The rules in Northern Ireland demand councillors complete a 'Declaration of Interest' that could potentially influence their decision-making in chambers.

Declaration of Interest confusing

One councillor says he was confused as to how to complete the Declaration of Interest correctly.

"I noticed when it comes to church membership, it is something that by and large isn't done particularly within or, if you're a member, associated or affiliated in any way with the Catholic Church.

"But it is something that those with membership of a Protestant Church are putting down.

"I just feel that this could be an issue if a matter came before a committee and there is nowhere on a Declaration of Interest, out of 41 members, that anyone has stated if they have any influence or affiliation with that institution.

"An institution that we know has a huge amount of estate in the district, as well as ownership and management of churches.

"So, perhaps if councillors could be given any guidance on what sort of thing we should be declaring."

Conflict of interest in the chamber

Elected members who identify a conflict of interest on a committee agenda item have to leave the council chamber while the matter is being debated. And they may not vote on the matter.

But as one member pointed out, "Within the Catholic Church you're not seen as a member, you are a parishioner who attends Mass if you so wish".

"Potentially, if someone sat on the finance committee of a particular parish, that is seen as a role" he said.

"But if you attend Mass, you may be attending a service, but not contribute anything to the collection.

"So, how do you identify someone that is a member of the Catholic Church? Someone like myself who does go to Mass regularly, am I seen as a member, but I don't sit on any committees within my parish?"

He said as far as he's concerned he doesn't see any need to declare his involvement in the parish as a conflict of interest because he doesn't have a decision-making position within the Catholic Church.

"I think that has always been the guidance that I have always followed" he said.

Now the Council is aware of the confusion and members' different views on what amounts to a conflict of interest, it says its audit committee will be following up and clarifying the declaration requirements for elected members.

Source

• Belfast Live

This marked a significant departure from the past, where leaders openly identified with Protestantism.

In a poignant moment at Stormont Parliament Building, O'Neill, representing the Irish Catholic community, pledged to serve as a leader for all, extending an olive branch to her unionist counterparts.

"To all of you who are British and unionist, your national identity, your cultures, your traditions are important to me. Let's walk this two-way street together, let's meet one another halfway. I will be doing so with an open hand and also with heart" O'Neill said.

"This is an assembly for all — Catholic, Protestant and dissenter" O'Neill added. "Despite our different outlooks and views on the future constitutional position, the public rightly demands that we cooperate, deliver and work together."

Eamon Martin, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, extended his prayers and blessings to the newly appointed First Minister Michelle O'Neill, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, members of the Northern Ireland Executive, and MLAs.

In his post, Archbishop Martin emphasised the importance of unity and collaboration in addressing the pressing challenges facing families, the impoverished and the vulnerable within society.

Groups threaten stability

O'Neill's road ahead is fraught with challenges, particularly concerning the presence of paramilitary groups and lingering tensions from past conflicts. Despite progress since the Good Friday Agreement, these groups still threaten stability, undermining reconciliation efforts.

Despite Sinn Féin's historical association with Irish Catholics, O'Neill and the party are at odds with Church teaching on several issues. For example, Sinn Féin supported the increase in access to abortion, and the party supports children having access to transgender drugs.

The complex dynamics of Northern Ireland's political landscape, compounded by Brexit-related issues, have hindered the functioning of Stormont.

The collapse of power-sharing arrangements in 2017 and subsequent struggles have highlighted the fragility of the peace process.

The appointment of O'Neill, achieved through painstaking negotiations and agreements, signifies a renewed commitment to governance and stability.

Read More

Catholic News Agency

Politico

CathNews New Zealand

From the sound of bagpipes echoing in St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, to the first ever concert of Irish and Scottish music in Protestant east Belfast and primary school-age banjo players holding their own in an afternoon pub performance, the city is buzzing with the sound of traditional music everywhere you turn.'

More than 500 people of all ages are taking the summer school classes to learn traditional music, song and dance, and there are thousands more attending talks, sessions and concerts.

Fiddle player and summer school tutor Martin Dowling, who has written about traditional music and the peace process, tells me that music did not escape the schism that the Troubles caused in the city in the 1970s.

