The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, makes us a better thing for a better living through chemistry. Starring Edward Arnold. Tonight's DuPont play, Experiment in Humanity, is the true story. And here's our star, Edward Arnold. The moment I read the letter, I knew I was through. Hook. Me. Me. A. R. Glancy. Hook, but good. I never had a chance. Sit down, I'll tell you about it. Ever hear of a town in our country called the Luth, Georgia? Population, 628. Well Dick and Nora Hall, my son-in-law and daughter, have a place down there. And it was on Dick's farm that it all began some years ago on a Sunday morning before Christmas. One of the milkers came to the house. It was, ma'am. Could I talk to the boss? He'll be down in a minute, ma'am. We'll have a chance. Thank you, ma'am. I was just saying, I couldn't sit. Aren't you feeling all right, ma'am? Me? I'm fine. You look pale, but could I bring you glass of water? No, thank you, ma'am. Don't you disturb yourself, ma'am. They're thinking wrong. You're in trouble. Yes, ma'am. I'll call my husband right away. Oh, don't rush him, miss. Oh, nothing we can do about it now. Sit down, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. You see, it's my boy, old man, ma'am. On Wednesday he commenced to look for me. I was aiming to get taken to the doctor. Didn't get around to it, though. I just didn't get around to it. During the night, ma'am, last night, my little boy, old man, he died. That's how it began. On a Sunday morning before Christmas.  She's the storekeeper's wife. He signaled to Miss Kate, and they slipped out of the church and walked down the quiet country street. Oh, and shouldn't have died, Miss Kate. Only the Lord can say that, Mr. Hull. He was only six years old. What gift born, gift to God. And the good Lord does win. He should have been taken to a doctor. He should have been. But folks here don't have much cash for doctors. This has nothing to do with cash. It should have been a place his daddy could have brought him. What kind of a thing? A hospital. Miss Kate, there are 30,000 people in Grenette County and there isn't a hospital for any of them. Well, I'm afraid there's nothing either one of us can do about it. Miss Kate. Yes? Ask everybody I know to come to the schoolhouse tomorrow night. Who's been on your mind, Mr. Hull? I'm not conscious. Tell them to be there, Miss Kate. As many people as you can tell. And so the next night, a hundred people met in the little Georgia schoolhouse. Dick didn't push a press or force anything. He just spoke about little old in Grenette, why he died, how he probably wouldn't have died, has there been a hospital or a clinic in Duluth? Well, that's all I have to say, folks. We need a place where a mother can come to have a baby.  We need a lot of things. A lot of things can wait. They just ought to come first. Look around, Mr. Hull. No rich people in this room when you can't stand you talking about taking heap of money. All right. All right. I'll give ten dollars a month for six months to see if we can make a door. What do you want from us? Only as much as you're able to give. No more on that. Well, I guess you can afford to give ten dollars. I can scrape it together. Each month for six months. I guess so. All right. That's a total of twenty dollars a month. Now who's next? Ten dollars here. That's credit. Please, speak up. Ten, five, one dollar a quarter. A dime, whatever you can afford. I'll give you the dollar, too. I'll give you a dollar. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. We told her a month, came to eighty dollars in cash and promises of four hundred and fifty dollars a month. When my daughter and daughter took it into her head, me a letter. Now I want to make something clear. Nobody in his right mind ever went around claiming A.R. Grantee is a soft Dutch. I began as a hard rock miner and I made my way by myself. I worked hard and I'm glad I didn't. And now this letter from Nora. There was no doubt about it. She was putting the bite on her old man. Even though it was Christmas, someone had to remind her that my name was A.R. Grantee, not A.R. Santa Claus. So I wrote a letter. Darling. I'm just answering this letter from your daughter. Nora, your daughter too. And she does write a beautiful letter, doesn't she? Beautiful, my eye. Let me see what you've written. No, no, no.  Don't pull it away. No, no, no. Why don't you?  Well, that doesn't mean a thing. Just words. We are sending $500 now to help get things started. And every year we'll send $250 more on the first day of your little sister, Joan, to die of pneumonia 17 years ago because the drugs which might have stayed there were not known then. We make this gift in memory of her. Thank you, my dear. Mail the letter. And well, sir, the good citizens of Duluth, Georgia, soon, Nora, had gotten to me. And that was only the beginning. Dear Mr. Grantee, the first baby has just been born in our little hospital. She's a dolly. On her name, her name is Glancy Jones. Isn't that sweet? It's on the hook. There was nothing alongside the next letter which my wife read aloud. It's signed by Mr. Summerhauer, the proofmaster. Southern Diplomacy. They've put up jobs from beginning to end. Oh. And so we citizens of Duluth, Georgia, find ourselves wondering if you'd mind if we called it the Joan Grantee Memorial Hospital. We found an inscription which everyone liked. To Joan, who in swift transition achieved a tenuous thing time that through it the lives of other children may be enriched. Isn't that fine? My dear, it's more than fine. It's wonderful. I was a little impatient to see that hospital named in memory of my daughter Joan, but the war was on. Because I had some experience in the automotive industry, the government sent me to England to work in Britain's tank building program. When I returned, I was stucked into a Brigadier General's uniform and shipped to Detroit to take charge of our own tanks and combat vehicle production. It was a long time before I could get down to Georgia. The hospital wasn't much to see, although my daughter pretended that it was. There it is, Father. There is what? The Joan Grantee Memorial Hospital. Where? Right there. Don't you see it? I see a tired old-frame house. Well, it's got four rooms. Congratulations. How many beds does it have? So many lovely flower beds. The women of the town set those in. No, not flower beds. Hospital beds. How many Nora? Oh, look at the good taste of it has. The men did that. Nora, how many beds does the hospital have? Two. Two wards? Two beds, Father. For 30,000 people? That's two hospital beds more than they ever had. Oh, I appreciate that. Your mother and I love it, darling, but it isn't good enough. Why, Father? Because it doesn't look like a New York medical center? It's got a heart. It's our hospital. For rich, for poor, for black, for white.  No one has ever been tamed away, Father. That's fine, Nora, but it still isn't good enough. The people here are doing the best they can. They can't do any more than that. Those wards were on my mind all the way back to Detroit. Now, there in Detroit, I made my own personal acquaintance with hospitals and sickness. General Granthi, can you take it? What have I got about them? General Granthi, you've got cancer. I was looking. It was a nearly diagnosis. They shot me full of radium, cut me open twice, and I got well. I got well thinking of a two-bed hospital, a hospital without radium, without x-rays, without fluoroscopes, without any of the scientific apparatus the rest of us take for granted. All it had was the kindness and the affection of neighbors for one another. That was a great deal, but not enough. So I went back to Duluth, Georgia, and called a meeting. Whenever you're ready, General Granthi. I'm ready now, sir. Yes, sir. Friends, neighbors, General Granthi has something to say to us. Look, I've got a proposition for you. I want you to buy yourselves a tract of land, 50 to 20 acres, then dig a deep well on it so that you've got to supply good water. Put the land in shape. Now, just those three things. Buy the land, improve it, and provide water, and I'll build you a hospital. I'll build you the finest small town hospital in the country. Well, it didn't take long for the people of Duluth to collect enough money to buy 24 acres, but digging the well and filling in the big ditches, bowing, howling. That was something else. The trouble was that they weren't up to the job, and I made it a point to tell them so. I guess I was a little rough, at least my daughter thought so. You're sure women, friends, and people around here. But I have to get things done.   Nora, Samuel Johnson once said that every man has the right to other what he thinks is truth, and every other man has the right to knock him down for it. But they're my neighbors. For the sake of your children, I think you ought to move. Doesn't it make you feel rotten to know that right at this moment, people are saying, General Daunty is a... Careful. He's an intolerant. Correct. I'm intolerant of people who haven't enough initiative to find a mule in a drag pen to level off a piece of lawn. You can tell them from me that I'm going back to Detroit. You wouldn't dare. Wouldn't I, though? You just watch me. You are listening to the Cavalcade of America starring Edward Arnold, sponsored by the DuPont company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry. We continue our DuPont play, starring Edward Arnold as A.R. Grant. My mind was made up of fixed immovable. Only you... Well, I just couldn't go back to Detroit. They were fine, generous, decent people, and I talked to them like a tough sergeant in a grade B movie. The more I thought about it, the more miserable I got. But Georgia people are not the only ones who can be proud of they could suck, I could suck, too. So I waited, and no one came to see me. Not even one lady committee member. I kind of missed him. What are you fidgeting about? Who's fidgeting? You are. I don't know. I guess it's all that honeysuckle and magnolia fouling up the air.  They must be nervous. A.R. Grant is the only thing that makes you nervous is A.R. Grant say. I was in town today. Well, I'm not interested. Did you talk to anybody? Yes, but you're not interested. Well, you could say that again. You didn't happen to run into Frank Madison or a minor call your guy friendly. Did you? I did. What are you fidgeting about? Oh, dare my fidget. I'll fidget if I want to. Did I friendly say anything? Well, he mentioned that. Can you hear anything? No, nothing. What did he say? Nothing. I was sure I heard singing. He did say something. You just said so. What was it? Of course that is singing. He's coming this way. There's Mamie Howell and some of the people from the Negro church. They knew that relations were strained and this was their way of trying to end the Cold War. They didn't say a word. They just sang. For half a dozen times I started to say something and I just couldn't. Finally Mamie Howell spoke. I'm right here Mamie. Come on up. Come on up. Thank you sir. General, sometimes when you feel something strongly, words get in the way. Later that's why we sang instead of talking. But now I've just got to talk. Go on Mamie. Tell him for us.  They ask what color your skin is. Yes Mamie. Thank you. General Grancy, I speak for the people of the Lute Georgia. The whites in color. You've done more for this community than anyone else. You didn't have to. It was because you wanted to. And so I'll say this. Maybe they put stars on your shoulders when you wore that fine general's uniform. But that's nothing. Because later on it says they're going to be stars in your crown. Miss Grancy. Yes? Can you say something to us? I think you'll have to wait a moment. The general is crying. Only words. No one had to say a word. But the ditches were filled and the grounds were planted with grass and dogwood trees. I built the people of the Lute Georgia Hospital. An air-conditioned hospital of brick and glass and steel.  It had every gadget in the world to make the birth of a child a little easier and a lot safer. There wasn't just one nurse now. There were 11 nurses on the payroll. Half the doctors in the county put their patients in. It was wonderful. Yes, it was wonderful. But the operating deficit was $4,000 a month. And I just had to tell the boys I was running out of money.  Oh, I think it was good. If you haven't got any money? Oh, I got a plan.  