Morning, welcome to CMC Markets on Friday the 23rd of July and this quick look at the week ahead beginning the 26th of July With me Michael Houston and it's certainly been a week of downs And then ups and certainly I think when we look back at the events of the last few days I don't think we're really any the wiser when it comes to Where markets are likely to go to next we got off to Bad start to the week Largely, I think other concerns about rising Delta Variant infection rates slowing down Slowing down the the the economic recovery But I think as we move past the summer Into the autumn and the winter there was always an expectation certainly on my part that we would probably see a little bit of a slowdown in Some of the economic numbers particularly, I think When you think about the fact that as as the weather gets colder Everyone will move inside and ultimately I think the real concern isn't so much rising infection rates. It's rising hospitalizations and obviously tragically, you know a higher death rate, but I think once once you look past some of the headline risks and I think an awful lot of this week's sell-off was as a consequence of headline risk and concerns about a Lower growth lower earnings expectations Markets are caught in a little bit of a pincer movement at the moment between rising inflation expectations and potentially lower growth and not really too sure how to balance That risk profile. I think that that's no better borne out in the way that the US 10-year yield has behaved So far this week where we've seen significant drops in the level of the US 10-year Treasury yield and we can see that from this chart here if we look here to date we've seen Pretty much yield peak all the way back in March They've been slowly rolling over slowly rolling over slowly rolling over and we've hit a low of 1.126 earlier this week Now we since rebounded On the back of that and I think a large part of the reason for that rebound is that while The markets are potentially pricing Lower inflation risk. I think there is another narrative at play here. Ultimately, they're probably not pricing in the prospect of Lower prices but lower growth And I think that's where the narrative starts to get a little bit bit blurry But I think looking past the narrative and looking at the price action I think as long as you look at the price action, you've probably got a better idea of where markets are likely to go Over the course of the next few weeks and months and I think it's very important sometimes to try and divorce yourself from The narrative the news narrative the headline risk and actually look at what Prices are doing more broadly and I think you know while we can look at the fact that the FTSE 100 had a three-month low earlier this week What we didn't do is we didn't take out this 6805 level Which has been on my chart pretty much for the last two to three months You know the series of highs through 86 6805 We haven't as yet broken below what I would categorize as a fairly important pivot level And yes, we did break this trend line here that provoked a very sharp move lower But what I think was was very important was the fact that we didn't take out That support level there, which obviously neatly brings us back Pretty much where we started the week So, you know if you basically gone into an underground bunker On Friday last week and resurfaced this week We've gone nowhere You know and you think or saw the fuss about but I think it's important to understand the narrative Did change a little bit this week, but ultimately All that's done is introduce volatility as opposed to the change in direction And I think that more that is more important than anything else in terms of takeaways Now obviously we had the European Central Bank right meeting earlier this week In fact yesterday where Christine Lagarde president of the ECB outlined The central banks new guidance tools Didn't really provide too much in the way of excitement Once again, Christine Lagarde talks a lot without saying very much The new four guidance I think really I think merely outlined the fact that the ECB was likely to be ultra accommodative For a long time to come, you know Until the middle of the decade I would suggest and I think the new guidance really was I think if I could describe it As anything It's the equivalent of giving a rather battered old car and you paint job a quick engine tune up It looks nicer, but it's still the same old banger underneath So that brings us on To the events for this coming week and we've got an absolutely busy week ahead of us in terms of earnings and Central bank meeting so rather than digress and Prattl on any more Let's really get into the guts of that, but I think more than anything else I think whatever we hear next week. It's probably not going to change the overall direction for Markets more broadly, but I certainly think in terms of the FTSE 100 We're still in this 6,800 range 7,200 range that we've been in pretty much since the beginning of April April April May and for me, it's going to be very very Difficult to really sort of ascertain what's going to drive us out of that range given Some of the weaker data that we've seen this week the flash PMIs from the UK Services in particular was much softer than expected coming in at 57 Point four and dropping below 60 for the first time in several months And I think a large part of that can be down to some of the impact of the self-isolation rules Of the NHS app, which is forced Ordinarily healthy people or potentially healthy people to self-isolate because they've been pinged by the app Now the government is relaxing some of the rules around that an awful lot of people are actually removing the app from their phones Rather than have rather than having the risk of you know The life being disrupted and some people haven't even downloaded at all. I mean me myself I don't have it on my phone. That's not to say that I'm reckless in terms of who I associate with and who I don't I'm just very very careful About where I go and what I do. I don't want the government tracking me Whatever your views on the track and trace app and obviously there are also concerns about eventually forced positives and Other such Indications, but I'm digressing ever so slightly. Let's look at the markets for next week Look at the Dax again failed very very sharply to a two-month low But I think more importantly we didn't make Lower lows and I think that more than anything is the most important factor when it comes to looking at the way the markets are trading We've been very very choppy over the course of the past few weeks You know, and that's no better borne out by these daily candles here Up one day down the next up one day down down down and then up up So but more broadly, we're still respecting the overall range that we've been in over the course of the past Few weeks and while central banks are likely to remain accommodative It's hard to see Where the next big sell-off is coming from and that's not to say it won't happen But I think trying to get in in front of it Particularly in these markets is a very dangerous thing to do you have to trade what you see and At the moment what we're seeing is volatility Or be it within a fairly broad range and all the blood global markets that we're looking at here are Still very much in the uptrend they've been in pretty much since those lows that we saw in March 2020 and that's no better borne out by the S&P 500 here. I mean look at this trend line that I've drawn here 50-day moving average again You know the the price action has never really deviated that much away from the the 50-day moving average Pretty much since March last year You know, you can draw a series of lines in we're getting progressively higher lows and higher highs That is symptomatic of an uptrend in the big test will be now whether or not we can push above 4,400 the NASDAQ has already made a new record high this week despite the early week Sell-offs that we saw on Monday. So, you know once again the trend is your friend and That more than anything is the important takeaway. I think when it comes to looking at what's coming up next week And the main item that I have my eye on is the Fed break meeting And I think that is important This is the last meeting before the Jackson Hole annual symposium at the end of August and that's generally I think When we will hear whether or not the Federal Reserve is inclined to think about a tapering of its bond buying program now I Think when we look back to the events on Monday and a little bit of a growth scare that we had on Monday Talk of tapering asset purchases sort of seems rather out of kilter When you have concerns about a growth slowdown and you certainly I think there's certainly an argument to be said that We may have seen peak bounce back when it comes to the rebound in the global economy We've got US Q2 GDP numbers coming out on the 29th of July the day after the Fed rate meeting So we've got the Q2 GDP coming out on Thursday. We've got the Fed rate meeting on the Wednesday We've also got US consumer confidence on the Tuesday. So You know, what's what? What are we going to be looking at in particular when it comes to the US numbers next week? And we've also got US personal spending and income on the Friday So let's deal with each of these in turn consumer confidence Managed to hit a post-pandemic peak in June of 127.3 so the big question for the July consumer confidence is whether or not consumer confidence reflects accurately the personal spending US retail sales numbers and you've got to you've got to ask yourself It doesn't really because US retail sales numbers have been fairly patchy up one month down the next and they've also been skewed enormously By the various stimulus check payments that US consumers have been on the receiving end of this year Once in January and again in March and I think one of the things that I think the spending patterns have taught us is Or a teaching, you know telling me is that US consumer while Outwardly confident in terms of the consumer confidence numbers is still a little bit cautious When it comes to spending money as we head towards the autumn And I think that's likely to be borne out in the Q2 GDP numbers, you know in terms of GDP We saw the US economy expand by six point four percent in the first quarter Now the spillover effects of this are still going to ripple over into Q2 and as such we could we are expecting to see an annualized 8% rebound the Q2 with personal consumption once again driving it But also some fairly decent numbers out of the manufacturing sector, but but you know Stripping all of that aside Personal spending and income also tell us that the US consumer is still Probably saving more money than they're spending so more broadly I think the key takeaway for me next week is not so much the data Which is likely to continue to be patchy but still point to a US economy that's doing fairly well Or be it with weekly jobless claims that are continuing to decline But are also prone to the occasional spike, but also to a Fed rate meeting, which is likely to see a Significant Uplift or upgrade to the discussions around the timing around the tapering of asset purchases because if we look back at the last meeting One of the key takeaways for that it almost seems counter-intuitive Is that we've seen a number of Fed members start to talk in terms not only of Tapering which is going to come at some point you would imagine, but also in terms of a 2022 rate hike Now talk of a rate hike given what we've seen and the concerns that we've seen this week Seems a bit daft particularly in terms of the sharp rise in Delta