A very good evening aspirants, welcome to Hindu News analysis brought to you by Shankar IAS Academy. Today is 5th of April 2022, the list of articles we are going to discuss today is displayed on the screen. You can see here the first article is regarding the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Here we will be discussing about AFSPA in both prelims and main perspective. Then see the second topic, it is an editorial article, here we will be discussing about migrant labour and their issues. Then we will be covering Iran nuclear deal and Hindu succession act of 1956 in prelims perspective. Then we will conclude our discussion by solving some of the preliminary practice questions. So without wasting much time, we will start our discussion. Now look at this article, this text and context article talks about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 that is AFSPA. See this act is again in use because recently government reduced the number of disturbed areas under the act. So in this discussion, let us brush up what is AFSPA and what is a disturbed area. Before that look at this main question, this was asked in the year 2015 in GS paper 3. Let me read out the question, human rights activist constantly highlight the fact that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 is a draconian act leading to cases of human rights abuses by security forces. What sections of AFSPA are opposed by the activist? Critically evaluate the requirement with reference to the view held by apex court. See this question was asked in 2015 but even today the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is very relevant. So in this discussion, you will get to know about AFSPA and why it is called the draconian act and we will also see what are disturbed areas. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference, you can go through it. See first of all, what is AFSPA of 1958? See the genesis of AFSPA 1958 can be traced to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1948. This 1948 act was enacted to replace four ordinances and was based on the Armed Forces Special Powers Ordinance of 1942. See these ordinances were promulgated by the British to suppress the Indian freedom movement especially from the start of Quit India movement. Know that these ordinances gave special powers to certain officers of the Armed Forces of British India. This is to deal with an emergency. The special powers included the use of force at any person if that person does not obey the forces or damages any property or resist arrest. See the force could be used even to cause death of that person. Most importantly, they provided complete immunity to the officers as the action of officers could not be challenged in the court except with the prior approval of the central government. So this is why the ordinances are termed as draconian. In the sense it is excessively harsh and very severe. But unfortunately another AFSPA act was also enacted by the central government in the independent India in 1948. This particular act was modeled on the 1942 act. Central government argued that this act is necessary to deal with the internal security situation in the country in 1947 after independence. Later in 1957 this 1948 act was repealed. But again the next year it was restored as AFSPA act 1958. Here the reason given by the central government was the first deteriorating internal security situation in Assam and Manipur after the murder of the two states with Indian Union. So at that time the act was called the Armed Forces Assam and Manipur Special Powers Act of 1958. But now it is just referred as AFSPA. So basically the AFSPA of 1958 was enacted with the objective of providing certain special powers to the members of the armed forces in the disturbed areas. These disturbed areas are the ones in the north eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Thirupra. So now comes the question of what is a disturbed area. It is any area which is for the time being declared as a disturbed area under section 3 of the act through a notification. Note that the power to declare a disturbed area is vested with the governor of the respective state or the central government. They can declare whole of a state or any part of such state as declared area if in their opinion that the state or its part is in a disturbed or dangerous condition. And in their opinion to handle the condition it is necessary to use armed forces in aid of the civil power. Now there are two major problems with the act. One is it provides unconstrained powers to certain officers. These are the officers in the disturbed area. It includes any commissioned officer or warrant officer in the armed forces or non-commissioned officer or any other percent of equivalent rank in the armed forces. These officers have been given four set of powers. First is the power to use force or fire. These can be used even to cause death of a person and this is a person who is acting in contravention of any law and order in the disturbed area. But this is to be used only after giving due warning as per the act. This power can be used in the name of maintaining public order. Secondly the officer has the power to destroy any place if that place was used or could be used for armed attacks. Thirdly they also have the power to arrest any person without warrant. Here they are allowed to use force to arrest that person and this enables the misuse of the act. Finally the officer can enter and search any premises without warrant to make that arrest. Now the second problem is that is in addition to the powers the act also protects and provides immunity from prosecution to the officer. It is like the colonial era ordinances that is against the officers no prosecution, legal suit or other legal proceedings can be instituted for using powers under the act. But there is an exception to this protection that is the legal proceedings can be instituted only with the previous sanction of the central government. Now we should know which were the places declared as disturbed areas previously. See it included the whole states of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland. Then some parts of Arnachal such as the Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts. So you can note that Afspa was revoked from Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tirupura long back. We can say the remaining states are also in the process of revoking it but slowly. This is because government has withdrawn disturbed area status in some places of Assam, Manipur, Arnachal and Nagaland. Therefore as of now only some parts of these four states have been declared disturbed area. For example in seven districts of Nagaland disturbed area status has been removed and now it exists in 13 districts. This also includes the district mon where the botched operation of armed forces happened in December 2021 where 14 villages were killed by security forces. That's all regarding this act. Now we will do a quick recap. We have seen that the genesis of armed forces special powers act 1958 can be traced back to armed forces special powers act of 1948. This act was enacted to replace four ordinances and was based on the armed forces special power ordinance of 1942. We have seen that these ordinances were promulgated by the British to suppress the Indian freedom movement especially from the start of quit India movement. So basically the armed forces special powers act 1958 was enacted with the objective of providing certain special powers to the members of the armed forces in the disturbed areas. These disturbed areas are the ones in the north eastern states of Arnachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tirupura. We have also seen that disturbed area is any area which is for the time being declared as disturbed area under section 3 of this act through a notification. Then we have seen four set of powers given to the officers of the armed forces. First is the power to use force or fire. Second the officer has the power to destroy any place and thirdly they also have the power to arrest any person without warrant and finally the officer can enter and search any premises without warrant. And then we have seen that Afspa was revoked from Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tirupura long back. And as of now only parts of four states that is Assam, Manipur, Arnachal Pradesh and Nagaland have been declared disturbed area. So that's all regarding this text and context article. Now we will move on to next news article discussion. See take a look at this editorial article. This editorial article talks entirely about migrant workers, the hardships faced by them and some of the suggestions given by the authors to overcome these hardships. So we will see about them in detail in this news article discussion. See the question regarding the migrants was already asked in the year 2015 in general studies paper one. You can see here this is the question discuss the changes in the trends of labour migration within and outside India in the last four decades. In this context the labour migration is very important. See the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. Firstly, whom do we call as migrant worker? See the Interstate Migrant Workman Act 1979 defines a migrant worker. The act defines a migrant worker as the one who is recruited by or through a licensed contractor in one state for employment in an establishment in another state. I will repeat again. The migrant worker is the one who is recruited by a licensed contractor in one state for employment in an establishment in another state. See in India as per census 2001 about 41 million were interstate migrants or people those who migrated from one state to another. Now why we are talking about migrants? As you may recall just two years ago in the aftermath of a nationwide India was shaken by the hardship of migrant workers who had to walk hundreds of kilometers through starvation, tiredness and violence in order to reach their hometown safely. To be frank this dire situation of the migrants grabbed our collective heartstrings. They became the focus of large-scale relief efforts by the governments and the civil society. For example the government ramped up the one nation one ration card project and announced the affordable rental housing complexes scheme set up the Ishram portal and began to draft a migration policy. So these initiatives generated hope that the migrant crisis of 2020 would be a turning point and many thought that India was firmly on a policy path by offering adequate citizenship and accompanying socio-economic and political rights to the internal migrants. But according to the authors providing this socio-economic and political security to the migrants still remains a tale of distress. Let us see why see it has been two years as of now since the nationwide lockdown and according to the authors migrants suffering may have vanished from our television screens but it is still a daily reality. This reality has been proved by several surveys. Note that repeated surveys have found that the incomes of migrant households continue to be lower than pre-pandemic levels that is even after returning to cities. Migrants when they returned back