Welcome back everybody on this lovely Friday black Friday after Thanksgiving. How's everybody doing good to see you all Nice to see everyone's here bright and early Wow, I'm very impressed look at that a lot of guys a lot of you didn't go away Or maybe you're on vacation and taking log in in but that's great to see you all here. Good to see you Deb Good to see you John HD Tim good to see you Torrell Mariano good to see you Greg. Look at all those great people of great traders. Well, welcome back everybody Hopefully everybody's all hung over from that all that turkey I know what you guys did for Thanksgiving, but I went to my nephew's house My niece is my niece's house actually and her husband's a big smoker loves to smoke meat and had to smoke turkeys I don't know which one was better one. It was just which is a great meal and We had some great conversations Everyone was talking about, you know About the market what's going on everyone's getting a little nervous And it was just fun just to sit in there and just having a good time And hopefully everybody had had the same type of conversations and had great time to meet with family Now it's time to go back to work and has some fun. All right, so I can't believe it It's we're almost less than 2018's almost over. That's it once after Thanksgiving's here I mean, it's gonna fly. So just give you guys a little heads up on what's gonna be happening going into the next month of December finishing up on the Black Friday You know the day after Thanksgiving. Well Things gonna get a little busy. I think as of right now I mean, you see the markets taken of taking another hit again We had nice little come back on Friday, but I think it's just all smoke and mirrors a lot of it has to do with oil Oil is getting crushed crushed and All I could say is look forward to getting cheap gas. So, you know, listen Every I keep saying and it doesn't always sound the greatest but other people's catastrophes or other people's opportunities So when you're seeing oil get crushed and people, you know, oil companies, you know, you like you listen They're losing a lot of money. But for you, it's like, yeah, well, it's helping me. It's an opportunity so, um, you know, just Keep it. Let's keep an eye on that but oil. I tell you, I remember was down to $35 $45 where we have 51 now we're down like $3 a day almost so oils looking pretty pretty good for us on on that And that aspect which is leading to all these ETFs now before I start talking about what ETFs are moving Let's let's have some fun and talk about regarding about what happened on For on Friday on Wednesday First of all the ABL the ABIL Holy cow. What a huge huge winner. Okay, you know, listen, I I'm not making this stuff up.  It went all the way up Listen us great traders, you know that you don't buy at three and sell it at eight But you know what, you know, a lot of you got it at four you sold it at five Some of you got at six you sold at 650 Everybody should have made money on the stock You could have chased it wherever you want and if you didn't you should have did what I always say one share trade So that it now look where it ends up worse than where it started at so Listen a lot of you try it want to know and I know there's a lot of YouTube YouTubers watching this too in our Facebook and like, okay, so why is it back at 350? You think I care? Talk to me on Wednesday. Okay, don't talk to me about today But I do want to tell you is this is why you can't hold these positions And we all know what it could be it could be a short squeeze could be anything But you could see how that stock did what it did, but it was a pretty pretty pretty fun stock A lot of you guys did great. Hopefully you find another one today GME was another one Hold on me bring that up tight in the wrong window GME was pretty cool because it got halted In the afternoon off news reopened. It was pretty volatile But you could see how it was shot right up and went up down But it was pretty volatile stock from from 1260 about 1440. We know, you know, we guys love to trade Stocks that get halted, but this obviously trade on news a little bit different that will usually trade But that was pretty good that a lot of you guys did pretty well on that one and the CRC was also a nice little trade CRC Made a little bit of a comeback. You can see one from 21s all the way to 25 Why did it go up? Well, look where it is today. That's why you can't go broke taking profits But that was a that was a good winner for a lot of us on the Wednesday Now what's going on this morning regarding of what's moving? Listen, there's a lot of stocks on a moving This morning and specifically the ETFs ETFs are moving ABIL Ron says ABIL 10 million shares at 325, you know, well listen the We'll keep an eye on the ABIL. I mean, it's definitely gonna be on my watch list But the stock that we all should have been in this morning Was this one right here the TIS now? Listen at 8 o'clock this morning if you got in here at 8 o'clock where most of you logged in I'm seeing you guys starting to stroll in right now Everybody here should have got this stock somewhere around a buck 70 buck 80 Listen, if you check if you if you were smart and you got here at a right the open You got it a buck 60 degree, but right now. I mean, I'll tell you the truth I'm pretty much done for the day this stock right here. I could probably go back to sleep You know like Andrea said earlier, but the TSI was basically the winner. You know guys my my Most of my winners is really all pre-market make a day's pay and that's it Oh Drates as I was trading. I was probably trading from my bed. No, I think my wife would like be screaming right now in this Meaning but but I I I'm actually up around like 6 30 So I'm scanning to mark a few guys nice and bright and early But this stock was the one that right on Wednesday had a really big pop for about 80 cents went to about a buck 80 But but this stock was a pretty easy Knowing it was gonna hit a brick wall at two 275 you had the big iceberg orders you could see it right here on the offer on the matrix and he was pretty It was and you could see it there on the long term That's why I had a tough time breaking right there But that one was really that's gonna be on our watch on our watch list guys another one that's in in the news is Overstock remember overstock wasn't this one of the stocks that we had a lot to do with cryptocurrency, right? Stock went from 20 all the 80 look where it end up I think some of you just mentioned they're gonna be selling off their retail division or something like that But is it really going anywhere? Listen, we know overstock is a pretty damn volatile stock now listen There is just so many stocks I could put in right now, but at the end of the day I just wanted I just want to tell you I have never Traded ETFs as much as we would trade the last couple of days, but listen the ETFs are just going bonkers DWT That's stocks making a big move right there DRIP I Mean a lot of them have to do with oil stocks, you know, you can see the gas stocks right here That one's another ETF moving pretty big SEO another one Right there wrong window Actually, that's a different one out. That's an ETF, but that one's moving also OILU Getting crushed right there 75 down to 25 UWT, I mean the list goes on and on and on I can just keep going Constantly, you know what Benito? I saw the I saw that the Dana the shipping stock did show up That one also is moving pretty interesting too, but be careful I mean those shipping stocks We've been trading them so often Lee that they're just like They sucker you in if you're gonna trade them You got to take the money and run really quickly when it comes to those stocks but on but listen all the ETFs are moving and you know, I'm not a big fan of them for several reasons first of all You have to be an advanced trader You got to be higher than a level-two cyber trader to trade those stocks They're really very volatile just because you think they have a decent spread They do move and they do some nasty nasty shakes Everybody's trading them. So you got to be maybe even a three category to trade them But if you want to trade them, I just always tell everybody just trade a hell of a lot shares and just sit back and learn and you know There's no better way to learn than to be in a position and just see what happens And just the only do your journals that you were taught to do go from there But that's really much what looks what's going on now remember today guys today is Friday the day after Thanksgiving so it is the market does close early at 1 o'clock. So I think you're gonna see a lot of action Listen, we didn't see that much on Wednesday In the pre-market. I thought it was dead, but that ABIL just made for it So we always find something that's gonna move right when the market opens up as of right now Just looks like the ETFs are moving and I had that TIS and that was pretty much it and we'll keep an eye on oil But listen swing trading guys be very careful going long if you're long you're wrong, you know Don't be fooled on these little these little shakes right here that we're getting You know, they're a lot. Listen, I know the economy is doing great everything else But I told you after the elections a lot of traders, you know, like I said, they're really concerned What's gonna happen when when Congress changes in January? So Yeah, and not only that a lot of people are looking to take profits because they want to have those really really really nice Good bonuses going into this year and that was another You know, which I always see why that we have October crashes, but we'll keep a close eye on it That's why we love day trading, right everyone now before we go last thing We all know what today is today is black Friday and here at Cybertrain University Once a year, you know, you can get the greatest deals at Cybertrain University You could a lot of you always sign up for the one-year access cybergroup room You get a big discount there the bronze course for some of you beginner people that's still Contemplating if you want something you just want to test the waters great great situation one-on-one coaching is right now a number one seller Everybody loves the coaching I'm here at Cybertrain University the only thing I can recommend to you if you really want to do the coaching and Just make sure you call in quick and and get those good hours because we are you know We do pick up we do book up quickly in the most at the best times of the market So go out there and make sure you do that and don't forget our famous summit trader summit back in 2019 You got a little discount there.  All right guys in the meantime. Good luck everyone. Happy trading if I don't see you going to disclose.  Good luck everyone. Happy trading


