Search: “sti”

Last month I posted a list of Online Shopping Websites in Kuwait but I found out there is a website called Tisawaq with the sole purpose of listing all the online shopping websites in Kuwait. The websites are split up into categories and there is even a Tisawaq app. Check out the site [Here]

Ever since I was a kid, I loved having a pet. I’ve had a turtle, rabbits, birds and a dog (not all at once thankfully). Ever since getting married my wife and I have been debating whether or not we should bring a pet into our family. Problem was, my wife loves cats and I was never a cat person, I love dogs. My opinions of cats were pretty generalized. They’re independent, have an attitude and just aren’t really affectionate (at least not as much as dogs). But, owning a dog would have been challenging because of our work schedule among other annoyances (like walking a dog in the heat). So I decided to research different cat breeds and discovered that even though cats can’t be as affectionate as dogs, they can still be loving and they can still be great companions, but only if you pick the right breed for you.

Last week, as chance would have it, K’s PATH posted a picture on Instagram of a lovely Balinese kitten. Balinese cats are related to the Siamese and they’re similar in temperament and in looks. They’re also Hypoallergenic which means they’re good cats to own if you have allergies to them (like both my wife and I do). The Balinese are also very vocal and love to communicate with their owners, they’re friendly and don’t mind having anyone petting them or playing with them. And even though they are independent to a certain degree, Balinese enjoy chilling on the couch with their owners.

So the next day after seeing the Instagram post I called K’s Path. The process for adopting a cat from them is pretty extensive, but simple. You book an appointment for an interview at their facilities in the morning from 10AM to 1PM either on Wednesday, Friday or Saturdays. The entire family (or whoever is going to interact with the cat extensively) has to go. So I made an appointment and my wife and I drove up there Friday morning. The drive was pretty long, about an hour or so from where we live in Salwa. Once we got there we were met by friendly staff and their offices are pretty laid back with cats relaxing or playing out in the open. We were interviewed for about 30 minutes and asked various questions from our history with pets, what kind of environment our house is like, if we have any knowledge on raising cats and so on. Once we were done with the interview, we were taken to a room with the Balinese kitten. They do this to make sure that the kitten would interact well with us and to make sure that it’s the kitten we actually wanted. The Balinese was sharing a room with a couple of other kittens and we got the chance to play around with all of them and even though I nearly picked a different kitten, we were certain we wanted the Balinese.

Once we were done with that room we went back to the interview room to finish up the process. Normally the charge to adopt a cat is KD35, which includes vaccinations, neutering, and a microchip. But if you adopt a cat in November, the fee is just KD10 and if you don’t bring an animal carrier, K’s PATH would supply you with a used one for an extra charge of KD5.

So if you were ever on the fence about owning a cat, pay them a visit this month. I’m absolutely in love with the kitten we got (named him Link, duh) and couldn’t be happier.

Visit the K’s PATH website or instagram account for more information.

Posted by Patrick

What can be said about the Call of Duty franchise that hasn’t been said before? For better or for worse, the games don’t really evolve much. I enjoyed last year’s Advanced Warfare, I thought the campaign mode was fun and I enjoyed maneuvering with the EXO suits. It gave the game a sense of verticality that it was missing. Going into a Call of Duty game you already know what you’re going to get. So I expected a short, but fun, adrenaline filled campaign mode, great multiplayer and a decent zombie mode. Sadly, what I got out of the game was something much less. It’s disappointing how far the campaign mode strayed from what they created in Black Ops II which had had branching paths and multiple endings, and had a narrative that was captivating and intense. There’s a lot of content in Black Ops III, but it’s a case of quantity over quality.

