Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening. I'm very happy to see so many of you. My name is Peter Limbuk, and we have, I believe, a very exciting discussion ahead of us, a discussion that will cover a very broad field, the question of open borders, whether they are unavoidable or unnecessary, and what risks do they imply? I think we have a very interesting diverse panel with us today this evening at the Open Forum. But before I introduce the ladies and gentlemen on the panel, I think all of the Swiss people here will know the lady. I should say that two-thirds of this discussion time will be dedicated to questions from you. So please think about what questions you would wish to raise, and please identify yourself clearly if you do wish to raise a question. I'm very happy for us to have the President of the Swiss Confederation with us this evening, and I'm very happy that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Gutteris, is here, the German Interior Minister, Thomas de Mazier, and Mr Sorensen for the voice of the business sector. He's from Marriott, the very well-known hotel chain, which I'm sure most of you have heard of. A question that's been discussed a great deal in Europe. It's a burning issue. That is the question of open borders. Many different aspects to that question. And as a representative of Deutsche Welle, a broadcaster which brought a broadcaster to the world, I am a great advocate of open borders to information, but there are other issues as well, monetary, business, economic, political. And the question is, how do people respond to open borders? That has to be taken into account. There are also questions of law and order and safety and security that we need to bear in mind. But certainly the humanitarian disasters which we've seen in Syria and other parts of the world will cast a shadow over this discussion. I'd like to ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to give an outline of how the refugee situation has developed recently and where we stand. Thank you very much. I think that we are living a period in which for the first time since the Second World War we have more than 50 million people displaced by conflict in the world. Of these 50 million people displaced by conflict in the world, about 16 to 17 million of not yet the statistics for the end of last year have crossed borders, as refugees in other countries, and 90% of them are in the developing world. But more staggering than this number is the enormous acceleration in the recent past. In 2011, 14,000 people were displaced by conflict per day in the world, internally and externally. In 2012, 23,000. In 2013, 32,000. Which means that the world has lost capacity to prevent conflicts, to solve conflicts, and because of that we are having more and more people forced to flee because of conflict independently of all the other reasons that make people move in the world. Now, obviously being high commissioner for refugees, taking into account that 90% of the refugees are in the developing world, there are two questions that are absolutely essential for us. The first question is massive support to the countries that are hosting them. To the Lebanon's, the Jordan's, the Cameroons, the Kenyans, the Ethiopians of this world. Massive support in order for them to be able to cope with enormous challenge that the presence of such a large number of refugees represent. In Lebanon today, one-third of the population is Syrian and Palestinian. You can imagine what that means. And the second appeal we make is for borders outside the neighbor areas to be open to refugees. Of course, when we say borders should be open, that doesn't mean borders should not be managed. Borders need to be opened and to be managed. States have the right to define their own migration policies. And to manage their borders according to the way they define their migration policies. States have the right and the need to protect the security of their citizens. And in the management of the borders, these needs to be taken into account. But it is also essential that those in need of protection have access to territories where they can find protection. And to be honest, it breaks my heart to see thousands and thousands of Syrians crossing the Mediterranean, crossing themselves into the hands of smugglers and traffickers that are international criminals, that violate their rights and put their lives at risk, exploit them in an absolutely horrible way. It breaks my heart to see that many of them are doing that because they do not find a legal way to come into Europe. And that is why it is so important that countries like Germany have had extremely meaningful programs both in direct asylum to Syrians but also in humanitarian admission and resettlement and in facilitating family reunification in having flexible visa policies because if we want to fight irregular movements of people, we need to do many things to crack down on smuggling and trafficking to support areas of origin, et cetera, et cetera. But one thing that we also need to do is to create more legal avenues for people to be able to move and at the same time to manage the borders in a protection-sensitive way for those that are in need of protection, those that are fleeing conflict or persecution to have access to the territories where they can feel safe. Thank you for the moment. For Bundespräsident... President, Switzerland has a long tradition of receiving refugees. We've just heard of the figures. For example, relating to Lebanon, a third or a quarter of the population, depending on how you count it, is currently made up of refugees. Unimaginable that figure for countries in Europe. Shouldn't Europe really step in in light of this situation and open its borders to more refugees? Yes. I'm very happy for the fact that UN High Commissioner has recalled the fact that 90% of refugees stay in the area of origin in the neighbour of states. I visited Jordan last year, a country with almost as many inhabitants as Switzerland. A million Syrian refugees. Huge camps, but not only in camps. They move in Jordan. They look for work. Their kids have to go to school. So I think our policy has to be coherent with what the UN High Commissioner said, namely that we need to support those countries that are most directly and most strongly affected by the flows of refugees. Now, I spoke with Syrian refugees in Jordan. I said to them, how does the future look to you? And they all said, without exception, we want to go home. We have this impression in Europe that everybody wants to come to us, but in fact, what they really want to do is stay at home or be able to go home or at least stay in the region. And if they want to go far, that is because they are either in danger in those neighbouring states or they don't receive the medical attention that they require or that they're traumatised and they cannot stay in a refugee camp or that they have family in Europe or in Switzerland. But the view that everybody wants to come to Europe is simply wrong, and that's why in Switzerland and in Europe we have the policy where we say what's most important is help locally. We need to support these countries. Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey have huge requirements to meet the refugees who are coming to them. I've visited schools in Jordan where Switzerland is supporting school projects so that Jordanian children can go to school in the morning and the Syrian children in the afternoon. There's a scarcity of water in Jordan and with a million extra refugees that exacerbates that problem. So we are developing infrastructure projects there as well. So that's just one side of things. I think local help is essential. The other side is that we have people coming to us. They need protection perhaps. They have family perhaps. And I'm very happy to have heard you, Mr. Guterres, say that borders need to be managed. Yes, they are there to guarantee our safety, but they also need to be opened so that those people who require protection can receive it. That's a huge challenge to any state or the Schengen area as a whole. We have to face up to that challenge and respond to it. And in terms of security issues, yes, we need to respond with intelligent discussion. We mustn't forget, however, that there are many people who require our protection, and therefore we can't close our borders to them. They need to be open, these borders, but also managed in such a way that they do guarantee our safety. And we need to ensure that we are therefore supervising the people who come. Before we come to the question of law and order, may I ask you, Mr. Demesia, about the quantity of refugees coming to Germany, over 200,000 in the last year. What does that mean? That's a significant increase. What does that mean for a country like Germany? Well, the subject for discussion is this evening, open borders and avoidable or unnecessary. Well, I think that open borders are necessary. We need to ensure that they are managed, but it would be foolish to believe that in principle, borders can be fully open in principle in the world in which we live. We have made significant achievements within the European Union and in the Schengen area. We do have open borders within that area. That sometimes leads to problem itself, but that's another question. But opening borders has been achieved in that area with a certain sacrifice of national sovereignty. We also have visa-free travel, and I'm sure that Mr. Sorensen will pick up on the importance of that. We have to distinguish however between visa-free travel and choice of where people actually decide to settle. But we're talking about refugees. Mr. Guterres mentioned resettlement programs, and what's important for that is not so much open borders, but that we recognize our humanitarian responsibility and allow certain people to come to our countries. We take around 90% of the refugees from Syria who are outside the region. We have taken or accepted around 90,000 since the beginning of the war in Syria. Now, it's little in comparison to Jordan or other countries in the region, Lebanon, but it's quite a lot in comparison to other European countries, some of which are large. The problem is that we are constrained by our geographical situation, the Schengen area as well, and we have people coming because of these significantly open borders that simply come to Germany or Europe in search of a more prosperous life, which is something that we fully understand. Of the 200,000 asylum requests that we received in Germany in 2014, we saw that that was the largest number for many years, but less it must be remembered than in the 1990s where we had 400,000. Of these 200,000, 60,000 came from the West Balkans. The largest country of those was Serbia. Serbia has been on the path to joining the European Union. There are democratic elections there. There are differences in quality of standards of living. There is discrimination perhaps. There might be questions of ethical issues with the Roma, but there is no persecution. So the question here is whether or not we allow people in from those regions under the definition of asylum. What we need to do is say you cannot use your situation as a reason for requesting asylum. Poverty is not a reason for requesting asylum. And therefore we deny these people asylum, or if they are in Germany we refuse them residence. At the same time we need to recognize that there are legitimate reasons for asylum and we can only pursue that policy effectively if there is the support of the population as a whole. Now, in Germany there are many different strands of opinion from full rejection to the desire to help and receive more refugees. I'd like to ask Mr. Sorensen, what is the role of business in the area of open borders and in this question? Perhaps not so much in terms of tourism because we're talking about refugees. To what extent can business make a contribution? Or would you say that's purely a matter for the government to deal with? We don't have anything to do with it. Good evening, I apologize for not being able to answer in Germans. I've just exhausted my German. I also will confess right up front that being on the stage with these auspicious government officials who are wrestling with very fundamental issues, I sometimes wonder why I'm here being simply a hotel person. But let me sort of talk a little bit about the way we see people move. And this is an oversimplification to be sure. But on some level refugees are running from something. They may be running from war. They may be running from persecution. They may be running from a natural disaster of one sort or another. And those are obviously very fundamental stories and a need for the UNHCR and business and governments to respond in a humanitarian way. And I think in many respects all of us believe that in those instances the interests of an individual nation probably take second fiddle and the first order of priority is to make sure that the humanitarian crisis is met with humanitarian aid and resolution. A second sort of travel is people who are traveling to something. Now sometimes the lines between these two categories are a little bit fuzzy. But they may be moving as migrants, as immigrants, to a place where there is a sense of greater opportunity. And I think as the Commissioner for the UN said, I think it is given that most individual countries get to make a decision about whether to accept immigrants or not. And those political discussions within countries, including in the United States today and in many countries in Europe, are often very controversial and there are very strong views that go in both directions. But there is a powerful force of hundreds of millions of people who are looking to move across national borders in order to pursue greater opportunity. And while that political debate within a given nation is extremely important, it's also, I think, important to recognize that some of those people will move no matter what individual states decide. They may move with a human smuggler. They may move by trying to cross borders illegally. But there will be movement that occurs and clearly countries need to figure out how to control their borders in order to address those risks in the way they think are most important. A third form of human movement is travel, a temporary travel. And that runs a gamut. Sometimes we think of it as not being terribly important and it certainly is not as important as responding to the humanitarian need of a refugee. But there are roughly 10% of all jobs across the globe on average that are engaged in serving people who travel, not just hotels but restaurants and airlines and other folks that are broadly involved in this. And people travel for many reasons. They travel to see their families living abroad. They travel for business purposes in order to engage in commerce, which in turn is also about jobs. And they travel for vacations. And most people I think understand that vacations are things that we all want to do. And then in this