Okay, let's talk about what happened. So I just recently hit 2,000 subscribers and I wanted to celebrate it with a special video. Though, as you can see, this didn't go so well. I completely dislocated my left shoulder. You're probably wondering how it came about. Well, instead, let me share my story with you. So my girlfriend and I took some days off to visit Tessin, which is located in the south part of Switzerland, close to the borders of Italy. One of the most spectacular places in Tessin is the Versaillesca Valley. There's a bridge called Ponta des Alti, I hope I said that right, which is also known as the Romantic Bridge, really great place to swim with crystal clear water. We had a great time over there and before we left, we walked over that bridge one more time. Now I saw a lot of people jumping from that bridge. I looked down at the river and it was pretty high. It has been a long time since I jumped from such a height. That was back in my younger days. Damn, I sound old. Anyways, I thought to myself, this will make a great video to celebrate 2,000 subscribers because I of course appreciate every single one of you. I thought, you know, what could happen, right? Even the younger ones jumped off that bridge. For me, this was about overcoming fear, doing something differently and being thankful on video for reaching 2,000 subscribers. I know there are other ways to express my appreciation to you. I could also do like a simple thank you video, but I thought I wanted to do, you know, something special. My girlfriend thought I was crazy and I thought I was crazy. Unfortunately, the video of me jumping off that bridge wasn't recorded with audio, but I'm gonna show it to you anyways and explain what exactly happened. So in the beginning of this video, I'm saying that I just reached 2,000 subscribers, which I would like to celebrate. So I walked to the bridge, got on top and collected myself. I felt super nervous at first, but I was determined to do it. Eventually, I screamed, we have reached 2,000 subscribers. And everybody looked up and I jumped. As you can see, as I jumped off, I flapped my arms like a bird that thought could fly. I even remember a guy telling me to keep my body straight, but during midair, I sort of lost control. As I dived up from the water, I was glad I made the jump, but I knew something wasn't right. I couldn't move my left arm. Luckily, because of the cold water, I didn't feel any pain. As I dragged myself out of the water with one arm, I felt the pain slowly moving in. I tried to keep my arms as steady as possible by supporting it with my other hand. As I reached the top, Sina, my girlfriend thought I was holding something in my hand and then she realized something wasn't good with my shoulder. I stayed fairly cool because I was kind of sure that my shoulder was dislocated. I still could feel my fingers, even though it was the first time that this ever happened to me, and it was clear that I had to go to the hospital. Sina wanted to call an ambulance, but I didn't want that. It would have taken them twice as long, driving uphill and then back down. So we immediately hopped into the car and it took around 30 minutes to reach the hospital. As we arrived at the emergency, the pain was excruciating. I immediately got treated. They took an X-ray of my shoulder to make sure nothing was broken. And as I have prognosed, the shoulder was luckily just dislocated. Well, it was still bad, but if it would be broken, that would have been much worse. They put me under anesthesia. I was out for about an hour. As I woke up, my shoulder was back to normal and they really did a great job doing it. So I just woke up. As you can see, I'm in the hospital and they relocated my shoulder. I'm all well and that is what counts. I showed them the video afterwards and the doctor said I was crazy and that the height of that bridge is 14 meters. The highest I've ever jumped was 10 meters, but not 14 meters. I guess it's all about how you jump in. If you jump in like a bird, you'll end up like me.  I guess I should make a video on how to shoot a video with one arm. Let me know if you want to see that. Overall, it's going to be a story that Sina and I will not easily forget. What I learned is that since I had this accident, my girlfriend has treated me really nicely. I guess there is something good to it, huh? No, just joking. She has been very supportive since I've started my YouTube channel and I'm really glad that she helps me out and understands what I'm doing. It's not always easy if you do YouTube, but having someone supportive always helps. So that's a big thank to her. All right, guys, by any means, be careful out there and be mindful about what you're doing. That was it for today's video. I hope you liked this story of mine. Just wanted to share this with you. Thanks again for the 2,000 subscribers. I really appreciate it and I wish you all well. Take care, guys.


go to across the world and you find a catalan well same thing we are everywhere and you know lesbians like to travel it's like we like to be like Thelma and Louis but without the ending, different ending we don't really know the ending of the movie right but anyway we like to travel and travel differently and we can invent different things we can be creative we need to you know like exchange houses in Australia or Portugal or the state exchanging houses whatever, why not ok then our further questions we will just close this panel thank you so much for being here hopefully we will be able to you know meet up again in the future hopefully every year, thank you so much good afternoon everyone good afternoon everyone thank you for being here on this closing session of the conference and thank you for your what it means on the commitment and on the topic that you have discussed just a couple of minutes because every now and then at the university we have sort of let's say secular justice we face these odd times of secular justice and I say odd times because yet we need to value them highly when I was going through the contents of this conference and I was being told about this you need to know the Catalan minister who used to be the commissioner rector that was appointed by the government of course a government that I would say was not very much willing to accept the kind of conferences we have had today that led to proposition a statement by the rector where he was proposing that certain behaviors were not just being able to be prosecuted to being dismissed at full from the university with no file meaning that that's quite the very limit of what the human mind can entail so again this is a sort of secular justice because when talking about these topics here at the chapel now lo and behold because right behind this curtain there's a chapel the non consecrated part of the chapel by the way and a site a building where not that long ago there was the consecrated in the post provided by the Catholic religion and this is not an easy world where a difference is perceived as a problem or diversity is seen as a nuisance or I was hearing how some of the panelists were talking about doing away with a cast and breaking molds and claiming and standing for these is seen by many as an impediment thinking behaving differently is still a reason for yourself to justify yourself to excuse yourself as if life would need an excuse any justification so that unfortunately these type of conferences are still very much needed and even if only to be against that rector rector Carreras as he was known we will keep on doing as we have done for long committing to spelling out the truth and leaving our gates open to whoever with us are willing to speak out the truth as well because that's the only way to move forward to move away from mediocrity and banality so thank you thank you once more for being here thank you for being the whole day with us and this is your house the house of us all and this is the ideal place again a place to speak out the truth always and yet it's the vice rectors and the director of the foundation have heard me far too much so it's up to the Catalan minister we should be listening to her because I think it goes to show something that here in the Catalan government we have this type of ministry we have this support and it means something so on behalf of the University of Barcelona thank you very much for being with us and we are deeply privileged to have you here with us thank you very much rector good afternoon or close to good evening and congratulations from to the organizers of this conference on memory and specifically the Solidarity Foundation at the University of Barcelona and the European Observatory of Memories we can talk about many topics we know at the Catalan ministry that memory is a political event is a political action be it on research also on public policies and on all matters that can be worked on social movements and when we talk about a political action from memory one can identify several areas a clear one would be recognition recognizing a struggle for some rights here the LGBTQ rights which have never been taken for granted and but rather they have been conquered with decades of mobilization in recent times but a rebelliousness and a dissident which is way more historical a struggle to promote the rights of the LGBTQ community but all in all a struggle for the rights of the human people so any development makes us a more democratic society and this is a struggle for us to be granting rights but also for LGBTQ policies to be at the core so they are not just an addendum in any type of policymaking but all the elements of discrimination and lack of quality that we are faced are being taken into consideration and this highlights the value that we are having this ministry but also we need to recognize the mobilization of the LGBTQ community the feminist community and also the anti-racist movement probably this type of ministry would not be existing without these social movements so this is something to recognize but this is also an act for reparation in remembering all the clear violations of rights some more brutal than others as the ones faced under faces and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century but that clearly show what this type of regimes can still do we have many all around the world and the LGBT people are still being prosecuted and even in some apparently democratic countries you have no full entitlement of rights for them and something that's been discussed in the latest panel discussion on the visibilization within this community and particularly in the case of women and in the case of trans women because when we look back into the years of the end of