Illegal storing of materials lead to Fires

Residents had to be evacuated from their building following a fire broke out at building in Mahboula area yesterday, 30 people were safely evacuated from the building, 6 people were injured including two firefighters, an investigation is opened to know causes of the fire.

----I don't know how many times I have posted about illegal storage in basements of apartment buildings, especially in Mahboula. The one above housed tires which could have killed many due to suffocation. When will beladiya do something about it? Everyone knows that when a building plan is submitted the blue prints must include parking which is in the form of basement parking. Nine out of ten times the basement is used for storage of paints, tires, furniture and other unregulated things.

The people have to park all over because they can't use the basement! Does anyone care? What about the lives of people? If anyone dies the blood will be on the hands of the beladiya, how do they sleep at night?

No visa 18 transfer from 22 visa for expat Women

UPDATE:KUWAIT CITY, Feb 19: Officials from the Public Authority for Manpower affirmed that the transfer of family visas from Article No. 22 to Article No. 18 continues based on the prevailing decisions made in the past, and nothing has changed with regard to the family visas of wives, reports Arab Times daily.

The same sources indicated the decision to suspend the transfer of family visas for the spouses of expatriates under Article 22 only applies when there is family dispute between the husband (sponsor) and his wife.

In that case, the wife who entered the country on family entry visa (Article No. 22) will not be allowed to transfer to private sector (Article No. 18).

It was earlier reported by Al-Nahar daily that the Public Authority for Manpower was about to suspend the issuance of work permit for the spouses of expatriates who entered the country under the sponsorship of their husbands on Article 22 visas.

The sources noted the authority had agreed with the Ministry of Interior to suspend all applications for transfer of visas from Article 22 to Article 18 for wives who received the family entry visa.

The authority held intensive meetings with the Interior Ministry through its General Department for Residency Affairs and deliberated on ways to prevent the category from working in private sector.

Also, sources added the manpower authority received a letter from the General Residency Affairs Department ordering the suspension of transfer of visas from Article No. 22 (family residency) to Article No. 18 (private sector) for the wives of expatriates who entered the country on family visas under the sponsorship of their husbands.

The decision, it said, was based on prior coordination between the General Department for Residency Affairs and Public Authority for Manpower, the sources indicated.

No Family Visa To Work Visa Transfer For Expat Women

General Department for Residency Affairs has issued a decision to prohibit residency transfer from article No. 22 (family visa) to article No. 18 (private sector work visa) for expatriate women. The decision also stipulates cancellation of residency of expatriate women in case of divorce, after which they should exit the country.

Wow, everyday we wake up to some new rule, much of them made without thinking about what will happen once these rules are implemented. So, a woman gets a divorce for instance, her husband cancels her visa 22, she will have to leave. What about her kids? This is going to be a disaster for expat women! If you are a mother of Kuwaiti kids and have custody you can get a visa 24, once you have a visa 24 and you get a job you can transfer to a visa 18 and back to a 24 if you leave the job. The key is to get a visa 24 from the beginning and it will be easy afoner that.

This leaves the door open to men who want to destroy their wives, now they can threaten them with divorce and deportation if they fail to leave the country. Good job Kuwait! Another way of being inhumane to women! I don't understand how rules and laws are thought of! Do they sit around in dwaniya while searching dating apps, chatting about ways to make life impossible for expats? I agree we are over populated but this targets women and their rights. Shame on you guys!

I haven't seen it in the papers yet, I hope this is fake news.

Thieves stealing purses in Mahboula

A friend of mine told me about one of his female friends getting robbed in Mahboula the other day. It seems there is a black car with guys in it that pulls up next to a woman and takes her purse and drives off. It has happened several times already so far. It occurs in the area behind Ali and Ghalia, any women walking behind there should take extra precaution.

He went with her to the police station and the lovely policeman asks him if he speaks Arabic, he's American so he told him no, the cop told him 'your in an Arabic country so you should speak Arabic' which is a typical answer for any non-Arabic speaking person from the police. A report had to be filed so his friend could start the awful process of replacing all of her identification cards.

Global Bilingual Academy..a school of Nightmares?