third category of travel as well, it is broadly recognized that it's up to the individual country to determine what kind of open border they want to have. Do they want to welcome people to come in and see family, do business, take vacations? Or do they want to essentially have that border closed? As a hotel person, I obviously have a business bias towards relatively more flexibility in terms of people's travel. But again, that is very much an individual nation states decision and that decision gets made in many different political processes around the world. Ultimately, when we gather here and you think about the second two categories of travel, you think about people running to something, looking for more opportunity, migration, you think about travel itself. There are many agendas here, but clearly one of them is about information. Do we know whether people are coming across the border illegally? Do we know whether they're staying longer than their visa permits them to? And there are lots of sources of information out there. Many of those sources of information are in public hands. Think about the visa process that governments run. You apply for a visa in many countries to go to other countries. You have citizenship information if you're within, say, the Schengen area in Europe, for example, so there's information there that the government has. There are also private pools of information. Think about the airlines and the hotel companies as an example. We know when people are buying airline tickets. We know when people are making hotel reservations. We see their passports usually if they're crossing lines. And I think one of the things that we've been discussing here at Davos WEF meetings is how do we make sure that that information consistent with what we all want in terms of privacy of our own identities? How do we make sure that information is used so that true security risks can be addressed, so that true threats on immigration can be addressed, and so that people can still have as much freedom to move as the decisions of the individual nations essentially allow? It would be a mistake, I think, for all of us if we said that because of a terrorism event in Paris, all of us in this room would be restrained from taking the next business trip or the next family trip or the next vacation that we wanted to take. Similarly, I think it would be a mistake to say that because there are migrants who want to move to places where countries may not want them to come, that that also necessarily means that the globe as a whole should see borders erected and nobody crossed. And that fundamentally is a question about identifying information that can be helpful in allowing countries to solve and address the risks that they want to address and making sure that we find a way collectively to access that information and to develop policies around how that information can be used so that people's own views about privacy and the rest are respected as well. Madam President, there is the Dublin Treaty which governs the distribution of refugees throughout Europe and in Switzerland. Do you think it's a fair agreement? Well, the Dublin Treaty doesn't say how they are allocated, but it says who is responsible for asylum request. And would you like to see some kind of allocation? Well, before Dublin, the case was that asylum could be applied for at a number of different states. That wasn't a good situation because it wasn't clear who was responsible or the same request was reviewed a number of different times. So the Dublin Agreement brought order into that situation. Now, the situation at the moment is that six European states with Switzerland take three-quarters of asylum seekers and, as the Interior Minister said, there are other European states who hardly receive any asylum seekers. Now, there's an imbalance there and obviously that raises the question how does this happen? Is it because certain countries are more attractive? Is it because certain countries are more geographically attractive? Maybe because they're in the Mediterranean region. What does that mean for a common refugee policy if the spread of asylum seekers is so imbalanced? What we saw last year was Italy's system coming under huge pressure. Thousands of people faced unimaginable human drama on the beaches of Italy where bodies were arriving, thousands of people were drowning en route, people who were arriving required medical treatment. They had to be registered under the Dublin Agreement so that the responsibilities were clear. Now, ultimately, Italy felt that it couldn't cope with the situation which led to a certain amount of tension. We must be honest about that. Now, together with Germany, we said to Italy, you have to do or cope with your responsibilities. We need to ensure that refugees are registered, asylum seekers are registered, but we are willing to support you because this situation is exceptional and therefore we need to help one another. I think Germany and Switzerland and other European states took this attitude towards Italy and in doing so showed that we are credible. We ask Italy to live up to its commitments but at the same time we are willing to provide support for that. So this imbalance in the distribution of asylum seekers does require some changes, but I don't think that we can be unrealistic about it. I think we need to work hard on this. It will be a long and difficult discussion. Switzerland, I believe, has a good position because we have made our commitments, we are respecting them, and we will continue to do so, but we expect that from others as well. How, Minister de Mazière, can you ensure that other countries do more so that the burden is shared? Would you introduce some kind of quota system for asylum seekers? We have worked together with the Swiss and I would support what she said. The Dublin system is working. It clearly allocates responsibilities and we have recognized that the burden needs to be fairly distributed. Some people have said to us that we benefit from Dublin, and that was what was said initially because we were in the middle of Europe geographically that it would be the countries on the Mediterranean that would have to carry most of the burden, but what we're seeing is that countries like Germany, Sweden, Switzerland are receiving a large number of refugees, to put it neutrally. We recognize, however, that we have our commitments and responsibilities to live up to. So even where we see or we believe that there is no grounds for asylum to be granted, we ensure that everybody is received under the same conditions. What I'm worried about is that some countries in the European Union have organized the hosting conditions, if you like, so poorly that there is a real incentive for asylum seekers to leave. Now, we've said we want to talk about standards for asylum seekers. We cannot accept a situation where a Swiss court has to be called in to examine the possible return of a family to Italy because it's felt that the conditions the family would be subjected into Italy are not of a decent enough standard. We need to ensure that the conditions that are applied in Europe are decent and uniform. That's going to require work. There's a need for improvement. With regard to the distribution and ensuring that there isn't an imbalance there, again, that's not an easy task. But we have thought a great deal about this and perhaps the possibility would be to have a European quota for refugees. Maybe Mr. Guterres could talk about that. We're talking with