Kuwait expels Philippine envoy amid tensions over domestic workers

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Ambassador Renato Villa speaks during a press conference at the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait City on April 21, 2018. (AFP / YASSER AL-ZAYYAT)
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File photo showing Philippines workers from Kuwait gather upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines, Feb 2018. (Reuters)
Updated 26 April 2018
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Kuwait expels Philippine envoy amid tensions over domestic workers

  • Kuwait calls back its Ambassador in Manila amid workers dispute
  • Kuwait police arrested two Filipinos earlier this week over helping maids flee their employers

MANILA: Kuwait on Wednesday expelled the Philippine ambassador and recalled its own envoy from Manila over a growing diplomatic dispute sparked by complaints of the abuse of Filipino housemaids and workers in the country.
In a statement,  Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said it had declared Ambassador Renato Villa, who it previously summoned twice, persona non grata and had ordered him to leave Kuwait within a week.
The latest move followed Kuwait’s arrest of two Philippine Embassy personnel in Kuwait City last weekend for allegedly encouraging maids to flee their employers’ homes if they are being abused.
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry accused the Philippines’ mission of a “flagrant and grave breach of rules and regulations that govern diplomatic action where staff helped Filipino house helpers run away.”
Local media earlier quoted Villa as saying his embassy moves in to help abused maids if Kuwaiti authorities fail to respond within 24 hours. Online video later surfaced purportedly showing a Filipino from the embassy helping one maid flee.

The Philippines called Kuwait’s decision “deeply disturbing,” saying it “reneged” on an earlier agreement to work together.

Manila said the expulsion of Villa comes as a surprise considering that Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano had issued a formal apology to Kuwait and that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had also offered a public apology during a meeting with Kuwaiti Ambassador Musaed Saleh Ahmad Althwaikh in Manila.
“In discussions at every level with Kuwait, the Philippines has always emphasized that the wellbeing of Filipino nationals wherever they may be will always be of paramount importance,” the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The protection of the rights and the promotion of the welfare of Filipinos abroad would always be the guiding principle of the Philippines in its relationship with countries around the world, including Kuwait,” it added.

The two nations had been negotiating an end to the Philippines’ ban on workers from heading there following the shocking discovery in February of a Filipino maid Joanna Demafelis stuffed into a freezer in Kuwait City for over a year.
In late March, Lebanese officials said 40-year-old Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf confessed to killing the woman along with his Syrian wife, who remains at large. Both were sentenced in absentia to death by a Kuwait court early this month, though the verdict can be appealed.
But the arrest of two Filipinos associated with the embassy earlier this week over allegedly convincing maids to flee their employers’ homes and Ambassador Villa’s comments reported in local media over the effort appears to have been too much for Kuwait to accept.
“Expelling the ambassador of the Philippines is a correct measure that should have been taken when the Philippines president first started his threats,” conservative Kuwaiti lawmaker Shuaib Al-Muwaizri wrote on Twitter. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should not accept any offers made by the Philippines president or his foreign affairs secretary.”

Since becoming president, the populist Duterte has repeatedly criticized Kuwait for not properly addressing the abuse of Filipinos.
“I do not want a quarrel with Kuwait. I respect their leaders but they have to do something about this because many Filipinos will commit suicide,” he said in January.
There have been prominent cases of abuse of Filipino domestic workers in the past, including an incident in December 2014 where a Kuwaiti’s pet lions fatally mauled a Filipino maid.
More than 260,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, many of them as housemaids. Kuwait and the Philippines have since been negotiating for new rules governing Filipino workers there.
Philippine officials have demanded that housemaids be allowed to hold their passports and cellphones, which is normal for skilled workers like teachers and office workers. But many Kuwaiti employers seize their phones and passports.
The Philippines is a major labor exporter across the world, especially in the Mideast, with about a tenth of more than 100 million Filipinos working abroad. The earnings they send home have bolstered the Philippine economy for decades.