"The Troubles pushed traditional music in Belfast into more hidden, segregated spaces and, although there had always been Protestants who played traditional music, a generation of urban Protestants rejected it as something that was exclusively Catholic."

Meanwhile, in the rest of Ireland there was an explosion in the popularity of traditional music with groups such as the Chieftains, Planxty and the Bothy Band, and the emergence of festivals and the annual summer schools which have become a key part of encouraging and nurturing traditional instrument playing, singing and dance culture.

Traditional players in the north talk about having to always travel long distances to go to summer schools and Ray Morgan, chair of the event's board, tells me he would take young people to schools over the border every year.

After the Good Friday agreement there was a significant increase in Catholics learning to play the music but organisations in the city that had been trying to create non-sectarian spaces for traditional music were up against the cultural schism left over from the Troubles.

It was Morgan who had the idea for a similar school in Belfast, and who, with Dónal O'Connor - a fiddle player, film-maker, and now the event's artistic director - made it a reality in 2015.

"Traditional music was undervalued and hidden here compared to the south and I thought this would help change that," Morgan says.

O'Connor describes how widening access to every community in the city is at the core of what the organisers set out to achieve.

"From day one we wanted, given the fractured society we have here after the Troubles, to find a way to make everybody feel that this music was theirs. We are trying to normalise all these things that were perceived to be for the other." Read more

• Dave McNally writes for The Guardian newspaper

The walk of hope was a simple street crossing: from the Protestant St Macartin's Cathedral to the Catholic St Michael's Church. It was an uncomplicated act with powerful symbolism.

It was also the first time she had stepped inside a catholic church in Ireland.

Those few steps were seen as a giant stride towards reconciliation in a town that had been devastated by the 1987 Remembrance Day bombing. It has been described as an uncomplicated act with powerful symbolism.

"She didn't have to say words, just her actions spoke louder than words by actually crossing the street," say the Dean of St Macartin's, the Very Rev Kenneth Hall and Monsignor Peter O'Reilly of St Michael's. They had been hosting her that day-

The following day, the Queen shook hands with the then Sinn Féin deputy first minister and former IRA leader Martin McGuinness in another iconic gesture of goodwill.

"I think we did know the significance of what she did (with that simple but important gesture", Hall said later.

The next year, the two churchmen were invited to Buckingham Palace where the Queen was keen to hear what progress had been made.

"We had to file past the Queen and she looked at the both of us ...and said 'Are you two still working together?' Of course we were," Dean Hall recounted.

"We had a private audience with her just a short space of time afterwards, probably for about five or six minutes.

"I remember she asked us that very bold question, she looked over the glasses and she asked us, 'What are you doing to further reconciliation work in Enniskillen?'"

Monsignor O'Reilly added: "It was a bit like your grandmother asking you have you done your homework, it was as direct as that".

Hall says in 2014, when we met the Prince (now King) Charles III, he told us to ‘keep it up'.

On Sunday - 10 years later - the two churches came together again. They held a joint Service of Prayer and Reflection to pay tribute to the Queen's life.

Those attending recreated the Queen's short journey by also crossing the street between the two churches.

"Everything the Queen did was rooted in her faith," Hall says.

"She had a deep witness to Christian faith, and out of that sprung her love of country, her devotion to God and her desire for reconciliation."

Hall called Sunday's joint Catholic-Anglican service as a "continuation" of the events in 2012.

O'Reilly agrees. "The service is to look back, but there is a sense that by literally doing the walking ourselves, we are signifying that we have to keep doing the work.

"Sunday will give expression to the challenge the Queen gave us to keep working together."

Source

• Belfast Telegraph
• BBC

After a week of disorder across the region which has left 74 police officers injured, a Catholic and a Church of Ireland bishop were among those who came together for an ecumenical service before walking together to the peace wall gate at the centre of the latest clashes.

Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts said the mayhem "was at a scale we have not seen in recent years".

The youths hurled bricks, fireworks and gasoline bombs at police and each other.

