Search: “kuwait”

As inspiration from an app called “The Dumbest Laws” I have decided to make a series of posts called “Kuwait laws you don’t need to know” so I could inform you on things you don’t need to be informed on. I don’t know how many of these posts I can come up with but one of my favorite things to do while working is finding and reading these weird laws.

So anyways, here is the first one, it’s an excerpt from an officially translated version (ignore their grammatical errors) of Law No.9 from 1969 “With Regards To The Possession of Dogs and Preventive Measures Against Rabies”:

Article 1
Possession of dogs is not permitted unless a license is obtained from the Ministry of Health

Article 2
License of one or more dogs requires an application to be submitted to the competent veterinary center giving the following details:

1- Name of applicant, title, age, nationality and address
2- The location where the dog will be kept
3- Breed of dog, color and distinctive marks
4- The source of where the dog was imported

Article 5
A collar with a metal plate shall be put around each dog, giving the serial number referred to, the plates are obtained from competent veterinary free of charge, the dog owner should request a replacement, in which case he will have to pay 250 fils.

If a dog is arrested without a plate it will be sent to the Dog Detainment Center, and will not be handed to the owner, unless he requests so 7 days from the day of arrest, and pays a fee of KD1

Article 6
All dogs of all types shall not be left in public places without being controlled with a mask on their mouth

Article 15
The provisions herein apply to Kuwait City. The City of Kuwait with regards to the implementation of this article means the vicinities surrounded by the third ring road, the Health and Educational Areas and the Sulbikhat area, unless the dog belongs to a Bedouin as watch or hunt dogs, whether the owners live in the city or the desert

Article 16
Violators of this law will be liable to a maximum term of one month imprisonment maximum and/or KD30 fine.

Keep in mind, this was back in 1969.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at [email protected]

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Instagram user @mohammedaltourah has been posting photos taken from old newspapers of various events that were taking place in Kuwait back in the 70s. Among the photos was this Boney M ad above dating back to 1978. I also found the video below that according to the uploader was taken in Kuwait back in 1978. But, the video also says it was shot in UAE. Since I don’t think UAE existed back then (you know what I mean) it’s very possible that this was shot in Kuwait. [YouTube]

Check out more old newspaper clippings [Here]

To start a business or become rich you actually don’t need money, you need intelligence and confidence and good planning. Now if you are an expatriate and wish to be a businessman, then all you need is to find a Kuwaiti partner who is not as smart as you. Because if he is, then he will be asking you too many questions and turn into a nagging wife.

I’m not sure if this “How-to” guide is serious or being sarcastic. [Link]

Thanks Vanilla

Last night I passed by and met Haitham Al-Ghareeb, a local violin maker. We met at his small cozy workshop in Rawda located right outside his home. When you walk into his dimly lit workshop you’ll see a small diwaniya on the left with around a dozen violins hanging on the wall, while on the right hand side is his workstation where he crafts all his violins. He filled a kettle with water and put it on a small electric stove next to him and we started talking.

Back in 2000, Haitham was a oud player but was interested in getting into violins. He started looking for a good violin to buy in Kuwait but he couldn’t find any. Most of the violins available in the market back then were of poor quality from low end brands. That’s why Haitham decided to make his own violin using documents and instructions he found online.

Haitham hadn’t crafted any musical instruments before, he had dabbled with some minor oud repair but nothing major. This got me even more curious, how can a 25 year old with no previous woodworking skills be able to craft such a delicate instrument as a violin? Well the answer I believe might be in his genes. Haitham’s father, grand father and great grand father were all dhow builders. Woodworking had existed in his family for generations and it was just natural for him to be good at it.

Haitham’s first violin wasn’t flawless, it had mistakes and was made using locally sourced wood but yet the sound it produced to his ears was beautiful. This encouraged him to build a second better violin with imported tonewood (wood cut specifically for musical instruments). He started frequenting forums and participating in online communities where other violin craftsmen from around the world would share their tips and techniques. His violins kept improving with every build and soon he had his own tips and tricks to share with the community. He loved crafting violins so much that he quickly forgot about wanting to play them. He became obsessed in building and perfecting his own creations.