Franco's regime but then Stonewall in 68 but then it was like a decade where queer people and the LGBTQ community had been confronting the police and at Stonewall you had trans women, sex workers and unless we remember all these the last element in memory will be harder to incorporate and that is how are we using it to work for the present and for the future a present that is still under threat by the far right in countries where one would think that this would no longer be a threat not because it had gone completely away this is something that has been kept but the role that's been seen in the media by the far right was not projected some years ago and the far right indeed they made no distinction whether you are feminist, a lesbian, a queer researcher no it's all in the same bucket to them so we try to understand and to make it clear that this is a shared struggle and this is a lesson from the past that we can really apply for the present times for our marginalization and the way we do our policymaking in also to prevent violations of rights and to further promote against LGBT for because this is still a thing we are experiencing these days in different representations in different areas in the labour environment in the educational environment in our communities and just recently trans people and trans women have been beaten the object of many hatred but not just from the far right but the so called feminist and feminist women and it would seem obvious that we should have the more people in and the main threat to women is still patriarchy and not trans women anyway this lesson that seems so clear to the far right the right as well maybe they are slightly subtler but the far right is something to have it clear so it should be clear to us as well and so since we are at the university developing moving forward on public policies in all areas better to have the laws rather than not to and she has been crucial and she has participated she has been a strong proponent of many of these catalan laws and we at the catalan ministry what we try to do is for the laws on equality are something to be truly enforced which means rolling them out in all areas and universities well there are some duties that can relate to the memory recognizing the contribution of the LGBTQ community into the curricula recognizing the contribution of them and this can be practically seen because institutional discrimination the one brought by the very public administration or administrations or an LGBTQ on the healthcare environment in the occasional environment if the universities are not incorporating this type of education this type of learnings and lessons from the past we cannot do away with these other than just safe spaces and working protocols but more than anything we need proper teaching incorporating the gender perspective the LGBTQ perspective the anti-racist perspective so that we have a proper critical critical thinker as citizen and incorporating all these matters and subjects so once more thank you for this space for memories as a way for recognition as a way for reparation and as a mirror to reflect upon the past and present and the future


Good morning, good afternoon and a good evening depending on where you're joining us, very welcome to this webinar on Afghanistan. Together, we are joining 40 other events as part of the Global Democratic Coalition. This will be part of an initiative of democracy-oriented organizations to be able to put inputs into the Summit for Democracy led by President Joe Biden. Together with 200 other speakers, you will have a wonderful panel, we hope, to be able to discuss the topic of Afghanistan even further. There are many people who are wondering what should be done about contexts that are complex, such as Afghanistan and so on. So in order to understand this a little bit deeper, we will first have a speaker, our Honorable Excellency Ambassador, Yosef Hard of Sy, who came to Norway in 2019. In his 15 years diplomatic career, he has been working on multilateralism, peace and stabilization, and presented Afghanistan in various multiple forums, including the UN Security Council. Now, before giving him the word and be able to go and introduction into what is currently happening in the situation, I would also like to introduce you to our moderator, Liv Shelcet, who is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee. Liv has previously worked with the Norwegian Directorate for Immigration, as well as the Norwegian Council for the Rise of the Kurdish People. Now, on behalf of the Oslo Center, I would like to wish you very, very welcome. And please note that you will be able to participate and ask questions at the very end, both to our panelists and to our speaker. Thank you. Once again, an ambassador, please join us. We're organizing this seminar on the occasion of this week's global democracy summit. I'm especially thankful to our friends at the Center for dedicating this session to the democratization of Afghanistan, and the way in which this involvement she has now been entirely undermined in light of the Taliban's forced military takeover of the country. So much is often said about democracy's ability to allow people to live decent lives, to have the freedom to criticize, to express their views, and to meet their aspirations. But among these elements, democracy is also a factor for stability, enabling the social and economic well being of peoples in societies. Given the situation that has come about with the Taliban's takeover in Afghanistan, this is something which millions of Afghans from all walks of life can clearly relate to. From a historical perspective, democratic values have not been a new phenomenon in Afghanistan. They have roots in a long and rich history in which generations of Afghans have served to advance this principle as a way of life. The start of international engagement and partnership in 2001 enabled the people to restore a democratic environment in the country. Looking back in this period of time, Afghanistan's democratization can be seen as one of the most important, if not the single most important achievement over the past 20 years. Development of what was the most vibrant and open media in our immediate region, the building of democratic institutions, the emergence of a vibrant civil society, and come of age of a new generation of Afghans who courageously took the step forward to build their country. These are all very real examples of what was achieved. And at times, we tend to forget that these gains were made amidst the very difficult security environment. This indicates something beyond just ability and courage alone. It also reflects the people's deep desire and choice to live in a democratic society. In any doubt, developments in the country have not always reflected the position of the people, their choices and their decision. The past few elections were not void of problems and certainly had their flaws and a better degree of political stability and national cohesion could have and should have been preserved for the stability of Afghanistan. But despite all the problems, which were indeed many, Afghanistan remained a democratic society, and people took pride in being able to benefit from the freedom and opportunities that came with this universal value. Obviously, a lot has now changed, and the country stands in a much different situation. The Taliban's forced military takeover in violation of international law and the expectations of the people and the international community have taken the country back to a point which the people never expected. The situation now is extremely dire from a political, humanitarian, social, economic, and also security standpoint. The humanitarian catastrophe is such that more than half the population is deprived of the most basic of services needed for mere survival. From a social and political standpoint, democracy and all the rights that come with it were taken away almost overnight. Millions of women and girls deprived of their God given right to education to work and to participate in civic activities. The pages of media outlets have been closed, and journalists and activists are subject to threats and intimidation. Now the factors for what happened on the 15th of August are many. However, failure to reach a political agreement under the doha talks, which became virtually impossible after the withdrawal of international forces was the main factor. The withdrawal of international forces occurred after an agreement to which all sides committed the situation would have been much different. An agreement based on a national consensus would have led to a legal and official transfer of power to a broad based government that would have had the ability and legitimacy to direct Afghanistan on the path of peace and stability. Despite all the anguish and dismay, the focus now should be on what must be done to redirect the country back on the path of stability. Completing the peace process that began in Doha for a comprehensive settlement, which includes all core issues, formation of an inclusive government, the form of the future administration, respect for the democratic right of all citizens and measures to prevent Afghanistan from again turning into a base of international terrorism needs to be reached. We must not forget that a political settlement was one of the main provisions of the doha agreement, and that it was reaffirmed by several Troika plus meetings, the heart of Asia meeting on Afghanistan, the UN Security Council Resolution 2513 and recent foreign ministerial meetings of regional countries. The Taliban should come to realize that imposed rule is neither acceptable nor sustainable, and that legitimacy and acceptability can only come with a broad based agreement with various political groups and segments of society that reflects the will of the people. The international community has an important role and responsibility to help reach this agreement. It remains the only answer to the unresolved conflict in Afghanistan. I'd like to conclude by referring to a quote by former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a few years back on the International Day of Democracy and I quote, The democratic societies are strong societies because people are free to speak out against injustices and to discuss debate and to work together to drive positive change, even with those who hold opposing views. At this very crucial point in time, this lies at the heart of what we're seeking to achieve in relation to a political agreement in the interim that paves the way for lasting peace in a democratic Afghanistan. And we must not forget that Afghanistan's long term stability can only be guaranteed through free and fair elections and the direct choice of the people. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ambassador Gafasai. I'm Liqielset, representing the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee. And for those of you that don't know the committee, we have been working in Afghanistan since the last 40 years during all the various epaulks and regimes. And I'm grateful to have the chance to share some of our viewpoints on the current situation now. So before I introduce our prominent panel today, I will share a few, few points. So surely the Taliban take over represent a threat to democracy, the free media, civil society in Afghanistan. This threat is due to the Taliban resistance to the bureaucratic values, its horrific human rights record, and its lack of capacity to manage modern Afghan state institutions and provide quality public services to all. Because despite the war and conflict and the uncoordinated international intervention, public institutions at national, provincial and district level have matured over the last 20 years. And despite of all mismanagement, nepotism, corruption and dysfunctionality of the previous regime, the capability of the state to collect taxes and revenues are improved. The service delivery functions of the public sector have also greatly improved, and we now have a public education system and a national health coverage in place. These investments are made by Afghans and the international community together. They are now at risk due to the US World Bank and UN sanctions to Afghanistan in response to the Taliban take over the 15th of August. The freezing of the multi donor trust fund, as well as the assets of the Afghan Central Bank are leading to the collapse of the Afghan state. And have already had severe consequences for the people of Afghanistan. Without swift pragmatic actions from the international community, more people will die in 2022 alone than from violence during the 20 past 20 years of conflict. The international community entered Afghanistan in 2001 without a plan. They operated for 20 years in the country without the plan. There were no plan for the exit, and there is currently no plan for further engagement in the country. In this seminar, we will discuss the impacts of the democratization efforts in Afghanistan and whether the manner of withdrawal has impacted the democratic course of the country. So now I'm delighted to introduce the panelists of this seminar. I will briefly introduce all three of them. We are short of time, and then we will have a five minute where the panelists can share their views. So I will start with Nargis Neham. She has served as a senior advisor to several ministers as well as the president. She has herself been active minister of minds and petroleum for almost three years. Mr. Mrs. Neham has also funded equality for peace and democracy as civil society organization for empowering women and youth. Here by my side, I have Kai Ida. He was the UN Secretary General Special Representative in Afghanistan during 2008 2010. He has served in numerous positions as a Norwegian diplomat in Norway and also in the UN. And he has followed development in Afghanistan closely since 2002. Last but not least James Vassestran. He has served as a senior advisor on anti-corruption at the US Embassy in Kabul from 2009 to 2014. And he later led the team that drafted the official US government report on the US role in corruption in Afghanistan. He is considered an expert and seminar, both in the US and Afghan anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan. So please Nargis, you have five minutes to share your viewpoints. Thank you very much. First of all, I have to thank the Oslo Center for hosting today's event and bringing together such an incredible number of speakers. And I also hope that today's discussion will highlight some of the different dimensions of democratization that we have in Afghanistan. We all know that democracy is about freedom, liberty, inclusivity and stability. While democracy requires inclusivity, it's also an open and flexible with different models allowing nations to adopt the one that is suitable for them. As someone that have worked in Afghanistan for the last 20 years, nonstop and both public and as well as civil society sector. So I would like to share some of the points of democratization in Afghanistan and also highlight the point of the role of three main players in democratization process in Afghanistan. I will start with international community. And especially the US did support democratization in Afghanistan. They invested billions of dollars trying to build institutions, legal framework and provide public support through the civil society and media for raising awareness and having dialogues and discussions about democratization. In the meantime, the challenges that we faced with international community was that they tried to impose on Afghan people a model of democracy that they had in mind. And that was very un-democratic and was not welcome and was not accepted by Afghan people and we saw a consequence of that, that suddenly and gradually, unfortunately, things began to fall apart. If we look at the Bonn process conference as example, people that you were invited were mostly the warlords and some Afghans from diaspora. But those people that they had left in Afghanistan and they were living a normal life and they had a different aspiration from Afghanistan. Those people, the young, the woman, they were invited but they were invited to a side meeting. They were not part of the main discussions and the negotiations when they were happening. This became unfortunately the trend in the last 20 years that all the important conferences and events that we had about Afghanistan, including the peace process, the civil society, women groups and media were always isolated. We were provided with a side event to discuss and our issues amongst ourselves and then we were provided with just few minutes to present our recommendations to the policymakers, which most of them unfortunately were being ignored. The international community also chose to work with two sets of people that they were very much disconnected from the reactive of Afghanistan. One was the group of warlords that they got into politics, but they never knew anything about politics about nation building or state building. The other group was group of diaspora that they knew something about the state building and nation building, but they were so isolated that they had no idea what was going on in Afghanistan and how they could help Afghanistan to move forward and build itself. The other problem that we had was the political structure that they came with a very highly centralized political structure that they adopted from the model of the US, but then in the US you have a system of federalism, and you also have a very powerful Congress that they are part of the major decisions when it comes to the nation. In the case of Afghanistan, we had the highly corrupted and ineffective parliament, the system was highly centralized, with no role for the political parties, with no role for the provinces to play, and everything was decided by a small group of circles within the palace and no consultation and engagement of other players. Now the election commissions that you know that in a country like Afghanistan, which was in war for more than four decades, you need to have very credible institutions that when they conduct the election and when they come up with the result, that will be acceptable by all the participants. But in the case of Afghanistan, because of the corruption and because of the lack of system and that we had in the vote election and complaint commission, all our elections unfortunately were disputed. And all the time we had to end of the day about political settlement, which most of the time the decision that were made were not resonating to what people a majority of the people actually voted. So that all these together an inclusion of closing their eyes with regard to trafficking corruption at the higher level, brought us to the point that actually state got to the level that they collapsed. So this was this the role that international community played, and actually that presented a very different picture of democracy to upon people that they thought the democracy is basically that they will come to the model and you hide either you have to accept it, you don't have any other choice in between to be able to adopt it. That would reflect the reality of your society would you go to have on governments and our leaders. Unfortunately, we don't we our leaders and our politicians, most of them were warlords that they were in war, all the time it was about fight and violence, then they got into politics, and then we had the group of diaspora that all the time they focus about political capture and power sharing for them the governance and democratization was never about delivery of the services to the people it was mainly about capture of resources and capture capture of power for themselves. And also the according to the laws that we had in the country had played no give no particular rule for the political parties to emerge. So what happened that for all our political debates, whether we were talking about election or we were talking about peace process or anything. The platform that people were debating and talking was the ethnicity platform and unfortunately that provided that created more division amongst the people, because people being mobilized based on their ethnicity rather than on a vision of state coming together and working together as a society. There was no public accountability and fortunately, and about the corruption and criticism and an impunity already talked about. So the last very few point that I want to mention is the silver line the load of people civil society and media that as mentioned very well that people have people have been engaged, they had desired for democracy. They have been helping by cost of their lives they have voted, but unfortunately they were being let down by upon politicians and by the international community. And right now the country is going to national star vision, denial of women's basic rights target killings and isolation of Afghanistan. Thank you. But I think I will end discussions I can come back to them. Thank you. Thank you for the many interesting points, and I guess and we will pick more up on it during the discussions. So but now, Kai, I'd like to please share your viewpoints with us. Thank you very much. One of the last few days and I must say also in the last few months and last few years perhaps about our entire democracy building effort in Afghanistan. And I think it's important to remember that