to cities the job opportunities were very low and very few jobs were left out for migrant workers and even if they find a job income from the job is low and as a result their children were eating less. And according to the authors this might become a vicious cycle and according to the authors the post 1991 poverty elevation of almost 300 million Indians is being undone because of this factor. So here despite all these issues framing a cohesive migration policy guidance still remains difficult and this is not a situation that India can afford to begin. Today one third of the nation's workforce is mobile that is their moving and migrants fuel critical sectors such as manufacturing construction hospitality logistics and commercial agriculture. The existing policy framework is fragmented and declining and to correct this there is a need to recognize the persistent structural impedance that are limiting migration policy momentum and take proactive efforts to move policy ahead. So what can be done to overcome the issues? Here in this next segment of our discussion let us see some of the suggestions given by the authors to address the migrants issue. The first suggestion is to recognize the fact that migration is a highly politicized phenomena in India. The political economy of migration has a significant impact on states. Let me explain this see the economic demands of a state often clashes with its political needs. States often favor nativist laws that impose domicile limits on employment and social security in destination states. Here destination state means the state where migrants eventually end up. This is one issue and on the other side we know that the migrants vote in their respective villages that is the originating villages. So the sending states are highly motivated to serve their own people and the destination states are not interested in doing so because the migrants anyway are not going to vote here. This fragmented policy response to internal migration comes after a clear cut state specific calculations or in other words this fragmented policy response to internal migration is a result of state specific estimations of political gains or losses that could be gained or lost by allocating fiscal and administrative resources to migrants. Despite the fact that migration is a crucial channel for impoverished marginal rural household to gain economic security this widespread sedentary bias continues to affect the policy. Now coming to the second suggestion the second suggestion is to properly define the ambiguous term migrants. According to the authors the term itself troubled the policy makers for a long period of time as the term is located between the two large terms which is the unorganized worker and the urban poor that is the migrants are not clearly identified it is some way located between the unorganized worker and the urban poor. For example given the Ishram portal which has made impressive progress in registering unorganized workers has been unable to accurately distinguish and target migrants. Now the third suggestion is to address the gaps in the data. See to make policy reforms there must be a proper official data sets but the recent pandemic has proved the failure of official data sets to capture the actual scale and frequency of internal migration in India. According to the authors this failure of official data sets actually paralyzes the migration policy reforms. So to conclude to address all these issues center has to play the lead role in it. Center should play a proactive role by offering strategic policy guidance and act as a platform for interstate coordination. Because of state level political economy limits the center's involvement is especially important in addressing concerns of interstate migratory workers at destination states. Center must keep up the momentum towards migrant supportive policy and for that to happen strategic initiatives should be encouraged to provide migrants safety nets regardless of where they are and such initiatives should bolster their ability to migrate safely and affordably. In that direction the Niti Ayokes draft policy on migrant workers is a positive step forward in outlining policy priorities and indicating suitable institutional frameworks. So according to the authors the Niti Ayokes draft policy on migrant worker deserved to be released as soon as possible. That's all regarding this editorial now we will do a quick recap. What we have seen so far we have seen that interstate migrant workman act 1979 defines a migrant worker. Migrant worker is the one who is recruited by a licensed contractor in one state for employment in an establishment in another state. And we have seen that repeated surveys have found that the incomes of migrant households continue to be lower than pre pandemic levels. So to address the challenges the authors gives three suggestions. The first suggestion is to recognize the fact that migration is a highly politicized phenomenon in India. And the second suggestion is to properly define the ambiguous term migrants. And the third suggestion is to address the gaps in the official data. And finally we concluded by saying that to address all these issues center has to play a lead role in it. That is the center should play a proactive role by offering strategic policy guidance and act as a platform for interstate coordination. So that's all regarding this editorial. Now we will move on to next news article discussion. Look at this news article. This news article talks about the Iran nuclear deal. See according to Iran the US is the one responsible for the pass in the talks between Tehran and the world powers in Vienna which aimed at reviving their 2015 nuclear deal. To put it simply Iran blames United States for halting nuclear talks. This is the crux of the news article given here. So let us use this opportunity and quickly revise the Iran nuclear deal. First what is this Iran nuclear deal? See the Iran nuclear deal was formerly known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It is nothing but an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on 14th July 2015. The agreement was signed between Iran and the P5 plus one countries. Here by saying P5 plus one countries we are referring to the five permanent members of the UNSC that is United Nations Security Council. The members are China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States. The plus one country indicates Germany. See the formal negotiations towards Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action began with the adoption of the Joint Plan of Action which is an interim agreement signed between Iran and P5 plus one countries in November 2013. Then Iran and P5 plus one countries engaged in negotiations for the next 20 months and in April 2015 they agreed on a framework for the final agreement. In July 2015 Iran and the P5 plus one countries confirmed an agreement on the plan along with the roadmap agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. So in simple words it is a multilateral agreement. Now what is the purpose of signing the agreement? As you know uranium have nuclear related uses once it has been refined or enriched. This can be achieved by increasing the content of its most fissile isotopes that is uranium 235 through the use of centrifuges. See centrifuges are machines which spin at supersonic speeds. See the low enriched uranium which typically has a 3 to 5 percentage concentration of uranium 235 can be used to produce fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. Highly enriched uranium has a purity of 20 percentage or more and is used in research reactors and the weapon grade uranium is 90 percentage enriched or more. In July 2015 Iran has two uranium enriched plants that is in Natanz and Ferdow and was operating almost 20,000 centrifuges. So under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran was limited to installing no more than 5000 centrifuges at Natanz until 2026 which is 10 years after the Deals Implementation Day in January 2016. Apart from this under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium enriched uranium and cut its stockpile of low enriched uranium by 98 percentage and Iran agreed to reduce about two-third of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years Iran agreed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 percentage. Iran also agreed not to build any new heavy water facilities for the same time period. So uranium enrichment activities will be limited to a single facility using first generation centrifuges for 10 years and to monitor and verify Iran's compliance with the agreement the International Atomic Energy Agency will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities. The agreement provides that in written for verifiably abiding by its commitments Iran will receive relief from the US, European Union and United Nations Security Council nuclear related sanctions. See the Iran nuclear deal has often been in news from time to time primarily focusing on the frosty relationship between Iran and the United States. Although the Iran nuclear deal was stalled under US President Trump in 2018, the new President Joe Biden has expressed interest in reviving the agreement following an announcement in May 2021. That is the reason why we are going through this agreement. So that's all regarding this news article. Now we will do a quick recap. We have seen that the Iran nuclear deal was formally known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It is nothing but an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program between Iran and P5 plus 1 countries. What are P5 plus 1 countries? They are five permanent members of the UNSEE that is China, France, Russia, UK and US and the plus 1 country indicates Germany. So under the deal, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium and cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98% and reduce by about two-thirds of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. Iran also agreed not to build any new heavy water facilities for the same period of time. To monitor and verify Iran's compliance with the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities. In return, Iran will receive relief of nuclear-related sanctions from the US-European Union and the United Nations Security Council. So that's all regarding Iran nuclear deal and this news article. Now we will move on to next news article discussion. Look at this news article. This news article talks about a plea that is filed in the Supreme Court. The plea argued that the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is supporting patriarchal ideology, particularly few sections of the act are highly discriminated to women and thus are unconstitutional. So let us briefly see about the act and also the sections being challenged. You all know that Indian patriarchal society intentionally disregarded the right to property to women, especially under the Hindu religion. So it pushed the women to a position of inferiority in social and economic aspects of human relationship. The discrimination was so much that even Manusmriti supported it. In Manusmriti, it is stated that a woman must be dependent upon her father in