I primarily enjoy playing single player games. So the first thing I did going into this new Call of Duty was just that. You start off by creating a character, choosing the gender and then a face. The problem is the majority of the faces all look the same. Not sure why they didn’t include a simple feature that allows you to pick a face and then a hairstyle or something along those lines. Being able to choose to play as a badass woman was cool though. But then I got referred to as “him” within the first few minutes of the game and that should give you an idea of how much attention went into campaign mode. It’s pretty lazy all around. The Call of Duty games aren’t known for their writing, but they have a reputation for being enjoyable. The campaign in Black Ops III was paced weirdly, the tutorial levels were too long and when major things happened, the game didn’t really do a good job at building any suspense or any sort of climax. Things just sort of happen. On top of that the narrative seems to be pieced together by borrowing basic themes and ideas from other games, like Deus Ex Human Revolution. Your character has a set of special abilities, some of them are cool like being able to control enemy robots or making enemies explode, but some of them are lame, like sending a swarm of cybernetic flies to distract human enemies. If you’ve played Bioshock, these should feel familiar, because they work kind of like Plasmids. When you finish a mission you’re sent back to your base where you’ll be able to walk around and interact with computers to upgrade your abilities, customize your character, look at the collectibles you’ve found or read more about the narrative, which is cool but I didn’t really care enough for the story to really spend my time there.

So what are some things that I liked in campaign mode? There were some fun firefights, some of the abilities you get are cool to use and the game ran incredibly smoothly. One other thing I really appreciated was the fact that you can play campaign mode in split-screen with a friend. It’s nice to see developers still include this especially when you have 343 Industries removing split screen from Halo 5, which I personally thought was a really dumb move since split-screen was such an important part of the Halo games. But I digress, that’s a different post for a different time. Finally, it was cool seeing Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica) in the game, I hope she does more work related to this industry.

So it’s pretty known fact that most players will spend most of their time in multiplayer. Unlike the campaign mode, I enjoyed my time playing against other people. Multiplayer mode in Black Ops III is slightly different than its predecessors. The biggest change in multiplayer is that you now have to choose from a set of characters called “Specialists”. You start off with four to choose from and you unlock more as you level up (there’s 9 in total). Each Specialist has their own personality, look, their own set of abilities and a unique special weapon. It’s a shame that you can’t customize them much. You unlock different kinds of cosmetic equipment as you play with them, but it just takes too long to unlock anything. There also isn’t a large variety of armor either. Another slight change in multiplayer is that the game doesn’t automatically unlock weapons for you as you level up. Instead “unlock tokens” make a comeback. You gain experience and level up, and you’re awarded with unlock tokens that you can use to unlock new weapons. You still get rewarded for using a weapon consistently with attachments, like scopes or paint jobs. There’s also a good variety of maps (12 to be exact) and most importantly most of them are fun. Like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed Advanced Warfare and I enjoyed the way you were able to move through the maps. I think they’ve improved on that in Black Ops III, but instead of Exo suits you’ll be using thrusters, which is a momentum based system, allowing you to jump more than once, wall run and slide across the ground. All in all, multiplayer is pretty solid.

Zombie mode is now fully fleshed out and has its own campaign mode called Shadows of Evil. You take control of one of four characters who are voiced by Hollywood celebrities like Jeff Goldblum and Ron Perlman. You’ll be navigating through the fictional Morg City slaughtering zombies while you try to stay alive. This mode is only cool if you’re playing it with other people, it’s not worth investing your time in if you don’t have friends to experience it with. You can go online and play with random players but it’s not as fun, especially if you can’t properly communicate with them.

At the end of the day it’s unlikely Black Ops III will win over any new fans. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of the franchise then chances are you’re going to enjoy this and you’re going to welcome the new (albeit slight) changes to multiplayer. The question remains if the game has the longevity that the previous games had, especially since customization is extremely limited. Specialists are a cool addition, but I don’t believe they really change multiplayer enough. There’s a ton of content here, but there’s no real reason to go back to the campaign mode once it’s over and the zombie mode can be frustrating if you have no one to play with. I’m personally sticking with Destiny for my first-person needs because that game just has more things I enjoy. It’ll be curious to see what direction Call of Duty goes from here now that they’re futuristic. How far will they go? Or will they go back in time and bring back their World War II games? Or maybe they’ll play around with a time travel mechanic and develop a game that features World War II and futuristic stuff? Time will tell.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III was supplied by X-Cite. The game is available on PS3 (online only), Xbox 360 (online only), PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Score: ★★★★★