UPDATE! It seems this was shared on a FB page and a lot of cruel remarks were made which I don't appreciate! This story is a warning for you people out there not an invitation to talk shit on the situation. A bunch of bitter women decided to make cruel comments on that FB page to the extent that the post had to be removed. It seems everyone was accusing the mother of not pursuing the case which makes her a bad mother. What kind of heartless females are you? I didn't go into details about the reasoning behind her decision to not go further as it doesn't concern anyone and yes, the case is still open. If you had already paid over 5000 KD for your kids schooling do you think you would pull them out with no refund? As for them being in government schools. my kids are in government school and it is crap! If the Arabic language of the children is weak the kids will be eaten up by the students and teachers so if she decided to go with a Western schooling don't judge her, worry about yourself not others.


Someone told me about a Western female who wanted to enroll her children in an American curriculum based school due to the difficulty of the IGCSE exams given by British schools. She enrolled them into Global Bilingual Academy in Mahboula. I admired the school for the activities they had and thought it would be a really nice school for her kids. There were many Western teachers there and everything seemed to be going great.

Her daughter needed extra help with Arabic so an Egyptian teacher was brought in to help her. Shortly after he daughter didn't want to go to school and was feeling sick more than normal. She finally told her mother the tutor had been abusing her by pulling her hair, pinching, slapping and telling her bad names. Unfortunately my friend's husband was out of Kuwait at the time so she went to the police station and filed a case with no support, which is a horror story in itself. The police called the school and told them to bring the teacher to the station, after several more calls she finally showed up an hour later. The police told my friend if she files a case then she would have to go to court and it would be hard on her daughter so they let the teacher sign a good conduct letter which is typical of Kuwait. This is why no one is scared of the police or laws because they know what a headache it is to go to the courts, take time off of work and in the end nothing will happen.

The teacher is also on a visa 22 which by law is an illegal employee, their excuse was her visa is being processed. So the teacher is still working at the school and the Arab teacher mafia is pointing and making rude remarks to her children because they can't transfer schools until the end of the year. The Western teachers have left, although there may be one or two of them present and the school will put them in certain places to make sure the parents see them so they won't realize most of them have left. There are also stories of the teachers jerking arms and being rough with the smaller kids.

Parents, if your child starts to hate school or feel anxious about going that is a red light, please check on the school and show up unexpected to see if anything is going on. A school will look so nice and beautiful on the outside but inside there are horror stories. Parents pay a fortune for their kids to go to school but we all know they get a third class education at best.

Zain is mo zain!

 Last night my daughter bought two Zain recharge cards for our phones when she accidentally put her 5 KD on my phone line. I tried to send the balance to her only to receive a message stating I had no validity? I called Zain and found out you have to pay for validity meaning if you want that 5 KD to last longer than the month they give you then you have to pay 5 KD to Zain company in order to let it last that long? We are being taken advantage of in every way these days! I switched my ooredoo line to Zain because they stopped the cheap 1 KD recharge cards.

In the old days you would have plenty of time to use the money you paid for but now the companies have become greedy, when it expires they lock your sim card and then you can't call out and no one can call you, wth! I keep this line active because I've had it since I came to Kuwait and I don't want to lose  it but come on man, it should be up to me when and how I use it. The operator guy was telling me that this started on January 22 and that's how the company is making their money, off the average person. Great job Zain! I wonder if ooredoo does that as well? If not I will switch back!

Beggars in Kuwait

Even with the threat of deportation beggars and children selling stuff in the middle of the street is still taking place. The video is of a lady making her rounds around the car washes in Fahaheel, I've got a family to take care of and support so I feel offended when they ask for money. We all know no one except bedoon are here without some kind of visa. Most of these people come on visitors visa and make some quick money then go back home.

Last night we were in Mubarakiya, a place where visitors go for tourism. First there was a small boy around six years old going from table to table asking for money. The above teenager came after the boy left asking for money. One guy gave him some and he walked off to this phone store and proceeded to count a huge wad of cash like nothing. After counting it he put it in his pocket and went back outside begging again. I know these kids are not on their own and there is some gang behind it taking advantage of them. Wasn't Kuwait voted as a humanitarian country? Yet this continues and everyone turns a blind eye. I really like seeing the kids selling stuff in the street right next to the cops on Gulf Street, that proves no one cares. 

I would think there would be some kind of police patrol around places frequented by tourists. What do people think of Kuwait when they see hoards of people begging for money? It's an embarrassment for the country and no one cares, so much for promoting tourism.

Ultimate Airport Dubai Series

I found a video series featuring the security and staff of Dubai International Airport..I didn't find any series on Kuwait...as if anyone would feature the police or sad airport here.