Family Theatre presents Anne Blythe and Raymond Burr. From Hollywood, the Mutual Network in Cooperation with Family Theatre presents Nightcaller, starring Anne Blythe and Raymond Burr. Family Theatre's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives, if we're to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families, and peace for the world. Family Theatre urges you to pray. Pray together as a family. Now to our transcribed drama, Nightcaller, starring Anne Blythe as Nora and Raymond Burr as Clint. I couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the bright moonlight coming in through my window since the storm ended. Maybe it was just because I was all alone. Whatever the reason, I was still wide awake at 2.30. I got out of bed and went over to the window. Below me, far across the valley, the last of the storm clouds drifted quietly against a clear night sky. I could see some stars. I looked down the dark winding driveway that led from the house to the road along the edge of the bluff. The motionless trees, the shaded surface of the mountain side, the white ribbon of highway. All seemed deserted and very distant. I looked again at the luminous dial of the clock on my night table. 2.30 in Los Angeles. That would make it 4.30 in Chicago. I wish that I could pick up the phone and call long distance. Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad. It turns out your daughter's not a big girl after all. She's sleeping in your bedroom, but she's still afraid of the dark. Would you mind singing at a sleep? Pick up the phone. I did get that far just to see how it felt. Then I decided I should stop feeling sorry for myself. And not two seconds later, I saw the light flash on my ceiling. It was a car slowly making its way up the driveway. I watched it pull up to the house and stop. A man got out. I'd never seen him or the car before. Maybe he was lost and wanted to use the phone. I didn't care. I wasn't going to let him in. I slipped into my bathrobe and started up the hall toward the vestibule. There wasn't a light on anywhere in the house. He'd think it was empty and go away. That's all he could do. When I got to the end of the hall, I stopped and peeked into the vestibule. Through one of the glass panels at the side of the front door, I could see him standing on the porch. I waited, expecting him to turn away and get back into his car, but instead he did something that made my blood freeze. What do you want? Who are you? What do you mean breaking in here? Where are the lights? Get out. Quiet. Don't you come near me. Where's the light switch? Here it is. What do you want? I thought this place was empty. No, no, my parents are in there. They must be pretty heavy sleepers.   Look, look, I've got some money, about $30. You can have it. Has anyone else been here tonight? No, no, listen, I'll give you the money. Take anything else you want. I promise I won't call the police. Where's the phone? The phone? You heard me. In the bedroom. Come on, show me.  Hello? Who's calling? Yeah? Yeah, it's me. They already left, huh? That's not very smart. What if somebody else sees it from the highway? Okay, he's the boss. Yeah, I'll turn it on. No, no, no, it went off like clockwork. Good enough, so long. Who was that? A friend of mine. Where do you turn on the porch light, back in the vestibule? But how did anyone know to call you here? Because I told them to. Let the switch by the front door. Yes, look... How come you didn't go to Chicago with your folks? I changed my... Who told you they were in Chicago? A friend of mine. Who are you? What's this all about? Never mind what it's all about. Turn on that porch light. Aren't those headlights coming up the driveway? Yeah, don't look so hopeful. They're friends of mine, too. Where does that door lead? To the den. Inside. What are you going to do? Stop, ask him so many questions and get in there. From inside the den, I could imagine him crossing the vestibule and opening the front door. I remember looking around the room and trying to decide whether I'd have a chance if I climbed out the window and made a run for it. But before I could make up my mind to do that, I... Come out here. But I... Come on, come on. You shouldn't let her see us. What's the difference? She'll never see us again. What do you want? How long are your parents going to be out of town? I don't know. Come on, we aren't fooling. I don't know and until the weekend, anyhow. You got any relatives in L.A.? No, no, we just moved out from the Midwest last spring. You work? What's this all about? Answer them. Where do you work? The London Film Company in Hollywood. I'm an illustrator. Better have her call in there in the morning. Say she's sick. Call in? Yeah. You're going to have guests for the next few days. You can't stay here. Sure we can, honey. It'll be nice and cozy. But why here? Because we like it here. It's quiet. Not many people come around. You know, I'm beginning to wonder about this. Maybe we ought to clear out right now. Forget it, kid. You're hot. Your picture will be all over the front page. That was five years ago. I've lost a lot of weight. Shaved them aside. Besides, we've got to wait for Frank. He could catch up to us. He knows the place. Look, cool down. That dough is not going to run away. Well, which is it? We stay, we go. We stay through tomorrow anyhow. How are you fixed for groceries, lady? There's not much. Maybe take her out in the kitchen and see what you can find. OK. Come on, honey. Want a hand getting your stuff out of the car? Yeah, might as well bring it in. Oh, I'm starving. You and me. Hey, this is a cute kitchen. I'm glad you like it.  Don't be rude. Well, let's see what the icebox has to offer, huh? Oh, boy. Cold chicken. The police are after you, aren't they? Not us, dear. Just Clint. What did he do? Here, take the milk. He sprung himself. He what? Sprung himself. Went over the wall. This all the butter you got? Yes. You mean he escaped from jail? Yeah, that's what I mean. What was he in jail for? Armed robbery five to ten. You know, he's younger than I expected. He's kind of cute, too. What? I thought you were good friends. We are now. You got any salt and pepper? On that shelf over the stove. You don't even know this man and you helped him to break down. We didn't help him. He did that all by himself. But you're helping him get away. We got our reasons, honey. The grub coming. It won't be long. Where's Clint? Putting the car away. How are you getting along with our hostess? All right.  I didn't tell her anything. She won't hear on the radio. Who says she's going to listen to the radio? What'd she tell you, lady? Nothing. Not a thing. Come on, come on. I'll leave her alone. You already said his picture would be in the paper and about the dough anybody could figure he's on the run. That all she told you? That's all. Really? Then you know we aren't fooling around. I know. Okay. Just don't forget it. What's that? Just Clint, the back door. Let him in. Okay. Thanks. Getting cold out. Get the car in all right? Yep.  Let's eat. We got a lot of planning to do. In front of her? Later. You think I'm nuts? Mae, we're going to have to lock you two girls up in the bedroom tonight. What am I? Don't give me any lip. That's what you're going to do. Come on, pass the chicken. I'm starved. I sat there watching the meat. Clint let the others do most of the talking. Once or twice I realized he was looking at me. Puzzle, but he didn't say anything. After Mae and I had finished the dishes, Clint and the other man locked us up for the night in my parents' bedroom. It was starting to get light when Mae sat down in the rocker next to the foam stand. I lay in bed watching her pretending to drop off. The first time her eyes closed, it was only for a few moments. The next time, a little longer. I waited. It had to look right. By 6.35 she'd been asleep for almost 10 minutes. I got out of bed as quietly as I could, tiptoed over to the foam stand and lifted the receiver from the hook. Mae stood in her sleep. I stood there inches from her. Then she began to breathe evenly again. Hello? Hello, is this the police? What did you say? Hey! Is this the police? What are you doing? Put down that phone. Police! Give that phone to me! No! I'll never let you talk on the phone! Give me that phone! Give me that phone! Give me that phone! I'll drop it! All right, Mae, hang that thing up and put it back on the table. I thought you were going to behave yourself. Well, you saw it wrong. You fell asleep, Mae. Just for a minute. Minutes all she needed. How come you didn't tell us the phone was in here? I forgot about it. It was a nice thing to forget. Don't make me any speeches. I forgot it. That's all right. All right, all right. Take it easy. Don't get excited. I'm plenty excited.  As soon as Frank shows... What's so big with you and Frank? I'm the guy who has to do all the work on this. Lucky is your buddy, Clint. He stopped being my buddy when he sold half this mark to you. You needed the dough. It's what got you loose. All right, so now I'm loose. What do we need with him? Wait a minute, wait a minute.  No dumber in sticking around here while the cops traced that call she just made. Yeah, I don't think she got through to the cops. Why not? When I hung up the receiver, the number was still ringing. She probably got disconnected and you heard the dial tone. I know the dial tone. This was the number ringing. Then who was she talking to? Ask her. Oh, sure. That'll do. Look, Clint, even if she got the cops, they'd call back. They don't come running every time the phone rings. All right, but what if they come running this time? Then she'll answer the door and tell them it's all a mistake. Oh, that's brilliant. Look, look, kid. I got 15 grand tied up in this mark and I'm not going anywhere until a guy I paid at two shows up.  