seriedig. To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking to increase support for people with crones disease or colitis. We are pleased to have supported and funded crones in colitis UK in the production of Scotland Leading the Way, a national blueprint for inflammatory bowel disease in Scotland, which seeks ac yn dechrau bod chi ar gyfer Cymru trwy cyfleidiau peithgawr i gŷnol i gyfyngweld yn gyfedd. The main aim of the blueprint document is to suggest improvements across a wide range of areas including diagnosis at primary care level, improving patient access to advice and information, provision of specialist service, for example, clinics, pediatricians, dieticians and psychological support and IT strategies. Scotland is the only UK country doing this kind of work on behalf of this group of patients. Felly McNeill. I thank the minister for that detailed answer. She will be aware that, for some reason, there is a higher prevalence of Crohn's and Colitis in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, and children in particular are sufferers, an estimated 26,000 sufferers in Scotland who are benefiting from the work that she describes. Would the minister endorse, firstly, the work of the Catherine McEwen Foundation in Scotland, and secondly, would the minister be open to a meeting with me to discuss how we can look at increasing the number of IBD nurses in Scotland, but also to refine those services to ensure that they meet the individual needs of patients and sufferers? Thank you, Pauline McNeill, for the supplementary question. Of course, I would be delighted to undertake a meeting with the member and also to learn more about the Catherine McEwen Foundation and the good work that is undertaken by that foundation. I am also very interested in learning what more we can do to help particularly young children and young adults with that condition. I would like to raise awareness across the chamber of one young girl who spoke in the Parliament yesterday, Grace Warnock, who has been instrumental in changing the disabled toilet signs here in the Parliament with the help of Iain Gray, who spoke very movingly about her work and the work that she is doing to ensure that people have a greater understanding of invisible conditions that require access to disabled toilets. Linda Fabiani, thank you. Can I ask the minister further to what she is saying about Grace Warnock, whether she is aware of Ms Jenny Cook, a young girl from East Kilbride, who, with the support of her family and, of course, Derek McEwen of the Catherine McEwen Foundation, has now raised more than £285,000 for the Catherine McEwen Foundation and the Children's Hospital Charity, formerly York Hill in Glasgow. Does she recognise that many, many children fundraise for others with conditions that they have suffered themselves and worked tirelessly for this? Does she join me in wishing Ms Jenny Cook all the best as she heads towards the £300,000 round mark at the age of 13? Absolutely. The whole of the chamber united here to congratulate Jenny on that fantastic work. I am aware of the outstanding fundraising work carried out by Jenny Cook to help to improve the lives of fellow sufferers of ulcerative colitis. In my previous role as Minister for Children and Young People, I am well aware of the enormous effort that our fantastic young people do to put back into society if they have needed help themselves and to make sure that others can benefit from their knowledge, their expertise and, of course, their fundraising endeavours. It is absolutely fantastic that Jenny has subsequently received the award of Young Scot of the Year in 2016. She will deserve recognition for the selfless work that Jenny has made to the lives of others. Donald Cameron On the introduction of the national blueprint for IBD and the emphasis on increasing support for people with cranes or colitis, it is highly welcome. Can the Scottish Government update the Parliament on what it is doing to deal with the dramatic rise in the numbers of children being diagnosed with IBD in Scotland? We continue to work hard to ensure that young people and anyone who has and suffers from those conditions are given the help and support that they are needed. Of course, we have continued to work with Crohn's and Colitis UK and the Delivering out Patient Integration Together programme, a multi-stakeholder working group that includes clinicians, specialists, nurses and dieticians who are developing pathways regarding the treatment care of patients with IBD across Scotland. Of course, the member pointed to the blueprint as well, but it is always an area that we need to continue to be vigilant on. Of course, take on board anybody else's views and opinions, but we have great strides on that. I mentioned my response to Polly McNeill, which is that some of the work that I outlined in her response is that in Scotland we are the only country in the UK doing that kind of work on behalf of this group of patients. We will continue to make the progress that we need, continue to work with patients and with young people as well, particularly those who are doing so much to ensure that others do not have to unnecessarily suffer and continue to make sure that we are making the improvements that we need to these services. Rachael Hamilton To ask the Scottish Government when the estimated completion date is for the new East Lothian community hospital. Sorry, Ms Alton. I thought that you were pressing a button as a supplementary. I have got you down for question number 10 later. My mistake. Question number 2, Iain Gray. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the new East Lothian community hospital project. I am delighted to announce that financial close was reached for this contract on 23 September and that construction will start in a few weeks on this £70 million project. The new hospital will be a significant addition to the local healthcare facilities available in East Lothian, bringing services back to the area and helping more patients to get treatment closer to home. I look forward to work getting under way and seeing this fantastic new facility become a reality. Iain Gray It is great news that construction is about to begin on the new hospital in Haddington, given that it should have started almost 10 years ago and should have been completed seven years ago. As a Haddington resident, I have to tell the cabinet secretary that local joy is tempered by the fact that day surgery under general anesthetic currently carried out in Haddington has been cut from the new hospital before a brick is laid. Some 2,000 patients a year will not get surgery locally, and clinicians tell me that there is nowhere in Lothian for them to go, except presumably on to an ever-lengthening waiting list. Even at this late stage, will the cabinet secretary intervene to make this £70 million project, a £71 million project, and retain day surgery in Haddington? Iain Gray Iain Gray welcomed the good news, because it is good news for the people of East Lothian. He talked about the issue of surgical services. As he is aware, a lot of work has been done by the group that was established to look at NHS Lothian's use of the facility and the services that should be provided in the new hospital. It has clearly been a long discussion based on clinical decision making about what should be provided within the new hospital. It will provide a range of primary care and outpatient services, step down care, mental health services and care of the elderly accommodation. I would hope that Iain Gray would welcome the fact that this £70 million investment will deliver an improvement in patient care for his constituents. I am very happy to continue to discuss with Iain Gray the development of the hospital. Richard Lyle As a member of the Health and Sport Committee, I welcome the news that the work will soon be under way of the new East Lothian community hospital project. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the services that are returning to East Lothian will result in an increase in the number of people being treated closer to home and result in our overall improvement in the quality of care of patients? Iain Gray Of course. It is very important that the delivery of the national clinical strategy is that more people are treated as close to home as possible. This new hospital will help to deliver that. As I said earlier, it is a fantastic project, £70 million worth of investment. I think that that should be something that members across this chamber would welcome, including Iain Gray. Edward Mountain To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce waiting times for urology and orthopedics in NHS Highland. The Scottish Government continues to support all boards, including NHS Highland, to ensure patients get swift access to the hospital care that they need. In 2016-17, we have increased NHS Highland's resource budget by 5 per cent to £577.5 million, an above inflation increase. In addition, at the end of August, I announced that a further £2 million will be made available to the NHS, specifically to address long waits for outpatient consultations and that money will be allocated to boards shortly. It is expected that NHS Highland will focus on the additional funding that it gets to address long waits in orthopedics and urology. The Scottish Government has also announced the commitment to invest £200 million to create five new elective centres, including one in Inverness. Those will help to ensure that procedures such as hip and knee surgery can be carried out more quickly. I think that that is, hopefully, something that the member will welcome. Edward Mountain. What I welcome is plans to address the problem. At the moment, the 18-week target time from seeing a surgeon to getting an operation is within the Highlands, in most cases, met within the tolerances that are allowed. However, that hides the real problem. The real problem is the time that it takes to get from a referral from your doctor to see the surgeon. For example, in orthopedics, you have a 48-week delay from the moment that you are referred from your doctor to do you see a surgeon. In urology, you have a 60-week delay from the moment that you see your doctor to see when you see the surgeon. In the case of somebody looking for a urology operation, it is closer to a two-year wait than a one-year wait for the person to get that operation from the moment that it is identified by the doctor. I would ask the minister again, is the extra money that is being allowed going to be sufficient to bring the Highlands into line with the rest of Scotland and get those delays down from the unacceptable period that they are at the moment? The member raises some very important questions here. The issue of urology service within NHS Highland has been a very important subject of discussion between my officials and NHS Highland. It is very important that improvements are made. The board's local delivery plan highlights urology services as a main area of concern and, in particular, cross-strait surgery. A recent agreement with NHS Grampian will see NHS Highland patients assessed in Inverness and operated on in Aberdeen. That will increase capacity on both sites for this complex surgery. Further work is required to develop regional and national solutions to the provision of additional capacity. I have mentioned the elective centres, but, meanwhile, the share that NHS Highland will get of that additional money that it has said very clearly is going to be focused on the long waits in orthopedics and urology. I am very happy to keep the member updated of developments as they go forward. Can the cabinet secretary advise what specific measures the Scottish Government has employed to recruit more doctors to rural areas such as NHS Highland, which would reduce waiting times? Of course, the future of general practice is very important, and it is at the heart of our NHS. We have, of course, increased the number of GPs by more than 7 per cent, but we recognise very much that, in some parts of the country, there are significant challenges in recruitment. Of course, we have taken a number of measures to attract GPs to rural and remote areas. We have increased the number of GP recruitment places this year from £300 to £400. We have created the Scottish targeted bursary scheme, and we have looked at a number of other initiatives, including a £2 million package, to help the number of GP recruitment and retention projects such as the Scottish rural medicine collaborative, and others. I am very happy to write to Kate Forbes with more detail of that. Monica Lennon Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am quite interested in the orthopedic service question in Highland. The cabinet secretary will be familiar with the decision that was taken to remove trauma in orthopedic services from Monklands hospital in the central Scotland region. I represent the Scottish Parliament has made clear that the Government must call this decision in. Can I ask the cabinet secretary whether she will respect the will of the Parliament and if she will make an urgent statement to Parliament on this serious matter? That is not a supplementary question that is on the order of paper. Marie Todd To ask the Scottish Government what steps have been taken to improve A and E performance in NHS Highland in recent times, and what A and E performance currently is in the health board area. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has improved A and E performance within the Highlands. At the last figures, I think, were around 95 per cent—95.5 per cent—for Caithness. Regmore had 93.7 per cent, and Lornan Islands was 100 per cent. There has certainly been an improvement in the performance of the Highland hospitals on their A and E targets, but there is always more room for improvement. That is why we will be developing and working with boards through their winter plans, which will make sure that other measures that they can take to ensure that, during the winter period, A and E performance is maintained. We will help to take them forward. Christina McAlvay To ask the Scottish Government when we will next meet NHS Lanarkshire. Ministers and officials regularly meet representatives of all boards, including NHS Lanarkshire, to discuss matters of importance to local people. Christina McAlvay When she gets the opportunity to meet NHS Lanarkshire, she raises the evidence source from the TIE campaign that shows that 95 per cent of young LGBTI respondents reported that being bullied at school impacted upon their mental health. That is in conjunction with 58 per cent of LGBTI respondents admitting self-harm as a result of bullying, with 45 per cent doing so on a regular basis. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that, by adopting an inclusive educational approach that is advocated by the TIE campaign, that that will go a long way to reinforcing the Scottish Government's progressive mental health strategy not only for young people in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse but for young people across the whole of Scotland? Christina McAlvay I agree with Christina McAlvay that bullying of any kind is unacceptable and must be addressed. We know that children and young people's wellbeing and attainment can be severely impacted by bullying, and we want all schools to promote an inclusive approach to relationships, sexual health and parent-hood education. That is why anti-bullying policies should be at the heart of a whole-school approach by creating a positive and welcoming ethos and why health and wellbeing sits alongside literacy and numeracy as the responsibility of all staff. I am very happy again if Christina McAlvay wants more detail of some of the programmes that we are supporting. I am happy to write to her with that. Anas Sarwar Thank you, Presiding Officer. The cabinet secretary has had time to think about the answer to the question that relates to Munklands hospital. The reality is that there was no consultation process for the closure of orthopedics at Munklands hospital. As my colleagues already stated, the will of Parliament was clear last week that there was a clear majority in this Parliament to have that change called in for a ministerial decision. Will the health secretary make an urgent statement to this Parliament to say that she will call those decisions in Munklands and the others and that she will reject them? The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has decided whether the question was to be answered. I am sure that you will respect the will of the Presiding Officer. As I said previously in this chamber, NHS Lanarkshire's interim plans are about ensuring clinical safety and quality of care, as supported by clinical experts at the Academy of Royal Colleges and Faculties, who I am sure Anas Sarwar would not want to doubt the importance of what they have to say about clinical safety and quality of care, given his own clinical background. It will also help to address issues around the recruitment, retention and training of key clinical staff, as highlighted in reports from Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the postgraduate dean for medical education. As Anas Sarwar and others are aware, their longer term service plans are currently the subject of formal public consultation, which will run until 1 November. Again, I would encourage all local stakeholders to play a full part in this. As I said earlier, and as the First Minister has also said, it is important to stress that no decisions have been taken on any of those proposed service changes, so at the moment there is nothing in front of me to say anything about it. Before any decisions are made, the proposals have to go through what is a well-established process, which includes the engagement and consultation of local people—something that I would hope Anas Sarwar would support. Following the conclusion of that process, I will then be in a position at that point to make a judgment. Of course, I will take last week's debate and decision very much into account and will report back to Parliament, as the First Minister has already confirmed. Elaine Smith As the cabinet secretary may know, the decision on orthopedic trauma has been taken that will come into effect at the end of this month without any consultation. I wonder if perhaps she could explain to Parliament and constituents, if the service is unsafe, how come it has become unsafe under her watch over the last 10 years of this Government? Elaine Smith As Elaine Smith knows, there has been significant investment into Monklin's hospital over recent years, something that she consistently fails to recognise in this Parliament. That does a great disservice to the staff in Monklin's hospital and, indeed, the patients who use it. I have said time and time again to Elaine Smith that she understands well and good that the proposals that have been approved and are going forward by NHS Lanetshire are interim plans based around the clinical safety and the recommendations that are supported by the academy of royal colleges and faculties. If politicians in this place think that they know better than the clinicians who raise clinical safety, they should think long and hard about whether they have the expertise that puts in a position more than the clinicians who are making those recommendations. As she also knows well, the longer-term plans beyond interim plan are the subject of formal public consultation and will come to me at the end of the day. I would encourage Elaine Smith and others to play a full part in that consultation that runs until 1 November. John Scott To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to reduce waiting times for initial hospital appointments following GP referrals in NHS Ayrshire and Arran. The Scottish Government continues to support all boards, including NHS Ayrshire and Arran, to ensure that patients get swift access to the hospital care that they need. In 2016-17 we have increased NHS Ayrshire and Arran's resource budget by 5.3 per cent to £669 million and above inflation increase. In addition, at the end of August I announced that a further £2 million would be made available to the NHS and the money will be allocated shortly to NHS boards, including NHS Ayrshire and Arran. The cabinet secretary will be aware of a lack of physiotherapy services and extended waiting times for areas of surgery, such as orthopedics in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, as well as the problems encountered last winter when surgical beds were used for medical patients, resulting in extended waiting times for planned surgery. Notwithstanding her answer for which I thank her, can she reassure my constituents and the people of Ayrshire that waiting times will reduce in the future and that plans are in place to deal with the expected increase in demand for hospital beds over the approaching winter period? The cabinet secretary again raises some very important issues. He will be aware that there is a very clear process of developing winter plans. Those are scrutinised very carefully by officials to ensure that they are robust. In looking at Ayrshire and Arran's winter plan, I will make sure that the issues that John Scott raises, particularly in relation to physiotherapy and the issue of waiting times, are addressed. It is important that boards going into the winter are in the best position that they can be in. I can reassure John Scott that we will certainly be interrogating Ayrshire and Arran's winter plans to make sure that we are satisfied that they will be able to deliver a safe and good-quality service through the winter. Emma Harper To ask the cabinet secretary how the NHS Ayrshire and Arran budget compares to when this Government took office. NHS Ayrshire and Arran's resource budget has increased by £172 million, or 34.6 per cent since 2006-07. That is a real-terms increase of £65.1 million, or 11 per cent. What I would add to Emma Harper is that demand has increased and the pressure on services has increased. It is important that, as new resources flow into the NHS, we also have to change the way that services are delivered to ensure that that quality continues. That is something that we will do through the national clinical strategy. Patrick Harvie To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve working conditions for social care staff. Cabinet Secretary Terms and conditions of employment are matters for individual employers. However, the Scottish Government expects all employers to adopt fair working practices. The Scottish Government has taken action in a number of ways to address fair work practices through the measures in statutory guidance on procurement through the fair work framework and, by encouraging fair work more generally through the promotion of the Scottish business pledge. The Scottish Government is providing significant investment to enable local authorities to commission care services that pay adult care workers, including in the independent and third sector, the full living wage of £8.25 per hour from October 1 this year. The codes of practice for employers published by the Scottish Social Services Council set out employers' responsibilities for supporting their workforce to achieve the standards of practice and behaviour that are required of them. Patrick Harvie The Scottish Greens fully support the provision of the real living wage in the care sector and throughout our economy, and we certainly support the Government's efforts in that regard. Turnover in this sector is relatively high, and we know that a great many employers in the sector are actively recruiting in other EU countries. What impact does the Cabinet Secretary think will be experienced on people's working conditions if employers are required by the UK Government to begin listing foreign workers in an effort to stigmatise and shame them? Can the Cabinet Secretary say what impact will be felt on those already working in the sector if employers find it more difficult to recruit overseas workers who are so vital in our care services as a result of this blatantly racist policy? The Cabinet Secretary for Work and Welfare Can I say to Patrick Harvie that he raises some very, very important matters? Can I first of all welcome his support for the living wage and his comments about that? He is right to identify retention and turnover as an issue within the care sector. That is why, of course, the living wage is so important, because it is part of the solution to encourage people to come into the care sector but also to remain working in the care sector. Without doubt, the case that, within the care sector, particularly within care homes, there is a large percentage, relatively, of those from the EU working within our care sector, particularly within care homes. I have asked the SSSWC to do some work on getting more and better data on how many people are working within the care sector, but if we were to lose that cohort of people working here, it would create a significant gap for our care services. It is very important that we send out a message that it is welcome here, welcome to work here, and I would want the UK Government to take a position of ensuring that those who are