MANILA: The Philippine government said on Wednesday it was in talks with Kuwait to seek a resolution over recent labor and travel issues, after the Gulf state suspended the issuance of new visas for Filipinos.
The Philippines has been working on tackling issues concerning its migrant workers in Kuwait, sparked by the gruesome murder of domestic worker Jullebee Ranara that prompted Manila to suspend the deployment of first-time workers to the Arab nation in February.
A Philippine delegation is in Kuwait this week to discuss bilateral labor concerns and seek clarification over Kuwait’s visa suspension that was announced last week.
“Talks are resuming today,” the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs’ Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Eduardo De Vega told Arab News.
“What we’re bringing on the table is a reassurance that we want to resolve pending issues for the benefit of our workers and the mutual benefit of both countries.”
The Philippines wants to hear the Kuwaiti side while also explaining its stance on the ongoing issues, “so that we could lift the suspension” on first-time worker deployment to Kuwait, De Vega said.
“We want to settle these differences and we don’t want this as a permanent thing,” he added.
“We expect not a resolution this week, but that there are some positive signs that we could continue talking in the future until we are able to bridge the gap or resolve what they need and resolve what we need from them, like improvement of the conditions of our workers.”
There were more than 24,000 cases of violation and abuse of Filipino workers in Kuwait last year, according to Department of Migrant Workers data, a significant jump from 6,500 cases in 2016.
Ranara’s murder, with her charred remains discovered on a desert in Kuwait in late January, was not the first such incident involving Filipinos in the country.
In 2018, the Philippines imposed a worker deployment ban to Kuwait after the killing of domestic helper Joanna Daniela Demafelis, whose body was found in a freezer at an abandoned apartment. The ban was partially lifted the same year after both countries signed a protection agreement for workers.
The Philippines again imposed a worker deployment ban in January 2020, following the killing of Constancia Lago Dayag and Jeanelyn Villavende, who was tortured to death by her employer. That ban was lifted after Kuwaiti authorities charged Villavende’s employer with murder and sentenced her to hanging.
The latest Philippine ban was imposed “because somebody was killed,” De Vega said.
“There is a national integrity at stake ... that’s why we did it.”
Philippines in talks with Kuwait over visa suspension for Filipinos
https://arab.news/ve2e6
Philippines in talks with Kuwait over visa suspension for Filipinos
- Kuwait suspended issuance of visas for Filipinos last week
- Filipino officials visiting Kuwait to resolve issues
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