childhood, dependent upon her husband in youth and must be dependent upon her sons in old age. She should never be free. But on the other hand, in Manusmriti, a son is deemed as worthy to receive whole estate as part of the law of inheritance. Such was the discrimination induced on women via Hindu religious texts. But a change was brought in when the Hindu Succession Act was framed in 1956. This act brought changes in the law of succession among Hindus and gave rights which were unknown in relation to women's property. See the objective of the act was to amend and codify the law relating to interstate succession among Hindus. Here, interstate refers to the scenario where the property holder has died without making a will or testamentary disposition. So, upon the death of the property holder, the act says who has the right over such property. This act granted equal right to the daughter, widow, mother and son. So, 1956 act was the first law which sanctioned absolute property right to women. Under the act, the daughter, widow, mother and son all became class one legal hires of a deceased male Hindu. They all become eligible to obtain property right from their ancestor. In this way, the act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance. Mainly, the act applies to the ones given here. Please go through it. Now, let us come to the petition filed in the Supreme Court. It pointed out two discriminatory provisions in the act. They are the sections 15 and 16. See, section 15 deals with the general rules of succession in the case of female Hindus. First, know that a hire means any person who is entitled to succeed to the property of an interstate. Actually, as per the act, hire includes both male and female. So, as per section 15, when the female Hindu dies interstate, that is, she dies without making any will, any property inherited by her will devolve on her own face, which are specified in the section 15. Now, the issue lies in the prescribed hers order, which is mentioned in the section 16. As per this order only, the preference to the succession will be considered. See here, the sons and the daughters and the husband are in the first line of succession. Second comes the hires of husband, that is, the in-laws of the women. Then comes the mother and father of the deceased women. Fourth comes the hires of father of the deceased women. And the last in succession will be the herds of mother of the deceased women. But why this order is an issue? It is because if the person in the first order, that is, husband or children are not available, then the property of the Hindu woman devolves to the hires of her husband, because the own father and mother of the deceased women are placed below the hires of the husband. So, this gives preference to the hires of her husband over the parents of the deceased women. The issue is further aggravated when the property is self-acquired by the woman, through her job and hard work. This means after the death of husband, if the widowed woman survive under the support of her parents, then also they will not get the preference in succession, even though it is a self-acquired property of the woman. The husband's hire will only get the property. The husband's family comes first in the line of inheritance even before the dead woman's own parents. This may not seem like a problem. But what if the woman sought her parent's support because she was abused by the in-laws and was driven out of her matrimonial home by the in-laws after husband's death? According to the law, even then the husband's hair will be given preference. So, the in-laws who subjected the female to indignity and failed to take care of her has been privileged to enjoy the fruits of her hard labor here. Overall, it gives privilege to the male lineage. So, these are the kinds of discrimination exists through class 1 of section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act. So, these kinds of provisions manage to retain property largely within the male lineage. That is why the petition mentions that section 15 of 1956 act unveils deeply rooted patriarchal ideology. Therefore, the petitioner argued that these provisions violates the scheme of the constitution so they are unconstitutional. With these key learned points, let us move on to the next part of our news article discussion, which is nothing but preliminary practice questions discussion. Look at the first question. Consider the following statements. There are separate armed forces special powers act for Jammu and Kashmir and northeast region. Statement 2, only the central government is empowered to declare the whole or part of a state or union territory to be a disturbed area. And you have to find the correct statement. See here, statement 1 is actually correct. Today, we saw AFSPA for northeast, that is armed forces special powers act 1958. But note that AFSPA for Jammu and Kashmir is also present. It is called armed forces Jammu and Kashmir special powers act of 1990. After the reorganization and downgrading of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, this act is now operational in both Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh union territories. And it is under the administrative control of ministry of home affairs. So, statement 1 is correct. Regarding statement 2, it is incorrect. Because the power to declare areas to be a disturbed areas lies with the governor of that state or administrator of union territory or the central government. So, here our final answer is option A, one only. Look at the second question. It is a process that is necessary to create an effective nuclear fuel out of mind uranium by increasing the percentage of uranium-235 which undergoes fission with thermal neutrons. Which of the following best describes this process? See, this is a very easy question. The correct answer for the question is option A, uranium enrichment. See, natural uranium deposits exist all over the world. But uranium in this form is not suitable for nuclear weapons and cannot be used in most nuclear reactors for either electricity or plutonium production. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes. They are uranium-238, uranium-235 and uranium-234. Note that uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile isotope. So, to effectively make use of this uranium-235, it must be enriched through a process called uranium enrichment. The question given here is the exact definition of the process, that is uranium enrichment. So, the correct answer here is option A, uranium enrichment. Now, look at our last prelims question. Consider the following statements with reference to the Hindu Succession Act 1956. It codifies the law relating to interstate succession among Hindus. It is applicable to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Sikh by religion. Now, the third statement, the property of a female Hindu dying interstate does not devolve to her grandchildren. You have to find the incorrect statement here. See, pass the video and try to find the answer for this question. See here, statement one is correct. It is the objective of the act. We have seen this in our discussion, right? And regarding statement two, it is incorrect because it is not applicable to Parsi's. But it is applicable to Buddhist, Jain or Sikh. Now, coming to statement three, see, it may seem correct because we saw the heirs of female Hindu dying interstate and their order of inner returns also. In the list of heirs, there was no mention of grandchildren of the female Hindu. So, you can come to a conclusion that this statement is incorrect. But actually, the statement is incorrect because the act has a rule which mentions that if the son or daughter of the female Hindu die before her, that is, if that son or a daughter has children who are alive, these children will have the same property rights as their parents. So, they will be the legal heirs to the Hindu females property who is none other than their grandmother. So, the order of inheritance will be applicable to the in-laws or parents of the Hindu female when she has no children at all and when those children does not have any living children. So, we can interpret that the property of the female Hindu dying interstate may devolve to her grandchildren also. So, statement three is incorrect. So, our final answer is option C, two and three only. The main question is displayed here. Write your answer and post it in the comment section. If you like the video, hit the like button, post your comments and share the video with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.


In this video, we provide a solution to question number one from exam practice exam one for math 1220, in which case we have to evaluate the integral from negative two to two of the function three x plus one squared with respect to x. My first thoughts when I look at this one is probably just foil the thing out the three x plus one squared. If you do that, you would end up with a nine x squared plus six x plus one. I then they're going to choose to integrate that thing find an anti derivative anti derivative of nine x squared will become a three x cubed. The anti derivative of six x to be three x squared and the anti derivative of one would then be an x at that point. We can plug in negative two and positive two. So then we're going to just work through that calculation there. So we get three times two, two cube, which is an eight. Then we're going to get three times two squared, which is four.  Then we subtract from that when we plug in the negatives there, you're going to get three times negative eight plus three times negative four actually positive four square there. And then you're going to get a negative two like so. So some things to note here, three times eight is 24. And here because there's a double negative negative, you're actually going to get 24 twice. So that gives us a 48. In this situation of three times four, which is 12 over here, you also get a 12, which is a minus. So actually cancel each other out. And then lastly, you're going to get two minus a negative two, which will actually make it a positive four. So you get 48 plus four, which then simplifies to be a 52. So we see that the correct answer is in fact D. And that's I think the simplest way to approach this one. If you wanted to, you could have also made this work using a U substitution. You could have made U equal three X plus one D U equals in that case three for which you could have a three right here and a one third right here. If you're going to do that, you probably should change the bounds as well. When you plug two inside of this, you end up with a seven. So you could rewrite your integral as one third, the integral from seven on top. When you plug a negative two in the bottom, you'll get a negative five. And then your function looks like U squared D U for which then you can integrate it from there.  And so you get one ninth, you're going to get seven cubed.  And I'll let you finish this out and show that's equal to 52. The U substitution is a viable option, but I think with this one just foiling out and working out turned out to be much simpler. And so that's the recommendation that the recommended approach I would take on this one.


