Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we have a manga review of chapter 916, a great sumo match in the Wano country. And this week we have a chapter that when you look at the events on paper, not a whole lot happened, but it was actually pretty damn fun. The highlight is definitely Luffy's sumo match with Orochima, which kind of came out of nowhere. He just stepped in to save Kiku and accidentally we've begun a sumo match. It's a very classic thing for Luffy to do. As per usual, he's having the time of his life and that's pretty much the only reason why a chapter like this can work. Like I said before, if you just summarise the events of the chapter, it's pretty uneventful and pushes the greater plot forward at a snail's pace. But that's okay because watching Luffy be Luffy is one of the main appeals of the series, at least to me anyway. And the artwork supported this brilliantly with some well-choreographed action panels of which I have two particular favourites. Firstly, there is a fantastic one of Luffy leaping into the air preparing his final strike. There's nothing particularly detailed or creative about it. It's incredibly simple in the grand scheme of things. It's just a classical hero shot and builds a nice amount of anticipation for what is by far my favourite panel of the chapter, Orochima getting engulfed by the giant Tsupari. There is just so much to love about this panel, particularly that you can really feel the impact. This is one of the hardest hits I think I have ever seen put to page in the series. There's this wonderful shading technique Oto uses with hits like this where he adds a few layers of crosshatching just to really give the character some depth and pop a bit more on the page. Along with the little details like one of Orochima's teeth flying from his mouth, it makes a really cool frozen in time moment. It also really helps that ever since the last chapter I've been really keen to see Orochima get rekt. So this chapter was worth it to me for that panel alone. To his credit though, the sumo did actually display some pretty fierce power. I know that Luffy makes him look like fodder, but we should remember that Luffy is actually on a pretty absurd level of strength in the world. So I believe that Orochima is actually pretty powerful and we'll probably see that later down the line in the arc. I don't see him being introduced just for Luffy to have this moment. What I do like the idea of though is that decades down the line this is probably going to be a classic out of context story told about the pirate king throughout the world. You know the tale of how that one time on one Olufi defeated the top Yokozuna in a sumo match? So yeah, it's another story for people like Bartolomeo to spread to great effect. So in the midst of the action we have Law and Hawkins showing up and they actually have very similar looks of distress on their faces at the end of the chapter. And more than ever I now have this distinct feeling and my thoughts as to why this is is that I don't see any particular reason why Hawkins would be making this face if he was genuinely on Kaido's side. When he encountered Luffy and Zoro in the Wasteland he was perfectly calm even facing off against two of the worst generation. So here with an ally headliner like Holden you'd expect that Hawkins would be even more confident. Instead I'm becoming pretty salt on the idea that Hawkins is most definitely working against Kaido and he may have encountered Law or another member of the Ninja Pirate Mix Samurai Alliance already. Back in chapter 913 I made the argument that Hawkins could have been purposely using bad cards and masking it as a random ability to somewhat help Luffy and Zoro and here he may be doing a similar thing when we see him rushing towards Bacoratown on the Denden Mushi warning people not to lay a hand on Luffy because they are no match for him. Which is true, but it also rather conveniently reduces the opposition that Luffy has to face. But yeah in conclusion Hawkins and Law both had the exact same look on their faces at the end of this chapter and that look says to me, how the hell am I going to fix Luffy's mess? And before we move on just a little thing to touch on we may have another countdown placed on us in this chapter due to Beppo becoming poisoned from eating a fish in the river. So he's in a similar condition that Tama was earlier in the arc. This is a really seemingly random thing to insert into the chapter so I can only assume that it's seeding something. So let's say that Law is unable to deal with the poisoning it would almost guarantee that we need to take Beppo to Sura and even more so than that we need to do it pretty damn quickly. So that signals to me that the conflict here probably won't last long and you know some sort of combination of Law and Hawkins will allow Luffy's group to take Tama and retreat with Law so they can go back to Amigasa Village and regroup which would be the natural point for a nice big info dump from Law about what has been happening on Wano while the events of Whole Cake Island were occurring. But speaking of dumping information we got a teeny tiny bit more from Mr. Holden this week not really a dump at all actually more of an information drip a very slow drip. But basically Holden states that 20 years ago the Kozuki Clan were planning on destroying the country and he looks pretty earnest in saying this. So even if it's a lie that's been fed to him Holden seems to believe it so we could have a bit of a dress-roser situation happening here. And what I mean by that is when Dolphomingo artificially crafted opposition to the Riku family but I hope it's not that same old plot point again. I think it would be really interesting if what Holden was saying was actually true and Wano was facing a real crisis but that's pretty unlikely to happen because Momonosuke is being painted as the true heir to Wano and all of that. Actually you know what it might have to do with Kozuki Odin's last words which were to open the borders of Wano. So it might not be a case of the Kozuki family literally wanting to destroy the country through classical physical destruction but more perhaps that they were planning to open the borders of Wano and become part of globalized society. I guess that would quote unquote destroy the current way of life on Wano and have severe impacts on their culture which are genuine concerns that we see in the real world in an increasingly interconnected international society. I'd also find that option far more interesting than just framing a group of otherwise wonderful Monarchs for evil deed they never committed once again. But back to Holden he's not particularly growing on me as a character but his lion sure is. Every time his full body is shown in a panel my eyes immediately dart to the lion to see what his thoughts are on the current situation. And he has a pretty fantastic look on his face at the end of the chapter holding Tama in his mouth. The very I don't know why I'm doing this but I am here stare into the distance. I do think that the obvious course of action here may be for Tama to use her strange delicious cheek powers to tame Holden's lion. I mean she's already in his mouth so she won't have to worry about aiming or throwing and all that. Then that would create some pretty cool conflict with Holden or perhaps, oh my God actually. Holden and the lion share the same body, yeah? So if Tama tames the lion does that mean she also tames Holden? That would be pretty cool. I mean that's all pure speculation knowing absolutely nothing about her powers but if Tama's power works on her zone or even just smile users that would make her one of the most dangerous people on Wano for the Beast Pirates. So that's another potential way to solve this current scenario I guess. Tame Holden and use him to escape. Just before we move away from Holden completely he does do a bit of a name drop this week and mentions a character called Shutenmaru. Quite specifically he asked if Luffy and Co are the subordinates of that thief, Shutenmaru. And there's two likely options for this character. They're either going to be a completely new resident of Wano, which would be good I think. There needs to be a pretty solid rebellion taking place in this country if we're going to have any chance of dealing with Kaido. And that's not going to happen with Kikusuru and Tama alone. But alternatively Shutenmaru could be a member of the Ninja Pirate Mink Samurai Alliance that we already know. I can't really think of who it may be right now because all the names so far have essentially been their own names with and over the top Japanese suffix. But you know, it could be someone like Lore who takes life rather seriously. You know, I could see him spending some time to actually make a decent alias. But anything regarding this character is pure speculation at the moment. And I'm sure there's plenty of videos in production as we speak with every theory under the sun on Shutenmaru. So let's just move on to the color spread. So Nami fans prepare to hate me but there is nothing particularly special about this spread. The straw hats are having summertime fun. Okay, the artwork is still beautiful. The color and texture are on point. But I find this to be one of the least visually interesting color spreads in recent history. The best part about it is probably Luffy leaping back to whack the watermelon because it's a great action shot or even the Zoro portion actually. It's all right, I guess. I just find it a bit tame compared to the craziness that Odie usually pumps out which I suppose is the curse of doing such consistently amazing work. When you do occasionally pop out something that is simply good, it just doesn't seem quite good enough. But hey, if you're really into Nami and Robin then this is probably an instant favorite for you. And that pretty much does it for chapter 916. Sadly, we do have a break next week which is never very fun. But hey, I'm sure we'll all cope as always. If you enjoyed this video then feel free to like, favorite or subscribe. And if you are in any way keen on supporting this independent channel then please do check out my Patreon, Discord server or Twitter. The links to it are in the handy description below. Finally, please do comment with your thoughts on the chapter. This has been The Ground Line Review and I'll see you next time.