Filipino migrant and recruitment expert Emmanuel Geslani urged Philippine officials to go out of their way to properly address the "diplomatic faux pax", warning that the Philippines had lost the job market in Kuwait, especially for skilled workers. 
In an interview, Geslani told Arab News that the ban has now been running for five months, resulting in more than 50,000 Filipinos losing the jobs they applied for in Kuwait.
“We should really issue an apology because we still want to achieve good relations with Kuwait,” said he said. "The government is apologizing for something which was not wrong on its part, but the way it was projected on social media was wrong.
He said the video of embassy personnel rescuing a maid should not have been posted on Facebook. "Even though what the (embassy) staff is doing (rescuing abused workers) is right, they did not have to tell the world that they’re doing it,” Geslani said.
He added that while everybody wants to have good relations, “the Philippine government is doing it all wrong by allowing the deployment ban to last more than five months.” 
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah earlier also condemned the ban saying it “will not serve the relationship” between the two countries.
It’s likely both sides want to negotiate an end to the dispute, especially ahead of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan that begins in May. Kuwaitis particularly rely on Filipino maids and cooks during the period as they abstain from water and food during daylight hours.
“This is a clash of two rising nationalisms: the tough-guy Philippine president defending his people abroad and Kuwait resenting the insolence of a subordinate,” said Kristin Diwan, an expert on Kuwait and a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“The expulsion of the ambassador is a hardball tactic on the part of Kuwait, which hopefully will lead to a negotiated settlement. Both countries ultimately benefit from this relationship.”


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

Updated 4 sec ago
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

Updated 22 min 44 sec ago
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Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

  • At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents
  • Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps

ATHENS: Some islands in the southeast of the Aegean sea, including Rhodes, are seeing an increase in migrants arriving by boat from Turkiye, Greek migration and asylum minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Tuesday.
“The southeast of the Aegean and the island of Rhodes are experiencing migratory pressure right now,” he said on public television station ERT, though he said the increase does not appear to be linked to rising tensions in the Middle East.
At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents and local authorities.
According to local media Rodiaki, more than 700 migrants arrived during the last week of October.
Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps on the mainland or in other islands.
Previously, Aegean islands further north such as Lesbos and Samos had received the brunt of migrants crossing from Turkish shores.
Crete, which has likewise seen an increase in arrivals from Libya, also needs to build facilities to process migrants.
Greece has seen a 25 percent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30 percent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 48,158 arrivals have been recorded so far in 2024, of which around 42,000 arrived by boat and 6,000 by crossing the land frontier with Turkiye.
“The camps on the islands have an occupancy rate of 100 percent. But on the mainland they are only 55 percent full, which provides a margin in the event of an increase in arrivals on the islands,” Panagiotopoulos said.


Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

Updated 35 min 21 sec ago
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Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

  • Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-backed government on Tuesday accused neighboring Chad of supplying arms to rebel militias, likely referring to the paramilitary forces it is battling.
The northeast African country has been engulfed by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the regular army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Justice minister Muawiya Osman said Burhan’s administration had lodged the complaint against Chad at the African Union.
Speaking to reporters, including AFP, Osman said the government demanded compensation and accused Chad of “supplying arms to rebel militias” and causing “harm to Sudanese citizens.”
“We will present evidence to the relevant authorities,” he added from Port Sudan, where Burhan relocated after fighting spread to the capital, Khartoum.
Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favor of peace,” foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said at the time.
The United Nations has been using the Adre border crossing between the two countries to deliver humanitarian aid.
Sudan had initially agreed to keep the crossing open for three months, a period set to expire on November 15. Authorities in Khartoum have yet to decide whether to extend the arrangement.
The Sudanese war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders.


Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

Updated 53 min 31 sec ago
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Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

  • The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations

ANKARA: An explosion at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkiye on Tuesday left at least 12 employees slightly injured, the company said. A fire at the facility was quickly brought under control.
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, TUPRAS, said a fire broke out at its facilities in Izmit, in Kocaeli province, during maintenance work on a compressor. The company’s emergency teams responded immediately to the incident, it said in a statement.
The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations, the company said.
The company said the unit where the incident occurred “was deactivated in a controlled manner” and that other operations at the refinery were “continuing as normal.”
Earlier, Tahir Buyukakin, the mayor for Kocaeli told private NTV television that the blast occurred during a drill. The fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery, which is one of Turkiye’s largest. Izmit is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul.
The Borsa Istanbul stock exchange temporarily halted trading of TUPRAS shares, until the company provides a detailed explanation of the incident.


Israeli strikes hit south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israeli strikes hit south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region

BEIRUT: At least one Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in a beach town south of Beirut on Tuesday, Lebanese state media said, as other deadly strikes hit scattered locations across the country and armed group Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel.
The attack on the beach town of Jiyyeh left a massive smoke column billowing out of an apartment building. It was not immediately clear if the strike was an assassination attempt, and no evacuation warning was given before it was carried out.
The Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war, but hostilities have escalated over the last six weeks. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September, according to health authorities.
Israeli strikes on Tuesday also killed five people near the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, including two killed in a strike on a car, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Lebanon’s state news agency said on Tuesday that it estimated Israeli air strikes and widespread detonation of homes had destroyed more than 40,000 housing units in the country’s border region.