Hello Traders at CMC Markets. This is Trevor Neal, Analyst at R&G Research. Today is the 5th of December, Tuesday the 5th of December and I will be covering this move up in the dollar, short-term move up in the dollar and also the DAX. We will start by looking at an R&G graph of the sterling cable, the euro and Japanese yen versus the US dollar here in the middle. This is an hourly sampling here so this is the last one current, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hours of movement. You can see all of the currencies are in the lagging quadrant that means the dollar is pushing up at the expense of other currencies and none of them in a particularly good position or shape. None of them are flicking round and northeasterly or anything like that so the current trend is continuing as I speak. Starting with the euro, this is an hourly chart of the euro and you can see that the euro is going down on that steadiness of the dollar and it's doing so in ways impulse, reaction, impulse, reaction, new impulse. Yesterday on the fourth and now reaction which may be running out of steam as it reaches resistance. This is a typical of the behavior in a downtrend like this when we have this reaction here it lost steam at the previous low so here's now the current low and we're rallying and it looks as the first look of losing momentum. The MACD which is a lagging indicator of course is still negative but the gap is closing quite sharply. Looking at the RSI we can see it's rallied. It's rallied to 45 that it's corrected enough as it did do here for example it went above 50 as it did do here above 50 here. The rally is rather weak so this is not a great setup. Maybe it's going to rally a bit further in the near term before turning down and resuming the longer term downtrend. The technical setup for it is not particularly attractive. Sterling is weak but it has found support at this previous low from 30th November at 126 and it's come back tested it twice yesterday and bouncing a bit from it today. The MACD is negative so negative for the pound strong for the dollar. The RSI has recovered again not enough in my opinion and not up to the 50 level to make the trade particularly attractive. It has bounced into resistance but it hasn't got the sort of concerted downtrend of the euro. If it breaks the 126 level then I think we can say that it is going to be going lower again. Now the Japanese yen again hourly and of course we're expressing this here this moving down here is the dollar weakening. Now here we have I think got a setup. We have been going up that's the dollar going up low higher low and so far higher low holding. We had some resistance pulled back broke the resistance and have consolidated around the resistance at 147.10 but it's breaking down now and I can see the MACD is as I speak crossing over. The RSI which had got nicely up to quite a good reading of 80 is coming down quite rapidly here so momentum is increasing on the downside and on the stochastic it is going down and the gap is widening here. Yes we got support around the 146.60 level centered on there but it does look as though in the short term this one is going to go lower then we'd have the resistance up here from the last week. This one does look as though it's a dollar turning down yen turning up and that should extend so I think of the three currencies we've got here given that in the background we've got steady in dollar but they've got different shapes and here on the yen we've got different shape completely and it's a rather interesting setup for a pullback in the dollar against the yen and finally I wanted to talk about the the German DAX. We've been in an uptrend here since a bit of last week up a little bit of a pause then a breakout gap opening up pullback rally and then now yesterday a very flat day losing momentum. So here we saw that the the MACD on the hourly chart crossed on the on the 28th nearly crossed as the we had the pullbacks the reactions in the uptrend but didn't cross a good call there by the MACD but now the MACD has crossed and it's turning down and the gap is widening. Also the RSI here we've got a bearish divergence in the RSI we've got lower highs in place here while we've got sideways trading here so complete sucking away of the upside momentum here from the market and the stochastic has given a divergence and a sell signal as well. I thank you very much indeed. I hope you find this useful and beneficial to you. I wish you a great day and from me Trevor Neal of ROG Research may the trend be with you. Goodbye


Good afternoon everybody, you're all very welcome here today to what I think will be a very interesting, it's certainly a timely event on political advertising online and effective data regulation. But before I begin, can I ask you to just sure that your mobiles are switched off and to remind you that this session, the speaker's time is on record, but the questions and answers to Chatham House rules apply. So today we've got a very distinguished group of panellists who will be looking at this, as I said, really topical issue but really one that's very important. It's not only that we've had a lot of discussion about it, but there's also issues with ongoing investigations in the US, in the European Union and in the UK. So our panel today will discuss the proposed regulation in this area, the long-term viability of data-driven business and the model that it uses, the future of data privacy in general, and the threat that that currently arises. I suppose we're all conscious that the referendum is on the 25th of May, but if this is not just about this referendum, it raises issues really in a much more general sense, and that's what our panel will be looking at. So our first speaker today is James Lawless, TD. He's TD for Kildare North and spokesperson on science, technology and development. But before he made that great leap into politics, he had a background in IT, financial services with focus on compliance and regulation, including data protection, corporate governance and conduct of business. And added to all of that, he's a barrister. So James, we look forward to your presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you Joyce, and look forward to hearing everyone's questions and comment from you later on. I think what Joyce meant about the introduction was I used to have a real job before I was in politics, but anyway that's what I do now. I suppose one of the most interesting books I've ever read is Guns, Germs and Steel, a book by Jared Diamond, historical profile that by civilizations fell, others rose, why the Incas were defeated by the Spaniards, you know, why the Setsia Islanders are conquered by James Cook and the British and all the rest of it. One of the findings of that book is that technology played a huge part in all these conquests. If you were a better donor of Sany technology, be it steel, be it guns, be it crops, agriculture, the more likely you were to survive and the more likely you were to be dominated by a more powerful opponent. The same goes for elections today. I think elections, free elections and democracy is under attack. I think it's under attack in Ireland, it's under attack in the Western world, and further afield. So I think it's really important that we defend ourselves and we take steps to understand what's happening and guard against the Setsia Islanders. There are evidences there. We're talking about social media campaigning, online campaigning. I suppose I was asked why legislation was to talk about a few moments to try to safeguard against this in Ireland. Where did all this come from? Some people say what is this happening for real? Is there any evidence? Last week the US Congress saw three and a half thousand fake ads, Russian ads that were unveiled to it by Facebook released, that's one of the two by the Iceberg, Twitter had 50,000 Russian fake accounts during the US elections, during Brexit the Guardian newspaper, which isn't really great work on this, highlighted that of the top ten influencer Twitter accounts in the Brexit debate, one of the top ten, at least one of the top ten was a Russian bot account. So Russians have certainly been very busy and it's not just them, it happens closer to home as well. Some people say what is this all very esoteric, do we really have the Russian intelligence agency working in Ireland or other such threats? Well it doesn't have to be one source, I'm sure people here remember Michael Sean Gallagher ran for the presidential elections 2011 before social media was popular or profitable, arguably the whole election hinged on their fake tweets. So this is not new, this is not esoteric, it's not international, it's happening already in our elections. We have the referendum on at the moment but we all know and we have a huge focus on that and groups like Liz from the Transparency Reference Initiative here today have been doing great work on highlighting the potential of uses and some of the activities in the referendum space with fake news and with different groups and different accounts being manipulated and opinions being manipulated. So we're very aware of that. We've seen a trend in the last maybe week where multinational corporations, Google and Facebook in particular are making their own rules so they're very, very late in the day saying we're going to ban all ads or ban international ads or whatever it is. I think this is a step forward but I think it's probably too far in the case of Google but I think we shouldn't be leaving it to global companies to decide what our electoral laws should be about. I think it's also important that we're very balanced with how we do this that we make sure all sides get a fair hearing or a fair dishearing if the case may be. It was interesting when Trump was elected, one of the first things that he said and I confess I'm not a Trump supporter so I might be a little bit biased but he came out and talked about fake news being a problem. Like this guy just put an election with us a fake news. It's not unique to any one side in any particular context I suppose is the point and I think it's important that as legislators or as potential regulators that we bring people with us across the spectrum. It's not seems being done from one side or another's advantage. That's something that applies everywhere. But it's very serious. It happens, if we look at the patterns that we saw in the American elections some of the types of advertising that we saw, much of it was divisive. A lot of the fake advertising wasn't supporting a particular candidate or a particular campaign. It was actually about voter suppression, about selling dissent, about fatherizing issues, race, immigration, social issues, kind of what we call wedge issues. And they were being driven up by the opposite sides in many cases that were being promoted by the same agents. We went to Seoul Division and tried to manipulate people and I guess what they were doing on we know was because of people who were being micro targeted because they had surrendered their data to the companies, to the platforms which then could be resold to advertisers in the case of Cambridge Analytica and the Kogan app in a dishonest way because it was gathered with their consent but in some cases people actually did give consent and did fill in forms and did fill in surveys which led to their data being manipulated. So the hope streams, thoughts and visions were out there in their houses to micro-target. I mean the discussion about this story you're on is saying it comes up a lot, is that such a bad thing? What's the bad about micro-targeting? And one way we've always had it, everyone had a supermarket loyalty card. It was 20 years ago at first, it was a super clean at the time where Tesco had their cards, we swipe every week and maybe get a discount the following week and a round of our choice. If we fly it on an airline we have a frequent flyer, frequent air miles type arrangement. So again it's not new and it can be beneficial because we should be free and fair to consent. We should know what we're doing, we should know what we're signing up to and we should be brought into that. But there are difficulties with it. The first thing is because you don't have any regulation in that space we have the equality of arms which means that the highest bidder can actually buy a democracy. So the election is available to buy, whoever can put most money on the platform, whoever can mine that data to the widest extent, whoever can roll an average high as much to