working and living here and contributing to the Scottish economy can remain doing so. I agree with Patrick Harvie that the idea of businesses listing foreign workers is absolutely abhorrent. It is a terrible thing for any minister to say that it creates division, it creates the type of society that is not something that we would want here in Scotland. It is important that we unite across the chamber to send out a message that is not something that we think is a right and proper thing to do. It is something that we reject and that we welcome those from the rest of the EU working within our health and care sectors. On 27 September, the Scottish Government wrote to integrated joint board chief officers regarding the living wage for social care workers. The letter told them that IGBs did not need to pay the living wage to workers carrying out sleepover shifts. Will the cabinet secretary apologise to those workers for failing to deliver the living wage for them on 1 October, by the Scottish Government? Will she tell members today just exactly when those workers can expect to be paid a living wage? It is quite sad that Colin Smyth, rather than welcoming the fact that nearly 40,000 care staff—many of them women—are from 1 October going to get a pay rise. Is that not something that Labour benches could bring themselves to welcome? It is very sad that you cannot do that. On the issue of sleepovers, let me just quote what Dave Watson from Unison has said. He says, with sleepovers we want everybody to be paid the living wage, but we accept that it does require a bit more work. If Unison can be constructive about this, representing their workers, why can't the Labour Party— To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making to ensure that national health service staff receive at least the living wage? The requirement to pay the Scottish living wage in NHS was introduced in 2011, and the lowest available pay point has been at or above the Scottish living wage rate ever since. In addition, the Scottish Government has provided significant investment to support the payment of the Scottish living wage to adult social care workers from 1 October this year and has been working closely with health and social care partnerships and providers to meet delivery of the policy that is successful. Clare Haughey. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for that answer. With NHS Scotland staff guaranteed the real living wage, how much better off is someone entering the lowest point in Agenda for Change band 1 in Scotland compared to NHS England per year? I can tell Clare Haughey that someone entering the lowest pay point currently available in NHS Scotland would be £881 per year better off than their English counterpart. That is a good sign of the partnership working that we have with the unions and the fact that we have accepted to pay recommendations from independent pay review bodies, unlike other parts of the islands. We believe very strongly that the partnership working with the unions is a very important aspect of ensuring that we deliver progress for staff working within our NHS. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the assurances that it has received from Boston Scientific regarding the possible use of counterfeit material in surgical mesh. The MHRA regulates medical devices across the UK and has not issued a medical device alert regarding the implants concerned. The MHRA has found no evidence to indicate that mesh implants are unsafe and has not found it necessary to initiate any enforcement action against Boston Scientific or any other manufacturer in the UK. Should that situation change, we would expect appropriate action to be taken by MHRA. The Scottish Government's request to suspend these procedures is due to an independent review of the use of mesh products, brought about by wider concerns about their use. It is not related to the allegations of counterfeit material. I have here the letter that she wrote to my constituent Elaine Holmes and to Olive McElroy to mesh survivors living with the unforeseen consequences of mesh implants. I understand what she says about the MHRA, but given the lamentable performance by the MHRA to the Public Petitions Committee in the last session, which has transpired that their examination of these issues has been a £20,000 desk dock study by three people over two weeks, is she really satisfied that a phone call by them to the company concerned who told them that there is nothing to worry about is an adequate examination of the suitability of this material or the seriousness of the consequences of this problem? I have some sympathy with what Jackson Tarlaw is saying, but we cannot get away from the fact that it is the MHRA's role to regulate the use of medical devices in the UK. The fact is that, as yet, it has not issued an alert in relation to Boston's scientific products. However, I am willing, if Jackson Tarlaw would find it helpful, to relay the concerns that he has expressed in this Parliament. I did so after the committee session, because there was clearly a strength of feeling about the MHRA's role and the process that it had gone through. I am very happy again to relay those concerns to MHRA. I find the cabinet secretary's attitude complacent in this. This is a very serious issue. Although the cabinet secretary joined me in calling on the Crown Office to investigate those very serious allegations against Boston's scientific of using counterfeit materials, which potentially could be implanted in women in Scotland. I am sorry that Neil Findlay feels that way about my answer, but I do not regulate the use of medical devices in the UK. That is the responsibility of the MHRA. Therefore, all I can do is to make the views of Parliament of yourself, Neil Findlay and Jackson Tarlaw, clear to the MHRA. It is obviously up to the Crown Office if it believes that there are any issues relating to this that are for them to look at. That is something that the Crown Office, I am sure, will respond to Neil Findlay about. However, the fact of the matter is that it is the MHRA's role to regulate the use of medical devices in the UK, not the Scottish Government's role. To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made with the construction of the new district general hospital for Dumfries and Galloway. Excellent progress is being made. A couple of weeks ago, the topping-out ceremony took place at the new hospital, signifying that the building has reached the highest point in its construction, marking an exciting milestone for all those involved in the project. It is a very exciting time for the new hospital project as it moves one step closer to seeing their vision for a fantastic new facility for patients and staff become a reality. I also add that the new hospital project has delivered significant community benefits in terms of new jobs, apprenticeships and training opportunities and will continue to maximise those gains over the coming year. Emma Harper I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer. Does the cabinet secretary agree that single bed occupancy rooms such as those that will be in the new hospital are important for patient welfare and meeting the current infection control standards? The Scottish Government is committed to providing patients with the best possible standard of patient care, and single rooms help to provide a better and safer environment for our patients. In view of the potential benefits to patient safety and experience, it has been our policy since 2010 that, for all new-build hospitals and other healthcare facilities that provide in-patient accommodation, there should be a presumption that all patients will be accommodated in single rooms unless there are clinical reasons for multi-bedded rooms to be available. 10. Rachael Hamilton To ask the Scottish Government when the estimated completion date is for the new East Lothian community hospital. Cabinet secretary. The highly anticipated facility, which is being developed jointly by NHS Lothian and East Lothian health and social care partnership, will provide a fit for a purpose facility to deliver high-quality healthcare for the county, and it is expected that it will be open to patients in 2019. Rachael Hamilton I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. As the cabinet secretary will know, services have been relocated away from Roodlands hospital as the new hospital is built. How will disruption to patients from East Lothian be kept to a minimum as the new build takes place? Of course we would expect that to happen and to ensure that any disruption is kept to a minimum. Inevitably with projects of this scale, there will be some disruption, but it is important that the continuity of care and patient care is there and the disruption to local residences is kept to a minimum. If Rachael Hamilton would like, I am very happy to make sure that she is provided with some further detail on how, in practical terms, that will be done. 11. Richard Lyle To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it is having with universities to encourage the study of medicine and general practice. We continue to work with Scotland's five medical schools to ensure that we have a sustainable workforce for NHS Scotland. That includes working closely with universities to deliver our medical education package, which will increase supply and widen access. Through that package, we are investing £23 million in increasing medical undergraduate places by 50 from 2016-17. In establishing Scotland's first graduate medical entry programme and a pre-medical entry programme. Richard Lyle I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Recently, my constituent Daniel met me distressed as he was not accepted for medicine due to the grades that he received despite the personal circumstances that he faced during the academic year. What support is given to ensure that young people are supported in their ambitions to study medicine and general practice? I understand that we have the details of the case that Richard Lyle is referring to. Officials will reply to him directly on that. Just on a wider point, the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council are taking specific actions in order to widen access to medicine for people from the widest range of backgrounds in Scotland. The Scottish Funding Council also supports the reach programme, the purpose of which is to increase the proportion of pupils from the lowest 40 per cent deprived postcodes and underrepresented schools into higher education. The focus of reach is in the high demand subject areas, including medicine. The SFC has also developed a series of outcomes with all universities against which progress on widening access can be measured. The 50 extra undergraduate places that have already been mentioned will be focused on widening access criteria. I thank members. That concludes topical questions. I apologise for not giving the advance notice of this, but I ask question number 12 in today's health questions. I ask if you will reflect on the number of questions selected and the number of supplementaries taken. Given that we have 40 minutes for questions today and 20 members were asked to submit questions that, like me, were to raise important constituency cases—for example, people in Elgin who have significant concerns about the eye care at Dr Gray's—should we perhaps be selecting less questions and ensuring that we get through all the ones on the order paper or taking less supplementaries to ensure that all the important issues are raised and debated in the chamber? Thank Mr Ross for raising the point. I am not sure that it is a point of order, but I can assure him that those matters are under active consideration. We are considering, for example, reducing the number of questions selected. I am conscious that members are question number 20—for example, we were sitting in the chamber without any realistic chance of ever getting to number 20. We are looking at the possibility of reducing the number of questions being submitted. On the number of supplementaries, I am anxious to take people who ask supplementaries. There are a number of people who pressed their button today, including a number of Mr Ross's colleagues, who I was not able to take. Sometimes that is due to the length of the reply from the minister, but sometimes that is because they require a lengthy answer. Those are difficult matters, but they are under consideration. I hope that the member will accept that. We now move to a ministerial statement. I would ask for a few minutes whether we will change seats for the ministers.


