Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Steve Morrison from CSIS. I had the Global Health Policy Center. We're delighted to hold this forum today. We're particularly delighted to be able to pull in at the outset of this forum. Jacob Elhilo, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Damascus. I'll say a few words about Jacob in my introduction of him in a moment. I want to, first of all, give a special thanks to the speakers and the moderators on the panel that will be here over the course of the morning. I also want to offer a special thanks to my colleagues. Ian Goddisman, in particular, has worked really indefatigably to pull together with his partners in Damascus, this forum. Today, it may be subject to some technical difficulties. We don't do that. This is new terrain for us. But I'm confident we're going to have a good discussion and be able to hear live from Jacob in Damascus. I want to also offer a special thanks to Lindsey Hamergren, who from our side has pulled all of this together. This is the last week of substantive work by Lindsey before she moves towards graduate school at GW and a master's of public health starting this fall. Many other people have contributed to this. Brie Bacchus, Ryan Sickles, Katie Peck, Sahiel Angelo, Beverly Kirk, who's worked on a video. We'll be releasing a video shortly that tracks with this subject. A few quick remarks. We're now more than three years into a profoundly cruel internal war in Syria that has generated a human crisis. Unlike anything really that we've seen in a very long time in scale, the colossal scale, the reach of this inside Syria and into the surrounding region, and the continued growth and expansion of that human crisis. We're here to talk about that. We're here to talk about it from multiple angles. An estimated 160,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011. That is a pretty astronomical mortality rate for an internal war. And right now, it's hard to see that there's a political settlement or military victory in sight. But that does not argue against a continuing to struggle at multiple levels with what can be done to begin to arrest and reverse this. We hear a lot about the Assad regime's sustained violence against civilians, the way in which regime violence has been used as a tool of war against civilian populations. We hear a lot about attacks by armed militant groups. And the fact that over 9 million people, 9 million Syrians, have been driven from their homes, that's nearly half the population. 3 million of that population have crossed into Lebanon. 100,000 new refugees per month continuing to spill into the region. They crossed into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, severely overburdening the host countries in threatening region-wide instability. Syrians that are displaced within their country struggle to find security, medical care, and housing. As we'll hear today, there have been profound obstacles in getting humanitarian access to that population of an estimated 3 million folks that people like Yakub struggle to reach. The Assad regime and increasingly also armed factions routinely block safe delivery of humanitarian relief and defiance of international norms. The Security Council passed UN Resolution, Security Council Resolution 239 in February 22. And it's now four months, almost full four months since that point of passage. And we'll be talking today about whether that has opened windows of any kind at an operational level in terms of negotiated local truces, the sort of work that occupies the UN operation in Damascus on a daily basis. In the meantime, at the macro level, people continue to direct our attention to the fact that Syria is becoming more chaotic. And an expanding haven for violent Islamic extremists. And that growth of power by radical Islamic extremists is now extending quite aggressively into neighboring state of Iraq. We'll spend a lot of time today talking about the wanton and deliberate targeting by the Assad regime of health workers and infrastructure. Talk a lot about the medical professionals who have been jailed or detained or died and the collapse of care and what that has meant in terms of downstream public health consequences, both treatment of cancer, diabetes hypertension, risk of childbirth, a generation of children who find themselves without schooling, vulnerable, traumatized, ill. And in terms of downstream impacts, the fact that Syria has become an exporter of polio in this recent period. And that in early May, WHO Secretary General Margaret Chan designated it, designated a global health emergency, and designated particularly Syria, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Cameroon as particularly important players. The US has joined with other partners internationally in being very supportive and very generous in the humanitarian response. Over $2 billion committed in a fairly short period of time. That is a staggering commitment. It's one that we should be very proud of. It's one that raises questions of sustainability. Countless Syrian and international personnel on a daily basis risk their lives to deliver assistance inside Syria and in the surrounding region to navigate a security environment that is ever changing. This has provoked this crisis, this human crisis has provoked a debate. It's provoked a crisis of conscience over the international community's difficulty and failure so far to stem the massive suffering and transcend the multiple obstacles that the Assad regime and others impose. We do know that these costs and the repair of them are going to take our profound long lasting, their worsening, and they will take years to overcome. And there are no easy answers to this. We know that there's active debate around whether to how to pursue local truces and negotiated access, whether there should be defiance of national boundaries to expedite national relief cross border, whether there should be a return to the Security Council for continued and greater and more aggressive action. Increasingly there are calls, and we'll hear more about this later in the day, for arming moderate opposition. And we will hear more about the fact that in the ultimate resolution of this war, there will be a need for some form of an effective coalition of the willing and a shift out of the current deadlock and a return to diplomacy and negotiated settlement. We'll look at these issues, as I said, from several angles. And we're going to begin this morning with Jacob Elhilo, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Damascus on live video. We've asked him to do a few things, to provide an overview of humanitarian relief and the operational environment that he's worked on. He's been there since August of 2013. He comes from a remarkable 23-year career in UNHCR and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, working in the toughest places. He was the director more recently, before coming in August in 2013 for three years. He was the director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, the second office at UNHCR in Geneva, a very tough post. Before that was served for several years in Iraq, 03-06, a critical period, served in Tanzania and the Gulf Cooperation Council based in Saudi. He has a bachelor's of law from University of Khartoum. He's a friend and someone we've known for a very long time. And he's agreed to talk about the overview. He's talked about what it's meant after UN Security Council Resolution 2139, the efforts at TRUSES and negotiated access, how the shifting security environment. He'll talk about those operational challenges. He'll talk about the difficulty of navigating delivering support to four million people who are within reach from the government side, serving that population while trying as well to serve populations that are in opposition-controlled territory. In a period in which NGO capacity and retaliation is a high risk. He'll talk about the sustainability, the sense of how do you carry forward and sustain international interest in this period. We'll be followed immediately afterwards, Nancy Lindborg and Rabi Torme from USAID and the International Medical Corps will continue the conversation around humanitarian operations. That'll be followed by a panel looking at the destruction of the health sector and the public health consequences. Len Rubinstein will moderate that with Andre Gittleman from Physicians for Human Rights, Ron Waldman from GW, and Muriel Brennan from CDC. And then we'll close over lunch with a broader discussion around the policy options. Mike Gerson from Washington Post, one campaign, Kathleen Hicks, head of our international security program and a former senior policy official in the Obama administration of the Department of Defense in Zahir Salul, founder and leader of the Syrian American Medical Society. So with that, I'd like to, first of all, thank you all for coming and I'd like to turn the floor to Yaqub and ask him if he could open up the discussion with 15 or 20 minutes. Take more time if you care to and we will, as we talked about earlier, when we get to the point in the program where you've had a chance to cover this terrain, we'll open to the audience for some question and comments to come back to you. Yaqub, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate this. We know you have a rigorous schedule. So thank you. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, Steve, and a very good morning to you all in Washington from here, all of us here in Damascus and in Syria. Steve, thank you very much for giving us also this opportunity to be with you this morning and to try, even if in a modest way, bring to the discussion some of the key issues that we or key dynamics that we continue to battle with on the ground, trying and trying and trying to reach as many civilians as possible in Syria with humanitarian aid, but also trying to navigate what is a complex web of development and daily occurrences as this conflict, as this vicious conflict continues to rage. Steve, you spoke about the bigger picture and how Syria today represents probably the most difficult challenge that the world is facing. It certainly is one that is unprecedented in recent times in this part of the world, given its scale, the speed with which the catastrophe is unfolding, but also the profound impact it has had so far and will continue to have on the lives of people in Syria, certainly, but also in the region. I will try to quickly try to describe the context in which we operate, but also the situation as it stands now in Syria. Until three years ago, this country was a middle-income country. Until three years ago, this was the third largest refugee-hosting country in the world, coming only after Pakistan and Iran, both of which, as you know, caused large numbers of Afghan refugees. Syria was the third, because in addition to the 540,000 Palestine refugee population that lived here for decades, Syria also hosted large numbers of Iraqi refugees, but also many others from many other countries in the region and beyond. So this was only three years ago. Today, half of the Syrian people are displaced, as you rightly said. Today, and this is according to a recent study, put out by the Center for Strategic Research in Damascus, supported by UNDP and UNRWA, three-quarters of the Syrian population lived in poverty, and in fact, 20% of that live in acute poverty. Unemployment is over 50%. 