the Greek minister about the idea of national quotas, but it's quite possible that Europe could come up with that idea of an overall quota, which might be a good idea because it would involve everybody having the same commitment. Mr. Guterres, what do you think about this idea of some kind of European quota? First of all, what is the reality we have today? If you look at the news, probably the large majority of the people seeking asylum in Europe enters Europe through Italy and Greece. But Sweden and Germany have received 46% last year of all the asylum requests in Europe, which means that the European asylum system is highly dysfunctional. For two reasons. First, because the chance to be recognized as a refugee, as Minister de Masiere was explaining, if you ask for asylum, your request needs to be examined. You might be asking for asylum because you really are in need of protection or you might be asked for asylum because you think it's the best way to solve a migration problem. And indeed, all European states have mechanisms to detect who's in need of protection and who's not in need of protection. It's so-called refugee status determination. And at the same time, the attribution of other forms of protection. Now, if you are Somali in an ask for protection in Europe, we have statistics of 2013. Your chances vary from 12% to 92% to be recognized as in need of protection. If you are Afghan, between 17% and 97%, if you are Afghan, between 11% and 92%. Within Europe. Within the European Union.  If you have a country where your chance to be recognized is 92%. So unless we have a system that in which there is transparency and in which there is equal treatment for people and then the integration conditions are more or less acceptable everywhere. What you have is not what Dublin defines. What you have is a system of asylum al-Aqqat. And so I think we need two major efforts in Europe. One is to create conditions for an effective harmonization of asylum policies. And second, every state assuming its responsibilities and then the mechanisms of solidarity might just be justified because there are different pressures according to the different origins of where the problems exist. Now, if these two conditions are met, if you have all countries assuming their responsibilities, registration, the reference determination, et cetera, and if there are then mechanisms of solidarity, we don't need, I believe, to go to systems of quotas. If you go on with the present situation, we might need to do something more drastic to have a more fair share within Europe. But it's also important to understand the needs of the people. I mean, the people in need of protection and what for me is a fundamental need, the need for Europe to remain a continent of asylum for those that seek protection in Europe. You should come back to European politics. I would welcome that. Well... Would you also welcome a European... Would you also welcome a European asylum common law that you will have one regulation for whole Europe? The question goes to Mr. de Mezier. So that the German asylum rules would be Europe-pized then? Well, the question of the common assessment of other countries is something that does need to be dealt with at the European level. We have discussed the possibility of a common foreign security policy. For many years, we've had common police and military in Afghanistan. So it must be possible for us within Europe to assess how dangerous what the level of persecution is in certain countries. We have a common foreign security policy, at least in part. So I think it's a real central need, and I think the new representative of common foreign security policies is working on this. We have different standards all the way from Romania to Sweden, but I agree that we need to recognize that there is a need in our system where we have social transfers, where you have certain levels, high in Germany, low, for example, in Romania, and we need to recognize that if you get a... let's say that the asylum seekers are looking for benefits, how do you deal with that at a cross-European level? If you hit a medium level of benefits, then that'd be too high for Romania, too low for living in Germany. So there are many difficult questions. We have a number of problems, some of which seem extremely difficult, some of which I'm sure we can solve. Switzerland's model at the moment, Madam President, is to try... Switzerland is trying to reduce the asylum-seeking process to three months. What approach are you taking and are these practices that you feel others can adopt? Yes, what we've decided to do in Switzerland is to overhaul our asylum application process by accelerating that and ensuring that we have enhanced legal protection for the asylum seekers. It's important that we be able to look at somebody's case and decide whether the individual requires the protection due to genuine asylum seekers or whether or not they need to return to their countries. We believe it's important to do this quickly because we don't want to drag it out for years. That's bad for the country and bad also for the asylum seekers themselves, especially if they have children, for example, who've started going to school, started making friends, becoming part of their community. If they have to go home after five years, that's somewhat inhumane. So we see situations where asylum seekers are being lured to Switzerland by criminals who are promising them all kinds of things. We need to make it clear to those people that they won't be accepted. Now, in recent years, we've said within Europe two other countries, we've said in Balkan countries there isn't political persecution. There are problems, but we've made it clear that people seeking asylum in Switzerland from these countries won't get it. We've cut the process down significantly and tried to send a signal by making quick decisions that these people cannot find asylum in Switzerland. They've been told, for example, if they sell their house, get all their savings and go to Switzerland, that they will find a home there. It's important we send a message saying that's simply not true and we've seen as a result asylum requests from these countries drop massively. Now, at the same time, we don't want people to get the wrong message, but we don't want people to fall for false promises either and fill the pockets of the smugglers who lure them to Switzerland. We have, however, made commitments to, for example, supporting the Roma people in some countries, supporting the education system, the vocational training system in some countries so that young people have a positive career path ahead of them. I think that's the most humane way of approaching it and it's a long-term approach as well because people who come to Switzerland seeking asylum need to know that they're not going to be recognized as refugees because they're not being politically persecuted and then they go home having wasted the best years of their life without any kind of training. So we're trying to build systems which can turn that around and we've begun to apply this policy. We want to be sure that the asylum seeking process in our country is something that is thoroughly done but is also accelerated for all the reasons I've mentioned and at the same time we want to be able to show other countries that that is the right direction to take. If they recognize that, then we'll be happy to share our experience. Can we learn from that, Mr. de Maizière? Yes, certainly. You might be surprised to hear that