I think it was just a game. Okay, we're back, we're live, and we're doing global connections right now. We're studying pandemic politics and developing world here with Carlos Juarez, who joins us from Mexico. Hi, Carlos, nice to see you're smiling and sunburned face. Yes, Jay, managed to get outside today and got a little too much sun and didn't put my sunblock as, you know, I always get scolded by my wife and, well, there you go. But it brings out the redness in me. You know, I have a little bit of Irish blood in my heritage, so I'm kind of a chance to remind myself. But all is well and, you know, glad to reconnect, you know, as we do often with these opportunities to, you know, give some perspective. Here I am in Mexico City, and of course it is undergoing a lot of, well, a peak, you know, and like so many places, it's often hard to know what is the real data, what is the real information. Mexico has a very low, low percentage of testing going on. So in fact, you know, they know that the numbers that they released officially are very undercounted. And more and more, I think what you have to find for the truth is you got to go to these cemeteries or these, I guess places where they cremate people and then those people will tell you, hey, these are busy days, it's a tough time. Well, you saw what happened in the U.S. yesterday when they, or Trump redirected all the COVID information. Oh, yes, yes. He bypassed the CDC and gave it directly to himself so that he can tell you or not tell you or he can lie about it, which is probably what he wants to do and use it as a political weapon. But we're not going to have the same level of confidence in the numbers anymore. That's right. And, you know, for this kind of crisis, it is at first the health crisis. Yes, we have the economy, very important. But if you don't get this health crisis under control, the economy is going to continue to stagnate and be pushed back as we've seen now after several months, opening too quickly, too soon, and now the challenge of that. And so you've got to get a handle on that health crisis. And what I want to really say about that is that that requires confidence in the government. And when we look around the world, which places have done better, it tends to be places where people have a level of confidence that the government is providing good information. They will believe the recommendations and follow them, the political leaders. We've talked about this before, giving consistent message and communication. Instead, when you have mixed signals or maybe denials or sort of downplaying it or politicizing it, people get very, very nervous and skeptical. And of course, Mexico has a long tradition of, let's say skepticism and maybe criticism of the government for many years, very corrupt and maybe not accurate in its information. And it's hard to get rid of that legacy. But this is true, of course, everywhere, even the US with, of course, many mixed signals coming from the federal government, many people looking to their state and local authorities instead. So it's a real mixed bag. And the same happens throughout the world. Again, some places, even if you talk about India, this massive country that really in just a couple, four or five years, it's gonna surpass China to become the largest population. But India, a large place, very different regions, you have some places that are today peaking and obviously challenging. But you have others, some time ago, there was a lot of reporting coming from the Southern state of Kerala, which has always been one of the more developed parts of India, even though it's a poor underdeveloped part of the world, but it is a very strong healthcare system. And again, people who trust the government and have a sense of, I guess, understanding to believe when the authorities are telling them what they have to do. So that's part of the challenge, I think. You know, I think there's kind of a strange effect here. In this country, people have long held the view that in developing world, life does not mean that much. That the death of an individual is just not that serious a matter in these developing countries. And what's really interesting sort of an upside down kind of arrangement is that now, you know, we've lost 140,000 people. We have 3.3 or 4 million people who've been infected and there's gonna be a lot of deaths among that crowd. So after you watch this for a while, for weeks and months, and you see those numbers tick up and all these people, I mean, how long were to take you and me counting as fast as we could count to count to 140,000? It would take a long time. And so you say, oh yeah, the developing countries, life is cheap in these developing countries. How about in the U.S. where we don't seem to give a rip that 140,000 people have died at a miserable, awful, lonesome death? Who's cheapening life, eh? No, absolutely. And of course, I think increasingly we're seeing now where people throughout the world are now, it's hitting home, where people that you know that are in your family, now maybe just back to the developing world context. Of course, in general, we speak about places where the family is the key institution that is people rely less on the state or on their employment for a safety net. It is the family that is the support network. And in many places, this is being disrupted because, again, just as a case in point in Mexico here, it's very similar in other parts of Latin America, a very high percentage of the population is in what we call the informal economy that is they live day to day, they may sell you all little things they put out on the street that they'll sell, whether it's food or merchandise, that is they're not in the formal employment. Now, given the crisis here, like everywhere, a formal employment has been hit hard. So many people who have regular jobs are losing them. Many of those are now trying to go into the informal economy, which is already sort of saturated. And so it's a very, very tough situation. And here, I think in general, what we see across Latin America, many of the poor families are facing an impossible choice between obeying the quarantine measures or simply starving. That is you've got to go out and make, whatever you can get by for the day, or despite the day-driven infection. And I've just been observing in here, like in Mexico, in general, people throughout the streets and are wearing masks and trying to adjust and the government is trying its best to put it out. But at the end of the day, a huge population has to travel on public transport, the buses are packed, people are not wearing masks. It's hard to get around that. Not everybody has the luxury of a home where they can just camp out and be alone. And then you've got, again, because of the family and the tight social structure, a lot of multi-generational families. So you've got older people, lots of younger population, and that's a recipe for a real disaster in some sense. So we're seeing, again, throughout the region right now, of course, Brazil is the real high point. It's the second largest after the US in terms of both cases and deaths. And as well, about 10 days ago, we saw the president, Jair Bolsonaro, he has tested positive. One of the, for another head of state, I think he had another test yesterday, he continues to be infected. But this is one of the leaders who of course has been criticized because of a very lax response and denying it and also not showing, you know, use of masks himself is taking a lot of criticism for that. So most challenges. Great leveler, great leveler. I mean, in the US, if you put somebody in the stress of a overpopulated household, and then you put that person in the stress of not having enough money and food and no job at all and no government benefits, which we have and are getting more of that. And what happens? Well, in the individual case, you get domestic violence, you get people roaming the streets doing crime.  Yeah, a lot of like a, like a festering boiling point, of course. Yeah, and I would bet you the same thing exists all over the world. I'm sure the same kind of risk and explosive possibility exists all over Latin America, South America. No, absolutely. And here, again, just to give you some of the data that's come out now, the ECLA, it's called the Economic Commission on Latin America. It's a UN agency based in Santiago, Chile, which basically reports on development issues, economic issues for Latin America.  Today, this crisis is pushing many, many more back into that extreme poverty. We also see a decline in the region right now predicted to be about over 9%. It will vary by country, but a pretty substantial decline already, again, places that are facing difficulty just before the crisis, this is accentuating it. Then you have a situation with the United States because, I'm sorry, with Mexico, because of its proximity to the US, because of the integration of the economies, it's interesting to see that, you know, the push by President Trump and different states of the US to open and obviously get the economy going has also put a lot of pressure on Mexico, in part because there is a real interconnection and particularly the reliance on many Mexican supply chains for the auto industry, specifically, there's been a lot of pressure put on Mexico to open those factories because the US needs to get its economy going. So in fact, that political pressure from Trump has also been put onto the Mexican president, Lopez Obrador, very interesting about a little over a week ago now, the US and Mexican presidents had a meeting in Washington, President Lopez Obrador, the first time he left the country now in a year and a half, he's been in office, which is quite astonishing, not only that, but he actually flew on a commercial flight. He's a very frugal and sort of, you know, left wing populist and one of the things he did when he first came into office was he wanted to, or he has tried to sell the presidential plane to the previous president. They have a nice, one of those Dreamliner, Boeing 787s, obviously a pretty expensive machine. Well, he refuses to fly on it and he actually flies commercial airlines. So he had to take a flight on Delta to Atlanta, transfer, go to Washington.  