Latest news with #Teachers'
Shafaq News
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Iraq teachers' protest: Strike leader in custody
Shafaq News/ Iraqi authorities have arrested the head of the Coordinating Committee for the Teachers' and Educators' Strike, Malek Hadi, and four other members amid a nationwide protest over salaries and education sector reforms, a committee official revealed on Sunday. Mohammed Jader, a committee member, confirmed the arrests, stating that warrants have been issued for all regional representatives of the strike committee. While the four detained in Najaf, Diwaniyah, and Maysan have been released, he noted, Hadi remains in custody in Baghdad. 'These actions are a violation of teachers' rights and an insult to those demanding legitimate reforms,' Jader told Shafaq News Agency, adding that the committee has received backing from several political figures and civil society organizations. The arrests come as a large-scale teachers' strike disrupted education in multiple Iraqi provinces. In Maysan, about 98% of schools shut down, and hundreds of teachers gathered at the Teachers' Syndicate headquarters, according to Shakir Al-Saadi, a member of the General Strike Committee. 'Teachers are calling for increased financial allocations, including raising marriage and child allowances to 100,000 Iraqi dinars (about $77), and extending the Education Service Law—currently applied to university faculty—to schoolteachers,' he told our Agency, asserting that the strike is open-ended until the federal government responds. In Basra, roughly 60% of public schools joined the strike, while in Baghdad, several schools in areas such as Bismayah halted operations. Diyala also saw protest gatherings in Balad Ruz and al-Muqdadiyah. 'Classes have since resumed, but teachers are awaiting Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, which will be attended by the head of the Teachers' Syndicate,' stated Ammar Al-Obaidi, spokesperson for the Diyala Education Directorate, affirming the directorate's support for the teachers' demands and its commitment to fair treatment in the education sector. In Kirkuk, teachers demonstrated outside the Directorate of Education in Taseen, calling for salary increases, equitable allowances, and land grants. However, schools remained open and classes were not disrupted. The Iraqi Coordinating Committee for the Teachers' and Educators' Strike launched the protest to pressure authorities to expand financial benefits and enforce the Education Service Law across all teaching levels. The Ministry of Education, meanwhile, instructed all schools and directorates to maintain normal schedules, citing the importance of completing the academic year without further interruptions. Separately, in Babil province, hundreds of public sector employees, contract workers, and university graduates staged protests in al-Hillah over wage disparities and limited job opportunities. Demonstrators near the provincial government building demanded implementation of a fair salary scale and the Civil Service Law, noting that some government employees earn as little as 180,000 dinars ($138) per month. Under Al-Thawra Bridge in central al-Hillah, unemployed graduates and contract workers criticized their exclusion from recent hiring efforts, urging federal authorities to ensure equitable employment and pay practices across ministries.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Defence investments will be winners in Trump world: Teachers' CEO
There will be winners and losers as United States President Donald Trump shakes up the world order through tariffs and shifting military strategies, but one area poised to prosper is defence, says Jo Taylor, chief executive of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board. 'If you look for a sector where there's going to be more activity and investment over the next five years, it probably is in defence, for all the reasons you know and you've seen,' he said. Since taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly spoken about a handful of global ambitions: taking control of the strategically important Panama Canal, taking over Greenland, a semiautonomous island economically tied to Denmark, and imposing economic pain on Canada with a view to making it his country's 51st state. In February, a broadcasted meeting between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office erupted into a testy exchange, with Trump saying Ukraine would be lost without U.S. support and that Zelenskyy didn't 'have the cards' to set the agenda on the U.S.'s attempts to broker a ceasefire with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Taylor said the $266.3-billion Teachers' pension plan, which on Thursday reported a total fund return of 9.4 per cent for the year ended Dec. 31, 2024, will be cognizant of its members' views on assets in the defence sector when making investment decisions. Last year, teachers' unions called on the pension plan to stop investing in weapons manufacturers. 'We want to be careful about that … our values and our relationship with our members. They have strong views about what they are comfortable with us investing in in that sector and where they'd probably be less comfortable,' he said. 'We also screen companies out there where we think that doesn't meet those objectives. But that will be one sector where you could say, 'Look, actually, it looks like it's going to have some future growth.'' Taylor said tariffs and further trade threats Trump is making about Canada and other trading partners, and the resulting ripple effects, including countertariffs, are injecting uncertainty into investing. Canada and the U.S. are where the bulk of Teachers' assets reside, so the fund is looking very closely at the models it uses to determine whether to rebalance where to put its money. The trade wars and other protectionist policies are likely to drive more need for local partnerships and potentially influence investments around the world, including in Asia, Taylor said. 'We haven't decided yet to change any of our models about how we analyze or the risk we take because we're at the lower end of the risk spectrum overall, and our portfolios are currently in the sort of neutral-to-defensive zone,' he said. However, about $99 billion of Teachers' assets are in the U.S., which remains a key part of the fund's diversified portfolio of public and private assets, including infrastructure, private equity and real estate. 'We have significant assets in the U.S. It's been a very profitable territory for us for a long time. It's got a lot of attractive things still very much working for it,' Taylor said. 'The question is: How much more do we want to build on top of that versus other parts of the world?' He said navigating the Trump administration while maintaining good risk-adjusted returns will involve assessing regulation and other factors state by state. 'It's a state decision as much as a federal decision, so there'll be certain states where it's probably easier for us to see a way of navigating both regulation and future returns and where it's more difficult,' he said. Teachers' often partners with other funds when investing, and Taylor said there is likely to be an uptick in this style of investing in the U.S. to reduce risks from potential hurdles such as regulatory changes. 'Probably now is the time to be doing more with local U.S. partners so that we actually get that covered to some extent, and also that local interpretation of what's going to work and what's not going to work so well,' he said. In some cases, Taylor said the Trump administration's protectionist policies could influence where Teachers' invests in other parts of the world. 'Taiwanese semiconductors would be an example,' he said, adding that if the fund invests in U.S. semiconductors, there could be prohibitions, regulatory or otherwise, placed on investments elsewhere. Ontario Teachers' set to shut Hong Kong office Welltower buying Amica from Ontario Teachers' 'At some point, it's quite possible that we will find that,' he said. 'Are you predominantly investing in the U.S. space, semiconductor manufacturers, or things out of Asia?' Teachers' has turned in a 10-year annualized net return of 7.4 per cent and a 9.3 per cent return since inception. • Email: bshecter@ Sign in to access your portfolio