variant cases that are not only being seen Here in the UK but also in Asia as well as in the US and people are talking about these rising Delta cases being the Symptom of you know a pandemic of the unvaccinated But that's not to say that even if you're vaccinated you can't get the Delta variant The difference is it's less likely to hospitalize you not the fact that you're less likely to get it And I think that is more than anything The key so some of fears over inflation have already started to subside in bomb markets We've seen commodity prices start to soften specifically copper prices nickel prices Oil prices as well come off the highs we saw a big decline earlier this week lumber prices are pretty much halved from their peaks They're still elevated levels, but the certainly half the level they were previously So, you know, there are concerns that the global recovery may well be weaker than was anticipated When everyone was getting really bullish all the way back in March So I'll be very interested to see what the narrative is that J. Powell talks about when it comes to any potential Discussions shall we say about the timing or otherwise or a tapering of asset purchases? We've also got German IFO business confidence numbers Coming week. I think these will be interesting in the context of the awful floods that we've seen in Europe And whether or not German businesses see significant disruption as a consequence of that Those numbers are out on the 26th of July, which sort brings me on to The earnings numbers for this week and there's a whole load of them. You can see them on my list here We've got Tesla which I Was I was thinking was going to happen this week But ultimately the numbers got pushed and they nailed you out on the 26th of July. We've also got UK banks Barclays Lloyd Lloyds and that West and we've also got some key tech numbers from Apple Amazon and Microsoft So Let's start with the UK banks because we've one of the takeaways that I think we've We've taken away from the recent US bank earnings Has been the fact that fixed income has been a little bit of a drag And I expect that to continue to be the case for Barclays Particularly when they released the numbers on the 28th Since the numbers that we saw in Q1 the Barclays share prices drifted all our So that pretty much was the peak when it comes for the Barclays share price the highest level since December 2009 And Barclays has been one of the outperformers when it comes to the UK banking sectors So we've seen a little bit of a slowdown So I think expectations around that are going to be slightly tempered So in light of the reaction to recent Q2 numbers in the US I think we're likely to see a similar pattern play out with the Barclays numbers We saw fix, you know, we saw misses across the board So we'll probably see something similar for Barclays equities trading did well in Q1 So I'll be looking for something similar in Q2 We'll also be looking to see if there is decent demand for loans As an indicator of the strength of the recovery story for the UK economy as businesses start to reopen in the second quarter of This year so key levels for me on Barclays are going to be 158p and the 200 day moving average Okay, so that brings us on to Lloyd's banking group Again, see they've seen some decent gains As far we can look at the trend line here that's currently in place Don't think we really need this line now. It's completely redundant. So let's just chop it out look at the Similar sort of narrative playing out with respect to the Lloyd's numbers that we saw In Q1 Unlike Barclays Lloyd's shares actually went higher In the aftermath of the Q1 earnings numbers hitting 15 month highs all the way back here in May Still haven't completely recovered our Pre-pandemic or post-pandemic losses, but nonetheless making fairly decent progress I think in terms of the housing market loan demand again will probably be a key indicator here Mortgages is a very very key part of Lloyd's and to a lesser extent now West's business model going forward So I think loan the loan demand story Will be quite significant and I think another thing to keep an eye out for Over the course of this earning season is loan loss reserves Barclays that Western Lloyd's Set aside quite a bit of provision when it comes to non-performing loans I think it'll be very notable and interesting to see whether or not they add some of that back Given the fact that the UK economy has performed quite a bit better Than anticipated even though we are starting to see a little bit of a pandemic slowdown Barclays didn't release any of its loan loss reserves in April Lloyd's did So it'll be interesting to see what the the dynamic is there with respect to loan loss reserves with respect to barclays When they report next week in terms of Margins in their interest margins for Lloyd's is one of the best in the UK banking sector So we'll be certainly looking to see whether or not that has improved going forward expectations around Q2 profit-starch free profits The expectation is that probably coming in around about one to one point two billion for Q2 Optimism I think over the second half could be tempered by recent events and Obviously the economic picture looks less certain as we head into the back end of the year But certainly I think on a valuation basis And you look at where Lloyd's is now and where it was all the way back there. It's still quite I've got a lot of ground to catch up and it has started to play a dividend again. So, you know You pay your money it takes your choice, but you certainly look at this chart here And even though we are in a bit of a short-term downtrend I think as long as we can hold above these lows back in April then The outlook continues to look positive for Lloyd's now west similar sort of story struggling to get through to 11 to 12 Obviously last week there was a story that the the UK government is looking to pare down It's now 54% stake in Now west and more broadly I think in terms of the overall outlook when it comes to Now west the same the same sort of dynamics apply when it comes to The the tests that we Assigned to Lloyd's so for me. I think the key support level on that west Is through these lows here We can just draw that line in there. So 184 75 keeping very close eye on that expectations of the consumers to spend more There's lockdown restrictions and demand for mortgages other loans and credit card spending are likely to be key Because one of the one of the other takeaways from q1 was the fact that both in our west end Lloyd's saw an increase in customer deposits So it'll be interesting to see whether that level drops and whether spending increases so that's UK bank numbers for next week and Which then moves us neatly on to the US now brief brief mentioned Robin Hood's IPO Is due to hit the tape 29th of july Next week those are the early indications. I have written a little bit of a missive on the Robin Hood IPO we can see that You can find that here And as I say that is expected to go live on On thursday of next week. Okay, so let's move on to the US numbers and Tesla our old favorite tesla now. This is a really good line that I've drawn in here. It's from the march lows of last year and We've already seen we've already heard from tesla that deliveries Deliveries in q2 Came in at 201,250 vehicles That was short of expectations, but it was still the first time that tesla pushed above the 200,000 mark for quarterly deliveries The new model s Also accelerated in q2 And I think more importantly than anything else. I think the big thing as far as i'm concerned is Whether or not The decline that we've seen in operating margins has stopped and actually whether or not tesla is Starting to make money When it comes to selling its cars because at the moment The only thing it makes money on is carbon credits and obviously is exposure to bitcoin Which does appear to have found a little bit of a base around that 30 000 level. So um, and also there's the fact that what what a chinese sales looking like look looking What are they looking like because? um, the china love affair appears to be souring a little bit for a Elon musk there's been A number of how should we say setbacks when it comes to china There's a chinese regulator ordered the company to fix the safety issue And all of the cars sold there due to a problem that means the car's autopilot can be enabled remotely Now this would require a fix on over 285 000 vehicles, which is likely to be costly So i'll be interested to see what tesla has to say about that um They've held up reasonably well the quarter the shares the share price But this level that we're approaching here is likely to be a fairly key one. It's sort Trading rather messily around the 200 day moving average. We break this trend line. We could see the sharp move lower we've also got numbers from apple and Expectations there are very very elevated As we can see this week's volatility has pulled the share price around quite a bit over the course of the past few days and there's the fact that They've they've released a whole host of new operating system upgrades Including ios 15 watch os8 a new health app hosted new features for apple tv home pod mini and What have you so expectations of a double digit growth for this quarter chip shortages may Play into the sale of the new 5g iPhone Certainly they may have been late to the party when it comes to that but Certainly the numbers have been playing fairly decent catch up So be interested to see whether or not we crack through 150 next week Going forward amazon.com Similar sort of story with respect to that. It's been one of the big gainers from the shift to home working We can see that here again the trend is very much your friend. Yes. The oscillator is pointing down But these lows are continuing to get higher so In terms of the outlook for amazon Um, it's ramping up its prime video offering and an attempt to take on netflix um Spending apparently spending 500 million dollars on a new lord of the rings tv series apparently is amazon And obviously it's also just acquired mgm studios for nine billion dollars though. There is apparently some um investigation Into that in terms of its q2 sales forecast amazon was bullish So we're expecting somewhere between 110 billion and 116 billion dollars With profits expected to come in around about 12 dollars 20 Yeah finishing off with microsoft Again, there's a common theme here, isn't there? That's it new record highs yesterday at around about the same time as Uh, the nestack hit a new record high and it's a big quarter For microsoft as it looks is round off a record year for the business It's been able to post two successive quarters of over 40 billion dollars profits 14.8 billion dollars from They're from q3 38 rise from the previous year Productivity cloud computing workplace subscription services Xbox gaming consoles huge demand for pcs I could go on when it comes to microsoft. So I think in terms of where we look next um Yeah, the key the key support on the on the microsoft um on the microsoft The share price is back down here around about the monday lows, which was around about 275 And of course not forgetting of course windows 11 What does microsoft have to say about the windows 11 and the upgrade path there So that's what's coming up next week. Just quickly take you quickly take you quickly through Some of the trends when it comes to the pound still very much in a downtrend Found a little bit of support around here starting to edge back a little bit towards the upside But we can see from here sterling continues to remain in a sideways trend What was critical about today's weakness or this week's Weakness in the pound was the fact that we didn't take out um this 1 35 70 area Which also happened to be the february lows um, it also if we zoom all the way out It's a fairly key fib level From this entire move from the lows that we saw back in 2020 To the peaks that we saw earlier this year It's 23.6 Fibonacci of a tracement level of this move here, but it also coincides with a much broader Fib level from all the way back 2008 to The lows here. So we've got a fairly key level there And a fairly key level there. So 135 70 when we look at the cable Is a fairly key level when it comes to this long term down move fib retrosment there But also if we drill in a little bit further It also acts as a fairly key level in and around here as well as being the 50 week moving average support So we've identified a fairly key support level on cable 135 70 135 140 is probably on the wide of it And then we have euro sterling Which continues to trade in the broad range that it's been in over the course of the past few months three months to be precise And I don't think that is probably going to change too much Over the course of the next few weeks though. My bias is for a slightly stronger pound and a slightly weaker euro Okay, so um, I think that's pretty much I think that's pretty much it for this week's weekly Market update I'd like to thank you all very much for listening Speak to you all at the same time Same place Next week and I will have a great weekend. Thanks very much for listening