Okay, let's try the next one. The government is wasteful. I mean, if you don't know this, you don't know anything, do you? I mean, everybody knows the government is wasteful and that the private sector is efficient. Barclays Bank announced 38.5 million pounds bonuses on budget day going to a fellow, one of them goes to a fellow named Rich Richie. His name really is Rich Richie, extraordinarily enough. Well, if this is not waste, what is? What is waste if it's not throwing money away on multi-million and multi-billion dollar rogues, as Gaia would put it. But those are the easy things.  Let's move to something that's a bit more difficult. The competition fairy. Competition is good, right? We should be fostering competition. The problem with, if you overpay at the supermarket, the problem is we need more supermarkets. If you go along to your local shop and things are too expensive, then it's because there's only the one shop and they're taking advantage of you. So if we just had more competition, and in fact, Ed Miliband has said the problem with the financial sector is that doesn't have enough competition. We need more banks. We need to break the banks up. They need to be smaller. And that will reduce the scope of the problem. So the banks caused the great financial crisis of 2008. So what is the solution? Wait for it, more banks. So the banks were the ones that brought us all down and caused millions and millions of unemployed. And the solution that we've got to that terrible problem is let's get more banks in there. No, no, that is not the solution to the problem. The problem is that without public regulation on private wealth, the strong devour the weak. That is the problem. That is the law of markets. The banks are the clearest example. More competition in banks. Why did the Icelandic, entire Icelandic financial system collapse? Well, you won't find out by reading the report from a former colleague of mine at Birkbeck College named Richard Portis because a month before they collapsed, he wrote a report that said that they were sound as a dollar and which I guess might have been a bad choice of words. And that he completely endorsed them and he was paid a modest $125,000 for that report. The Icelandic banks were paying interest rates higher than banks in Britain. Now, how did they do that? Think about it for a minute. You go along and you're fishing around, you've got to know 100 pounds, 1,000 pounds to put it into a bank and the before interest rates dropped so low in one place you get 4%, in another place you get 4.2% and then you look, here's the place, it'll give you 6%. You can't raise productivity in banking. You can't raise productivity in the financial sector. They try and try. Okay, that's how you cut prices in other industries. You raise productivity. What do you do if you can't raise productivity? You have two choices. Either you're reckless and legal or you're reckless and criminal. And the Icelandic banks did, as they were reckless and legal, they made reckless investments that yielded returns more than other banks and sooner or later, those investments were gonna go bust and that's exactly what happened. But fraud itself, criminality, is the logical extension of the pressure of competition. The pressure of competition is not a benign thing when unregulated. It drives companies to do reckless, fraudulent criminal acts as a subprime crisis showed in the United States. Markets are the source of, it is a market that the 1% are strong. In unregulated markets, the 1%, the wealthy, the millionaires, the billionaires, that's where their strength lies. The weak in markets are the 99%. We are the weak in markets. John Maynard Keynes left a very important message in one of his articles, which you can read. I've left out part of it. At the end, he says, the love of money will be recognized as a pathological disease which needs to be treated by psychiatrists. And when we come to the day that we recognize that, there is some hope that we can implement economics of the 99%, not the 1%. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Notes from the edge of the narrative matrix. When receiving information about the world, it's necessary to scrutinize not just the information, but also the means by which the information was brought to your attention, and who could benefit from its circulation. Few bother doing all of these things, which is why most people are confused about the world. The fact that Biden is continuing all of Trump's policies means those who believed Trump was fighting the establishment must now admit that either A, they were wrong, or B, Biden is also fighting the establishment. The only people promoting the idea that Joe Biden has dementia are right-wingers, left-wingers, and Joe Biden. People tell me I should criticize Biden's policies and not his obvious mental decline. But a very clear sign that the most powerful government on earth is not being run by its elected officials is actually an extremely noteworthy fact that everyone should be talking about.  When imperialists say an issue is complicated, what they really mean is that a very simple matter has been covered over by a lot of complicated spin and propaganda narratives. I tried to infiltrate MSNBC and CNN, but they wouldn't hire me because I've never worked for the CIA. Jimmy Dorr lives so rent-free in Cenk Uger's head that BlackRock is trying to buy it. The best way to get rich as an intelligence agent is to run media influence operations posing as a former intelligence agent. The main difficulty with socialism is that when a nation tries to move away from the most toxic aspects of capitalism, the most toxic aspects of capitalism immediately begin arming local proxy militias and working to cut it off from the world economy.  A society which supports the butchery in Yemen is not going to abandon factory farming and animal cruelty anytime soon. We are very, very far from treating our animal cousins properly if we can't even stop slaughtering our own. The difference between a centrist Democrat and a progressive Democrat is that one favors slow incremental changes which never actually happen, whereas the other favors slow incremental changes which never actually happen. The shrinking audiences for the intercept in TYT shows there's not actually much demand for the area between A. real criticism of capitalist imperialism and B. MSNBC. Once your eyes begin to open, you tend to move quickly from mainstream to radical without hovering in between. My whole life is interacting with binary-minded dimwits.  You criticize the US empire, so you must think China is perfect. You're skeptical of the Pentagon's UFO narrative, so you must think all UFOs are weather balloons and swamp gas. I know this UFO thing doesn't interest some of my regular readers or leftists in general, but it is a major news story of a highly suspicious nature which just so happens to fit in nicely with pre-existing US Cold War objectives. It does need critical coverage and analysis. Mainstream media. We must stop the spread of crazy conspiracy theories even if we have to censor the entire internet. Also the mainstream media. The US military says it's been lying about UFOs for decades and maybe space aliens are flying around above your house. Mainstream media pundits now believe UFOs are real because the US war machine told them so, which says very little about UFOs but says a lot about the mainstream media. If you're going to accept that one, UFOs are being piloted by non-human intelligence, two that their focus is on nuclear weapons facilities, and three that sightings are becoming more common, you'll have to conclude that they ramp up operations whenever we engage in insane Cold War escalations. My point of course is not that these are aliens, I have no idea what any of this stuff is, it's that any position that accepts points 1, 2, and 3 should logically want less militarism, not more. Which will be important to keep in mind as official narratives unfold going forward.  Well, nobody should have to build their retirement on the economic premise of a permanent underclass. If they do, something has gone very wrong. I heard someone say mothers are expected to work like they don't have kids and parent like they don't have a job, and that really says it all. This impossibly high pressure way of existing is the quote equality and quote mainstream feminism has given us. I feel kind of silly about how I used to try and explain why I write about some issues and not others. I write entirely from inspiration. I've never once felt like I'm in control of what dances its way into my head. The honest answer is I write what I write and I don't know why.


