Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Auxiliary Bishop of Awka Diocese,Most Rev Jonas-Benso Okoye, with priests, some members of Ora-Eri town union executive and the Royal Ezenri cabinet members after the thanksgiving Mass

THE Catholic Church in Anambra State has put a final seal on the abolition of the Osu Caste system in Igbo land with a thanksgiving service celebrated at the ancient town of Ora-Eri in Aguata local government area of Anambra State.

EKWEREMADU: We cant achieve Biafra attacking Igbo leaders MASSOB

Recall that the traditional ceremony abolishing the over 500 years old obnoxious system was performed by the Okpala Eri XIII, Anthony Okafor, on 14th September last year during which those hitherto referred to as Osu and the freeborn embraced each other and decided to put the past behind.

At that ceremony, the traditional ruler of Ora-Eri, His Royal Highness, Ezenri Emmanuel Nriagu warned that henceforth, anybody who referred to another person as Osu would be seriously dealt with. To drive home the importance of last years ceremony, the Ora-Eri community last week invited the church to make Christian pronouncement banning the system in the entire Igbo land.

The Auxiliary Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Reverend Jonas- Benson Okoye was at the head of the celebration, with five other priests in attendance. Bishop Okoye was particularly happy with Ora-Eri community for collaborating with the church in the abolition of Osu system in the town, explaining that the thanksgiving church service was to conclude the exercise that began last year.

Reverend Monsignor Jerome Madueke, who delivered the homily at the church service, traced the origin of Osu in Igbo land, recalling that some people, out of cheer wickedness, were dedicated to idols for no justifiable reason.

He said: These (Osu) people lived upright life. They were respected because of the idols that owned them. Nowadays, people are busy destroying the physical structures (idols) which were symbols of worship of our forefathers, but still retaining them in their minds and spirit, fearing them and attributing all their woes to them.

But since Jesus came that we may have life and have it in full, everybody is equal before God and all gifts come from God and to be used for the good of others, especially the less privileged.

It is regrettable that we worship God and idols together because of our lack of faith. Our ancestors should be pardoned because they worshiped idols out of ignorance. Let us therefore appreciate that Jesus came and abolished distinction between free born and slaves.

Unless we allow God to come into our minds, in behaviours and relationship with others, the issue of Osu may still linger. I want to observe that in addition to the formal abolition of Osu system, there is still great work to do and I pray that by the grace of God, we can achieve much more.

. He thanked Ora -Eri people for living up to Christs injunctions by taking the bold step to abolish Osu in the community.

The traditional ruler of the town, HRH Ezenri Emmanuel Nriagu commended the Bishop for celebrating the church service and the parish priest Rev Fr Nwakelu Andrew for his unalloyed support during the preparation of the abolition ceremony, as well as the indigenous priests and the entire people of the community for their support. He also affirmed that his cabinet was ready to confer any title on any deserving indigene of the town irrespective of his background.

Eze Nriagu warned that henceforth anybody in his domain who discriminated against others on the basis of Osu caste system would face the full weight of traditional hammer, describing the Osu system as retrogressive. According to him, the people of Ora-Eri were happy to put behind the system that reduced fellow human beings to second class citizens for centuries.

With the ceremony we have performed in this community, those formerly described as Osu will start taking traditional titles and intermarry with others.

Those who were hitherto referred to as Osu in this community have been bestowed with all rights and privileges enjoyed by the freeborn. They are good people and many of them are intelligent and beautiful and everybody stands to gain by putting behind this obnoxious system.

The Royal Father thanked the Bishop for celebrating the church service and assured that his people would never go back to the dark era.

Chief Anthony Okafor, who presided over the abolition ceremony at the community square last year said he had been campaigning for the abolition for several years, expressing joy that his effort had finally paid off.

Okafor said: When I took the title of Okpara in 1990, I took it upon myself that Osu Caste system must be abolished. It was not easy at the beginning.

In the past four years, I chose to be sampling peoples opinion on the matter and it was during that period that I found out that many people in our community also wanted the system abolished, but did not know how to go about it.

We later renewed the campaign and happy enough, the leadership of Ora -Eri Development Union and our traditional ruler were in support.

In his speech, the President General of Ora-Eri Development Union, Mr. Okey Atueyi said the community had taken a bold decision and commended everybody in the area for their support in putting the discriminatory system behind. You can see how happy the people are, he said.