There aren't that many flights these days, not that hard to figure it out, but he did the trip, he went to Washington, very surprising how it was relatively under the radar, not a lot of attention. Normally, this would have been a pretty big deal, a state dinner, you know, and for both presidents, a chance to take attention away from the pandemic and they went primarily to sign the trade agreement that went into effect July 1. This is the revised NAFTA, the US, Mexico, Canada trade agreement. Interestingly, Justin Trudeau from Canada, Boycott decided not to go. He, you know, given the pandemic crisis and perhaps as a snub to Trump himself. So it was the Mexican and US president signing, you know, this trade agreement. A lot of criticism here in Mexico, a lot of, you know, discussion because of course Trump comes to office or he launches his campaign five years ago with some pretty harsh words about Mexicans being rapists and building the wall. And a year ago, we saw tremendous pressure from Trump on Mexico to take on these caravans of migrants, right? And to seal the border. Otherwise he was threatening a massive tariff, you know, war. So many saw the Mexican president kind of going to sort of kowtow or maybe, you know, give Trump more credit, you know, more credit. Moreover, in a situation given the presidential election right now, it's almost like, why is he doing that? Why is he not choosing to meet with Joe Biden? Why doesn't he just wait until the election kind of gets determined to decide? But again, it was a lot of attention to that. But the leaders met and again, it was rather under the radar given so much other news, particularly about the pandemic and the economic downturn in so many places. Well, you know, Trump controls the agenda. He controls the press on that sort of meeting. You know, he could have made a rose garden love fest out of it or not. And it looks like not. Why? Why did he put the lid on it that way? I mean, I think he tried to, in fact, they did have a signing ceremony at the White House there.  The Mexican president was kind of small and many people were looking at, well, there is the difference right there. You know, Trump has got to be big and bold and, you know, he loves to show off the signing of it. But here again, you know, the Mexican president and his team, obviously, they had to put the best spin on it. It was a way of showcasing their diplomacy and the president defending Mexico's national interest. But in the end, it was, you know, this trade agreement, important as it is, kind of modernizing NAFTA, is not likely to have a huge impact right away. The two economies continue to be deeply integrated. That is not changing. But it goes back to what I said earlier, given the pressure in the US to open the economy, that same pressure is being put on Mexico to keep the supply chain of parts and, you know, Mexico and the US have a massive flow of trade that goes both ways. And interesting that these two leaders, both of them populists, but from different angles, Mexico's leaders are very left-wing populists, very frugal, austere. Trump, of course, with his gold bathroom and maybe more, you know, the billionaire lifestyle that he comes from. They are night and day, and yet they came together in a curious way to celebrate this new agreement that's moving forward now. Well, that takes us to the whole notion of pandemic politics in the developing world, the title of our show.  Is it elevating these populist or dictator type of leaders? What is it doing? How is it changing the existing order? Yeah, I mean, there's no simple answer to that. I think it will vary. Of course, leaders, and the Mexican president in one of these, he was one who took a lot of time to sort of be denying it and pushing off and kind of making it seem as if it wasn't as bad as it has been. And so he's taken some criticism about that in the early stages in particular. He was very much in denial and so took criticism for that. But I would say this, I mean, on one hand, I think you see civil society beginning to question the government when they're seeing mixed results, the government is trying to downplay maybe the seriousness, whether it's in India, whether it's in Brazil and Mexico, many different developing countries. I think what we see again and again is the role of social media. It could be valuable to give us information, but it can also spread a lot of misinformation there or distorted information. And it's often so hard for us to get good, accurate information. Moreover, in general, the developing world is a place where you don't see a whole lot of testing compared to developed countries in the North. New Zealand, I think, has one of the highest percentages like South Korea. So the reality is that the numbers that they do reveal are simply not true. And so a lot of people grow very skeptical about that and it breeds a lot of criticism that the government is not being honest and upfront. So again, it also accentuates already, social tensions that have been there. Latin America in particular is long characterized by a lot of inequality of income and racial and ethnic divisions. And at the end of the day, the wealthier elites, more European, tend to have a bigger home, a second home and have the ability to kind of weather this, obviously not worried so much about their income.  Yeah, I think you put your finger on something really important. Probably, and you talked about the people in Chile, I think, about how there are more people now.  And so I think the whole experience in a given country, a given jurisdiction accentuates disparity because COVID splits people. You can afford to stay at home and not worry about work or food or you have to go to work and get in a crowd and be concerned about being infected. That's a huge disparity. Sure, yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of highlighting already things that have already been there. More generally, you could say, if we look at the last 20 or 30 years in the developing world, in Latin America, many parts of Asia, in Africa, there's been a pretty substantial improvement of quality of life that is the very poor, I'm speaking, a lot of that has improved. We're seeing with this crisis that many are kind of slipped back into that. So we're gonna see the very poorest are gonna find themselves. And here, the social tensions are gonna flare up. As always happens, they're gonna take it out on the political leadership. So we might anticipate in the next couple of years, a lot of people looking at the response of their respective governments and saying, you know, you didn't do it. And so they're gonna want to change. There's gonna be a pressure to get them out. Because unlike maybe a handle, whether we look at some of the East Asian cases or of course, you know, New Zealand and the Prime Minister there that has been, how it is a very successful model, those are places where the government is, let's say gaining more, you know, more popularity, more legitimacy, not so in many of the developing countries. It's gonna be more likely to see pressure for political change. Well, it's a challenge in any country. The United States, Trump has not met the challenge. And whether his base agrees or not, the fact is objectively by the numbers, he hasn't met the challenge. But I'm happy to hear that in other countries, maybe not a lot of other countries that people feel the government has met the challenge. And that's very interesting because that is a political expression of how the coronavirus works in a given society. If people come away with a more confidence in the government, a better feeling about their leadership, that is really something to be studied. So why is it, why is it, what happens in those developing countries where people feel greater confidence in the government? They like, what is it, what can we learn from them? Here, and maybe I'm gonna cite the example here in Mexico, while the president has often taken a lot of criticism for being aloof and maybe not taking it as seriously, there is an individual who's like the main sort of, COVID czar, a public health professional who daily is presenting information. And so I think a lot of it is that ability to convey good information data and kind of reassure people. And this particular leader that I'm mentioning, he has, well, like everything, he's got some detractors, but in general, he is seen as a very serious scientist who's kind of giving, and I think as people see that, they begin just as you might in the US. I mean, we see the debates in the US over, Dr. Fauci and now he's being sidelined by the president, but to the extent that you have leaders, political leaders and public health professionals who are leading the dialogue and giving the direction, I think people will follow that. I mentioned in Southern India, the state of Kerala, this was, again, not, it's a bit of an anomaly, but it's a place where people have trust in the local government because they have a healthcare system, again, even in a developing country that has been quite solid, quite effective and innovative. The other thing is that countries in the developing world don't have the resources, they don't have the capabilities of maybe first world countries. So they have to be a resourceful, they have to be more innovative in some ways of how to do that. And different examples everywhere, either learning how to create temporary hospitals or even developing new equipment on their own and not depending on the outside world. So we see some of that. I think what we're gonna see a real challenge in the coming six, 12 months, once we begin to see vaccines and a program to address that, it will be a challenge because there's gonna be a race in the US and the wealthy European countries are gonna have more power and capability to do that in their own. And for the poor developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, poor countries in Central and parts of South America, who is gonna help cover that cost? Is the US, is Europe gonna help to develop that? Because in the end, this is a global issue that for Europe and the US cannot be solved unless we also address it in the developing world. You can't expect them to do it on their own. I know this is a long shot, but this reminds me of manganese nodules. At the ocean bottom around the world, there's an incredible storehouse of manganese in the form of nodules. The problem is that people have to learn how to collaborate to mine them. And that hasn't happened yet. It's every country for itself. And the international rules don't, nobody respects them. It's a problem because ultimately it'll be damaged to the environment. So it's the same thing here. Are these countries actually collaborating or are they not? In the beginning, several months ago, Trump was found to have tried to suborn a German pharmaceutical research company that was working on a vaccine and he was trying to pay them billions and trying to steal away, cockroach their best medical researchers. And Angela Merkel stepped in and said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And the researchers, to their credit, the researchers themselves said, no, no, no, we're not doing that. But what Trump was trying to do is he was trying to get the thing on a nationalistic basis. He was trying to get it out of Germany and into the United States where he would not share it. Maybe he'd try to make money on it. It's hard to say where that billion was gonna come from.  