Frank's no good to you from now on. You already know the bank, don't you?  Well, that and my signature is all you need. You're talking too much. All right, I'm through talking. Wait for Frank as long as you want. I'm getting out of here. You're not going anywhere. Put that rod away. When I'm ready. Why, you chump. That goes off pointed at me. You wind up with 50% or nothing. Well, worry about that when Frank gets here. You're going to be sorry for this. I'd rather be sorry than double-crossed. I get your hands up. Okay. Out into the hall. You too, lady. What are you going to do? You'll see when I do it. Look, you promised no rough stuff. I'm going to lock them up in the den for a while. Is that rough stuff? All right, go on. Get in there, both of you. I'm not going to forget this, mister. I'll give you something else not to forget. This thing is loaded. They'll be watching the back of the house. So don't get any ideas about climbing out that window. Now make yourselves comfortable. Even though the window in the den faced west, there was enough gray early morning light coming through it for me to make out Clint's face. He slumped down in a chair by the window, staring out at the mountains. After a long time, he turned and looked at me. Hey. Hey, come over here, will ya? I won't hurt you. Come over here by the window. What is it? Keep your voice down. You might be listening. Well? All right. I've been trying to think of a way to get you out of here. Get me out of here? That's right. I'll give it to you all at once. I'm not an escaped convict. I'm a policeman. A policeman? Keep your voice down. What do you take me for? I take you for a girl who's going to be awfully sorry when that guy Frank shows up and finds out I'm not Clint Sanders. But may in that man she's with... Ward. Remember his name? Jerry Ward. They've never met Clint. They think I'm him because I said so and showed up at the right time. If you're not Sanders, where is he? Well, in the infirmary at the State Penitentiary. He was shot last night trying to break out. He talked. Talked a lot. That's why I took his place. Talked about what? A bank job. The thing he went to prison for. They never recovered the money. It's almost 100,000. They never tagged the brains behind it either. Who would that be? Frank? Well, we think so. We can't make it stick without the money. But you told May and Ward you knew where the money was. I told them they knew where the money was. It was just a hunch, but they took the bait. I figured Frank must have told them something for their 15,000. Why didn't you tell me this when you broke in here last night? It wasn't times. And besides, I... I didn't know I... You might have been a plant. I don't believe you. All right. All right. Why do you think I didn't tell Ward about the telephone being in the bedroom? You said you forgot it. Are you kidding? I wanted you to use it. I wanted to scare him out of here before Frank showed up, so they'd bleed me to the money. Have you any idea where it is? Sure. A safety deposit box in Mexico. Northern Mexico. That's all Clint had told us. Then you really want to help me escape? Well, sure. I think we can swing it. Oh. Well, here. These are the keys towards Carr. So far, he's forgotten he didn't get him back. Well, why don't I use your car? It's in the garage. Because I won't move. I took the plugs out. I didn't want anyone chasing you. Besides, Ward's car is the one I want the police to get. It's evidence. Probably got his prints all over it. All right. But how do I get to the garage? Well, I'll climb out this window and make a run for it toward the bluff. Oh, but Ward said he'd be watching the back of the house. That's the idea. Well, he's busy trying to catch up with me. You'll have a clear field to the garage. What about me? I got a hunch she'll stick with Ward once the excitement starts. And you want me to go straight to the police? Fast as you can. Incidentally, he... You didn't happen to get through to them while you were on the phone, did you? No. Too bad. There's... something I should tell you about that phone call. It was just a trick, an idea I had. What do you mean a trick? Well, when I heard you suggest I'd better call in to work this morning, I... I realized you hadn't guessed about what... Well... You're getting along fine, aren't you? What's it to you? Nothing. It just happened to remember you've still got the keys to my car. Well, let's have them. You must be getting soft in the head. I gave them to you when I came in from the garage. Come on, wise guy, let's have the keys. I tell you, I don't have them. Want me to answer that, honey? Yeah. If it's for the girl, tell them they got the wrong number. Search me if you don't believe it. Now, look, I haven't got those keys and either is made. Are you going to hand them over or do I have to get rough? How can I hand them over if I don't have them? Honey, that was Frank. Oh, where'd he call from? He's on the gas station. He's on his way here now. Good. All right, wise guy, we'll forget about the keys until we see what Frank has to say about you. Um, you asked me to remind you. Huh? You know? Oh, oh, yeah. Hey, lady, what's the name of your boss down where you work? Mr. Harper. Charles Harper. Okay.  We're going to make a little phone call. Don't tell me you're going to put her on the telephone. That's right. Oh, that's brilliant. What if she starts yelling again? You won't. What's the address of that place? London Film Company on Melrose. Look up the number, May. I think you're off. Here it is. London Films. Yeah. See? Hollywood 2, 1, 3. Okay. All right, lady, here's the deal. Last night, you twisted your ankle. See?  And the reason you know it's nothing serious is because I'm a doctor. And I told you, just like I'll tell your boss, Harper, before you talked in Savvy. Yes. And when you get on the line, you'll make some, you know, small talk with him, but don't get any smart ideas. I won't. Okay. May I speak to Mr. Harper, please? Mr. Harper, I'm Dr. Walter Barnes. I'm calling in for one of your employees, Miss Wilkett.  No, no, nothing serious, but I recommended she keep her weight off it for a few days. Yes. Yes, she's right here. Wants to talk to you. Hold on. Okay. Don't try anything funny. Hello, Mr. Harper. This is Nora. Can you hear me all right? There seems to be something wrong with the connection. Oh, by the way, I called my folks in Chicago last night, long distance. I was just lonesome. I wanted to hear their voices. What? Oh, yes. Yes, I'm home. No, Dr.... Barnes. Barnes. Dr. Barnes came over here. I called him. Yes. Well, thanks, Mr. Harper. I'll take care of myself. Goodbye. Very convincing. You're getting smart. It's more than I can say for you.   This deal can't even get off the ground without me. It's Frank, honey. Let him in. Look, fella, Frank's going to think you're punchy if he comes in and sees you with that gun. Yeah? Yeah. That kind of stuff makes him nervous, so give me that. Frank, give it to me. Give it to me. What's going on here? You, get him up.  Who is this? You don't know him? I never saw him before. Where's Clint? I knew there was something funny about him. He said he was Clint. You, boneheads. He's a plant. Who's she? His girl? No, she lives here. Where's Clint? Copper? Where is he? Same place he's been for the last five years. I knew something smelled about you.  Both of you. May, you go out and start the car. What's the deal? We're getting out of here. That's the deal. And these two with us. What about the job? There isn't any job without Clint. Forget it. I'm not forgetting we gave you 15 grand. We'll settle that after we get out of here. Now straighten this joint up and get your stuff together. I want to be on the road in 10 minutes. I had no way of knowing if the phone call had worked, but at least I felt sure that none of them suspected anything. Frank walked us from room to room at gunpoint while May and Ward went through the house gathering their things. It took longer than they expected. It was almost 9.30 when Frank herded us out through the front door. Still can't find your car keys? No. I still think he's got them. We looked all over the house. Fresco. You're wasting your time. It's our time. Fresco. No. Nothing. How about her? I don't have them. Take a look, May. Well, who'd have thought it? Little Miss Trimble Chin. I'm sorry. It's all right, Nora. Look, I'll make a deal with you guys. You've got nothing to deal with. Sure I have. If you let her go, there's nothing we can tag you with. You're kidding. Not even a little. Technically, the only thing against you so far is housebreaking, and we can forget that. But if you put her into that car, that's abduction and the Lindberg law. Get into that car. Don't wait. Wait a minute. Let's hear this. What about Clint? What about Clint? He's still in jail. He can't get in trouble for aiding an escaped convict if he hasn't escaped. Yeah. And what do you come in? Well, I go to the L.A. police and tell him who I am, a cop. Then I say it didn't work. Nobody showed up here. Who are you kidding? I was to keep the girl from talking. Common sense. She wants to get out of this alive. Well, who says she won't? Ask your friend what he's got in mind for us. Now, Frank, wait a minute.  