Anambra police confirm stealing of 5-year-old boy during church service

The Parish priest of Ora-Eri, Rev Fr Andrew Nwakelu expressed appreciation to the people of Ora-Eri for participating in the historic church celebration and enjoined them to remain with the new spirit.

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Catholic Church puts seal on abolition of Osu caste in Igboland - Vanguard

The directors of the Gaslini Childrens Hospital in Genoa last week called a press conference about progress in the condition of one of their patients. Tafida Raqeeb, the British child at the centre of a right-to-life struggle which in October her parents sensationally won, had been removed from intensive care just three months after the High Court in London was told that she had no hope of recovery.

The five-year-old had been so gravely harmed from huge bleeding on the brain last February, the argument went, that only death could be in her best interests even if she emerged from a coma.

Permission was sought to allow the Royal London Hospital to keep Tafida in the UK and to withdraw the ventilation and feeding tubes that were keeping her alive, with the sole purpose of ending her life before her organs were removed for transplantation.

But the case made by the National Health Service was rejected by Mr Justice McDonald, who weighed it against Tafidas right to free movement within the European Union, her religious convictions (she and her family are Muslims) and the sanctity of life itself.

Since transferring to Italy, Tafida has undergone surgery to relieve pressure on her brain and a tracheostomy to make it easier to breathe unaided. She is now being weaned, with success, off her ventilator.

Tafida began 2020 with a move to her own room, which is equipped for physiotherapy and located within a unit where she can also undergo hydrotherapy, leading Shelina Begum, her mother, to declare: Her recovery starts today.

If anyone could see Tafida now, they would be shocked, she told the Daily Mail. There are no tubes in her nose any more, and she is always opening her eyes. She has also come off the catheter. She is in control of her urinary function now.

Miss Begum added: It shows that the medical opinion that was placed before the court in the UK is being proved wrong by Tafida herself.

The pace of Tafidas recovery certainly offers hope and if she continues to make progress it will be difficult to dispute the trenchant analysis of Miss Begum, a 39-year-old solicitor from East London.

Her recovery should also invite hard questions about how and why the NHS got it so spectacularly wrong.

Was it because of factors involving hospital personnel? Or was it more deliberately about policy, such as the protection of limited cash and hospital beds, and the ability of the NHS to keep patients where it wants them and treat them how it sees fit?

Either way, it is time for a change. The NHS was founded on the noble principle that health care should be free at the point of delivery. That should not preclude reforms of an institution which the Conservative politician Nigel Lawson once described as the closest thing the English people have to a religion.

The NHS, after all, has a track record of failures that must be considered alongside its life-saving work. Think of the Alder Hey organs and the Bristol hearts scandals, the Shrewsbury and Morecambe Bay maternity scandals, the Gosport War Memorial Trust Hospital and the Stafford Hospital scandals.

If people want to know about the real culture of the NHS, they might have benefited from hearing of the experiences of about 1,000 families who relayed their stories during the Neuberger review of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).

The review led in 2014 to the abolition of the end-of-life protocol and its condemnation as a national disgrace by Norman Lamb, then care services minister. But it was deficient in that it lacked the status of a full public inquiry, meaning that the evidence so many families wished to give was not officially documented.

Furthermore, there are reports that doctors still claim a gift for predicting death and still prescribe the sort of palliative care that ensures their prophecies are self-fulfilling, features which made the LCP so fatally flawed.

Yet there is little accountability, with the threshold for criminal convictions of medics so high that police seldom wish to hear complaints of aggrieved relatives.

NHS complaints processes are hardly neutral in the way they are conducted, and complaints to the Ombudsman can often take years to resolve without the final ruling carrying any statutory force.

Together such factors help to create and encourage the throwaway culture so frequently lamented by Pope Francis.

Add to this the financial imperative, and it is easy to see that what is being disposed of most wrongfully in this context are the lives of the sickest, most elderly and most vulnerable of people, viewed as unworthy consumers of finite resources.

If the NHS is imperilling the lives of the people for whom it was founded to serve, then surely it is not the best health service in the world; it is unfit for purpose. It is reasonable therefore to consider if there might be a better way of doing things.

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A twist in the Tafida story - Catholic Herald Online

Priti Patel probably thought she was helping when she tried to defend counter-terrorism police from the condemnation that followed last weeks story in the Guardian revealing the inclusion of Extinction Rebellion (XR) in a guide on supposed extreme or violent ideologies.