Thank you, Commander Kohl. It's a pleasure and a moving moment for me to be on the USS Ross with Ambassador David Friedman and his wife Tammy, with General Martin, with Minister Katz, with the commander of our Navy, General Shavid, Admiral Shavid, with my wife Sarah. When I was elected for the first time, believe it or not, it was, I think, 21 years ago, 22? All right, oh, God, how time flies when you enjoy yourself, you know. I think we had shortly afterwards a visit of a U.S. aircraft carrier, and it was a memorable visit to see this great manifestation of American power. And it's been a while, but that tradition has been refreshed recently. And this is the first visit, as Commander Kohl said, the first visit in Ashdod of an American warship in 19 years. And I think it comes at a propitious time. It comes at a time when our values are tested, our interests are challenged, and there is nothing like the American-Israeli alliance, which has manifested in so many ways, but most especially in the sharing of military intelligence and in military cooperation against terror against the aggressive force of Iran in this region. We are committed to preventing Iran from expanding its empire.  This is a commitment that President Trump has expressed many times, and he expresses support for Israel's right to defend itself against Iran's aggression against Israel in Syria. He said, we back you 100 percent. And I believe that in a way, this visit expresses that commitment so clearly, and that partnership so well. I want to say a word about the Navy. I want to say a word about the Navy, the Israeli Navy, and then a word about the American Navy. My experience with the Navy is a mixed one. I was on land forces. I was in special forces, you know, and we went in the air in helicopters. We occasionally jumped from airplanes, but we didn't really take to the sea. Well, they put me on a missile boat opposite Beirut, and I vomited my heart out. I mean, it was very clear that wasn't for me. But then we had this special operation, which was combined between us and our naval commanders, the Navy SEALs.   And we came out first, so I was immediately summoned to the naval commander's base on the Mediterranean, and they started teaching us how to dive, military diving, and it was just awful. And then after a month it was great. And I had unbelievable appreciation for the skill and for the commitment of the Navy people in Israel, and that extends exactly to the American Navy. American naval power has changed the world, it safeguarded the world. It is the force of freedom. We say we're committed to the values of freedom and liberty, but if you can't defend liberty, it's a meaningless commitment. And since America became the preeminent force in the world, it's projected American power, which means the power of freedom to every part of the globe. We know what the world was like in the first half of the American century, of the 20th century, when America was not the preeminent power in the world, and we experienced the greatest tragedies in history. But from the second part of the 20th century till today, it is American power that protects American values that are universal values that we in Israel share. And the preeminent value is that of liberty. The U.S. Navy's role in this is enormous. It's always been enormous, and it still is. So I want to thank you on behalf of free peoples everywhere, but especially the free people of the democracy called Israel, your best ally in the world. Thank you and welcome to Ashdod.


From the campus of MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE, covering the MIT Chief Data Officer and the Information Quality Symposium. Now, here's your host, Stu Miniman. Welcome back to theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's flagship program. We go out to all the technology shows, help extract the signal from the noise, and here at the MIT CDOIQ Chief Data Officer and Information Quality, it's actually pretty easy for us to separate the signal from the noise, because the quality of guest here is really good. You've got lots of people that have been involved in the industry, both the Chief Data Officers, people looking at that trend. Happy to bring on the program for the first time. David Blaskowski, who's with the Financial Semantic Collaborative. David, welcome to the program. Wonderful, Stu. Thank you so much for the invitation to participate. Yeah, I'm glad to, you know, we have some of these events, we can just kind of pull somebody off the show floor here, as it were, and bring them there. Man on the street kinds of interviews. So, you actually have, it's our fourth year that we've had theCUBE here. It's actually my first time here. You've been coming for a number of years. Give our audience a little bit of just your background, what you're doing, and what led you to this event. Sure, well, I mean, by training, I'm a business guy, economist, MBA type, who somewhere about 20 years ago got waylaid and found himself going deeper and deeper into this realm of data. Data, which, you know, we all love analytics, we all love, we all love analytics, we all love the things we can do with data, but we keep forgetting that in the beginning, it's the data, and our results are only as good as our data. So, in financial services, I've been involved with data, then I was sucked up just before the financial crisis into starting the data programs at the SEC for public company reporting, and then starting up the, helping start up the Office of Financial Research at the Treasury Department, all in the interest of improving financial stability by having the kind of data that you really could analyze and understand reliably, then I did a couple of years stint heading up data governance at State Street, so I see data from, you know, the analytical side, data from the government and regulatory compliance side, and then from how do you really make the data within a major financial institution fit for purpose? Excellent, and you've been coming for a number of years, you usually speak at the event, I think you're just an attendee this year, but few responsibilities. Give us your kind of longitudinal view as to this group here, how you've seen some of the challenges changing the participants and the discussion changing. Well, the topics really have evolved significantly, I mean, from the days when there weren't many people here and questions were around, how do we find our data, how do we even know what we have to a point now where we have use cases, we have tremendous experience. Now, I'm not aware of very many, maybe not even any organizations that have absolute mastery of their data, but the sharing environment here between those coming from the public sector side, from the private sector side and the academic side, is just phenomenal in terms of getting that knowledge out there. We know a lot more about how to make data better and how to make chief data officers more effective at carrying out their job, providing value and providing reliability. Okay. And you've been on kind of the regulation side, I'm curious, you're a lot to talk here about open data mandates and there's open source, so kind of regulation, governance, open source, how do those all fit together in your mind? Very loosely, there are a lot of interesting concepts there. In fact, I just came from a wonderful session on open data with the deputy CIO of the federal government and the chief data officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, talking about the tremendous progress made in making data more available, open data, more available to those who want to make government more accountable or those who want to innovate with the data to make better tools, do more for the community. But there still remain significant issues, how to make that data through standards and interoperability approaches to make it more usable, more able to be cultivated by those who want to do cool and interesting things with it. Okay, I'm curious, from kind of the analytics standpoint, how can we use that from a prediction standpoint? I think your background, how do we prevent the future financial disasters? Oh gosh, you know, it's unlikely that you can prevent a financial crisis through data. If you could predict the future of financial markets, well frankly, you'd go and you'd invest on your own to make money from it, that's out there. You really can't predict markets. What you can do is improve your ability to identify risks that are emerging and then if something happens to understand where you are and recover from it and you're through the work of one of my former agencies, the Office of Financial Research at the United States Treasury, they've really made tremendous steps as have their international partners around the world in terms of identifying the kinds of analytics that would make it possible to identify risks and to then standardize the data that would be required in order to be able to populate those analytics. So it'll never predict, but you can identify that there are problems emerging and if something happens, whether expected or unexpected, that you can do what we couldn't do in 2009, which was to clean up effectively from it. What about the sources of data?  You know, they'll always be internal and external sources of data. I think the real frontier around it is what data that's out there would benefit from standardization, from collaboration among participants in an industry or even across industries. For example, I've been privileged to work on the financial industry business ontology, FIBO, which was really about it related to how would you represent financial contracts? Interest rate swaps, derivatives of all kinds. And if you can, that data might exist within a firm, but frankly, you don't do deals with yourself. If you're trading a security, a derivative, it's with another firm. So it really helps if the two kinds of information that are coming together are identical. And one, I as the receiver know what you, my counterparty are sending me. So it's not yet a full-fledged standard. It's still being worked on by the Enterprise Data Management Council. But this is illustrative of the kind of work that's going on around the country and around the world and saying, look, we're not making, no company is making its money on having its data exist in its own unique form. We all make money by having, by being able to carry out economic transactions. And if we are able to use data that facilitates that, all the better. Yeah, data quality is something we talk a lot about at this show. Any guidance on kind of techniques or things that you see on how people can improve data quality in general? It's a bit of a truism, but really it does come down to wanting to build a data culture. I mean, you can instill all kinds of rules on folks, but in the end, you have to build within your organization the understanding that data actually matters.  At the end of the day, whether you're a public company or a private company, you have customers. And you have other people, management committees and others who need to know investors, who need to know how you're doing. And it's all so much easier if from the beginning you're thinking about what that data ought to be, what it ought to mean, how you want to use it and what the implications are to how you should collect it and maintain it. Those are the big lessons. I'd like to kind of bring that all together into it's Monday morning, do you know where your data is? And that opens a whole lot of other questions around, do you know where your data lives? Do you know what it means? Do you know how it's being managed? These are issues that apply to every organization, not just to data intensive organizations. And there's a lot of work to be done. But it's ultimately within the grasp of any leader. Yeah, so you've been on both kind of the government side and the enterprise side. Technology, people, processes, can you pick what's the hardest? I'll go back to what I said before. I mean, there are a lot of technical challenges in everything, but the hardest part is it could be the easiest part in the hands of the right leader, but is building the support that data actually really matters. And it matters enough that you should take some time and some effort to understand what it is you have rather than moving on to the next pressing business problem. You have to solve some of these problems in real time and recognize that as you do it, it will further facilitate your ability to add value to your business. All right, just curious we're running low on time, but have you looked at blockchain at all and kind of the impact there? Yes, I absolutely have. You know, on the one hand, blockchain is way up on the hype curve. On the other hand, you know, ledger technologies such as blockchain offer a lot of promise to being able to facilitate exchanges, not just a value, but of information from organization to organization. You know, are they right for every purpose? No, no cool neat technology has turned out to be right for everything, but it has a role to play in organizations not just banks, but all kinds of organizations. And it's a tool, it's a weapon really in the Chief Data Officer's arsenal. All right, well, David Buskowski, really appreciate you taking some time out of the experience here at the conference. We'll be back with lots more coverage here from the CDO IQ here at MIT. You've been watching theCUBE.