we're invited to look at what the Swiss were doing and we accept it. We spent a few hours looking at what is actually happening. It's a process which is underway and we have seen that in a couple of cases it certainly worked. Now in the German lender we've agreed to establish two groups. Those people coming from countries such as Syria can go through a very quick process which could take just a few days. Those countries coming from very safe, those seekers coming from very safe countries also could receive a message within a very short period that they don't have any chance of asylum. So what we believe that those two large groups can receive an accelerated procedure but there is also unfortunately a group which is something that's a bit more to handle with an accelerated procedure. What I'm talking about are people from countries where it's not really clear whether there's a political persecution or not. Afghanistan is an example that's been mentioned or we have for example hundreds of young Tunisians, Libyans and the situation there is that we face a situation where the passports for example are thrown away. People don't want to be identified where fingerprints are burst off, are burnt off rather. People who change the story of where they come from every four years. Every four weeks rather, excuse me. So that's not the majority of cases but that happens. We've also faced the added complication of family members whether asylum seekers do belong to the family that they say they belong to. That's an extremely difficult situation. There are many situations where really it's not clear. So if you have countries like Germany, Austria, Sweden I think it's quite legitimate for us to say it's not too much to ask to tell us your name and where you come from. So if there is an incentive there for dishonest behaviour the prospect of being able to stay a long time then that raises difficulties. That also adds grist to the mill of those who don't want refugees in Germany. In Germany in recent months we've seen a movement which has come into difficulties the last week or so but it's a clear movement which does influence the image of Germany. I'm talking of course about the Pegida movement. What role does that play for you? How does Germany respond to such a movement? Are you trying to exclude that movement from the political process or what is your approach? Well it's not a problem which is solely related to Germany. I mean it's a problem we see throughout Europe. Some of them are in parliament. In Holland the success of UKIP in the European elections in the UK Le Pen or Grillo in France and Italy we haven't seen that in Germany to date and now we have. Now some people say you don't need to worry it's just part of becoming a normal European country but I don't really want to settle with that approach I think we do need to take it very seriously. Now I don't want to go into it in too great a depth but the Pegida movement is saying they don't have anything against refugees per se but the arrival of refugees might lead to resentment and have a negative effect. The question of asylum seekers refugees is more of a symbol for other questions in the context of globalization. What's happening to Germany in a globalized world? Why are we sending soldiers abroad? Wouldn't it be nicer if we didn't have to do that? Wouldn't it be nicer to simply export BMWs to the rest of the world and not have to let the world's problems into Germany? Wouldn't that be nice if we could do that? And the answer has to be no. We have to recognize that there are problems which affect Germany and we have to participate. It would be terrible if the refugee problem became worse because of Germany's failure to participate locally and there would be a knock-on effect for us it would give us sleepless nights. We've tried different approaches with political pressure with a lot of money with not so much money with soldiers without soldiers and we're seeing that the results aren't getting better getting worse in some cases but we cannot stop making an effort. And the question, the other question which is perhaps related to bigot is not so much related to refugees it's a question of religion and culture and this whole issue of open borders obviously brings in this question of culture and religion Do we believe that the refugees that are coming to our country in speech marks fit in? Do we believe that they have a higher level of criminality than average? Do we believe that they in some way threaten our children? Or do we not believe that? I think you have to consider these issues when you're dealing with a movement like Piggy there. So the question about cultural differences the questions about religion need to be raised the discussion needs to be aired and I believe that this is something that has been subject to to move too long in Germany. Three very brief observations. First, one can be a refugee without political persecution we have more and more situations in the world where persecution is done for other kinds of reasons for instance women victims of genital mutilation for instance we are seeing now the difficulty that the LGBTI group of population are suffering in many countries so there are good reasons to grant protection to people even if they come from countries where there is a democracy if the countries are not able to protect them against these other forms of persecution that can be cultural can be even family can be of the society if as I said the government is not able to protect them but it's very important to keep this in mind that there are today many people seeking refuge in Europe and rightly so not because they are politically persecuted but because they are victims of these kind of situations. Second observation I think is very important we need to be able to understand that most of the attitudes in relation to asylum are because of the debate about migration and many people do not distinguish the two things and what is true is if I may sometimes there is a schizophrenic debate about migration in Europe I remember seeing a survey in which there were three questions do you want to have more children? The answer was no. Are you ready to clean the toilets of the restaurant next door? The answer was no. Do you want migrants? The answer was no and it is obvious that these three answers do not make sense if we have as in my country an index of fertility of 1.3 when I go to visit my mother that is 91 years old and there's permanently a person to assist her independently of the family I go there in the weekends when I can I've never seen a Portuguese there and Portugal is not a rich country and we have huge unemployment it is obvious that Europe cannot sustain its economy and its society without migration it is also obvious that this needs to be properly managed but sometimes the debate becomes irrational and this is where I believe it's very important to fight the battle of values and principles which sometimes is absent if I think there is something we should all be proud in relation to Europe's contribution to world civilization are the values of the Enlightenment tolerance, la primauté de la raison and the fact is that today we see in many societies that the only platforms that are available for those that are angry that feel discriminated that reject the society the only platforms that are available are other radical Islam or populist xenophobia and I think it's important that people feel that there are values and principles that are assumed namely by mainstream