The document has apparently now been withdrawn. Nevertheless, the home secretarys insistence that the police always make decisions based on the risk to the public, security risks, security threats does inevitably lead to an obvious, unanswered question. If she is right, how exactly did Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), which wrote and published the guide, manage to make what even it admits was a significant error of judgment?

The answer lies in how alleged risks posed by protest groups are assessed. To begin with, it may surprise many that there is no legal definition of what domestic extremism even means, leaving the police with complete discretion in deciding what it covers. Extremism and domestic extremism are used interchangeably by the police to differentiate from terrorism. The current criteria is so broad and ambiguous that David Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has described it as manifestly deficient and last summer, the Home Office finally confirmed it had stopped using such terms. The police, as we have seen, have not.

In practice, decisions about who is labelled an extremist are made in secret by police units concerned more about their ideas of security and defending public order than about human rights and by officers who are often deeply antagonistic towards protesters challenging the corporate and political orthodoxies of the day.

The full extent of such hostility was set out in a Policy Exchange report on XR co-authored last year by Richard Walton, the former head of the Metropolitan polices counter-terrorism command. Walton claimed, extraordinarily, that what he saw as the underlying extremism of the campaign had been largely obscured from public view by what many see as the fundamental legitimacy of their stated cause.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that assessments of alleged risk are never neutral. Invariably, as the CTPSE guide claimed, just having an anti-establishment philosophy, taking part in entirely non-violent direct action and even participation in planned school walkouts is enough for the police to classify individual campaigners as a threat.

In turn, this classification provides police with the justification for intensive surveillance, which can be extremely intrusive and intimidating.

XR is far from the first environmental campaign to receive this kind of police attention. More than a decade ago the anti-aviation group Plane Stupid was targeted and it is nine years since Mark Kennedy was exposed as an undercover police officer who infiltrated annual climate camp gatherings.

However, the most recent targets have been opponents of fracking, with sustained surveillance from regional counter-terrorism units. Netpol, the organisation I run to monitor public order, protest and street policing, has documented the experiences of the anti-fracking movement for five years and these provide an important reminder of why no matter what promises are made now, there are no guarantees the police will stop categorising XR as extremists in the future.

In December 2016, negative media coverage forced the Home Office to declare that support for anti-fracking is not an indicator of vulnerability to extremism. This followed reports about City of York council and a school in North Yorkshire including anti-fracking campaigns in their Prevent counter-terrorism advice. However, months later, leaked counter-terrorism local profiles again the work of the regional police unit in the south-east of England identified protests in Sussex as a priority theme ... where increased tensions or vulnerabilities may exist.

As recently as October 2019, there was evidence of Surrey county council claiming local police had advised it that anti-fracking activities were among their main extremist areas of concern (alongside the far right) and that any protest, no matter how peaceful, was extremist.

It is clear that once the current controversy dies down, it will be only a matter of time before XR and other climate activists are again labelled as an extremist risk. The group has indicated it may bring legal action to have its name removed from any list but perhaps XR would be better served by putting its weight behind the call for the complete abolition of the domestic extremist label for everyone.

To protect freedom to protest, the government also needs to completely separate secretive counter-terrorism units from the policing of non-violent protests. They have no business involving themselves in legitimate political activity.

Until this happens, it seems unlikely anyone will ever be held to account for errors of judgment, no matter how potentially damaging the consequences are for those labelled a safeguarding risk. Officers will simply carry on, as they have for decades, trying to find imagined threats in any new and emerging protest movement and then spying on and disrupting their campaigns. Its time this finally stopped for good.

Kevin Blowe is coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring

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Non-violent protesters are not terrorists and its time the police accepted that - The Guardian

The current government of Qubec, Coalition Avenir Qubecois, has always shown a great level of commitment to the project of lacit, the idea that government should be completely secular, with no recognition granted to any religious dimension in social life, regardless of sect or denomination.

Sometimes that leads them to make solid humanist decisions, like removing the trappings of religion from government spaces.

At other times, their choices are much more controversial, as in the case of a 2019 law banning public servants from wearing religious symbols at work, which heavily targeted belief systems that mandate religious headgear and blurred the distinction between government endorsement and individual expression.