2.5 million jobs have been lost over the last three years, and the story with the Syrian refugees is well known, and now their number is reaching 3 million, a projection that sadly is coming to pass, as was put out by UNHCR late last year. So this is Syria today. This is Syria, which until three years ago was one of the safest countries on Earth, and today, even movements within Damascus and any other urban setting need to be for most people with great difficulty, and certainly for UNHCR and other personnel in armored vehicles, and that is also true to many of our partners operating in Syria today. So this is the environment, and this is the result of three years of vicious conflict that a solution to it remains very, very elusive. Late last year, we projected that the number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in Syria this year, in 2014, would be 9.3 million people. See, we are now actually at the moment of reviewing, this is the mid-year point, we are reviewing our chart that is the humanitarian assistance strategy, and it is already clear that the number of people needing and requiring humanitarian assistance has gone up and will go up by the time we reach the end of this year. This is also the moment when we are looking at what is it that we have been able to achieve, despite all the difficulties and the constraints. And I will talk to you about whether 2139 has helped or not, and I will talk about what other channels and possibilities we continue to pursue in order to reach as many civilians as possible and deliver aid to them. The security situation, because of this conflict, I can best describe it, it's a very clumsy conflict also. There are many sides to it. It is very difficult to map out who is who, and that is obviously easier when you are referring to the government side. But even there, there are many operatives within the government side involved in this conflict. But the task becomes even more difficult, if not impossible, if you want to map out the operatives on the opposition side, because their number is large and their ideas are different and their places of presence are also multiple. And they are spread in many different parts of the country. So it is in an environment like this that the humanitarian workers in Syria strive to reach and deliver. It is in an environment like this, where ironically, even if it's a country at war, and it is a country where the government has lost quite significantly, in many of its parts, it is also a country where the government continues to operate as if, you know, not much has happened over the last three years, where systems and procedures and bureaucracy and hurdles are a fact of life. Even if they have delayed significantly our ability to reach and deliver, they have also not, and thankfully, not completely barred us from doing so, where the need for simplification is obviously quite evident. So it's almost a schizophrenic situation where it's a country at war, and we have seen many in that situation where the central government does lose a lot of its grip and power, but as far as Syria is concerned, I'm afraid that is not necessarily the case, and that is partly some of the challenge that we face in dealing with an ever-growing humanitarian situation, but an ever-growing complex web of procedures and systems. By the same token, trying to reach people and deliberate is equally challenged by the multiplicity of actors, as I said, on the part of the opposition, but also in some instances, the lack of understanding even of what is it that we're trying to do when we try to reach places to administer all you vaccines or try to reach places to fix water pipes, as we see today in Aleppo, where sadly again, water is becoming a weapon of war with a direct impact on the lives of no less than three million people. So it is a security environment which is highly unstructured. It is a conflict that is highly clumsy, adding to the challenge. This has impacted directly people in every sense. This is a conflict that is now in its fourth year, and Syrians are resilient people. They are extremely resilient people. They are patient and they can withstand pressure, but this is having a toll on them. This is eroding on their ability to cope. This is really the reason why three quarters of the population is now living in poverty. And this is the reason why many are driven away from their homes because of insecurity, but also others who are moving seeking services elsewhere in the country or out of the country all together, as we have seen with the many refugees who have chosen to cross borders. The UN and our partners continue to be present. Not only in Damascus, we are in Homs. We are now also in Aleppo. We are in the northeast in Qamishli. This is the far northeastern corner of the country, very much near to the theater of happenings as we see now on the Iraqi side in Ninoa Governorate just across the border where over the last 24, 36 hours we have also been observing the dynamics there with the ISIS taking control of a number of locations, but also perhaps most notably the city of Mosul. This will definitely have an impact on the situation in Syria in security terms, no doubt. And that is very much clear will be the case in Derizdur Governorate where ISIS already has a significant presence in Raqqa Governorate, which is totally under the control of ISIS and in Hasaqa Governorate where despite the presence of government forces, but also Kurdish militias, I am confident and sure and concerned that the developments across the border on the Iraqi side will certainly have an impact on the Syrian side. In humanitarian terms, we already understand that some Iraqis have crossed the border and sought safety on the Syrian side in Hasaqa Governorate. This is just an example of how ever changing the situation on the ground is and how dynamic it remains to be, but also how complex it continues to grow with multiple humanitarian challenges. We've just come out of the poll you scare and in many ways it can be described as a successful story of being able to reach 3 million underfives and administer the vaccination, but now we have measles scare and with the water shortages and the summer setting in, we are also gearing up for other complications, cholera included, which are yearly occurrences in terms of water shortages, triggering related diseases and pandemic outbreak, but this year we have the additional compounded problem of using water as a weapon of war. As I mentioned earlier, and this is the case in Aleppo where water has been obstructed and the network has been sabotaged and damaged, in this case by opposition groups, feeding the city of Aleppo. So the UN and our partners continue to work in this environment. At great risk, we have come here all accepting that this is a mission that is not without risks and the risks are real and the risks are high. So far the humanitarian community since the beginning of this conflict has lost 51 of our own. The great majority of that number of heroes who have fallen in the line of duty come from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, our major partner in Syria. The volunteers have paid the ultimate price in their quest to deliver on their mission, but also UN personnel have lost their lives. And one, at least in the case of one NGO in 2012, also a humanitarian worker paying the ultimate price. So this is a mission that is not without risks and all have accepted that. But my concern is that the risks continue to grow as does the enormity of the humanitarian challenge itself. Now, of course there are, and it depends who you're talking to, there are glimpses of hope as to whether attempts at local reconciliation will help us do better. Every time we cross a line, I consider it to be a truce, even if it's for a day or two or three days. Every time we cross a line from a government controlled area into an opposition controlled area, it has to be backed by a ceasefire. And more often than not this works, but at times it gets seriously ruptured if not totally and brutally violated. As you may recall in February, this year when we went into the old city of homes for the first time in a year where UN and SARC humanitarian staff with a lot of civilians on the ground came under shelling while the humanitarian mission was inside the old city. This is just an example of, even with the best of intentions and all the guarantees and assurances from all sides, these things happen. And that is where wrong place, wrong time in Syria today kills. There is no other way to describe it. And this is again the environment in which the humanitarian workers continue to operate. But local truces in my view, and I think they need to be studied much more in depth because if they have an impact, I would say that impact is on the reintroduction of a normality of life for the civilian people. Irrespective of the political considerations, irrespective of whether these are considered to be surrenders or withdrawals or giving up or giving in, irrespective of that, when they happen, they also lead to creating an environment in which civilians either can live without the fear of having a mortar landing on their roof and that possibility persists, or those who have left also have the ability to come back and stay in their area of origin. They are not consistent. They are actually quite clumsy. These attempts at local reconciliation, many of which have certain common features, but a lot of them have their own specificities. And in fact, the UN has not been involved in any of them, and there are many, except perhaps in the case of Homs, where in different ways the UN was involved. First, through a total and a full humanitarian operation in February, leading to the evacuation of civilians and delivery of aid into the old city. And second, in May, where the evacuation of the last remaining fighters and the surrender or the release of 70 prisoners also took place. The second experiment involved the UN, but not the humanitarian UN. It involved the resident coordinator, the office of the joint special representative in Syria, supported by the UN department for safety and security. And that was deliberate. It was done to firewall, if you wish, humanitarian workers from being involved in what was essentially a military operation, or at least a military negotiation, leading to the return of the old city of Homs to the government, but also the safe passage of no less than 2,296 fighters out of that location into another area controlled by the opposition. Many of these efforts, Steve, take place in cross-line settings. Planning and preparing for these interagency missions is a nightmare because it entails talking to everybody, as I mentioned earlier, but even with that glitches do occur. We, of course, look still quite anticipating you to see if, in the coming period, in the coming immediate period, there will be a breakthrough concerning another provisional security council resolution 2,139, and that is using cross-border deliveries to reach more communities, especially those living in areas that yes, and to international borders, specifically in the north, and that is the Turkish-Syrian border, and in the north, and in the east, that is the Iraqi border, as well as in the south, and that is the Jordanian-Syrian border. With the developments in Iraq over the last few hours, the crossing point at Al-Yarubiya is now controlled reportedly by ISIS, so that's an immediate showstopper, even if there was a possibility to use that crossing to bring it from Kurdistan into northeast Syria. This new development obviously means bad news for us, so we still remain hopeful that the northern border and the southern borders will be allowed for us and our partners to be used, including through areas or points not controlled by the government. 2,139 has helped create an opportunity, but I will not go as far as saying that it has changed the dynamics fully. 