Goodness knows what. Well, if you don't know, who should? The goodness knows what corporation is the name of the plan. And what sport might work? Well, listen, I've been playing with an idea. Suppose we organize the factory to support the hospital. What kind of a factory? Goodness knows what. For instance, automobiles need seat colors. Good. We'll organize an automobile seat cover factory. Well, it's a lot easier to save than to do. Yeah, what do we do for skilled labor? Well, the goodness knows what corporation will train them. Well, how? They were training schools. Wait a minute, Mr. Gransby. What training school? Well, the training school will organize. We'll find teachers. As soon as our people learn the ropes, they're on their own. How does that sound? Sounds good. I'm sorry. You got my vote. No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait a moment. Not so fast. That factory isn't going to pay 47-hour wages. No, sir. No, sir. It's going to pay as close to a dollar an hour as it can. Mr. Gransby, that's pretty high. The American standard of living is high. Now, look. I don't want anyone going around saying that a so-and-so from the Detroit came down here and ruined us. Well, no one's going to go around saying anything like that. We'll go along. And watch more. Watch more. I don't want to have to import foreman and supervisors from Atlanta. But that's the rub. We need local talent. And there isn't any. I don't know a soul in town who can run an industrial plant. You know, if you don't mind the saying, so you're talking through your hat. Oh, am I? Every time a young fellow has any ability off, he chases to the city. $210,000 hospital. It wasn't a roaring success from the start, not by a long shot. But before our first factory began to break even, another $100,000 went down the drain. But now the factories, if the goodness knows what corporation, are making money. Money that maintains and enlarges the services of the Joan Glancy Memorial Hospital. These days, Mike Pitterton and I get propositions from all kinds of manufacturers. General, I like what you're doing. It appeals to me. Well, does it, sir? It does. Now, I've got a factory in New York. It could send a branch factory right here in Duluth. Oh, look, we don't want any favors. No favor, General. This is business. I've been through your factory. I like the way they run. Let me think it over. He thought it over, and he came to Duluth, Georgia. So did other businesses, some large, some small. It was good for the town. If you saw Duluth today, you'd hardly recognize it. The time was when a farmer counted himself lucky to have $100 in cash at the end of a year. Now his daughter works in the factory and makes $150 a month. Once, Duluth stores sold only side meat and snuff and fertilizer. Now they sell home freezers and television sets. The churches have been painted. We have our first dry cleaning plan, first beauty parlor, and our first movie house. Yes, Duluth has changed. These days, I leave the management of the factories to Mike Pitterton, the tech sergeant, who turned out to be a first-rate executive.  Excuse me, General. Would you mind getting our margarine? Oh, what's his name? Her name. Oh, excuse me. Her name. What's her name? Her name is Henrietta. Henrietta. I'm sorry, General. Excuse me. Well, what's the rush, Nurse? We're expecting two more babies before midnight. Well, I just don't get it. Nurse, it's a mighty poorly run business. What's a poorly run business, Mr. Glancy? Baby production, Mrs. Glancy.  Other days, only one. It's a case of rank mismanagement all the way down the line. Considering that the Joan Glancy Memorial Hospital is about to bring its 2,000th baby into the world, I call it pretty good mismanagement. Now, why don't you go home, dear, and let the doctors and nurses run the hospital? Oh. Every year now on Joan's birthday, we have a party for all the babies born in Joan's hospital.   I'll tell you something. You know, there are a lot of all crocs like me sitting around wondering what they can do that would be of service to their fellow man. They wouldn't mind putting a good-sized chunk of money into something like this hospital, but they know that with taxes what they are, they couldn't stand the yearly upkeep. Well, building a little hospital where one is needed and building a little factory to keep it running is the best answer I know. It helps a lot of people, but it helps you too. It's an experiment in humanity that makes you feel you can keep on living for a hundred years. Our thanks to you, Edward Arnold, and our Cavalcade players for tonight's true story, Experiment in Humanity. Next week, Cavalcade presents the lovely young Hollywood star Peggy Ann Garner. Be sure to listen. Tonight's DuPont play was written by Morton Wichendrab and was based on an article which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post written by Harold Martin. Music for the DuPont Cavalcade was composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Voorhees. The program was directed by John Zoller. The DuPont Cavalcade of America comes to you from the stage of the Balasco Theater in New York and is sponsored by the DuPont Company at Wilmington, Delaware. Makers of better things for better living. Blue Chemists. Don't forget Starlight Concert tonight on NBC.


Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Andrew Weiss. Thank you all so much for joining us here today at the Carnegie Endowment. We're delighted to see such a large turnout for our two very interesting speakers, and I'm going to turn to them in just a moment. Before I do that, let me just put a couple ground rules on the table. This discussion is being live streamed, so I'd appreciate if people would just make sure that your cell phones are turned to mute. And then we're going to have brief presentations by our two speakers, and I'll ask a few questions, then I'll turn things over to the audience for what I hope will be a very interesting exchange. I only ask that when we begin that part of the discussion that people wait for the microphone so that we can make sure that what you say is heard by the people who are tuning in on the Internet. Again, welcome to Carnegie. I'm Andrew Weiss, I'm Vice President for Studies here. It's a great, exciting time for us here at Carnegie. We've just hit the one-year anniversary of our Ukraine Reform Monitor project. The most recent issue was released yesterday. I would encourage everyone to take a look at that. We've been tweeting about it and sending it out through email over the last 24 hours. And we're delighted that the person who's the original idea of this project was Balaziarbeck, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, who's joined us today visiting from Europe, and one of the key team members, Mikhail Monakov, who's a professor at the Kyiv-Nihila Academy, and a long time very prominent Ukrainian analyst and political player has joined us as well. So anyways, we're going to talk at the beginning, I think we'll turn to Mikhail first, about the challenges that Ukraine faces during this period of considerable domestic uncertainty in light of the new government that took power just a few weeks ago, and then to Balazs and then begin a conversation. So anyways, welcome to Carnegie, both of you, Mikhail, Flora and George. Thank you. Thank you for your interest to Ukraine. And I will do my best to speak like a scholar, but I'm also a proud citizen of my country. And if I self-censored myself, you can always then raise a question and ask me. So I'm very glad to report today that our political crisis has ended. It's been going on since December, and for a country that just have began, just have started its reform process, this delay with the crisis and the solution of the crisis was too expensive for us. But in the end of the political crisis, now that we resolved it, what we currently have is that Petro Poroshenko, our current president, have increased his control over the cabinet. So the Prime Minister and the majority of ministers represent Poroshenko's bloc and his supporters. However, he lessened control over Parliament. So Parliament is now presided by a National Front MP, and we kind of have rebalancing in Ukraine. At the same time, ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is now in the shadow of the politics. He kind of took some time to stay away and criticize probably this current government. But at the same time, we definitely see his impact through his party on real politics in Ukraine. So it's not, his era is not finished. And we definitely see another big change in Ukraine that current opposition is probably the majority in Parliament. So basically, the possibilities for current cabinet to make reforms, to implement reforms and to create new laws is very limited. There is, well, at least formally, there are no majority votes behind the two factions, the Poroshenko faction and Yatsenyuk faction that created a new coalition. But there's an ad hoc majority. And the role of small groups, MP groups, parliamentary groups that are controlled by old oligarchs or young oligarchic groups, or young oligarchic groups is increasing. So basically, we will see that the role of these rent seekers, big or small, is probably increasing. The price that our leaders paid for the very long crisis is also resembled in the lack of support to current leaders. So basically today, President Poroshenko has very small rating of support. It's only 2% of Ukrainians who strongly support and 15 just partially support of what he's doing. His negative rating is about 58%. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, ex-Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, had only one support of those who really thought that he's doing the right way. And 6% were partially supporting him. And his negative rating, joint negative rating is minus 82%. Parliament has paid probably the biggest price in losing the trust of citizens. There are no, basically, 0% of those who endorses the behavior of parliament. And what's this? 5% of those who partially approve the work of parliament. So you see that there's this lack of support to key political institutions. And if I would talk about, for example, support to justice system, it's even worse. So basically, we are back again to the huge demand, the huge hunger of Ukrainians for a new wave of reforms and inability or limited ability of current cabinet to respond to it. So probably we will see another political crisis pretty soon. I think this resolution was very partial, limited, and the new political season in the fall will be very hot. And before I, before I stop, I would pay attention to opposition issue and the mass media issue. Opposition today, the most popular figures, like Andriy Sadovi, leader of some of Pommage Party, Mihail Sakashvili, and these two figures, they have about 35% of support. Although none of them directly calls himself as a candidate for future president, but these two figures with 35 positive rating behind them, they are very important figures in in opposition. Also, but Kivshina and the Julius Timoshenko's party and opposition block, they become more and more popular as political forces. And one of my advice is, advises that the West would pay attention to these two groups and probably establish some additional communication with them just to, if there is a future new cabinet with these two groups as a future coalition, then the West would have at least some contacts with future Ukrainian cabinet. At the same time, Ukraine needs support from the West also, as in times of Yanukovych in terms of support to mass media and pro-democracy NGOs. I think we are coming to the moment when presidential power has increased to the level, when it's very easy for the presidential vertical to abuse its power and to put a pressure on media. We definitely see in the recent six to five months that the media situation, the freedom media situation is not that good, it's deteriorating and Western support to mass media is important. Also, we have a group of vibrant and strong civil society organizations and coalitions, and they have necessary support from the West, but I look forward for continuation of this support. With the pressure from civil society, government cannot misbehave to the level it used to quite easily. I think I will stop now and I'm eager to respond to your