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Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have acquiesced to requests from the Philippines government to pay domestic workers a minimum monthly salary of QR1460, or $400, media reports state.

In principal, maids in Qatar are supposed to be paid at least that much, a representative at the Philippines embassy told Doha News today. 

But manpower agencies have said that Qatar’s 40,000+ Filipina domestic workers actually receive an average of QR900, or $247, monthly.

Earlier this week, the Philippine Association of Manpower Agencies for the UAE met recruiters in the country’s capital as part of a “goodwill mission” in several GCC countries, including the UAE and Qatar, the National reports.

Fostering ties

That discussion appears to have yielded promises from the UAE and Saudi Arabia to adhere to reforms requested by the Philippines government, which last year nearly banned its citizens from domestic labor in the GCC due to concerns over workers’ safety.

The agreement smoothes relations with KSA, which had stopped issuing work permits for domestic workers from Indonesia and the Philippines after the nations issued new hiring guidelines last year.

The Philippines embassy in Doha did not say whether any agreements had been made this week in Qatar.

Regardless, the country has expressed plans to move away from a reliance on Filipino labor by tapping manpower agencies to bring in workers from several other impoverished countries, including Bosnia, Cambodia, Morocco and Sudan.

Meanwhile, a draft law establishing maids’ rights in Qatar, introduced by local media more than a year ago, has yet to become a reality.

Thoughts?

Credit: Photo by Phil Gradwell

As Qatar’s population and construction projects multiply, so does the amount of garbage the country generates. 

But waste is a relative term, and officials at the UNESCO office in Doha are working to ensure one man’s trash becomes another man’s treasure.

Government figures indicate that we generate a lot of junk - 20,000 tons of waste are produced daily by the construction industry alone, and in 2010, for example, some 3.5 million tons of waste were dumped in Umm Al-Afai’s landfill. UNESCO contextualizes that amount like this: If everyone had lined up to deposit their garbage on the same day, the queue would stretch from Doha to Islamabad.

In a Gulf Times op-ed, representatives Mark Sutcliffe & Dr Benno Böer continue:

Waste is defined as being unwanted, and more importantly for this article, useless. Waste is therefore an ironic term to use, because nearly everything being thrown away is invariably wanted by someone under the right conditions, and is most definitely not useless. Imagine if you will, throwing away half of your weekly shopping before you even finished using it. You would quickly come to the conclusion that you should buy half as much, and make better use of what you are buying.  

The concept is no stranger to Qatar… The environment is our only life support system. With every piece of litter, we diminish the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. 

Still, recycling in Qatar remains difficult. Educational initiatives fall flat partly because bins that make sorting paper, plastic and other refuse easy are few and far between. 

To tackle the problem of waste, UNESCO Doha has launched the Arab Recycling Initiative,   a website that features a “waste exchange” section listing information about groups who seek - and sometimes pay for - “waste.”

Organizers say the list is far from complete, and invite contributions from volunteers.

Because “we cannot hide the waste we generate, only for our children to find it later.”

Thoughts?

Credit: Photo by Erick Espinosa

Days after the deadly Villaggio fire in Qatar, the Syrian government took credit for starting it, Al Arabiya has reported, citing two leaked documents from Bashar Al-Assad’s government.

In the first document pertaining to Qatar - a telegram apparently sent to the Syrian ambassador here on Feb. 18 - Head of Special Security Forces Major General Dhu al-Himma Shaleesh asserts a need to “embarrass” Qatar for its support of the rebels, and ask the envoy for ideas, Al Arabiya reports.

Shaleesh also authors the second document, dated June 2, in which he personally addresses President Al Assad and acknowledges the “success” of operation “Villaggio blaze.”

The claim remains dubious as no specific plans were laid out in the first memo and no details are offered in the second. It also remains unclear whether there was even a Syrian ambassador in Qatar on Feb. 18, as the GCC announced on Feb. 7 that all Gulf states were expelling Syrian ambassadors. 

Al Arabiya says these two files are part of a large cache of government documents it obtained “with the assistance of members in the Syrian opposition; which has preferred not to elaborate on how they got hold of them.” The channel says, however, that it has verified hundreds of those files.

The Qatari government has yet to comment on the newly released documents, but it was quick to discount earlier rumors of Syrian involvement shortly after the May 28 fire that killed 19 people, including 13 children.

And an official investigation into the fire concluded it was started by faulty electrical wiring in a fluorescent light, which led to the ignition of its plastics components before spreading to flammable materials.

Here are the two Arabic documents Al Arabiya is presenting:

Thoughts?

Credit: Graphic and documents courtesy of Al Arabiya