2,139 has maybe allowed us to bring aid from Turkey into northeast Syria to Qamishli Nusayibin crossing point, which I think was a good example of using humanitarian dialogue to unblock some of the political blockages that seem to be there between the two countries, but that was obviously not enough and not sufficient, but it was a good start. What we are looking for now is more of that, including areas or points controlled by the opposition, but even when that happens, and I hope it does happen soon, because it will augment and complement our efforts to try and reach and deliver in a much more systematic and predictable way, even credible way, I would say, it will add to our credibility if we are able to use all means possible to reach civilians in a timely fashion. Even when that breakthrough is in hand, and I do hope it will be, let's not forget the environment in which we will be doing this. Let's not forget that in northern Syria, there is a conservative estimate would put no less than three to 400 armed groups in the area operating. It is said that 87 nationalities are fighting in Syria today. They come with different ideas of what needs to be done in Syria and with Syria, and they are there, and they are encountered, as we encountered them exactly four weeks ago when we tried to reach villages north of Aleppo, delivering aid. So we came across Chechen fighters, and we came across local commanders, and we came across other obstacles that really so humanitarian aid as either unnecessary, or if it is necessary, it has to be used according to local terms, as seen on Harvard by the local commanders. So negotiating access has taken another dimension in Syria, and we have taken it to a different level, I should say, and here I will say it very openly, that to do so you have to talk to everybody, and I think everybody in the room understands what I'm talking about. We really want to do that, and what is it that I'm talking about? Delivering aid and reaching communities and people in need, but also doing so in a way that preserves the safety and the security and the physical integrity of your own stuff. To do so, we have to talk to everybody. The final point, and I'm sorry, I already spoke maybe too long. This is the situation now. It is a complex situation. It is a dramatically dire situation, because the impact of it on the individual civilian in Syria is truly quite profound, and the damage that has been done to the social fabric in this country, but also the physical destruction that has inflicted the infrastructure, entire cities and neighborhoods, but also service delivery points. And this is very true to hospitals, you know the statistics, this is very true to schools, you also know the statistics, and it is now said that one out of every four schools in Syria is out. Is out of service either because of damage, serious damage or total destruction, or it is being used as a military facility, or being used to shelter internally displaced persons. The same is true to the health facilities, but despite all these challenges, I think it is good not to forget that efforts to continue to try and deliver, and if WFP, the World Food Program, is today able to reach 4 million people. This is a massive operation, by the way, to try and reach 4 million people in an environment like this. It is really impressive, the amount of logistical planning, but also the volume of movement of convoys and trucks. On average, WFP is moving 4,000 trucks every month to reach that many people with food aid. This is just an example. The same applies to health deliveries, although there we have significant constraints placed by the government, especially when such deliveries of health supplies are to go into hot spots, contested areas or areas controlled by the opposition, we really have significant challenges there, if not total obstruction, especially when it comes to trauma kits and surgical equipment. But these are some of the day-to-day battles we continue to fight here, and I hope this can be overcome in the coming period either through a realization by the government here that to deliver such supplies and medicine, even if it is to people in opposition-controlled areas, is not to mean fearing fighters, it is to mean treating civilians who otherwise face the true risks of death if they continue unattended to. That is all to say. It is an environment in which the perpetual nature of this crisis and the elusive political solution to it that remains to be the case, I fear things are going to get worse. I fear that no matter how we perfect our humanitarian deliveries, we will be chasing behind the problem, and I fear even when we do that well and reach as many people as we want to reach with aid, we will be doing important work, urgent work, that will save lives, but it will not solve the problem. The problem in this country has been, is and will continue to be a political problem. That can only be resolved in my view, and this is not just my view, I think this is the view of the United Nations, including at the level of the Secretary General, it can only be a solution that is reached through political dialogue. So final word, Steve, this is a conflict that has gone and lasted for far too long. It should not have happened in the first place. The world should not have allowed it to bring the Syrians to their knees. The civilians have suffered and they continue, and they will sadly continue to suffer, but that has happened and the whole world was watching, but it is one where I hope that the force of logic will be the one that the world will adopt to try and find a way out of this disaster rather than the logic of force. Steve, thank you very much, over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob. Thank you, Todd. I think what you have presented to us this morning, extremely rich and forceful in the candor and the realism that you bring to this task and the sweep, the comprehensive sweep at trying to capture in 20 or 30 minutes, this is what you confront. It's quite remarkable and it's quite powerful. You'd put quite a focus in your remarks upon the shift that's underway towards more consideration around cross-border and cross-line. I mean, the pressure's building to find a way forward in a terrible and risky situation. Maybe you could say a bit more about what will it take, what will it take in terms of consent on the government side towards moving ahead in that way? That's one question. A second question is how do you get assurances that in your negotiations with the multiple armed entities that you require their protection or their consent? And when you think, and third is about capacity. We know that NGOs that operate, UN agencies that operate are, they do not have an infinite capacity. They do not have an infinite capacity to take risk. So how do you begin to, if you have expanded access by cross-line or cross-border and you are working assiduously to get consent from the government and a confidence level with armed groups that you can enter that environment, how do you then persuade your partners that this is a worthwhile risk to accept? Thank you, Steve. Thank you very much. All along the discussion on cross-border has been quite an intense one. Here in Damascus, but also elsewhere. But here in Damascus, the government's position so far has been, we have no problem with any crossing point along any border with any neighboring country that you can use to bring in aid and reach communities needing that aid in Syria. The only condition is that such crossing point needs to be quote-unquote a legal crossing point, legal crossing point. And that means, when we ask, what does that mean? A legal crossing point is one that is under the control of the government and is one the use of which will not compromise the sovereignty of Syria. And when they say that, by the way, Steve, I think, first of all, I don't think there's any country in the region or maybe even in the world that knows the UN and its dealings in New York better than Syria. They've been doing this for six decades. So they know what UN resolution, UN Security Council resolutions are and what they mean, and they use them. And in this case, they're using Security Council resolution 2139, which speaks about preserving the sovereignty of Syria, which speaks about adhering to the principles enshrined in the guiding principles. And even if there is no direct reference to the General Assembly resolution that talks about this, but reference is made in the Security Council resolution that any such efforts or operations will have to be in consultation with and with the consent of the country or the government concerned. So they use that effectively. This has been the case ever since before 2139 came to being, but also after and especially after. I know that for the moment, there are frantic efforts in New York, perhaps facilitated by Russia to try and reach a consensus, producing a new resolution, this time on cross-border operation. The viewpoints are still different, but what is interesting is that, and this is something we have verified here in Damascus over the last couple of days, with very senior government officials as to whether it is true that Syria is ready to consider cross-border efforts and deliveries. And the answer is yes. The answer is yes, but of course there will always be caveats and expectations. But the fact that we have moved this half an inch step towards hopefully realizing a breakthrough on allowing deliveries cross-borders, including through crossing points that are not under the control of the government. This will be a very important breakthrough, and I will not emphasize enough how important that will be, but I will also not be too romanticizing of it because the majority of the people are not living next to the borders. The majority of the people are very far from the borders, and some of them continue to be in enclaves of besiegement, mainly by the government, but also by the opposition that are far from the border. So even if we are able to reach more people through cross-border deliveries in the coming period, if there is a resolution, which would be very good and very important, and then we will talk about how to actually do it in such an unstructured and highly volatile and ever-shifting security environment. That's a real question that we also have to confront, even if we have a resolution. But let's also not forget that the majority of the people are not waiting for cross-border deliveries. The majority of the people are in other parts of the country, sitting nowhere near any international border. Everyone in this conflict has played a very significant role in creating the problem. That is definitely true to the government, but that is also true to the opposition groups, and we talked about that there. But again, it takes risk to actually go there and meet and sit and solicit the support. And before that happens, it takes a considerable amount of contact through Skype and through even cell phones, but mainly through Skype to try and put the fundamentals of what is it that we are trying to do? Why are we coming to see you? What is it that we are bringing for how many people, the routes that we intend to take? And it's never as simple or perfect as I make it sound. It is really a daunting task because of the multiplicity of actors. And some of them are really not small actors among the opposition groups. And therefore, getting the support of them all is unquestionable, because without it, you end up running into problems and we do run into problems. So, touch wood, so far we have been lucky, but incidents have occurred, as I said, in the old city of Homs, but also elsewhere. And we have managed to just use that one simple thing, that this is a UN and humanitarian partner mission that is not coming escorted, that is not coming with weapons, that is not coming with a political agenda or a military agenda. We know you have an estimated number of under-fives and we know that the civilian population in your area is X, Y, or Z. And this is what we would like to actually do, deliver that aid, counting on your facilitation, but also counting on your protection of the supplies, but also the staff who are accompanying them. So that will always continue to be a requirement. And I'm sure in the room, there are many with influence and leverage or contacts to continue impressing and reinforcing this message that in Syria, the United Nations humanitarian agencies and our partners are ready to talk to everyone, coordinate with everyone, cross-line, but also hopefully cross-border in the not-too-distant future. But that will take indeed the cooperation of all on all sides to this conflict. Capacity, it is probably one of the, if not the most complex and in scale, probably one of the largest crisis, humanitarian crisis we have in the world today. Its intensity is there and it speaks for itself the impact of the civilian population, but also the regional implications of this conflict have been talked about many a time. And they are not just ideas or suggestions. In fact, the direct affront to regional peace and security is already happening as we see in countries like Lebanon. And this will be compounded by recent developments in Iraq. But also it is a situation that continues to grow by the day, yet the capacity is so limited. And this is the irony that I referred to earlier, that we are in one of the most complex humanitarian situations on earth, yet whether we like it or not, we continue to deal with many actors in this conflict, but we certainly continue to deal with the government that