questions. So part of what we've been doing for the past year, and Balash has been leading this, has been trying to look at Ukrainian reform through the lens of four or five key baskets and to actually assess is progress being made and then also get a little more of a sense of how complicated the politics of reform is and that each of these major reform requires going after vested interests and what we've seen and I think the paper which I hope folks picked up in front that Balash and Mikhail published on Friday talks about how in the collapse of state institutions new players are filling the vacuum and part of what's in this paper that they wrote last week about the hybrid state and the idea that enemies have captured the state is that we're seeing people who are not the old oligarchic groups, the Akhmetovs and the Kolomoisky's, but regional groups that have basically taken advantage of the collapse of state authority. I'm just sort of curious Balash, if you could sort of describe that argument a little bit for people here and then dig deeper on the impact that has on reform and understanding what Parshenko is doing as the leader. Because it's different, I think, than the narrative of there's this reform and anti-reform or there's this war, those have been the two main lenses. Understandably, the people apply to Ukraine because we have a lot of history and a lot of historical memory, but something great dynamic is happening actually that doesn't get captured by that. Thank you and first of all thanks for hosting and having us here, we have been spending a week in DC talking to various government agencies as well as NGOs and implementers working in Ukraine. I think I kind of was surprised that there is a huge interest still towards Ukraine because people were telling me, oh, you know, like there's gonna be a Ukrainian fatigue and fading interest, but I see the interest is huge, but the frustration is perhaps even bigger. So the combination of the two, what I would characterize both how the United States government as well as other American stakeholders are looking at Ukraine and this is very much correspond how is the situation in Ukraine, as Misha Minyakova was talking about, the trust and reason why we think that this frustration and the reform processes, although ongoing, it doesn't have the necessary impact, is a kind of misunderstanding or a different context. What exactly the mind on was and what happened after. We have this kind of basic understanding that this was mostly geopolitical, this was a geopolitical choice between Russia and the EU, and this is part of it, but at the same time, you know, what we also have seen of 25 years of frenzy and corruption has brought down at the Maidan, the collapse of the central authority of the essence of the state was also collapsing in the Maidan over the clashes. And after the Russian aggression, this, you know, the focus has been not turned obviously on reforms, but much more on the war and the Donbas. And this is also hijacked Western audience understanding of what's going on locally. In Kiev, we wanted to see Ukraine as united and Ukraine was united when it comes to the Russian aggression. At the same time, very much fragmented, simply because the state is still captured. And what we try to show that the state is not only captured by the old oligarchs and how much essentially those oligarchy groups, there's a lot of competition, there's a lot of new ones. There is a lot of criminal ones now, since corruption, the criminality is very high and illegal activity just like amber instruction in Western Ukraine, cigarette smuggling, which is by the way $2 billion a year income for someone toward Western Europe. The amber is alone, is estimated for about a half a billion dollar annually. So we're talking about a huge money in a country which has been experiencing increased and very high poverty rates, now it's 80%. And the reform efforts from our reading from the very beginning supposed to be A, rebuilding the social contract and B, rebuilding state institutions, which would be, let's not be idealistic, gonna be less captured at least, gonna be serving more the interest of the public instead of the vested interest around them. Now, this has been a huge task or would have been even without Russia steps. And now obviously in this kind of geopolitical situation, it is even harder, I believe, simply because our focus is, and you know, I kind of describing that I have been engaged in the past 15 years on the European side to try to change the vast focus on the Russia first policy toward the region in between the European Union and Russia. And now it's, I find very unfortunate that we again, returning to focusing on Ukraine because of the Russian aggression. The same time this focus essentially decreasing our focus and attention on what's going on in Ukraine. And there's a lot going on and kind of reducing also the Western pressure, which is often very personalized. We have been received questions, oh, we should keep our backs into the same basket. Well, this exactly what we did in Moldova. And our pro European partners were stealing much more than the Communist Party or go figure. So, you know, this kind of more detailed attention toward what is happening inside of Ukraine, where these financial political groups are the big reality. They are in the parliament. It's one of the reason why the new government coalition gonna have tremendously hard time to move forward reforms in the parliament. And I think one of the reason why we can whatever you like it or not forget about the means of making presentation, simply because it's not gonna be possible to get at the 300 necessary votes for any constitutional changes within the circumstances. So, this is the kind of the context which I would like to put you crying, because I think this is a realistic one. And we hope at Carnegie with these products, what we do essentially raising the attention at the necessary level with that detail, which is happening. So, a few words about the new government. I personally think based on a lot of local analysis, I have been reading that the technical competence of the new government is essentially high or even higher than the previous one. I see Yatsenyuk, dismissal or essential failure as a good news simply because he was failed mostly on the reform side. He was considered as one of the limits of the reforms and also considered because we cannot really prove as a new leader of a new financial political group because his real interest was not necessarily pushing reforms. He was pushing that line in the West. Excellent English speaker. We loved him for that. At the same time, according to certain anecdotal evidence, he's also getting very rich at the same time. And now he has his own kind of financial political groups around him. And that is what he is going to continue from the background, right? So this government a few months ago wouldn't have been possible. Essentially, it's a big victory for Poroshenko because he managed to put a protege of his, Ladimir Grosman, who is considered a very good manager. He was twice elected Vinica, mayor. Vinica is a big central Ukrainian town, south central Ukrainian town. One of the best managed town in the country. Clean, good services. So essentially he has the credentials obviously from the regional level. And, you know, he's considered to be loyal. So it is going to be a central, a centralized authority or central authority, if you like. So if Poroshenko and this Fox, main interest is going to be reforms, with the technical competence, they can move reforms forward. And it's a big if I don't want to go into speculations whether it's going to be happening or not. This is what we're going to watch. But both the technical competence and the loyalty and the central, the vertical, right, as they call it, in Ukraine, is going to be there. Now that raises something else though, that Poroshenko still didn't move from the position of being an oligarch himself. He is representing not only public interest, but he representing his own vested interest by himself. And, you know, and I always kind of believed in watching him from essentially 99 when he entered politics, I also entered Ukraine. So, you know, for me, these are very familiar names based on the track record. A lot of people, institutional memories, we are lacking, I think, in the West. So, Poroshenko is kind of modelist, the Kuchma Ukraine, where he was able to be an arbiter of these oligarchy groups. But Kuchma did not become ever an oligarchy himself. One of the reasons why his status as a judge or arbiter as a president and the presidential office could be raised into the point was exactly that. The second caveat is that Kuchma was considered authoritarian president. And this is, I believe, and I'm afraid we are moving with the Poroshenko government as well. Naturally, by default, because we're talking about the collapse and the rebuild of the central authority, it will have been more authoritarian. And Misha was talking about the, we already have press freedom issues. A Polish journalist was banned yesterday for five years to enter Ukraine, obviously for a different opinion, right? We're going to see more and more of these kind of things. Centralizing the authority, centralizing the opinion, and trying to centralize reforms as well, which this particularly later thing may not be a bad thing actually to move to move those forward. I'm finishing up. I think the key trend and the key issue in 2016 are going to be privatization. When we have been discussing World Bank, EBRD lately, we've been in London last week, you know, there is a lot of discussion whether this should happen because Ukraine is not ready. Well, the news is I have a good news for bad news for you. You can choose this is going to be happening. So the issue is not whether it should be happening because it will be. The issue is in what kind of conditions it should be happening. What is the role of the state and the transparency accountability, making sure that both foreign companies and the local financial political groups are going to competing by equal conditions. There's going to be transparency. So it's essentially going to be the state called first are going to be enriched and not the local regards. Why privatization is important? Because the biggest source of the rent seekers are the state enterprises which are captured by these oligarch groups. Ukur Transnav- Ukur- Ukurnavta, the Kolomoiskyi controlled, he has a 25% share, 50% of the state, and he Kolomoiskyi controlling the management doesn't pay dividends to the state. Now it's 20 billion Grivna if I'm, if, and by despite Poroshenko's best effort, this money is still not flowing to the government. So privatization, it could be a solution if the Ukrainian government is not able to clean and so far in the past two years the Ukrainian government, despite its try, was not able to clean of these state enterprises. I think I'm going to stop here. There is one last point, the parliament, which has been the big troublemaker now, right? And it's nothing going to change until there's going to be a new election while the civil society is pushing for. So if it's not going to be a proportional, a much more transparent, which they're suggesting, it's not going to be changing, unfortunately, and everybody is the bad guy who is competing, and you know, again, everybody has vested interest. Now the parliament has zero percent of trust in Kiev, in the chemical. And the biggest lingering issue beyond the privatization here is the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. There's something which very much overlooked. We think if Victoria Neumann goes to support the post-mindown government, essentially it's going to increase the legitimacy. It's zero percent in Kiev, the parliament legitimacy. So I think that's one of the reasons why I do want to support Mikhail on we need to keep, because it's a democratic country, we need to keep in contact with everyone. We want to make sure it's one of the reason how we contain the authoritarian tendency is exactly keeping not all the X in one basket, but all because it's a democratic basket, X in every basket, to make sure that Ukraine is not going to be mobile. Mikhail, did you want to... I was talking mostly about formal institutions, and you were dealing with informal institutions, but now I would like