I'll do the thinking. You will not. We didn't put a 15 grand to buy a murder wrap. You bought into a deal that's gone sour, and it's going to get worse if we turn this cop loose. Okay, he hasn't got a thing on us. What about the bank job? That was you and Clint. Right the first time. That's why there isn't going to be any deal. Maybe you're clean as a whistle, but I'm filthy. Now get into the car. We started down the driveway toward the road. I scanned the stretch of highway leading along the bluff. There wasn't a sign of anyone in either direction. I looked back at Ward's car following us down the hill. Then I felt May press the gun into my side, and I saw she was yelling at me. Turn around.   If we take this road left, where does it go, Copper? Why, toward Sunland, I think. Well, that's as good as... May, give me that gun. What's wrong? Look. I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. It was two squad cars, one on each side of the driveway, parked along the inner edge of the bluff. There wasn't a shot fired, and after Ward and Frank, and poor May had been taken into custody, I couldn't resist. I had to tell someone. You know, May was right. What do you mean? When she asked if I was deaf, that's just it. I am. I'm deaf as a post. You know, I... I knew there was something. I can read your lips, but I'm deaf. That's how my boss knew there was something fishy about the phone call. I never use the phone. I can't. Oh, I don't mind. I beg pardon? I don't mind. I'd rather talk to you in person, anyhow. This is Anne Blyde again. Did you ever stop to think that one of the most perfect, the most beautiful forms of art is prayer? For art, whether it be painting, sculptor, the theater of any of the long established modes of expression, is only one form of man's attempt to reach perfection. The painter puts an image on canvas, perhaps the likeness of a mountain, or in modern art, a picture of his impression of the mountain. It's the same with a sculptor, except that he uses marble instead of canvas. In the theater, the actor whose portrayal of a fictitious or historical character is most perfect is considered the best actor. You see, art is an attempt to reach the infinite, the perfect. And that's why I say prayer is the greatest of the art forms. For in prayer, our dialogue is with God. And by it, we create a thing of beauty. We forge a bond between ourselves and God. And when we pray as families, the bond is strengthened by just that much in the name of him who said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them. That's why family theater tells us week after week. The family that prays together stays together.  From Hollywood, family theater has brought you transcribed Nightcaller starring Anne Glythe and Raymond Byrne. Others in our cast were Vivi Janus, John Daener and Ben Cameron. The script was written and directed for family theater by John T. Kelly with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman. This series of family theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program, by the mutual network which has responded to this need, and by the hundreds of stars of state screen and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our family theater stage.  This is Tony Lofrano expressing the wish of family theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to be with us next week when family theater will present the pox starring Tyrone Power. J. Carol Nash will be your host. Join us, won't you? Family theater is broadcast throughout the world and originates in the Hollywood studios of the world's largest network. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.


The Texas Community Engagement Alliance consortium was formed to address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underserved minority populations in five counties in Texas. The consortium has partnered with local organizations and institutions to develop community-engaged projects aimed at reducing the spread of the virus and providing access to clinical trials and vaccines. This article was authored by Rebecca A. Seguin Fowler, Chris Amos, Bettina M. Bitt and others.


I'd like to please to answer this We've got some South Americans in that's brilliant South Africa stood around I don't suppose we'll have anybody from Australasia now because it's It's about four o'clock in the morning in Australia. Okay last second. I shan't labor the point Anymore all good still some people answering. Okay. Thanks for that Next question is The sort of demographics so what's your main occupation or your main role? and if you are other if you Would like to Put something in the chat box about what other is that would be interesting especially as you seem to have several Okay. Thank you for that. I've still got time Melissa for if you want to do this second one Okay. Thank you for that Finally We're interested in Where you're connecting from Excuse me a minute In the trouble let me clear down the previous answers Looks like most but not everybody's from home and thank you Okay Catherine back to you. It's all yours and while we were polling guess what I found I found the right email so I am going to Proceed with some introductions here. I believe Let's see Although it looks like I see Erica's Aliska's and elect or is so Elena if you want to go ahead and start and introduce yourself and Then Erin can go ahead and introduce herself as well when she takes over you have my hi, my name is My name is Alana Ateva And I am the On the board of editors of human rights in childbirth and Erin Duncan is Another attorney so I'm an attorney. She is another attorney who volunteers with human rights in childbirth and Alyska could also ways joining us from the Czech Republic and she is with one of the oldest NGOs in the Czech Republic a perio which advocates for Improving maternity care in in that country and today we would be talking to you about CEDO which is the CEDO is the international convention the UN convention on eliminating Open all forms of discrimination in human that but So it is a young convention. It is probably the most important UN convention on women's rights It was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly and in 81 it entered into force many enough countries signed on And it includes obligations To states to take all necessary steps to safeguard rights from infringement by third parties Almost every country in the world has signed that convention with exceptions and Then I noticed that a lot of you are from the United States because we are in that time zone And there was somebody from Iran and I'm sorry to say that your country has not Adopted CEDO yet, but these are the few countries that haven't adopted CEDO But but chances are that your country has adopted it because if you see the map Almost everybody else has and even if your country has not Ratified CEDO we will talk about what your options are to advocate using that document So it is not just a tool for rights enforcement, but for rights education as well And it's preamble the convention explicitly acknowledges that extensive discrimination against women continues to exist and Emphasizes that such discrimination violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity And it also sets the tone regarding Childbirth that the role of women of procreation should not be the basis for discrimination There are a few articles that directly relate And can be used when advocating for human rights in childbirth article one is Brought the definition of discrimination and it's very owing on compassing. So if you are wondering if something You know, you can't find something in the text and if you're wondering if it's included It's probably included with the chances are it's included Articles two and three establish the state responsibility To ensure that women are not discriminated against and it it doesn't just mean adopting legislation But taking all appropriate measures and sometimes those measures could be temporary special measures for substantive equality so measures that Relate to maternity for example These measures could be taken Article five talks about gender stereotypes, which also Play a role when we talk about violations of feminizing childbirth and article 12 is the article that Specifies the right to health with special consideration in pregnancy and childbirth I'm sorry, I laid it Aaron I was hoping to just jump in very quickly. I'm one point if we can go back I just want folks to know that the substantive equality sort of what that means and The differences between formal equality where you're treating everyone the same in some some Instances you need to treat people differently and of course in the constant context of pregnancy You treat women differently where necessary in order to achieve Actual equality, so that's the concept of substantive equality Thank you. Thank you, Aaron, and that's yes And then article 12 also goes to state that not not withstanding the right not to discriminate in article 12 Regarding health in general when we talk about maternity Pregnancy and confinement We have to treat women different differently because of their biological function which which means that they need special considerations There's a general recommendation issued by the CEDO committee and we'll talk about the committee in just a minute But that recommendation it's number 24 on women in health and it goes into More detail about what what that protection means It so it provides elaboration on article 12 it talks about of Deplication of the states to respect protecting fulfill women's rights to health care So the right respect usually means not to infringe to protect It means that it needs to to protect against infringement from others from third parties and this could include for example private hospitals and and the last Requirement to fulfill women's rights to health care means that there's a positive obligation on the state as well The same