continues to see things its way. And in many times or many instances continues to suggest or assume that we are still in 2011 or in 2010, i.e. not much has changed. So that is a daunting task to try and battle such daily battles, but also to fight for more staff, for more offices, for more ability to move around the country in order to deliver on our mission. And we have been able to do so, but we need to do a lot more. And for that to happen, we also will continue to require a lot more capacity, both national and international. Over to you Steve. Thank you. We're getting near to the end of the time and I know it's evening there and we've taken quite a bit of your time. What I want to do is invite our audience, we could take three or four quick comments or questions. We'll collect those, come back to you. I apologize, Jacob, that you cannot see the audience, but it is full, I promise you. If there are any comments or questions, there are microphones here. Please put your hand up and identify yourself. If there aren't any, I can come back to Jacob to close on one issue that I would like to raise. But are there any interventions from the audience? Yes, please. And just be very succinct, identify yourself and pose your comment or question. There's a microphone behind you. Question for our colleague, heroic colleague in Damascus is, aren't we legitimizing the role and the importance of the different factions by treating them as leaders? After all, many of them are thugs that are following a false ideology or a personal interest most of the time. So by giving them importance, by seeking, as you say, their protection, aren't we perpetuating this wrong situation? That's my question. Thank you. Do we have any other, do we have any other? Yes, right behind here. I'll come back to you. We'll bundle together three or four maximum and come back to you and ask you to close. Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Gary Sargent. I run a small consulting firm. I spent a couple of years in Beirut, so I understand sort of the region. My question really is how much is the border between Lebanon and Syria effective? Are you getting aid through there or sort of what those transportation issues are? Thank you. Yes, right here. I'm Chris, fellow at the United Nations Information Center. So my question would be on the Palestinian refugees. And I wonder how the living situation for Palestinian refugees in Syria right now. And I know some of them fled to Lebanon previously where the living situation for them is dismal. So I wonder, what is the UN? If the UN has any resolution on that, thanks. Okay, any others? So the issues are around, are you legitimizing, is this legitimizing factions that should not be legitimized? Question around the border with Lebanon, I believe it was. And then a question around Palestinian refugees, status of Palestinian refugees. Right, back to you. Thank you, thank you, Stephen. Thank you to the three speakers. We are not legitimizing anyone. Our aim is to reach innocent civilians wherever they are in any part of Syria and deliver to them urgently needed humanitarian assistance, especially when that has been seriously disrupted because of the destruction that has inflicted basic social infrastructure and delivery of services. So that is the goal. And for us to realize or attend this goal, as I said earlier, we cannot ignore the fact that there are operatives on the ground. Some of them may indeed come from a background that the first speaker has described. But today they are, you know, the law in that spot where they are operating and by engaging them and by talking to them. I don't believe we are legitimizing their authority or their presence, but we are pursuing a mission that can only be realized under the current circumstances through such means. And this is unfortunately the case in any of these conflicts that we see around the world where vicious civil wars and internal strife has produced so many of these so-called leaders in their localities and with whom we had to deal. And that is why it is important that a solution to this problem is found. It is already too late in many ways. It's certainly too late to the tens of thousands of people who have been killed and those who have been maimed and seriously injured. It is too late, but there are still 20 million Syrians who live in Syria and they have not given up yet. So our duty and responsibility also is not to give up and to employ all credible means possible to reach as many civilians as possible and deliver on this mission. The border with Lebanon is actually the only lifeline we have out of Damascus is through a crossing point at a location called al-Masnah that leads from Damascus to Beirut. So that is if today we have to reduce staff or evacuate staff or even when we do our regular travels in and out of this part of the country, it is only through the Lebanese border. And it is also through that border that the bulk of what we import, especially medical supplies and non-food items, the bulk of that comes through the Lebanese border at al-Masnah. Of course, we use other entry points and that is the ports in Latakia and Tartus. We hope to be using the borders north and south, but for the time being we do use one point along the Turkish-Syrian border that is Kamishli and one along the Jordanian-Syrian border and that is Nasib. But we hope to have more of these crossings that will increase our ability to reach people faster and much more predictably. The pre-conflict Palestine refugee population in this country was 540,000. Half of that population is now displaced. They no longer live in the places, the homes or the locations where they lived in March 2011. Half of the Palestinian population is displaced. And in fact, 70,000 of those have become refugees, perhaps for the second, if not the third time, because they left Syria again and the majority of them are in Lebanon today. You may have noticed, my colleague from the UN Information Center that when I speak about the people, I speak about civilians and I don't speak about Syrians because Syria has a lot of Syrians, no less than 19, 20 million, but there are also others and I make specific reference to the Palestinians. So in order not to exclude anyone needing humanitarian assistance, I use civilians. And that is why the Palestine refugee population in Syria continues to receive particular attention because of the double damage. If I can put it this way, that has inflicted them. Yarmouk camp is a global story today and the besiegement there that has lasted for far too long. Although in recent times, thanks to the efforts of our colleagues at UNRWA, some of that besiegement has been relaxed but the problem persists. Yarmouk problem is just one reminder of how the plight of the Palestinian people in Syria is double compared to anybody else. Over to you, Steve. Thank you, Jacob. We're getting to the end of our hour here. This audience that's come to hear you this morning is a diverse audience of Washingtonians, mostly who are drawn from advocacy groups, from US agencies, from other think tanks, people that are associated with implementing NGOs, those associated with international agencies. So it's a diverse group that have come to hear from you. We're very grateful to you for taking so much time. I think this is very valuable. Your voice, the voice from Damascus, from people like you who are working so assiduously to tackle these complex and dangerous problems, that voice is often not heard in the kind of vivid way that we've been able to do here today and I want to thank you for that. I'd like to ask you to close with a thought for us in terms of advice. In America, we have a certain numbness to this crisis. There are many reasons for this, but people have commented on this. The, perhaps we'll see a change in the opinion climate in America as new data comes forward, but that numbness is a problem for us. The US government has been extremely generous, putting $2 billion of assets towards this. Congress on a bipartisan basis has been very generous and supportive, but we need to move beyond this and we need to be very assiduous and very careful in preserving the sustainability of these programs. So what is your advice? What is your advice to this audience here about how best to stay the course and sustain hope in this situation? Steve, I would be presumptuous if I have any advice to give to such a gathering of experts in today's event, but perhaps a couple of things. Maybe first, thank you before asking more. I thank you to the American people because over $2 billion has been given to support humanitarian efforts in the Syria crisis and that is indispensable support that we continue to rely on. This is the fourth year of this conflict and that fatigue that seems to be creeping in in addition to the numbness that you've referred to, I fear is going to, even if this is the center of all prices in the world today, I fear it is going to be overshadowed by other happenings around the world and that fear is perhaps backed by what we see today in terms of the financial support to these humanitarian efforts. The American people and the US government have given over $2 billion, the requirements in Syria and in the region for 2014 is $6.5 billion and of that, so far this year, both inside and outside, a billion dollar has been paid. So we still have a long way and this is almost the middle of the year, so thank you to the American people for having been so generous, but we continue to a sustained effort to support the humanitarian efforts on the ground because without that we will really be taking away from the last hope that millions of Syrians and others living in Syria will be deprived of that glimpse of hope that they are not alone in this. Moving forward, perhaps, I think it is not undignified for the world to actually say that a political solution is indeed the only solution and the way out of this and for that to happen, I think the world needs to take a step back and perhaps even a deep breath because if there was a strategy concerning Syria for the last three years, it certainly hasn't worked. It has not worked, but what it has done is led to the suffering of people and it has destroyed many parts of this beautiful country. So if that is the goal, then it is a working strategy and I don't think anyone in the international community has that interest. So take a step back and a deep breath and maybe give political dialogue a chance, but really one that takes into account the very real dynamics that are taking place on the ground, overdue. Yaku, thank you so much. This has been an extraordinary conversation this morning for us and we're very grateful and we're very grateful to you for your courage and your commitment in this and to all of your staff and I hope we can stay connected. We will, obviously, there will be many other opportunities downstream where we would very much welcome the chance to re-engage with you and hear again from you on how things are going both by this means or if you happen to be here in Washington by person. So please join me in thanking Yaku Belhilo. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Yaku. Have a good evening and amazingly this connection worked. It did work and beautifully. So thank you so much for giving us the opportunity. I send you all greetings on my behalf and the entire team in Syria in all locations. Thank you for your support and we stay in touch. Thank you.


My name is Maya Sutoro and I currently live on the Mokopuni of Oahu in the Pai'aina of Hawaii. I have so many passions. What I'd say is that one passion is positive peace building and that is really just about the presence of community energy, building beloved community and resilient community through climate work with communities that are most impacted but who also offer up gorgeous solutions that can be instructive and helpful to us all. Through my work with the Institute for Climate and Peace, we do a lot in the way of education and policy transformation and poetry building and community building and we support activism in mothers and food sovereignty among young people. I think that my gratitude for the work with young, ingenious, creative souls is going to always therefore be my passion. So I'm passionate about peace and climate justice and youth.