Post by Patrick

This is probably going to be the busiest weekend of the season with so many things to do. Firstly if you haven’t registered for the Nuqat Creative Conference, then do so now since it’s free to register and there are lots of interesting lectures taking place. Once you get that done take a look at all the activities taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Four Hands Can’t Clap
Exhibition: Behind the Crisis
Exhibition: King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture
UK Culture Week: Paper Cinema
Wonderland Charity Carnival
Nuqat Creative Conference
Preview of Constant Caricature – political cartoonist Ali Ferzat
Islamopolitan Exhibition – Kuwait Edition
JAMM Art Gallery
Rooftop Movie: My Dinner with Andre
Movie in the Park: Hidden Pictures

Friday
Wonderland Charity Carnival
Nuqat Creative Conference
Brunch at Lucy’s
UK Culture Week: Gandini Workshop
Kuwait Bibliophiles Book Club Meeting
A Designer’s Dream
Book Signing | Hilmi Al-Tuni
Monitor, Reflect, then Act

Saturday
Wonderland Charity Carnival
Nuqat Creative Conference
Yoga at the Park
Winter Bazaar
A Walkathon for Diabetes
#WECANDOIT INSIDEOUT Pasting & Video Launch
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: Wild Tales
UK Culture Week: Gandini

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

This is just insane, a guy called Wilfred scrawled the message “Claudia I ♡ You” across Kuwait using GPS. It took him 11 days to get it done and by the end of it he had ridden, driven and kayaked over 2,000km. The message itself is 615km long. He also took a ton of photos and videos of the whole journey and even has an animation showing the whole trip. I can’t even figure out the logistics behind this, it’s crazy. Here is some more info:

Software Used: Osmand, Google Earth, QGIS, ArcMap, Google Earth, CartoDB, Basecamp
Hardware Used: Samsung Note 2, Garmin GPSMAP 64s
Highlights: the struggle to fit the ♡ between the oil fields, an epic dust storm south of the I, getting beaten into submission by the elements when kayaking the U and seeing V-22 Osprey night practice flights west of the O. Two portions involved offroading at night – the NE shoulder of the O and the first part of the bottom of the Y. Click video points in these locations for more detail.

So check out the animation first [Here]
Then once you’re done check out all the videos [Here] (randomly flip through them)

Oh and yeah, Claudia obviously liked this.

The first time I heard about Sista Brown was when my best friend (who’s super ridiculously talented btw) posted about them a few months back when they had an event in Lebanon. I didn’t really have any idea what it was but the name was odd so it stuck with me. Fast forward a few months and I find out Sista Brown was having a pop-up shop here in Kuwait. It didn’t sound very exciting, their flyer graphic was ugly (even blurry) and there was no mention of what the pop-up shop was about. I didn’t even consider going until another friend of mine got in touch with me yesterday and asked me to pass by so I could possibly post about it on the blog. So I did.

Sista Brown turned out to be more of a market than a pop-up shop. I originally got the impression Sista Brown was one shop but it’s actually around 20 different designers and start up fashion brands mostly from Lebanon but also from other parts of the world all brought together under the Sista Brown umbrella. The market is being held at Shuwaikh Market and is only going to be there until tomorrow (Nov 12). The most interesting aspect to me was the Armenian food by the Lebanese Armenian bistro called Batchig. If you’re interested in trying out Armenian food, Sista Brown brought Batchig from Lebanon for this event and they’re there after 7PM serving food. That alone is actually worth going for.