to finish, to show the bigger picture, joining the both perspectives. Our political development was defined by two competing political agendas. Since 2014. One was Euromaidan agenda, democratic, pro-european. The other one was war agenda, that demanded, you know, discipline society, disciplined economy, that is directed to fight the enemy. And in the clash of these two agendas, we basically see how the clans, oligarchy clans, and the smaller financial political groups, reemerged and increased their power. But today, two years after these two agendas were formulated and started clashing with each other, we have the emerging third agenda. And it's the needs of citizens in the regions. These needs are so much unaddressed, in the front zone and on the border with the EU. But everywhere, the lack of response from the central government was so so so big. So for so long we didn't look at Ukrainian regions from Kiev, that I think that's the hot time for Groysman and for President Poroshenko to address them. And I really start worrying about situation in Herzogno oblast. We definitely see very worrying news from Odessa and Kharkiv. We definitely see how the northern oblasts like Valinia are out of order more and more and we cannot control even by deploying big military or police forces there. And also the so-called cigarette republics in Transcarpathia and the Chernovci, they are just becoming too and too visible as problems for for the political class at all. And the issue of legitimacy is returning now with Kiev as a capital has to reinforce its legitimacy by addressing and dealing with the economic and social problems we have now. But could you just just so folks understand what's going on in Herzogno, just take that example. Explain why it's become so instead. Exactly, you probably all heard about these explosions of the electric lines to Crimea. And this international level was actually hiding what is going on on the Ukrainian side. There's three regions in the southern part of Herzogno oblast. Herzogno oblast is the borderline with Crimea today. And there we have Ukrainian army deployed in several volunteer battalions. Crimean volunteers, Ukrainian volunteers and probably allegedly, yeah, that are volunteers. They allegedly they were dealing with these explosions and the local populations was deprived from electricity and water supplies because of the explosions and anti-Russian activity of these battalions. These days we see more and more and hear more and more demands from local authorities to deploy more force, police force, in order to control the situation. Local population versus battalions, local population versus this strange situation with explosions. And this is just one of the examples of how Kiev is not actually delivering to Ukrainian citizens right now in the regions. Or another issue could be what kind of security our rural populations have even in central Ukraine. We have police reform and we had a very important visible step with patrol police. But it's major, it was done in big cities. At the same time we didn't make next necessary steps, changing the investigation and the rural police.  And Vinnitsa Oblast, the Oblast of our president, is in critical situation today because of the rising banditism and criminality in rural areas. So these small things they are not visible in outside Ukraine. But for us, for citizens, it's probably the best proof of existence of government that they can provide us with basic security. So let me let me ask question about citizen security along the line of contact. And the mood seems to be hardening somewhat in Kiev about basically let's wall off Dombos and you know we'll pay lip service to Minsk and our obligations on the Minsk. But there is no political will or set of activities that would suggest a pathway for reintegrating the East, even if the best case scenario were to be chose. Can you talk a little bit about the politics of that and the reality along the line? Yeah, I mean just also putting it into a into a broader context, you know Poroshenko was elected in a peace ticket when he won a landslide two years ago, actually almost exactly two years ago. I'm going to be two years ago now. And because people wanted him to make sure that this Dombos insurgency whatever ends, right? And you know that time even the first when sorry even the second Minsk agreement was signed, 35, 36 percent of the population supported. Now it's down to 14. You know it's clear resistance again since the since the grenade attack after the first constitutional vote last August, you know the society although wants peace they really because of the because of the information they're receiving they really think the Minsk agreement is essentially a Russian tool and it cannot be implemented otherwise. This is a Russian ultimatum which Ukraine or independent Ukraine cannot cannot implement. So what is happening is there's essentially no willingness, political willingness in Kiev to reintegrate the Dombos based on the Minsk agreement. Now whether we agree that this is a Russian tool or not, you know this without this political will of reintegrating Dombos there is going to be a security situation in the border. That's number one. Number two what we also see I think because you know this is not really based on information since I haven't been there neither most of the journalists now have no access to. There is a consolidation on the so-called PNR and LNR of these republics of a kind of developing a kind of stalemate. Also six rebel leaders were killed in the past year. Over 10 were pulled back convinced to go away they did. You know this is not the work of the Ukrainian counter-intelligence you know I guess you know who is doing it. This is ongoing consolidation which I believe the reason why all the humanitarian organizations and all this were banned. So this work essentially can be can be done without witnesses. Now on the contact line it is over 60,000 almost 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers with some battalions who are clearly not formally under integrated into the army but clearly if just based on the OC SMM monitoring reports are not under command. At the same time there is 35 38,000 rebel slash Russian or Russian supported rebel soldiers so it's an end with a lot of weapons on both sides. So it's a very critical situation a critical mass of soldiers not everybody is under command neither on the Russian side neither on the Ukrainian side and that's one of the reason why we're seeing these increased violations of the ceasefire. Now this is 80% based on the OC monitoring reports are coming from the rebel side my interpretation of this is that they're trying to convince Russia to support them they're trying to resist the consolidation right and trying to make sure that they're going to be remaining in charge essentially this is for the current leadership of these so-called republics it's a life or death situation. So that's why we see so much resistance but again until there is no political will to implement the Minsk agreement that security situation will remain and the Minsk agreement in my reading was always about ceasefire it was not acceptable for it is not acceptable for the current Ukraine elite and I don't think any elections essentially would would change there is no reconciliation mode there is a lot of resistance in the society there's a lot of fighting and at this stage there is no one who would represent politically a reconciliation or integration so I don't think it's going to change I think our best hope is the is keeping and making sure that the ceasefire is cemented there is a demilitarization which is by the way the first two points of the Minsk agreement I think this is where we need to return to first and and the last pressure on Ukraine is a bit counterproductive because it it doesn't take into account the fragile state the internal frictions the regional problems of Ukraine right so you know like by pushing the Ukrainians it's almost like it's rocking the boat you know but the Ukrainian boat may not turn as we wish but simply sink on that optimistic note let's let's open things up for discussion and as I said before please wait for the microphone and please make sure that when you ask a question that there's a question mark at the end please you sir and if you can keep it brief as well so that as many people as possible get to speak could you please elaborate what's going on with the media maybe if you speak a little slower could you please elaborate what's going on with the media Savik Schuster case this Polish journalist who is doing this why do they do this what does it mean in the future so the question for folks who couldn't hear it is if if the panelists could explain the recent pressures on press freedom there was a a visa ban on Savik Schuster the popular television journalist last week or earlier this week and the Polish journalist case that Polish man should be mischievous do you want to well I think this Savik Schuster issue that a was an anchor man of a very popular talk show where who was once very important figure for the rise of Poroshenko and today he is like the public enemy of Poroshenko today his program is hosted from all big channels and he created his own channel to deliver this show and all the key opposition figures go there to speak up but basically it's like a ghetto for opposition opposition leaders but also for populists in a way and Savik Schuster himself is a very mixed figure with very mixed reputation but whichever reputation there is behind journalists for us the lesson that we learned in post-Soviet Ukraine that whenever there's a pressure against any kind of journalist it's the pressure that should be responded by civil society by all opposition and political figures to not to let it happen it's and the Schuster case is what was like the last week big issue but in reality what's happening underneath these scandalous things is much more worrying there was a wave of certain how to say a compromise between journalists themselves how to describe the situation in Crimea how to describe situation in Donbas on both sides how to address the issue of IDPs later this compromise was making impact on how critical an open Ukrainian media wore about processes in Ukrainian politics you you definitely see that there is some sort of self-censorship happen and here no one can make an impact it's social issue but then since since October and December last year I was personally receiving mixed messages from editors-in-chief saying that they receive the so-called family the list of topics from government or from presidential administration every time I received this message from them I asked them to show me in paper so that I could represent it also to me I'm not afraid to speak it up well but I never received this evidence so there's words of editors said to me of the records but I cannot prove them like again there's also this new and stronger impact of the committee on TV and radio on the content of many programs and here we definitely see more and more intrusion into the matter of remedial freedom of speech so it goes on slowly you know I forgot who said this but we usually lose freedoms in very small steps slowly and this is what I was noticing but not only me reporters without borders they also raised many issues in their recent reports Freedom House is putting us into not into the camp into the family of free nations you know so the situation is also monitored by external players so with the freedom of media we definitely have worsening situation but it's manageable still we can improve it but also with the help of our Western thank you Michael Kuzig retired economist from the Department of Agriculture so I'm interested in the figure that you quoted 80 percent poverty in the country could you put a human figure on that how many people are we talking about number one and the second question is how are the people surviving whether it's the food situation resources are there any jobs and it seems to me years ago we saw that Ukraine is the breadbasket of Russia is it now turned into a basket case quite the opposite side here so a little bit more on how the people are surviving under these circumstances thank you yeah the 80 percent is an official data from the UN the UN measure it's five dollars a day and that's the level which you know a much of this obviously and not that I