So now we have a similar situation with Putin who is hacking into the vaccine research facilities in the US and the UK and other places trying to get an advantage. And I think there's a race like with the Manganese nodules. There's a race to see who can get their hands on this thing because everybody realizes that if you have to give it to nine billion people over and over again, the initial dose would be a couple of doses. And then we don't know how long it's gonna last. I mean, before you need another one, another regimen. And so there may be many shots times nine billion people, okay? And that's gonna mean a lot of money, a lot of money. So the stakes are high and I think there's a competition going on and it is a nationalistic isolationist kind of competition. No, along those lines, I think what we are seeing and it follows this pattern of a, in many ways, a challenge to the liberal international order that we've had for so many decades after World War II, cooperation, coordination, you know, even post Cold War by the 90s, 2000s, the world was more or less cooperating more, growing regionalism, of course. But this pandemic now I think has shown people or countries maybe in this case are kind of turning inward and looking out for their own interests a more of a doggie dog world. And this is characteristic of, again, rejection of multilateralism, very pronounced of course in the US under Trump, but also a challenge of cooperating. But the Europeans instead in general still, you know, obviously have that capacity and maybe they have a long tradition of coordinating policies. But even in the peak of the crisis, we saw a lot of countries kind of left on their own or looking, you know, without having help from some of their neighbors. But boy, this is one of those cases where in the end, certainly the public health experts will tell you, you cannot do this on your own. You need to be coordinating with what's happening in other countries, given the mobility now, right? Now things are slowing down in terms of travel, but the mobility of people and the movement of goods and commerce, all of that spreads not only goods and people, but also disease.  Today it's COVID-19, you know, in five or 10 years there may be others. Ultimately, let's hope that we can draw some lessons for this, both the shortcomings of not cooperating, but also the lessons that we can learn and help, you know, different countries get over this. I should say lessons, you know, I'm not sure that we are, we may be aware of these lessons, but whether we are actually implementing these lessons is another question. And, you know, like for example, when Trump says, I'm not gonna support the UN, when he shoves off from the World Health Organization, it's more than just the money, it's more than even just one country being nationalistic. He's sending a message around the world, let's not collaborate. And one organization in the world that tries to collaborate among nations is the United Nations. So, you know, I think the damage is extraordinary. It's far beyond what it seems to be. And my question to you is, are we getting closer to learning and implementing that lesson, or are we getting further away? Well, yeah, and I think as you said, I mean, I don't think at this point we're drawing those lessons. I mean, there will be, you know, an effort to reflect and try to draw that out. But I think just as you suggested right now for the US and its role right now, exiting the World Health Organization, I mean, this has just seen by everybody as a disaster. This is not the time to do that. No, there may be reforms that WHO needs to make or the US can, you know, somehow address though. But ultimately, again, this is not the time to be running away from that and trying to solve this on your own. I think it underscores a view of the United States as the country that we used to look to as the leader and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, you know, founder of what maybe in the late 40s. This was always the top, public health agency of the world. Today it's losing credibility. It's been politicized and just the announcement you said at the outset where now Trump administration is gonna be having hospitals report directly to HHS bypassing CDC. That is a politicization of a politicization. I can use that word, but basically it loses credibility. And again, CDC has long been sort of like the hallmark of this is how you organize a public health agency. Today it's looked at less as the model. Yeah, and look at Fauci.  But if he keeps on doing that, you will see Fauci's name erode. Repetition is the mother of study. If he keeps on attacking Fauci, has his minions attacking Fauci in a week or two or three Fauci will look so good. Just the way Trump works. Anyway, we only have a minute or two left and I wanted to offer you the opportunity to try to come to some kind of general conclusion about the effect of the pandemic on politics, both on a national level and on an international level. What would you leave with people as a takeaway, Carlos? Well, I think it's simply accentuating things that have already been happening, whether it's in inequality and justice, domestic violence, these kind of issues. Even increasingly, we're seeing things like the drug cartels here in Mexico. They haven't stopped operating and doing what they do and we have still high levels of insecurity. So in some ways it's exacerbating a lot of what is already there, increasing the disparities. It's a real challenge. Having said that, I will say this, I think there are also many examples that we often don't see enough of them at the micro level, small communities kind of coming together. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, we spoke about this idea, well, people are getting to know their neighbors and for the first time and maybe not enough of that has happened, but I do see in many places a sense of this has been a game changer, clearly, a paradigm shift. So people now have to start thinking more about their local immediate communities because it's a normative thing. But I think, Carlos, my last question to you, we're almost out of time. Will this kind of disruption, this kind of, what do you wanna say, this kind of new politics, new politics locally and globally, will it lead to war? I think not so much between nations. In fact, the days of interstate wars is pretty much behind us. Within some places, yes, you're gonna see tensions and divisions, again, exacerbating those differences. And even you can see in the US, I mean, the racial injustice and so on has been exacerbated and people, the pandemic has just created tension and sort of a boiling point so that other issues now are suddenly gonna be coming up. So I do see them, the tensions and violence, but more within states and within regions, not so much between countries. Although, again, the United States, I think this crisis has further alienated and pushed the US outside of the global leadership. Well, yeah. Well, part of the reason for my question is our degraded relationship with China. From, say, before Trump till now, our relationship with China has essentially come apart. And it's really worse every day. And China is nobody to be trifled with. Whatever the pandemic may be, they are a strong and economic power. So I worry about that and you're right. I mean, there are changes in the world and you wouldn't see a classical war either. You'd see some other kind of war, a trade war, which we're in already, and maybe a electronic war. Yeah, the cyber war, what you mentioned earlier, the Russians hacking into now all this stuff. I mean, they're just wanting to muddy the waters and confuse everybody more. That's a sad situation. I will clarify it. I know we will and a couple of weeks time, we're gonna wrestle with these issues as they have evolved and we'll clarify it for the benefit of you, me and anyone watching. That's right, great. Well, always great to reconnect and share some thoughts on this never ending changing world. But thank you again, Jay. Thank you again, Carlos, Aloha. Aloha.


Hi friends, I am Dr. Prakash Sarunke working as associate professor in mechanical engineering department of Walshchian Institute of Technology. Today continuing with our discussion on comparators, today we shall be discussing pneumatic comparators. At the end of this particular session students will be able to explain principle and working of pneumatic comparator and will describe merits and demerits of them. A comparator is a precise instrument used to compare the dimensions of given components with the standard and measuring the deviation. The comparator which uses gas or air under pressure for their operations are called as pneumatic comparators. Now the technique of using air in metrology that is for measuring purpose was first developed by the Solex company in France. Pneumatic gauging became popular in recent years due to the higher magnification range of around 30,000 to 1 coupled with other advantages that we shall be discussing later. Now pneumatic principles of pneumatic comparator. Pneumatic gauging or that pneumatic comparators are based on Bernoulli's theorem. Can you tell me what is Bernoulli's theorem related with the fluids? You have studied it, isn't it? Okay. Yes, who can tell? Bernoulli's theorem states that for a fluid system total head or total energy remains constant. And for the fluid system normally there are three heads, one is pressure head, another is velocity head or it is sometimes also called as flow rate head and potential head.  So potential head is maintained constant and if there is variation in one head so that will vary the another head by equal amount but in opposite direction. So figure one illustrates the principle of pneumatic comparator. So let us see this figure, yes so this is the figure. So this shows that this compressed air is coming through the filter. Here there is a pressure regulator unit, filter and pressure regulator units are common for any fluid system especially pneumatic system. And say here there is a control orifice, control orifice and it is named as CO and area C. So this is a chamber, this is a chamber whose pressure can be measured with the help of this pneumatic gauge. So there is one more orifice so this is known as measuring orifice and through which measuring jet emerges and air is going to the atmosphere. So here is a restricting surface, restricting surface and distance between the restricting surface and this MO that is measuring orifice is designated by L. Now let us try to see the working. Air at constant pressure P is allowed to flow through a control orifice CO as we have seen in the figure into an intermediate chamber and then to a measuring orifice through which air will escape to the atmosphere. So when there is of course no restriction so air will be escaping to the atmosphere. Initially there is no restriction to the measuring jet and area of the CO that is control orifice and measuring orifice MO are such adjusted that incoming air flow is equal to outgoing one. Hence there will not be any change in the pressure inside the intermediate chamber so that is PI and it will be equal to atmospheric. However if the pre-flow to the atmosphere through the measuring orifice is restricted then there will be rise in the pressure inside the chamber. Now according to Bernoulli's theorem say the pressure rise will be equal to decrease in velocity head. So there will be decrease in velocity head because there is restriction, there is restriction and so