So if you’re interested in passing by, the market is open from 4PM till midnight and the food from 7PM. Here is Shuwaikh Market on [Google Maps]

Update: Just found out there is Iraqi food from 4PM to 6:30PM today as well and then 7PM back to Armenian food.

for the new Yeezy Boost 350 “Moonrock” edition was released yesterday and Harvey Nichols Kuwait is on the list. These editions are supposed to be the easiest ones of the series to get but I’m still trying to find out from my contact at Harvey how many pairs they’re getting. The “Moonrock” boosts will be released on November 14th, I’ll update this post with more details if I get any.

The Cross Cultural Diwaniya is making its debut at Nuqat this year and I’ve been asked along with Ascia and Dr Scully (Dana Scully??) Dr. Nicholas Scull to take part as guests in the diwaniya. This years Nuqat theme is the “Copy+Paste Syndrome” so the Cross Cultural Diwaniya will look at how copying and pasting personalities and lifestyles affects the lives of the average person while also looking at how it affects the lives of high profile bloggers.

The discussion will start with me and the other guests telling our stories on how we became well-known and then the moderator will kick off the discussion by asking us questions on how our lifestyles influence those of the people that follow us.

The Cross Cultural Diwaniya will be taking place this coming Friday 13th at 12:45PM at the Amricani Cultural Centre. So if you’re looking for something to do this Friday after breakfast, come by this lecture. There are a bunch of other cool lectures taking place on the same day and they’re all free. To see the Nuqat schedule for Friday and to register, click [Here]

This Saturday its packed with events even though there is a storm thats expected to hit. So like last week make sure the events are still on by checking the various instagram accounts before heading to them. Check out the full list of events for this weekend below:

Thursday
Sirdablab: The Big Lebowski
Rooftop Movie: Whiplash CANCELLED

Friday
Let’s Go Forward Road Run Hilton
Qout Market
Team Fortress LAN Party

Saturday
Yoga at the Park
An Introduction to Pointed Pen Calligraphy
K’S PATH Open Shelter Day CANCELLED
Yarn Bombing at The Secret Garden
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Story Time
Let’s Draw – Alshaheed Park

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

The Cinemagics rooftop movies are back starting from this weekend. If you’ve never been to one you should and this month they’ve got some great films showing. I’ll be adding them all to the Events page but for now below is the full list of films taking place this month.

Thursday, November 5th 2015 at 7:30PM
WHIPLASH
Winner of 78 awards and nominated for over 110 worldwide, Whiplash was the little movie that caught the world by storm last year. Featuring a towering performance by J.K. Simmons (for which he won the oscar), the real star here is newcomer Damien Chazelle’s incredible pacing and fascinating editing style. It tells the story of a promising young drummer who enrolls at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are challenged by an instructor who will stop at nothing to bring out the best, even if it may go to far. If you haven’t seen this yet, this is your chance to witness the experience.

Saturday, November 7th 2015 at 7:30PM
JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI
A delicate documentary about Jiro Ono, am 85 year old sushi master who runs a 3 michelin star restaurant in a toile subway station. Carrying a certified fresh rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, the site’s consensus reads “Beautiful, thoughtful, and engrossing”. A film that is generally adores by all who’ve seen it.

Thursday, November 12th 2015 at 7:30PM
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE
A film that is universally adored by critics and audiences alike, My Dinner with Andre is the first in the trilogy of the Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn experimental films. The film depicts a theatrical conversation between the two stars as they discuss experimental theater, the nature of life, and spiritual experiences. The Boston Society of Critics names it the Best American Film, and master critic Roger Ebert once said “If i could name a movie that was entirely devoid of cliches, it would be My Dinner with Andre”

Saturday, November 14th at 7:30PM
WILD TALES
One of the most refreshingly original films in recent history, Wild Tales is an Argentinian masterpiece covering 6 short stories, all of which share the themes of violence and revenge. The film has won over 40 awards worldwide, considered by many to be one of the best of the year. Holding a 96% rating, Rotten Tomatoes called the film “Wickedly hilarious and delightfully deranged”. The film received a 10 minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. A rare combination of a crowd pleaser that also captures the attention of cinephiles. Unmissable.