Now, the provincial government under Premier Franois Legault has announcedits plan to cancel a comparative religions and ethics course in Qubec schools, called Ethics and Religious Culture, on the grounds that it gives too much importance and attention to religion.

Qubecs Minister of Education, Jean-Franois Roberge, explained that the course will be replaced with a more secular variation:

We are abolishing it to replace it with something new. But there will always be elements of the original course that remain, like ethics, the practice of dialogue, respect for self and others, the fight against stereotypes. One could say it is a far-reaching reform I dont know what we will call it, but I know it wont be called Ethics and Religious Culture.

Roberge has identified eight key themes to serve as the focus of the new course as it is developed: citizen participation in democracy, ecological citizenship, digital citizenship, legal education, sex education, self-development and interpersonal relationships, social and company culture, and the broadly-defined catch-all topic of ethics.

Roberge says religion will continue to be a topic discussed in the course but it will have far less prominence than it did in the courses previous incarnation.

It will have a much smaller place than what it does now, but a space all the same. If one wants to understand the geopolitical map of the world, religion is an element that allows one to understand the actions of certain countries.

The course is expected to be ready for testing in select schools at the start of the 2021-22 school year. If successful, it will become part of the official curriculum in 2022-23.

Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) entered the curriculum in 2008 as a bid to secularize Qubec schools while providing students with a grounding of knowledge about other faiths. Some critics of this new move argue that the shift away from discussing religions deprives students of the ability to explore the beliefs of others. Their concern is preventing students from learning about the beliefs that underscore so much of what drives people around this world, not a desire to indoctrinate students under any particular worldview.

In fact, argues Montreal commentator Toula Drimonis, the comparative study of various religions does more than increase students cultural competence: It can actually produce more atheists.

Some education experts, however, lament the decision in much stronger terms. Retired professor Jean-Pierre Proulx calls Roberges decision a resounding victory for militant atheism:

The announced abolition of the Ethics and Religious Culture program constitutes a resounding victory for militant Qubecois atheism and its propagandists. For this movement, religion is intrinsically an aberration, the fruit of irrationality. Worse, it is the gangrene of humanity. So inevitably, religion even from a cultural perspective has no place in schools.

Many atheists would object to that straw-man characterization, however; in fact, many current atheists found their way out of religion after learning about alternatives to the faith they were taught as children. Others merely recognize the difference between learning about religion and being taught to profess a faith. Says Drimonis:

Even though Im a staunch atheist and have been since the age of six, I have always appreciated and enjoyed learning about other faiths, cultures, moral codes, and traditions. No amount of reading on the subject has ever made me believe in a god. Knowledge and religious literacy arent proselytism or indoctrination and I would be suspicious of anyone who claims that they are.

Its worth noting that the Supreme Court of Canada agrees: When the 2008 ECR curriculum first rolled out, a Drummondville Catholic family argued that the mandatory program violated their freedom of religion by interfering with their ability to pass on their faith to their children. The Supreme Court dismissed their appeal, emphasizing the absence of indoctrination in the curriculums presentation of world religions.

In other words, if your religion cant hold up in light of factual knowledge about other faiths, thats not the Ministry of Educations problem.

The question of what role that knowledge should play in a modernized and updated curriculum, however, remains open. Currently the government of Qubec is soliciting feedback from all concerned citizens through a questionnaire on the Ministry of Educations website.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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Qubec Takes Religion Out of Ethics and Religion Course in Public Schools - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

PUBLISHED: 13:38 13 January 2020 | UPDATED: 13:43 13 January 2020

Lauren Knight

After January 1, 2021, laws around worker rights will change. Picture: Getty Images

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With information provided by Fosters Legal Solicitors we've compiled this need-to-know guide to help you understand what leaving the EU could mean for you and your family and where you can find the right legal advice to help.

What does Brexit mean for EU citizens?

On June 23, 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU) during what became known as the 'Brexit' referendum.

Following the results of the December 2019 General Election that saw Boris Johnson return to 10 Downing Street with a majority vote, plans to implement Brexit will be put into motion in January 2020.

For Swiss and EU citizens, or those from countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) that haven't secured their UK immigration status by the end of the implementation period on December 31, 2020, this could mean they will no longer be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom.

How can you secure your UK immigration status?

