Kuwait

On the occasion of the Republic Day of India, a Flag Hoisting Ceremony will be
held at the Embassy of India premises on Arabian Gulf Street at 9.00
A.M. on Tuesday, January 26, 2010. The flag hoisting will be followed by
the reading of the message of the President of India, rendition of
patriotic songs by Indian school children, and an Open House Reception.
All Indian nationals in Kuwait are cordially invited to attend the Flag
Hoisting Ceremony.

During the next few weeks and for the first time in Kuwait, people will see pink taxis driven by women to serve women only, an ambitious project of a Kuwaiti young woman, Bedoor Al-Mutairi. Speaking to KUNA, Al-Mutairi said the project "Eve Taxi" followed the example of many countries such as the UAE, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Bangladesh.

777  112
Director of Security Media Department and official spokesman of the
Ministry of Interior Colonel Mohammed Hashem Al-Sabr announced on
Wednesday the change of the emergency service number (777) to (112)
starting next Friday with the beginning of the new year.

Kuwait - The Kuwaiti parliament passed a new labour law on Wednesday that grants better rights and conditions for the 2.3 million foreign workers but does not scrap the controversial sponsor system.The new law, approved unanimously by lawmakers including cabinet members, replaces a 45-year-old law that was criticised as being favourable to employers at the expense of workers.

The legislation provides more rights for workers in the private sector, including better annual leave, end of service indemnities and holidays.

It also sets tougher penalties, including jail terms, for businessmen who trade in visas or who recruit expatriate workers and then fail to provide them with jobs, or who fail to pay salaries regularly.

Kuwait is home to 2.3 million foreigners, more than two-thirds of them Asians, and 1.1 million citizens.

The bill requires the government to introduce a minimum wage for certain jobs, especially in the lower-paid categories.

The gap between locals and expatriates in the GCC workforce has remained huge with the expatriates recording a dominating presence in virtually all job categories, according to a report by TalentRepublic.net, a regional recruitment company. The report prepared by TalentRepublic.net’s research department reveals that up to 58 per cent of the GCC’s workforce is made up of expatriates.

TalentRepublic.net also cited a Madar Research study which shows that 87 per of the UAE workforce are expatriates. The same trend is echoed in most of the GCC countries, particularly Qatar which has the same local-expatriate workforce ratio as the UAE. Kuwait likewise has a much larger expat workforce population, accounting for 69 per cent of all workers in the country, while the local workforce in Bahrain barely outnumber their expatriate counterparts at 51 per cent.

Kuwait's population was 3.4 million by the end of June, the same figure recorded late last year, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) said in its recent economic report.

Kuwaitis totalled 1.1 million, making up 32 percent of the population, and foreign residents were 2.3 million, it said, quoting figures of the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI).

The number of Kuwaiti nationals rose by roughly 15,000, and that of non-Kuwaitis fell by around 14,000, keeping the country's total population unchanged.

The number of workers in Kuwait totaled 1.7 million by late June, down 13,000, or 2.6 percent, in the first half of 2009, it added. The drop mainly involved foreign residents. At the same time, the number of Kuwaiti workers edged up by 10,000, or three percent.

 The Undersecretary of Ministry of Interior Lieutenant-General Ahmed Al-Rujaib has issued an order to install electronic fingerprinting machines at all entry - road, sea and air — points to fingerprint all incoming ‘passengers’ starting from next week, reports Al-Rai daily. Al-Rujaib stressed even those entering the country on visit or commercial visas will also be fingerprinted.

A security source said the decision was taken after the Criminal Investigation Department discovered three Asians who were deported from the country for trading in alcohol had re-entered the country after changing the personal information on their passports.

Meanwhile, the General Criminal Evidence Department has started the implementation of the second phase of a project to link its systems electronically with that of the General Immigration Department, reports Al-Rai daily quoting Brigadier General Eid Busaleeb, the department director.