that will result in increase in pressure. So pressure rise and increase in pressure rise will be proportional to the decrease in the velocity head. For a small portion in the vicinity of measuring orifice the outgoing air jet can be assumed to be cylindrical as shown in the figure. So if you refer the figure so you can see so here so this is highlighted so this is the measuring orifice so this is the restricting surface. So this air jet which is emerging from measuring orifice and going to the atmosphere so in this small this viscerity so it is almost cylindrical so it is assumed to be cylindrical. And say with the diameter D which is equal to the diameter of the measuring orifice. Flow rate will be equal to volume of cylindrical jet so that is PI by 4 into D square into L while D being when D is constant because diameter of the measuring orifice will constant the flow rate will be proportionate to L so that is the distance of the restrictor from the orifice that we have seen in the figure. While using the comparator initially a standard will be set to restrict the flow through the measuring orifice and a zero reading of pressure may be set for this particular position for this position a standard component will be there. Now then the standard will be replaced by different components for restricting the flow. If there is any variation in the dimension of the component from the standard then L will change L will change if the component is of larger diameter L will decrease if it is of smaller dimension L will increase and because of will say there will be reflection in change of flow rate and consequently change in pressure. So there are two methods to measure the deviation with pneumatic comparator. One is by measuring the air pressure another is by measuring the velocity or flow rate of the air principle remaining the same. Now working of pneumatic comparator which is also commercially known as solex gauge or solex pneumatic gauge the instrument was first developed and produced by solex air gauge limited France. So we can refer figure two the different components of this solex gauge are one is air compressor then air filter and regulator unit water tank and dip tube manometer control orifice measuring head with measuring orifice. So let us see the figure yes so this block so that represents the compressor. So this is the filter and regulator unit this is the control orifice so this is the water tank and this is the dip tube dip tube. So this is the manometer arrangement manometer arrangement and say this is the measuring head or measuring gauge. So this is the component so that is being measured so this is the I mean this measuring component and operation is highlighted. So let us first try to understand the some in working if the supply pressure is higher than the desired some air will bubble out from the dip tube so which is shown in this figure so this bubbles so the pressure desired pressure will be maintained by the water level in this particular tank if the supply pressure is excess of that say then that pressure I mean air will be bubbling out okay. So air at desired pressure will pass through this control orifice control orifice. So one say this is the manometer so manometer end is attached here and one end is here so it will measure the difference here and here the manometer. So this air will be going to the measuring head so this is the measuring head say that is for checking the bore it is also called as air plug. So air through this bore will be passing through the atmosphere and so this component say will act as a restrictor. Now what happens the measuring head will be aligned with the standard component initially which will indicate the pressure rise due to restriction of the flow. So this is the reference level this is the reference level. Now the different components are checked for deviation from this standard reference level while measuring the bore roundness can also be checked by rotating the measuring head so that is our air plug and taper is checked by moving the air plug through the length through the length. Now advantages and limitations of pneumatic comparators. Now advantages are very high magnification and because of this say that comparator is very sensitive to even a minor deviation so that can be checked. So the range will be magnification range will be 30,000 to 1 almost no moving parts in the comparator hence very high accuracy because naturally there will not be any friction there will not be wear and tear so over the period also there will not be loss of accuracy. References from textbook of meteorology by Mahajan, Dhanpatra and company privately made I thank to them and I thank you.


A budget is a plan for using money. The Welsh Government decides how to spend money in Wales. This money comes from taxes from people living and working in Wales and from businesses. Taxes are the money that everyone pays towards the important things that make society work. When you have a job earning money, you pay some of that money back to the Government as tax. Money also comes to Wales from the UK Government. Our Finance Minister decides after listening and speaking to many people how the Welsh Government will spend and raise money through taxes by publishing a budget. The Welsh Government has more than 20 billion to spend between the 1st of April 2022 and the 31st of March 2023. For example, to build new schools and hospitals, to pay for nurses and doctors, to develop new affordable housing. The Welsh Government decides how much money is spent in this budget on important things which make a big difference to all of our lives.


Good afternoon everybody and a very happy New Year to you all. Our speaker today is Adam Price who's the leader of Plaid Cymru. He's a very distinguished record indeed. He was a very prominent member of the House of Commons for almost ten years. And then he went off and left these shores and went off to I think Harvard was it. And then came back and became a member of the Welsh Assembly. In these times that we're in, it's I think very useful for us to hear from the leader of Plaid Cymru about how he sees Brexit and its effects on the relationship ships within the United Kingdom. And perhaps also on the relationships within the two islands, the two offshore islands. So may I ask you just to make sure that your phone is on silent and the usual rules apply is the Chatham House rule. The initial speech itself is on the record and then the discussion afterwards is off the record and we'll finish at two o'clock. Adam you're very welcome. Thank you for coming. Good afternoon and I'm very grateful indeed for the welcome you've given us. There's always a welcome in the hillsides as we in Wales say or rather more often sing. But for any kelt Dublin holds out a particularly warm embrace. I'd like to give a particular thanks to the Institute for its invitation for me to speak and especially to Andrew Gilmour who's organising hand has made the arrangements so smoothly efficient. My visit comes at a critical and anxious time for our two countries. We've already had one speech today by the leader of another political party which will remain nameless but now there's here's another one. In the coming weeks and not for the first time in our respective histories decisions are going to be made by others that will profoundly affect our future for years to come. To a great extent we and I think you as well naturally fear for the worse. The reality is that the people who will be making those decisions do not necessarily have our best interest uppermost in their minds. Their priorities are driven by other considerations not merely different to ours but even alien to ours in terms of our way of thinking. But at least in this matter you in Ireland are surrounded by friends in the European Union. Countries and people who are supporting your interests in a steadfast way. The monumental solidarity within the EU has been a truly magnificent thing to behold and not least when contrasting to the fissiparous wreck that is the British body politic. When we in Wales look around the European Union we can certainly find friends. But fear who have the structures, the power or the leverage to give us the support we need. And when we look across our land border to our closest neighbour in this matter of Europe among the political establishment we find only coldness, coldness in some cases hostility and more often indifference. Brexit for us in Wales has been a masterclass in our sheer irrelevance. If you don't have a seat at the table you're probably on the menu. So we're looking west for friends confident of finding them here in Ireland. Now there's much history we can draw on here of course. This is true not least in the history of my party. Irish and Welsh political nationalism were in many ways in lockstep during the interwar years and long afterwards. The first summer school of my party in 1926 was addressed by Kevin O'Sheel. Famously he was the first man ever to have travelled on a free-state passport to Geneva in 1923 to negotiate Ireland's entry to the League of Nations. Indeed every Plaid Cymru summer school in the interwar period was addressed by a Fina Foyle speaker often of ministerial rank. They obviously left their mark as my party adopted Shane Finn's early abstentionism at the outset and embraced Dominion status as our interim constitution policy in deference to Ireland and like Dave Valera we supported a policy of neutrality during World War II, a decision which came at some considerable personal and political cost. The tight knot between Welsh and Irish nationalism continued after the war and with a huge rally against partition organised by Plaid Cymru and addressed by Dave Valera in Cardiff in 1952. A breakaway group of the more cultural Celtic Congress advocating a union between the six Celtic nations was formed by my predecessor as Plaid Cymru leader Gwynpo Revens together with Donald Breen, son of the Irish revolutionary Dan Breen. Fast forward then to the modern era and it was noteworthy that when Wales first emerged as a political nation in the modern era, only a short time ago in 1999 when a national assembly was first elected, the Irish government took notice. Much to our gratification it established a consulate in Cardiff. It wasn't called an assembly, that would have been a diplomatic step too far but to all intents and purposes that is what it became. The consul general was a senior diplomat, Connor Redan who had been seen service throughout the world in the Far East, in Moscow, in Beijing and Boston. Now I don't know how much intelligence of use Connor was able to convey back to Dublin during his three short years in Cardiff. However, I do know he played an enormously important role among our emergent political society during the time he was stationed in our capital. When he arrived, Connor was amazed to discover that the British government wasn't establishing the kind of parliamentary institution being granted to Edinburgh. Instead, we were being given what amounted to a tier of local government, a committee structure