recommendation read rates the need of availability accessibility acceptability and quality of health services and There's special state obligations Written which require all health services to be consistent with the human rights of women including the rights to autonomy privacy confidentiality informed consent and choice So the committee is a committee of women's rights experts 23 women's rights experts And that committee monitors the implementation of the CEDO convention It gathers three times a year in Geneva and it reviews states reports So states need to submit reports every four years that state what steps the state has taken to implement the convention in that particular country the committee also accepts shadow reports Because they don't have offices in different countries They can't travel to different countries to really see what is happening and they only receive the state's reports They also allow civil society to submit alternative reports or shadow reports and those reports usually elaborate more on What violations women's women are facing in that country it thinks that maybe this the state omitted from their report And the CEDO committee also issues Recommendations to the states on what measures they need to take further to improve the implementation of the convention And then in special circumstances it issues those general recommendations that there are two All signatures to the convention such as the general recommendation 24 that I just mentioned that's just a matter if you can see that it's a list of the committee members just to to Give you an overview. They really come from different countries and What what's your nice and I think it's that they're really excellent in women's rights Shadow reports are submitted So usually shadow reports are submitted only when state reports are submitted and states are required to submit every four years But that it doesn't always happen. So you can't rely on on that. You have to kind of monitor the the website of the committee and See they usually have a list for the next year and a half of what states would be reporting And then you know that you can submit a shadow report for that particular state Some for some recommendation states must must submit a two-year interim reports on progress of implementation And we will talk about that later when we talk about the example of Greece So this is really an opportunity for civil society to weigh in and and show the Specific issues that women face in their country and and really get international attention to those issues The committee reviews the state report and the shadow report Engages in what is called constructive dialogue with the state. This is what happens in Geneva And then issues recommendations to the state on what steps need to be taken to implement the convention And this is really this is your opportunity as much wives as a researchers as lecturers Even a student midwives. I mean really There is a place for you to either work with other Organizations or on your own and to bring attention to violations of the rights in childbirth that you know of in your country And I would just like to point a few examples of how shadow reports have been used specifically for some rights in childbirth most recently Ecuador submitted a report in February of 2015 The comments from from civil society included comments on obstetric violence As an invisible form of gender violence predicated on the power dynamic between women and health professional Professionals and also comments on the lack of legislation of outgoing obstetric violence There were also oral comments so NGOs can also Comment orally at the session very briefly really but apparently there were oral comments And the committee's recommendations of the state includes those oral comments They say that they're concerned about barriers faced by indigenous Afro-Equadorian and Montip you women in gaining access to health services that meet their needs and respect their health approaches Including the practice of vertical births followed by indigenous women and their recommendation is to the stages to adopt The bill on intercultural practice for assisted births under in the national health system with DM of recognizing intercultural care during delivery so, you know this this organizations and can go home and Can use the the CEDO recommendation to advocate for their own adopting a bill that was apparently already written But you know, it gives them that strength, you know that an international body should that recommendation And maybe they can get more media attention. It just strengthens their work It's a part of your advocacy strategy Hungary in 2013 The report from civil society included comments on high rates of intervention and the lack of recognition of independent midwives due to restrictive laws and lack of state funding and also comments on the imprisonment of midwife Agnesh Kereb It also included comments on course sterilization of reminding women The recommendation from the CEDO community was to ensure a women's choice to give birth at home or in a hospital by Recognizing trained midwives as independent professionals and by elaborating a legal framework and guidelines on security of home deliveries and providing training of obstetricians I'm not sure who will have time to go through all of this Greece The example of Greece is really interesting. I'm really sorry that electrical drill could not join us today But we were together at the different conference two weeks ago and I can tell you what she told me then so she Contacted an attorney who was already submitting a shadow report But that was barely two weeks before the session itself So really late in the process, but she contacted that attorney and told him well Can you can you talk about the high rates of caesarean sections that that we're facing? And the committee issued the following Recommendation the committee is also concerned at the extremely high rate of caesarean sections performed in public 40% and private up to 65% hospitals without medical justification The Greek rates being the highest in the world way above the 15% rate considered by the World Health Organization is covering medical needs The committee or just the state party to reduce the rate of caesarean sections performed without medical necessity by training or retraining medical personnel on natural birth and introduce strict control of Medical indications for caesarean sections in order to reach the WHO recognized rates And in this case the Greek state is then are required to report in two years on what progress was made on reducing the caesarean section rate increase We have other examples, but I Think that we're not going to have time for them. We'll have the presentation Available on the website of the childbirth. So don't worry. I'll just quickly show you And if it's a more general recommendation Then the Czech Republic will hear from the description only and she was involved in that report and Handing it over to Erin Thanks, Elena. So can everyone hear me? Okay Someone in chat. Maybe let me know great. So I'm joining you from Oregon. I'm a lawyer here and I'll just move forward We have a link here This is also will be linked from our website at human rights and childbirth org if you go to our CDOT page You'll see that link at the end of this session To look up when your country will be reviewed. So you want to go fairly early and see what's going on in the next few years I know they have through I think July 2016 posted right now and this is because the Process for submitting shadow reports really starts a lot earlier than the formal review session. And so I'll I'll just move on to this next page. So The formal review is about a year earlier You want to find out when your actual review session is happening and when your pre-committee Session is happening. So there's several meetings of the committee in Geneva And the goal is to try to submit your shadow report for that pre-committee session That's when the committee is discussing the reports and developing what's called its list of issues and questions Which form the basis for the state review. So when the state submits its own report It might raise issues or it might not raise issues that are important to women in the country And so the goal is to put forth what you believe are are the most critical issues facing Facing women and have the committee actually ask the state about those even if the state didn't raise those issues themselves Like Elena said don't be discouraged if you're late you could with the example of Greece They got that information in at the last minute So there's ways to sort of jump on with other NGO groups and try to get your issue out there The CDOT committee does prefer reports from working coalitions of NGOs. So they don't have a Bunch of disparate reports It's helpful to try to work together with a coalition, but it does it also accept reports from individual groups on particular issues So that's a possibility and and we've been debating whether or not they'll actually accept Reports from individuals if you if you can't find a group to work with I think that is a possibility I would suggest talking to International women's rights action watch which will have a link for them later They do a lot of support work with CDOT and they might be able to connect you and figure out how you could submit a report on your own so the shadow report can't just be a Long list of your issues it really should be tailored to the convention so it's helpful to go back to the language of the convention of CDOT and Identify which articles are actually relevant to the issues you're addressing so I put together just a little