Asa Kenyan, when you see a nelfan that has been killed, or a rhino has been killed, or in hadan, the pain that I feel myself as a police officer in the first place, intrinsic kind of pain, humanly speaking, we are the people who are charged in the security of this beautiful posterity of our country. Interpol brings together all the police services and the forces in this region to make sure that this region is safe from threats of crime and especially transnational organized crime. Interpol has a worldwide database spread across all the 184 member countries. There is also cooperation in terms of sharing criminal intelligence. That cooperation is purposely geared towards one goal, success in fighting a crime. Asa country, we depend in a big way in terms of our development on tourism. The tourism purely depend on the beauty of our environment. Environmental crime and round life crime is something which was not initially taken very, very, very important to. It wasn't taken as one of the major crimes which are perpetrated against our country. It is now we are realizing the hospitals, the roads, the communities, development actually proceed from this angle. So it's now we are realizing that the important of the environment crime, the worldwide crime, Asa country. Most cases where we need some specialized kind of attention. Interpol has been able to come on board and because now of the specialized nature and the more advanced tools we have been able to have criminals international being smoked out and the recovery of big magnitude coming together actually make sure that we make the environment of criminals absolutely hostile. Mombasa Port is the gateway of the Republic of Kenya to the entire world and it is one port which the entire eastern central depend on. The cartels, the smugglers, the criminal networks, they will want to penetrate through the cracks to sneak in an illicit or illegal shipment hoping that because there are so many containers we may overlook and disregard maybe a shipment and say we can only inspect so much and we need to be ahead of the game and we have put a lot of infrastructure to address that to mitigate and deter that to make it less attractive. This will not be a success without the support of Interpol and the global network they have to share and exchange information. Whatever you declare has to be the truth. If I get something else then it is not going to be easy for them. We move and arrange them nicely for verification. Put the side with the marks and numbers on top, on top. Like that we may look for concealments that's in a kote. We may get even ivory, they can be there. The port of Mubasa is busy. It is a transhipment port, it is a transit port, it is an import port, it is an export port. So teamwork is a must, enforcement. Our DCI officers and all those parties we complement one another. We can't do without each other. The Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Wildlife Services and other security agencies have seized two containers full of ivory which were declared as ceramics. At least 40 ivory pieces had been counted from one of the containers translating to 20 elephants killed. My name is Mr. George Motonya. I am in charge of criminal investigations at the port of Mubasa. The concealment was done here. Then after it is done, it was covered by the hood. Three hundred and thirty-seven pieces, three hundred and thirty-seven pieces of ivory. We have been working together to stop this happening and other criminal acts. We come across a variety of crimes because what we have gathered along the way is that this is the interconnectivity of organized crimes globally. This is another interception of Roswood Timba. This is one of the most valuable indigenous tree to the market world is like gold. The cartels, the deal in illegal trade, they pretend to be exporting coffee or tea and yet they conceal the goods inside those containers. This is how the smugglers keep records, the numbers of the items inside the container. They have got their own language of knowing how many Roswood Timbas are inside the container by encrypting on the door so that the recipients will be able to know the total number based on the records written on the door. Our guiding doctrine is unity of purpose and unity of effort as we rely also on the support of our international partners and other key agencies like Interpol to support us in these initiatives. If a shipment gets through, it is the image of the country which is soiled. When we cut them off here, we also curtail their trade in the destination country. We would like to advise any criminal who thinks that he can use the port of Mombasa to rethink. Think again because we will find you and we shall arrest you. Transnational organized crimes no borders and it is very important that countries in this region and the world over must work together. When we look at transnational organized crime, Interpol becomes very important for purposes of coordinating responses to such crimes. We are checking this vehicle that has come from Tanzania discarding some farm produce and some finished goods. All vehicles that come into the country are checked by all the government agencies here at the border to ensure that they are not only fit for purpose but they also don't have illegal things in them. From a shipment like this, you might find ivory hidden inside the ground maps. Our wildlife officers here have detained people with pangolin skills 200 pieces from Tanzania. So it is something that can be gotten from such a consignment. You cannot succeed in fighting crime alone. You need to come together so that you can share information on how to tackle that crime. If there is anything of suspicion or crime has been reported, it brings officers from Kenya and the officers from Tanzania and they build the teamwork.  You see, yeah, it doesn't matter what uniform you have or which nation you are.  Everybody should combat it and fight it anytime. So this suitcase here was intercepted at the terminals with the passenger who was travelling to Lagos and some drugs were found inside the concealed in the first bottom of the suitcase. More than eight kilos of heroin was found. There were some foot pads which were found, foot pads concealed in the handbags, in the first bottom of the handbags and also heroin was also recovered from them. The people who are arrested normally will not even disclose who is the person behind it. You know, they don't say.  These are just couriers. These are people who have just been sent but they are people who are behind them. Because these are gangs. These are not just small people. You can be drugged then to find other organized crime. You can even be doing drug trafficking to find terrorism, find other crimes, other organized crimes. It's a big challenge. It's a big problem, global. We have found a lot of interinkage to find one who we are actually accusing of one crime. We are accusing him of drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism financing, other related crimes. So there's a lot of connection on the same. It's an absolute enterprise. The players of the crime are more or less the same who are perfected the game of the world life crime. If you see the actual poachers who go to the reserves and to the game path, they are being used. They use cheap liver because it is an easy means of getting money. What we have here is wire snares. They are used by poachers to trap wild drive, maybe for bush meat. The animal comes and gets either its necks on those snares or on those wires. The wire gets tighter and tighter, the animals are located itself with the wire or the animal gets itself on the limbs. Either the limbs are broken or the poacher comes and now kills because the animal has been memed. It's a very crude way to catch wild drive animals. The agencies that we have there is the National Police Service, Office of Director of Public Prosecution. So they will assist in when it comes to the prosecution of the suspect. They will take over the case. They will advise on what needs to be in the file for the suspect to be prosecuted and the case to be successful. There are two rhino horns, part of recovery from Operation Danta 2020, weighing about 1.2 kgs. We have not been able to establish where exactly they were poached from. Over the years it has been a problem but for the last few years we've been managing. The numbers are quite low compared to the past. We have quite a number of rhinos in the parks and we've put our men on the ground to ensure that the rhinos are protected at each and every time, day and night. Every name here is somebody who died or who lost their lives on the line of duty and every year they keep growing. We are always reviewing how we operate so that we beat the criminals.  So that is our motto. In Kenya, we normally say our environment is our inheritance. If you don't conserve your environment, what will you hand over to your children? It is now, we are realizing how serious it is and today that's why you can see we are partnering with Interpol, other international agencies to ensure they come on board and assist us in the best way they can so that we can have the logistical capacity, the training capacity, even investigative capacity to ensure any international criminal organized claim to come and take advantage of our neighbouring environment is absolutely extinguished to ensure that the posterity of our environment or our right is maintained. It is very important that these criminals are arrested and prosecuted and convicted to serve the longest imprisonment term possible because that will be an deterrent to the wounded criminals who have or would like to commit similar crimes.


Eating healthily can be a challenge in our everyday lives. That's why we are proposing changes to support people to make healthier food and drink choices. We want to encourage healthier shopping baskets by restricting the promotion of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt, leading to more promotion of healthier products. Helping to make the healthy choice, the easy choice. To find out more about the Healthy Food Environment consultation, visit gov.wales.com.