Suspense, and the producer of radio's outstanding theatre of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure, William M. Robson. The sixth commandment is short and explicit. Thou shalt not kill, yet there are exceptions to the rule regrettably beyond number. A man who kills is a murderer or a hero, depending upon the circumstances, and circumstances of all the cases, such as the circumstances of a people's struggle for freedom. We offer you a neat point of morality to ponder as we present Escape to Death, starring Mr. Francis Lederer. And now, Mr. Francis Lederer in Escape to Death, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.  A little more brandy, Dr. Gullner. Thank you. And tell me, doctor, how do you find it treating Russian soldiers? About the same.  And man, it's the same regardless of the uniform. I feel warm and safe. Here with me are Laszlo Kogosz, former head of the secret police and now deputy premier and marshal Nikolai Chekov, Russian commander in Hungary. And he said, Mitt, I'm quite flattered by the attention of these important men. And that is where you come in, doctor. Forgive me, what were you saying? The subject was devotion to duty and country. Comrade Kogosz was just observing how hard you have worked to preserve Hungary. Well, after all, commander, I am a doctor. It is my mission in life to save, not to destroy. Well, I look at it this way.  At the moment, Hungary is overrun with a capitalistic malignancy.  Themselves or those who have always defended them? Kogosz, you were right. Dr. Gerner is the only man for the job. Job? What sort of a job? Well, not that I would question any assignment. Doctor, you have been selected for an extremely dangerous mission. You are going to escape to the West. Escape? You must be joking. Hardly a joke, doctor. Why should I escape? I'm a supporter of the new regime. I am a member of the party. My wife and my children are here. My career is here. My very life is here in Budapest. Exactly. Nevertheless, you will escape to the West. And if your mission is successful, return to us. I don't understand. Look carefully at this snapshot, doctor. Do you recognize this woman? Of course. That is Corina Zanova. I delivered her child a number of years ago. Wasn't she ministered something or other in Imre Norges' cabinet? Indeed she was. Also, she has escaped us. But we know where she is. Refugee came just outside Neustadt in Austria. About 25 kilometers from the border. And you want me to go after her? Correct. You were her doctor.  What is more natural than for you to help her? But how can I? You will carry a special hypodermic needle that has been dipped in a powerful poison. Is there anything finer than an injection to soothe the nerves? Quite as if. This is monstrous. Corina Zanova must not live to tell her story to the United Nations people. She is the only one who knows the truth about what has happened in Hungary. What she has to say is exactly what the West wants to hear. That will not do. But I'm a doctor. I'm not a secret agent.  But there must be others better qualified. None more so than you. But what you suggest is murder. The elimination of an enemy of the state is an act of the highest heroism. Ideological nonsense, right? I can't do it. I'm a healer. I'm not a destroyer. You spoke a moment ago of your children, your wife. Yes, but what do they have to do with it? Say nothing of your career and your life. All of these can be brought to an abrupt and untimely end. Why, you wouldn't. You know better than that. Of course we would. Very well. What must I do? That's better. And now for the details. We have prepared a special pair of shoes. The right heel contains an MVD identification tag to show in case you are taken by my man. The left, the poison needles for the hypodermic. You will also have the Hungarian Army password for the next three days. They should protect you in the event of an arrest. Well, how will I get across the border? A train leaves Budapest for Jörl and Chopron at daybreak tomorrow. You will be on the train. Now look at this photograph. Study it well. This is Lyosz Molnar. You must find him the moment you board the train. He's one of the freedom fighters most daring border runners. 20 miles west of the city, the train will be stopped and searched by Russian soldiers. You must persuade Molnar to hide with you. Take him to the third coach from the engine. A car reserved for children. Once there, you will probably be safe. Is that clear? I suppose, Commander, but what is the reason for this little game? Simply this. Molnar has been over the border a dozen times that we know of. You will use him to get across safely. I see. Is that all? No, there is one more thing. You will earn the party's undying gratitude if you make this her Molnar's last trip across the border. Well then, then you demand two murders, dear doctor, not murders, two blows for the preservation of Hungary. Yeah, yes, of course. Well now, if you will excuse me, I shall try to get some sleep. By all means, doctor, and pleasant dreams. No pleasant dreams that night. There was no sleep. There was no alternative. No escape. Before dawn, they came for me, took me to a secret police headquarters and gave me the shoes. Then they turned me loose with a group of political prisoners. At the west station, I board a creaking train and wait and wait, and they'll finally get lumbars out through the yards. Now begins the race with time. Desperately, I'll push through the cars through corridors where I'm standing here. Excuse me, please. Oh, forgive me. I must get through here. Thank you. Do you mind, miss? Where is this fool? Shall I? I twist and turn for an endless rush of packed humanity. The click of wheels singing their song of urgency. 20 miles are gone. The Russian guard will come aboard in a minute. I must contact. I have small now. No one I had not found him. He was headed the same direction as I. Moving forward. I'm all now. I'm all now. We're going the right way, but hurry. You said something. Don't stop now. Move. The Russian for board at the rear. It is their custom. We must reach the coach for the children. Push. I died, man. He wastes no time with foolish questions. With him leading, we soon reached the vestibule of the children's coach. What is your plan? You should have this. There is trouble I will shoot. You first. You're on. Of course. Now listen to me. They are looking for one man, Lyosha Molna.  Come on. We have one chance. Inside. Down the aisle there. They're not of youngsters. Hide. Hold on. Eight. You understand about the Russian soldiers and those who fight them. They killed my father.  We will hide you soon. Now you will sit on my chest. Easy. This lad. Sit across this path. What will we do if they spot us? Shoot high.  Then we must leave the coach and fight them in the vestibule. Son. Yes, sir?  Is that clear? I will not stand for heroics. Yes, sir. Drag into individual lifetimes. Shikov and his MVD's seem not worthless. If they come one hour, we'll shoot. Losing weight grows heavy on my chest as the time drags by. Now the children suddenly grow quiet. We know they are here. You there!  We know he came this way. There may have been another with him. Speak up! We have gone through to the engine. Two of them. We saw them when they passed. Good. You hear that, comrade? Let's go. Not the time to breathe freely. Not yet. This was the time to wait. Put your heart in your throat. And then at last comes the sound we are praying for. The test is over. The train is moving again. All right. Get out. You must wear a thug. Here. This is for you. Give her something, spread it around so all will have a bite. Where else? One is in the open, one needs energy. Especially running aboard. Plan to cross again? Perhaps. Come. So I had enlisted the aid of the finest blockade runner in Hungary. We'll weave our way through the children to the exit. Then abruptly, Mona stops. He turns, driving the barrel is automatic into my stomach. Now, my friend. What are you doing? Men have tried to pull this one on me before.  