Thursday, November 19th at 7:30PM
THE THIN BLUE LINE
One of the most provocative documentaries of all time, and a film many considered to be the shift in the way documentaries were being made, The Thin Blue Line was eventually considered to be one of the best 5 documentaries of all time. It depicts the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted and sentences to life in prison for a murder he did not commit. The film is one of the only films to ever affect a judicial verdict, as the trial was reviewed after the release of the film. Errol Morris went on to become one of the most respected documentarians around.

Saturday, November 21st at 7:30PM
ANNIE HALL
Every year at Cinemagic, we pick one highlight one master director and create a series around him/her where we show an important film of their’s each month. This year, our director of choice is the cinematic gem, Woody Allen. We begin big with what Roger ebert called “just about everyone’s favorite Woody Allen movie”, Annie Hall. A film responsible for inventing the modern comedic film, Annie Hall won the oscars for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay, and solidified Woody Allen as one of the great American filmmakers of his generation. One of the most beloved comedies of all time, there’s nobody that doesn’t love Annie Hall.

Thursday, November 26th at 7:30PM
TIMBUKTU
Nominated for best foreign film at the Academy Awards, and winner of another 19 awards worldwide, Timbuktu tells the story of a cattle herder and his family who reside in the dunes of Timbuktu when they find their lives of peace disturbed by the political arena int he surrounding cities. Variety wrote of the director “In the hands of a master, indignation and tragedy can be rendered with clarity yetsubtelty, setting hysteria aside for deeper, more richly shaded tones. Abderrahmane Sissako is just such a master.”

Saturday, November 28th at 7:30PM
WATER
Beautifully shot and elegantly told, Deepa Mehta’s Water was a beloved film worldwide upon release. The film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty, focussing on a relationship between one of the widows and a man who is from the highest caste and is is a follower or Mahatma Ghandhi. Of the film, The Los Angeles Times wrote “Mehta is able to inject considerable humor in her stunningly perceptive and beautifully structured narrative…Water emerges as a film of extraordinary richness and complexity”. Winner of 23 awards.

Cinemagics is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. Cinemagics movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the rooftop of Xcite and LG [Map]. There is no entrance fee. Here is a link to their Facebook group [Link]

According to their Kuwait instagram page, as of this post Burger & Lobster at the Avenues are set to open in just 9 days. As I’ve previously mentioned, Burger & Lobster’s menu consists of just 3 dishes, a hamburger, a whole lobster and a lobster roll. All three dishes are priced the same, £20 in the UK and $20 in the US so I’m still curious to know what the pricing will be like in Kuwait. To check out some teaser photos of the place plus keep track of their launch date check out their instagram page [Here]

For those of you who don’t know, I was in charge of posting video game related posts in the now defunct Entertainment section of the blog. Since Mark merged that section with the rest of the blog, I’ll now be writing about video games in the B-Sides section while posting reviews of major game releases here on the main page. Last week Mark was able to hook me up with his contact at X-Cite who will now be sending me games to review on the blog every now and then, first up is Guitar Hero Live.

Guitar Hero became a massive phenomenon when it was first introduced back in 2005. Six games were released, 12 if you include the specialized versions of the series like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero Smash Hits. All those games were released within the span of seven years between 2005 to 2011. That’s nearly two games a year, which is a crazy number for such a short period of time. So when Activision announced Guitar Hero Live, it wasn’t a surprise that most people felt skeptical about it.

My only real experience with Guitar Hero prior to this was Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock at a friends house. And all I remember of that game was playing Muse’s Knights of Cydonia over and over again, trying to get a perfect score. It was a lot of fun and I could see why people obsessed over it and why Activision milked it for all its worth.

Guitar Hero Live is meant to be a fresh new take on the whole franchise. A reinvention. There are two main aspects to the game. Guitar Hero Live and Guitar Hero TV. Guitar Hero Live is the single player “campaign” mode where you play as a guitarist for different bands that Activision created for this mode. Each band plays a specific genre of rock, so the folk-indie band for example plays songs from real bands like The Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men.

