire station o...

The realities in international chess-playing Iran are analyzed today by Bernard Avishai and Reza Aslan for the Washington Post . While the notorious Bush Administration seems to be less willing in its last days to launch an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran, Israel still tackles the pros and cons. The arguments again and again circulate around the Iranian President and his unacceptable rhetoric. But that wiping-off-the-map ado has long been debunked as an intentionally wrong translation of a president’s not really diplomatic show-off who is not really the leader of the country. As Avishai and Aslan correctly state, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who alone commands Iran’s military and dictates foreign policy, has adopted a much softer tone with regard to nuclear negotiations with the West. Through his Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close confidant of the President, the US was described recently as “one of the best nations in the world”. “Today, Iran is frien...

In the very heart of Cairo’s noisy and heavily polluted center, an unexpected oasis has been created, as is featured in this month’s issue of Saudi Aramco World , a daring green experiment linked to Cairo’s past. It is located on the site of a vast rubbish dump where for more than five hundred years residents had tossed away their garbage. The park is a marvelous gem, an Islamic garden, and Cairo’s green lung. The Aga Khan, Imam of the Ismaili muslims with family ties to Cairo’s Fatimid Dynasty of the 10th century, has been a main sponsor of the project. Work commenced in 1997, and in 2004 the park received its first visitors. It is amazing to read what the team of Egyptian, French, Italian, and American architects, engineers, and landscape specialists and horticulturalists uncovered when digging in the thirty meters of rubble.

Brian Eno. Before and after Science. EG Records 1977

Wondering how THIS will look in Tromsø in 2018 .

In its recent report the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) discourages Israel of planning and conducting an air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz and Esfahan similar to that of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in June 1981 and the Al Kibar site in Syria last September. The two main reasons are Iran’s largely dispersed, advanced gas centrifuge facilities and profound lack of knowledge of what Iran can presently master in its uranium enrichment program. The report clearly states that any strike, unlikely to entirely destroy any facilities, would only prompt Iran to hasten its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. In that case, Iran would certainly withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and expel the IAEA inspectors. The report also speculates that Iran may clandestinely have removed key centrifuge components, equipment and materials from Natanz and the uranium conversion facilities in Esfahan already to other hidden places for example in the nearby...

It seems so as if summer has happened this year early in May. At least, I haven’t got it. Krokelva is a very short mountain torrent, maybe two km long. There are several swamps and little ponds in its vicinity. Right now, spring, summer, and autumn flowers give their best. They know that end of the month the first flurries might come with the northern winds.

There is a lot of talk about a missed deadline these days when it comes to Iran’s nuclear issue. On July 19, the 5+1 talks with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili took place with a surprise appearance of William J. Burns, America’s new Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Unfortunately, he was not supposed to take part in the discussions. But anyhow, the mere fact that he listened to the Iranian standpoints was quite a sensation after almost 30 years of the American-Iranian ice age. The talks had been characterized as very constructive by both parties although the 5+1 did not get a definite answer with regard to their rather generous offer in case of freezing the uranium enrichment by the Iranians. According to Reuters, Javier Solana and Saeed Jalili agreed upon further telephone contacts within the next two weeks or so. There was no deadline set or mentioned. A self-fulfilling prophecy: that is what most observers expected when Burns had been sent to Geneva. Let hi...

A red-backed Shrike at Al Mutla'a is watching residential areas of Kuwait.

Seh Mihraba prayer rug Baluch, Afganistan, 135 cm x 87 cm, old (first half of 20th century) Warp: W, Z2S ivory Weft: W, Z2, dark brown Pile: W, Z2 Knots: as1 Density: 60 x 40, ca. 2400 knots per sq dm (about 150 kpsi) Height of pile: 3 mm Handle: like velvet, somewhat grainy Upper end: ca. 7 cm kilim, the cut warp ends are knotted together Lower end: ca. 8 cm kilim Sides: ca. 0.5 cm wide W Shirasi in dark brown, additional threads Colors: ca. 7: dark red, red, dark blue, dark beige, brown, dark green, pink. Seh Mihraba literally means three mihrab s, or prayer niches. While the asymmetrical composition and overall design of this Afghan Baluchi prayer rug is very typical for rugs from the Shindand market area south of Herat, the very dark colors and especially the extensive usage of dark green on this rug are not. The dark blue central area with its spandrel features a red tree-of-life pattern. It is flanked by two dark green columns and four boxes each at the top and the bottom. While...