Hey, what's going on guys, Patriot Prime here once again with Dylan's Toy Box and we are here today with a surprise unboxing. You want to show them the box? Yeah. It's a big one. This box comes to us from our good friend Mike also known as Firetox and for those of you in the chat, I see Firetox is in the chat now. He is only four subscribers away from 100 subs. So if you're not subscribed to Firetox, hit him up. He does some great 3D printed accessories and some other fun stuff for your transformer figures. Same thing for us. Same thing for us. That's right. Don't forget to like. Don't forget to subscribe. And the rest of it we do at the end. Remember? I know. Okay. Now Dylan, before we get started, why don't you tell these guys a little bit about your channel? What do you like to review? They know who I am. Well, I review like Funko Pops, anything like that and Transformers. I used to do Transformers. Hot Chips. Hot Chips, yeah.  All right. Well, Devoid of Logic just hopped in and he says hello Dylan. Hi. We got Memo 224. He just says hey everyone and hi Dylan. Hey. We got Lone Dragon, Transair in 38, Firetox. Who else we have? That's it. We got how many people? Seven people watching right now. We'll shoot the bull for a bit. Let some people get in here and then we will get into opening up this box. He has been looking forward to this all day. That's how I got him to eat his dinner. You eat your dinner, we can open this box up, right? We didn't have dinner yet. Yeah, we did. What did you call that restaurant we went to? Take away pigs, but we did. But I don't remember you saying that. I really don't. I don't remember him saying that. There's Kato. Mr. Kato's in here. He says howdy folks. Hi. Hi. Clinkle says it's midnight where he's at and where are you at? Somewhere where it's midnight. He might be from another country watching us right now. He is staying up late to watch you. It's actually noon right here. It's seven o'clock. There's a big difference between noon and seven o'clock. Okay, it's seven o'clock. All right. He's from the UK, so he's across the Atlantic Ocean. Gee whiz. I know. I've been there before. We're all the way in Wans River. Yep. In what state? West Virginia. In what county? America. That's what country. Oh gosh. We've been going over this. He's learning. Rika Red Star is in the house. He is from Pennsylvania. He's right above us. Matt M. has just shown up. Fire talks. I see you're at 97 subscribers now. Three to go. Well, Memo's leaving. Memo, we'll see you later. Bye. Once again, enjoyed talking to you the other night. He's got stuff to do. This is seven o'clock. Not everybody has time to hang out with us. Well, you got 15 people in the chat. I guess you ready to open this box up? What do you think it will say? No. Yeah. Let's do this. There's Redstone Convoy, Alex Johnson, Inu Tavi. Everybody's hopping in. I thought Redstone was only in Minecraft. Well, no. There he is right there. He says hi. There, right there. That's him. Kato says hi. Hi. All right. So let's figure out how to do this. Well, I've got my camera set up now. It's kind of hard to... There goes that Skellagod figure falling over. If you saw my review on the guy, his ankles suck. I've got, they are floor polished. I'm just waiting on them to dry. Share the front. Share the front. Okay. I just did a review. They saw the front. Yeah. This is Skellagod from the new Hitman show. You know, I'm not going to spoil it for you. Okay? So I'm not going to say anything about the show. Well, nobody's seen the show. We're just assuming. I'm not going to tell anyone. I'll tot him well. You don't spoil stuff. All right. So let's... Oh, Alec, Ryan, Moriarty. Hi, guys. Good evening from Fort Campbell. That's a military base. Sweet, huh? Spent a lot of my life there. Yeah. All right. Old Fire Talks said this thing is packed. I've already opened the sides up so I could do this real quick. So we're just going to cut along the top here and let's get cracking. Now, you maintain some bubble wrap. All right. Maintain some discipline. That's what I want to do. Don't be just grabbing for stuff. Put the bubble wrap down. We'll pull that later. All right. First things first. I knew this was coming. Thanks, Mike. He got me the Kingdom Legend Size. I guess they're core class. Get out of the box. Sound wave figures. So thank you so much, Mike. My area does not carry these core class figures. It does not carry legends figures. So Mike was kind enough to find this guy for me. Mike, thank you. Yes. Dylan found his favorite thing in the box. Bubble wrap. Yeah. Hey, Redstone does Minecraft videos. He does. He does. Oh, he just elbowed me. I watch those all the time on my switch. Minecraft videos. There's a guy named Tiger. I watch every day. I mean every day. Every second. Every second. Yeah. Every day, actually. All right. Let's see what's next. All right. We got a box there. All right. Here we have... Oh, this is a... Is that mine? That is a box of all kinds of figures. Is this mine? Well, we'll see. Oh, these are...  Looks like Energon figures, Armada figures. We will decide. I remember I did the Cybertron Optimus Prime last month and so many people were saying, You need to do more figures from that line. Well, it looks like it's going to happen. These must be Cybertron figures because I see the little cyber keys in there. Yes. Are those mine? No. We will go through everything. You don't even mess with transformers anymore. Even what? I think this is my box and all these are mine. Let's see what's in this next. We got another giant baggie. Is that yours? This is mine. Oh, cool. That's the Cybertron Wheeljack. He wasn't Wheeljack. Downshift. I've got two versions of it. You got the single manage. Dude, thank you so much. I don't have any of these anymore. They were victims of the great transformer purge of 2011. All right. Ibemer says his Walmart has deluxes and voyagers and that's it. Same as mine, buddy. Ibemer, I'm so excited. I have a big bad toy store package waiting on me at work tomorrow. All right. What's this? Going for some more goodies. Oh, that's that giant. I know that's not mine. Oh, what is this? This one's wrapped up really good. We'll take this out of the baggie for you. This is, I don't remember his name. You guys will have to help me out in the chat. Big old ballistic missile carrier. I love the looks of that vehicle. I never had this figure. Is this one red alert? Lights and sounds still work. Oh, it is red alert. This is cool. It looks like double dealer. That is awesome. Thanks, Mike. There's going to be so many Cybertron reviews coming up. He's going to spend the rest of the video popping pop bubbles. That's what I thought. All right. And we're digging. We're digging. Okay. Here's a final box right here. This is the fire talks goodie box. I can tell just from the sounds. I know it's mine. All right. Let's see. Is this all mine? Now these, let me make sure I open this. I'm opening it upside down and we'll spill everything. So getting in here. Oh my goodness. That's yours. That's what he made you. And it's already painted. How cool is that? Oh my God. I need to do this one. Hold on. That's in there. Good. How'd you get it in there without tearing it? Or tearing the baggy? He made Dylan a placard. Check that out. Look at this. That is so cool.  You swear to what? What'd you say? Nothing. I love this. How awesome is that? What do you tell Mike? Thank you. Mike, you wanted to see the reaction, buddy. You got it. For those of you who don't know, Mike is in the green room right now watching. When we're done opening up everything, we're going to talk to him. Yeah, that is awesome. Look at this. 3D. You better start doing you some reviews now, man. We'll put that up. We'll get a little thing to hang that up so you can place it on the desk beside you. Do you like it? What do you tell Mike? Awesome. Exactly done in the style of Ben 10. That was Dylan's logo that he wanted. It was actually designed for him by Rudy Zizzo, another YouTuber from across the pond, designed that for Dylan. He was a huge Ben 10 fan at the time. Of course, he's off and on what he likes to do. Let's see what else is in here. Here's something. I can't wait to put this together. Fire Tox made me another V pistol. It looks like I will have to put this one together. This is all done up in black. Look. This one's my size. Here it is. Let me see. Those of you who don't know, I absolutely love the show. Oh, there's another one you can paint. Put here. You can paint that one. Yeah. It's a plain one. He and his mommy, his mommy, loves to paint. So you could do that one in your own colors. Yep. That is so cool. Let me see. We got how many parts of this V, all kinds of parts of this V pistol. Here is, I think this is the Dino Rider set for what is the white triceratops, the fossilizer. I'm terrified. I'm terrible at the names of these new ones. But this is the Dino Rider set I believe for him. What is his name? Paleotrex is the other one. Ractonite. Here we have a fire tox made these for me. This is the gas shortage set. You've got gas cans and gas drums for when your Autobots are hoarding gas. Oh, this set right here. I believe fire tox has his cards ready for TF Con. I believe this is the Shattered Glass Ratchet set. So Ratchet can brutalize his victims. There's another stand for the V pistol. A Shattered Glass Megatron upgrade set for your Siege Megatron. But he won't be Shattered Glass Megatron. He's just going to be regular Megatron with a flight mode now. So sweet. I think Hasbro Pulse announced this and within an hour fire tox had him designed. Oops. Here's more pieces to the V Blaster. There's the clear tubes. This is going to be fun to put together. We've got...  I love putting models together. I love this. He has designed little V Blasters for the Transformers. How cool is that? I love it. I've got three of them here. I wish I had a Lizard Transformer. And we have fire tox stickers. You can put one of those on your door. Yep. And there's another candle for the V Blaster and a magnet. Dude, this is awesome. I love the pistol. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get fire tox in the stream. And there he is. Hey. Thank you so much for all this. No problem. The bag with the ratchet stuff I combined a few sets in there. So the dad bod that's in there. I forgot about that. If I wasn't online, I would give you this golden coin. But I guess I'm online so I can't give you it. No, it's okay. I don't know. This is like perfect. These pistol grips is like perfect. So there's two complete guns in there. Okay. I'm trying to find the link of the guy who designed it. I did not design that gun. I just want to make that clear to everyone because I would never do that. But I can't find the design. It almost looks like the guy took it down. But if I can find it, I'll give you the link so you can throw it in there if anybody wants to print them. They printed multiple pieces. You have two because I printed one set and then I got up in the morning after I had it all printed once and it didn't look right. But I didn't want to waste it. So I printed it slower and made it look nicer so you have a decent one. Would you like to have a V Blaster? Yeah. Like right there. Can you hand me that right there? See the blaster on the display? Can you hand me that? Because it looks like, because this one I have, this is actually cast from the props of the TV show. Right. And it looks like this has been cast the same way. I know it's different for a fact because the stand I included in the box, the new stand should be, I hope I sent you the right one. It should be slightly bigger because right. So you have another one of those stands. There's a loose magnet because I wasn't sure which pole I had the magnets in. So you've got to set your un-magnet if you want to put the V on the other one or the other lows on the other one. Yeah, I saw the magnet in there. But yeah, this is one, of course you can see the difference in the grip. I can't really get a hold of this one. But this was actually a prop replica or cast from a prop replica of the show. So, man. As far as I can tell, the printed one should be a little bigger. Yeah, I can tell already. Yeah. See you. That will go here. Oh yeah, that's going to fit a lot better. That is sweet, man. Thank you so much. No problem. I know you love your V stuff. Oh no. They need to hurry up and redo that show. There are a couple of other versions of trilogy movies coming out. Let me quit with the pop bubbles. Are you done or are you still going to hang out? Alright, get over here on my lap. Yes, visitor commander Stephen. That's the individual who gave me the prop blaster. And yes, there's a rifle version. I think the rifle version has the extended barrel and the stock. So I have the files for the rifle version. Okay. But I didn't have the same color black left and it would have looked funky. It would have looked a little off unless you wanted to paint everything. So technically the same guy did both designs because the file names for the pistol are actually rifle handle. But the rifle parts almost just slide on to the pistol and then you could pull them back off. There's a couple different, there's a couple parts that are different. But like the barrel slides on to the existing barrel which is kind of cool. Neat. And I can't wait to, you know, use on these the Dino Rider set. And let's see, we've got DadBod Prime in here. Yeah, you got to read what it says on the bottle. I see it. I got the beer mug and the beer. And for those of you that don't know, the DadBod comes from Earthrise Ultra Magnus without the armor. Who are you looking for yours? Yeah, my stuff. I need my stuff. Hold on, hold on. So there you go. You want to go run down and show mommy? Yeah. I'm glad you like that. What's that? I'm glad you like that. I am too, because I've been kind of worried because he's kind of sloughed off on his YouTube stuff because his life is all Minecraft now and it's driving me nuts. Yeah, I think everyone goes through the Minecraft phase at some point I think. Well he, it's like he's at a three week window for everything. He was into Funko Pops for about three weeks and that was fun. He'd get up in the morning and, hey Dad, let's go Funko Pop hunting. Yeah. Okay, cool. So we go hit all the stores. I mentioned Cato last night. I like have one store that has Transformers. That's my Walmart. But it seems like every store in the area has Funko Pops. We could always hit up GameStop, Walmart, Oli's, the local CVS. Always had something like that. Right. Yeah, Funko's are a lot easier to find. That's a devoid of logic. He was talking about V. It was alright. I think what killed that is they tried to, they eliminated the whole Naziism of the first V. That's what made that one so scary.  If you remember, there were Holocaust survivors in that show, everything. And they tried to go with the more modern take of secret cells of aliens like the Taliban.  So I think they should have stuck with the Nazis. And instead of being shape shifters, they needed to have the fake skin. Lone Dragon asked, why are those ugly pop things so popular? Because they're easily collectibles and they cover everything. I mean, they're not great at all. I didn't think I'd ever get any of them. And then they make the transformer ones. Well, I got to have those. And then lo and behold, there's the V ones. So I got to get those. Yeah, we have the giant optimists. And then the other day we happened to, my order for the giant Godzilla came in and the giant Godzilla Funko Pop is awesome. I was really surprised by those. I got Dylan, I don't have the giant ones, but I got him the Godzilla, the King Kong and the Mechagodzilla. And they don't really look like Funko Pops. They look like just deformed Godzilla figures. Right.  Hey, we're talking about Godzilla Funko Pops. Can you go get Godzilla, King Kong and Mechagodzilla so I can show the audience? Now, thank God, Dylan King Kong may still be in your box, but Mechagodzilla is on your shelf. He's just in there walking all over these pop bubbles. Just pop, pop. Try letting him pop the big ones because they don't pop. Oh, no. I'm debating on that. Are you going to get him? I think it's cool that he actually comes with the tapes. Yeah. I really lucked out with the giant Optimus Prime because I had pre-ordering from Walmart and he was 30 bucks. And then when, then Walmart dropped him down to 17 online. And so when I went to my Walmart one day, I got like five of them in on the shelf. And I got my little screenshot and I went up to the girl at the front counter and says, hey, can I price match these? And I'll cancel my pre-order and buy it here. Well, we don't honor pre-order prices. I'm like, it's your store. Right. And then like two days later, I go and scan it and they're ringing up $9.70 each. Yeah. Thankfully, so when you started seeing those, my pre-order was still waiting for Walmart pre-orders take forever. And it was still listed for $30 in the pre-order. And then I had only seen one Walmart in a store here with all these Walmart I only saw at once. And it was normal price because I price checked it. And then thankfully at some point, the website updated and the price dropped to $16. And it stayed that way and then they shipped it to me for 16. So at least I didn't have to pay the full $30 and you still get the free shipping with it? Yeah. So you kind of looked out. Do you have your own website or do you use Facebook to sell your products? So Facebook or Instagram. If you message me on Instagram, it's the same as if you message me on Facebook. I'm about as active on both. There are certain things I don't post on Instagram and there are certain things that I just throw up on Instagram. So really it's both. And then there's also a Patreon. So if you join the Patreon for like a buck a month, you get 10% off of anything you order from me too. Which, depending on what you order, could work. Yep. Alright, here's Dylan. Show them Mechagodzilla. This is King Kong Godzilla and this is Mechagodzilla. Oh, you got the two pack. Yeah, we got that. I pre-ordered that for them from Barnes & Noble or Books of Million. And it took forever to get here. It's a limited edition one. It was just a GameStop one day and they had Mechagodzilla. But see, they don't even really look like pops. They're really detailed. They almost look chibi. Yeah, that's it. That's what I was thinking of. But yeah, they look really cool. And that one next, it can hurt you. He's got some of these spikes on him. Yeah, it just stabbed me in the pinky. It actually just hit. I wish they would do one for Mothra because I buy those for Benny. She's four and she loves the Godzilla movies. The new ones. She'll watch them back to back to back over and over again all day long. And her favorite character is Mothra. And she's constantly wanting Mothra stuff. But it's hard to get now. I'm surprised they don't. I mean, if they got this, then maybe it'll do the other monster-verse figures. I'd like King Ghidorah was always one of my favorites growing up. Yeah. King Kong is my favorite, too. I bet you really like that movie, then, because he's done that a lot. Yeah. I really do like King Kong. And I really like his axe. It reminds me of a diamond axe from Minecraft. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Hey, RedstoneCon Boy says, you might get a shout-out at a Minecraft video. What do you mean? A shout-out's when, if he does a video on Minecraft, he'll say, hey, this is RedstoneCon Boy, and I want to give my buddy Dylan's toy box a big shout-out on my YouTube channel. Because he has a new Minecraft video? That's what he says. Isn't that awesome? Well, I want you to say Redstone Minecraft videos on my Switch, and I'm going to watch every one of them. Okay. I mean, I'm not going to get off one. I'm not going to hit B and get off of it. Okay. That's all he does. He's got his Switch, and that's all I hear in the background. Minecraft videos, or he's playing Minecraft. Yeah. I just love... Don't have to pick it up. I just love Tiger. I just love that guy. That guy is awesome. The Pit of Judgment came in. We ordered twice. They end up cancelling both times because I want the whole set for one figure. RedstoneCon. We'll start you up. What's wrong now? Mitch. Let's see if anybody else has anything to ask or add. I'm not going to keep everybody on here too long because Dylan has summer school. He's in his neat summer school program. I think it's going through August, and each week is a different theme they had. Yeah. Right now we're in West Virginia week. Last week was West Virginia week. I thought it was this time. You do not have to pick up the microphone. Scroll and through messages. See if I missed anything. Web site. Yeah. There's the Facebook and the Instagram message. I got the Skylinks neck pieces from Firetox and they're great. I'm glad you like that. It's one of my favorite things. Oddly enough, it was super simple to design, but it changes... When I look at Skylinks, it changes everything looking at it. Oh, I know. It gives him such a G1 look, yet still maintaining the modern feel. I'm going to leave the 3D printed goodies. They'll be getting reviews of those soon. Y'all want to see the Dino Writer set first? I'm excited for this one. All right, so let's go through some of the goodies you got me as far as the Cybertron line. And you said this guy's electronic? Pull the missile off. Pull the missile off. Okay, that's cool. I never had this one. And if you put it back on and you put a cyber-planet key in the back, it opens. Now the original missile is around here somewhere, but I've been searching for it for like a year and a half. There's a little tiny missile that goes in the tip of that missile. But if you put one of the cyber-planet keys in the back, that missile pops open and there's lights and sounds. Okay. Well, if anybody in the chat happens to have a missile for this guy, give me up. Other than that, he's complete. Even his weapons, which are weird. I only came across them just happened to. They're like embedded in his legs. Okay. So when you transform it, part of the weapon is there, but there's like a way to pop the parts out of his legs to swap out the tip of the weapon. And I didn't even know that until I was messing with it one day. Yes. Nice. Okay. So let's get into this big goodie bag. Now I, this one has me intrigued. I love the looks of this vehicle. I had the green one. Is this the same character? If I remember right, it is the same character name, but I think one of them was cyber-burst and one of them was Energon or one of them was Energon and one of them was Cybertron. Like you got a paint job upgrade. Yeah, this might be wrong. This one looks like the G He's out of here. This one looks like the G1 MicroMaster Big Daddy. Yes. Okay. Okay. Of course, there we got big, big, not big daddy. Downshift, right? That's his name. Yes. Downshift. Yeah. Here we have a loose missile flopping around. You know, I have a random loose red missile in my weapons box. That'd be just be awesome if that happens to be his, but like I said, I've never had that figured. Oh, yeah. You're going to like that one. So that is cannonball, right? Yes. Which is just the better repainted version of a different red alert. All the, all the mechanisms work. If you stick the cyber planet key in there, the cannons pop out. They're a little fun to hack in, but they pop out. The transformations really meet the way the legs work. I think you'll like that one. Nice. Okay. I'll have all this stuff to review because apparently none of my kingdom stuff is going to ship until September. I don't said September, but it all showed up in the last three days. Wing fingers upstairs. I got Galvatron wasn't supposed to be until September. I got him. Of course, you got all yours from Walmart, right? I got all mine from Amazon. I put it on Amazon because I'm not in that big of a rush. I know they haven't been releasing things early the last couple waves.  