MANILA: The Philippines on Wednesday lifted its ban on migrant workers heading to jobs in Kuwait, capping a diplomatic row sparked when a murdered Filipino maid was found in her employer’s freezer.
The news comes days after Kuwait and the Philippines inked a deal to regulate and protect the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who seek higher-paid employment in the wealthy Gulf state.
The spat, simmering for months, reached its lowest point in April when Kuwaiti authorities expelled Manila’s envoy over videos showing embassy staff helping Filipino workers flee allegedly abusive bosses in Kuwait.
“President (Rodrigo Duterte) directed me to lift the ban totally... both for the domestic and skilled professionals,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello.
“The president deemed that our overseas workers are protected in Kuwait and he will no longer see incidents of maltreatment, hopefully.”
Around 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, nearly 60 percent of them domestic workers, according to the Philippine foreign ministry.
They are among the millions of its citizens the Philippines has sent to work abroad, seeking salaries they cannot get in their relatively impoverished nation.
The money they send back home accounts for about 10 percent of the Philippine economy.
Duterte in February prohibited workers from heading to Kuwait when domestic helper Joanna Demafelis’s corpse was discovered in a freezer in her employer’s home.
The president lashed out at Kuwait, alleging Arab employers routinely rape Filipino workers, force them to work 21 hours a day and feed them scraps.
Relations appeared to recover after a Kuwaiti court sentenced to death in absentia a Lebanese man and his Syrian wife for Demafelis’s killing.
Following the verdict, Duterte announced plans to visit Kuwait to seal an agreement on workplace safety guarantees for the Filipinos working in the Gulf nation.
But after the rescue videos were released by the Philippine foreign ministry and Manila’s ambassador was ordered out of Kuwait, relations plunged again.
Duterte declared on April 30 that the ban on Filipino workers leaving for the Gulf nation was permanent and urged his citizens to come home if they were being mistreated.
Kuwait sought to calm the confrontation a day later, calling it largely the result of a misunderstanding. Tensions quickly cooled and the two nations on Friday reached an agreement on worker protections.
“Even our labor diplomacy has improved and our relationship and diplomatic ties are now stronger,” Bello said on Wednesday.
A copy of the agreement seen by AFP says that workers will be allowed to keep their passports and cellphones — often confiscated by employers.
It stipulates that contract renewals should be approved by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, instead of being automatic.
Employers must also provide domestic workers with food, housing, clothing and health insurance, according to the document.
The lot of migrant workers is a sensitive issue in the Philippines that gets used domestically for political purposes.
The government has for decades hailed overseas workers as modern heroes but advocacy groups have highlighted the social cost of migration, tearing families apart and making Filipinos vulnerable to abuse.
Philippines lifts ban for Kuwait-bound workers
Philippines lifts ban for Kuwait-bound workers
- Around 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, nearly 60 percent of them domestic workers
- Contract renewals should be approved by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, instead of being automatic
Lebanon says Israeli strike on eastern town kills at least 8
BEIRUT: Lebanon said eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in the east, with state media reporting the attack on a house killed a mother and her children.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Shmostar killed eight people, including four children, and nine others were injured, including four in critical condition,” a ministry statement said, giving a preliminary toll.
The official National Nwes Agency earlier said the attack “killed a family including a mother and her four children.”
Doctor at the heart of Turkiye’s newborn baby deaths case says he was a ‘trusted’ physician
- Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals
- “Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said
ISTANBUL: The Turkish doctor at the center of an alleged fraud scheme that led to the deaths of 10 babies told an Istanbul court Saturday that he was a “trusted” physician.
Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals, where they were allegedly kept for prolonged and sometimes unnecessary treatments in order to receive social security payments.
“Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said, referring to Turkiye’s emergency medical phone line.
Sari, said to be the plot’s ringleader, operated the neonatal intensive care units of several private hospitals in Istanbul. He is facing a sentence of up to 583 years in prison in a case where doctors, nurses, hospital managers and other health staff are accused of putting financial gain before newborns’ wellbeing.
The case, which emerged last month, has sparked public outrage and calls for greater oversight of the health care system. Authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed 10 of the 19 hospitals that were implicated in the scandal.
“I want to tell everything so that the events can be revealed,” Sari, the owner of Medisense Health Services, told the court. “I love my profession very much. I love being a doctor very much.”
Although the defendants are charged with the negligent homicide of 10 infants since January 2023, an investigative report cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency said they caused the deaths of “hundreds” of babies over a much longer time period.
Over 350 families have petitioned prosecutors or other state institutions seeking investigations into the deaths of their children, according to state media.
Prosecutors at the trial, which opened on Monday, say the defendants also falsified reports to make the babies’ condition appear more serious so as to obtain more money from the state as well as from families.
The main defendants have denied any wrongdoing, insisting they made the best possible decisions and are now facing punishment for unavoidable, unwanted outcomes.