If you're an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen, you and your family can apply for the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living and working in the UK. The scheme can help you secure your immigration status. To be eligible you'll need to apply before December 31, 2020."

When can you apply?

You can apply for the EU Settlement scheme now. The deadline for applying is June 2021.

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, you'll need to be living in the UK before it leaves in order to apply. The deadline, in this case, is December 31, 2020.

How will leaving the EU effect your rights as a worker?

After January 1, 2021, the government will implement a new single immigration system that will change the laws surrounding worker's rights.

By then your UK immigration status will need to be secured and you'll need to register under the new skills-based immigration system to stay and work in the UK.

What is the future skills-based immigration system?

It's a new single immigration system, designed around an individual's skills and talents, that will apply to EU, EEA and Swiss citizens and their family members that arrive in the UK on or after January 1, 2021.

The new system includes:

- A skilled workers route open to all nationalities

- Lowering the skills threshold on the skilled worker route to include medium-skilled workers

- No cap on numbers on the skilled worker route, meaning that business will be able to hire any suitably qualified migrant

- The abolition of the resident labour market test

- A new time-limited route for temporary short-term workers of all skill levels, including seasonal low-skilled workers

- An extension to the post-study period for international students

How can Fosters Legal Solicitors help?

Seeking legal help from an expert from the start can help you understand your rights and what action you need to take to protect you and your family.

Fosters Legal Solicitors is a multi-award-winning law firm which focuses on all aspects of immigration law. The team offer advice and support about your rights and securing your immigration status.

If you're an employer, they can advise you on how to secure the UK immigration status of your EU, EEA and Swiss employees and their family members and help protect your skilled workforce.

Call 01438 318 452 or email office@fosterslegal.co.uk to find out how they can help you. Visit fosterslegal.co.uk/immigration-law for more information and to see the other services they can help you with.

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How will Brexit affect your rights at work? | EU, EEA and Swiss citizens | Business - The Comet

A RETIRED nurse who had to choose between paying her bills and food is calling for change following research showing 4.8 million people in the UK are too poor to afford essential home appliances.

Sheena Stephenson came to live in Newton Aycliffe in 2012 after she lost her rented bungalow in Newcastle following the loss of her job at the Childrens Heart Unit at Freeman Hospital.

The 63-year-old was unable to work due to her crippling back pain caused by a slipped disc.

At the time, she was also forced to file for bankruptcy after lending money to a family member who did not pay her back.

Ms Stephenson said: I was devastated when I came to Newton Aycliffe all I had was a freezer, sofa and a bed. I went from being a paediatric nurse for 30 years to having to keep milk and food in a bucket of cold water which had to be changed twice a day. I even had to go to bed at 3pm in the afternoon to keep warm.

Ms Stephenson was in dire straits until she was told about the Turn2us charity which provides information and support about welfare benefits and charitable grants.

Through the charity Ms Stephenson received a washing machine, carpets, a cooker, blinds and a new bed.

She believes the changes to welfare policy since 2010 have significantly affected appliance poverty.

The newly released research highlights the single biggest erosion of help came in 2013 with the abolition of the Social Fund which previously provided much-needed support.

Turn2us is therefore campaigning for a new local welfare assistance scheme to be developed and introduced as well as seeking funds to help change lives.

Ms Stephenson said she would encourage families struggling to get in touch with Turn2us as she fears for other people living in her situation following the recent election, she said: Those in Government after the re-election probably couldn't even tell you the cost of a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. They need see how people on benefits really live.

"When people move in to rented accommodation the housing associations and councils should leave the appliances left by previous tenants as some people have nothing and I think in the future a lot more families will struggle."

For more information about the charity visit turn2us.org.uk

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Retired nurse from Newton Aycliffe had to keep milk fresh in a bucket of water - The Northern Echo

A month after one of the heaviest defeats in its history, the Labour party is on its way to electing a new leader. Clive Lewis and Emily Thornberry have until Monday afternoon to win the support they need from MPs to join Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips in the contests second stage. This involves nominations from constituency parties, unions and affiliates, with members and supporters making the final selection and the winner due to be announced at a special conference in April.

