Deported Workers to Get Rights
From today’s Kuwait Times:
Deported workers to get rights
Published Date: August 02, 2008
KUWAIT: Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak and the Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Khalid affirmed that Kuwait will never wrong anybody.
They said Kuwait strongly endorses human rights and will ensure that all the deported laborers will get their rights. The indemnity of workers as well as their other dues will be sent to them through the Bangladeshi Embassy in Kuwait.
Al-Mubarak also affirmed that there was no connection between the issue of human trafficking and the strikes staged by Bangladeshi workers. He said the workers committed violations by resorting to acts of sabotage and vandalism and Kuwait has the right to apply laws to deter such acts of violence.
Al-Khalid said the Ministry of Interior initially did not resort to force in dispersing the workers but was left with no option after they turned violent, reported Al-Rai. He said the rioters who resorted to acts of sabotage and vandalism had to be stopped to maintain Kuwait’s national security.
I am guessing this means that the workers were deported without receiving their back salaries. I have a sinking feeling that there probably isn’t a list of them, and what they are owed, and a way to get these salaries to them – I would guess that many of them don’t even have an address.
From the July 31st Kuwait Times:
Published Date: July 31, 2008
By A Saleh, Staff writer
KUWAIT: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor has continued summoning cleaning company heads to speedily resolve discussions on cleaning workers complaints after the strikes were suspended. A ministry official said that workers from 20 companies were involved in the strike action, with over 150 workplaces being affected by the strikes, including hospitals, health centers and other state facilities, as well as Cooperative Societies and private sector companies.
The official explained that the social affairs ministry is currently negotiating wage rises for the workers with the companies involved, as well as insisting on back payment of their unpaid salaries and improvements to their miserable living conditions, in order to avoid future recurrences of the recent protests.
The ministry is completely serious about taking strict steps against the companies that fail to comply with new decisions, the official emphasized. He added that the ministry is insisting on receiving official undertakings from the cleaning companies’ management to pay the backdated salaries in full; if these are not paid, the ministry will deduct KD 250 per worker from the company’s bank account.
Wait Five Minutes!
The weather when I arrived was partly cloudy, then rainy:
Yesterday was sunny and bright:
And today it is partly rainy and partly not-raining:
There’s an old saying here “You don’t like the weather? Wait five minutes!”
Loving and Losing Hurts
Scientists are proving something we already know in our guts – love hurts. From BBC Science News:
Love really does hurt, just as poets and song lyric writers claim.
New brain scanning technologies are revealing that the part of the brain that processes physical pain also deals with emotional pain.
And in the same way that in some people injury can cause long-lasting chronic pain, science now reveals why some will never get over such heartbreak.
Emotional pain can take many forms; a relationship break-up or social exclusion, for example.
You can read the entire article HERE.
Grin for the Day
No matter how I feel, I Can Has Cheezeburger always gets a laugh out of me:
more cat pictures
Summer Break
Dear friends, AdventureMan is whisking me off on a summer break holiday. We will be totally out of reach – no computers, no telephones – for a while. I expect to be back around the beginning of July.
See you then!
Trinity Sunday
This was Trinity Sunday, and I hesitate to even bring it up, because it always causes so much misunderstanding between us. No, we don’t believe in three Gods. We believe in one God, who is at the same time Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I am not a theologian, so what I am about to tell you is just my interpretation of a mystery which has been debated by minds much greater than my own. I tell my Muslim friends that it is like this:
I have a relationship with my husband, as his wife. We communicate in a certain way, we understand one another in a certain way, to my husband, I am his wife.
I am mother to my son, we communicate differently, and he thinks of me as mother.
I am daughter to my mother, and we communicate differently, and she thinks of me as her daughter.
My husband doesn’t think of me as daughter, and neither does my son. I am all three, and yet I am one person.
That is grossly simplified, and God is much more complicated than I can understand. I just wanted you to know, we believe, as Muslims do, that there is one God.
We do not believe God had sex with Mary. We believe Mary conceived by the wish of God, she conceived immaculately, without having had sex. The Angel Gabriel came to her and told her she had been selected, but she could say yes or no, and she said “yes.” Because she said yes, Jesus was born of Mary.
This was a sweet Sunday for me, because I was able to worship in my home church, here in Seattle. We sang all the oldest hymns. It was a lovely service. Afterwards, I asked the priests if I could take their photos for you, my friends in Kuwait.
If you want to argue with me, it won’t do any good. I am not that smart about religion, I just believe, I’m a pretty simple character. Find someone smarter than I am to argue with!
Seattle Church
I saw this sign on my way to church this morning. It is not my church – my church shares the building with a Korean church. But I love it that they have an Arabic language service:
Girl’s Night Out
Sorry AdventureMan, I have had my first Mexican meal, and it was wonderful. You could have come! You could have come to wedding with me! You could have had Ivar’s seafood, and you could have had Las Brisas wonderful Mexican food.
My Mom insisted my sister try my new camera and take some photos of me. Of course, we got the giggles and every shot she took of me was worse than the one before. She said the photo gene skipped her, and – Sparkle – I agree. Those were some pretty awful photos. Of course, being hit by that great train jet lag didn’t help me to be a great subject.
Mom had the Camarones al Diablo, her long time favorite, and Sparkle and I had Chicken Mole. It was good, and we are looking forward to some time in California, with non-dumbed-down Mexican food, spicy!
The camarones (shrimp):
The chicken mole:
Wish I could bring you some, AdventureMan!
A Day With Mom
Aren’t Moms great? When I come into town, my Mom showers me with gifts, as if she doesn’t see me three or four times a year. We are all gathering for a very special event, a family wedding, our very favorite kind of party.
Last night, she had a big jar of cranberry juice, a fresh maple bar and a bouquet of irises (just so you will know, they are my favorite flower) with a vase for my hotel room:
I planted some geraniums for her today, and then we picked up lunch from Ivar’s and drove to the beach for a picnic:
It is a gorgeous day at the beach, full of families and sun-worshippers. Seattle had their last snow in April, and is still thawing out from a long winter:
We had some local residents who found us fascinating, and hoped we would share our lunch with them:
We had some chips – they can catch them in their beaks. Bit healthy looking seagulls, aren’t they? 🙂
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