More than 50 police officers have been injured after coming under attack from rioters throwing petrol bombs and other missiles.

The disorder follows a controversial decision last week not to prosecute 24 Sinn Fein politicians for attending the large-scale funeral of former IRA man Bobby Storey during strict Covid-19 rules limiting public gatherings.

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) cited police engagement with funeral organisers and a lack of clarity in Stormont's coronavirus regulations as reasons why they ruled out taking action.

The controversy has fuelled loyalist claims of "two-tier" policing, which favours Republicans. It is worth noting that two months ago the PSNI was facing similar claims of discriminatory behaviour.

Tensions have also been building in loyalist areas in recent months over Northern Ireland's post-Brexit trading arrangements under the NI Protocol.

Unionist parties have been calling for its removal. They say it imposes an economic border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The protocol has undermined Northern Ireland's place in the Union and their sense of unionist identity for unionists.

There is also an element of grievances building up during the prolonged coronavirus lockdown.

For some disaffected young people, the disorder could partly be a release of frustration over the many months of restrictions.

Sources

Belfast Live

CBS 3 Duluth

Reflecting on the century since Northern Ireland's partition, they say they hope this centenary year will provide opportunities to create a better level of mutual understanding.

The Protestant and Catholic leaders went on to speak of hope for the future.

"We have an opportunity in marking these events from our past, to be intentional in creating the spaces for encounters with those who are different from us, and those who may feel marginalised in the narratives that have shaped our community identity.

"This will require us to face difficult truths about failings in our own leadership in the work of peace and reconciliation.

"As Christian churches we acknowledge and lament the times that we failed to bring to a fearful and divided society that message of the deeper connection that binds us, despite our different identities, as children of God, made in his image and likeness.

"We have often been captive churches; not captive to the word of God, but to the idols of state and nation."

Among those who signed the statement were the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, and the head of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr David Bruce.

Other signatories were Church of Ireland Archbishop Rev John McDowell, President of the Methodist Church Dr Thomas McKnight and the President of the Irish Council of Churches, Dr Ivan Patterson.

Reflecting on the peace process, they pointed out:

"We have to live in a shared space on these islands and to make them a place of belonging and welcome for all.

"In our approach to the past we have a moral responsibility to acknowledge the corrosive impact of violence and words that can lead to violence, and a duty of care to those still living with the trauma of its aftermath."

Last week, details of official plans to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland were announced.

As part of the programme, a religious service will be organised by Northern Ireland's church leaders.

Source

• BBC
• Image: BBC

The Internal Market Bill could damage the relationship between the UK's four nations. So say the archbishops of York and Canterbury and the heads of the Church in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The bill sets out rules for the operation of trade in the UK internal market after the end of the Brexit transition period in January 2021.

The bill would allow aspects of the EU Withdrawal Agreement to be superseded.

Opponents argue that it breaks international law and have vowed to stop or amend it.

The five Anglican bishops warn any breach could undermine peace in Northern Ireland.

"We believe this would create a disastrous precedent.

It is particularly disturbing for all of us who feel a sense of duty and responsibility to the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement - that international treaty on which peace and stability within and between the UK and Ireland depends.

The UK negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU to "protect the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions."

The Anglican bishops warn that the bill "currently asks the country's highest law making body to equip a government minister to break international law. This has enormous moral, as well as political and legal, consequences."

A number of Tory MPs have criticised the intervention. However, Archbishop McDowell told BBC Radio 4's Today church leaders had a role to play in maintaining the "civic dialogue." This was an essential part of a healthy democracy.

"Pretty much every political act, and every piece of legislation or social policy, has an ethical element to it," he said.

A total of 113 peers are discussing the bill this week in the House of Lords. The Archbishop of Canterbury is one of 113 peers due to speak in the two-day second reading debate.

Sources

• Independent Catholic News
• BBC
• CruxNow

Hume, who died Aug. 3 at the age of 83, was principal architect of Northern Ireland's 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

The Northern Ireland politician was the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the moderate voice for the Catholic minority in the North. He and the Protestant leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble, shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end the Troubles, which had led to the deaths of over 3,500 people. Read more

"Even the Unionists, that is those (in Northern Ireland) who feel they are rather more English, are of the opinion that from the economic point of view it would be better to remain part of Ireland rather that be an English colony.

