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Iran Arrests Firm Managers for Backing Labor Strikes

Strikes at the Esfahan Steel Company last fall. (Twitter)
Strikes at the Esfahan Steel Company last fall. (Twitter)
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Iran Arrests Firm Managers for Backing Labor Strikes

Strikes at the Esfahan Steel Company last fall. (Twitter)
Strikes at the Esfahan Steel Company last fall. (Twitter)

Iranian authorities have arrested managers at companies for backing workers' strikes in an energy-producing region in the south, Iranian media reported Wednesday.

"A number of managers" were arrested for "having supported the acts of counter-revolutionary elements" and "organized strikes" at South Pars projects, AFP quoted Fars news agency as saying.

The offshore South Pars field in the Gulf — the world's largest known gas reserve, which Iran shares with Qatar — employs some 40,000 workers.

More company officials will be arrested "in the coming days," it added.

In April, the authorities said 4,000 of the workers on strike over pay and work conditions would be replaced.

The Iran Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported that South Pars employees "have continued to put forward their collective demands," calling for "a 79-percent increase in wages" as well as an "end to discrimination" and the right to "freedom of association."

In 2022, Iran witnessed several waves of strikes by teachers and bus drivers who protested low wages and high living costs.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that some labor protests have been helpful to the country.

"These protests are actually helping the government and the system and making them understand" the demands of workers, Khamenei said.

Since 2018, Iran's economy has been hit by US-led sanctions and spiraling inflation, along with record depreciation of the rial against the dollar.

Meanwhile, Canada imposed additional sanctions on Iran on Wednesday over human rights violations in the country and abroad. The sanctions list one entity and nine people.

The listed entity is Rajaei Prison, which witnessed a record number of executions and is an example of "the regime’s barbarism and neglect of human rights".

Among the nine people designated by the Canadian government are members of the Morality Police, and deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Balochistan.

"We will continue to do everything in our power to respond to the destabilizing actions of the Iranian regime, which affect not only the Iranian people, but have implications for world peace and security,” said Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly.

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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.