you know the situation is really dire for a lot of people and but also this is you know like we're counting in dollars and with a huge depreciation of the of the value of the local currency so there is a lot of adaptation possibilities still for the locals but you know just like a lot of people and you know when there was a scandal from the previous government and the foreign minister economic minister Abramovich was left or another one people Varsky they said we cannot live 200 on 250 dollar salary right and you know I just seen an announcement of a great reform finally they selected the top state enterprises which are not going to be sold like the post office and couple of the railway you know there's a very transparent selection of the director they're going to make over 10, 12,000 dollars right and the announcement was made by the deputy minister of economy who is making 280 like you know how how we imagine to fight corruption within these circumstances right so so this is a serious issue the other things that the Ukrainians you know are surviving because everybody has either a cow a little parcel they're growing their own things that is a that is a natural long traditional way of surviving but you know it's also like my feeling is especially particularly if you're going to the region or you're just going to the sleeping realm so-called sleeping variants of fear that people's patients are not the team it's as soon as not going to be you know kind of it's it's going to be must be an eruption I think the government also kind of see that and you know the at the same time what the government will do is I think they will try to renegotiate the IMF to tame the austerity and not necessarily clean the coffers and making enormous subsidies policy you know transparent you know and so on when it comes to the agriculture and the bread basket I you know I think was a lot of hope that connected to the DCFDA to the European Union deep treat free agreement and you know unfortunately this hope but not based on your numbers or real situation I have to say that for me I we made a special kind of effort through to all the documents at least on the EU side the EU certainly didn't do the calculations right Ukrainian government may have do the calculations I haven't seen all the documents and the Ukrainian civil society calculations very optimistic connected to that and here comes you know there are 76 Ukrainian agriculture companies who are using the no trade sorry no tariff policy to import right two-third of it are honey makers now the first three months they already filled the quota for the whole year because one thing is the is the tariffs the other thing is the quota and the EU is not going to let Ukrainian agriculture producers to have too much quota simply because this would be a big fight to the French the Polish you know the Hungarian and so on and so on farmers because these are the members of the European Union so there is a lot of these details which unfortunately was not taken into consideration I personally think that Ukrainian economy is going to remain crippled unless it's going to have access to the Russian market and it's not geopolitics it's geography if we look taking a look at the map it is as simple as it is and you know and particularly also what they produce you know and so on and so on and particularly this is important for the southeast part of the region you know like you just talk about it the world from Mariupol which is 20 kilometers from the front line and to the Russian border is different like let's say from even Kiev but they certainly not looking at Slovakia as an example right or the market but they're looking teleconomy just on the border on the other side and this is unfortunately is helping and this polarization which is so far not visible because yes again the Ukrainians are united when it comes to the Russian aggression no nobody wants to live according to the so-called republics right but at the same time you know these are common sense things and the current and this here comes the media the current media environment is so much polarizing so much you have to accept this the centralized the central line right that it's essentially taming these normal common sense issues as well in many ways just like like who we should trade and where we can sell so anyway so unless there is unless there is or you know like unless there is a marshal plan which the Ukrainians like to talk about but this is just not you know like to reindustrialization of those areas like the Donbas and so on you know Ukraine economy kind of going to be the main a limbo and that's kind of going to fuel you know polarized politics and the poverty obviously is going to not helping to to raise political legitimacy you know and support for reforms and so on and so on so that is the social economic situation is going to be a main issue of this year at the privatization of the lessons the only footnote I'd put on that is you know historically Ukraine has been a commodity exporting country particularly with steel global steel markets depressed and so you just can't see and the environment ran where the demand for a lot of Ukraine's most competitive exports is going to be there but but anyways maybe we just oh you want to just want to hop in okay also there's a reaction of society like shadow economy so according to the recent assessment of World Bank shadow economy is 56 58 58 percent which helps thing that helps the survival yeah it means that in the village there are no money anymore my parents still live in a small village near Zaporizhia and how how do we react we survived 90s so we will survive 2016 as well but it means that we will plant more potato more onion and we'll survive but this survival will also will come with a price to political class and in Kyiv the reason attempt to address this issue we have decentralization started it's now it's now in the stalemate but there was a very important steps already made in terms of financial sustainability of regions and we were we are constantly addressing it in our reform assessment we show how we make this decentralization happen and this possibility at the local level to address the most important issues almost there regretfully we we stopped in December in doing reforms but in December there was already the moment when we one more step and we would probably could create in my village another pipeline a new pipeline it's now broken since Soviet times so there was one step from the parliament in need and we didn't make it so I I expect this year probably a small steps will be done and it will help us to survive as well so I I love you just one more thing that there's a lot of things that agriculture of you know the Bradbasket and this is gonna be Ukraine future this country makes the best engines for rockets even now even now they making this is the third biggest airplane making country in the world unfortunately IT market is growing you know this is I mean this is and where is it south east Ukraine the south east not on the west the southeast part so the tremendous industrial educational potential of these unfortunately we're not gonna buy Antonov's because we have the bearings and you know there's not competitive that this who is gonna buy Antonov's the rest so it is you know like this although the geopolitical orientation is very important politically you know I you know like if Ukraine will only remain connected to the European market or the western market it's not good for the country economically Wayne Mary the American foreign policy council you've mentioned the DCFTA but would you assess also the impact of the association agreement in general thus far on the reform process okay I I can start okay it well the the association agreement has this political and economic parts in terms of economic part it will remain probably the same even after the Netherlands referendum with the political part we don't know what will happen it's still kind of in making in process reconsideration the economic part doesn't flourish when I asked my colleagues from economic analytical centers they say well we use as much as we can but of course the loss of Russian market makes a tremendous negative impact that is not covered by the FTA but the political part was extremely important and here were my competencies and I was definitely following how implementation of those of those anti-corruption for them anti-corruption demands or conditions that were part of this agreement they were changing our political our polity our political system in two ways we already created several new anti-corruption institutions very important step and if they function properly they will make a very positive impact on society on government and also on economics and economy but there's also this rule if there is an opportunity to misuse some political institution it can be misused they are all in the line of reporting to president and I don't know if these institutions will work properly this year but definitely this year they will be used to control power elites and there's one figure who can control this all the power elites Yanukovych Kuchma they never had this strong institutions at hand so in a way it's a new situation that association agreement unexpectedly created in our political system so I I'm trying to to pay very close attention how they function if there is any evidence so far the risk is there but there's no evidence that it's misused so in in our monitor we constantly pay attention to this so if there's an evidence we will immediately report about that I'm conscious of our time and I we have about 10-15 minutes left and a bunch of people with their hands up so why don't we take those remaining questions and then we'll come back to Mikhail and Balash please see you sir Yes, Bohdan Futei there was a mention about Minsk proposals or Minsk discussions by the way the last time I was in Ukraine and I was discussing this with members of parliament when I mentioned the word Minsk agreements they were were all were very critical of me because there is no agreement they're just discussions so just for the benefit of everyone the other thing and the question that I have is there an alternative to the Minsk discussions at the present time proposed by any political party or group in Ukraine so that's that's my first question my second question would be on the existence of the present coalition now there is a new law that has been signed by President Poroshenko basically which allows the head of the party to fire or to dismiss members deputies if they do not go along or they're critical of the party and that law already is being challenged by 49 deputies with the constitutional court if the constitutional court does not support this aspect what would be the outcome of the coalition or whether new elections are in order and the third one I have I just read today I think there are there are a lot of people waiting okay but it's very simple Reusman has asked the minister of justice to review the decisions of the various courts what do you think the outcome of that will be sir please okay thank you very much George Dennis really Georgetown University I abstain from the comments and consideration and just like focus on questions first one has this Panama Papers which implicates it very directly Poroshenko has any public discourse and either political outcome and the ripple effect which actually confirms the fact that Poroshenko remains oligarch and the second so enumerating these political groups we haven't mentioned for this pravi sector is this still a presence in the Ukrainian politics and what is the chances of it's like a revival and it's fortunes thank you then I saw one more please Michael McCarthy my question is how would you characterize the reform efforts in the defense sector to date what are the prospects for the future and how can us and the West help we've got about six questions on the table maybe we can start with the political ones could you talk a little bit I know in your article you mentioned this idea of the party unity and the button pushing could you talk a little bit about the impact of that and then maybe connect it to the question about the role of the far right how important they are and the first one you wanted first no, if you look at the button pushing and the far right oh okay political prospects maybe you could take those too that