only three months after the 911 event, a conference took place that established the foundations for a democratic state a modern democratic state. And then it was to be implemented immediately in all these components. I think we have to remember one thing that Afghanistan was at the time, a rather primitive country or backward country, not least when it comes to literacy for instance. And the political system that was diametrically different different from what we tried to establish. And also the people who decided on this on the Afghan side, what were the leadership the elites with a good amount of war warlords among them. So my question is, was it realistic to move for such a comprehensive effort at the time. Was it possible to make it function well in a 20 years period. My conclusion is probably, no, it was not. I think we made very, very big strides towards the goals that we wanted to establish and that many in Afghanistan wanted. It is very hard when you have, when you have two political systems, almost coins coexisting the old traditional system that was there that was deeply rooted in the Afghan society and then a completely new system that you wanted to establish under very different difficult circumstances. Was there another way to proceed more step by step approach. It's very hard to say, but what we embarked on in 2001 2002 was we can say an extremely challenging demanding effort that had probably not been undertaken anywhere in the world before then. I think we need to have that perspective in mind. And we have lived throughout this period, in fact, more or less with two existing political systems. The one in Kabul institutions in provinces, and then also on the countryside with a different system. If we look at Europe and how we developed into the modern democracies we are, it took not only decades, it took much more than that. We are now 108 years from having established the right of women to vote, for instance. I think we have to learn from this and also understand that to develop democracy in a situation of war is also almost impossible. Those who come to liberate those who come to help become very easily seen as the occupier. And that is also what happened in Afghanistan. I think. And finally, the corruption, the nepotism, nepotism was part of the traditional system, also has damaged tremendously our possibilities of establishing democracy. So now we have to look at how do we go from here. And I'm sure the discussion that will follow will focus to a large extent on that. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Kai. James was a strong. Would you like to share your points you are with us. I'm definitely with you. And thank you for for introducing me. My perspective, I think that all the speakers have made very good points. But I'd like to because of the work that we did looking at the US rule and corruption dating back to the very earliest days. I'd like to sort of start with the, with the kind of a dichotomy that the US was facing with its Afghan partners. First, the intelligence agencies of the US when they arrived there, they, they funded the warlords, as it were to remove the Taliban. But they also then excluded the Taliban from participation in the political process. Second, when that political process came together in Bonn and afterward, they paid the warlords to actually participate in that process. So there was already a transition that was taking place with the warlords and other power brokers, seeing that the government may actually be just maybe a vehicle for self enrichment. And then with the exclusion of the Taliban from the political process and their, their detention in Bahram and Guantanamo and so on, which gave rise to the subsequent insurgency. And again, the intelligence community, which you can primarily US, except I had a justification for continuing to finance these, these bad actors or these or, or the warlords. So I'm not really sure, even with the best of intentions, how likely it was under these circumstances that democratization with governments was ever going to succeed. There was a military intervention that came from the US side and from ISAF, which exacerbated the problems of corruption. And there are many, many examples of that and we documented them in the report, and have been documented by the media subsequently. And so, and then you had the civilian side on the, on the US and the other donors who are working diligently to create some of these institutions, working with the Afghans, those who are serious about this and there were many, there were, and a generation or more of individuals who were very hard on this, but we were on the civilian side in particular we were kind of swimming against the tide, because the different parts of the war effort on the US side, we're working across purposes. And I think that that that seriously undermined the ability of good governance to take root in Afghanistan over these many years. And, and I think it played out, as we saw in the ultimate collapse of the of the Afghan state for a number of reasons, but corruption and the lack of a plan. I think that's that actually says it beautifully, but there was never at any point during the 20 years, was there really any plan from the international community as to how to achieve democratization and good governance. So of course, what was the exit to be the exit was going to be also without a plan. And, and it was, I think the title of this includes irresponsible, sorry responsible exiting. Of course, what we did see was irresponsible exiting. We saw basically an abandonment of the of the Afghan government and the Afghan people in particular by by the international community, and which has led to this horrific set of circumstances that our moderator and others have pointed to, and there still is no plan except some bizarre form of punishment. And who's being punished here, which is really the Afghan people. So I, whether or not the, the, the story is by no means over. I think we've mentioned that what what will actually happen as a result of that of the Taliban take over. Is it likely to last. I think that many observers think that it's not likely to last what will come in its place. It will probably not be a return to the form of government, and as it was in the, in the preceding 20 years. So I think we had this, this bad start to this effort that was enormous that, although it did have, it did produce some very positive things, health education, women's, women's girls educate women's education and so on. And some good infrastructure. It was, it was almost certainly doomed to fail from the outset, and the fact that there was never any plan, and there still seems to be no plan has laid bare the lack of foresight and the lack of commitment to good governance democratization and responsible editing exiting. Thank you so much, James. I would like to start to pick up on something that Nargis Neham made a very strong point of in her introduction about the lack of inclusion of Afghans in the development of the various kind of what became the sort of democratic system of Afghanistan. And I'm wondering if you could particularly James and Kai, if you could respond to Nargis about this. Why were Afghans to this little extent consulted and involved in the development of their own government systems. You can ask that question and it's a good question to ask. And looking back, I think we were so focused on developing our own system, copying our own system. We remember this was at a time also from the 90s, where we believe that all countries would seek to develop a democracy liberal democracy close to the one we had shaped in the western world. It was a brief period but that was really the atmosphere at the time. And probably what we did also in Afghanistan we wanted to constitution we wanted to set out of institutions etc. We wanted to set out of rights that should be established quickly. And of course, in many ways, it was right to go that way but we have to understand also that the society like Afghanistan. You need much more time to get where you want to go and some have said we did it in Germany so why can't we do it in Afghanistan. I think when we did it in the former Soviet republics. Well, they also, many of them had democratic experience. The only place where we have seen it really happen is Tunisia, where, where the ownership came from below and not was not trying to force it on from the top. I think the international community took on too much, sent in too many experts so called, we knew very little of the Afghan society or its tradition of its politics etc. If you don't have that knowledge, if you don't know how the system has worked, how the society has worked, what it is like, then you're bound to fail. I remember Michael Flynn who was the head of the intelligence at ISAF for a while, wrote a paper in 2010, eight years after where he wrote, we don't know the people and we don't know who the enemy is. That was after eight years. Yeah, and I think that is a very, very important point. I myself I've been working on Afghanistan now for at least 12 years and following the media on Afghanistan before that and everyone speaks about the mistakes done in Bonn and also in the earlier days. So, so James. Let me answer the question that you've posed. There's, I can't think of an example of a political settlement where, where there was wide consultation. It just doesn't happen. These things are done behind the scenes behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms as far as I can tell where where expedience is really the way things are done by diplomats and politicians they don't know they don't, they don't, they don't care about the interests of the populations they're in, in the main. There are some exceptions. So there's no, there's almost no example of this kind of consultation that takes place in terms of political settlements. And that's, that's, that's a shame. And of course, it can and should be done differently. But these are, these are, this is the real politic unfortunately that that existed in Afghanistan and has existed in almost all places where these political settlements have been imposed at the same time. We, we decided to impose this central model on a country which is, which is by nature, decentralized. So why the fact that we chose to do a, to do a, this highly centralized system, where we clearly would have would have benefited the government and people more obviously to have a decentralized system was really only given scant attention by the powers that be to change a bit of the of the topics and to go to the corruption and epitism issue. And Nargis, you've been working yourself within the government and as a civil society activist. How did you see and