"Brexit is being led by English nationalism and really has little to do with the Scots or with us in Northern Ireland. We are a colony. If Mummy says, ‘We want to leave Europe', all her children have to say, ‘Yes, of course, Mummy'.

"We don't want that. We have gained far too many advantages from the (Good Friday) Agreement and from the abolition of the border. We don't want to go back to a new hard border right behind my bishop's residence.

"I live roughly 10 km (6.2 miles) from the border," McKeown wrote on the Cologne archdiocese online portal.

His diocese in the town of Derry is on both sides of the border.

He said that the (Brexit) problems actually have nothing to do with the Churches.

All the bishops in Northern Ireland shared responsibility for the whole island and are neither northern nor southern Irish Churches.

He says they are mainly concerned about the effect Brexit may have on people who are poor and weak.

These concerns include a possible rise in unemployment and therefore more hopelessness.

He says as the economy throughout the whole island is now integrated, people don't want to go back to the time when a frontier cut through the middle the Derry diocese.

"Both main Churches [Anglican and Catholic] think alike on this. Our fears have to do with pastoral work and not with church power", McKeown says.

Whatever happens on 31 October (the official Brexit deadline), the Anglican and Catholic churches will work together together to "strengthen the rights of the weak, the poor and the hopeless as, at this time of uncertainty, our role is to strengthen people who have a right to hope and the right to good government.

"Do not think of yourselves [on that date], or only about what England wants and about those who are powerful in London, but think of those who will lose out most."

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Irish Times

Since he took office a week ago, Johnson has been touring England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it has not been a triumphal parade.

After facing protests and political opposition in Scotland and Wales, Johnson met Wednesday with the leaders of Northern Ireland's five main political parties in hopes of kick-starting efforts to restore the suspended Belfast administration. Read more

The former Holy Rosary Church which will host the movies has been closed since 1980 and is no longer owned by the Catholic Church.

While McCafferty says he has no problem with the church building being turned into an Italian restaurant, which is on the cards, he draws the line at horror movies invading the once-sacred space.

"What is their motivation for showing those types of films in what was once a sacred building that will have such special memories of spiritual occasions for lots of people?"

"Should they not be sensitive to the fact that many people in that area have fond associations and is sacred to the memories of many people that were baptized or married or buried there?"

The Belfast Film Festival organisers are defending their choice of venue, saying the locations chosen will add an extra dimension to the screening.

"We think the stone cold surroundings of an abandoned church will make for a suitably chilling viewing experience for The Exorcist," a spokesman says.

Catholic film critics have said that for the most part, The Exorcist tries to portray a real exorcism as authentically as possible.

Catholic reviews of The Omen tend to urge caution, as the film can be seen as depicting evil in a victorious light.

Source

• CNA
• The Tablet
• Catholic Register
• Image: belfastfilmfestival

Where Protestants wait about nine months to be placed in social housing, Catholics wait 15 months on average, the report from the Equality Commission says.

The report - ‘Statement on Key Inequalities in Housing and Communities in Northern Ireland' analysed social housing waiting lists for 2004-2009 and for 2013/14.

It says these show Catholics experienced "the longest median waiting times for social housing at the point of allocation in Northern Ireland".

While the wait for social housing increased for all groups over these periods, the report notes "more substantive" increases were seen in households identified as Catholic or 'other'.

In this respect, between 2004 and 2009 the average waiting list time for Catholic households was eight months, compared with six months for 'other religion' households and six months for Protestants.

But by 2013/14, the reports says the wait had nearly doubled for Catholics to 15 months, while 'other religion' households had more than doubled to 13 months. The wait for Protestants had increased by a third to nine months.

Source

• Independent
• NewsLetter
• Belfast Telegraph
• Image: Belfast Telegraph

Sellar, who is the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said the bonfires are "a means by which we pass on to succeeding generations the sins of our fathers."

