Bahrain's Good, Bad & Ugly

The Good:

MANAMA: The financial performance of BMMI last year was one of the best ever recorded. Sales revenues grew by five per cent to an all-time high of BD59.7 million ($158.5m) compared with BD57m for the previous year.

MANAMA: Unicorn Investment Bank saw earnings rise by 82 per cent last year, to $122 million from $66.9m in 2006.

MANAMA: The National Hotels Company (NHC) posted net profit of BD5.827 million ($15.5m) last year. The results show an increase of a record 95 per cent, up from BD3m in 2006.

MANAMA: Nass Corporation net profit rose 23.41 per cent last year to BD8.251 million ($21.7m) from BD6.686m in 2006.

And so it goes on, and on, and on for a few more pages about how many corporates made so and so million and how net profits are increasing and bla bla bla and other things that don't really affect your average Bahraini dude.

The Bad:

COUNCILLORS, who initially blocked a new 52-storey tower block in Juffair, did a U-turn yesterday by giving it the go-ahead, despite protests from residents in the area. An application to construct a new Almoayyed Tower was submitted to the Manama Municipal Council, which initially vetoed the project because it was too high, not all the required documents were submitted and the residents objected.

Don't we already have enough towers in Bahrain? This isn't development; it's just plain ridiculous. The last Moayyed Tower we had, previously Bahrain's tallest building, is quite a disaster. Besides the really bad infrastructure, the area around it has become packed with traffic jam after another, as employees struggle to find parking and end up blocking the road with their cars. As if Juffair isn't congested enough already? And helloooo, the residents STILL object to it!

PARLIAMENT'S biggest single bloc, Al Wefaq, is still deciding whether to boycott next week's session, following a furious clash which halted Tuesday's meeting in just 10 minutes.

What are you guys, retards? How the %$#@ is boycotting an official session supposed to solve anything? I swear, we should burn the whole lot of you and replace you with people who know how to deal with things in a diplomatic fashion. I remember seeing videos of officials and so on in other countries fighting physically and riots going on inside parliment halls, and figured it was a bit of a joke, something we would never get here. But nope, I was wrong, as proved by yesterday's two hour Mortal Kombat-esque session. Gotta love our MP's.

BAHRAIN is in the grip of an obesity epidemic with more than a third of its Bahraini population overweight, officials warned yesterday. "The results of a new Non-Communicable Diseases National Survey have revealed that 35.9 per cent of them (Bahrainis) have an abnormal body mass index," said Health Ministry training and planning assistant under-secretary Dr Fawzi Amin.

Obesity epidemic, they're calling it. EPIDEMIC. I can picture us in the future, looking back at these times, and saying, I remember the disaster days of 2008, when we had the obesity EPIDEMIC. Life was difficult, it was rice and fried food everywhere.

The Ugly:

MANAMA: Bahrain's expatriate population almost doubled last year thanks to a major influx of manpower, according to figures from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB). The Economic Indicators report released yesterday showed the country's population reached 1,046,814 last year, 41 per cent up on 2006. The annual population growth among non-Bahrainis jumped to 82.5pc last year.

The population growth figure amongst Bahrainis also rose dramatically, from 2.3pc in 2006 to 15.3pc last year. Bahrain's population is now estimated at 529,446 Bahrainis and 517,368 expatriates. This compares to 459,012 Bahrainis and 283,549 expatriates in 2006.

This isn't growth, this is a disaster. Can you explain the ridiculous traffic rush that appeared over the past two years? Can you explain the unbelievable surge in land prices, and even though supply increases, they're still all filled up? Can you explain the increasing strain on resources? And hell, 459,012 BAHRAINI'S don't naturally shoot up to 529,446 BAHRAINI's in two years. There are two possible explainations here;

1- Bahraini's are very sexually active, in overdrive, infact, and can't afford a decent pack of, erm, birth control (because of inflation, of course)

Or 2- We've managed to nationalize quite a lot of foreigners.

Now I don't disagree with us throwing passports around, but hell, not like this. This isn't a population rise, this is an avalanche. And we have twice as many labourers here now? Shaky things are stirring. No, shaky things have been stirred, and now we're wondering what the hell is really going on with our country.