The UK based The Daily Mail reported today that almost half a million Emirati Dirhams halted traffic as it blew across the street. No one knew where the money came from, but people scrambled to grab one of the 500 Dirham notes that skipped across the main street in Jumeirah.
But, the pictures looked oddly familiar. In fact, identical to the post we put up on February 10 of this YouTube video posted by Ahmed Nagy: IT RAINED MONEY IN KUWAIT.
Now in this day and age, it’s quite shameful not being able to tell one Arab country from the other, or where things might be happening – Google is kind of a big thing, please use it. And this one was pretty obvious. Here’s why.
1. The accent: Although the video in the article starts with a woman’s voice trailing off, the original video starts about 20 seconds sooner. What’s cut? Her Kuwaiti accent when she uses the word umbai and her use of a ‘y’ sound instead of a ‘j’ when she says, in Arabic, “the people are gathering in the street.” (0:19)
2. The currency: The actual currency is not extremely clear. But, if you check the original video you can see that the money is clearly blue. Not purple. (0:14)
Emirati 500 dirham note
Kuwaiti Dinar
3. The Weather: According to the Weather Underground archives, it was clear and sunny in Dubai on February 11 with winds at about 20 km/hr at the time. Which is windy enough, but doesn’t explain the looming clouds.
4. The building in the background of the video is Burj Jassem on Soor St. in Kuwait City. Here’s a picture of the sign above that says Burj Jassem, in Arabic: (0:24)
5. And there’s Hamra Tower (0:40)
6. Finally, The Daily Mail reports this incident occurred on February 11. However, bazaar.townnew reported it on February 10, and the video itself was posted on Youtube on February 9.
7. This incident was reported by other news organizations:
So, although The Daily Mail did get plenty of interviews from “surprised local”(s), The Daily Mail may be surprised (or not) to find that they were lied to.