The fires are lit in loyalist areas in Northern Ireland during the Twelfth of July celebrations.

They celebrate the Protestant William of Orange's victory over the Catholic King James II in 1690.

Bonfires are also lit in republican areas in Belfast and Derry to mark the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971.

"Given our history and fortress mind-sets, while celebrating and commemorating the past divisively, they are also a danger to the environment, property and human well-being.

"They are not bonfires fuelled by inclusiveness, respect and healing, but a means by which we pass on to succeeding generations the sins of our fathers."

Sellar made his initial comments at an event in Belfast on Thursday night.

Speaking to the Nolan Show on Friday, Rev Sellar said his opinion needed to be said. (The Nolan Show airs on weekdays on BBC Radio Ulster.)

"If some have taken my remarks out of context and that has caused hurt, obviously I regret that," he said.

"The more debate we have on this, so that next year is better than last year, last year better than the year before - that is progress and that's what I would love to see."

Source

• Irish Central
• BBC NEWS
• Image: BBC

Former Northern Ireland international Phil Mulryne, 34, has enrolled at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome.

During his time as a footballer Mulryne dated a model, Nicola Chapman.

He was once sent home from the Northern Ireland squad in 2005 after breaking a curfew to go drinking.

His career was cut short in 2008 by injury.

But after football he became involved in charity work in Ireland and turned his life around.

He was invited to study for the priesthood by Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor.

Continue reading

But late in life, one of the most turbulent figures in Northern Ireland politics throughout the 20th century underwent a transformation.

The man who constantly declared "No surrender" to Republican views, suddenly agreed to share power in a Northern Ireland Assembly with his arch enemies in Sinn Féin, and hold the top political office alongside former IRA commander and senior Sinn Féin figure Martin McGuinness.

On 8 May 2007, he stood at a rostrum in Stormont, with then British prime minister Tony Blair just behind him, saying: "If anybody had told me a few years ago that I would be doing this I would have been unbelieving."

On another occasion he had said that Sinn Féin would govern Northern Ireland "over my dead body".

Paisley, however, said they should never forget the past, but should not allow it to blight future generations.

And then, a few days later he was photographed shaking hands with another arch enemy, then taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and with Stormont's new deputy First Minister Mr McGuinness.

Supporters of Paisley would deny that all this was a volte face, but it was certainly the most spectacular change of direction witnessed in Northern Ireland in living memory.

The British government had found a way, after years of attempting to bring the two sides together, to provide Northern Ireland, after years of savage conflict, with a power-sharing government.

It was an unbelievable outcome for a region which had been torn apart by decades, even centuries, of sectarian violence and hate.

Given McGuinness's former role as an IRA leader, it was all the more astonishing to see these two men sharing a joke after years of hatred and bile. Continue reading

Sources

• RTE.ie
• Image: The Telegraph

Rev. Paisley died in Belfast on September 12, aged 88. He had a history of heart ailments.

He served as First Minister of Northern Ireland for a year when power was first devolved from London in 2007.

His deputy, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, expressed sadness at the news of his death.

"Over a number of decades we were political opponents and held very different views on many, many issues, but the one thing we were absolutely united on was the principle that our people were better able to govern themselves than any British government," he said.

For many years, Rev. Paisley's incendiary rhetoric stoked anti-Catholic violence.

Michael Kelly, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper, tweeted that Rev. Paisley "fanned the flames of hatred and murder".

But Mr Kelly expressed sorrow for the Paisley family.

Rev. Paisley rose to prominence in the 1960s at the start of "the Troubles", in which Northern Ireland was engulfed in sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants.

He led Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, but it was said that he was as helpful to Catholic constituents as to Protestants.

He served in Britain's House of Commons for three decades and was elected to the European Parliament in 1979.

It was in the European Parliament in 1988, during an address by St John Paul II, that he held up a sign saying "Anti-Christ" and started shouting "I renounce you" before being forcibly removed.

He is also infamous for saying of Catholics in 1969: "They breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin."

He said he considered all Catholics to be members of the Irish Republican Army, which he branded as a collective of terrorists.