Like the name suggests, you’ll be playing live shows with these bands. Activision filmed a lot of footage to flesh out this part of the game. If you’re doing well in the song crowds will cheer, bop their heads to the song and your bandmates will be rocking out. If you start screwing up, crowds will start booing and yelling things at you while your band mates look on at you in disappointment or just insult you in some way.

I enjoyed this mode, it’s fun, it’s silly. The presentation is great, it feels fantastic when you’re playing a really challenging part of a song and the crowd erupts in joyful glee when you nail it. I just wish there were more songs and that it lasted longer. I’m also confused to why Rihanna and Skrillex would be in this guitar focused game, but they are.

After you’re done with Guitar Hero Live, you’ll be spending a chunk of your time in Guitar Hero TV. Guitar Hero TV is an online only mode and is equivalent to old school MTV. You’ll find two channels that play music videos non-stop throughout the day. Each channel has their own set of programs. So there’s a program that just plays heavy metal songs while another just plays indie hits. These channels play music videos all day and you can jump in and play whenever you feel like it. Since this mode is online you’ll be competing simultaneously with other players who are playing that same song. At the end of each song you gain experience points and coins. Every time you level up you unlock various things like special abilities and player card designs. You’ll be able to spend coins in various ways, for example you can spend coins to increase specific stats like how often your special ability recharges. You can also spend coins to buy more play tokens (which I’ll discuss in a little bit).

Guitar Hero TV also includes the song catalogue which includes over 100 tracks. To play any of these songs you need to use a play token. The biggest point of focus in this mode are the play tokens. Every time you play a song, you use a play token. They’re limited. There are three ways to get play tokens. Every time you level up, the game gives you a bunch of tokens. If you save up enough coins you can buy them. Or you can use real money and buy tokens. The game also offers 24 hour unlimited play for the entire song catalogue for $6. One word to describe play tokens would be “controversial”. Some people hate it, some people get it. I’m in the latter. The reasoning behind Activisions micro-transactions in Guitar Hero Live is that they want to avoid what they did in the last generation. They don’t want to keep releasing Guitar Hero games or release a ton of paid DLC like Rock Band. Instead they want to build Guitar Hero Live as a platform. New songs that will be added to the game will be added for free. This direction doesn’t seem so bad compared to Rock Band where each song costs $2. We’ll see how it works out in the long-term but so far I’m optimistic.

Putting all that aside, the game is fun. If you weren’t a fan before, I doubt this will change your opinion of it. But if you did enjoy the previous games, this game feels like a step up and a step in the right direction. I had a blast playing on my own and I also had fun playing the game in a group (Mark really sucks at it btw). If you attach a mic to the console, lyrics will pop up on screen and the game will keep score on vocals. You don’t actually have to own a proper mic either. A Playstation Camera or headphones/earphones (like the iPhone ones) with mics work. There’s also an official Guitar Hero Live iPhone app you can download on your phone that will connect to the game and turn your phone into a mic. You can also get a second guitar to add a second player and compete against one another. The game also does well for people who don’t normally play video games. I had guests over on the weekend and one of my guests doesn’t normally play any video games, but they were hooked on Guitar Hero the moment they grabbed the guitar.

My biggest concern isn’t with the actual game but with the plastic guitar. The guitar itself looks good and it feels good to hold. But after playing the game over the weekend, one of the buttons was already giving me problems. Thankfully it was an easy fix. I had to open up the fret board (11 screws) and I found that there was some dirt on the inside of the button. Once I put it back together, the guitar was working like new.

Overall the game is a ton of fun and it’s something I’ll be playing for quite some time, especially when I have guests over. Hopefully they’ll add some Queens of the Stone Age or Foo Fighters, because this game could definitely use more of that. There’s a bit of an imbalance when it comes to the song selection in the game, there are too many recent hits and not enough grunge and alternative songs.

You can find Guitar Hero Live at X-Cite for KD31.9 which is a pretty great deal since it’s being sold for $99 in the U.S. My review copy of Guitar Hero Live was also provided by X-Cite.