But never let it be said I was too hasty. I will give you just 30 seconds to explain how you know my name and how you know the Russians would board this train today. We continue with suspense. This is Johnny Baker with Communism on the Spot. One of the great things about our democracy is that anyone can disagree with what's being done by the government in Washington. Not only that, but the government itself will protect the individual's right to have his say. If enough people see eye to eye, they can vote the leaders out of office. This is not possible under the Soviet's one-party system, where only one approved slate of candidates is offered the voter. The people, therefore, have no way of publicly expressing their disapproval of governmental policies or the conduct of high officials. The only way Soviet politicians are put out of office is through the purge. They're removal by blacklisting, transfer, or physical liquidation. And now, escape to death. Starring Mr. Francis Letter, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. Is he bluffing? This huge man was a reputation as the best blockade runner in Hungary? What does he mean to press the trigger of the heavy automatic gears shoved into my middle? Your time is almost gone, my friend. Speak quickly. If you must kill me, you must, I suppose. Perhaps in your place, I might be the same. All right, all right. Say your piece. I shoot not from pleasure, but necessity. I'm a doctor, Franz Gellner. Sometime ago, I made the mistake of criticizing our emasculated premiere in public. I was arrested and held for a month. This very morning, I was released. What has that to do with your knowing my name and that I would be on this train today? Well, last night many patriots were executed. I was marched out with a Russian firing squad, but for some reason they did not shoot me. On the way back, two of the men were joking about how pleasant it would be when they could do that to Lyoshmolna. The other replied, he would like to see your face when the westbound morning train was stopped. I see. Now, the next question. How did you know what I looked like? Well, to be frank, I do not function well with the gun pressing against my lower abdomen. Thank you. Well, as for the question, it is impossible to answer to your satisfaction. I had only a vague idea of your appearance. When I saw someone about right, I spoke to him. Well, you were the only one who did not give me a blank stare. To be truthful, I'm still not sure. Are you the much-hated Molna? A bit of chocolate, doctor. Well, Molna obtained a car of ancient vintage. The early darkness has descended on us. The bitter wind brings with it a light snowfall that makes it hard to see the road ahead. The old car... How do you feel? Except for my feet. They are freezing. Are you sure you understand about this crossing? I think so, but you'd better go all the way again. We leave the car at the edge of the woods, a few miles from Borschach. The forest extends into the Austrian border. Once there, you will surrender yourself to the Austrian border guards. They will take you to the town of Rechnitz.  Then, uh, you're not going with me? Not for long. The Austrians and I have a working agreement. When I do not bring much, I do not stay long. But, uh, is at your risk? Does it work what you make? I don't like that dream, Mark, doctor. There is no profit. But I take across this information. For the world. For Hungary. You see Russian vehicles. Twice we turn off across country driving without lights to avoid uncoming Soviet trucks. Then we reach the wooded sector. We check our guns, leave the car and begin the long, nerve-racking walk to the border. Russians? Oh, more tourists. I can't even be quiet. There they go. Look at that woman running. Stand this way while they are busy. You realize my age.  I roll over gun ready. But more and I is down on one knee facing away from me. Then I realize what had made him so fat. It wasn't all coats. There are two of them in Russian uniform. He gets both before they can fire. And we are up again. At last he grabs him by the arm. See that open space. On the other side is Austria. The border guards. Where are they? Not far.  Wait here while I hide my spray gun. In way said, I creep up behind him. When he kneels beside a fallen tree to hide the spray gun, I do it. It is easy. Too easy. This first murder. I'm running in zigzag pattern across the open snow into Austria. I don't get far before too many foreign uniforms step out from behind the trees. Do you speak German? Yes, of course. Good, come with me. I was leading over a trampled path in the snow to a long low shack full of tourists. One or two of them are near hysteria and all of their faces show the reaction of overexposure. Some sit shivering alone. Most huddle before a curved iron stove and try to drive their sopping feet. There are two men, however, who sit to one side and watch the arrivals. After a moment one of them gets up and comes over to me. I recognize him for what he is and I become acutely conscious of the MVD symbol in my right heel. Your name, sir? Dr. Franz Gölner, recently off Pest. Doctor, huh? You'll be a welcome addition. Are you asking political asylum? Yes, I'm asking political asylum. All right, doctor, we'll try to rush you through. I'll go and see if I can't scare up a medicine kit for you. There are a number of cases that need help. Excellent, I will be only too glad to help. Just a moment, doctor. Your right shoe. I look down in my heart the trick heel. The one with a Russian secret police identification in it has come loose. Now, it is slit halfway off the heavy walking boot. It's thickness protruding beyond the back of the shoe on its groove track.  Here, let me get my gun. I'll tap it back in place. There, all fixed. Isn't that better? Yes, much better. The worst is over. All that remains is to be patient until I can be moved up the highway to Neustadt. They find a medical kit for me and I become the angel of mercy again. Preparing, mending, curing. But thinking only of my plans for Korina Zanova. Finally the day arrives. Excuse me, I use a Hungarian doctor. They said it would be with this group. Correct, Dr. Franz Gerner, at your service. You can't know how glad we are to see you. Come with me, please. Thank you. You may not realize this, doctor, but you have a number of friends here. People you have treated at some time or other. Yours must have been a very large practice. Oh, fair size, I suppose. Of course, I...  I imagine I do know quite an unheard of women here. It's you, doctor. Incidentally, I don't suppose it happened across a woman named Korina Zanova, have you? Both she and her child, let's see, I... Oh, yes, Ayah was her name. There were patients of mine. Are they here? Oh, now isn't that a shame? I think they have just gone. The Americans are flying them to New York either today or tomorrow. But I will be glad to check for you. Meanwhile, please make yourself at home here in my quarters. They go in to wash up while I see about Korina Zanova. I go into the washroom but not to wash up. I flip out the heel of my left shoe, take out the poison needle, and attach it to a hypodermic from the medicine kit. And then I... I paste the colonel's quarters. Waiting. Waiting. It is too late for the plan to fail. She must still be here. She has to be. Well, doctor, you are in luck. Korina Zanova has not yet left. She is over in the clinic this moment. She was quite pleased to hear you had escaped. She quickly crossed the compound to a large building and in through a crowded entryway. Finally, we reached in a room. And there we are. Just the Austrian colonel, myself, and Korina Zanova. Doctor, doctor, Colonel, how very nice. Almost seven years, this little Aya. You should see her. She's here somewhere. She still remembers you well. You, too, will excuse me. Don't keep her too long, doctor. The plane leaves in an hour. No, of course not. Now the final moment has arrived. And I'm nervous for the first time. The long hunt is over. I put a bag down. I open it, trying to keep my fingers from trembling as I remove the deadly needle. Doctor, is it not a blessing for us being here away from the twisted minds and the war thinking at home? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Tell me, Korina, how has that shoulder been treating you? A vat like any broken shoulder, I guess. To you, as my doctor, I admit, it does hurt, especially at night. I thought so.  All right, doctor. Thank you. I have found you. Do you not know never to touch anyone when they have a needle in their hand? Now you have made the doctor stab himself. Oh, I'm sorry, mommy. Will it hurt? What is it, doctor? What's the matter? Ah, Robson's production of Escape to Death by E. Scott Floor. Listen. Listen again next week when we bring you another tale well calculated to keep you in. Suspense. Supporting Mr. Letterer and Escape to Death were Norma Jean-Nelson, Margie List, Charles Rattelack, Jack Krushen, Dick Beals, Fritz Feld, Paul Dubov, and Ted DeCorsia. Suspense.