also you entered the government at a very kind of optimistic period of time around election in 2014. How was it to enter the system and what, what did you see in terms of the challenges related to corruption and nepotism. To tell you my personal experience that all of us were very much frustrated with President Karzai, not taking any stand and basically encouraging people for corruption. So when former President Ghani took office in 2014, many of the educated men and women decided to join and support him in state building because we thought that he is the right man and building the country and state for us. So we went to the system and we all of us tried to help them out in different capacities that we put, and I'm sure that in many of the quarters come that a big number of women and made from the civil society were appointed in different positions as advisors, the ministers, directors and cabinet members. But then slowly and gradually what we saw that the promises that were made during the election were much more different in the reality that was happening. And things began to get worse and worse and worse every time we saw that okay there is no particular will for fighting corruption. And then what we also saw worse than Karzai's time was that parallel institutions were established and systems were in the, in the palace that they were, they were copying and they were doing work of the ministries, the ministries had no authority and they had no power to execute the policies and to be able to deliver services that they required to do. So then slowly and gradually many of us came to this conclusion that things are going to fall apart, but we didn't know that they will fall apart so badly, and so quickly. So it was 2019 the fight finally, many of us, after the second round of election before actually the announcement of second round election, we decided to quit government, because our conclusion was that we cannot work and we cannot survive in this highly corrupted environment that we had in system. And it was mainly because we had many of the ones coming from diaspora with no connection with our own people with no sense of accountability to have one community. And all of them were living in the palace or in the green zone was it about home. And they were making all these deals, they were not respecting our constant laws and regulations. They were just going out of their way and using their connection with the President for for procurements contracts. That's so many times civil society media with all the evidence kept on reporting about them by taking all the risk, but they saw no reaction from the government and they saw nothing from coming from the international community. So it became very frustrating for all of us because we were fighting in the system corruption and Buddhism, we were fighting from the civil society and from the media, but there was no accountability from the government and there was literally no support from the international community. The knowledge James are you with us. I don't think it's never been a lack of knowledge and understanding about about the topic it's been kind of what Margueris pointed to a lack of willingness to do anything. Yes, I think that's that it's maybe not a lack of willingness to do anything I mean, I would be careful in in lumping, you know, conflict conflictive forces in the same category. There was, in my experience, as I mentioned on the on the civilian side meaning the diplomacy and in the various aid organizations including your own as there was lots of will to try to assist in fighting corruption. And where it was lacking and undermined was on the intelligence and military side, and they were very open about this. When, when they were asked, despite the fact that HR McMaster had established us for Shaffa Fiat and so on at ISAP and so on that was really much more of a, it was not a very effective effort, although well intentioned, I think, on his part, at least not so much on General Petraeus's part. But, but they're there, they saw their job as as getting results and we define results was was quote unquote winning the war. So, if that meant that that there was a certain amount of corruption, which they actually said in behind closed doors and actually in an international community, transparent and accountable to work working group that I chaired some years ago, they said well that's that's what it takes. That's what it takes. They said, we know that's not what you want to hear but that's, that's how, how we view it. So there were cross purposes between those who who wanted fight corruption international community, and those who really didn't didn't care to do so. And so there was a head of the corruption through the clientelism and Patrick networks of the of the warlords and their associates, particularly in the military side, the Afghan National Army, among others. And so, there was, there wasn't a lack of knowledge it was, it was a lack of conflict of wills between two different perspectives within the international community. James and I think that we should pick up also on kind of encouragement that we should discuss where to move from, from here. And before we do that, I will also ask about the exit that we now have seen, and what kind of implications do the exit that we have. The exit of the international community have as regards to democratization and resilience and sustainability. Anyone would like to start. Would you permit me to sentences on this. Of course, nepotism and corruption came together when nepotism was filled by billions and billions of dollars. But nepotism as such, and put the corruption side fingers side for a moment nepotism as such is means. The rest of your family, you know, if you are a head of a family or a tribe, you try to see to it that the rest of the family or the tribe are in good positions that they are favored by you as a head of a tribe that that that that is not in itself. Very surprising and something that is seen in in very many societies has been part of the Afghan society, and then the money comes in and is added to it. And you see a level of corruption developing that obviously is unacceptable and meant that people says people could see that this new system doesn't seem to work in our favor. It works in the favor of a few rich people. So I think that destroyed it all but you wanted to talk about the future. I want to talk first about the exit from Afghanistan. What kind of state now, what, how, how the way that we exited or the international community now left Afghanistan have influenced and what state the democracy democracy. Now find itself in. It is left in a total shambles. You cannot say that the political system that we've had over the last 20 years is there anymore it's, it has been replaced by something very, very different. This reminds us of the 1990s and the Taliban rule. Is it actually exactly similar or is it not the world that we will see when, when the time passes by. Is there any possibility to revive democracy. I think we have to continue pressing the Taliban for concessions when it comes to some very basic issues, which has to do with the women's right freedom of expression, etc. But I must also say, what is today the biggest threat against stability. Is it the Taliban or is it the humanitarian situation. I will claim that it's a humanitarian situation. And here we are in one of the big dilemmas when it comes to human rights. Do we want to punish the Taliban for not for limiting women's rights and freedom of expression. Or do we want to punish the people. What we're doing now is in fact both, you know, we're saying to the Taliban, we don't want to talk to you. And the end result is by not talking by not engaging. I do not say recognition, but by not talking not engaging. It's the people that we put in in danger and that I must say will be a grave threat to the stability of the country. You can risk seeing new violence, fragmentation within the Taliban, which is already a fragmented movement. You can risk seeing a new war, new civil war between the IS and the Taliban, and also other forces in the country. So I must say, and this I know sounds very, very strange to many, but the best way of securing stability today is in fact to engage with the Taliban. And then we have to make sure what our objectives is at this, but it's only by doing that, that we can limit the number of people who suffer from malnutrition, from the drought, from lack of medicine, etc. And Nargis, I've heard you say so many times that you saw this coming. And you knew, of course, that the international community were exiting Afghanistan. What were your recommendations? How could this exit have become more responsible in your views? What is disappointing that we had so many consultation meetings with the international community. They had delegations coming to Afghanistan and asking exactly these questions and we continuously repeated ourselves about the issues and the way forward. But then at the end of the day they did what they did and let everything fall apart. For example, we didn't have to go for the presidential election in 2019. It was divisive and people were not reading and instead of that we should have focused on peace, but then they went for it and we saw the result of that. Then on top of that, we did tell them that we should be able to hold the government to account. Constantly, they were talking generally about fight and corruption but whenever we shared the case of corruption they didn't take any step at any action about it. So the responsible exit could have been to first of all convince Taliban for the political settlement and then working on the formation of a broad based caretaker or interim government before the exit. So it was very difficult for the Afghan government to be able to talk and resolve their issue before exiting. It might have taken another two or three years for countries that they had spent two decades in Afghanistan. Another two or three years wouldn't have made any difference, especially with the level of atrocity that we see right now. But at least it would have helped us to transition from the crisis that we had to a political settlement that would have led us to continue the situation. They just left everything fall apart. And this has hampered the democratization globally and image of the international community, especially in the U.S., with their very irresponsible withdrawal because on daily basis we are seeing war crimes, atrocities, target killings of specially formal national security forces. We just left them for brutal Taliban and everybody left. So still they have to constructively engage with the Taliban, but there is no way that should recognize the Taliban until the Taliban do