We are joined by the two managers who are sure their heads are spinning right now trying to get these players all straight and everybody in the ballgame as best they can Alex Cora and Dave Roberts and guys we hear that you both been a part of a pretty incredible program the MasterCards running that reminds all of us to make some time to catch up with people in our lives because when you grab a bite and pay with your MasterCard at all benefits a great stand up to cancer. Can you tell us a little bit about the program Dave Roberts your first up. Yeah well I think that the MasterCard program with Major League Baseball and stand up to cancer me as a cancer survivor so now when you're talking about encouraging people to dine out use a MasterCard spend time friends and know that every penny you spend is going towards cancer and I think that for me in stand up to cancer obviously capped out at I think it's four million dollars which can do a lot of good for all of us so again me as a cancer survivor and you talk about the MasterCard Major League Baseball it's just a great cause it's a great marriage Santana struck out JD Martinez strike one Alex Cora everybody has been touched by cancer in some form or fashion in their lives and I know this is something that's special to you as well. Yeah I lost my dad when I was 12 years old and it's something that on a daily basis you think about it you know and I'm glad MasterCard is doing a great job you know try to you know keep working at it and just like the arm we're blessed that we have the art with us you know and it's something that that you know I'm so glad they're doing an outstanding job one out here in the inning and Alex I'll stay with you you're at the end of a long trek. You've been which one.  Good work here by Castillo you went from what Canada over to we were in London or then you went to Canada and Detroit and now Cleveland. I mean you've been all over the place. Yeah but I'm not complaining I'm here in Cleveland we were you know we earned it we earned the right to be here I'm very happy for our coaches staff to be part of this and their families to enjoy it. We knew coming into the season that that was the case and we're trying to do the best out of it. This is your first All-Star game ever right Alex. Yes it is. And as you guys know I grew up in the game and having my brother in the big leagues I knew you know I used to hang out with Robbie Alamore and Sandy Alamore. Honestly the last two days in that clubhouse I was like intimidated you know just watching all these guys how talented they are. I'm a baseball fan at the end you know I know I have a job to do with the Red Sox but just to be around it was a great experience. We're having a blast here. It's a great group of guys very humble and very passionate about the game. And I'm having such a good time with them and the family is too. Dave Roberts you've got to crack at managing an All-Star game last year. I'm sure it's fun but it's a lot of work isn't it. Trying to get everybody squared away and into the ball game. It is and it's a lot of fun and just like what you mentioned right now seeing Luis Castillo kind of reminds me of Pedro Martinez you know but seeing these guys and trying to get them into the game but not let them play too much you know. But it's a blast and you know seeing these guys compete is really fun. I mean this guy is letting their rip right now and so for me to be on the same team as him it's a lot of fun. You could strike out the side here in the fourth inning. I got change up here what do you got right now Alex. I got fast ball up. I got change up. Oh I should have went change up I'll take the heater away. He didn't strike out the side but he blew it in there at ninety seven and has a one two three. Thank you both very much. Thanks guys. Thank you. Two good men after four one nothing ale.


A Bemidji man pleaded not guilty on Friday to one count of second degree assault after allegedly tacking another man. 35-year-old Andy Tillotson was charged with assault after an altercation and reports of shots fired at Pete's Place West. Tillotson was arrested along with 31-year-old Kevin Robertson, 24-year-old Devon Liddell Beasley, and 46-year-old Andre Lamar Beasley. According to the criminal complaint, Beasley allegedly reached into his vehicle and took out a handgun and fired shots at Tillotson and Robertson in the Pete's Place West parking lot. Robertson pleaded guilty in October to making terroristic threats and is scheduled to appear in court for sentencing December 11th. Tillotson is scheduled to appear for a pretrial hearing on Tuesday, November 7th. Devon Beasley is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, November 8th, and Andre Beasley is also scheduled to appear in court on Monday, November 13th. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Question is from Crystal Felice. What is your opinion on incorporating amrap and emom sets into your daily workout?  It's so funny So f9 and rap and rap stands for as many reps as possible. What's emom again? Every minute minute on the minute every minute on the minute you do a rap. So kind of Tabata. Yes. Yeah, that's that's like a hit So here's here's my opinion on on both those things and they both kind of fall in the similar category It's a terrible idea into your daily workouts Do I think there's some value in throwing a I've done an amrap before I would tell let's say here this last year That's another word for failure. Isn't it? Yeah, right? Yeah, there's many reps as you can do in a set right so So how many times have I trained a set where I did as many as possible till I absolutely completely went to exhaustion or failure? I can tell you in this last year that that was less than 10 times probably less than five times So somewhere probably between five and 10 total times in all of my workouts Have I done this? So Yeah, I think there's some value of intermittent. Do I do it? Yes intermittently? I would do it Would I program it into a program every week or every day?  Yes. It's great You know, but I think the the rock-studying bebop version is a lot better These just just annoys me with these acronyms, but yeah, I think that Again, like what's what's your desired outcome? Like what what's your focus as your focus on strength as your focus on building muscle? Like, you know, this is another one of those things that's going to sort of compete And so if you look at it as like something that's going to compete towards your progress towards, you know Just specifically building muscle or specifically building strength You know, it's going to add an element of endurance that now your body's going to compete You know amongst those that's it. These are these are intensity These are tools to radically increase the intensity Of your workout and these aren't the only tools There's forced reps and partial reps and heavy negatives and there's all kinds of different techniques to getting your to pushing your body To a very very high level. We need to we need to explain the studies that support this stuff Because this is this is where these people I think get the idea that it's good because they they'll take a study to support Training to failure and the benefits of it for muscle building And what you're not doing is you're not looking at the whole picture. You're right short term You know if you compare one group to another group and one group is super super intense and the other one's less intense If especially if it's a short-term study, you're going to see that the intensity factor is going to give people some better results But if you extended that study and the people continue to train with that level of intensity You would start to see their progress stop and maybe even reverse the tortoise in the hair So tortoise in the hair the tortoise will eventually pass the hair.  And so But is there value then because there are other tools.   I broke the wall, you know, that's kind of what's happening with these tools Now I know why they're so popular. It's because when fitness enthusiasts or influencers Posts about their workout. Yeah, it looks cooler.  That's a good point.  No, it's perfect a teaser. But that is that's the truth though That is that is I appreciate it. I'm like, that's so boring. But I love it. That's how we built his physique You know I'm saying but it's boring.  It's not in fact I'll say this the advanced intensity techniques should be reserved for people who've been consistent with their workouts And who are relatively advanced for at least six months to a year if you haven't worked out consistently You know on a regular basis for six months to 12 months.   I'm fine. In fact, probably has some value, but you doing this in every workout Programming it or every week. No ridiculous. It's not a good idea. Nope


So what happens if I want to change my num? And when I mean change my num, what happens if I want to change its data type? Now you might notice I've changed it from an integer to a double and there's a reason for that I want to show this off, but say for example. I wanted to change my num back into an integer Well, unfortunately, I can't just say my num is now an integer because if we think about it I've actually if we use the analogy of I've built a house. I've already built the house I've already zoned out the land the acreage is mine, so I can't just change it, but I can move To another place I can move my value to another place So let's say for example right underneath it. I went in and I said something like int My new num Equals I'm gonna put it all the way out here my num Now if I try and run this if I do go ahead and actually take a second pause the video Write this in your Java and compile it see what happens All right, so you've taken a look at it just so if you didn't you just stared at me while I was compiling things Let's say for example that I've already written it out and I try and compile this so Compile it up. Let's take a look at you. Let's pull you back over here Java C Welcome that Java Again take a look at what happens when I attempt to compile this Mmm, we just got a new error message incompatible types possible lossy conversion from double to integer I don't like errors. What does that mean? all right, well My num only equals five, but what would happen if I made my num equal five point five and Then I tried to convert it into an integer Suddenly what's happening is Java saying hold on you might have Numbers on the right side of that decimal place and if you try and cast this To a lower level number something that doesn't have decimal places You might have what's known as a lossy conversion I might lose some of those decimal places that can be bad because you know as much as I like that I kind of want things to be very precise sometimes So how do I fix this? How do I? Explicitly do this Well, that's actually where it comes into something called Casting the data type inside here. I left this space But what I have to do is I have to include an extra command. I have to include inside of parentheses The word int the data type that I plan on converting into so if I come in here now and I throw in Int in front of my num Then if I try and compile this Notice how it didn't error at all now I don't have it printing out anything but notice how it did not have an error. Let's actually see what happens I've just proposed that scenario to you guys So what I want you to do is I want you to add in a print line my new number And I want you to go over to my num and make it 5.5 now again pause the video compile this up and see what happens All right, so you hopefully pause it and you actually took a look at what's going on But let's see this in action I Compile it and then when I run this code Suddenly that point five when I said I had an error earlier I have a lossy conversion type earlier what I did when I Casted it my double into an integer. I basically said I don't care about that lossy conversion do it anyway and Java being a very good to follow directions program said okay Boss and so suddenly the five point five became a five


Whenever I read a textbook or a research article, I like to create an outline on a separate piece of paper. In my outline, I summarize the main points and important facts from the text in my own words. This saves me time because it means that I don't have to go back and reread the text when I'm looking for the information later on, because it's all condensed into my outline. I always make sure to use my own words when I write my notes rather than copying the textbook verbatim. It's something I learned from neuroscience and education research. Putting information in your own words not only ensures that you understand the text, but it also helps you remember the information later on.


Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm just sat in the vegetable garden. Today's another episode of Miniature Railway Britain, and the Miniature Railway we're going to is in the village Which never had a standard gauge railway, had a former railway, we'll get onto that in a minute. It's possibly best known for its rather unusual houses in the rocks. The village I'm talking about is Kinver in the West Midlands or in Staffordshire. And what we're going to do, we're going to have a quick look at the houses in the rocks And then we're going to make our way down to the village to have a look at the Miniature Railway So we come to here, and there's a rather extraordinary view of these houses here, just in the rocks. You can see that's a rock. There's various levels. There's some more up there. It's very busy up the top. So I'm not going to go up there. But I thought we'll do, we'll just walk through one of them Just so we can say we've seen the rock houses. See that there? Just looks like normal front of the house Except it's not a building. Wait, it's a building. It's a rock. And so basically people lived inside here just in the rocks. It's quite, really quite fascinating. As you can see there's no sort of level feelings or anything. It's all here in the rocks. There's a corridor going down here. And here we are. This is where it lives, you can see. There's a bedroom there. There's the laundry hanging up over there. So this is one of the rock houses at Kinver, I'd say. There's these rather interesting corridors. Look how thick these walls are. I think they're eventually condemned in the 1950s for effectively being slums. But they really are quite fascinating which you can now come up here today and visit them. So we're going to leave this one behind. We'll come out the back of the rock. We're outside again. There's another rock house just up here. So it's almost like a cluster of various different rock houses. And there have been some more of the top ones at the top haven't been restored. So there you are. That's another rock house. But as I said, the purpose of coming here today is for a miniature railway Britain video. I just thought we couldn't come to Kinver and not show you a bit of the rock houses. It's a really fascinating, unique site. I'm going to go into this. So look at that. It's just funny. There's not a window in the sides of the rocks. We're just going to go to this corner here and I'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about. That's right. So down there is the village of Kinver. Yeah, the camera is doing that annoying thing when it's really sunny. It basically disappears. Anyway, out that way is the village of Kinver. There never was a standard gauge railway to Kinver. The only railway that ever went to Kinver was a tramway. It ran from Starbridge. It was three foot six inches. So that's what's effectively known as the Cape Gauge. Which they used in South Africa, but they had quite a few tramways in Britain were of that gauge. There's another little hole here in the rocks. So Kinver never had a railway. It had a tramway. I think it opened in 1901, closed in 1930, about four miles long. Ran from Kinver to Starbridge. It'd be great now if the West Midlands metro slowly expanding. They've just got to Wolverhampton now. Not done that yet. Maybe one day they'll be a West Midlands metro line to Kinver. I shouldn't get too excited. So there's never been a railway in Kinver. Can't blame beaching for Kinver not having a railway. But as I said, there is a railway. There's a toilet in a bucket in a rock. Yeah, so there is a railway and it's the Kinver miniature railway run by the Kinver and West Midlands District Model Engineering Society. So I've got to find my way down, walk through the village. Let's go and find this miniature railway down there somewhere. We've now come down the hill. I've just walked through the village centre and we're just heading up towards this miniature railway. I think it's that like a leisure centre and recreation ground. All those kind of, yeah, leisure activities. Of course, miniature rail is our form of leisure activity. I have been to this railway before. I last visited about 10 years ago. So I wonder if you'll be as I remember it. I mentioned how there used to be a tramway which ran from here to Starbridge. That's long gone. But what does still run between here and Starbridge is the River Stour. That's River Stour down there, which the railway is situated on the bank. So we're walking into here now. I'm just coming into the railway's car park. And if you look across the cars over there, over there is the station footbridge, which we should see in a moment. We're going to go over the footbridge and then we'll go and have our ride on the train. It's always exciting when you come to a miniature railway, especially one that's run by model engineers, because you never quite know what's going to be running. It's going to get interesting cars in the car park, like that cater room there. So let's have a look. Let's go this way where we can see the railway. Get our first few off the railway. So there we are. There's the railway station, see the footbridge, everything. So it says Kinver and West Midland Society of Model Engineers. Railway runs every Sunday, I believe, from Easter to the end of October. So if you want to come along, come along on Sunday and we get to here. So that must be, that's the engine shed down there. As I said, there's this footbridge here. It looks like what happens is you go over the footbridge, get to come back down and then you get on the train just down there. So let's go over the footbridge. We'll have a look. There's also, here's to be, I don't know if it's running today, but a ground level track. So we've got a race track, I think three and a half inch and five inch gauge railway. Thank you. Make our way up here. We go up here and just see the train going out underneath us. Oh, I see. Look at that. That train there is going on shed by the end of it. So they're going to have to move the track, being a race track. Then we go up the ramp, up there to the shed. What I'm going to do is find my way round here. We're going to go down into the middle. We can have a look at the ground level seven and a quarter inch track. See the site from here quite well from up on the bridge. And we're going to make our way down. You can see it's quite busy. There's a lot of people queuing up to get on the train. So that's what I've got to do next. I've got to buy my ticket and then I'll queue up. You can see me better now. The sun is very bright. It's that typical fall-fall sun. Make our way down here. That's where I'm going to buy my ticket. Looks like they also do teas. It's quite nice. Look at this. There's a steam locomotive. Looks like a big Indian narrow gauge steam locomotive. So hopefully get a ride behind that. So what I wanted to show you before we had a ride on the train, you can see there's a race track and the race track seems wherever you look, there's a bit of a race track. I think it goes off over there, disappears off around there from what I remember. And then it goes, that's it goes right around us, around here. Then this is like the final loop around there to the station, I know, but hopefully when we have the ride, you'll understand a bit more what I'm talking about. And then out of the ground level track, it's quite a lot shorter, but it's seven and a quarter inch. It doesn't appear to be run, so quite a lot shorter than the race track. And it seems to start over there. It runs to just here, goes in a loop around there and it could do a continuous circle and then back to the station. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go and buy my ticket and we're going to go for a ride on the high level track. After doing a bit of line siding, I've got myself another ticket. I'm going to go and have a ride, hopefully on the steam train this time. Class 22 down there, which is just about to depart and the Indian steam locomotive, that really was something different. That's what I like, especially about these model engineering societies, military railways, you just don't know what you're going to get usually until you get there. You know, it can be literally anything. The class 22 is just departing. There it goes over there. We'll go down and we'll have a look, see what else we can see. I've done a fair bit of line siding, so I'm quite happy with what I've seen this afternoon. Now it's towards the end of the day. There's not many people in this particular area. When I arrived, it was pretty busy. So what we'll do, I didn't want to see that Indian steam locomotive go past one more time and then I think that'll be it for today's video. So if you're ever out this way, they run, I think it's a Sunday afternoon between Easter and the end of October, do come and visit them. And as I did, you could also go up to the Kinver Edge rock houses. There's a lot of nice walks you can do. If you go right up on, I didn't have time to say, but if you go right up to the top of Kinver Edge, you get fantastic views for miles and miles around. So do, you know, if you're coming here, do consider doing that. I can just hear that steam locomotive. We're going to finish by seeing it go right round here. Almost a bit like being in India, because in India, you know, you get railways like Darjeeling. I know this isn't from Darjeeling, but they have lots of curves. And that's exactly what we're going to get now. She's just coming. I'm going to see her go right away around. I think that's a brilliant logo.  And I think she was a two, or she had two, eight, four, I think she's a big loco. And this is just in five inch and she's pretty big. So we're going to see her go past one more time. And then that'll be in today's video. And I think also that class 22 is going to come past. It's what I like about the race track. You've got so many tracks everywhere you look.  And as the class 22 disappears off, I hope you've enjoyed this video. Thank you very much for watching. Thank you to the Kinver and West Midlands Model Engineering Society for a great afternoon. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment. Goodbye.