with a cabinet bolted awkwardly on top. There was no separation of powers. The legislature was limited to tweaking secondary legislation and as for the judiciary, it didn't exist in terms of the Welsh constitution at least. The whole set up was pretty precarious and the assembly had an inauspicious start. We won our referendum by a whisker and in short order Labour lost two of its leaders. The situation in Scotland was quite different. They won their referendum emphatically and were granted a fully fledged parliament complete with tax varying powers. Since the union with England in 2007, Scottish identity has had revolved around distinctive Scottish institutions, a separate legal system, its own church, separate education and more recently a developed financial system and a distinctive range of Scottish based newspapers. Our situation has been quite different. Our identity has depended less on institutions and more on the survival of the Welsh language and the strong feeling people have for their locality, their bro, the places where they have been born and brought up. The result was that while there was a well established sense of Scottish citizenship related to institutions, in Wales our political structures only began to emerge towards the end of the 20th century. You can put it like this. When the Scottish parliament was created in 1999, it was as though the keystone was being placed in an arch of an already existing structure. But when the National Assembly was created in 1999, its role was to build that arch. Connor O'Raiden quickly grasped all this. He also realised that political institutions mean much more than the rather mechanical structures of parliamentary institutions. A political culture relies on the networks of soft relationships in civil society that oil the wheels, the NGOs, the think tanks like this, lobbyists, the press and media. We had to build those as well and we had to create the milieu in which they could circle it and do their work. In all of this, Connor was a central figure. He brought people together, often people who despite the small size of Wales and despite their sharing many interests in common had hardly met. Connor's and Ireland's regular soirees became famous and not just because of the wine that flowed or rather maybe the Guinness and the generous canapes. Invitations were much sought after because it quickly became known that it was here in the Irish consulate you could catch the year of the First Minister, his other ministers leading figures across the parties in wider civil society as well. When the history of this period for Wales comes to be written, Connor O'Reiden and the Irish consulate should warrant more than a footnote. Looking back at the last 20 years and all that we've achieved constitutionally in Wales, the separation of powers, the creation at long last of a lawmaking parliament, the coming of taxation powers, the steps we are now undertaking towards a separate legal jurisdiction, none of this would have been possible without the emergence of a cross-party solidarity on these questions. That would not have happened in turn without the creation of our distinctive Welsh civil society and that would not have happened without the contribution of people like Connor O'Reiden. Now I concentrate on this small piece of history because it's an example of what important though often unseen consequences can result from close relationships developing between neighbours. We were much encouraged therefore by last week's announcement that the Irish consulate is to be reopened in Carniff in June following its closure a decade ago as a result of the financial crash. Now it should now be in our view a Welsh government priority to open our own consulate one day hopefully soon an embassy here in Dublin. It should be much more than the current arrangement which is a few desks tucked away in the British Embassy albeit assiduously occupied by an excellent representative but it will certainly be a priority for an incoming Plaid Cymru government in 2021 to create a fully fledged Wales house here in Dublin. Because we have a good deal to learn from each other and a good deal to benefit from greater cooperation especially during these dark days when being pulled asunder by Brexit. There are many lessons for us in Wales from the remarkable advances you've achieved over the past decades here in Ireland many of them economic to be sure but others cultural in their impact. For our part I believe Wales can be much more than just a land bridge for Ireland to England and continental Europe. We hold out the prospect of being a political partner in a great project in the 21st century a project made more even more urgent by the Brexit debate a project that is nothing less than a fundamental restructuring of political relationships across this Western European archipelago. These are big claims let me start with the economic vision you've given us. In 2017 the Irish Republic grew its economy by 7.2 percent compared with 3 percent of the UK and just 2.7 percent in Wales. It's worth remembering that in 1960 by some measures people in Wales were about 60 percent richer than citizens of the Irish Republic. By the mid-1990s having taken full advantage of Ireland's independent membership of the EU for over two decades you overtook us. Now the situation is completely reversed. It's you who are 60 percent richer in per capita terms than us. Your growth rates since the 1990s have been truly staggering and notwithstanding the 2008 crash. The Irish economy has not only kept pace with other strong economies across Europe such as Germany and France but it's outpaced them and only countries like China, South Korea and India have had such an impressive record of growth over this period. The question is why one of your economists David McWilliams provides at least some of the answers in his recent book Renaissance Nation. As he says your economy took off precisely at the moment when Irish society opened up to new ideas, became more tolerant and provided dignity to people whose lifestyles were previously shunned. It seems to me no coincidence that the beginning of your economic miracle can be traced to 1990 that was the year that Ireland voted for Mary Robinson as civil rights lawyer, liberal campaigner and most importantly for this argument a woman as president. Another important moment of course and I speak as the first out gay man to lead a political party in the UK was the election of Leo Verandke as TD for Dublin West in 2007 and then as Tishik a decade later and it all came to head of course finally with last year's repeal referendum symbolizing the extraordinary changes that have swept through Irish society. McWilliams describes all this as a culture war about the primacy of individuals to make their own choices concerning their lives as he says there's a direct connection between the workings of the economy and such societal factors as the availability of divorce, abortion and contraception, private morality, women being educated, the LGBTQ community being afforded dignity and belief in science over superstition. In the western world enlightenment values and a successful economy go hand in hand. Now we have our own culture war in Wales but more of a political than a religious one possibly it revolves around the struggle to remove the debilitating pressure that has been pressing weighing down on us for nearly 100 years the weight of a single party state and the Labour Party has been a dominant force now in Welsh politics since 1918. Laborism has sucked the oxygen out of our attempts to renew life in Wales it's not democratic socialism or even social democracy that has been ruling our lives that rather it's been a cloak of warm mediocrity that has been extinguishing any spark of individuality and creativity in some ways the Welsh Labour state is the worst of all possible worlds a sort of weak managerialism that blends old-fashioned command and control with incompetence to use the colorful phrase of PSO hegety it is a collection of mediocrities in the grip of a machine worse than that. Laborism is a backward-looking identity one that relies on a dependency culture living on handouts it rejects notions of self-reliance and being responsible for our own affairs it's content to leave Wales in a state of infantile under development it doesn't believe in our having a mature national identity in fact it rejects most emphatically the very idea. Little wonder therefore that we started the new year with Wales still at the bottom of the UK's national and regional economic league table with income per head of 72.5% of the UK average one of the worst figures ever recorded. We only created the beginnings of self-government when we established the National Assembly as I said in 1999 for the last 20 years we've been led by successive Labour administrations afflicted essentially with a begging bowl mentality wrapped up in what appears to be a pragmatic common sense. Well Brexit is putting the skids under this underachieving complacent and unambitious approach to government in Wales. Whether Brexit goes ahead or not and there is hope that the progressive forces of which we are a part in Westminster can still stop it the ruptures it is causing are proving a powerful force for change. Brexit has wrought visceral divisions in both the Conservative and Labour parties both are preoccupied with maintaining their unity neither are fit for government but their disarray is an opportunity and not just for us as a political party in Wales for if we can seize the moment with imaginative solutions it will be an opportunity to recast Britain itself. What Brexit has shown with devastating clarity is that the British political system is broken, deadlocked, incapable of reaching a consensus. In these circumstances there is a chance that the Brexit decision will be driven unwillingly to be sure back to the people for a further referendum for a people's vote. This is something that we in Plaid Cymru would absolutely welcome indeed we've been campaigning for it and but if it comes that vote cannot just be a rerun obviously what went through in 2016 today we're faced with a new proposition we now have a better understanding about what it means to leave the EU the choice we will we will face is the flawed actual deal that has been obtained by Mrs May or remaining in the EU but as I say this this time remain cannot just mean staying with the status quo. Remain is not a particularly attractive slogan when you're living in poverty so it must be a question of remain and reform remain and renew remain and regenerate we have to actually present to people a different and alternative and better change project because that's why many of them voted Brexit those that were deeply disenchanted with the the existing status quo.  