example here The language in article 12 says states must provide appropriate services in connection with pregnancy So that's fairly broad, but you can tailor a list of questions and recommendations to that language For instance, does the state have policies in place to ensure that healthcare providers are informed about and utilizing evidence-based care? So in your report you can can raise those questions and then answer those questions by also putting the data in the report And answering those questions So here's answer the questions using supportive data for instance common breaches of evidence-based care in the state Include excessive use of electronic fetal monitoring which can dramatically increase rates of unnecessary c-section and Then of course you want to have some footnotes or some documentation to support that data that you are supplying In preparing your report it's helpful to obtain the current state report if it's already available and From that link that we showed earlier where you find out when the session is actually occurring you can go there and Access the state report You you can also sometimes access a state report from the government itself Earlier than when it's going to be actually posted on the UN site and so you might want to Contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs see if you can try to get access to the state report as early as possible It's helpful to review previous concluding observations from prior sessions Address the extent or effectiveness of implementation of prior concluding observations and Identify gaps and issues that have not been previously addressed. So maybe you know what we see in some of the examples Elena was pointing out earlier Excuse me There were concluding observations regarding human rights in childbirth And so now for those next sessions if you are from one of those countries You want to look at those recommendations and in your next report Just figure out has your state actually been complying with those prior concluding observations So this is just a little general list be specific prioritize your issues Give contextual economic and political info We saw that list of who the committee members are and they're coming from a lot of different countries So remember that the it's really an international committee and you might need to provide some context for your particular issue and Again, also for that reason use easily understood language for non-native speakers You can put your report together in different languages. I am trying to remember I think CEDA has it has to be one of certain languages, but then it gets translated Into a number of the the UN languages so that Everyone can have access so we have sort of asking the question based on the article Supplying the data to support your answer and then you want to also try to include concrete recommendations for state improvement So using my previous example You could say the state should formulate training curricula and promote changes in the behavior and attitudes of health care professionals To ensure that now routine practices, which do not actually have an evidence-based Indications that the expected benefits will outweigh the potential harms are eliminated from routine care of low-risk pregnant women So something like the electronic fetal monitoring, which doesn't have evidence-based indications You're making that recommendation that the you're essentially recommending that the committee recommend this your recommendation to the state and and Find support for that Again, you want to be specific with your recommendations and think about who should be involved what data is required In order to make those changes what resources that are required. What's an appropriate timeline? You want to try to show the committee that The state should be able to accomplish these recommendations even if you have a state with limited resources Be specific about what what you think the state is capable of doing doing to improve the situation You do want to organize your report around the committee guidelines for state reports so again the the language of shadow reporting you're you're trying to organize your own report to in some ways respond to the state report that I won't get into this too much again the international women's rights action watch group has Some great resources on actually developing your shadow report and so we can link you to them But part of this is that there's now requirements about something called a common core document that the state has to put together That's there's sort of two separate documents for the state report So you want to address both of those documents in your shadow report That's getting a little bit too much into the details right now, but again We'll link you to some resources that can help you with preparation So you want to submit your report several weeks before the pre-session meeting of the committee Again, you should be able to figure out when your pre-session meetings are from that original links that we have for when the formal review sessions are there also is information about the pre-session meetings and Like Elena said you can also send representatives to those meetings So if possible, you know plan far ahead if you're going to be part of a coalition putting together a report See if you can get some funding and send a few folks to Geneva to Try to brief the committee on Some of these these issues So when you're in Geneva, you won't have a lot of time. Unfortunately. I haven't been there So I don't know exactly how it works But my understanding is that you you get a few minutes to speak before the committee try to connect with other NGOs Be concise about the issues and putting forward really the key points Learn what you can about the committee members beforehand try to catch them by name during breaks if I invite them out to lunch You're really just trying to get their ear During this time when they're developing that list of issues and questions It's just a picture from the one of the sessions there and remember that that this doesn't stop with your Just submitting the report you want to use those concluding observations Use those outcomes at the internet from the international level and relate them back to your domestic campaigns. So you're Want to find out are your domestic decision-makers aware of these concluding observations and can you use those Observations not let them go unnoticed Talk to your government use them to focus your own field work And then of course use them in future advocacy for CEDA again I think that was the end of our slides there Okay, well, so I'm going to turn it over to We had one more slide, but it's only got cut off with If and sorry, maybe sharing some personal experiences with advocacy for women's rights in childbirth Catherine actually So if Alishka is there if you can if you want to she's going to share some of her work in the Czech Republic and Actually working on recommendations to CEDA from personal experience Going to turn off the recording and we're going to have another part of the pressure great. I can hear me I Can hear you Alishka, okay, great. Thank you for confirming it Can you please go back to the slides on CEDA in the Czech Republic so that I can follow them? Otherwise let's introduce myself I am a psychologist by profession and I read the part of the CEDA shadow report for the Czech Republic I work at a barrier which as Alina said is an organization that supports parents to make their own decisions around parenting including and most importantly childbirth and We worked on that CEDA shadow report for 2010 submission as part of the Czech women's lobby Which is a local group of the European women's lobby It's well, it's a group of organizations that support women's rights in general in all areas So you are put together quite a strong case for for the situation about women's rights in different areas and We were proud to Prepare the part on health and which for us meant mainly maternity care pregnancy care and Also part of the report was on health was forced the realizations of Roma women in the Czech Republic which was not a very nice part of the Czech history in the 90s and and Back to the back to pregnancy in childbirth related issues. You can see on the slide the main issues that we commented on we focused mainly on how women Can choose where how and with whom they will give birth Because in the Czech Republic we have quite a good network of maternity hospitals, but it is difficult to find a midwife to support you when you decide to have a home birth and When you find this midwife and she is willing to to accompany your birth then you might then you may face other obstacles such as registration of the child in the state registry or Finding a pediatrician who will take care of your child Of course, we also commented on How informed consent is not always Given by women for all sorts of interventions. So it was also an important thing I would like to stress here how important it was for us to work here with the midwives and midwifery organizations because we as a as an organization we present mainly parents mothers and fathers who told us about their experience of childbirth, but for us midwives were kind of They are those who gave us information on What is going on in hospitals on a daily basis? they midwives See what is going on in hospitals in other kinds of settings Every day, so they can report what is happening. What issues are the most are most important They can give you a they could give us a more colored a more varied picture of the situation in the Czech Republic than just statistics or Stories of birth stories we heard from parents even though