In today's video, we are going to talk about a wild breed that caught the eyes of many cat fanciers around the world. The Savannah cat. Judging by the Savannah cat's wild appearance and personality, you might assume that breeders simply plucked a feline right off the plains of Africa. And to be honest, the history of this breed isn't too far off. Back in the mid-1980s, a cat breeder in the United States, Judy Frank, had taken into her care a serval cat named Ernie. To Judy's surprise, one of her other cats, a Siamese, had a single kitten by Ernie. This first known F1 kitten took the name Miracle. Miracle's owners changed her name to Savannah, perhaps to reflect the African Savannah heritage, and so began a new cat breed. Much of the Savannah's early breeding is credited to Joyce Shrof and Patrick Kelly, who established the breed by 1996. Shortly thereafter, they submitted the breed standard to the International Cat Association. The association then formally recognized the cat breed in 2012. However, other than the specific breeding lines, there is much to be said about the history of the Savannah cat. With this in mind, let's take it back to where it all started, a few thousand years ago in Africa. As early as 1300 BCE, humans traded serval cats in Ancient Egypt, along with other exotic animals. They appear in Egyptian art depicting mythologies and legends, which suggest that they held a special place in the hearts and minds of Ancient Egyptians. If you want something even wilder than a Bengal, the Savannah is a cross between a domestic cat and an African serval. First generation Savannah cats are 50% wild. It's no surprise that a Savannah cat doesn't display domesticated cat personality traits. You probably won't find them snuggling up on their owner's lap, or waiting patiently for food or treats. Instead, this is a cat with a personality that allowed them to thrive for thousands of years in the African Plains. The most obvious example of this is with the Savannah's hunting drive. And to understand it, let's look back to the serval. Several adaptations make the serval an excellent hunter. This wild cat has larger ears than other felines for better hearing. They're sometimes called giraffe cats because, out of all felines, they have the longest legs in proportion to their bodies. Hello. This video is sponsored by Beemix Pets. Are you looking for high-quality cat collars at an affordable cost? Check out BeemixPets.com. Savannah cats are curious about new people, which can be off-putting for some. If you're expecting company, it's best to warn any newcomers that your wild-looking Savannah cat will likely approach them, sniff them, and maybe even try to play. Savannah cats have a wide range of fascinating vocalizations. From their domestic lineage, you will hear the familiar meowing and purring from Savannah's. But there are a few more surprises. Many owners report distinctive wailing, yelling, yelping, and chirping. There's even some characteristic chattering and barking. This isn't a cat for every cat owner. Unfortunately, some are so enchanted by the Savannah cat's unique appearance that they don't learn more before bringing one home. What's more, these cats are so rare that it's not common to spend time with one before making the choice to adopt one. In reality, the Savannah cat requires more attention, more exercise, more rules, and a more strict diet than other domestic cats. Every cat breed will require good ownership practices, of course. But the Savannah cat is what you might call a high-maintenance breed in comparison. That said, for those who have experience with high-energy cats and are willing to put in the time and effort, the Savannah cat is just as enchanting and awe-inspiring as you would expect. With their dog-like qualities and feline grace, this is a breed that is amazing to have around. If you enjoyed this video, kindly press the like button as it greatly helps out the channel. Also don't forget to subscribe with notifications on for more videos like this. Thank you for watching.


I want to demo PDF framework tables with Elkomsoft Advanced PDF Password Recovery. So we start the program and we open a PDF file. This is a sample file that I created and which is encrypted with the default Adobe PDF Password Encryption. So which is a 40-bit Elkomsoft here. We'll ask you for the password if you know it and now we will act as if we don't know it. No counsel. So to use the rainbow tables you will do a key search. So the type of attack is key search. Go to the key search tab and here you make sure that you enable use precomputed hash tables because this will use the rainbow tables. And then you can start the attack. So it is loading rainbow tables. You can see here that it is 40-bit security. So the encryption was done with a 40-bit key. Okay. And now the attack has started. Now this loading was really slow because I've noticed that the password recovery software here for loading the tables and performing the rainbow attack is much slower when I'm running my screen recording software. It is much faster when it is not running. So let's run this and in a couple of minutes it should find the key for this password protected PDF file. Okay. And now Elkomsoft here has recovered the encryption key. You can see it here F218AE94B6. So this is the encryption key. This is not the password. When you do a key attack you will recover the key, not the password. And this is a drawback when you have to decrypt several PDF documents that have been encrypted with the same password. Because each of those PDF documents, although it is encrypted with the same password, will have a different encryption key. Because the encryption key is not only derived from the password you provide, but also from information metadata stored in the PDF document itself. So we can decide to decrypt it like this and then we can save the decrypted version of the PDF document like this. So let me now show you just a dictionary attack so that you will see the difference with the key and a password attack. This one here. We start it and here we already have the result, the password, the user password for this PDF is secret. That's the word that is in a dictionary and that is why it was found so quickly. But you see you don't have the key here. You have the secret password and the hex representation of the secret password, but you don't have the key. Then when you do a password attack, you try to recover the password. And when you do a rainbow table attack, you try to recover the key.


A very good evening, Esperance. Welcome you to the Hindu News Analysis brought to you by Shankar IEA's Academy for the date 9th of October 2022. Displayed here are the list of articles that we are going to discuss today. You can go through it. Now, let's start our discussion. Take a look at this news article. This news article talks about monkeypox. The article says that there is a possibility of transmission of monkeypox to the rodents outside the usual range in western Central Africa. And if this transmission happens, the rodents will transfer the virus back to humans which will result in increasing spiral of cases. So, this is the essence of the article given here. In this context, let's learn about monkeypox, its causes, symptoms, transmission and the prevention. Now, let's start with monkeypox. See, monkeypox is a zoonotic disease that caused by zoonotic virus which will infect both humans as well as animals including rodents and other primate species. The virus belongs to the orthopox-virus genus of the poxiviridae family. Now, talking about symptoms, see, the disease carries symptoms that are similar to those previously seen in smallpox patients. Symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle pain and lethargy along with rations and blisters, commonly on the face, palms, feet, mouth or eyes. These symptoms generally appear within two weeks since infection but can last for two to four weeks with severe cases mostly occurring in children. In most cases, monkeypox is a self-limited disease that results spontaneously without any specific treatment. However, new bonds, young children and the people with fundamental immune deficiencies may be more likely to develop severe symptoms. So, this is all regarding symptoms. Now, let's see about the transmission of the virus. See, the virus can be transmitted from both animals to humans and between humans. Here, animal-to-human transmission of the virus can result from close contact with blood, fluids or skin lesions of infected animals. And to human-to-human transmission could happen through the close contact and through body secretions, skin lesions or through contaminated articles of individuals infected with monkeypox. It can also be spread through large respiratory droplets such as coughing and sneezing. Here, you must note one thing, close human contact during sexual activities is believed to be the primary driver of the current spread of the disease due to its predominance spread in gay, bisexual and MSM communities.  Now, let's see about the current prevention and treatment options against monkeypox. See, there are no specific treatments available for monkeypox. Clinical management of monkeypox includes relieving symptoms and managing complications and preventing long-term effects. It is also not currently understood if a previous monkeypox infection leads to productive immunity against future infections. However, due to the genetic similarities of smallpox and monkeypox viruses, vaccines and antiviral agents used for the worldwide eradication of smallpox can also protect against monkeypox. The WHO report shows that the vaccination against smallpox is approximately 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. And thus, prior immunization against smallpox may lead to mild disease. Also, studies are now being conducted to understand the effectiveness and feasibility of vaccination in preventing monkeypox. So, this is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, you saw about monkeypox, its cause, symptoms, transmission and the prevention. With these learned points, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. It talks about organization of the Petroleum Exporting countries. We shortly called this as OPEC+. See, recently OPEC+. has announced that it would cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day. So, the news article here speaks about India's preparedness over the prevalent situation. Now, in this context, let us learn about the two oil producing cartels, OPEC and OPEC+. Firstly, coming to the OPEC, see OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is a permanent intergovernmental organization comprises of 30 oil exporting nations. It was created in the year 1960 at the Baghdad Conference by five countries. They are Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. See, these countries are also known as founding members of the OPEC. Here, the other members of the OPEC are Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria and United Arab Emirates. Note that earlier Qatar was also a member but it left OPEC on January 2019. Also know that the most recent country to exit OPEC is Ecuador, which left OPEC in January 2021. Also, other oil exporting nations can join OPEC meetings as observers. Now, let us see what are all the conditions that oil exporting countries need to fulfill to become a member of the OPEC. See, any country with a substantial net export of crude petroleum which has fundamentally similar interests to those of member countries may become a full member of the organization. Here, note that to become a full-time member of OPEC, a majority of three-by-fourths of already existing full-time members is needed, including the conquering votes of all founding members. So, this is about the eligibility conditions. Now, coming to the objective, the main objective of OPEC is to coordinate and unify petroleum policies among member countries. It also has the mandate to secure fair and stable prices for petroleum producers and to develop an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations, which in turn ensures a fair return on capital to those investing in the crude oil industry. So, this is about the objective. See, the headquarters of OPEC is located in Vienna, which is in Austria. The OPEC secret trade is the executive organ of OPEC. TIS is also located in Vienna. Also, note that the report