the widest extent is plotting all the rules around campaign spending, campaign donations, campaign finance and the reason those are there in the first place is because we as a society, as many societies have a principle that you cannot buy an election that the highest bidder of the highest resources should not be able to just spend their way into it. The second issue is transparency. I think people have a right to know who is trying to influence them. If somebody is trying to be they small or big or bidding high or low if somebody is trying to influence you in an electoral outcome if you change the constitution or electing a new government or a new president you have a right to know who that is. And a lot of these kind of false flag ad campaigns where people pretend to be someone else maybe it's money, the name of their opponent they can pretend to be their opponents clothing or they can run something very dark or an issue based campaign that will get people thinking without associating with a particular group which is very insidious. The other thing I think why this is a problem is not so much a regulatory issue it's more a democratic issue we have to be aware of echo chambers. So if we have a situation and people like Havermass and it's a well established factory democracy that public square discourse be it Hyde Park or Speakers Corner or Twitter or wherever else we go or even here today it's positive to have opposing views it's good to have questions that don't agree with you it's good to have conversations because that's how we evolve so we progress if we come into a concentric circle if we go into a market targeting into a particular area then we cast the net too narrowly so we begin to believe we're all on the same side and become more polarized, more extreme and I think that's a negative for democracy. So what do we do about all this? How do we combat this? In an Irish context we have the Advertising Standards Association we're not responsible the BAI come out and control social media CIPPO it's outside their remit the Referring Commission has no role to play the government up until recently have been I suppose not engaged on the issue and pretty much everybody so it's part of the civic society and people like myself and Amy and Ryan and other opposition politicians have been trying to raise these issues and make some noise but that's not good enough I think we need legislation we need regulation and we need to introduce the force of law the other thing we need consistency because when we're talking today about social media I'm talking online we have other channels and we're not the moment by an atom to be a radio now I'm not sure that logic applies anymore the thinking at the time was prohibitively expensive with the advent of local and community radio stations it may no longer be the case I think that the very least it's worth revisiting that is the broadcasting ban still so logical we have roots around traditional advertising of political advertising if you put up posters, if you put up leaflets you must have a name, notice, the publisher, the sponsor on that material again there are 30 offenses on the statute books dating back to 1992 that's a very different world certainly pre-international, pre-blogman, pre-social media but also 30 years ago even outside of technology is not worth a look again now and there are quite a few offenses you can go to jail I think for 5 years if you fail to put the right printer on your poster now nobody actually in the real world does and when I inquired recently there's actually nobody enforcing that so we have 30 offenses on the statute books that are essentially obsolete if you put up a cap on election posters I wouldn't ban them but I've capped them there's no need to pose them to blight every election so there's a couple things we can do it is important that whatever measures we take are ideological neutral I talked about bringing people on board and having people with us so that they don't favour anyone's side it's also important to be technology neutral and we saw with the Google ban which came into place in ads in the referendum which kicked in last week the same ads on similar spaces so any regulation cannot be specific to Facebook or Google or Twitter or any provider technology moves quickly today's Facebook is yesterday's Bebo so it has to be technology agnostic across the board I think it can be done we also need to balance free speech I make sure people do have a say both that we know who they are that we have some measurement and some regulation of who they're doing so a final thing I think that is worth looking at is fact checking I think the journal that I read Facebook has partnered with them recently in terms of fact checking fact checking sites can be very helpful for the advent of fake news and people can challenge a particular claim and have an expert review but I don't think there are panacea because one person's fact check has another person's biased opinion so I think it's really important one thing I mentioned before the current rule is applied 30 days before a vote we all know that 6 months before a vote people are campaigning, 6 weeks before a vote even the current very modest limit we have only kick in months to go I have legislation before the door the opposition party is all when it came before the house it's moved very slowly the government I understand are coming on board I won't be having some time for the referendum but we have many more votes referendum expected over the next 12 months we have local elections, European elections general elections probably over the next 12 months as well it's really important to get it right we've looked across the international scene the Honest Ads Act in the US is a similar piece of legislation speaking to American colleagues recently the Democrats are advancing that the Republicans are blocking it they probably want to advance in the near future Germany has the time to do this they've taken a slightly different approach they've tried to censor free speech there's a free speech issue there they're talking about hate speech and how do you define that more difficult to do so at the American companies they're just looking at this Canadians have tried to do but more has given up so they can't do it so it's possible, I think it would be great if we did Ireland could actually be the flag bearer here we have my legislation with amendments and the press party doesn't have to be all about my proposals but if that legislation gets through the house which it may very well do later this year maybe the flag bearer and actually have the opportunity to get it right and just to finish on a I suppose a what if and again it's a positive story for Ireland could have been a positive story we all know about Cambridge Analytica and Alexander Cogan and the app that was exploited and I think the normal kids enrolling is that 70 million people now use this data that was mined and put into US student various electors afterwards the Irish data collection commissioner in 2012 identified a problem with third party consent on Facebook, they identified an issue with the app and they would have collected data the Irish DPC flagged that to Facebook didn't that, I think they had it two years later if the Irish DPC had been listening to 2012 Alexander Cogan couldn't have ran his app out of Cambridge University in 2013 Cambridge Analytica couldn't have mined in 2014 Brexit may not have happened in 2016 and maybe Donald Trump would still be doing hotels so look at this listen to Irish people I suppose is the message and maybe we could be a trailblazer this space that's very much much James now we'll move on to our next speaker Fred Loog and Fred is the principal with F.P. Loog and the solicitors in Dublin who specialize in technology, intellectual property, data protection and information law Fred himself specializes as you'd expect in technology, intellectual property, information law and commercial law but he's the leading information lawyer advising on freedom of information requests access to environmental information data protection and privacy so Fred we look forward to your presentation, thank you thanks very much and thanks to the institute for the invitation to speak so suppose in the late 1950s the birds stopped singing and people began to wonder why so in 1962 an environmental scientist called Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring that documented the adverse effects on the environment of large scale use of pesticides which had been developed following the Second World War with the growth of the chemicals industry she also documented the disinformation campaigns that these industries used to spread and the fact that public officials basically accepted industry claims without question and the pattern revealed by Rachel Carson in the 1960s is a pattern that we all know has played out time and time again where big industries would do something harmful so we just have to think about tobacco semiconductor manufacturing that would contaminate the natural environment and they would spend more effort and time covering it up and lobbying to prevent the harm being addressed than they would have actually had to spend to do a right in the first place and the great thing obviously it's not great to pollute the environment I don't think anyone can disagree with that but the great thing about Carson's work in the 60s and the early 70s was that the US government and particularly a republican administration took note of what had happened and brought in a new era of environmental regulation and it was Richard Nixon for all his his sins who set up the Environmental Protection Agency in the US and that took away from the US Department of Agriculture the dual role of both regulator and promoter of the chemicals industry and agriculture and put into an independent body and the other thing that resulted was that tools regulatory tools were developed most notably something called the environmental impact assessment where instead of building your factory and then seeing who died and fighting the rest of the people until they died in court that you would assess the environmental impacts of certain activities and developments that were likely to have an effect on the environment in advance so this radical idea that you actually make sure that you don't harm people before you do something risky had to be invented and had to be forced through by the Americans and now this concept spread around the world we have it in the EU law we have it in the the Arhus Convention and things like that and that's the norm and people accept that and buy into that so now we bring ourselves to the 21st century and the mental environment is under threat so the revelations about Cambridge Analytica that wealthy individuals are using shady companies to gather detailed personal information about huge proportions of an electorate and spending that money on very well crafted ads that are designed to influence people at an emotional or at a psychological level both in the US and in the UK as James has talked about in terms of the Brexit debate so in my view this Cambridge Analytica revelation which actually came out I think on the day that the data protection bill was published which was great timing actually is the silent spring of the digital age the birds have stopped singing in our heads the music has stopped playing in terms of social media and we're looking at the carcasses of birds on the ground for want of a better word I think it's clear to me and we're talking about overlaunch but it is clear to me that this type of unregulated use of personal data by powerful organisations can be and has a direct adverse effect on the political sphere but you don't have to look hard to see other examples even today there was a further revelation about the public services card which the state knows or ought to know is an illegal biometric ID card the police seem to be rolling out a national surveillance system on the roles network using automatic number plate recognition and this is despite three or four very very definitive and unambiguous decisions of the European courts that mass surveillance is illegal and that mass processing or unjustified mass processing of personal data is fundamentally incompatible with European values and European fundamental rights but not only that in my own practice we're seeing children being targeted being profiled for junk food advertising gambling alcohol I don't think there's a great leap for anyone to accept that