Questions about the future of Corbynism are at the forefront, with the socialist ticket of Ms Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner, who wants to be deputy, facing a strong soft-left challenge from Mr Starmer. How the party develops its policies following Decembers drubbing is hugely important, and not just for Labour. Given the new governments programme and Boris Johnsons character, individual credibility is a key factor: Labour knows it needs a leader who can hold the Conservatives to account. Geography and identity are crucial themes, with no easy answers to the problems thrown up by the growing divide between cities and towns, young and old, England and Scotland. Nor can the characteristics and backgrounds of the candidates be set aside. Unlike the other main UK parties, Labour has never elected a female leader.

The political landscape of the next few years is fraught with risk including the rise of a far-right party pushing a narrative of betrayal if Brexit turns out to be a disappointment. Under relentless pressure from the news cycle, it is not hard to see why many in Labour are anxious to see the party pull itself together quickly, and put on a brave face for the struggles ahead. But it is essential that the process of reflection about what went wrong under Corbyn is not short-circuited and that ideas proposed by each of the candidates are explored.

So far, Mr Lewis has done more than the other candidates to advance an analysis of Labours problems that goes beyond weaknesses of the manifesto, the leadership and Brexit to address the UKs political system as a whole. On Sunday he launched a manifesto that included proposals for the democratisation of the BBC and a new body to represent women and girls, as well as plans for devolution, the abolition of the House of Lords and introduction of a proportional voting system (the latter is also supported by Ms Phillips, with the other candidates so far undecided).

A diverse field of candidates and ideas is important, which is why we hope that both Mr Lewis and Ms Thornberry will make it to the next round. In the past, hostility to electoral reform has come from the right and left of the party. Even now, it is unlikely to be the first priority of an opposition facing so many challenges. Nor is it the only policy area in which intellectual work, as well as the community organising that several leadership contenders have described as a priority, is needed. But the problems with first past the post, including the way it perpetuates a Labour-Tory duopoly, shuts out smaller parties and rewards nationalist ones (because votes piled up in one area are easier to convert into seats than those that are thinly spread) can no longer be ignored.

Further constitutional change is inescapable, with plans for devolution to the English regions promised by the Conservatives. Whichever candidates make it through on Monday, Labours leadership contest must entail serious discussion of how to shore up Britains democratic institutions, and strengthen local decision-making, in an increasingly dangerous world.

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The Guardian view on electoral reform: an argument Labour needs to have - The Guardian

A delegation from the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) held a meeting with Meat Industry Ireland (MII) this week, at which representatives from the main sheep processors were present.

Sean Dennehy, the IFAs national sheep chairperson, and other personnel from the associations National Sheep Committee, met with representatives of Irish Country Meats, Kepak, Kildare Chilling and Dawn Meats.

The need for strong, viable lamb prices and market prospects for 2020 were top of the agenda. In addition, we discussed specifications, quality assurance, EID [electronic identification] implementation, factory charges and sheep policy issues, Dennehy explained.

Dennehy said that the IFA delegation made it very clear to the factories that sheep farmer incomes were under severe pressure and lamb prices needed to continue rising.

We were very strong in the argument that carcass weight limitswere way too restrictive at the factories and new season lamb needed to open at a minimum carcass weight of 21kgs, Dennehy said.

We discussed the need for a lot more work by the Government in opening the important Chinese and US markets to Irish lamb exports, he added.

Now is the time to make progress in China and the Government cannot allow this opportunity to pass by, Dennehy insisted.

Dennehy and his team also raised the issue of the quality assurance bonus, urging the processors to increases the payment to 30c/kg.

Some plants have increased the bonus from 10c/kg to 15c/kg but a lot more needs to be done to properly reward farmers for quality assurance, he argued.

The processors informed the IFA delegation that all of them were now in a position to provide farmers with a full-print out of their dispatch docket when the farmers were selling lambs.

IFA put it very strongly to MII that the charges some plants are applying under the Clean Sheep Policy are totally unfair. Clipping charges on Category B lambs is wrong, said Dennehy.

He also called for the abolition of scrapie and SRM charges.

We also had a good discussion with the processing sector on sheep policy issues, including the need for a 30/ewe targeted support for sheep farmers; Brexit; CAP 2020; and International trade deals.

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IFA meet with factories on lamb price and sheep issues - Agriland

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said that the ministry is working upon reducing deaths on the roads by half in the coming days. He emphasised upon combined efforts to curb accidents on roads.Addressing the 18th meeting of National Road Safety Council (NRSC) and 39th meeting of Transport Development Council (TDC) here, Gadkari called upon the transport ministers from all the states to prepare a roadmap in this direction without bothering for the expenses, read a statement.