political forces in order to be able to reassure societies that it is possible to have a society that is multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious but lives in harmony and create the conditions for a prosperous development of all its components You can give him a hand, you can applaud Now, before going to the public I would like to come to the security aspect we just heard it because of the terrorist attacks in Paris everybody feels threatened now open borders will always be questioned because of that I would like to ask you Mr. Sorensen did you feel it in your business the worry that many people who travel don't even want to go to European large cities are they afraid or is that the case or we hope it isn't It's interesting, I'd like to make one comment just on some of the comments that have just been made the force that's on the other side of this question whether it be a refugee seeking safety or whether it be somebody seeking asylum formally or somebody migrating for a job the force on the other side is extraordinarily powerful a woman who's in a war zone who feels like her kids are threatened will leave and cross that border almost no matter what any of us has to say about whether or not they're permitted they will run to safety if they feel like they can and they will run ultimately to opportunity so even when they may try and use the asylum process many migrants are faced with a circumstance in which they feel like they and probably factually cannot provide and they see opportunities somewhere else in Switzerland, in the United States and fill in the blank and those forces are powerful and we will try and erect rules around it ultimately those forces will continue to look for a way out when you get to travel I think there the force is less powerful but it is still quite a strong force if your family lives in another country you want badly with some regularity to go see them if you need to do business if that's your opportunity you're going to try and do the same thing and when an event in Paris happens for example the immediate response is going to vary a little bit depending on the purpose of that trip and to some extent the aspect of threat that seems to be communicated because of the event the events of Charlie Edbaugh were awful but they were targeted at a newspaper that was doing something specific it was not a bomb on the metro it was not a generalized terrorist event in Paris and as a consequence the impact to travel to Paris because of this probably will not be very significant may there be a few people who cancelled their trip right after that event of course there may be but there's not really much of a connection between that event and what a tourist or what a business traveler or somebody coming to see their family in Paris would connect to that we have obviously too much experience around the world with this whether it be the events in New York in 9-11 whether it be events in Jakarta whether it be events in Nairobi, Kenya and we as people want to move want to exercise the freedom that we think it should be available to us and usually within a relatively short period of time we are back going to those places to see our families to do business and probably rationally concluding that the risk to us simply because an event happened in the past is not that significant we are resilient people as human beings I think Minister Natsu Minister well I would like to say something about the conflict for instance Turkey Turkey is a NATO partner there are millions of people from Turkey who live in Germany and there are millions of Germans who love to go to Turkey for holiday there are millions of people who live in Germany who want to go back and visit their families nobody wants to restrict any movement there it would be cynical it would be incredible never heard of if we allow terrorists because of their attacks to restrict this kind of travel and yet we know that several thousand people from Europe go to Syria and Iraq via Turkey to murder and to kill and to support what they call ISIS now where are the restrictions we need profiling we must find out who are those who go there and come back in order to participate terrorist actions and this is what we need information and then of course we have the conflict with privacy and security and we have to go through that but this is the reason for us saying if we have an agreement with the Americans the Europeans have an agreement with Americans so that the Americans will learn who flies from Germany or France to the US that the airlines have to give it to the authorities who keep those records for a while and then do them away it mustn't be wrong for us to give that information to who needs it not only to the Americans in other words we have to weigh both sides of course the safest thing would be if for one year nobody would be allowed to come from Turkey to Europe but that would be unacceptable it could not be it could not be squared with our values and you have made the case for our values the compromise is information and selection information if you don't want neither information nor selection then we have a safety, a security problem well would you have to control the open border between Turkey and Syria well this is difficult to ask for the 2,000 kilometers of border there physically hardly recognizable and there I want to say what our Turkish friends say to us they tell us you ask us to tell you exactly who is coming and who is flying back out of 3,000 people our secret services our information service is supposed to do that we have thousands of refugees we have a huge, a long border line we have a very tough time in avoiding terrorist attacks in Turkey and you want us to take care of 3,000 people how about your European suit don't even let them leave Europe and I must say I can see their point Mrs. President a last question to you before I give the public the opportunity to ask questions do you fear that the terrorist attacks in Paris and the increase the terrorist danger in Europe could menace and could threaten the internal borders in Europe what do I must say I don't really have anything to add to what Thomas de Misia just said this is our dilemma the same thing goes for Switzerland it holds for Switzerland all other European countries we all have a common external border and I would say that our task in politics is to remain honest in this discussion to say honestly what happened in Paris could happen in our country that doesn't mean that you simply sit there and do nothing and we would like to ask for this not to happen we have to make sure to do something about it to prevent it Mr. de Misia just enumerated a number of things so that's exactly what we have to do Switzerland is in the middle of Europe Europe cannot afford a security gap which is called Switzerland which is why we plead for being a part of it we want to take part in the discussions and want to have a say in decisions to be taken and we're well understood there but the next question is what makes people do that what kind of people would do that type of thing and there are no simple answers there we have to be honest there as well you don't have one profile that simply is applicable then you immediately pinpoint the terrorists but there are a set of circumstances that would favor the creation of terrorists one of the possibilities would be somebody who has no perspective who suffers from discrimination who has no chance in life who does not feel recognized or taken seriously by the society