Score: ★★★★★

Post by Patrick

360 Mall have released new renderings as well as a video showcasing their upcoming mall expansion which will include a tennis complex, a hotel and additional shopping. The tennis complex will have a combined stadium seating for over 7,600 people across two main arenas, each with the capacity to hold 4,000 and 1,600 people respectively, eight indoor courts with over 500 seats and eight outdoor courts with 1,500 seats. The tennis arena will be called “The Sheikh Jaber Al Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah International Tennis Complex” and is expected to become one of the world’s best tennis facilities.

In summary, we should basically all start learning tennis so we could take advantage of the facilities once they open up.

On a side note I’ve managed to confirm that Bloomingdale’s will be opening up where the exhibition hall at 360 Mall is located right now. What I wasn’t aware of was that the exhibition hall is actually three floors tall but because they hadn’t installed the escalators yet, it never showed. Regarding the 5-star hotel thats opening up in the new expansion, all the renderings are pointing towards Hyatt making a comeback to Kuwait. I’m still trying to get confirmation on this but I haven’t been able to as of now. My contact just confirmed the hotel that will be opening is Grand Hyatt and that an official announcement will be made shortly.

There have been a lot of “legal” changes in Kuwait in the past year, and mostly for the positive. But, the law in Kuwait is not always accessible in English to the large number of foreigners in the country. Therefore there are many topics which I believe would be beneficial to my readers, but I never know where to start, which is why I have decided to start right from the beginning, to the inception of law.

I will try to explain how law is born, in a simple understandable form to all humans, because that is how the law is supposed to be (so the lawyers reading this, I apologize for not using your exclusive lingo!!)

Kuwait is unique in the region being one if the first countries to have a democratic legal system. The system has not changed since it came into place in 1962, and therefore because of democracy, decision making needs to go through a process of steps before it can become “law”, unlike other countries. (An example of this that makes me very proud is that Kuwait is the first country in the GCC that has a law for the rights of domestic workers, it’s brand new too!)

The steps for a law to become a law are as follows:
1) a drat law is suggested by a parliament member or by the government
2) draft law goes to a committee in the parliament (there’s different committees responsible for different things like “education” “health” and so on)
3) committee drafts the law and approves
4) the law is discussed in a session (those for and those against get to speak with equal love)
5) the parliament vote for the law
6) the Amir approves and ratifies the law
7) if the Amir doesn’t approve a law, the parliament can reintroduce the law for voting
8) printed in the daily newspaper (https://kuwaitalyawm.media.gov.kw/)
9) wait a period of time before the law becomes a Law

So when you hear absurd things in the news like a parliament member has suggested “no more yoga in Kuwait, cause people are bending in front of each other” or “men can’t wear the color pink” or “Kuwaitis get 3 day weekends, while expats work 25 hours a day”, please understand it is not law and just a suggestion by a parliament member that a lot of people voted for. Also please understand that the Kuwaiti constitution gives the people living in Kuwait a lot of rights (and obligations) and no parliament or ministry can take away those rights. They are the guidelines for any new law.

With that said, it is very important to know who you are voting for during elections, and a good way to do that is through the non-biased www.raqib50.com, a website that allows you to track different parliament members in Kuwait, current and previous, track their attendance, see what they have proposed and their work in their committees. I hope that was helpful, the media isn’t always positive and can really influence the way we perceive the country even though a lot of positive changes are right in front of us.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to announce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
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.

Zain have just started an interesting project, they’ve found a creative way of using instagram to tell children stories. Their first story is called Zain and the Stars and you can read it by going to the instagram account @zain_andthestars on you phone. Once you open the account you start reading the story by scrolling down. They’ll be uploading a new story every month under a different account with the hope of having a large library of good Arabic books by the end of the project. Whenever there is a new story they’ll be announcing it on their @zainkuwait account but for now, check out their first one by visiting @zain_andthestars from your phone.

Note: The stories are in Arabic