MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has asked for provisions such as seven hours’ sleep a day, nutritious food and holidays to be added to the bilateral agreement that is to protect the rights of Filipino workers in Kuwait.
Duterte said that he was late giving his scheduled speech at the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) 39th commencement exercises in Silang, Cavite on Wednesday, because of work on the final draft of the agreement.
The president said after studying the document, he had inserted some provisions in the agreement.
“I demanded that it will be a contract — government to government — and that there will be some mandatory provisions like they (Filipino workers in Kuwait) should be allowed to sleep at least seven hours a day,” the president said.
He added that Filipino workers should also be fed “nutritious food.” “I will not, we will not allow leftovers to be eaten by our countrymen. They should be allowed to cook their own food,” he said.
The president also said that passports of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) should not be confiscated by employers and that OFWs should be allowed holidays.
Duterte reiterated that Filipinos are not slaves. “I have said that we are not slaves. Maybe our only fault would be ... because we are poor,” the president said.
Filipino Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III told Arab News last week that after a brief impasse in the two-day negotiations between Philippines and Kuwait officials held in Manila, officials from both countries agreed a draft migrant labor protection pact.
In a telephone interview, Bello explained the delay was due to two ticklish issues — OFW passports being withheld by employers and employment contracts. He said the Kuwaiti officials eventually agreed to their proposals on both issues.
The draft agreement stipulates a $400 net-per-month salary for OFWs. Employers must open a bank account in which to deposit the worker’s salary. OFWs must also have mobile phones and be able to use them as well as other means of communication.
It was also agreed that an OFW must give a written consent where an employee is required to transfer from one employer to another, and that written approval for the transfer is obtained from the Philippine labor attache.
Duterte says Filipino workers in Kuwait must have seven hours’ sleep, good food and holidays
Duterte says Filipino workers in Kuwait must have seven hours’ sleep, good food and holidays
At least 15 dead in eastern India over 24 hours as temperatures soar
- India has been experiencing a blisteringly hot summer and a part of capital Delhi recorded the country's highest ever temperature at 52.9 degrees Celsius this week
- While temperatures in northwestern and central India are expected to fall in the coming days, the prevailing heatwave over east India is likely to continue for two days
BHUBANESWAR: At least 15 people have died of suspected heatstroke in India’s eastern states of Bihar and Odisha on Thursday, authorities said, with the region gripped in a debilitating heatwave expected to continue until Saturday.
India has been experiencing a blisteringly hot summer and a part of capital Delhi recorded the country’s highest ever temperature at 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.22°F) this week, though that may be revised with the weather department checking the sensors of the weather station that registered the reading.
While temperatures in northwestern and central India are expected to fall in the coming days, the prevailing heatwave over east India is likely to continue for two days, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which declares a heatwave when the temperature is 4.5 C to 6.4 C higher than normal.
The deaths of 10 people were reported in the government hospital in Odisha’s Rourkela region on Thursday, authorities told Reuters, while five deaths were reported in Bihar’s Aurangabad city due to “sunstroke.”
“About seven more people died on their way to the hospital yesterday but the exact cause of their death will be known after the autopsy,” Aurangabad District Collector Shrikant Shastree told Reuters.
The Odisha government has prohibited outdoor activities for its employees between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. when temperatures peak.
Three people died of suspected heatstroke in Jharkhand state, neighboring Bihar, local media reported.
In Delhi, where high temperatures have been causing birds and wild monkeys to faint or fall sick, the city zoo is relying on pools and sprinklers to bring relief to its 1,200 occupants.
“We have shifted to summer management diet, which includes a more liquid diet as well as all the seasonal fruits and vegetables which contain more water,” Sanjeet Kumar, director of the zoo, told news agency ANI.
Delhi, where the temperature is expected to touch 43 C on Friday, recorded its first heat-related death this week and is facing an acute water shortage.
Billions across Asia, including in India’s neighboring Pakistan, have been grappling with soaring temperatures- a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change.
India, which is holding its national elections amidst the heat, is the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter but has set a target of becoming a net-zero emitter by 2070.
While heat is affecting some of the country, the northeastern states of Manipur and Assam have been battered by heavy rainfall after Cyclone Remal, with several areas inundated on Friday.
Monsoon rains also hit the coast of the country’s southernmost Kerala state on Thursday, two days earlier than expected.
India’s key monsoon rains arrive early, promising respite from heat
- Monsoon rains hit the coast of India’s southernmost state of Kerala on Thursday, two days sooner than expected
- Rains spells relief from heat wave that has driven maximum temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius in some regions
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Monsoon rains hit the coast of India’s southernmost state of Kerala on Thursday, two days sooner than expected, weather officials said, offering respite from a gruelling heat wave while boosting prospects for bumper harvests.
