Kuwait: Election Drama, Filthy Clinics and Domestic Abuse · Global Voices
Amer Al-Hilal

Salutations from Kuwait! Amer Al-Hilal here with another round-up from the Kuwaiti blogosphere, ranging from posts concerning after shocks of Swine Flu, to embarrassing official printing gaffes, to the humanitarian plight of the domestic workers and much more.
We start off with the popular blog 4th Ring Road  which mocks the religious ‘Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation’ for neglecting their English copy before publicly printing thousands of documents with the embarrassing gaffe: ‘Kuwait Awqaf Pubic Foundation.’
Since its election time, various bloggers such as Jelly Belly Nonsense visit candidate headquarters to soak in the political rhetoric. However, her visit to candidate Dr. Abdulla Al-Turaiji's tent left her offended at what transpired. In a post entitled ‘Jelly Belly and the Elections‘ she states:
Last night I went to Dr. Abdullah Al-Turiji with my cousin and it was her first experience as well… everything was going well until this guy who is apparently a presenter in Scope TV [whose name is] Anwar Malallah showed up… anyways they brought up the issue of the citizenship/aljenseya… he started talking about Kuwaiti men marrying non-Kuwaitis and stealing the men from Kuwaiti women and how these “foreigners” are taking their rights by being Kuwaitis themselves and how their children may turn out different because of this marriage! At this point I looked at my cousin and we were both VERY ANGRY… if you don't know this already my mom was Bahraini and I said was because she has the Kuwaiti citizenship now and she had it for the past 30 years and my cousin mom is American but she chose to keep her American citizenship and never got the Kuwaiti but that's not the issue here the issue was how this asshole was basically attacking our moms!!
248am‘s Mark (who just returned from a trip to Amsterdam) was subjected to a Swine Flu checkup on arrival at Kuwait Airport (‘Back From The Clinic‘) and was told to validate his health papers with a local clinic the following day:
I passed by the Salmiya clinic in the morning to get the H1N1 flu paper I got from the airport signed. It was my first time there and I have to say the place is disgusting. Can’t believe that’s actually a medical center, it looks more like a big kitchen or bathroom. I even found a big dead bug on a dirty and stained floor, gross! Anyway went to the proper department where this woman with a really large book took down my name and travel information. She asked me if I was sick, I told her no so she told me to come back on Sunday and that was it.
Moving on to human rights issues, conscientious blogger q8sws in a moving post called ‘Numbers‘ highlights the plight of domestic workers in Kuwait:
I've talked with people who work with abused domestic helpers in their embassies and I was able to get a rough estimate on the numbers we are dealing with: 80 maids at the Ethiopian embassy (embassy already full and now turning away runaways);400 maids at the Indonesian Embassy, 100 – 300 maids at the Philippines Embassy (it fluctuates pretty often), 300 at the Sri Lankan embassy.
I also know that Indian embassy officials dragged out a crying and pleading Indian woman from the embassy in plain sight of everyone, who was claiming abuse, and telling her that was not the place for her to go. These numbers are obviously not accurate down to the last person – they are rough estimates. And I can tell you that these ladies are not all happy and healthy. Having personally been to the Philippines embassy myself, I was devastated to see women lined up from corner to corner in a basement room, taking up every available space.
A human being is not a number. Every single person deserves to be treated as a special, unique individual. But even when dealing with numbers, please remember that these are only runaways that make it to the embassy. There are more like these in the hospitals, in their employer's homes, in the jails and deportation centre, hiding out illegally somewhere in Kuwait, forced into prostitution and of course – in the morgue.
Lastly, moving on to technology A Puddle Of Red alludes to Endgadget‘s article's concerning Cablevision offering 101 Mps speed in NY and parts of the East Coast for only $99 a month stating that in Kuwait “you can't even get 256K for that price“.