When Haitham first started making violins he was spending 4 hours a day working on them and each violin would take around 2 months to complete. Nowadays he’s too busy with work and family so it takes him around 9 months to complete a single violin. But he’s fine with that. He never started making violins with the intention to turning it into a profitable business. Even his prices have remained the same over the years even though his violins kept getting better and demand for them kept increasing. He just loves making violins and isn’t interested in expanding. It’s a hobby he’s just really good at. He also does a lot of repair work on violins which to many musicians is a lifesaver. Musicians bond with their instruments and having a local violin maker means that a damaged violin no longer needs to be discarded but instead can be repaired. Only two of the violins hanging on the wall were his, the rest were either in for repair or were being sold by other musicians.

Once we were done with the interview, Haitham served us some tea. Throughout the whole interview which lasted around 40 minutes I had watched him make us the tea using two kettles, a can filled with what I assume is tea leaves and a box filled with I don’t know what. He then skillfully poured the tea from the large kettle into three glasses that were sitting amongst a dozen on the table in front of us. The tea was delicious and to me summarized the kind of person that Haitham is, a perfectionist.

If you’d like to contact Haitham for any reason you can do so by emailing him on [email protected]

Last week the Kuwait Sporting Club revealed their new football kit only turns out it was plagiarized from the popular Paris Saint-Germain team. Not sure what they were thinking since they must have known people would notice. Yesterday the French media picked up on this and it’s now spreading everywhere with side by side shots. Seriously how hard would it have been to come up with a unique design? [Link]

The majority of the emails I get are regarding employment rights or should I say the lack of. I completely understand why I am getting all these questions. I am personally tired of how every time I walk into a store and ask an employee how long their shift is I get ridiculous answers like 8AM to midnight!

I realize how tough it is to go and speak out to your employer about a violation since I’ve been in that situation before. I also realize how bad Kuwait’s reputation has been over the years because of the way employees are being treated.

Recently I was hired by a company to help with some employee issues. The owner of the company stated that he didn’t know how he was supposed to treat his employees so I made an easy to read table with all the obligations of an employer as well as the rights of the employees. The full version of the law is hard-to-read and long so I rewrote it into a more direct and easy to understand language and placed them in a table for you below.

The law articles are mentioned in brackets for easy reference and the full version of the law is available [Here]. Click on the link below to view the rest of the post that includes the easy-to-read the table.

Here is a list of the prices for Ramadan buffets at various restaurants. I will add more restaurants to the list as I think of them. If you know any I’ve missed let me know.

Abdel Wahab
Buffet Price: KD8.750
Telephone: 1821000

Al Noukhaza Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD13.950
Telephone: 24757775 or 1823888

Applebee’s
Buffet Set Menu Price: KD6.950
Telephone: 22407536

Assaha Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 22533377

Cafe Blanc – The Avenues
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 22597568

Courtyard by Marriott
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 22997000

Crowne Plaza – Al Ahmadi Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 24757775

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Garden Cafe
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22269666

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Ghabka
Buffet Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 22269666

JW Marriott
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22455550

Movenpick – Free Zone – Bays Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD10.900
Telephone: 24610033

Movenpick – Al Bida’a – Breeze Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22253100

Missoni Hotel
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 25770000

Naranj
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22268666

Paul
Set Menu Price: KD7.250
Telephone: 22597044

Qasr Al-Saraya
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 25711101

Ruby Tuesday
Set Menu Price: KD5
Telephone: 22444454

Sakura
All You Can Eat Price: KD12.950 (1st 10 Days of Ramadan)
Buffet Price: KD13.950 (11th day onwards)
Telephone: 24757775 or 1823888

Sheraton
Buffet Price: KD17.250
Telephone: 22422055

Villa Fairouz – The Avenues
Buffet Price: KD11.5
Telephone: 22597200

Zafran
Buffet Price: KD7.5 (KD4 for kids)
Telephone: 25750647

Zahr El Laymoun – 360 Mall
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 25309511

Update: Added more restaurants to the list

According to the Kuwaiti government, in 2008 Kuwait’s population consisted of 3.3 million people, 2.3 million of which are foreigners. That’s double the number of Kuwaitis so I can understand why the Kuwaiti government would want to protect the Kuwaiti citizenship, and therefore making the procedures/requirements for getting a Kuwaiti citizenship tougher than other countries. But how tough are they?

Before I get into that, I have to explain the unique situation of the citizenship law that states how a non-Kuwaiti may become a Kuwaiti:

1) It was one of the first laws in Kuwait, even before the constitution and before Kuwait was officially recognized as a country. The citizenship law was promulgated (published) in 1959, via an Amiri decree. (Kuwait didn’t have a parliament then)

2) The law has been edited and re-edited, written and rewritten, promulgated and un-promuglated over and over throughout the years; 1959, 1960, 1965, 1966, 1970, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000…

3) Under article 1(e) of the Administrative Court Legislation, the courts do not have jurisdiction over issues pertaining to the issuance of a citizenship. Basically what it means is the court can’t deal, handle or look into any issues that has to do with the citizenship.