World Oil Outlook is released by OPEC. So, this is all about OPEC. Now, talking about OPEC plus, see, TIS is a group of 23 oil producing nations made up of 13 members of the OPEC and 10 other non-OPEC members, which includes Russia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, South Sudan and Sudan. Note that OPEC plus format was born in the year 2016. It came into existence with a deal to coordinate oil production among the other oil producing countries, which are outside OPEC in a bid to stabilize prices of oil. Since then, the group has reached deals for members to voluntarily cut or ramp up production in response to changes in global oil prices. See, the today's news article reports that OPEC plus has planned to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day. To have a relative understanding, know this fact. Worldwide consumption of oil per day is approximately 10 million barrels. So, this cut in oil production is a significant one. As a cartel, the OPEC plus member countries collectively agree on how much oil to produce, which directly impacts the ready supply of crude oil in the global market at any given time. OPEC plus subsequently exerts considerable influence over the global market price of oil and tends to keep it relatively high in order to maximize profitability. Also know that USA has called this decision to cut oil production as a short-sighted one. So, this is all with respect to OPEC and OPEC plus. So, in this discussion, we saw about the objectives of both OPEC and OPEC plus and also about the members of both OPEC and OPEC plus. So, with these key points, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this science page article. It talks about heat waves. See, the article says that many improvements were made in the process of predicting and reporting of heat waves in India. The article also speaks about the recent study published in the scientific reports by the scientists at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune and some other studies published in international journals. The studies have shown that the heat wave genesis and duration of heat waves in India can be predicted with a good skill up to two weeks in advance and at some times it can be predicted even one season in advance. So, this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us see about heat waves in detail. First of all, what is a heat wave? See, a heat wave is a period of abnormally high temperatures which last over three days. The extreme temperatures and result in atmospheric conditions adversely affect people living in these regions as they cause physiological stress, sometimes resulting in death. According to Indian Meteorological Department, heat waves can be declared when it meets the following conditions. They are, first, the temperature of a station reaches at least 40 degree Celsius for planes, then at least 30 degree Celsius for hilly regions and the highest temperature criterion for the coastal zone is 37 degree Celsius. Also, when actual maximum temperature remains 45 degree Celsius or more compared to the normal maximum temperature. So, these are all conditions which need to be satisfied to declare heat waves in India. Now, coming to the reasons for heat waves in India. See, the apparent movement of sun towards northern direction during the months of May and June resulting in high pressure formation in inland India which results in abrupt temperature increase in the central and northwestern parts of India and the heat waves are further accelerated by the climatic change phenomenon. So, this is the primary reason for the development of heat waves in summer months. Now, coming to the impacts of heat waves. See, the human body feels the impact of increased stress due to the heat waves. Some of it results in fatality. Then, some ecological impacts include low form productivity, drought, forest fires, etc. So, these are all some of the impacts. Now, talking about the strategy to mitigate heat waves. See, the prediction mechanisms like the one mentioned in today's article need to be used extensively to increase the preparedness of the government to face such extreme events. Then, urban greening needs to be done by city administrations to reduce the heat island effects caused during the heat waves. And information dissemination needs to be done effectively to make people aware of the health hazards brought by the heat waves. So, these are all some of the suggestions which can be incorporated to contain heat waves in India. So, this is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about heat waves, then the conditions that needed to be declared, heat waves, then the reasons for heat waves, then the impacts and finally, the solutions to mitigate heat waves. So, with these learned points, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Next, we are going to take this FAQ article for our discussion. This is about the Nobel Prize for Physics. Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the names of three physicists as the laureates for the Nobel Prize in Physics. They are Alain Aspect, Anton Zellinger and John Claeser. As we all know, they are awarded the Nobel Prize for Experimental Work in Quantum Entanglement. So, this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us understand quantum computing and other important facts related to it. Before getting into discussion, the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Just go through it. First of all, let us go through the basics. So, what is quantum mechanics? See, quantum mechanics is a subfield of physics that describes the behavior of particles such as atoms, electrons, photons and almost everything in the molecular and submolecular realm. It was developed during the first half of the 20th century. See, the results of quantum mechanics are often extremely strange and counter-intuitive. I will tell you why. On the scale of atoms and electrons, many of the equations of classical mechanics cease us to be useful. Now, you should know what is classical mechanics. It is often called as Newtonian mechanics because nearly the entire study builds on the work of Sir Isaac Newton. The mathematical study of the motion of everyday objects and the forces that affect them is called classical mechanics. And this won't be useful to study the particles in the molecular realm. This is where quantum mechanics comes to play. Now, we will see a situation to understand better. See, in classical mechanics, objects exist in a specific place at a specific time. But in quantum mechanics, objects instead exist in a case of probability. This means that they have a certain chance of being at point A and another chance of being at point B and so on. In simple words, many of the concepts that were useful in visualizing the movement of the particles in the classical realm do not work when applied to particles obeying quantum mechanics. For example, when a tennis ball is stuck, we can see that it traces out a definite path in space. So, the path it traces out is called a trajectory. See, it is possible to calculate the trajectory of the ball. And there is no restriction on measuring the speed or momentum of the ball at every point on the trajectory. But particles that fall in the quantum regime, on the other hand, do not even possess yet different trajectory. This is because they are not little hard spheres that we are initially imagined. But they are weird wave-like quantum objects. Because of this, there is a limit to how precisely we can measure the position and momentum of these particles simultaneously. So, this is about the quantum mechanics. To conclude, quantum mechanics is nothing but study of particles at molecular realm. Know that the technology that works by using the principle of quantum mechanics is called the quantum technology. Quantum computing, quantum entanglement and quantum superposition. Firstly, let us see about the quantum superimposition. I will explain it with an example. Imagine touching the surface of your pond at two different points at the same time. Here, the waves could spread outward from each point. Eventually, overlapping to form a more complex pattern. This is a superposition of waves. Similarly, in quantum science, objects such as electrons and photons have wave-like properties that can combine and become what is called superposed. So, this is about quantum superposition. Secondly, let us see about the quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon that explains how two subatomic particles can be intimately linked to each other. It is entangled in such a way that aspects of one particle of entangled pair depend on the aspects of the other particle. The most interesting part here is that they remain connected even when they are separated by vast distances. Here, these particles could be any subatomic particles. For example, electrons or protons. And the aspect could be in the state it is in. That is, whether it is spinning in one direction or another. The strange part of quantum entanglement is that when you measure something about one particle in an entangled pair, you immediately know something about the other particle. Even if they are millions of light-years apart. Albert Einstein famously called the phenomenon as spooky action at a distance. And for the work in this phenomenon only, the Nobel Prize was awarded. John Clausser and Eileen Aspect devised sophisticated experiments to test quantum entanglement. And they established through Bell's inequality that entanglement was a consequence of quantum physics. The third lawrette, Anton Zelinger and his group used the phenomenon of entanglement to perform what is called quantum teleportation. This is a way of conveying information from one place to another without the actual transport of material. Lastly, let us come to the quantum computing. As we already saw, quantum computing is a quantum technology. It is a rapidly emerging technology that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that are too complex for classical computers. First of all, what is computing? See, computing is the process of using computer technology to complete a given goal-oriented task. It encompasses the design and development of software and hardware systems for a broad range of purposes. So quantum computing covers the problems that are too complex for classical computers. Now you may ask, how it solves complex problems? See, quantum computing focuses on the development of computer technologies that is centered around the principles of quantum theory. As we saw already, quantum theory explains the natural behavior of energy and matter on the quantum, that is atomic and subatomic level. Quantum computing uses subatomic particles such as electrons or photons. Also, quantum computing uses a combination of bits to perform specific computational tasks. And these bits are called qubits. These help the quantum computers to function at a higher efficiency than the classical counterparts. Development of quantum computers mark a leap forward in computing capability. This is because quantum computers have massive performance gains for specific uses. For example, quantum computing excels at simulations. See, the quantum computer gains much of its processing power through the ability of the bits to be in multiple states at one time. Do you remember the example now? We saw that in quantum mechanics, particles have a chance of being at point A and another chance of being at point B and so on. Here they can perform tasks using a combination of ones and zeros. And they have the chance of being both one and zero. This is quantum bits or qubits, which allows particle to exist in more than one state. That is one and zero, at the same time. See, quantum computers are elegant machines, smaller and requiring less energy than the supercomputers. The processors use super-cooled super-fluids to create superconductors. This is because the processors need to be very cold and they use the phenomenon of superimposition. See, a qubit itself isn't very useful but it can perform an important trick. See, after placing the quantum information it holds into a state of superposition. This represents a combination of all possible configurations of the qubit. Group of qubits in superposition can create complex multi-dimensional computational spaces and complex problems can be represented in new ways in these spaces. And this is how qubits perform complex functions. Quantum computers use one more phenomenon, which is called quantum entanglement. This we saw before itself. Entanglement is a quantum mechanical effect that correlates the behavior of two separate things. When two qubits are entangled, changes to one qubit directly impact the other. Quantum algorithms leverage these relationships to find solutions to complex problems. Now let's see how it is different from conventional computing. Here the basic difference is what we just saw. Conventional computing or conventional computers are the fourth generation of computers. In this computing the classical phenomenon of the electrical circuit is used. According to the phenomenon there is only one state at a time which is either on or off. At the same time quantum computing or quantum computers are the fifth generation of computers. The phenomenon of quantum mechanism is used. According to this phenomenon, there can be more than one state at the same time. The next difference is about the processing. The help bit that is 0 or 1, the information storage and manipulation are done in conventional computing. The bit is further based on charge or voltage. 