He said there is no dearth of resources for infrastructure development in the country, the need is only for a coherent approach to serve the larger public.

Pointing out towards 36 per cent improvement on national highways and 26 per cent on state highways, Gadkari informed that black spots are being identified and repaired at a fast pace, the statement said.

Gadkari underlined the need to include NGOs and engineering students in conducting road audits. He informed that district-level committees have been formed to examine and suggest such spots which need immediate attention. He said work on improving road engineering will be undertaken with available resources worth Rs 14,000 crore, the statement added.

Addressing the participants, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways General (Retd) Dr V K Singh stressed upon the need to bring about behavioural change towards road safety. He said road discipline should begin from family, school, and society level.

Singh said that he is discussing with states the steps required for improving the thought process of the society towards accidents, and victims, whose life can be saved within the first golden hour.

Transport Ministers and senior officers from various states participated in the meeting and discussed different road safety aspects, including the MV (Amendment) Act 2019; tourist vehicles authorisation and permit rules 2019; bus port guidelines; digitisation of transport and abolition of border check posts; inter-state transfer of vehicle registration and driving licenses; harmonisation of road tax across States One Nation One Tax; vehicle scrapping policy; guidelines for setting up, authorisation and operation of vehicle scrapping facility; and implementation of vehicle tracking platform under Nirbhaya framework, the statement added.

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Deaths on the roads will be reduced by half in coming days, says Nitin Gadkari - TheDispatch

When people tell me, What are we going to do with all the rapists? I'm like, What are we doing with them now? Kaba told Hayes. They live everywhere. They're in your community, they're on TV being outed every single day.... You think that that system is doing a deterrent thing that it's actually not doing.

Gilmore, a renowned geography professor who has been involved in the prison-abolitionist cause for over three decades, sees it as a long game. Her long-term strategy has included advocating for public policy changes, halting states plans to build new prisons, and calling for them to close existing facilities. In her estimation, shared in a joint piece with formerly incarcerated writer and activist James Kilgore, Everyone who says its unrealistic to demand more willfully ignores the fact that to use law enforcement, as the U.S. does, to manage the fallout from cutbacks in social services and the upward rush in income and wealth is breathtakingly expensive, while it cheapens human life.

Part of that issue lies in cuts to the social safety net, specifically in the area of mental health care, and the gradual shift toward prisons functioning as mental health facilities. As Gilmore wrote, Jail expansion has been chugging along largely because law enforcement continues to absorb social welfare work mental and physical health, education, family unification. To imagine a world without prisons and jails is to imagine a world in which social welfare is a right, not a luxury.

New York Citys ongoing No New Jails campaign is an example of prison-abolitionist organizing at work. In 2017, when the city announced that it would finally be closing the blighted Rikers Island jail complex after decades of pressure from activists, media, and human rights groups, the move was seen as a victory. But in October 2019, the New York City Council voted to allocate $8 billion to build four new jails across four of the five boroughs. The decision was met with fierce opposition from local prison abolitionists, who had launched the No New Jails campaign in response to the initial 2018 announcement of the plan. The city line is that the new jails will be part of a shift toward a more humane version of its criminal justice system; abolitionists countered that there is no such thing as a humane prison. No New Jails was organized around the principle that there is no need to build any more jails [in New York City], and that the billions of dollars budgeted for new jails should be redirected instead to community-based resources that will support permanent decarceration; its members have kept up a presence at hearings and council meetings. That community resistance continues, but for now, Rikers has already begun moving people incarcerated in the institutions Eric M. Taylor Center to different facilities, one of two jails the city plans to close by March 2020 as part of the larger plan to shut Rikers down.

The island jail is only one example (though, in the interest of full disclosure, it is a personal one for me one of my close friends is currently incarcerated there). The number of prisons, detention centers, and jails and those confined within them continues to climb, and abolitionists continue to have their work cut out for them. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, as of 2019 the U.S. criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails, as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.

There is still so much work to be done to address the evils of the U.S. criminal justice system and liberate those who have suffered its abuses, but prison abolitionists are used to demanding the impossible and will continue fighting tooth and nail until every cage is empty.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: How the School-to-Prison Pipeline Works

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What the Prison-Abolition Movement Wants - Teen Vogue