they are very important for us and That's why we that's why we collaborated with them on preparing the three-dough Shadow report and I think that this is what made such an impact At the committee. Can I please ask you to show another slide Alena? Not sure how to move it Yes, thank you Here you can see the recommendations that we that the Czech Republic received from the three-dough committee and You are really glad that many of the of the issues that we included in the report were actually confirmed as important in the By the committee and what we did Was that we sent as a whole group as the Czech women's lobby a representative to the Geneva just as Erin mentioned it was really I had to say that Alena's and Erin's description of the whole procedure was really exhausting and We are going to prepare the shadow report for next year because this is the year when we will Have to then the Czech Republic will defend it again it I'm sure that we are going to use it again and as a As a groundwork for what we are going to do. So that's it for me. If you have any questions, I'm here Thank you post it in the chat box the link To the document that we have prepared with more information On how you can prepare a shadow report and some information that we mentioned here We will also upload this presentation there as well and the recording will be available But I just wanted you to to draw your attention to that link as well And I just wanted to know this is Erin again our last slide that didn't make it up said human rights are not just aspirational and to use the existing framework to affect real systemic change So I think a lot of times we think of human rights as being this thing this sort of overarching idea But actually there are real existing legal frameworks to take some action and on the other hand when you have states that Haven't ratified the treaty it's it's a great tool for education and Using this statement of rights in the context of childbirth It's really a powerful tool to know that those rights are supported by international law that when you have a bad gut feeling about How you're being treated by a provider or something that might actually be what could be considered a human rights violation Now we'll open it up for questions We have requested the first slide with the pseudo definitions. Is this it? The articles it's fairly easy to find that the full text of CEDA in several languages You can just Google it and and look through the articles with the definitions of discrimination We also have it linked from that human rights and childbirth Sight that Elena has put in the chat Also, I just need to make sure you have the correct link. So this is the link to the CEDAW committee There is an old website that used to host the CEDAW committee and the convention It's a UN website and then there was some structural changes and the committee just moved So they have a new website. So this is the correct website. It's the office of the high consumers And if you if you go to the website you can check Like we had before on the upper right corner under session If you click on that you can see which countries that are scheduled to be reviewed in the next maybe year and a half to two years So you can see if your country is on that list Okay, well that was certainly a very interesting perspective and certainly a framework that Those of us down in the trenches are not often aware of so We really sincerely thank you for all the information that you've brought to us Thank you for hosting us and thank you to the organizers I think this is an amazing gathering and and very accessible to I think this is my third year and they're all participating and I really appreciate that I don't have to you know be away from my family I Can actually do things around the house usually I'm listening and and I think this is amazing It's very very accessible. I also like to thank yet the arrow close on Who's my friend and a midwife from Denmark and who encouraged me to submit? An abstract she said that this is something that midwives should be aware of and and I said well, why not? I think it's great. So I really hope that you Take that presentation and and think about the option that you have to to advocate on an international level for information child violence, okay? Carla did Are you going to continue typing Carleen? Oh, okay, so you just typed in a comment great Okay, so we're going to wrap up and continue with the goodbye slides and the request for feedback. Thanks again everybody


Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2018 here in Durban, South Africa, where I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Jacques Bugin, who is a senior partner for McKinsey & Company. Jacques, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Now, I'd like to start off by asking you a little bit about the fact that you recently worked together with ITU for research on assessing the economic impact of AI. Perhaps we should talk a little bit about what new technologies mainly promise. Yes, in fact, we're working with the ITU on a large set of technology questions. And obviously what people are interested in is obviously technology that's going to be disruptive, not basic technology that does not do anything. We look at big and disruptive. Now, the one we are looking much more into detail has been AI. AI is obviously a very generic term, but it encompass everything that you can do from a digital technology point of view. It includes technologies like facial recognition, everything which is NLP, everything which is robotics, physical robotics, with those of smartness into it, driven, of course, by the fact that we have so much of big data. These big data feed algorithms and these algorithms start to know linguistic type of technologies. They start to learn by themselves. So we look really at AI as the focus of this. Why? Because again, they are really dependent on the networks and obviously the networks is the bread of butter of ITU members. And at the same time, because they start to be extremely efficient and they start to scale. So it's the time for AI to go beyond connectivity. Talks about ITU members. What's the benefit of being a member of ITU? Well, I'm not a member of ITU. I'm cooperating. I think from a perspective of what the ITU does, they do obviously a lot on the technology innovation part and the standardization. I imagine that in the context of AI, everything's going to be not necessarily standardized, but at least synchronized. And I imagine that in AI, given that AI will actually develop and deploy to many sectors, i.e. car manufacturing, there will be a lot of standardization. Not necessarily standardization on the technology side only, but standardizations like if a red car, which is fully automated, drives over a green car, which one has priority? All these kind of new questions coming from the fact that we need to define new rules to robotics, to artificial intelligence, all these rules need to be defined, agree upon, and maybe the ITU can play a great role on that. Okay. Let's talk about emerging technologies. How can they be leveraged, do you think, to meet our needs in terms of sustainable development? And what would you think will be the economic impact of AI in our society? Yes. In the report we have done with the ITU, first we focused especially on a subset of the SDG. As you remember, SDG has 17 objectives, which I think is quite comprehensive and quite versatile, but at least we look at the one where we have something to say, which is pretty much the economic impact. And that means that in the economic impacts we look at the ability to grow, ability to expand economies, but in the same time we look at some of the SDG like inequality. All this technology is going to create welfare for everyone, only for some, and at the expense of others, these are fundamental questions. So we looked at that. In the report I think we made six new findings. And again, there are a lot of experts talking about AI. Some people just draw figures at us, or at you, and say it's going to be big, but all big really. And so what we've done is that we have tried to answer a few questions with, again, six inside. There will be an insight about all big or fast. What exactly drives that? Is it automation and you have no job? Or is it innovation and you have possibly new kind of jobs? We need to understand the mix. There is a question, as I said, about who actually, is it the same for everyone? If you happen to be US-China and you lead the war for AI today or the contest for AI, is it going to be different if you happen to be Brazil, for instance? That's the fourth question that we look and get some insight. There's a question about, we talk a lot about technology race. Is it a technology race, a competitive race? And last but not least, there is a question, as I said about the SDG question, who's going to benefit from that? Now, let me give you two or three points on each of them. How big is it? Well, based on the average of the thousand of scenarios we run, we come to the conclusion that this is 13 trillion of equivalent value of economic activity, monetized economic activity upside, that pretty much 20% more than what it is today. Now, from 2017 to 2013, if you are good in maths, that means 1.2, 1.3%, a year of additional growth. Now, if you happen to be European, like I am, 1.2% of growth per year, it's very welcome these days, especially because we have an aging population and at the end of the day, we have seen a productivity puzzle, productivity starting to actually decline and not to be sustained. So, 1.2, I take it. And by the way, 1.2, how does that compare to the past? We have come