would be great yeah well there's honorable fatigue I really respect your input here because it tackles very important part of what's going on with Ukrainian political system right now in 2014 the existing political do you hear me the existing political system party system was ruined and the new parties emerged and they are very fragile and new structures usually it's one bigger parties very populistic and parliament and the leaders of factions and the parties have forced the parliament and president or president himself is very interested to introduce this new very communist party Soviet communist party experienced discipline into new parties and it's really dangerous because from within parties are not the place for any kind of discussion and parliament under a horseman wasn't the place for discussion either so we expect with the change of the of the speaker probably parliament will again be the very important place for national dialogue and for discussions so far you're right it's it was for very long time excluded for policy making parliament was not a place for discussions almost as in as in duma was it grizzlov probably says yeah grizzlov coined that duma is not the place for discussions in the parliament these discussions instead of this fruitful discussion leading to some policy for relation they were since there's lots of blocks and obstacles for dialogue then they definitely had to use radical politics and bombing in in august was part of the absence of the dialogue in the parliament so now the situation has worsened and i do not expect from constitutional court any independent behavior in recent five months constitutional court in ukraine has proved to be very loyal poslushny to obedient to president and they were the decisions that were made we've just published marina stomnić you can i an article showing these inventions unprecedented inventions of constitutional court in terms of their decisions and immediately after the voting for some very strange decisions this constitutional court the members of the court go out with their personal opinions and yeah well not not always everybody but sometimes it's majority and you cannot just say how could you guys then vote for for these strange decisions so we have definitely we lost our constitutional reform i i didn't say it in the beginning but constitutional reform is so much delegitimized because of the pressure from one side from presidential office that we probably need to restart entire reform once again and uh here the the independence of constitutional court would be a very important play well would be very important but we don't have it so probably parliament will have to reinitiate it and here the west should probably support us in reconstruct restarting the constitutional reform i know that there are many tactical and near ends that are very important but if we lose constitutional reform if we will not be able to reconstruct our political system and rebalance the branches of power i think the fragility of ukraine will increase tremendously by the end of this year okay pravi sector yes yes and the far right maybe yeah uh let me just see the figures once again pravi sector is not as you know it's not a very popular political force but it has i mean when we have elections pravi sector is usually not getting more than two percent of votes there are several right sector activists who became mayors in small towns and we receive very strange information from those social experiments that's happening there but i saw that in western media it's covered dmitro yarash the the ex-leader of of uh pravi sector has left the park the the the core group he's now independent person with 18 percent of positive rating according to recent polls but yarash is now more mp parliamentary figure with some radical flavor and who is more involved well allegedly allegedly into coordination of procolomoisky mps rather than radical politics so you know sometimes corruption political corruption tames even the most radical figures sorry for the cynical joke but looks like that Ukrainian way but yeah yes radically corrupt but there's also some data showing that the former socialist specialist party now swoboda party is regaining its popularity and they may return to parliament but again the issue of corruption proved to work on this party very well as well okay so maybe bosh can you you spoke a little bit about Minsk before and that remains at least in this town something that everyone talks about and looks to the next round of high-level discussions and then the question of the sequencing of elections and how representative the elections can be of the citizen security to come vote for the IDPs media access and the amnesty rules and the languishing decentralization barriers it's it's obviously a very complicated package but people are still working on and so I'm just sort of is it something that is an exercise that will lead to anything or is it is it has it exhausted its potential well you know like you hear two things that the Minsk agreement is the only game in town that's the western officials are saying and you hearing in Kiev that you know we don't want to discuss it even and that's you know kind of the in between two and there is a lot of resistance you know beyond the rhetorics and I and again I just going to repeat myself I don't see any any possibility that Kiev would agree to implement the Minsk Minsk agreement and one of the reason is actually the nationalist lingering influence because they're not going to accept and the pravi sector and all these nationalists far right but battalions real strength is not in the parliament but in the weapons now they fully armed they're part of the army they're part of this but they clearly they're making press releases that we're not going to accept any command which we don't like right so there is a question of integrity of these things two days ago the one of the battalions as of an oh when another one went to destroy you know a soviet monument about the police did nothing this is not it's just when they destroyed you know so you know this is kind of undermining the legal institutions and I fully agree here the constitution essentially no longer exists in a crime right and I just think about that the second constitutional vote which according to the constitution must be happening in the following parliament was changed by a procedural vote how how a constitutional vote which requests constitutional majority was essentially was postponed or cancelled by a procedural vote with a simple majority I'm not a lawyer but I just doesn't kind of right and this we didn't comment on it everything was fine we find a solution that Ukrainian said how to avoid the Minsk implementation and nothing it's still 300 and nothing it still needs 300 but still they just they just postponed they just postponed it and that's it there's a lot of there's a lot of these kind of things and and unfortunately this is also showing that the presidential administration is growing strong and essentially you know can deliver the results the loyalty is the key word when it comes to Poroshenko's governance and this loyalty what they're seeking and that's gonna you know what they're gonna use the use loyalty for is a question that are more reforms or further undermining the you know but going back to Minsk we essentially propose an alternative and start restart the new constitutional process go to referendum ask the people you know Ukraine can ask ask it's international partners wait for a minute this is we need to figure out what kind of country we want to be otherwise otherwise is going to be a lot of resistance we're very fragile people are not going to accept this kind of you know background backroom deals which would essentially the Minsk agreement was right so so Ukraine can come up with an initiative but instead of this putting out fires this you know trying to avoid it and that's what increasing the western frustration because the vast doesn't see the details or not necessarily seeing the details so we might want to take into consideration these details which is going to be worsening the relationship you know sooner or later or it's already like worsening the western Ukraine relationship so so there is a way out it's just Ukraine has to come up with a solution with a initiative to move out instead of just a reactionary avoidance of of the Minsk agreement so there was one more question about the defense sect the defense that I actually want to address I think we just gave a what I found a very balanced assessment short assessment on the defense reform but just to you know there is there is certainly when it comes to the number of troops when it comes to the equipment when it comes to the battle readiness when it comes to the you know the mobilization and all this there is a lot of progress in the reform when it comes again equipment there is one thing which I think it's not the integrity of the troops is a big question for me remaining question and the management and you know one thing which you know we were kind of joking sometimes and when there was a big debate and it shouldn't be a joke it was a big debate about whether the U.S. should give weapons to Ukraine which is one of the biggest weapon producer country in the world was that okay well pick up your battalion which way you want to give it to and there is one particular case to which I would raise your attention is the the raiders which the U.S. essentially provided and what happened with the three raiders only one exist one was destroyed by the Ukrainian army and the third was captured by the rebels that is the question of integrity and that is the question of management because Poroshenko Poroshenko just named a new head of chief army chief of staff of the army and is the guy who helped to kind of cover the debauchery losses he's loyal to Poroshenko that's the reason he's and by the way he was he was engaged into corruption cases in Kosovo and Iraq with the Ukrainian company that doesn't matter merit doesn't matter loyalty what matters whether he is going to do what Poroshenko wants him to do so that undermining the you know the army integrity and the management which is you know if you're going to talk to soldiers this is what they're going to say these generals are essentially useless this is not you know there are so there's a lot of protest and a lot of resistance against so the integrity and the management are the two things which we can help with but at the same time this is what ultimately the main focus of the reforms should be and not only in the in the defense sector so I have a last question for Mikhail which is the mood in this town has become as you were alluding to just tired or impatient and a sense that the ideal moment has passed and we're now disappointed do you think that assessment's wrong or that people are missing something well I think there was an too high expectations from Ukraine if you look at the history of Ukraine neither Moscow nor Washington nor Brussels would push us to do something that we didn't want to well it's simply it's a mystery because we are interested in Russian market in European market we are interested to be part of European Union and in spite of that interest somehow power elites take it over and use usually for the just another cycle of self-isolation it's very cozy for them to self-isolate so my advice to the West first of all please do not expect fast change with us our power elites are very volatile the we exist mostly as a setup as a system of informal institutions and don't expect our parliament to be parliament or constitutional court to be constitutional court so maybe some realism in terms of dealing with us is very important and involvement of opposition is critical just because we are very fast changing our rulers please make sure that the next rulers the next group of rulers are friends of the West for me as a liberal it's very important that the next generation of those who rule Ukraine will also look at the West as friends well on that optimistic note I thank you Mikhail and Bosch


The intentionality behind the operation hope and order is real. There's a hope that we can address these things in a way that help the individuals who need it, and at the same time make sure and dictate that there's law and order in the city of Columbia so that we continue to flourish and grow as the capital city.


