Mister Ian's Weblog

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  • Displaced Colombians

    Colombia is close to my heart having lived there in the past. Unfortunately the ongoing conflicts within Colombia have displaced around 3 million people internally second only to Sudan.

    displaced-colombians

    Here’s an audio slideshow “Colombia’s Displaced Indians” with photographs by Moises Saman, and narrated by Simon Romero (also the author of the accompanying article) concerning the misery affecting the indigenous population of western Colombia caught in the crossfire from a new breed of criminal armies is pressing deeper into the jungle, fighting with guerrillas who have been long in the Chocó region for control of the cocaine trade.

    The objective of these groups is dominance over coca-growing areas and routes to ship cocaine abroad, predominantly to the United States.


    Link via The Travel Photographer

    In case this is too much, here are some pictures of cute animals.

  • Travel Blog with interesting photos of Kuwait

    Kuwait Housing Development
    Louis CK travelled with the USO to entertain the troops in Kuwait and Iraq recently. Here’s his story. He’s a comedian but also a photographer and took interesting photos from the helicopter rides. Note his comedy and the blog link has a bit of swearing and is sometimes crude.

  • Our Garden in Kuwait

    We have one strawberry plant in a pot by the front door. You can click on any of the following images to open it up larger.

    Strawberry Plant

    Immature Strawberry

    Strawberry

    And some other flowers growing into the palm leaves.

    Red flowery thing and palm leaf

    Red flower

    This is growing in a bush at the neighbours driveway.

    Yellow flowery thing

  • Hummer Recovery Unit

    I saw this in the International Clinic parking lot.

    Hummer Recovery Unit

  • Starbucks Retrenches

    Starbucks is continuing to close stores. Will they recover. I think so, only because they already own the best locations. Location is everything. I saw last week even in Kuwait that Starbucks is closing some stores in Kuwait. The one in Salmiya by the International Clinic is closed down.

  • Contribute to Microfinance in Developing Countries

    I found these sites via The Strobist.

    Kiva and here’s a documentory.

    Wikipedia says:

    Kiva allows microfinance institutions around the world, called “Field Partners”, to post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on its website. Lenders browse and choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. Kiva aggregates loan capital from individual lenders and transfers it to the appropriate Field Partners to disburse to the entrepreneur chosen by the lender. As the entrepreneurs repay their loans, the Field Partners remit funds back to Kiva. As the loan is repaid, the Kiva lenders can withdraw their principal or re-loan it to another entrepreneur.