these things are or could be happening companies that were set up with the noble purpose of connecting everyone or organising the world's information have now mutated into vast surveillance tools which are at the disposal of anyone who has enough money to access them and the vainglorious attempts of voluntary self-regulation aren't fooling anyone to be honest so the mental birds have definitely stopped singing and the question is where do we go from here so I think we have a choice we can continue with self-regulation and hope for the best but risks subverting our democracy risk turning our children into gambling addicts and making them obese or we can say that society is better than this and as James has mentioned that we need to have some form of regulation I think the model is there from environmental law which I also practice in and some of the tools are already to be seen in the GDPR so we already have now a concept of a data protection impact assessment we already have a concept of prior checking with the regulator in my view I think what we're going to see is that there will be a type of planning permission for certain types of personal data processing so not only will our regulator be an enforcer, they will also be a permitting authority so that before you do a Cambridge Analytica type of scenario you have to go to an independent state regulator you have to make information available to the public you have to give them the opportunity to comment on it and there has to be a published decision to make sure that whatever plan whatever proposal is carried out within the terms of the of the of the permission so that's my proposition I think the stakes are too high for it not to be regulated and I think my prediction is that there will be it will follow the same path as environmental regulation in the future Thanks very much Fred now with our last speaker Professor Barry O'Sullivan who's an award winning academic in the field of AI, data analytics data ethics constraints programming and operations research a wide, wide area but Barry I think has a very well not just a very good reputation, not only for that area but in research he managed to get together over 200 million euros I know with colleagues but also was named Science Foundation Research of the Year in 2016 his day job if I could say is the director of insight centre for data analytics in the department of computer science at UCC where he holds the chair of constraint programming he's also an adjunct professor in Monash University in Melbourne Australia and currently the deputy president of the European Artificial Intelligence Association which covers about 30 countries and about four and a half thousand people Barry your presentation too I really wish I could prepare some notes now I suppose we're living through an absolutely transformational time the iPhone basically didn't exist in 2007 well it just came on the market in 2007 we had no idea what this technology was going to have what kind of impact it was going to have on us as citizens we never imagined a time where people would be sharing photographs looking for people to like them if someone walked down a convent street holding a photograph of their dog and kept on putting it into your face and said do you like it? you probably arrested so our behavior online is totally different to what it is offline I suppose the other thing that's important to realize is that the corporations that are in operation in that sphere are bigger than any country so there are I think about two billion monthly users of Facebook there are only 1.2 billion people in China there are about a billion people in India the only thing bigger on the planet in terms of membership is Christianity in fact I'm not quite sure if any particular Christian church is bigger than Facebook it's a huge thing and I suppose over the last 8 to 10 years we've given away massive amounts of information about ourselves and of course we've done that very willingly because we enjoy seeing those cat videos we enjoy the fact that we can see what our neighbor is doing we like to project a very beautiful image of how our lives actually are and because my life needs to look as good as your life then I don't tell you all the bad stuff now I suppose factored into all of this is the fact that technology has moved to the point where we can do incredible things with technology so in the last 10 years maybe more than that we have built a self driving car so some people say these things are not safe they're actually statistically safer than human beings driving cars but we still don't like the idea of a car killing a person just to put it into context human beings driving cars kill about 1.2 million people every year all war, violence and drugs kills about 1.6 million people every year so we almost kill as many people driving our cars as every form of violence and sort of egregious behavior we can imagine yet we still don't like that technology we have a funny relationship with technology there's a great book written by Kathy O'Neill called Weapons of Math Destruction and it's a book about how big data and there's a lot of things we can talk about that large amounts of data images and so on can be used for all sorts of negative impacts on us now I suppose we know what we can do technically I suppose the question is is it really true that information online is actually affecting how we vote and how we behave in elections and I suppose the scientists are out on that so we don't know for sure so we don't know in scientific certainty whether that is happening or not but I think as James said in his address the evidence would suggest that that really is happening and I suppose the question is what would it take for us to actually accept that this is a possibility and that we should actually do something and I think seeking transparency is one very proper step so I think that's something that we really should do so I think I'm not a member of UNIFOR but I think it's a very fine piece of legislation I think it's the first step on a great path I suppose in terms of in terms of what is this data revolution I think Facebook and Instagram all the social media companies they provide a service to us they connect us in some way they give us free services but of course the currency in which we pay is our data and so the purpose of these platforms is essentially to get as much information out of us as possible so that they can basically advertise to us so that is the business model there's no great secret in that and I suppose what's interesting about the Cambridge Analytica story is that it's a very recent time and it's only very recent times that people have sort of sat up and taken notice because of this data set that they got true what we regard as improper means but in fact what Cambridge Analytica does every single day of the week is simply and I'm not a sympathiser or supporter of Cambridge Analytica but what it's doing is just simply that they have been designed to there are two billion monthly users anyone of those can by advertising for whatever purpose and they can transmit that message to those two billion people if they so wish to pay for it that's what the platforms do and I suppose one thing we should bear in mind about these social media platforms is that the currency is data the people who are trying to personalise to you are not necessarily trying to upset the election they're not necessarily trying to turn the referendum some of them are but lots of them just want you to engage in the platform to reveal more about yourself and so I suppose we need to sit back and sort of think about what are the motivations of these sorts of people and how do we police it and it is very very difficult when the internet was imagined as this sort of utopia where every single user was exactly the same as every other user and so no allowances were made for people who were young so the children for example as Fred mentioned no special allowances were made for children children are on the internet in exactly the same way as we are there was no concept really of age appropriate content so you know some of you may have seen not mentioning any particular groups or positions but you know if you're using YouTube say two or three weeks ago you've been seeing lots of advertisements that were very strong content and you know the conversations were taking place amongst children 13 year old sees the thing and talks to the age about what's that about and all of a sudden having a conversation about something that you really wish to have a conversation about at all so the technology hasn't actually cut up in some sense but yes this incredibly powerful tool is our fingertips and the questions are well how can we possibly begin to regulate it and is it appropriate to regulate it and I suppose what I would argue is that we need to take a very prudent approach in terms of how we deal with these sorts of things and I think transparency is exactly that it is a prudent approach so it sort of sets out a set of rules and guidelines what we have to actually figure out as well how do we now enforce it and I suppose here there's something that's very very interesting we just talked over lunch about a project that the reference transparency people are doing that's very manual a lot of the policing that's done on the internet by many of the social media companies is actually manual they have thousands and thousands of people who just look at stuff and say well actually that looks bad we're not going to allow that one we're going to allow that these technology companies still haven't caught enough with some aspects of this technology that's something we really need to bear in mind so I think we're living through an era of massive transformation we have built a tool that is bigger than any nation states that we've ever seen on the planet it is tremendously powerful there are all sorts of objectives and goals and agendas some of them are political some of them are just mischievous some of them are just simply well I want to commercialise your data a bit more so please give me more data and we have to understand that and I think it's a really challenging space it's also a space where it just simply hasn't lived long enough for us to really understand its effects so I suppose in that sense we should be using you know common sense judgement whatever to I suppose to think about well how should we start controlling or regulating in some way that doesn't get in the way but is protective and I suppose ultimately when it comes out of elections you know these are about these affect people's lives in a particular jurisdiction and frankly in my view the only people who should have any influence over an election are the people who are directly affected by the consequences of those and so any legislation that sort of protects that I think is a good thing so thank you very much


Russia found replacement for destroyed Corvette Askold in occupied Kursh. Instead of the bombed Corvette Askold, which was a carrier of caliber missiles in Kursh, Russia is preparing to shell Ukraine from a new ship called Tucha, brought in from Tatarstan according to Defence Express. Defence Express refers to an infographic created based on satellite images by Ossint analyst M.T. Anderson. It illustrates the current status of all four missile Corvettes of the 22800 Karakurt project, which serve as carriers for the caliber crews' missiles. According to the information, the Corvette Askold, practically destroyed during the missile attack on November 4th 2023, was undergoing repairs at the Zaliv shipyard in the temporarily occupied Kursh as of December 3rd. The Russians reportedly covered the sections of the ship's hull that suffered the most significant damage. As a result of the attack, the missile carrier caliber of the Corvette Askold was damaged, which the occupiers planned to launch and introduce into the Russian Black Sea Fleet in December 2023. Defence Express notes that the snapshot taken on December 5th 2023 near Novorossisk is of particular interest. It shows two missile Corvettes of the 22800 Karakurt project, the AMO, which has been completed and undergone testing but has not yet been accepted into the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and presumably the ship Tucha, which was brought to Novorossisk via inland waterways. Unlike the previous three Karakurt's constructed at the Zaliv shipyard in the temporarily occupied Kursh, the Corvette Tucha was built at a shipyard in Zelenodolsk, Tatarstan.