Within the United Kingdom reform must mean a new state where economic wealth is distributed more equally this will benefit much of northern England as much as Wales Northern Ireland or Scotland. A host of statistics reveal how much wealth investment and research and development are concentrated in just one tiny corner of Britain in London the English Southeast it's the explanation why this is the only part of Britain that produces currently an economic surplus the rest of the UK is in deficit and persistently so so this systemic imbalance is the source of much of the social injustice in the UK and indeed as I've said the it propelled the leave vote in the 2016 referendum and it's the result of of political choices over successive generations by political administrations and Westminster of both main political parties and it's in stark contrast really with the the core prints European principles of cohesion and solidarity it was telling that in the 2016 referendum the progressive remain forces of the left campaigned as Scotland stronger in Europe and Wales stronger in Europe however in England they campaigned as Britain stronger in Europe for the progressive forces of the of the British left in England their own country was not worth mentioning that has to change and we in Wales with our friends in Scotland and Ireland can be part of making the change the left cannot afford any longer to allow the right increasing the far right to have a monopoly on English pride and patriotism and by our own example we can show the way to a progressive remaking of Britain and that will entail a reinvention of a progressive sense of English nationhood as well and and where will that spring from well simply from this from an understanding that sovereignty is not a zero sum game it is in fact the opposite the whole European project has been about sharing sovereignty and through the lived experience of that sharing we've seen that it actually enhances increases and grows your sovereignty and the Republic of Ireland and your success over the last few decades actually is the shining example of that so it will be within these islands it will be composed of four nations different to be sure just as family members are different different in size certainly but treat it equally and enhancing their shared sovereignty through a partnership of equals and in turn this experience will allow the English to be truly themselves they will be free at last from the shackles of a British state that clings to an outmoded notion of an imperial past a state with an inflated hopelessly unrealistic sense of its place in the world a vision of its place in the world and this is the alternative vision that I hold out to you you may say that it's hopelessly optimistic that the English can never come to see themselves as simply English and European rather than global British to use neo-imperial jargon de jour that they condemn to a kind of a solipsistic existence of seeing themselves as endlessly exceptional I say that it's our challenge and by our challenge I mean that of ourselves together with the Irish and Scots to persuade our English friends that they have a better future forging a new collaboration on these on these islands a collaboration based on an equality of partnership and respect and I suggest that it will be a collaboration that builds on structures that we've already created as part of the Good Friday Agreement that produced peace in the north of Ireland the British Irish Council this should be a meeting place where we can begin to forge the common understanding that we will make we will need to take our new relationships forward our different nations are all at different stages in in the development in the Republic even economy and society anxiously preparing for whatever outcome emerges from brexit and particularly for the consequences in the north of Ireland in Scotland they are awaiting the the outcome of brexit to determine the timing of another referendum in independence England is in a process of becoming England in Wales as ever we're waiting the decisions of others but meanwhile we are making plans for a greater say in our own fate our aim in Plaid Cymru is for a referendum by 2030 at the latest but earlier if there's a material constitutional change such as iris unity or Scottish independence on our own independence as an issue I put it to you that all of our dilemmas and choices can be illuminated made clearer and therefore easier if we work together in whatever forums we can agree to meet within the UK it will be within the joint ministerial council which brings together the cabinets of the UK government and the devolved administrations that needs to be reformed and made fit for purpose within within these wider islands the obvious forum is the British Irish council and in these settings it's not hard to see what an emerging agenda might look like brexit or no brexit an overriding need for a fairer distribution of investment and economic growth across the UK as a whole and a need for a recalibration of our political institutions to ensure this will happen and that means a confederal relationship between the nations of the UK evolving along the lines of the Nordic council of sovereign states that governs the relationships between the Scandinavian nations if brexit takes place there is likely to be an acceleration of moves in these directions the centre cannot hold and who knows there could be a scope as well for much greater cooperation between the Celtic nations even the formation of some kind of Celtic union to echo uh Gwynvore Evans vision from some time ago the most immediate institutional form for this would be as I've already indicated strand three of the Good Friday agreement which established the British Irish council it's strand three refers to the participants among obviously the Irish government the Welsh government the Scottish government the Manx government it suggests that they could establish their own organisation within its structure and I quote in addition to the structures provided for under this agreement it will be open to two or more members to develop bilateral or multilateral arrangements between them such arrangements could include um um could include subject to the agreement of the members concerned mechanisms to enable constitution consultation cooperation and joint decision making on matters of uh of mutual interest so the the platform is already there for deepening cooperation between the Celtic nations in these islands and such such a collaboration could obviously include the northern Irish government when it's reestablished it could establish a Celtic development bank for joint infrastructure investment projects in energy transport and communications whether that's um helping us with our tidal lagoon project that was cancelled by Westminster or even this fascinating proposal the Scottish government are looking at in terms of a Celtic sea bridge between Scotland and Ireland I've traced a large ambitious canvas I suppose culturally and civilisationally we we've always been nations of dreamers there's nothing wrong with that um um but whether we like it or not um and I'm sure many in England will not like it we have to recast the future we have no alternative in her game of high stakes political poker with her brexit strategy Mrs May is pursuing a dangerous and deeply irresponsible course she's pushing events ever closer towards the 29th of March deadline in an attempt to force people to accept her deal or confront the prospect of crashing out with no deal I don't think her strategy will work um it cannot be allowed to work quite frankly and we need to make common cause there but whichever way the current chaos of Westminster plays out there will be opportunities for our Celtic countries to work together for mutual benefit and I've suggested here today some avenues we might explore in Plaid Cymru we are anticipating these developments with enthusiasm for we're confident we will win the forthcoming arguments not just because the facts are on our side on our side but because we believe we have the better dream our vision um is for a new society a new politics yes a new Wales but but also a new England a new Scotland um I hesitate to suggest the new island as well but certainly a new Europe uh too let's let's seize that common opportunity thank you


والله الحمد إن الحمد لله لاحمده ونستعينه ونستخفره ونعود بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات عمالنا من يندي الله فلا مضللا ومن يبدله فلا حاديلا وأشهدوا الله إلا الله وحده لا شريكلا وأشهدوا أن سيدنا محمد عبده ورسوله وصبيه وخليه خير ندي أرسله أرسله الله تبارك وتعالى رحمة للعالمين فقال بحبه وما أرسلناك إلا رحمة للعالمين يا أيها الناس تبوا ربكم إن زلزلت الساعة شيء عظيم يوم ترونها تذهل كل مرضعة عما أرضعت وطدر كل ذات حمن حملات والترون ناسة سكارة وما أهم بسكارة ولكن عذاب الله شديد اللهم جبنا من عذابك يا رب العالمين الحمد لله it is from the greatest blessings of Allah سبحانه وتعالى upon us that he has gathered us here today not only on the day of Friday but on a momentous occasion and just yesterday we were celebrating Aratha and the Divine Presence of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that day of gnosis that day of knowledge in which all of us be it in our homes be it the fujaj be it in the masajid we're all seeking Allah سبحانه وتعالى's mercy we're all seeking Allah سبحانه وتعالى's forgiveness and here we are today celebrating the fruits of life but what do these three days have in common the day of Friday the day of the Eve and the day of Aratha so Juma and Arabic comes from Jannah which means to collect to come together and the Eve means to return and Aratha is that day of knowledge and so the idea is that we return to Allah سبحانه وتعالى collectively seeking to renew our covenants with Him which Allah سبحانه وتعالى talks about in the Quran when he says وإذ أخذ ربك من بني آدم من ظهورهم ضريةهم وأشهدهم على أنفسهم I love to be your Lord قالوا بلا شهدنا أنتقولوا يوم القيامة إنا كنا عن هذا غاقلين so Allah سبحانه وتعالى speaks about this day in the Quran when he says addressing the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم when your Lord took out of the offspring from the lions of the children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves Allah سبحانه وتعالى said to them am I not your Lord I bless to be your abdikum and how did mankind respond to that how did creation respond to that indeed we bear witness to you Allah سبحانه وتعالى and so Allah سبحانه وتعالى continues to say that on the day of resurrection so you cannot say on the day of resurrection that we were not aware of this of this covenant so as believers we have on a weekly basis on the day of Friday this constant renewal with Allah سبحانه وتعالى and on the day of Arafa and on the day of Eid Allah سبحانه وتعالى provides us with more and more opportunities to renew that contract with Him that divine contract with Him and so when we talk about the day of Arafa reflecting on yesterday's event what is Arafa and what makes Arafa so special some of the scholars actually say that this covenant took place at Arafa or on the day of Arafa when Allah سبحانه وتعالى created Adam before admitting him into paradise he created his children not in the forms that we are in right now but rather our souls or even in the forms of despects or atoms and Allah سبحانه وتعالى took that covenant