0 is used to show the low voltage and 1 is used to show the high voltage or current. If the number of charges is linked together, it will only increase in the computing power. Now in the quantum computers, information storage and manipulation are done with the help of qubit or quantum bit. The qubit is further based on the phenomenon of spinning electrons or on the polarization of single photon. So, the power of quantum computing will be exponentially increased if number of qubits are linked together. The next difference is the tasks performed. See, conventional computing represents the information with the help of binary codes that is bit 0 or bit 1. If our everyday task is required to be completed with the help of a computer, then in this case, classical computers will be useful. While quantum computing represents the information with the help of qubits 0, 1 and the superposition state of both 0 and 1. If we want to run simulations and data analysis like drug and chemical trials, then in the case, quantum computers will be very useful. The computers which we used for chemical and drug trials must have to be kept ultra cold. However, these types of computers are very difficult to build and it is also very expensive. So, these are all some of the differences between conventional computing and quantum computing. So, this is about some of the basics that you should know about the quantum mechanics and technology. And it is believed that quantum technologies will play a major role in the future to perform many functions. And keeping this in mind, India has announced a national mission on quantum technologies and applications. With the total budget outlay of Rs 8000 crore, it was announced in the 2020 budget for a period of 5 years. It is to be implemented by the Department of Science and Technology. So, that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about quantum mechanics, then quantum technology, then other terms like quantum computing, quantum entanglement, quantum superposition and then how it solves the complex problems. And finally, about the differences between conventional computing and quantum computing. So, with these learned points, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. See this article here. It says that a petition was admitted by the Supreme Court for the introduction of technology to allow visually challenged voters to verify their votes. The petition was filed by Mumbai based activist Akshay Bajat. He suggested that image text-to-speech conversion software should be added to the electronic voting machines. We shortly call this as EVM and voter verifiable paper audit trail. We shortly call this as VVPAT units. So, this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let's learn about electronic voting machines and VVPAT. First of all, let's see about electronic voting machines. See, electronic voting machine is the replacement of the ballot box in the election process. The idea was first conceived in the year 1977. In 1979 a prototype was developed which was demonstrated by the election commission. On the first time use of electronic voting machines occurred in the general election in May 1982. But owing to the absence of specific law prescribing the use of EVMs, Supreme Court struck down the election. Subsequently in the year 1989 the parliament amended the representation of the pupil act 1951 to create a provision for the use of electronic voting machines in the elections. See, a general consensus on the introduction of EVM was reached only in 1998. And EVMs were used in 25 legislative assembly constituencies which were spread across 3 states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. It was further expanded in 1999 to 45 parliamentary constituencies and later in February 2000 to 45 assembly constituencies of the Haryana Assembly elections. In the 2000 state assembly elections of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and West Bengal, the EVMs were used in the all assembly constituencies. Since then for every state assembly election, the commission has used the electronic voting machines. And finally in 2004, in the general election to the Lokshaba, the electronic voting machines were used in all 45 parliamentary constituencies in the country. So this is the history of the introduction of electronic voting machines. Now coming to the function of electronic voting machines, see an electronic voting machine is an electronic device used for recording votes. It consists of two units, namely control unit and balloting unit. These units are joined together by a cable. Here the control unit of the EVM is kept with the preceding officer or the polling officer. Then the balloting unit is kept within the voting compartment for electors to cast their votes. See the electronic voting machine is a reliable system to conduct elections where one person has to be elected out of many candidates. So the EVM is designed for a single post and a single vote. Through an EVM, a voter can cast their vote for the candidate of their choice or choose the note option. These EVMs are used because they have certain advantages. See firstly, voting by EVMs has made the process simpler as one does not need to mark a ballot paper and put it in the ballot box. In an EVM, the voter has to just press the button against the candidate and symbol of his choice and the vote gets recorded. Secondly the scope of invalid vote is eliminated which could not be possible in the paper ballot system. Thirdly, the counting process is very quick and the result can be declared in harsh as Fourthly, there is no need for printing millions of ballot papers. This leads to saving of money, an account of paper, printing, transportation, storage and distribution. Finally, there are both audio and visual indications of the voter to be assured that his vote is recorded correctly. As soon as a voter presses the blue button, the lamp against the symbol of his chosen candidate glows red and a long beep is heard. So this is all regarding EVMs. Now let's know some facts about VVPAT. See VVPAT is an independent system which is attached to the electronic voting machines. It allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as they have intended. A printer is attached to the EVM and is kept in the voting compartment. The printer prints a slip that contains the serial number, name of the candidate, symbol of the candidate for whom the voter has casted the vote. Here the printed slip remains exposed for 7 seconds under a transparent window and then gets cut automatically and falls into a drop box which remains sealed. So this is about VVPAT. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw about the background for introducing electronic voting machines and about the functioning of electronic voting machines and VVPAT. So with these learned points, now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion that is to discuss preliminary practice questions. Now look at this first question. Consider the following statements. Let's take up the first statement. Monkeypox virus is a zoonotic disease which can also transfer from human to human. Here the statement one is correct. Yes, it is a zoonotic disease which also transfers from human to human which we saw in our discussion. Now let's take second statement. Even though monkeypox looks similar to smallpox, genus of these two viruses are totally different. Here the statement two is incorrect because as we know from our discussion that both the monkeypox and smallpox belong to the same genus called orthopox virus. So the statement two is incorrect. Here the question asks for correct statement. So the answer for the question is option A one only. Now coming to the second question. Consider the following countries. Here the list of countries are given. Here the question is which of the above mentioned countries are members of organization of the petroleum exporting countries. Here all the countries except equidar are members of OPEC. As we see in our discussion the equidar left the OPEC in January 2021. So the correct answer for the question is option A one two three five only. Okay. Now moving on to the third question which among the following are the applications of quantum computing. First one numerical weather prediction second one simulations third one cyber security fourth one cryptography which of the above statement is correct. See quantum technologies are rapidly developing globally with a huge disruptive potential. Their applications include those in aerospace engineering numerical weather prediction simulations securing the communications and financial transactions cyber security advanced manufacturing health agriculture education and etc. And quantum principles will be used for engineering solutions to complex problems in computing communications sensing chemistry cryptography imaging and mechanics. So all the applications given here is correct. Therefore the answer for the question is option D one two three and four. Displayed here is the question for you today. I will post this question in a community section. Try to answer it. Given here is the main practice question for you today. Interest aspirants can write and post it in the comment section. We have come to the end of our discussion. If you like our analysis please like comment and share it with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.


I worked at the United Nations for several years, I was at Columbia University, I was running an organization called Millennium Promise. All focused on the Millennium Development Goals and different aspects. This year I'm a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. I think friendships are the deepest part because there are so many people who are publicly minded coming up with creative approaches to different problems around the world and it really is global. It's people who are dynamic, action-oriented and thinking about problems in their community or from their perspective on a global issue. I just find it interesting to connect every year or in some occasions many times a year with these different people who are taking on problems that they're inspired to find new solutions to. Ultimately I think about leadership as someone helping to solve broader problems that are bigger than themselves and often that entails spotting a problem that people haven't seen. Often it entails finding a solution that people haven't thought of. Often it means coupling a problem and a solution with people who want to put it into action.


The study considers the interplay between non-Markovian dynamics and driving fields in the survival of entanglement between two non-degenerate oscillators, and shows that non-Markovian dynamics allows for the survival of stationary entanglement at higher temperatures, with larger coupling strength to the baths and at smaller driving rates. The effect of asymmetry in the coupled oscillators, coupling strength to the baths equal temperature, and temperature at equal coupling strength is discussed, and it is shown that the non-Markovian character of the dynamics can beat the resonant condition for squeezing generation, making it more robust under non-Markovian dynamics. This article was authored by Andres Efestrava and Leonardo A. Passion.