to multiple of those revolutions, the first one being the steam engine, the second one being electricity, give and take, we think it's comparable, if not larger than what we have seen from these technologies. And again, it's percentage. A percentage at that time was much lower than percentage we have today. So, we believe that AI is a set of fundamental technologies from which, by the way, ITU and their members are going to need to actually activate the supply chain element. Sizable. Second question, by when? Here is the point. AI is already among us. Possibly, you don't know it because, again, like electricity, you don't touch it. Electricity can hurt. But on AI, look at search. Most of what you do on search, whatever providers you use, most of the time, it's actually optimized to AI. Not only, by the way, for finding the right answers, but to make sure that this answer is fastest as possible. So, the user experience is, wow, I ask, I get. Do you like when you ask and it takes five minutes? No. So, you need both. So, AI is already there. So, from the timing point of view, there is a lot of use cases, which, by the way, help us to refine the numbers, I tell you, because we got evidence of the use cases. And the timing is such that it will come quite fast. No. Again, here is the catch-up, the catch-22. The catch-22 is that if I want to give you 100, of course, if you have it right away, you take it. But usually, I want you, at least, to make an effort to get it. So, that means you have cost of transition. There is no way you can do, you buy robots and robots will do the work for you. Robots need to be designed in such a way that they work in your workflow and your shop floor. It could be that you need to change your IT architecture, because the cloud and the data are not necessarily the same that you can get from Internet of Things and so on and so on. And, by the way, there are externalities, which alludes to my last point of inequality. Some people will not be fit to work with robots. Some people will not have the cognitive capabilities to actually work with software of certain type of artificial intelligence tools. And, by the way, there will be new jobs, as I said. We possibly need multiple professors of not psychology and philosophy, but AI ethics. That is cost. Now, if we put the two together, here's a striking fact. You will not see on the global scale a high visibility of number of AI. And you will come back to me five years time and say, Jack, where are these numbers? Are you telling me? Well, these numbers are actually in the economy, but there is cost and there is the upside. And, in fact, all those scenarios tell us it will take five years to see this underground of technology to become so powerful. That means should you care? Yes, because, as I said, it's today it's happening. If you don't do it, you will not be part of the 80, or the value that we have said, the 13 billion that we have said. So, the timing is today, but it will take five years to see who wins or not. Comes the third point that I say it. The third point that I say is that who's going to benefit? In fact, everybody can benefit. The technologies can be hold out and adopt, but some countries have faster than some others. US and China is definitely ahead of the game. Europe is in the middle, and like usual, you see a bit of a crescendo in terms of who is first and the like. Why? Well, first, they rely on digital technologies, and digital technologies are not yet fully rolled out, let's say, in Africa or in part of Asia and the like. So, this is obviously a catch-up phase that needs to happen. As I said, it requires to get very strong firms that ingest these technologies, and obviously, the largest multinationals tend to be in the US and developed countries. You need skills. Do we have all the skills that we need? So, the point is that this technology will converge from a performance point of view, from an adoption point of view, but it takes time. And if you don't upgrade the rest of your ecosystem, you are likely to be with the AI divide as much as digital divide. So, I pass directly to the last one, who wins, who loses. I told you, the guys who wins is actually everybody potentially, but you need to upgrade not only the technology, but the ecosystem that works with that. Second, that means what? Some companies will be faster and some others to adopt. Why? Because they are foresight, they know how to master the capabilities behind that, and those guys will actually do two things. They will be innovative and possibly they will take market share from the one that is not very good in using AI to be competitive. So, there will be winners and losers in firms. We estimate that if you are a winner, you can grow five points per year better than anybody else. In terms of economics, these are what economists call the superstar firms, having 5% every year attributed to technology for the last 15 years. I'm quite sure if you were private companies and you will be my shareholders, you will sign if I give you that plan. Now, the worst thing is that some companies will likely not adopt these technologies because they don't have the digital skills, they don't have the infrastructure, they tend to be more small medium enterprise, they tend to be in the service industry simply because the scale is different, and these companies will suffer, some of which will possibly get under the path of their own profitability. So, it's a watch out, it's a watch out. And the last but not least, what about us? All the discussion we have on AI is always about what? Employment. Should we still have employment? Now, I don't know the answer because that's a future, but I can tell you one thing. Every technology is always skilled jobs, so this is not a set of new technologies that will definitely kill job. It's actually the reason it's not that they want to kill job, it's simply because if you ingest them in companies, most of the time it's because they can do work slightly better than some of the times that you do. But in exchange of that, they will create new products, new services. Again, search is a new product and I bet you use it a lot, you know. The mobile is used by so many people and the first thing we don't want to lose is our mobile, much more than our wallet these days. That's quite fascinating as a story, which is people prefer to lose their wallet than their mobile, where obviously the mobile is much more personal. So, the point is that this innovation will and the net net will be quite nice. So, the point is not employment. In fact, I go back to my first point. We will see 13 trillion, possibly with the same level of employment as of today. Now, between today and 2030, in developed countries, we don't care too much. We are aging and we don't create babies. In developing countries, the challenge is that you still grow that force. So, yes, they're possibly going to be part of the AI divide and pressure on that one. And the last but not least, if it's not employment, the issue really, what is the issue? The issue is skills. You know, this capital being artificial, becoming smart, one day replace what you do that's not necessarily fully that smart. And at the end of the day, that means you're going to get a job and task to work, you're going to need to upgrade your skills. And the final question here is really a scalability issue, which go back to your first question, technology does not rule the world. Technology actually obliges us to be better because the better the technology is, the better our scalability needs to be. And there obviously the challenge is quite important because today, believe it or not, even in the US, 6% of the people work in creative industry, but robots cannot be creative. It can replicate, cannot be creative, but only 6%. And 50% of all time, we spend on repetitive tasks, we spend on manual tasks, or in basic cognitive skills. That means that we still have a long way to go to exploit or smartness, and in fact, the tools of technology can enhance that smartness much more than anything else. And that's the future. So those insight is pretty much what we have in the report with a great way of saying it is that a set of technology we are going to use, not to abuse, but if you use it for the good, there is 13 trillion after all the cost taken, possibly with some challenges of who receive it, but with right redistribution and the like, I think we go for a good AI and a better world. It certainly sounds very positive, and we will better step up to the mark. I think we're going to take advantage of this. Well, thank you very much for that. Just to finally, just what's the value of attending events such as ITU, Telecom, World for You, I mean, there's lots of places I'm sure you could be at. First of all, I would say it's my first time obviously at the ITU, and I was quite surprised by how vibrant the place is. You see so many types of different person. We got so much value of exchange between a government member who is a Telecom executive and the like. And fundamentally, it's a great place as well to see all vibrant part of the economy, of the global economy, especially when you come here. We got all African economies represented. We got great discussions about how easily they use these technologies, and it's really show two strengths of these events. The very first one is that you see people that otherwise you would never see, and the value of exchange is great. And two, I learned a lot about how quickly Africa is using technologies and leapfrogging on the Telecom side to basically create a new market of Telecom. It's quite eliminating. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you.