All right. Good afternoon, separate traders. Welcome on back here this Wednesday, August 17th, shortly after 2.30 p.m. Eastern time. And just a little bit before the phase one stock course concludes this afternoon. Great to see students like Norman, Kathleen, and all of us just rejoining us perhaps. You're heading into this afternoon. Great to see everyone just joining us right now. Nina and Brian included. I was mixing up my internet tabs there just for a second. Great to see all of us back on social media, Facebook Live, or YouTube. Hey, nice little move here on this ear stock. I just wrote in the trading room a moment ago, I was looking for the test and bounce off the VWAP. There's a slow move off the VWAP. But just before I said, hey, you know, let's see a spike back over three very quickly and say, oh, what this ear trades listening to me. That's my joke of the day. All right. So for right now ear, it has a lot more to go through in order for this to really run. This thing has had a really tough time with 315, 317 resistance. I'm happy I got one of us to crack up there, Brian. Perfect. So with that in mind, the ear trade, I'll put on our watch list leading into the afternoon. No problem in doing so, just given how liquid it is. It's very tradable. It's good for pretty much any one of us in this room, at least as of now. If this ends up really beginning to squeeze up above 315, 317, then the volatility could certainly change. Ended up making a big squeeze up already from the morning. So right now, I'm watching this trade on my other screen. I have my stop set. My stop is set right from my entry point and they have to raise that if that really continues to pop. But for right now, let's see what this ear trade could do. Now with that in mind, though, we also have the Fed minutes meeting concluding. I don't have my Benzinga Pro up, folks. I don't have my headlines up here. I was just trading before. I'm getting ready for class simultaneously here with this meeting as well. A lot of bowling pins in the air at the same time. I don't have the news out like the headlines as to the Fed minutes meeting. But those are normally the smaller regulatory meetings that the Fed does, comparative to the bigger FOMC meetings that you attend to see every few months. So it looks like a little reaction so far. We'll see if it continues within the S&P and the Dow and the NASDAQ collectively. But let's go from top to bottom. Otherwise, let's see what we could add to our watch list here. I'll tell you what. I had a gift fall my lap here on the BWV trade. I ended up taking a 4 cent loss on it just a little bit earlier off of 6, right place wrong time. Then from there it ended up re-breaking above 6, jumped right back in, looked for the run I was expecting initially and ended up getting it. But this thing now is completely falling apart. So I got out on this trade at 7. I could have done a little bit better. It topped off at like 7.65, but you're not trying to be on the receiving end here of this drop-off. So with that, I was expecting the pullback better to get out ahead of time. And I think we noted that yesterday on Bed Bath Beyond that Chuck is now calling out seeing the pop. Remember yesterday, Bed Bath Beyond, I was in on that trade from like 25, 84. I think even the day prior thing completely collapsed, right? You remember that? So you always have to have a game plan. I had my stop set break even on that trade. Well, for right now this BWV trade, I don't think it's going to look to make one more squeeze here into the afternoon. If I'm wrong with that, I'll be happy to be wrong. I mean, hey, for right now, I'm not going to put this on our main list, but maybe around 3.30 if it fails to break any lower from here and if it shows strength off support, maybe. Not a fan of maybe's too much in this business that we're a part of. So next up, the HIL. I think I skipped over this. I mean, I talked about it briefly during the morning meeting, but this thing completely flat, a buyout, the year trade we started off with. Let's see a lot more of this push and certainly for us to see 3.15, 3.17 get flipped from resistance into support. So that's what you would really want to watch for on this trade. Nice, pets popping up right now. Another big squeeze on PETZ. Just recently ended up running up from 3.65, 3.70, topped off right around 4.25, 4.26. Great, love it. PETZ. It looks like 4 could be a big support level to watch. Not much of an order currently on the bid, but I'm sure between the volume that got broken through from the Yask or perhaps seeing some volume get filled on the bid, it broke back above it just recently here. Let's see it fill out more support. And then for the high or high later on BBIG, another big move from earlier today. I was in on this one from 137 and I shouldn't say myself as an I like literally we as a team inside the live trading room like 15 of us. 15 to 20 of us almost. We're in on this trade together. I just you know I always like to ask, generate conversation like is anyone in on the stock with me here? Like machine gun of chats coming in and like yeah I'm in from 136, 137, 140, 150 and you were still able to grab a piece of the pie if you were late from the initial run here from 137. You could see how resistance became support. It's kind of lingering here at this point so you know nothing wrong with the stock itself aside from it maybe being too slow but you know I gotta wait to see this really begin to push back over 150, 152 if we're led to believe this could really push up that much higher across the afternoon here. Savva pop and drop easy to say but history also has the tendency to repeat itself doesn't it? All right let's get to Chuck's bed bath beyond trade. He'd called out the pop just a few minutes ago beginning to squeeze up off 25. Chuck you know it's funny when you were initially calling this out or I'm not calling it out when you were initially uh rementioning it here like at two o'clock I was looking for the squeeze then from 25. It was taking me for a ride. I'm doing this on tiny shares at this point unlike yesterday I was doing that 500 shares this was like 100 share lot positions just playing around but again shaking around I think I ended up taking like a five or eight cent loss collectively it's like nothing on 100 shares but I just wanted to get out I'm not trying to play with fire. Well it ended up bouncing pretty nicely here broke under and over right from 25 clean entry right from this point so I know Chuck's been doing really well on this trade I don't know if you're able to jump in right from 25 here fantastic job you know there could be a lot more left to it the stock is continuously volatile so for us we embrace the volatility volatility creates opportunity so yeah the bet bet beyond trade I'll put back on our list you know kind of hard for us to not at least put a little spotlight on it um Kirkland's I mean hey history could repeat itself on this one as well and I say that in the sense of like what happened back in 2020 I always like to show this with Kirkland's I guess I have to go back a little bit longer here give me a quick moment there we go looking at 2020 this stock ended up running up after the pandemic and the bounce within the markets all together stock went from like two bucks here a dollar 18 all the way up to like 35 dollars right well it felt all the way back down it's to say that hey this stock has some legs to it it has potential to have legs let's say it's already up 27 and a half percent nearly across the day you know it could still look to break a new high before the market closed so the Kirkland trade I have no problem putting back on our list here too Norman had called out party city earlier you know another squeeze up early in the afternoon trying to run back up right now looks good party city party city right now you can see a couple of larger orders out here in our biggest one right off 262 for about 22,000 shares so I would assume 262 260 at that will be resistance my year trade slightly pulling back at 306 I'm in from 292 so thankfully still up on the position but I'm watching it it's not like the bet beyond where that thing completely crashed back down like shortly after I told you I was in that trade and stopped me outbreak even on that one this one's a little more liquid that year stock JCSC pulled back all right let's kind of just skim across the gainer side here otherwise I mean I'm sure there's a bunch more that's up the blue stock I'll jump to right now because blue got halted before it reopened up during our meeting so it is shortable this thing is dumping right back down I would anticipate seven to be a very strong support level if not well I mean seemingly off the bottom here 720 but I would look for that to re-break and then see what happens at seven bucks coming up shortly thereafter once it reopened up you had a huge print right off of eight dollars the open price there from the halt all right so we'll put blue on our watch list just you know whatever came out on the stock news wise it created a bunch of volatility a little a lot a lot more volume getting traded on the stock can be growth geez I mean the markets are really pushing up right now pretty nicely so I know with that I'm sure there's gonna be a lot that's moving upward but CGC has been on a nice taro over the last like week week and a half at that stock's been running up pretty nicely off the lows but for right now as far as a day trade the only problem with this stock is that it's like too liquid it's too filled in so to expect this stock to be at like four fifty five dollars by the end of the day it has to break through all of this it's gonna be tough so you know it looks interesting let's just check out the other pot stocks see if there's anything you know looking as good or volatile maybe thinner book honestly these are the main two you got the uh CGC TLRY Kronos but that's even slower and probably is liquid all right that's fine I mean CGC looks sharp but it just just too liquid I don't think that's going to be as clean of an opportunity Brian says ACB that's the other one I guess but yeah this one's not doing anything there all right we got phase FAZE stock that's been running up both the last week or so not a whole lot happening right now on it all right folks if there's anything else that's looking good that's moving up or you know going with the market right now just type it in the chat board here so we work together as a team let me hop over to the losers list we already have a good list so far so we got six stocks already on our main list Sorrento SR&E it's like too cheap though I just realized right when I clicked it you know dropped off nicely earlier this morning but I'm not expecting this to fall too far after what happened a crispy cream doughnut right we talked about this in the morning meeting dropped off early after the open did lead to a good short but for right now it's a little wacky looking not a whole lot happening there there we go Chuck closing out on one of his draft one of his bed bath beyond positions there Brian calling out draft kings right now DK and G who that had a nice run up to just a moment ago didn't it uh you know it's not up or down a whole lot percentage wise that's all right I'm just pointing out this had a pretty good move so it could be a good sideless stock to follow John on pets got 15 cents from himself there all right folks if there's anything else up down left right type it in the chatboard here especially those of us on social media facebook live or youtube hold in having headlines up right now and I'm going to type in on my Benzinga pro here see what see if there's anything I could find all right let's go back to BWV BWV looks like it's trying to inch back up ended up falling off it did bounce very sharply from here let's see if this can make one more run perhaps right showing some great strength at least right now now I would expect seven to be a big resistance though at least for the meantime so BWV put back on our list uh no that one's gonna be too little volume all right I'll tell you what I think that just about wraps it up I mean maybe JCSE one more time that a whole lot happening there already fell off too far it's not moving fast enough like that BWV trade all right folks so now at this point I think we got it more like seven now at this point we got here we got pets bedbath beyond Kirkland's party city blue BWV obviously I'm going to type this all out to you folks coming up very shortly for all of us inside the live trading room you folks first and then for all of us in social media we'll post this on our twitter and youtube streams but otherwise folks from Doug he's asking on youtube right now x us steel knows I'm a sucker for X if you haven't went over it already X this isn't moving too much right now Doug it's down five percent but markets are moving upward right now so it doesn't make as much sense to follow this unless if that's a head fake and then the markets completely tank heading into the close then that could lead to a drop off on us steel either way don't have a great need to put this on our watch list right now that's all right all right folks for all of us inside the live trading room rich should be posting the link for phase one coming up very shortly from now we'll be talking about journaling journaling your trades appreciate that rich thank you very much so make sure that you folks have enough time to click the link get ready so you're squared away on the audio and chat and video side of things all together i'll be in there very shortly i'm gonna refill up on the old water bottle here thankfully i'm good to go across this meeting boy oh boy this morning was a struggle all right so for all of us in social media facebook live youtube i appreciate you folks sticking with me each and every day each and every well i should say day i'm tagged in for fowstow all week so you had me across the morning and the afternoons and and you'll continue to across the remainder of this week i believe fowstow will be back even on wednesday but any questions that you have if you'll uh more than free to send over my way josh at c2trading.com is my email any questions that you have feel more than free to email me i typically get back within a day or two all right folks aside from that i look forward to seeing most of us within the phase one stock course coming up in just about 15 or so minutes take care the cyber group member today just click the link below and receive all these amazing products and a world of