Yeah. I usually get everything from Amazon, but this time I had I told you $150 worth of credit on entertainment earth. And that's where I ordered mine from. I got the whole wave for like 30 bucks. I ordered Rodimus and the Ark from Entertainment Earth and if you pre-ordered the Ark from Entertainment Earth it comes with enamel pins. Yes. That's why I got... No, I didn't get that one. I haven't pre-ordered the Ark yet. Yeah, I pre-ordered... Well, I technically pre-ordered two of them. All right. That guy's Blur, right? Didn't he have a version of Blur? Yes. Yes. And then I remember this one, Steam Hammer. I think he's part of the instructor cons. I think... I'm trying to remember if that one's Steam Hammer or Grimlock. Because there is a cyberverse Grimlock that is a green construction vehicle. I remember the RID one. And there is, I think, Jetfire or Jetstorm. This little guy. I think that one is Jetfire. Okay. I have like four of those in different colors. I like the Sector 7 logos on them because they just keep reusing that mold. Let's say that's Scattershot. I remember that one. I got Planet Keys and... Ah, Minicons. That one looks like an X-Men thing. Yeah, that one's weird. Two little Minicons or three that's Leader 1 from Armada Megatron. So I got a lot of that stuff in totes that I would go and buy for people when I was just kind of like... I didn't mind if people had broken stuff because I would... You get enough broken stuff you can make a whole one. But I've never actually seen the Armada Megatron that that went with. And when I found that in a box, I freaked out and started digging through the box and it wasn't there. Ah, it sucked. And of course I got all the keys. That's awesome. I'm gonna be busy. There's more keys over here. I am going to be busy. I got some really cool stuff to review. Thank you so much. Absolutely, man. Like I said, I had a couple of these. And this was kind of during the time when, you know, I was just getting into collecting and then... I don't know, I just had that purge. Let's see. I'm still trying to look up to see if that one's Grimlock or not because it's actually bothering me that I can't remember. No, Grimlock is the excavator. So that one's Steam Hammer. Okay. Yeah, you can see the little cyber key thing or whatnot. Not cyber key with the Spark Holder. Well, he's also a power core combiner, but I don't have any of the limbs. All right, let's see. I think that one is. And then in the baggy with the Shadowgrass Ratchet set should be the dad bod set, which would have the bottle of Ultra, the beer stein and a cable remote. There it is. I love that. A remote, a beer stein and a bottle of beer. That's awesome. And... Now this is Ratchet. I love this. Ratchet's back doodad arm. Someone has been waiting very patiently for me to finish that one and price it out. And they had requested it a while ago. And so he'll be very happy when I when I drop that one with a price and stuff. My problem is right now is because I had that printer crash and that printer catch fire. I'm a little behind. Yeah, you told me about that.  So alone, just so everybody knows the V guns will go up with the next couple of days. The little ones. I just never released those yet. The Ratchet set, the files aren't up yet, but those will be out. The dad bod set will go up. I'm debating on adding a piece to the dad bod set from a picture. Oh, look here. Speaking of adding your piece, he designed the couch already. There's two of them. There's the low back white one. And if anybody else gets the joke, I'm not putting that picture on Instagram. And then there's a high back black one, which is another joke I'm not putting on Instagram. Yes, but I've seen it. I know what's called. All right. So here is cup holding the V Blaster. Just to give you an idea. The reason my printer caught fire was my fault. They don't do that normally.  That was my fault, but I fixed it. I love the looks of that. I debated on making it so that you could like twist it. And then when you twisted it back once you put it on his hand, the bottom bar was there, but it's so small. It wouldn't have been strong enough. It would have snapped off.  So it prints like just like you're holding it. That's neat. It's very, very detailed. Let me get the camera here. So that looks just like what I got right here. Hold on. Of course, I've got my original, the only V figure they ever made. And here is the official original V Blaster. And here we have fire toxins. Let me get centered here. So that's I didn't even see that little gun before. I didn't do bad. You didn't do bad at all. Kudos. Yeah, they didn't really have an action figure of this guy.  Yeah. He's like a Barbie doll. Excuse me. So Jay Lee, since you asked, should I add the couches to the dad bod set when I release it? Do you want a printable couch? Visitors, Commander Steven says the V Blaster looks good. He would know. Yeah, he would. If you look at him real close, his profile pic is him and his visitor suit, his visitor uniform. Yeah, I saw that. Jay Lee says he thinks it would be cool. All right. Let me test print the black one to make sure it works. And I'll put them all up together. You can have the full dad bod experience and pick your own furniture. That's awesome. But now I have to share the other picture on Instagram and probably get you told. You do. Like I said, you don't have to. You just pop the picture up there. If people's perverted mind takes them where they go. Yeah, but it's not my fault. Yeah, I just realized I didn't put my hat on for my Patriot Prime thing. I just finished mowing.  How does Larkin's lair compare to fire talks? There you go. Fortunately, everybody's friends. Yeah. We do different kinds of work. Larkin's stuff is usually more complex. Like that, like the upgrade for the green Megatron that has the ratchet built into it. That thing's amazing. That's something I definitely wouldn't have come up with. Fight, fight, fight. Oh, no. If you didn't notice, Larkin's the one who shared trying to get me to 100 subs tonight. Yeah. Our little group is we're all like this. I mean, we all help each other out and it's part of the fun of this community. Fire talks here is going to TF Con as well, so we'll get to hanging out with our weapons dealer. Let's see, lazy eyebrow. Take a look at the dad bodset. He's seen it. I know for a fact he's seen it. He's in our little chance to we are the best community. I'll. Yes, Raziel. I'll give it that. We got some great people in these groups and who would have thunk it sitting there talking about toys on YouTube. You have met so many cool people. I know, I know. Cybertron, Biggins magazine. Well, what was that one RC figure? She had Biggins. The one M3 reviewed and it's got the squishy chest.  I have an idea that's something I'm going to do for the arc. It's not just a filler though. But it will be I've seen the filler pieces for that arc is going to be about the size of this. Yeah, it's right here and that will I will show you something I finished last well that I need to make one more tweak on but then it will be finished and as of this date will be the biggest gun I've ever put out. What I have planned for the arc will be bigger. Oh, yes, I know what that gun is. The Maldus for Transformers. If you're on Kato's stream last night with me, we were discussing this wonderful piece of hardware. So now the Transformers can road block on some nasty cons. So it prints in pieces. This moves to adjust. This isn't attached to just on the shaft. So anybody can hold it. It's about six and a half inches long. It prints in five pieces. It's already got ammo on it. All that sweet. I tried to keep the rivets best I could. The top plate where you where you open this up to check everything when you're assembling it. I watched like a dozen videos on tearing these down last night in order to build in order to make this as accurate as my version of accurate as it could be. It definitely I know I've got them all over my desk because almost everything I make it has to be blast effects compatible. Are the V pistols blast effect compatible? Yes, they are. Let me grab my handy bag of blast effects. You can't go anywhere without your bag of blast effects. Yeah, I have to print it so that's where the shells usually would eject and then right there is a mounting point for a bipod that I have to print. I have to test print the bipod to see if it's going to work, but not bipod. Literally a tripod stand so that smaller figures can get behind this thing. Let's see if I have a blue blast effect because the visitor blasters were blue. I know I got one. We'll use this little squiggly blast effect. Yeah, there you go. There you go visitor commander Steven. How's that look? Love it. And let's see. JRC designs in here. I want to give him a shout out. I recently got an envelope of accessories from him as well and the ones I'm really looking forward to trying out was if you have the X-Men crossover jet, he's got some really cool X-Men claw or Wolverine claws for that set. Those look really, really good. They're sweet.  Of course once I transform it once it sits up there I'm never going to touch it again. I may just skip out the review on it and just go straight to the box because I couldn't see me doing that on camera because my army language would come out big time. I was surprised it didn't do it for the Rhinox video. You want a nickel bag? I'm really surprised Hasbro didn't crank these out in little packages. Remember back in the 80's back in the days you could get all little weapon sets and stuff like that. I know somebody who I'm working with to possibly have some injected molded versions of some of my stuff who is also designing blast effects that he can injection mold once he gets his head up at his house. In the ratchet set. Let me find that for you see. Unfortunately though I am going to have to bounce.  