Well in an already crowded field, a Bagley man has thrown his hat into the race for Minnesota Governor. Ralph Gil Gilbertson is running as an independent and recently launched his campaign for the state's highest office. Gilbertson served as a Marine and says that he is a strong supporter of both the U.S. and state constitutions. He is pro-life and a proud gun owner and member of NRA. Gilbertson says being an outsider should give him an advantage over other candidates. I think people don't very often get the opportunity to vote for a newcomer or an independent. I just think if you're independent you're free of all of the things you have to explain. If elected Governor Gilbertson says that he would like to look to alternative green forms of energy. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


So one thing that really excited me, I mean I say excited, it's both with happiness and sadness, is the announcement from Adobe that by 2020 Flash will officially be retired. Yes, no longer like shipping the player, it won't be on any browsers, it's I know right? I mean for me it's like things that need to be addressed because you relied on a plugin and this plugin, even though it did great work, was also occasionally known for being not very safe. Right. You could run things on your computer that wasn't supposed to be running on your computer. Oh yeah, I love the old ActiveX stuff. I remember that there was one released where you could create a media player in ActiveX. Yeah. But you know, she would used to play media, but it also had a, you could also iterate over the CD drives on the computer and one of the functions you could call was eject. And it's just like, you know, since I found this out, it's like, wow, that's an amazing type of type of type, send it to a friend and watch them across the office. And they open the thing up.  I mean, but thinking about the things that Flash brought us, I think it had a huge impact on setting a bar what needs to be possible on the web. And it took us actually way too long to get there, I think. Absolutely. And even one of the most basic things was if you brought a PNG into Flash, it would work. Like, you know, even with an alpha channel, fine. But then if you exported it, like, you'd drop in like a, you know, 120K PNG and you would get this like 30K swith out of the other end. What it was doing is it was encoding the PNG as a JPEG, but then taking the alpha channel out and keeping that as a PNG and reapplying it. So it was doing sort of lossy with an alpha channel. Because I remember you could control the quality when you export it from Flash and you would get the typical JPEG blocky fight artifacts. Yeah, it was JPEG. So I didn't know that. Actually, I didn't know that until now, but now it explains everything. But if you think about it, like, we are still struggling with that on the web today. Pretty much. Like, we've got WebP. Yeah. But, like, not all browsers have it. Sadly, no. I think there's a few alternate formats that have that sort of lossy of an alpha channel. But it's incredible to think of, like, the very first versions of Flash had that.  It took Opera, like, many years later to kind of actually kind of go right in the reaction. And it was the only platform that did, like, anything with DRM in the day, which allowed big companies to bring their content to the web in at least one shape. Things with dynamic video, like, we only kind of fairly recently have with extended media extensors. Encrypted media extensors. No, it's not the encrypted one. It's the media source extensions. Yes. Yeah. And that's why... See, Paul would know that, because he wrote the media app. He did. Oh, we should have that guy back. No, we should not. You know what? No. But the same with, like, web audio. Like, that came way much later than Flash gave us it. I mean, even now we are at a point where web animations are still not widely supported or have all the use cases. And that was, like, the basic feature of Flash. Well, to be fair, I still think in Flash people were, for doing actual animations, people were very reliant on Green Sock. Like, I don't think that... In the IDE, you could do your animations. But if you were animating by code, it's like, time to get Green Sock out. That's the way. I guess, yeah. There wasn't, like, a web animation type of thing. But I mean, it would be great if part of the... I mean, Green Sock is still alive, but it's super good. It would be great if you could just remove a chunk of the code and have it on the platform as it is. Oh, absolutely. Pretty much specified as web animations, just the browsers don't have it fully implemented. And so they have to, like, reinvent the wheel and make sure, like, no restorations happen. And all these things... And I'm hoping that this deprecation will actually, all these things that we talked about, will, like, push them forward quicker than they've been moving so far. Yeah. I remember when I9 came out and, like, SVG became, like, the thing that we now had across browsers. Yeah. And then the war started, like, developers were sort of like, you know, SVG is the answer to all of our problems. And then the other camp were like, no, boo, SVG is bad. Canvas is the way forward. And I remember sort of, like, me as a Flash developer, and sort of seeing other Flash developers say the same thing, were like, well, the answer is both, right? And it was, yeah, coming from a Flash background, I was like, well, yeah, you use the vector stuff for vector stuff and, like, DOM-based things for when you need the interaction. But if you just want to draw something and then, or even, like, you know, you might want to draw something in vector and turn it into a bitmap. You might want to take a bitmap and make it the background to a vector shape. And Flash really was doing this like 10 years ago. I think there's a tendency in the entire community to take a tool and make it the tool for everything, even though you kind of want to use different tools for different purposes. And it's just, it's, I think we're getting better at this, but there's still a tendency like, I want to learn one thing and it should, you know, cover everything. So I only have to learn this one thing and not bother around the ever-evolving ecosystem. And I don't think the web is a good place for that mentality, honestly. Well, yeah. And I think one of the things that we need from Flash that we don't have right now is a good idea for doing those kind of animations. And I know Adobe are working on it, are we're working on it. I can't remember which projects they still have on the go. But it feels like we're losing a sort of big group of people who don't want to write code but are able to make amazing animations that sort of lost on the platform or they've had to go to something like After Effects or something. And now, you know, the developer will have to recreate all of that sort of in the web. So I hope we get there with something like that. I feel like this deprecation is, especially for big companies, to invest, forcing them to invest really into like replacing the Flash tool that they had with something that is native to the web and then hopefully the entire ecosystem will benefit. Whenever I'm writing a talk, I get the same problem. It's like, you know, I kind of run out of things to say and then I'm sitting there going, well, that's that then. Bye then. Bye.


actor Ncidaisai Shabangu has passed away. Mzansi actor, writer, and director Ncidaisai Shabangu passed away on Sunday, July 24, at his home in Pumilanga. The news of the actor's passing was posted on Instagram by his close friend Hamilton Dlamini, who's also an actor. Ncidaisai Shabangu passed away yesterday night. May his soul rest in eternal peace. He captioned a photo of him and Shabangu, whom he starred alongside in the rest-aged satirical play, Woza Albert. Shabangu died at the age of 53. He was born in Kwamashu in Durban and later his family was moved to Kenyamazan Township through the Group Areas Act. His interest in acting and stage plays was triggered at an early age. In 1995, he enrolled at Market Theatre Laboratory, and over the years has written and acted in numerous award-winning theatre, film and television performances. The Shabangu family also released an official statement on Ncidaisai's Facebook page. It reads, Dear all, it is with great sadness that the Shabangu family informs you of the sudden passing of Ncidaisai Baldwin Shabangu. He passed on in the early hours of this morning. The family appreciates all messages of condolence and requests privacy at this difficult time. Memorial and funeral arrangements will be announced soon. Lamini told the publication he is very heartbroken and sad as he has lost a great friend, a brother, and someone he learned a lot from. Ncidaisai was an actor, director, and writer, someone who is hard to find in this industry. I am very sad and heartbroken you know, he had a bright future ahead. He was supposed to start shooting Ozalo on Monday and also we were supposed to go to a European tour of the head and the load by William Kentridge in November this year. He was going to play the first lead. I don't know what to say but I'm very heartbroken. I've learned a lot from him. He always said that without formal education you can make it if you work hard, he said. He also shared that he will forever miss his smile and how he would always smile brightly even when things get tough. Lamini also mentioned that he was told that before Shabangu died, he had stomach pains and he vomited. He said he then asked to go lay down and that was the last of him. A family member of the actor, Mbokoza C. Shabangu, told Daily Sun that Shabangu had chest pains, not stomach pain. No, he had chest pains, not stomach pains before he died, he said. The comment section was filled with sad messages and condolences from both his fans and colleagues. At Lerago Underscormbalace, Obawu. At Omilejala, oh my goodness, we were meant to start shooting with him. At Thobani Underscorenzuza, like a thief in the night. Death be not proud. At Cyrilis, the world has lost an actor, a talent of A. Generation. But mostly I will miss that laugh and generous smile.