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It's been quiet since the Eid, especially as the 35th National Day celebrations have been taking place. A friend told me via Skype today that the street lights and decorations have been particularly notable this year. Nevertheless, a couple of items have caught my eye in recent days. First of all, the case of Lili Kumari Bishwokarma from Nepal, who had been imprisoned by the police in Salalah jail, presumably as a result of her employer reporting her as an absconder.

Lili says he tried to rape her, so she retaliated. But the news report didn't say how. Today, Kantipur Online revealed that Lili had been released. She finally managed to contact her uncle in Nepal. Her problems had been compounded by the fact that there was no interpreter in Salalah.

Except that now she will probably have to leave Oman. Along with hundreds, going on thousands, of other expats from the sub-continent who have already been rounded up and sent home. A lucky few, who have managed to get their passports back from their sponsors, will leave for India without having to pay overstaying fines. The Times of Oman is publishing a spate of sob stories about the plight of some of these individuals.

And then there's the tale of a former Honorary Swiss Consul in Muscat, who issued false entry visas to 134 Bangladeshis between 1999 and 2003. He hasn't been named but Swiss Info says he's 78 and comes from canton Thurgau. His accomplice, a Bangladeshi gold trader who secured 37 of these passports for friends and relatives, was supposedly convicted of deceit and fraud in Muscat in March this year and sentenced to 18 months in prison. I couldn't find a record of that anywhere. The honorary consul made a profit of 1,535 Swiss Francs on each visa, that's US$1,164 at today's exchange rate, and a total profit of almost US$156,000. It seems almost paltry. Was he really hard up, or did he have other motives?