with us and what was our response to that when Allah cried out and might not be your Lord it was better it wasn't even yes it was better verily indeed it was intuitive as if our souls were just predisposed to believe in Allah سبحانه وتعالى from that very first moment association and so again throughout our existence here in this world we are constantly reminded to do that covenant with Him because that is a covenant that we took upon ourselves on that very first day in that very first moment and so we did not only testify to that covenant but we also agreed to uphold that covenant and so we have to ask ourselves how are we upholding this covenant with Allah سبحانه وتعالى is it once a year is it once a month a week and what are we doing to uphold that covenant are we one actively exemplifying the guidance that has been bestowed upon us are we exemplifying the way of our Messenger Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and the guidance and the example that he brought forth to us how are we trying to uphold our commitment with Allah سبحانه وتعالى and so one of the examples that we see is the example of إبراهيم عليه الصلاة والسلام the father of all prophets and in fact our Messenger our Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and the Quran is told by Allah سبحانه وتعالى to look back at the example of إبراهيم so Allah addresses the Prophet when he says ثم أوحينا إليك أنت تبعملة إبراهيمة حنيفة وما كان من المشكين then we revealed to you Oh Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم follow the creed of إبراهيم follow the path of إبراهيم follow the religion of إبراهيم عليه الصلاة والسلام a man who had pure faith and who was not an idolater he did not associate partners with Allah سبحانه وتعالى and so we can see that there is a common issue here between the Prophet's life and إبراهيم عليه الصلاة والسلام we will expand on this in the second football for both of them if you look at the situation and the situation during the prophetic period and we look at what إبراهيم عليه الصلاة والسلام was dealing with with his own family with his own people and with his own father it was the idea that the Asnam were prevalent that people were not worshiping Allah سبحانه وتعالى directly but rather they were taking stones and other means of worshiping Allah سبحانه وتعالى essentially associating partners with Him قولوا قولي هذا وأستغفر الله علي ولكم واستغفروه وإنهوه وإنهوه الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصق به ومن وعلى قال الله تبارك وتعالى في كتابه العزيز إن الله وملايكته يصلون على الندي يا أيها الذين آمنه صلوا عليه وسلموا تسميما الله صلوا على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله سيدنا محمد كما صليت على سيدنا إبراهيم وعلى آله سيدنا إبراهيم في العالم وإن لك حميل المجيل ونرى أن when the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is told to look at the example of Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام we must reflect on the attributes that Allah سبحانه وتعالى characterizes Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام with in the Quran so Allah سبحانه وتعالى says إن إبراهيم كان أمة barely indeed Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام was a nation he was a civilization within himself and the scholars say several things about this they say that when he was a nation why because he perfected all attributes of praiseworthy and so one of the Arab poets says ليس على الله من مستنكين أن يجمع العالم علىنا في واحدين it is not objectionable for Allah سبحانه وتعالى to bring the universe into one and so Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام was that universe he exemplified order discipline he had the Waqala and Allah سبحانه وتعالى he incocated attributes that were praiseworthy attributes another thing that the scholars mentioned in this regard is that he was one believer in a society that was prevalent with Khufra or disbelief so he was the only believer in his society and so when we reflect upon this often times be it in our professional settings in that school we find ourselves being that one Muslim or two Muslims or three Muslims and even as Muslims living in the state in the states we are a minority and so this belief is surrounded we are constantly ingrained with ideas that are antithetical to our own belief system and so this was Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام but despite that despite being him that one individual who believed in Allah سبحانه وتعالى that gave him closeness to the one that gave him closeness to Allah سبحانه وتعالى because he didn't allow his predicament to people who were around him to influence that belief and so he was Mustafim but he was upright the third thing that they say about him being a nation is that he was a leader of guidance right and in Arabic and umma and individual who is teaching people all good so he is also attributed as being someone who is followed and Imam the second attribute that Allah سبحانه وتعالى described to Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام with is he says he was obedient to Allah سبحانه وتعالى he was one who stood up for what Allah سبحانه وتعالى had commanded him to do and we see this on their day of aid that he went out and he broke all of the he smashed all of the idols with an axe and he left an axe hanging on the biggest idol so that they can all reflect and see that even the greatest idol from the idols that they were worshiping could not stop this act of Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام so essentially this rock was useless what was the result of this they asked who did this who did this for idols call you call you the whole Ibrahim they said that we heard about a young man Ibrahim and they they didn't accuse him of doing it but he didn't he didn't and so as a result of that the account people collected a fire and it was such a great fire that people couldn't even get close to it so they had to catapult Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام into this fire now as Ibrahim عليه الصلاة والسلام is being thrown into this fire mid-air perhaps what is he saying he sang what the khujaj were repeating these past few days لبقى الله مُمَا لَبَيْ لَبَيْكَ لَا شَرِكَ لَكَ لَبَيْكَ إنَّ الحمدَة والنامَّة لَكَ والمُلْكَ لَا شَرِكَ لَا so even in that moment he wasn't complaining he was not thinking about his state but rather he was showing the state of gratitude to Allah سبحانه وتعالى because he knew that what was happening to him was only getting him closer to Allah سبحانه وتعالى so he wasn't looking at the material he wasn't concerned about what he was going to be thrown into at the moment but rather what the outcome of that tribulation would be and so he was looking up to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and the result when he's in the fire كُونِ بَوْدَنُ وَسَلَانَ وَنَا عَلَى رَبْرَانْهِمْ be peaceful and gentle to Ibrahim A.S. and in that moment what does Ibrahim A.S. do he's standing in prayer he's again thanking Allah سبحانه وتعالى what do we do when we're fired with the Islamic homes when we're fired by individuals who disagree with us what does our state look like then what is our response and who are we returning to these are questions that we need to ask ourselves on a daily level and this is why it becomes important for us to look at the examples of these people such as Ibrahim A.S. to turn back to them for inspiration and try to exemplify them and in conclusion there's other attributes that were given to Ibrahim A.S. but I'll just note of just being appreciative of the blessing that Allah سبحانه وتعالى the blessing of believing in Him it's one that we cannot even fathom but we are thankful for and we ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to preserve because there's a lot of people out there who are trying to take that away from you and I on the day of Arafa during the Prophet A.S. his final sermon there's one verse that's revealed that on this day I have perfected your religion I have completed my blessing upon you and I am pleased as Islam the religion of Islam as my religion I Allah سبحانه وتعالى's religion this was revealed on that very same mountain that we took that original covenant with Allah سبحانه وتعالى on and so interestingly now some of the scholars actually said that this verse was revealed on this has been Allah سبحانه وتعالى's opinion on the day of the raid one it occurred on Friday and so this verse was even applicable to us today or yesterday but we have to really think about this blessing we really have to not only then think about it but try to embody it and once we embody it that's when our state of consciousness will be a state in which we are constantly remembering Allah سبحانه وتعالى the form the prayer everything that we do towards worshiping Allah سبحانه وتعالى will become more and more meaningful and that is how our purpose is created is created through consistency and that consistency will hopefully gain us a greater consciousness in Allah سبحانه وتعالى so we can realize the blessing that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has bestowed us with so that we can continue to testify and then be examples for each other and that is upholding a covenant to not only keep it through ourselves but then through our character through our action through our state of being others will recognize us without having for us to even state that we're Muslim publicly people will look at us and say this person is a Muslim I know this person I can respect this person because I know what they stand for so with that I ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to make us a break I ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to allow us to renew that covenant throughout our lives that Allah سبحانه وتعالى creates that state of consciousness within us so that we are not waiving by the individuals who are trying to take our religion away from us they are trying to attack our ideals and that I ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى that he make us all individuals who are Khalid الله that we become friends of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and that we become people who are beloved to Allah سبحانه وتعالى through our actions and through our state of being ربنا قاتنا في الدنيا حسنا وفي الأثرات حسنا وفينا عذابنا يا مقالب القلوب يثبت قلوبنا على دينك يا مقالب القلوب يثبت قلوبنا على دينك يا مقالب القلوب يثبت قلوبنا على طاعتك يا مقالب القلوب يثبت قلوبنا على محبتك يا الله we ask you for firmness in our religion يا الله we ask you for your love يا الله we ask that you assist those who are going through difficulties be they in our household be they in our personal lives be they in our communities be they around the world يا الله there's a lot of people who are suffering on this day يا الله please bring joy to them allow us to be conscious of some of the suffering that they are feeling so that we can be sympathetic to them and that we can give to them يا الله I'll make us people of service I'll make us people of service to you and to your creation and with that I wish you all a very good night because I'm going to say Peace be upon you