he or she lives in who has put in a hundred applications for a job and has been turned down a hundred times who's frustrated we might say that well there's somebody who gives him or her an identity and their life a sense and this could be a premise for terrorist activities but it might be society a society unable to give any answers or an identity for the sense of life I asked yesterday I put the question in my inaugural speech who are we what are our values those are universal values which should hold for everybody let us think about these values I talked about these questions several times today in my discussions we must not simply leave this aside thank you ladies and gentlemen I would like to ask you to put some questions now are I mean questions please put questions don't make statements good question can be put in 20 seconds and I'm convinced that you could do that please say who you are if you have a long question or you actually make a statement instead of putting a question I would like to I'm going to cut your microphone this inviting gesture I would like to give the floor to this person I think we should talk about the reasons why people become refugees we will talk about the contact process we just said 15 million refugees most of them flee from war the Pope said refugee policies kills people but economic policy as well we don't do enough for refugees in other words my question is what can we do so the refugees will have a possibility of having an existence in their own country instead of going around the globe this is why there will be a demonstration in Davos with refugees at 2 p.m. on Saturday so that they will tell us why they flee their country so that they can say it that we don't speak for them it would be nice who you address this question to if you had said who you were introduce yourself please but please don't make it lengthy I'm active in a number of for cultural and war reasons the question is put to Mr. Guterres and to the interior minister because you talked about this question please answer briefly so that others get the possibility to talk as well this is about time is that the international community today has a very limited capacity to prevent conflicts and to timely solve them if you look at the key questions that we face in relation to all of them the security council of the United States has been paralyzed and this is the reality we face I mean we live in a world where power relations became unclear where there is not a global governance system and where unpredictability and impunity became the name of the game and so conflicts emerge everywhere without any capacity to stop them look at South Sudan South Sudan is a country that became independent just five, six years ago and two leaders have created the conditions for a civil war that is devastating completely the country and killing thousands and thousands of people and forcing more than one million to move now I remember the American Secretary of State the Secretary General of the United Nations the presidents of all the countries around going there and nobody is able to stop this indeed the international community today lacks the capacity to stop conflicts and to prevent them effectively and this is I think the major effort that needs to be done on the other hand if I may say so I believe it would be also very important for development cooperation policies to have human mobility in the center of their concerns and many times development cooperation policies help to uproot people instead of helping to create capacity for communities to sustain themselves and we are witnessing in the developing world a form of urbanization without jobs that is one of the main reasons why so many people are on the move I said so before you're right analyzing this to do away with the reasons for the flight but that's complicated two examples Libya during the Arab Spring there were protests against the dictatorship at the same time there were tribal conflicts and the west decided some states some western states decided to save a city where there would have been massacres and decided to bomb that city results there is no more authority in Libya the tribal conflict are worse than ever before and we're talking about the refugees drowning in the Mediterranean we could talk about the refugees who die of hunger while they go through the Libyan desert because nobody counts them what was right to carry out the bombing or was it wrong and if it was wrong would it have been better to leave the dictator where he was and that wasn't a question of poverty because there was relatively there was a lot of oil there the next example is Eritrea Eritrea is among the five or six largest refugees origin country very bad dictatorship and the number of refugees from Eritrea is very high now give me a political recipe how can the west do something for the democratization of Eritrea there are very complicated conflicts in the country between Ethiopia and Eritrea and it's not only a question of poverty and we talked about Sudan before we thought that the war in Sudan would be ended by creating two states the southern Christian state and the northern Islamic state the UN actually managed and we were actually proud of this type of state building we spent a lot of money and created a buffer zone with the UN mandate between two countries in order to stop the war what was the result? the two states are still at war with each other and this is why it's easy to say that we should contribute to end the conflicts but it's very hard to do another question thank you I'm Sylvia Grundmann I'm here with a group of former scholars of the Konrad Adenauer foundation my question is addressed to Mr. Dumas you talked about the Balkan refugees Germany did a lot there are a number of old cases about 7000 still left over they are after a lot of them are returned many of them to Kosovo now I am concerned with the children in that group there is a number of children who only know Germany they're socialized in Germany they speak German they have no future in Kosovo and I am worried I'm worried because for me these children have a security risk and the children have no chance in the future there are a lot of young men what will become of them is it smart to handle it like that because these are small numbers a small problem therefore you talked about the German population the German population very often supports this group in the various committees what we're talking about a very difficult dilemma the longer the procedures drag on for children it becomes clear that thank God they are quite well integrated in other words these children are closer to Germany than they are to Kosovo what are the reasons and what are the consequences of these cases is a new law that is in the offering in Germany for people who have lived in Germany for eight years can remain there for children in six years it's the right to remain on the other hand you can't really have a premium for delaying a procedure I said that before well I think there are various possibilities I want to be careful in drafting we could say we leave the children here and the parents go back it's our sense of family but for the future and integration it would not be the worst thing for the children because the parents very often are not integrators because we didn't let them work so far we didn't give them many integration courses but we're changing all this so basically we cannot simply avoid this and one at one of the forum rooms today I said some dilemmas