KAKAMMPI News

The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) will review the travel guidelines for international-bound Filipinos, whose implementation was temporarily suspended amid concerns from several quarters. In a statement, the IACAT said it passed a resolution during a special meeting on Saturday formally suspending the implementation of the 2023 Revised Guidelines on Departure Formalities. ''It was further resolved that the IACAT shall revisit the 2023 Guidelines and shall further strengthen its information and education campaign to convey to the public the essential purpose and grave concerns that the 2023 Guidelines seek to address, the IACAT said. The revised guidelines were supposed to take effect on Sunday, September 3, but lawmakers and some ordinary citizens raised the issue of possible infringement on Filipinos' right to travel. ''The decision to suspend the implementation of the 2023 Revised Guidelines is the Council's response to concerns raised by...

KAKAMMPI Upholding and promoting the rights and welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers and their families The KAPISANAN NG MGA KAMAG-ANAK AT MIGRANTENG MANGGAGAWANG PILIPINO, INC. (KAKAMMPI) is a community-based organization composed of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWS), migrant returnees and their families & relatives. Formed in 1983, it has grown into a multi-faceted organization with local chapters and networks. KAKAMMPI was organized to protect the rights and welfare of overseas Filipinos and their families, and to effectively respond to the growing problems of labor migration in the country. It aims to achieve its vision by implementing integrated programs that strengthen family support system that facilitates empowerment and economic stability. KAKAMMPI engages in national and international advocacy and development works for the empowerment of the migrant sector. It anchors weekly radio program on labor migration, implements an assistance program for distressed migrant wo...

GAZA: The delegation of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday that it has contracted 531 teachers from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Palestine. The acting assistant undersecretary of public education and head of the delegation, Osama Al-Sultan, said in a statement to the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that among them were 211 female teachers and 320 male teachers. Sultan added that the teachers were selected through specific stages, including conducting tests and holding a series of interviews in various scientific disciplines such as mathematics, physics, and English for males. He pointed out that all the necessary contracting procedures will be completed as soon as the delegation returns to Kuwait, expressing his confidence in the teachers. He also appreciated the role of the Palestinian leadership in hosting the Kuwaiti delegation during the contracting procedures in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For his part, the official spokesman of the Palestinian Minist...

WASHINGTON, D.C.: United States President Joe Biden's administration has, for the first time, approved direct US military aid to Taiwan under an assistance program aimed at foreign governments, officials said on Wednesday, as worries grow over China. The State Department on Tuesday informed the US Congress of the $80-million package, which is small compared with recent sales to Taiwan, but marks the first assistance to Taipei under the Foreign Military Financing program, which generally involves grants or loans to sovereign countries. The move is sure to anger China. For five decades, the US has officially recognized only Beijing although Congress, under the Taiwan Relations Act, requires the supply of weapons to the self-governing democracy for its defense. Successive US administrations have done so through sales, rather than direct aid, to Taiwan, with formal statements speaking in the tone of business transactions with the island's de-facto embassy in Washington, D.C. Th...

AFP / Pau Barrena MONTREAL, Canada — The Canadian government on Tuesday warned members of the LGBTQ community planning to visit the United States they may be at risk in some parts of the country, telling them to "check relevant state and local laws." The advisory links to a government web page that emphasizes that some foreign jurisdictions may target people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Published online on the website of Global Affairs Canada, such warnings are usually reserved for countries known for LGBTQ rights violations, such as Russia, Egypt and Uganda. Canada's travel advisories generally focus on risks linked to political instability or natural disasters. Asked about the warning at a news conference on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland stressed that the decision was not political. "We have professionals in the government whose job is to look carefully around the world and to monitor whether there are particular dan...

TOKYO, Japan — Takashi Hosoda was in a Tokyo skyscraper when the 9.0 magnitude quake struck on March 11, 2011, but the trained architect was "not particularly worried" as modern Japanese buildings are designed to protect their occupants. A century after Tokyo was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Japanese capital today bears no resemblance to the city levelled by that 7.9 tremor, which killed 105,000 people. The low-rise, largely wooden city that was destroyed a second time by US firebombing during World War II has been replaced by a soaring megalopolis where reinforced concrete is king. The September 1, 1923, disaster marked "the dawn of seismic design of structures in Japan", said Yoshiaki Nakano, an earthquake engineering expert from the National Research Institute for Earth Sciences and Disaster Resilience (NIED). The following year Japan introduced its first building code for earthquake-resistant construction. These standards have been ...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The tritium concentration in wastewater being released from Japan's stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is under expected levels and poses no risk to the population, the head of the UN atomic watchdog said Tuesday. "So far we have been able to confirm that the first releases of these waters do not contain any radionucleide at levels that would be harmful," Rafael Grossi told AFP during a visit to Stockholm. Twelve years after one of the world's worst nuclear accidents, Japan began releasing the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean last week, as it gradually discharges around 540 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water over several decades. "The beginning has been according to what we were expecting ... but we will continue (to monitor) ... until the last drop is released," Grossi said. The IAEA said on August 24 that its independent analysis of the tritium concentration in the diluted water being discharged was "far below th...