Sari is charged with establishing an organization with the aim of committing a crime, defrauding public institutions, forgery of official documents and homicide by negligence.
During questioning by prosecutors before the trial, Sari denied accusations that the babies were not given the proper care, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his employees were not appropriately qualified, according to a 1,400-page indictment.
“Everything is in accordance with procedures,” he told prosecutors in a statement.
The hearings at Bakirkoy courthouse, on Istanbul’s European side, have seen protests outside calling for private hospitals to be shut down and “baby killers” to be held accountable.
The case has also led to calls for the resignation of Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu, who was the Istanbul provincial health director at the time some of the deaths occurred. Ozgur Ozel, the main opposition party leader, has called for all hospitals involved to be nationalized.
In a Saturday interview with the A Haber TV channel, Memisoglu characterized the defendants as “bad apples” who had been “weeded out.”
“Our health system is one of the best health systems in the world,” he said. “This is a very exceptional, very organized criminal organization. It is a mistake to evaluate this in the health system as a whole.”
Memisoglu also denied the claim that he shut down an investigation into the claims in 2016, when he was Istanbul’s health director, calling it “a lie and slander.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished but warned against placing all the blame on the country’s health care system.
“We will not allow our health care community to be battered because of a few rotten apples,” he said.
Fear in central Beirut district hit by Israeli strikes
- “The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir
- There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area
BEIRUT: When Lebanese carpenter Samir awoke in a panic Saturday to the sound of explosions and screams, he thought his own building in central Beirut had been hit by an air raid.
As it turned out, the early morning air strike — which killed at least 11 people and injured 63, according to authorities — had actually brought down an eight-story building nearby, in the second such attack on the working-class neighborhood of Basta in as many months.
A Lebanese security source told AFP the target had been a senior Hezbollah figure, without naming him.
“The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir, 60, who lives with his family in a building facing the one that was hit.
“It felt like they had targeted my house,” he said, asking to be identified by only his first name because of security concerns.
There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area.
After the strike, Samir fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and two children, aged 14 and just three.
On Saturday morning, dumbstruck residents watched as an excavator cleared the wreckage of the razed building and rescue efforts continued, with nearby buildings also damaged in the attack, AFP journalists reported.
The densely packed district has welcomed people displaced from traditional Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east, south and southern Beirut, after Israel intensified its air campaign on September 23, later sending in ground troops.
“We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more,” Samir told AFP, reporting minor damage to his home.
Since last Sunday, four deadly Israeli strikes have hit central Beirut, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
Residents across the city and its outskirts awoke at 0400 (0200 GMT) on Saturday to loud explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the air.
“It was the first time I’ve woken up screaming in terror,” said Salah, a 35-year-old father of two who lives in the same street as the building that was targeted.
“Words can’t express the fear that gripped me,” he said.
Saturday’s strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, after deadly twin strikes early in October hit the area and the Nweiri neighborhood.
Last month’s attacks killed 22 people and had targeted Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, who made it out alive, a source close to the group told AFP.
Salah said his wife and children had been in the northern city of Tripoli, about 70 kilometers away (45 miles), but that he had to stay in the capital because of work.
His family had been due to return this weekend because their school reopens on Monday, but now he has decided against it following the attack.
“I miss them. Every day they ask me: ‘Dad, when are we coming home?’” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry says that more than 3,650 people have been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated exchanges of fire with Israel in solidarity with its Iran-backed ally Hamas over the Gaza war.
However, most of the deaths in Lebanon have been since September this year.
Despite the trauma caused by Saturday’s strike, Samir said he and his family had no choice but to return home.
“Where else would I go?” he asked.
“All my relatives and siblings have been displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs and from the south.”
US says committed to ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon
- Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes “
- He also “urged the Government of Israel to continue to take steps to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza”
WASHSINGTON: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed that the United States was dedicated to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon and urged Israel to improve “dire” conditions in Gaza, in a call Saturday with his Israeli counterpart.
Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border” in his call with Israel Katz, according to a Pentagon spokesperson.
Austin also “urged the Government of Israel to continue to take steps to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and emphasized the US commitment to securing the release of all hostages, including US citizens.”
Lebanon said Saturday that an Israeli air strike in the heart of Beirut that brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city killed at least 11 people.
Israel stepped up its campaign against the Hezbollah militant group in late September, targeting its strongholds in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,645 people have been killed since October 2023, when Hezbollah began trading fire with Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas.
The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In the call with Katz, Austin also discussed ongoing Israeli operations and reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” the Pentagon said.
Turkiye’s Erdogan hails ‘courageous’ ICC warrants for Israeli leaders
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday praised the “courageous decision” of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
“We support the arrest warrant. We consider it important that this courageous decision be carried out by all country members of the accord to renew the trust of humanity in the international system,” Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul. The ICC issued the warrants against the Israeli leaders and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif on Thursday on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza conflict.