not come forward and accept the reality of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is one of the, Taliban is one of our realities, but Taliban are not the only reality of Afghanistan. There are many realities, those women that they are standing at the cost of their life and they are uprising against the Taliban rule and they are saying that you want a work back. Those are also reality of Afghanistan that you should not ignore them. Those Yankee stars that they stand and they take the camera while the Taliban are beating them and trying to cover the news of the uprising, those are also realities of Afghanistan. So when we engage with the Taliban, it's very important that we make them realize that they are one of the realities, but they are not the whole reality. We need a form of government that will reflect the whole reality of Afghanistan, all the group and segments of Afghanistan, a government that focus on providing services to the people, and a government that will be accountable to the people. That is the only way forward, but how do we do that. It's a lot of work. It is very challenging. It's difficult, especially when we see a lot of confusion fragmentation on the international communities part. But we hope that together all of us will be able to find our way out of it. I personally believe that when there is a there is a one there is a way so if you have the one can find a way to do it. But the point is that we should be able to do it and definitely we should not you make the starvation of the people of Afghanistan, the misery of one people as excuse for lobbying for recognition of the Taliban, especially that they have no political will for any kind of compromise so far. Now that we have come to the part of this webinar where we will have some questions from the audience, and I will try to read those questions on the screen behind here. I will start asking how to reconcile or bring together the Islamic framework of the Taliban with the broader democratic process of the international community. And how to deal with what should have been the approach and the methodology. Would you like to start. I always been in favor of negotiations between Afghans. I've always thought that if there is a 10% 20% 30% chance, then you should do it. But I came to realize over time, and particularly after the agreement between the US and the Taliban that there was certain issues where you cannot find the compromise. And that had to do with the structural government, the Islamic State versus the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. And this happens sometimes in negotiations that you find issues that could not be bridged. And this happened here, at least it was clear that there was not enough time to pursue that. And I think to be quite honest, I think there were three parts here who did not really always demonstrate their readiness to negotiate seriously. So I think the very, very good job when it comes to the 29 February agreement we drew and implemented it also just as badly. The Taliban never showed any readiness to discuss these fundamental issues, and the government lacked the commitment also. Ashraf Ghani lacked the commitment. I'm a little bit surprised by Nargis because you said when Ashraf Ghani came in, it was with the great enthusiasm. I must say, I never saw him as a leader that would lead Afghanistan in the way it needed because he lacked the experience from the country itself. It was too much of an outsider. You mentioned President Karzai. Karzai always had one ear on the ground in Afghanistan and one ear within the international community. I think he managed better to bridge the two realities, so to speak. And that's what you have to do in order to move forward. Is it possible? I think it will take time. There are many, many questions here, but I think that we should also kind of take the perspective and bring it a bit forward. So if we could actually come up with some recommendations to the future and to the upcoming Biden summit. I would like to start with you Nargis. What are your recommendations moving forward now? The coordination between the, among the international community is very much important. Working closely with those states that they are supporting and they have influence over Taliban, such as Qatar and Pakistan, is very important that they work with the Taliban and they make Taliban to open up and accept the new Afghanistan. And all that empowering the appraisings and the civic movements inside Afghanistan and the those that they have moved outside of Afghanistan to raise the advice to constantly document and monitor the situation. And constantly update the international community on the situation is very much important. And all that we need to have right from now a roadmap that what kind of governance we want in Afghanistan and how do we work on formation of a caretaker government. And instead of waiting for the Taliban to come, it's better that we work on a model, and we use our backward diplomacy to actually work with the Taliban and make them realize and understand and accept that. It is going to be a win-win situation for us. If we manage to convince Taliban that they form an inclusive government, they accept the new Afghanistan, and we find a settlement out of this situation, because at least then that way we're not going to hopefully going to have any emergence of insurgency anymore except the ISIS and others. But if we don't have that, we should also have a solution, because with the way the situation is going on right now, there is no way that Taliban would be able to hold the country and the power together for another maybe one or two years. So we should be really right from now on how do we deal with the situation and how do we make sure that at least when we are intervening this time, it should be different than before. So do you have any kind of closing remarks and recommendations from your side? I'm sorry you're talking to me. Yes. If you have some recommendations. Yeah, well I do because we've been, I've been thinking about this I think Nargis is absolutely right and I was going to say make the same point about using those intermediaries will have some influence over the Taliban. I don't think the Taliban is there to stay, and I think Nargis has made the same point. I think that there's, they're incapable of governing. It's not going to happen there. They're going to try they don't have the depth they don't have the experience they don't have they don't have the, the, the, the commitment to be more than a movement, not really a government. I think that there, there, there, there can be scope for pressure. I'm not saying necessarily that it's democracy or democratization because I think that's, that's a big jump where we are now. There will be some sort of of intermediation with a view towards the life after the Taliban, and to try to resolve the situation of lack of governance in Afghanistan or at least to make it make it work in some way so that so that the people don't suffer more than they already are. And that can be through provision of humanitarian aid for the time being, but with a view towards towards bringing back the technocrats that were that ran the government effectively in some form or fashion. And then, and then using those countries which have influence whether it's Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. to intermediate some some, some different kind of governance than exists now, which is virtually none. So they're there that that I think can be done. Ambassador, I expect that you are burning in with some comments. I think there is a fundamental point that there's a tendency for us to forget. And that has to do with the fact that the peace process began in Boa. It was ongoing for more than a year and a half. We had two negotiating sites. The process was supported by the international community. Now I said, as I mentioned my introductory remarks, there are various reasons why the process really did not move forward on core issues and why it was abandoned. But one of which has to fundamentally do with the lack of the Taliban's unity within their ranks to be able to decide on core issues. And but the bigger question now is what has to happen? Yes, indeed, there is contact. There is engagement by the international community with the Taliban. But I think it's important for us to ask us, ask ourselves this question on what which of the four key demands of the international community in the Afghan people have the Taliban delivered. Inclusivity. No, respect for human rights. No, counterterrorism commitments commitments as the international community and the people of Afghanistan have expected. No. So, as opposed to approaching each specific demand individually, we believe it's really, really important to revisit the peace process, and to try to secure agreement on all core issues as part of a package. And should that happen, it will, first and foremost on the humanitarian situation, it will result in the normalization of relations between Afghanistan and the international community on a freezing of assets. A start of a new chapter of relations between the international community and a broad based administration that can really represent all segments of society. That I think is the best way forward from here on revisiting the process that was left incomplete. And with the serious support, strong support of the international community, I think it's still a process of a process that is achievable. I, you will have the last word. I wish I would feel that what you are saying is realistic. I don't think it is. What I think is important now is in order to get the democracy process going is a we engage with the Taliban to help the country out of a crisis. That means engaging more than someone's today. That's critical to the international community must not abandon Afghanistan politically and economically. Disaster three, we have to have a longer vision. There's one person I know well who wrote a book called the art of the long view. I think we have to take a long view in our engagement and our thinking and then gradually try to bring back the elements that were there and turn the last 20 years for very many into a golden age. But I think that art of the long view is unfortunately necessary today. Thank you for those I think that was the very good points made at the very end of this seminar and thank you to the audience. And one minute over and I think that would be impressive that everyone has kept the time so so well and thank you to the also Center for hosting this webinar. And thank you for all with the interest of Afghanistan and I will encourage everyone to continue to have the strong solidarity with the country. So thank you.