Yes, thank you so much. Real quick we'll just throw this out for see. See's a long time subscriber and you know he really helps out with my or enjoys my toy hacks video so let's just go over what we've got for ratchet here. So first let me go grab my ratchet that's for Shattered Glass right? Shattered Glass or if you wanted it could be for the Earthrise one but it's specifically because the Siege one came with the back part and the new ones don't. Right so we got Shattered Glass Ratchet here and I've already got a couple weapons on him from Fire Talks so our first thing we have is the right here and just like Siege Ratchet you've got the ports on both ends. Yep. But this one's a little bigger you've got a lot more range of motion so let's see we'll plug this in right here so you've got that going on and you don't have to assemble it that way when you print it you could always take that center joint and not print the second white panel and it's the exact same size as the the Siege one. Okay we've got these little are these wrist mounted miniguns? Let me see. Oh those are for Warpath. Oh okay. Those are the parts that go to the new Warpath to make him look more like the Generations Warpath. So the rocket pods. Sweet. Hold on he's ready. Here these but they go on him Okay.  He'll transform with the one. Alright this must be Ratchet's here maybe. The Ratchet should have a little spiky bit that looks like a looks like a diamond bit? Like a drill but like a cone yeah that. Okay. And then there's a weapon that has a five millimeter port right. Okay. That plugs into that and it's a drill and then the other weapon is basically the thing that you use to put down a horse with. Okay so here we go. Shattered glass Ratchet with his drill attachment. Yeah and then the other this other small handgun that he's got that's a bolt gun for putting down horses but figured he'd put down anything else with it too. Oh yeah. Too cool. That's awesome. And it may slightly look like a Nintendo power gun. Yeah I can see that. And there's Larkin in the house right now. Hello Joel. We were just talking about you talking about our 3D printed goodness and I saw where you got your Rhinox guns out and already sold out. Congratulations. Those are a nice upgrade. I was going to do some, I was going to redesign the weapon so that the blade's actually spun but that toy's awful and I've never touched me again. Those pin wheels of death. Alright well I know you got to bounce and be with your kiddo and I need to go bounce and be with my kiddo. Oh there we are the Javier Barden Cow Popper. Remember no country for old men. Hello friendo. Alright well guys I appreciate you stopping by and opening up this massive box of goodies that Fire Tox was kind enough to send me. I'm going to put together these V Blasters. Check out these vintage figures and dude I appreciate so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. And for you guys don't forget hit Fire Tox up with a sub. I think he's three away from 100. I told you where's we're going to try again to hit 100 tonight so if you can help him out. Everybody else in the chat thank you so much for stopping by and as usual don't forget to like don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to click that bell icon to get notified when I upload new reviews. So you gotta put the hat back on. This is Patriot Prime signing out. Hoorah! Did the thumb right this time.


The Jane Gueski Award is presented to honor an organization that exemplifies exceptional contributions to literacy, books, readings, libraries, or literature in Nebraska. The annual Jane Gueski Award commemorates Gueski's passion for books and was established in the recognition of her contributions to the well-being of the libraries of Nebraska. Jane Pope Gueski was a founding member of the Nebraska Center for the Book, former director of the Nebraska Library Commission and a longtime leader in Nebraska Library and Literary Activities. This year's recipient is the UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. The Center was nominated based on two primary ways in which they promote Nebraska authors. The staff of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities helped create the Nebraska authors database, a project of Lincoln City Libraries through the Jane Pope Gueski Heritage Room of Nebraska authors. This project made available to the world a good deal of Nebraska author information that had been collected by Heritage Room staff over years, but was only available through one personal computer kept in the Heritage Room. After tremendous efforts in July 2020, over 3,000 unique users logged into Nebraska authors from around the world, bringing attention to the Heritage Room, which is a unique public library service promoting and informing people about Nebraska authors. The other reason is because of their other projects which provide online information regarding Nebraska authors. These include Across the Spectrum, the Interdisciplinary Life and Letters of John G. Neyhart, Elia Petey, An Uncommon Writer, An Uncommon Woman, Lauren Isley's Nebraska Poetry from the Plains, A Nebraska Perspective, and the Willough Cather Archive. The CDRH deserves the Jane Gueski Award in recognition of their exceptional reputation for scholarly research and their active role in creating worthwhile projects. Hi, I'm Catherine Welter, professor and co-director of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And we are receiving today the Gueski Award, which is very exciting for me personally, even though this is an award for my whole center. It's exciting for me because I knew Jane Gueski and Norman Gueski very well. Anyway, the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities has existed since 2005, and it has produced probably 60 or 70 different digital projects of some sort. And we have over 2 million visitors every year, and one of the projects that we worked on was with Lincoln City Libraries, and it's called Nebraska Authors. But we have many other literary projects as well. So anyway, this is a very exciting day for us, and I want to thank the nominator for this event, who was Pat Leach, for the work that we did together. So thank you so much.


So remember the graph of y equals f of x includes all points x, y that make the equation y equals f of x true. This means several things. First, any point x, y gives us a solution to f of x equals y. Points like h0, those are points on the x-axis, give us a solution to f of x equals 0. The point 0k, that's the y-intercept, gives us a solution to f of 0 equals y. And we can also use the graph to determine where f of x is increasing or decreasing. So remember that we describe the change in the function values as the input values increase. So if we're graphing y equals f of x, remember equals means replaceable. So our y values are the function values. So we want to describe how the y values change as we move to the right. If the y values are increasing, the function is increasing. If the y values are constant, the function is constant. And if the y values are decreasing, the function is decreasing. No big surprise there. Now, where there is a little bit of a surprise is when we describe the interval. Never include the beginning or ending points unless they are the beginning or ending of the graph. We'll explain that by way of an example. Well, how about this one? The graph shows the water level in a lake where t is the number of days since January 1, 2020. We want to find the period of time when the water level was increasing, decreasing, and constant. So there are two important things to remember. Equals means replaceable, and we always describe the change of a function as its input increases. So we want to find when the water level was increasing as the input values increased. Well, our water level is the function. Equals means replaceable, so we can replace water level with function. But in our graph, our function is the y values. So we can replace function with y values. Meanwhile, our input values are the t values. And what this means is we want to describe what happens as we move to the right. So we see that from t equals 0 to t equals 60, the y values, the water level, is increasing. And so we can say the water level is increasing in the interval from 0 to 60. Now remember, when describing an interval of change, you should exclude the end points unless they are the beginning or the end of the graph. And since 0 is the beginning of the graph, we do include 0 using the square brackets. However, since 60 is not the end of the graph, we exclude 60 and use a parenthesis. From t equals 60 to t equals 150, the water level was decreasing. And since neither 60 nor 150 is the beginning or the end of the graph, we want to exclude both end points. And so the interval is going to be between 60 and 150, excluding the end points, and so we'll use parenthesis. From t equals 150 to t equals 180, the water level was constant. And again, these are not end points, and so we're constant in the interval from 150, don't include it, up to 180, don't include it. From t equals 180 to t equals 210, the water level was increasing. So we can union that with our increasing interval. From t equals 210 to t equals 300, the water level was decreasing, so we'll union that with our decreasing interval. And from t equals 300 onward to the end of our graph, the water level was constant. And since 360 is the actual end of our graph, then we do include that in our interval, and we indicate that by using a square bracket at 360. Another thing we're often interested in is the extreme values of a function. These are the greatest or least values of the function. And to find these from the graph of y equals f of x, we look for the greatest or least value of a function. Again, equals means replaceable. Since y equals f of x are function, our function can be replaced with y. So those greatest or least values of the function are the greatest or least values of y. A further refinement is the difference between the local extreme value or the global extreme value. And one good way of thinking about this is if you're running a race, you win locally.  Meanwhile, you set records globally. You're faster than anyone who has ever run the race. So if we go back to our water level graph, we see that the highest water level occurred at t equals 210. This is the greatest y value anywhere on the graph. But notice here at t equals 60, this y value is higher than anybody around it. It's a peak in the middle of the graph. And so we could call it a local maximum. How about the lowest level? So here at t equals zero, we have the lowest point anywhere on the graph. And a point like this, well, this is not a local minimum because there are points around it that are just as low. And so we have a maximum at t equals 210, a local maximum at t equals 60, and a minimum at t equals zero.