Summer rains, critical to spur economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, usually begin to lash Kerala around June 1 before spreading nationwide by mid-July, allowing farmers to plant crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane.
The monsoon has covered nearly all of Kerala and most northeastern states, the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a statement.
Conditions favored its spread to the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and the northeastern state of Assam during the next two to three days, it added.
That spells relief from a stifling heat wave that has driven maximum temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in some northern and western regions.
The monsoon, the lifeblood of the nearly $3.5-trillion economy, brings nearly 70 percent of the rain India needs to water farms and recharge reservoirs and aquifers.
In the absence of irrigation, nearly half the farmland in the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar depends on the annual rains that usually run from June to September.
India is likely to receive an average amount of rain in June, although maximum temperatures are likely to stay above normal, the IMD said, with the monsoon this year expected to be 106 percent of the long-term average.
In 2023, below-average rainfall depleted reservoirs, hitting food output, prompting government curbs on exports of commodities such as rice, wheat, sugar and onions.
Resumption of exports depends on how quickly production recovers in 2024, which hinges on a plentiful monsoon. That in turn could help rein in food inflation, which is still too high for the central bank’s comfort.
UN refugee chief says 114 million have fled homes because nations fail to tackle causes of conflict
- UN refugee chief says the number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million
GENEVA: The number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law, the UN refugee chief said Thursday.
In a hard-hitting speech, Filippo Grandi criticized the UN Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for failing to use its voice to try to resolve conflicts from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan to Congo, Myanmar and many other places.
He also accused unnamed countries of making “short-sighted foreign policy decisions, often founded on double standards, with lip service paid to compliance with the law, but little muscle flexed from the council to actually uphold it and — with it — peace and security.”
Grandi said non-compliance with international humanitarian law means that “parties to conflicts — increasingly everywhere, almost all of them — have stopped respecting the laws of war,” though some pretend to do so.
The result is more civilian deaths, sexual violence is used as a weapons of war, hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure are attacked and destroyed, and humanitarian workers become targets, he said.
Calling himself a frustrated humanitarian and looking directly at the 15 council members, Grandi said that instead of using its voice, “the council’s cacophony has meant that you have instead continued to preside over a broader cacophony of chaos around the world.”
The high commissioner for refugees told the council it’s too late for the tens of thousands who have been killed in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other conflicts.
“But it is not too late to put your focus and energy on the crises and conflicts that remain unresolved, so that they are not allowed to fester and explode again,” Grandi said. “It is not too late to step up help for the millions who have been forcibly displaced to return home voluntarily, in safety and with dignity.”
It’s also not too late to save millions of people from the scourge of war, the refugee chief said.
But the Security Council is increasingly polarized, and its five veto-wielding permanent members are at odds, with the US, Britain and France often strongly opposed to the views of Russia and China.
On the Gaza war, the council has not called for a ceasefire because of opposition from the United States, Israel’s closest ally. And on Ukraine, the council has been ineffective as Russia, a key party to the conflict after Moscow invaded its smaller neighbor in February 2022, would veto almost any resolution.
Grandi called what’s happened in Gaza since Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7 and the “atrocious” recent events in the southern city of Rafah after an Israeli airstrike led to a deadly fire at a camp for displaced Palestinians an example of the “brutal conduct of hostilities meant not only to destroy but also to terrify civilians,” who increasingly more often have no choice but to flee.
He said Gaza is also “a tragic reminder of what happens when conflicts (and by extension a refugee crisis) are left unattended” for decades. He also pointed to Syria where after 13 years of conflict, 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain in neighboring countries including Lebanon and Jordan which also host Palestinian refugees.
Grandi said violations of international law, including forcing people to flee, are having a devastating effect on people around the world.
For example, in Myanmar, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting since October, bringing the total to over 3 million, “with many trying to seek refuge in neighboring countries,” he said.
In Ukraine, international humanitarian law is violated every day with Russian attacks on the country’s power networks, houses and other civilian infrastructure, he said.
And in Congo, Grandi said, “violence between men with guns is so common that no other place on Earth is as dangerous for women and children than the east of that country.”
“But how can members of the United Nations, how can `we the peoples’ pay so little attention and have so much inaction in a place where sex with a child can be bought for less than a cold drink?” the refugee chief asked.
“What a shameful stain on humanity!” Grandi said.
Sikh separatist contests India election from jail, a worry for government
- Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000km from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab
- Singh was arrested last year and jailed after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms
KHADOOR SAHIB: A jailed Sikh separatist leader is contesting India’s general election from prison and drawing good support, his campaign managers said, in what could become a concern for New Delhi which has sought to stamp out any revival of Sikh militancy.
Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab state, where villages and towns are dotted with posters depicting him with swords and bullet-proof vests.
Singh was arrested last year and jailed under a tough security law after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms, demanding the release of one of his aides.
A win for him in an election to parliament could give Singh some legitimacy and spark concerns of a revival of a militancy that killed tens of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s.
“People will make their decision on June 1,” Singh’s father Tarsem, 61, said referring to the voting in the constituency on Saturday. “They will send an important message to those who have maligned his image, to those who are defaming our community and our Punjab.”
Tarsem Singh spoke inside a Sikh temple set beside wheat fields and a river canal. Portraits of Sikhs who were killed during the militancy in Punjab, called “martyrs” by Singh’s supporters, were pinned on the walls.
Sikhs are the majority community in Punjab but they constitute just 2 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people. Sikh militants began agitating for an independent homeland in the 1970s but the insurgency was largely suppressed by the early 1990s with harsh crackdowns.
However, Sikh separatism has made global headlines in the last year as Canada and the United States have accused India of being involved in assassination plots against Sikhs in those countries, charges New Delhi has denied.
Singh said in a 2023 interview that he was seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs and the people of Punjab, where the religion was founded more than 500 years ago.
SINGH’S ‘TSUNAMI’
To be sure, Singh’s campaign is focused on fighting Punjab’s drug problem, freeing former Sikh militants from prison and protecting the Sikh identity in Hindu majority India. His father and aides are careful to avoid any mention of the idea of a Sikh homeland.
“There is a tsunami in the name of Amritpal Singh, anyone who stands against him will be swept off,” said Imaan Singh Khara, 27, Singh’s lawyer.
Community leaders pushed Singh to contest from Khadoor Sahib, a historical center for Sikhs on the border with Pakistan, despite his initial hesitation, his aides said. Indian law allows undertrials to contest polls.
Singh is contesting as an independent and his main rivals — also all Sikhs — belong to the opposition Congress party, the Sikh-centric Shiromani Akali Dal, Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Amritpal Singh may have some support but not enough to win, said BJP candidate Manjit Singh Manna. “People have seen the militancy days, they don’t want those days to return,” Manna said.
Demand for a separate Sikh nation has more support abroad, but a rise in support for Singh risks giving new legs to extremist politics at a time when mainstream parties are wrapped in their own rivalries, analysts say.
“Once you weaken the moderates, people get articulation through these fringe radicals, which is a danger signal,” said Pramod Kumar, chairperson of the Institute for Development and Communication, based in the city of Chandigarh.
“Amritpal may win, in a four-cornered contest he may win.”
Dome of Rock replica turns remote Sri Lankan town into tourist site
- It was inaugurated in Kattankudy, Eastern Province, in 2022
- The site has since boosted local halal tourism businesses
KATTANKUDY: A bright gold dome mounted on an octagonal blue arcade looks like the Dome of the Rock, but the background is a modern tropical neighborhood in a coastal Sri Lankan town.
The building is a mosque modeled on the seventh-century shrine in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem — the third holiest site in Islam, after the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah.
Built in Kattankudy, a township near the city of Batticaloa in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, the three-story replica was inaugurated in December 2022.
Muslims constitute about 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population, which is predominantly Buddhist, but in Kattankudy and neighboring areas they are a majority.
“For Friday prayers, around 2,000 to 3,000 people would pray here, on the three stories, and outside also ... In Ramadan, (there is) also a big crowd,” Mahamood Lebbe Alim Mohamed Hizbullah, the mosque’s caretaker and former governor of the Eastern Province, told Arab News.
But the biggest crowds flock to the coastal town during weekends, he said, as the mosque has boosted local businesses offering halal food and accommodation.
Financed from donations, it is becoming a main tourism attraction for the region’s Muslims, most of whom may never be able to visit the original site in Palestine.
“The Muslim community, after the Easter attack, is finding it really difficult to travel,” Hizbullah said, referring to the deadly 2019 bombings on churches in Colombo.
While the attacks were claimed by Daesh militants, they prompted the Sri Lankan government to ramp up restrictions on the Muslim community.
No such restrictions are present in Kattankudy, where most of the establishments and properties are Muslim-run.
“This has become a tourist destination in the Eastern Province ... (Praying here) you feel so comfortable, and you feel you are in a different place,” said Abdul Rahman Mansoor, former deputy mayor of nearby Kalmunai city.
“People like me, we are not going to Palestine, we will not get the chance, but coming here ... gives us confidence and gives us hope.”