How can a non-kuwaiti can be considered for the Kuwaiti citizenship?

First of all you need to have fulfilled the three requirements below:

Then you need one of the below:

So let’s say you have all the requirements, let’s say for example Mark (he is Arab and has a decent job) becomes Muslim for 5 years or his family has been in Kuwait since 1965 or the government really thinks that mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com is making significant contributions to the country. So what does mark have to do to get the Kuwaiti nationality? First thing Mark has to do is apply to citizenship department (All paper requirements found here) then:

I have deliberately missed out some points regarding the issuance of citizenship’s because I did not want to complicate things. If you require any further clarifications please let me know, also if you have any stories you want to share feel free to do so.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at [email protected]

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Picture on top by zDistrict

Popular blogger Kottke as well as The Atlantic Wire both recently featured articles on Kuwait’s booming Instagram business model. The way Instagram businesses have exploded in Kuwait kinda reminds me of the US e-commerce boom back in the 90s. For example I met a person last week who has 3 physical stores for his brand as well as an Instagram account. He’s now closing down two of his stores because his Instagram account is bringing in more business. Check out the two articles on the following links [Kottke] [The Atlantic Wire]

We’ve moved up from 104th place last year to 72nd. Hong Kong has the fasted download speed average in the world with 49.10 Mbps. [Link]

via BlogBaladi

She’s lucky it didn’t smash inside car. [YouTube]

Thanks FYI

Ramadan Mubarak everyone. Since Ramadan is starting I wanted to write a post just informing you on Ramadan legal issues:

Working Hours

I am sure you have all noticed the fact that working hours decrease in Ramadan. That’s not just your boss being nice but working hours have to decrease during Ramadan because it’s the law. According to article 64 of Kuwait Labor Law (for the private sector only):

“It is forbidden to allow workers to work for more than 48 hours per week or 8 hours a day, except in such events as are specified in this Law. Working hours during the month of Ramadan shall be equal to 36 hours per week”

A maximum 36 hours a week in Ramdan for a 6 day working week is 6 hours a day (basically a 2 hour discount).

Eating in Public

There is a legislation dedicated for just eating/drinking in public in daytime during Ramadan. The legislation is the smallest I have ever seen and is under law No. 44/1968 if anyone wants to look it up.

Punishment up to KD100 and/or jail for 1 month:
i) for anyone that eats/drinks in public in daytime during Ramadan
ii) for anyone that helps or forces anyone to eat/drink in daytime during Ramadan

Also, a business that is caught serving food/beverages to the public in daytime during Ramadan will be punished by having their place shutdown for 2 months.

Again Ramadan Mubarak to everyone.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at [email protected]

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Many of you have probably seen the video above of the product NeverWet, a ridiculously cool spray-on coating that repels water. When I saw the video I was like I need to have it since it would be perfect to coat my sneakers with. I recently found out that Aramex have eased up on the no liquids shipping rule and decided to test them out by ordering a pack of NeverWet spray from eBay. Aramex didn’t reject the package and have shipped it to me Kuwait at a cost of KD8.75 (weight 2.26 lb). So if you were interested in the product you won’t have a problem getting one to Kuwait. [YouTube]

According to Kuwaitiful, #kuwait is the most popular country hashtag on Instagram with around 8.2 million photos while #usa has around 7.7 million photos. The population of the United States is around 300 million while Kuwait is around 3 million. Nuff said. Check out Kuwaitiful’s post [Here]

According to the Skytrax 2013 World Airline Awards, Kuwait Airways is so bad it didn’t even make it into the Top 100 Airlines list. The #1 best airline in the world according to Skytrax is Emirates while the Royal Jordanian Airlines was ranked #100. Below are the Top 10 Airlines in the Middle East for 2013:

1 – Emirates
2 – Qatar Airways
3 – Etihad Airways
4 – Oman Air
5 – Gulf Air
6 – Royal Jordanian Airlines
7 – Saudi Arabia Airlines
8 – Middle East Airlines
9 – Air Arabia
10 – flyDubai

For the list of Top 100 Airlines in the world click [Here]