In 2010, Rev. Paisley led protests against the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain.

But his rhetoric wasn't always directed against Catholics. In 1985, he labelled Margaret Thatcher a "wicked, treacherous and lying woman".

For decades, Rev. Paisley had rejected any form of political compromise with Northern Ireland's Catholic minority.

But, during the Troubles, Rev. Paisley began visiting Dublin to probe various political possibilities for the future.

He became Northern Ireland's co-leader in 2007 after entering an agreement with Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• The Guardian
• Washington Post
• Image: BBC

A Sinn Fein motion to introduce same-sex marriage legislation is likely to be defeated in the Northern Ireland assembly next week.

Unionist parties will introduce a "petition of concern" against the move.

Under the rules of the Stormont assembly, legislation cannot pass if the representatives of one community refuse to support a new bill, thus ensuring that no one section of the divided populace can impose laws on the other.

Before the vote, the Catholic hierarchy wrote to every assembly member to urge them to reject the bill.

Continue reading

The book, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, concludes that systematic collusion existed between the security forces and loyalist assassins during the 1970s.

It describes a number of documented cases where police and local soldiers took part in shootings and bombings which claimed the lives of Catholics. In other cases, murders by loyalists were "inexplicably" not properly investigated.

The author, Anne Cadwallader, is a veteran journalist and researcher at the Pat Finucane Centre, an organisation heavily critical of behaviour by the security forces.

She drew on the centre's access to dozens of detailed reports given to families by the Historical Enquiries Team, a "cold case" unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

In one damning passage, police investigators urge "honest disclosure about these shocking, shameful and disgraceful crimes", declaring that "families have received no justice to date".

The Pat Finucane Centre said an analysis of the status of targeted victims found that "in all but one case they were ‘upwardly-mobile' Catholics who were — either through their own enterprise or hard work — lifting their economic and political aspirations".

In its conclusion, the Historical Enquiries Team says: "It is difficult to believe that such widespread evidence of collusion was not a significant concern at the highest levels of the security forces and government. It may be that there was apprehension about confirming the suspicions of collusion and involvement, particularly of [Royal Ulster Constabulary] personnel."

One internal military document quoted estimates that between 5 and 15 per cent of members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, a locally recruited force under army control, were also members of loyalist groups, some of which were involved in many murders.

Allegations of collusion in rural areas where both the Irish Republican Army and loyalists were active were often made in the 1970s, most notably by the crusading Catholic priest Father Denis Faul, but his claims were largely officially denied. The book substantiates many of his claims.

Sources:

The Independent

Ulster Herald

Image: The Independent

Speaking in Belfast to a crowd composed mainly of children, Obama said "segregated schools" block the path to full reconciliation.

"If towns remain divided, if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can't see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division, it discourages co-operation," he said.

Continue reading

An earlier investigation, the Savile inquiry, concluded that soldiers of the Parachute Regiment had opened fire on unarmed Catholic demonstrators in the town of Derry without provocation.

To date no charges have been filed against those responsible for the killings on January 30, 1972.

However it is unlikely that anyone found guilty of the killings would serve long jail sentences, since under the Good Friday agreement of 1998 all crimes committed prior to that time have a de facto amnesty.

The announcement of a new inquiry provoked tensions that survive in Northern Ireland despite the arrival of a stable peace agreement. Unionist leaders questioned why the Bloody Sunday killings should receive special treatment, when violence by the Irish Republican Army is not being reinvestigated.

John Kelly, whose brother Michael was shot dead on Bloody Sunday, said: "It certainly is good news, but it was something we were expecting anyway. My view on it at the time was these soldiers should have been arrested straight away and prosecuted on what came out of the Saville report. But certainly after hearing what we heard today it's a step in the right direction because myself, my family and most of the families want prosecutions."

In 2010 British Prime Minister David Cameron issued an apology in the House of Commons, describing what had happened as "both unjustified and unjustifiable".

Police officials in Northern Ireland said they could not say when the new investigation would begin because it would require about 30 detectives working full-time for at least three years.

Sources:

The Guardian

Associated Press

Image: Global Research