Hello, hello everyone! My name is Laura, this is my channel Laura's Little Library, and welcome to today's video, the last video of 2021, and it is my final wrap-up. It is going to be a kind of a two-parter, because I'm going to include my December wrap-up in this video, as well as like kind of a yearly statistics, as well as a yearly wrap-up of everything. Interesting about this year that I read. That didn't make any sense. So I'm going to first start off with the December wrap-up to kind of get that done and over with, and then we can focus on the full year. I am filming this on January 30th? Yes. January 30th, so technically I have the rest of today and tomorrow to like finish a book and do something, but I don't think that's going to happen. I am going into the new year with some books that I have started and not finished, even though I wanted to finish them. So I might try and finish some of those, but I don't think they will happen as I still have to work tomorrow and I have some plans tonight, so most likely not going to happen. But as of this month, December 30th, I read 13 books, which is pretty good for me. That's actually like very good. I did a lot of reading during quarantine when I had COVID. So if you want to check out, I did do a two-week reading vlog of when I had COVID, what I was reading and what I was doing. I'll link that up above or down below if you're interested in checking that out. Otherwise it was also the reindeer read-a-thon this month and I was so close to finishing everything. Really what got me was the problem where I had to read a book with 500 or more pages. I just never started that book. I finished everything else, but I didn't start that book because I didn't think I would finish it and I would rather read other books. I know, that's not how read-a-thons go. But the first book that I finished was a historical fiction. It was called The Prisoner's Wife. I believe I give this, I give this like a four-star or like a 3.75 because I had liked it a lot. I liked her characters most of the time. There are a few instances where I didn't like them very much, but it follows this Czech farm girl and this English soldier and he has to work on her farm. They end up falling in love and running away and she has to dress up like a man in order to avoid getting caught and separated. It's a very powerful story. I believe it was based on a true story. I very much enjoyed it. I liked the writing. It's a really good book to read during the winter because it is quite cold. And then I read Unravel the Dusk and this is the second book in the Blood of the Stars duology by Elizabeth Lim. And again, I rated this, I think, 4.5 stars because I very much enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, which is why it's not a full five star, but that's more because of personal preference rather than the author did this thing wrong or could have done it better. I think the second book was just much more focused on political intrigue, which is not a bad thing, but I really liked the creativity and the adventure in the first book better than the second book. So then when I put them next to each other like this, one is going to be rated lower, but I recommend the duology overall and I'm really excited to read Elizabeth Lim's newer book, Six Crimes and Grains. Hopefully I'll get to that next year. Anyway, so these are going to be short reviews because I don't want this to video to be super long when I go through the statistics of the end of the year. And then I read Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Shana McGuire. This is the second book in the Wayward Children series. I loved it five out of five stars. I love the Wayward Children series. I loved our characters, Jack and Jill, the world that they went to at first I was a little hesitant, but then I just ended up falling in love with it and I enjoyed it. And I really want to go back and read the first book again to see how our characters were shaped. But no, I'm going to try and continue on with that series. And make sure you subscribe and hit the bell so that you're notified because in January I do have a video going up about all the different series that I have started and want to finish. So just make sure you subscribe to catch that. Then moving on, I read Hunt of the Grimulcan and this is by Danny Swanson. I rated this book like 2.75 stars, 3 stars, somewhere between the 2 and 3 star range. It was not my favorite book. It's the start of a trilogy and I have heard that the trilogy gets better. And I thought there was a lot of promise and a lot of potential. I just felt like it could have been executed better in many ways. So I will continue on with that series as well, but it was just that first book was a little rough, but I believe the rest of the series a little bit more fine-tuned and polished. Then I read The Other Side of Perfect and this is by Mariko Turk. This follows our main character who is Japanese American and she is a ballerina until she falls and breaks her leg. Then she ends up having to go to normal person school and she gets involved with musical theater and she learns things about the ballet world that are not great. And she kind of learns how the ballet world is not even close to perfect. I think the commentary that this book has is really, really good. I think I rated it like 3 out of 5 stars. I found it to be just kind of an average book. Like the commentary was great. I wish there was more of it in the context of everything that was going on. I wasn't a fan of the love interest and I hated her main character for a very long time. And I just felt like she didn't get redeemed enough for me by the end. But it was like a solidly written book with decent writing. And again, like it was the fact that they're talking about the racism in the ballet world and how that was handled, I think is one of the best that I've seen. Then I also ended up finishing In A Holidays by Christina Lauren. This was my first time reading a Christina Lauren book. I again rated this 3 out of 5 stars. I thought it was average. It was good. Like I'd still recommend it, but it is a Groundhog's Day Christmas story. So our main character lives through her family holiday in the cabin that they always go to every year, makes a mistake, does something that she regrets, and then has a Groundhog's Day situation. I wish that Groundhog's Day had played a little bit more into the story, which seems ridiculous because it's the whole premise. But I feel like she restarted like two or three times right at the beginning of the book and then never again. And I just kind of wish there had been a little bit more like cliffhanger or risk or, you know, because once she kind of lived past a certain point, we were like, okay, there's no way that she's going to restart again. And then she never did. And so that just didn't really keep me excited or on the tip of my toes. And I thought the writing was average. I hated the ending, like not just the ending of the book, but the epilogue. I hated the epilogue with a burning passion. So again, maybe 3.5 stars. It was a good book. I would recommend you read it if you need like a new Christmas rom-com because I did enjoy the characters and kind of the idea behind it. But I felt like it wasn't really anything super new or super impressive. Next up, I finished 10 blind dates and I loved this book. I think on Goodreads, I may have given it a 4 out of 5 star when I'm still to this day debating if I want to raise it to a 5 star because I just enjoyed this book so much. Our main character ends up breaking up with her boyfriend right before the holidays and she's really, really sad about it. So to cheer her up, her large Italian family decides that they will use the 10 days leading up to Christmas and also between Christmas and New Year to do a blind date. So she doesn't know any of these people. She doesn't know what they're doing until she has to get ready for the date. And it is very interesting. I loved it. It was adorable. It was so cute. And I really also liked the side plots going on with the main characters. Sister and just her family in general. All of them were such wonderful personalities and it was just such a fun, cute, like, read to do. And it's perfect because it's great for right now in between Christmas and New Year's and not just leading up to Christmas. Which I think we need more New Year's books here. Personally, I think we do. And then surprisingly, I actually read A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee. This is mentioned in my Christmas reading blog. So again, I'll have that linked up here. I think it actually is probably in this side. So you can go ahead and check out my review there. But I kind of read this on a whim. I read it in a day. Five out of five stars. The aesthetics, the vibes were there. It is dark academia through and through with every character, every place, every scene. It was just pure dark academia. Was it perfect? Probably not. Do I care? Not at all. I still rated it five out of five stars. And I'm considering rereading it either this spooky season or to encourage me to finish writing my own book. I'll get there one day. Then I read Royal