We have pivots talking about pivot subtitles and pivot subtitling templates that are sometimes used when you don't have the subtitles who can go directly or you don't or it's just easier not to look for them and just translate through English. What are other and perhaps some specific challenges in your opinion in pivot language translation when it comes to achieving consistency? I'm working on an article at the moment that analyzes an Egyptian translation into Polish through English on the one hand, that's the subs, but the voiceover was done directly from Egyptian to Polish. Both of these are available on Netflix and both offer slightly different experience to the viewers because pivot was used in one and the other one is a direct translation. That's a very interesting case study. Perhaps we can go into more detail on that. So this is I understand this is a series in Arabic in the Egyptian variety of Arabic. And so you analyze two modes of translation, subtitles and voiceover or the lack of dubbing. And one of them you're saying was done directly. So the translator knew Arabic. And the other was done with the use of a pivot subtitling templates. So the subtitle only you English. I assume. And what was the result of that? Unsurprisingly, the direct translation from Arabic to Polish is much more faithful, much more accurate than the pivot. But the problem is that the English pivot is not a good translation. I counted errors, for instance, and inaccuracies and so on. And there's the text is divided into segments. So I use this as a unit of measurement. And I counted segments which contain some errors inaccuracies and so on some shifts. And it turned out that the direct Polish translation contains about 1% of segments with errors. The Polish subtitles, which were created from English subs contain 4. something per sense of segments with errors. And the English pivot contains 3. something. So you can see that there is a difference of if you disregard the errors that the translator that the Polish subtitle copied from the pivot, the number of errors is more or less 1% in both. So the problem is that the templates or the pivot that the Polish subtitle worked with is far from perfect. The subtitle was, well, was powerless. He was unable to spot the errors in the pivot. So he copied them, he transferred them into his own text. But his own share of problems is very similar to the share of problems that the direct translator had. We always, we always make mistakes, you know, no translation is perfect. I think that a 99% accuracy I think is very high. There's this NTR model by Pablo Romero Fresco. It's, well, it's for life subtitling, but it's translation. And you might be more knowledgeable than I am, in that case. But the threshold of acceptability is 98%. And I think that's, that's a very reasonable, there's no, at least as far as I know, there's no acceptability threshold in regular interlingual interlingual subtitling. There is a different model, the FAR model by Jan Pedersen. But he doesn't suggest any, any threshold. But I think 98% is, this is, is really good. So if you add, you know, one share of 1%, if you know, 1% of subs contain some, some problem, I think that the quality is very, very high. And here you had, you know, 1% versus almost 5%. But 4% more or less were in the, in the English version.


In fact, it's said that the character himself is actually inspired by the surgeon Joseph Bell. And with his house-like spidey senses and amazing deduction skills, Sherlock Holmes is one of the key figures when we think of when it comes to a mystery, and as we know, medicine often is one big mystery. So imagine learning how to think like Sherlock Holmes in the process of being a doctor. Here are a few principles that I learned. The show is such a masterpiece and one of my personal favorites, and it got me thinking, what concepts would Sherlock Holmes use in the shoes of a doctor or anyone in healthcare and what type of things can we do if we're on the medical journey. Now principle number one is to create a mind palace. Now in the show, Sherlock, this concept comes over and over again where essentially the main character just stops in one place and essentially looks in his brain and recreates images of where things were in relative to each other and essentially connects ideas between people, events, time, etc. And to illustrate how this idea of a mind palace works, imagine if I gave you a deck of cards absolutely in random order and told you to memorize the entire order in just a few minutes. For somebody who's never done that before, pretty difficult. But for somebody who is considered to be a memory athlete, this is something that they actually do very frequently and actually do multiple decks at a time. So the real question is how are they doing this? How does idea of mind palace work? Now the reason the mind palace works so effectively is that your first step is that you're going to have to create some kind of memorable image. So a king of diamonds could be referring to somebody who's very wealthy. So just talk about Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. We'll just talk about Elon Musk in the study. The diamonds refer to somebody who may be rich, somebody who's very wealthy. So the king of diamonds in our heads is going to represent Elon Musk. And the first place in our palace will just start with our TV. So you can imagine if you had Elon Musk on your TV, that's going to be card number one. Now the next card that I have is just a Joker. So in my head, I'm an interesting image for this Joker may just be a comedian. The first person who comes to my mind happens to be Dave Chappelle. Now I may look behind me and look at my coffee table and say, okay, cool, we have Elon Musk in my TV, Dave Chappelle is going to be sitting on my coffee table. That's card number two. Card number three is going to be the queen of hearts. Maybe we can think of a motherly figure, either our own mothers or somebody that's famous, that is known to be very loving and caring. Maybe you think of Mother Teresa. So whenever you see the queen of hearts, you may think of Mother Teresa. Now we're going to go ahead and essentially just look at my door back there and say maybe at the front door Mother Teresa will be standing there. Now without showing you my cards again, you can easily say the first card was the king of diamonds representing Elon Musk. The second card was going to be Dave Chappelle sitting on my coffee table. And then finally, card number three, going in order at my front door is going to be Mother Teresa with the queen of hearts. Now this is the most basic breakdown of how to use a memory palace, but essentially goes around the idea of focusing on the method of loci or essentially having a place or a few places in your mind. So maybe you're driving to school, you're driving to work, something like your living room like we use for this episode. And then whenever you have to memorize something, finding an interesting image, whether it be a medication that you have to memorize or a concept, a side effect, and then linking them consecutively into your various different objects in your room, and essentially walking mentally from the first thing into your room to the second thing to the next thing. Or if you're using the drive into work, you would talk about the first thing that you would see and maybe a billboard that is next on your list. And you would be putting, you know, Elon Musk or Dave Chappelle depending on what happened in this example. But that is how the memory palace works. That is something that Sherlock Holmes used often in both the stories as well as the shows of basically be able to link complex ideas and memorizing them very quickly and always having them essentially in his back pocket or back brain, I guess, to memorize anything that he needed to come back to. So for example, when I was learning inhalers, two common names that I had to know included Albuterol, which is a short acting and Teotropium, which is a long acting. Now, the first thing I did is for each of those I gave an interesting image. So for example, Albuterol, maybe for some reason remember Abuela in Spanish. And so I just thought of a grandmother using an inhaler because she had asthma. And then Teotropium, just using and going off of the Spanish pipe, I just thought about somebody who's a Tio or an uncle in Spanish in the tropics or a tropium and then put those interesting images of each of those in order in around my apartment. And then whenever I had to memorize all the inhalers, I would simply go through my memory palace and go through my TV, my coffee table, my front door and imagine all those interesting images without trying to cram the information. I still remember exactly where Teotropium was in my old apartment simply because of this process. And while it may seem like a lot of work initially, I promise you some of the benefits in terms of long term retention is definitely worth putting in the time now to create those interesting images and then having a familiar place or a few familiar places that you can always come back to. Principle number two is to understand the power of details. Now, Sherlock Holmes had his amazing ability to have these keen observations and particularly pick out when something wasn't right, especially small bits of details that just didn't make sense. No, no, tinted eyelashes, clear signs of touring around the frown lines, those tired private eyes, then this is underwear. Now, sometimes the small abnormality didn't amount to anything, but did require him to look into why the abnormality was there in the first place and then allowed him to bookmark. Okay, if this small abnormality is there, here are a few possibilities to consider. In medicine, we often do the opposite where things started become routine and start to pay attention a lot less, almost like where you're driving a car and you end up at your destination, but not really sure how you got there in the first place. But if you take a second to focus on details, whether it be a lab abnormality or physical exam finding, it may not ultimately mean very much for that individual patient. And in medicine, when you focus on the details, you'll be able to spot abnormalities. For example, lab abnormalities or physical exam findings that individually may not amount to anything on that patient. But if it led you to have enough curiosity to look in, okay, like why are their liver numbers up? Or why do they have weird nail findings, etc. Then even if it doesn't do anything for that individual patient, at least now you have a list of things that you know, okay, I see a liver abnormality here are a few things I should consider. And for some patients that actually may be worthwhile in knowing. Now, before we get back into today's episode, let's take a quick second to talk about today's sponsor, which is Picmonic. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Picmonic and you're on your medical journey, they have hundreds and hundreds of videos for literally any class or material that you may need. And what makes Picmonic so unique is that in addition to having so many videos on literally any topic you need, so for example, here, we're in microbiology, you can click on any videos. So here's Sapphoreus and their videos themselves are very short. So this video is about a one minute, 54 seconds, but essentially we'll break down the most high yield components that you have to know in the setting about Sapphoreus. And this very nice story format using images. So here's a very nice Oreo cookie that essentially will link an image to your brain on important concept about that. And the future videos, you may find that the same memorable images included in another related video. So then you can link together concepts. For example, here, this venom jar with green represents food poisoning. So any bacteria that may cost food poisoning may have this image in their overall picture and video. So you can say, okay, I know all the different bacterias that have food poisoning. And then whenever you feel comfortable with their relatively short story, you can easily go into the review and quiz phase and actually quiz yourself on the various different high yield components. Now, in addition to having a very unique and easy way to remember information for your quizzes and tests, you can also add all of the videos you're watching into a relative playlist. So if you're setting for a microbiology class, you can go ahead and essentially click all the videos that you add and add it to those playlist. And then whenever it's time, you can come back to your individual playlist and either watch those individual videos again or ask for specific quiz questions related to the videos that you've now said that you've mastered or at least learned the first time. And that's just scratching the surface in terms of features that Picmonic has to help you on your medical journey. Other cool things include having a weakness guide so you can see which topics you're the weakest in as well as their study scheduler. So you can actually say these are the topics I need to know. And here's my test day and then it will essentially will give you a study schedule based off of that. So if you're looking for an all in one resource you're on your medical journey and you haven't quite found it, definitely recommend checking out Picmonic if you're interested. There'll be a link down below. And our friends at Picmonic have also been nice enough to include an extra 20% discount if you use the code the MD journey at checkout. And so if you're interested in learning more about Picmonic, that link will be down below. And as always, thanks to Picmonic for being today's sponsor. Now principle number three is using your identity memory. Now your data memory is his idea of having this photographic memory which is Sherlock Holmes is notoriously known for. Now, while the concept of whether somebody can actually have a photographic memory or develop one through training is debated, but I argue that at some point all of us have some level of photographic memory. So for example, maybe taking a test and saying, I know exactly what page, what section of the syllabus this was on for some odd reason. And I know like that's why I answered the question correctly. We can't do that with everything that we're tested on, but there is some level of photographic memory that we have to some spectrum or degree. And so one of the best things that we can do in medicine is to build off of whatever photographic memory we have and to use connections. One of my favorite techniques to do this is called the brain tub. Now I talk about this in other episodes, but essentially, if I had a blank piece of paper, I want to see how much of a lecture can I create. So after I've sat through a lecture, I've essentially rumored the flow through the syllabus and the lecture presenting it to me of what was covered. Maybe let me just go ahead and give it a shot of seeing how much of that information can I recreate through scribbles and essentially really quickly identifying how much do I remember from my quote photographic memory, and where do I find some kind of gap? Where do I get stumped of not knowing how to go from that piece of information to the next one? That's probably a piece of photographic memory that I'm missing. And if I can just say, okay, cool.  That was the bullet point. Perfect. Now when I take the test, you feel like your photographic memory is actually there. It's almost like trying to memorize an entire puzzle. Well, you may have the overall picture, you may not know the individual colors, orientations of individual places, and when quizzed on it, that may be a gap in your knowledge. But when you're asked about it the second time, that may be something to say, cool, that puzzle piece went this way, it's green and blue. That's exactly what we do with our learning. You have to use connections and repetition to ultimately create your own version of your photographic memory. Now, principle number four is practicing the art of self-learning. Now, regardless of isn't the books, the shows, or the movie played by Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock was always found reading about things outside of his normal comfort of information and knowledge, whether it be things that is a botany of power and ammunition, chemicals, you name it. He was reading those to help him essentially create new knowledge, but also connect to ideas that he had previously to then help make observations and his mind palace be a little bit more fruitful, a little bit more detailed.  And then really at the start of before through your medical school, you're the smartest you've ever been. And then you have a lot of vacation interviews and then you're really dumb. And then when you're a full-time physician or an attending, that knowledge base essentially plateaus out because you're not really seeking out that new knowledge, you're essentially comfortable with where you are. But the whole idea of being a better doctor is to have better knowledge both within medicine. And I argued that in a profession that is meant to be lifelong learning such as medicine, it's important to have knowledge that is growing both inside and also outside of medicine, whether it be reading and listening to podcasts like I do on my way to work through different cases and understanding different pearls that people have about different diseases that I've treated, but also on the flip side making sure that I'm educated on things outside of medicine, whether it be personal finance, investing, astronomy, cooking, nutrition, etc. So then I can feel like I have a whole repertoire of information to rely on whenever that's needed from me. If you enjoyed those principles and how Sherlock would use them on his medical journey and you want more lessons and strategies that I've learned through both my successes and failures, as well as working with hundreds of students over the past six years, go ahead and click down below to get the free access to the med school success handbook. These are my favorite lessons and strategies that have helped me succeed and hopefully can help you do so faster. And while you're down there in the description, you also find links to other free resources as well as our paid programs in case you're interested. If you got any value out of today's episode or if you found it just helpful for entertainment, say go ahead and just show your support and say thank you by hitting their like button down below as well as considering hitting that subscribe and notification bell to be notified when new episodes like this one go out on a weekly basis. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, definitely hit that follow or subscribe on your favorite listening platform and definitely just take a second to go to iTunes and leave an honest review on your thoughts of the show. But as always my friends, hopefully you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did enjoy this episode, check out this episode right here on how Elon Musk would study in medical school as well as this episode right here on how I use Anki in medical school to study like a pro step by step. As always, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully that was a little help to you guys on yours and I'll see you guys in the next one. Take care my friends. Peace.


Hi everybody, Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com, coming at you with a 2021 Prestige Football Fat Pack Break, random team number 10. At the end of the video, with a different dice, we're going to give away six spots and that Immaculate honors first off the line mixer that we have on the site on jaspyscasebreaks.com. If you're watching live, you actually have to just do one more of these, that unlocks the break. But first the break first, first the break first. There are the teams right there. Let's roll it, randomize names and teams two and a three, five times, one, two, three, four, and then fifth and final time. Two and a three, five times for the teams, one, two. Got my Vegas Raiders down to the chargers. All right, there's the first half of the list here. No trades in these little filler packs. I just want to get to the giveaway part as quickly as possible. So it's just alphabetized by team and let's print and rip.  Got a youth movement, Joe Burrow, and Zach Wilson, Rookie Carr too, a couple of Josh Allen's in a row as well. Zach Wilson, I feel like, started to look pretty good towards the end of the regular seasons, putting, stringing together a couple, a couple good games. Now I'll go to the Jets, David, and of course we know what Joe Burrow can do. There you go. There you go. Hey, Zeus, see you man. Have a good one. All right. So, quick pack break right here, big thanks everybody for getting in, let's flip back to that list. Now, let's see who's going to win those spots in that first off the line mix. So let's grab everyone from David, down to Jesse, and everybody in between, new dice, new list, and let's roll it and randomize that list four or two, six times top six, after six, good luck. Thanks for taking the risk on this, one, two, three, four, five, and sixth and final time. After six, I mean a lot of sad faces here. So from seven on down, very close Jesse, sad times, but thanks for giving it a shot. We do have to do another pack of these, so if you feel like trying again, please feel free to do so, jaspyscasewrakes.com, thank you. Top six, you're happy because you're in. You're in the first off the line break. Matt is happy. So is Adam. Matt again, Jose, David, and Thomas. So congrats to the top six. We'll see you a little bit later tonight for that break, jaspyscasewrakes.com.