Hi my name is Alana and my story today is Nefresco and Eli by Alana B. Once upon a time there was a little unique mouse named Nefresco. He loved everything big. He ate big stuff like watermelon, pizza and ham. He would scurry up to the playground and ride the big swirly slide and the big swing for this mouse riding on big things was a breeze but he wanted more. On the other hand there was a big unique elephant named Eli. He ate small stuff like peanuts, peas and raisins. He loved small stuff but small stuff would break and shake whenever he came. When Eli would stomp off to the playground and try to get on the kitty slide the only thing that could fit was his trunk. When he tried to ride the baby swing the swing would break because his front foot would get stuck in the chains. For this elephant riding small things was as hard as being trapped in a storm. One day Nefresco sat on a bench. Then Eli came to sit on the bench without noticing Nefresco. Oh no! The bench broke and turned into a catapult. Eli launched Nefresco into mid-air. The mouse yelled, ah! Luckily Eli used his long trunk to grab the mouse and bring him down to safety. Nefresco was anxious but relieved to be saved. Nefresco and Eli talked so long that it was nighttime. That night they saw a shooting star and they made a colossal wish right before bed. They wished that they would switch places for a day. In the morning the world looked different to them. Nefresco's bed was too small and Eli's bed was too big. They were finally the size that they wished for and their jammies changed too. They were so excited they both ran to the park with their jammies still on. Eli the itsy bitsy elephant and Nefresco the massive mouse rode their favorite rides all day until they got hungry. Luckily there was a food truck and they saw each other and laughed. Nefresco ordered 50 large beef tacos and Eli ordered one large bag of peanuts. The end.


So you need to make money as a freelance well-developed rich right video. Let me explain This video was brought to you by digitalink Academy You're number one source to learning programming fast and get to that six-figure salary you desire our third day project course Includes our JavaScript front-end projects our Python back-end projects our sequel database projects and much much more So go ahead and click the link below to our free seven-step guide so that you can start reaching your programming goals today I'll see you guys in the course All right freelance web developers. Let's get into the money We need you to make some money fast and we need you to get yourself on position so that you can live a lifestyle You want to live before we get started guys one thing? I really want to tell you guys is it starts and ends with projects I can't stress that enough Projects projects projects if you don't take anything away from this video Your projects is what you're gonna make you the money. You're gonna get you to work You're gonna lead you to what you need to learn projects projects projects You need to know real-world projects in order to be able to be a successful web developer Like you guys are struggling because you don't have these projects in your arsenal You coming showing your clients about hello world Calculated apps just training projects that don't make no sense to them. They can't help them in turn They're not gonna give you money so you can't make any money You want to be able to showcase projects that they need and they're gonna be willing to pay you big bucks In order to solve those problems with those projects that we're gonna talk about in this video But before we get into this video guys I want you guys to tell me about your struggles as a freelance web developer. Are you making money? How successful have you been? What are some of the angles that you've been taking to be a successful developer or? What are some of the struggles you've been having to become a or? Your obstacles to become a freelance developer as well go ahead and put that in the description so that we can get started and go from there So I already told you guys project-based learning is what's gonna get you the money. I'm telling you that now I don't want to be around a bush Project-based learning where you may ask what type of projects? I'm not gonna cover all the projects in this video because that's reserved for the people who get in my community And the sabbastop guy, but I'll give you guys a little bit here. Don't worry I'm gonna give you a little bit But the people who sign up for the sabbastop guide Enrolling the community is going to get the more advanced project or the more fast-making money project because I want you guys to succeed and Go from there, but at the end of the day guys He really come down to all the main systems that a company have and compute a company have a wide variety they call the software stack or some of them just have one or two pieces of software that they're using to take orders accounting Website managing managing their customers making money and all that stuff the more you can automate Things in that process the better you off going to be that's basically where software come down to guys I need a structure piece of software that's gonna guide me to success in terms automate this process or in turn Let somebody who's less trained than me come in and do this process exactly how I want to I want you to program this Software to do this process exactly like this So I just add people to that process and then they don't necessarily have to be Advancedly trained they know that the software is gonna lead them to success if you break it down to it That's all software do at the end of the day for businesses is to make sure you have a standard procedure And force that procedure and also report on if something's going wrong with that procedure a lot of you guys Don't get that concept you just think that hey software It's this nice sexy thing that you can come in and just write and then everybody's gonna drool all of it because you Got the best written software it don't work like that if you ain't solving problems you ain't making no money I can tell you that right now a lot of you guys may think well, right? That's one or two projects What's gonna happen when those projects dry up guys when you when I hear stuff like that I did just scream somebody who don't have any experience with IT being IT professional What's going to go wrong will go wrong especially over time with Microsoft patch updates outages Stuff happens stuff gets out of date You're gonna have to make sure you do monthly maintenance monthly debugging whatever you need to do to maintain that application And if you stay on top of it It's not gonna be a lot of work if you stay on top of it and you have a service contract guys a lot of you guys It's impossible for you to talk a client or somebody into a service contract because that's just monthly money That you're getting to just basically look over their system and it could be quite frank early on in the support contract It's gonna be a pain because everything's gonna be outdated You're gonna have to get everything standardized so what you want and up to date But once you do that probably after month three You're sitting on a whole lot of cash for not a whole lot of work and you can do this for 1012 clients Things are good, especially if you put them on a solution That's more hosted and then you got a support team or or you also you got a support That's not you and you got everything standardized to your coding your freelance work. They use in the same You are really putting yourself in the money guys and then you can still charge project-based work on top of the regular Making it to agreement guys this this is where you can get to one or two clients and start to make money Immediately if you present it right and showcase your value and that's what most of you guys got problems with you Don't have the projects you can't showcase your value and then once you do the one or two things that's gonna you know Be get your one or two projects that will help them You can't consistently provide value after that you got to know the industry a little bit more You got to know who is the movers and shakers who's willing to invest in technology guys a lot of companies out here They say they want to invest in technology, but if you look at what they're wanting to do in their priorities It's not on that you don't waste your time with those type of people I can't I can't stress that enough that you got client You got free what freelance web developers chasing clients that is wasting their time and to a certain extent All of us get our time wasted from time to time Going to see a client for the first time who's not serious But that should be the only time you waste your time on the front end And I beat you need to be able to identify this real fast But at the end of the day guys we talk about all this in my seven-step guide below I can't cover all the details in the video But what I can do is make sure you get on the right track to start making money as fast as possible And put you in position so that you can get that career that you want to start Contract work with everyone dude, and if you guys already signed up for my seven-step guide We have good rates for the 30 day available course links are below to that guys go ahead and jump on that that's gonna really put you in the position to win and Get you making that money as quick as 30 days guys so go ahead and jump on that and At the end of the day, I want to see you guys succeed I want to see you guys with money in your pocket have that six-figure Contract job or career whatever you want to do as your as you become success The good news is you're on the right track. So I'm happy about that Just a matter of getting you consistently working towards your goal as far as just making your salary numbers and getting you started Because getting started is the hardest part guys once you start once you make that first dollar as a developer All other dollars get way more easier to make So we got to get you that first dollar but at the end of the day like to subscribe to the content If you have additional questions comment below tell me about your struggles And if you haven't already guys check out the link in the description box for all the goodies on the seven-step guide and also The third day developer course. I'll put a link on the screen to that as well. Go ahead and click that I'll see you guys in the next video