Holiday. And this one I rated three out of five stars. I thought it was an average book. It is a Christmas romance, but it takes place with adults. So our main character, her daughter is going to England for work and she decides to tag along and actually have a vacation for once in her life. And she meets the head of the Queen's security and they fall in love. How cute. I appreciate that they were adults and that they acted like adults. They communicated and if there was an issue that came up, they worked through it like adults. And I was so relieved when that happened. But I felt like our characters weren't super in depth. I thought that past work and being in love, there wasn't much to either of the characters. She rated us a little bit of family, but even still with our female main character, I wish we had got more of a familial relationship between her and her daughter. So again, three out of five stars, average, good writing. I look forward to reading more from Jasmine Guillory. Next up, I read one by one and this was in my Thrill to the Weekend slash follow a lot on vlog, which I think is also my Christmas vlog. I read books, people. It's pretty great. And one by one, I rated, I don't know if I rated it four or five out of five stars. I rated it 4.5 stars out of five. Because see, I thought it was going to be a five star read all the way until like two thirds into the book. And then the ending just kind of went downhill.  But I think they revealed the killer too early. Okay, I should back up. So one by one is following. It's a dual perspective and it follows this company who goes to a chalet in the mountains of France on a company retreat. One perspective is from an employee who really doesn't fit in with anyone else. And the other perspective is by one of the maid slash server slash one of the two people working this event in the chalet. And so there's a big avalanche that happens and then they all get trapped there. They have no way of communicating. They can't really leave the building. It's dangerous outside. It's cold because it's snowy and one by one they start getting murdered. So it was a thriller. Like I said, I loved it. The suspense and the writing just and captured me and I was so happy with it. I just couldn't put it down. I was intrigued the entire time. But I think they revealed the killer a little too early and I didn't like how they did it. And I didn't really like what it all came to. Plus I thought they drew the ending out a little too long. This is by Ruth Weyer, by the way. And so like it's still an amazing book and I would still highly recommend it. Especially if you're not super into thrillers but you need like a wintry read. I would go with this one. I have two more books. I finished two more books. Okay, I read The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. This is the second book in the Hawthorne Legacy or The Inheritance Games trilogy. The third book, The Final Gambit, comes out next year. I buddy read this with Polina's Pages and I will link her down below because her channel is awesome and you should definitely check her out. But we bet he read this together and I finished this. She finished it faster than I did. She read it in like two days. I think I read it in three. It was good. Probably not as good as the first one. I had some issues with the relationship between the main characters just with like the information they were learning and then learning more about. I think that their relationship would have changed a little bit more and I was expecting a little more from it. And the puzzles were a little more straightforward. Not that they were predictable but they were just a little more straightforward which was easier for me to understand which I appreciate but also at the same time, after reading the first book, it's a little easier than the first book and that's a little bit of a let down. I still very much enjoyed it. I think I still gave it like four stars, maybe? But I look forward to reading The Final Gambit when it comes out next year. And the last book that I read was The Twelve Dates of Christmas. Yeah, so I rated The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayless two out of five stars. It was not a book that I enjoyed a lot. I felt like the beginning was very abrupt. Like we started in a weird place and the wrong things were explained to us. It was like an info dump but not of the information that I needed. And I feel like the middle mellowed out. I wasn't super satisfied with like the beginning of the end. I liked the ending but I didn't like the beginning of the end. It was a weird roller coaster. The Christmasy vibes were there and they were amazing and I loved it. It's such a wintry book but overall I was not impressed with the writing. I was not impressed with the characters. I don't even think it was like that. I think it was a good book. It was not average. It was a little below. It was a two star book for me personally but I bet other people probably loved this book. I still say it might be worth giving a chance if it sounds interesting to you. Our main character signs up for these twelve dates of Christmas program where leading up to Christmas she goes on twelve dates with twelve different men hoping to find her one true love. That's kind of the premise. I mean there's a lot of other things going on with the main character in terms of like work and conflicting emotions but I just wasn't super satisfied with the end romance other than the actual couple getting together. I don't want to spoil anything so that's why. Those were all the books that I read this month in December. It was a very good reading month for me. I'm very happy with it and honestly it was a very good reading year for me. So let's get into my yearly statistics now. Right now let's get into my final wrap up statistics for the year of 2021. So I read 95 books and my goal was 75 books so I very much completed my goal and then some. And my goal for next year, spoiler alert, is going to be 100 books. And I say spoiler alert because I have my 2022 goals reading video which will be going up the first week of January. So again subscribe if you're interested in watching that. Okay sorry if like the lighting and the quality and everything changes. I had to switch from my filming phone to my actual phone because I have filmed this clip four times and it has not worked at all whatsoever. So I read 29,615 pages. My average book length was 311 pages. The shortest book that I read was A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. I read this one for a class and then the longest book I read was We Free the Stars by Hafsa Faizal and that was 592 pages. And I listened to the audiobook for it. My most popular book was The Handmaid's Tale which makes sense. My least popular book was Hound of God which I ended up DNFing. It was one of my two DNFs this year which is pretty good. I'm trying to be more allowing of myself to DNF so I can read more books that I enjoy. But I just didn't have too many this year that I wanted to DNF. And actually my average rating of this year was four stars. Goodread says it's 3.9. Storygraph says it's 4.1. So it really was a four-star reading year and I completely agree. I read so many good books. I gave out so many five-star books which was amazing and totally unexpected. But I also because I read so many more books than I'm used to reading this year there were just a lot of other average books and a lot of four-star books to even it out to a four-star reading year. My four most read genres were Young Adult which makes sense. Fantasy which also makes sense. Romance and contemporary. Contemporary makes sense. I didn't used to read a lot of it but I did read a lot this year. But I feel like all the romance that I read was contemporary romance. And so for it to like be higher, like to be my third popular genre, I am so confused. I was not expecting it. I thought that was so weird. But you know, we'll see. I will probably read more romance next year anyway. I think I really know a lot more of the statistics off the top of my head because I no longer have my notes. But yeah, I had a lot more. I just had a lot of really good reads this year and I'm really happy and I'm really excited about it. Thank you all so much for watching this video. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up. Otherwise comment down below how your reading year was, what you think the average star writing of your entire year was. I hope you had a lot of five-star reads. But otherwise all of my bookish social media is linked down below so you can follow me or we can become friends. We can give each other recommendations. I'm always up for a body read. I post twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays so make sure you're subscribed with the bell notification on. So you do get notified on those days when I post and throughout all of December I did post four videos a week. So if you haven't seen any of those, you might want to check them out. I think they're kind of fun. And I'm really excited for the videos I have planned in January as well. But until I see you all in those videos, I wish you happy new year, happy 2022 and happy reading.