Pandemic in focus during online union conference
NORTHERN Ireland’s largest teaching union will come together this weekend against a backdrop of increasing workload, upheaval, fears over health and safety, and educational reform.
Delegates from the NASUWT will attend the organisation’s annual conference online on Saturday and will hear how teachers have come under incredible pressure as a result of what the union said is the Stormont Executive’s “chronic mismanagement of the Covid pandemic”.
NASUWT general secretary Dr Patrick Roach and its Northern Ireland president Angela Wallace will both address delegates. Debate on the motions will take place throughout Saturday.
“Teachers from across Northern Ireland are meeting amid deep uncertainty during this pandemic, uncertainty over their health and wellbeing and uncertainty over the task ahead as they support children’s educational recovery,” said Dr Roach looking ahead to the conference.
“NASUWT members have risen to the challenge.
“It is our members who are stepping up to start the educational recovery, yet again putting themselves back on the line to secure the future of children in Northern Ireland,” Dr Roach said.
Justin Mccamphill, NASUWT National Official Northern Ireland added: “NASUWT members from across Northern Ireland will be sharing their experiences of providing high-quality education under sustained and enormous pressure during the pandemic.
“This will be a time to reflect on the challenges we have faced but also to celebrate what the union has done on behalf of its members over the past year.
“The NASUWT has delivered two pay increases for teachers in schools in the past 12 months in very difficult circumstances while real measures to protect teachers have been put in place.
“But we will be highlighting the intolerable situation facing members in Further Education.
“Not only has FE pay fallen significantly behind that of school colleagues but lecturers have been asked to accept detrimental changes to their terms and conditions in exchange for a pitiful pay increase.
“The profession has risen to the challenge and will face the future knowing they are a vital part of the recovery of society,” he added.
The NASUWT said it will “robustly resist detrimental changes” to the contracts of lecturers as a condition by colleges to improve their pay and has notified employers of its intention to ballot members for industrial action.
THE PSNI Chief Constable is set to be questioned about the safety of journalists today, after a series of recent threats to reporters.
Simon Byrne will meet MLAS from the newly formed Stormont All-party Group on Press Freedom and Media Sustainability.
The group has referred to hearing evidence of an unacceptable increase in threats against journalists in the region.
Sunday World journalist Patricia Devlin was recently the target of sinister graffiti in east Belfast.
Ms Devlin along with a number of journalists have also been warned of threats against them.
SDLP MLA Matthew O’toole said the all party group was founded to do something about the level of threat faced by journalists.
He said he welcomed words of condemnation from the Chief Constable on threats to journalists, but said those words must be “turned into action”.
“No democratic society can function if journalists are not free to do their jobs,” he said.
“And these threats cannot simply be left unchecked. We will be seeking clarity and action from the Chief Constable when we meet him tomorrow.”
Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt said police need to do more to engage and reassure journalists who are subjected to threats.
“I look forward to the Chief Constable detailing the service’s intentions in that regard to the All-party Group,” he said.
“It is crucial journalists perceive threats are taken seriously and that starts with engagement at the right level within the PSNI.”
The group indicated that it will consider possible further recommendations on how best to protect journalists which could then be presented to the Stormont Executive.
Amnesty International said it had written to the group to raise concerns around press freedom in Northern Ireland.
Patrick Corrigan said journalists — particularly those investigating paramilitary and criminal activity — are working in a “climate of fear”.
“Death threats are an attempt to intimidate journalists from doing their jobs and constitute an attack on freedom of the press and the public’s right to information,” he said.
“However, no-one ever seems to be arrested and prosecuted for these threats.
“The Chief Constable must explain why.”
Last year, Amnesty supported Ms Devlin in lodging a complaint with the Police Ombudsman in relation to a “lack of an effective investigation by the PSNI” into a threat to rape her newborn son.
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has said that US President Joe Biden’s remarks about him reflect the past and current problems of the United States.
Mr Biden was asked in an interview this week whether he thought Mr Putin was a killer and replied “I do”.
Asked about Mr Biden’s comment during a video call marking the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Mr Putin charged that it reflected the United States’ own troubled history.
The Russian leader pointed at the US atomic bombing of Japan during the Second World War, as well as America’s past history of slaughtering Native Americans and slavery, arguing that the painful legacies weigh on the United States.
“Otherwise, where would the Black Lives Matter movement come from,” he said.
The exchange of tough statements comes on the heels of a declassified report from the US national intelligence director’s office that found Mr Putin authorised influence operations to try to help Donald Trump win re-election in the November US presidential election.
“(Putin) will pay a price,” Mr Biden said in the interview, asked about the declassified report.
Asked what he would tell Mr Biden in response to his remarks, Mr Putin said: “I would tell him: ‘Be well’. I wish him health, and I say that without any irony or joking.”
Recalling his childhood, Mr Putin said that he and his friends would respond to insults with a rhyme saying “the names you call is what you are yourself”.
“It’s not just a rhymed childish joke, it has a deep psychological meaning: We see our own qualities in another man, we think he’s like us and judge him accordingly,” he added.
Mr Putin claimed that the US establishment likes to air accusations against other countries as part of its efforts to “solve domestic and foreign policy problems”.
He noted that Russia would still cooperate with the US where and when it supports Moscow’s interests, adding that “a lot of honest and decent people in the US want to have peace and friendship with Russia”.
“We are aware of it, we value it and will rely on them in the future,” Mr Putin said.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov deplored what he called “very bad remarks by the US president” that made it clear that “he doesn’t want to normalise relations”.
“We will proceed accordingly,” Mr Peskov said in a conference call with reporters, noting that “there was nothing like that in history”.