can't be solved they can only be managed in other words we have to manage the situation these people are present in Germany and for the future we will have to make sure that the lengthy procedures will be shortened but there is one more thing which also holds for Afghanistan Kosovo of course is one of the poorest countries in Europe and we know we're aware of the problems that existed there are thousands of soldiers from Germany who go there in order to stabilize things locally and a lot of money is spent on this so there a lot of German people don't understand and I must say I understand them why if we make sure with soldiers and European policemen that progress is made in the north of Kosovo there are 60,000 people we do a lot for the stabilization of this country we should be able to ask people to return to their own country because we do everything in our power to make sure that that country will be stabilized you cannot say that we cannot make you go back why are we in Kosovo then I think we have to take to take that into consideration as well another question Benjamin Schaff I'm also from I'm a student of the Conrad Adenhaar institution now one word that hasn't been mentioned is brain drain or selective immigration Switzerland has been operating well Germany perhaps as well on the question of whether or not it's fair to let people the best brains of poorer countries to come to your countries should they be should they be refused the permission to come well I would also be interested in the view of the High Commissioner on this question because it is an interesting problem now we're talking here about migration rather than refugees now every country operates its policy on migration according to its own interests it looks for migrants who it believes will benefit it now I don't know if I should talk about the cases of Canada or the US who do that now there are forces to brain drain on both sides a dilemma, a dilemma you can't escape Wolfgang Schoibler considered the possibility of temporary migration, Mr. Gutierrez will know that proposal I don't believe it can work but it's a dilemma you can't escape if you're organizing migration according to your own interests then you will try to attract those migrants to Germany or wherever who have a high level of training and that will be other countries loss and if we're not going to take that approach then we'd have to close the borders to such people and that's not what we want to do but another thing I'd like to say Mr. Gutierrez talked about the questionnaire which mentioned toilet cleaners it's quite a drastic example but I could also say for example domestic help in terms of care not the case of your mother Mr. Gutierrez which you mentioned but for example carers who have to remove the protection or to take off the bed clothes of incontinent the incontinent elderly now many people in the countries we've been talking about in the developed world would not be happy to do this work so you have on the one hand the brain drain but you also have this question of the if you like to call it the exploitation or the use of migrants who are doing work that we don't want to do so if you like what you're seeing is a de facto immigration into the lowest wage sector and that's something that we haven't really discussed now part of the population refuses that possibility on the grounds of the possibility of social unrest ghettos social dumping etc but the fact is this kind of immigration is going on it really raises serious question we are seeing that there is this clear division of labour in the united states it's not something however we've had a far reaching discussion about so that's not brain drain, it's really the opposite yes perhaps a form of exploitation now as much as I love the Conrad Adenhower Foundation I would perhaps like to see somebody else take the floor yes my name is Nashino I'm a curd journalist I work for the curd the curd media and I have a question to the Swiss President and the Interior Minister de Mezia modern president do you believe that the people who are here in Europe when it comes to discussing matters at these events where global leaders are present try to accept other people's perspectives now should Europe which is the continent of the Enlightenment try to contribute to other continents living as peacefully together as Europe and should we try to remove rejection of other people's problems Interior Minister you've talked about people travelling to Syria and coming back we are hearing about big figures in Europe of people doing this large numbers of people doing this do you not fear that we might see some kind of repeat of the Charlie Hebdo attacks do you not think that if 5 thousand people who have travelled to Syria come back that that raises the danger of such attacks I've heard figures of over 2,500 of these people in Germany thank you Madam President yes of course Europe including Switzerland has an interest to see peaceful conditions not only in Europe but in other countries outside Europe peace on a long term basis we need to contribute and we are contributing to that we're doing it through our development assistance cooperation in this area means building durable systems in countries let me give you an example we talked about labour migration we've talked about Braindrain it's an interesting project in Cameroon where Switzerland has long term cooperation projects we train or further educate and train doctors from Cameroon in Switzerland and they all return home to Cameroon so I think the idea that people from the south only want to get to Europe and once they're here they will stay is really not what actually happens now Switzerland sends doctors the other way as well we have doctors from Switzerland going to Cameroon who really learn a great deal and on an evening where we have to discuss a great deal of suffering I think it's also very important to discuss the positive examples where we're seeing the possibility of a reverse Braindrain we see a genuine contribution to durable systems in other countries at the other element which really makes positive contribution is our trade relations and cooperation now this is something that I discussed yesterday as well because our attitude towards trade and human rights has to see some kind of link there it's very important to establish human rights in countries to ensure that they have freedom of expression but also trade is an essential element in that I talked about the trade and commodities yesterday where I said it's very important that human rights be respected if we cannot foster trade in such a way that people feel that they can remain in their countries and get work and develop their quality of life and careers then we will be contributing to situations that might result in crises, wars and refugees so we must recognize that we're living in an interconnected world as Mr. D'Amizier has said it's not easy but it's certainly worth it if we want to get to the root of the problems when we're talking about refugees then development assistant cooperation is essential fostering trade ties also absolutely essential Mr. D'Amizier, could we have a short answer please? Yes there might be people from Syria who are not politically persecuted but are actually political persecutors amongst the refugees coming to Germany I don't believe that there are terrorists amongst them but recently a former asylum seeker from Rwanda was sentenced in Germany for having participated in the massacres in Rwanda and I can understand that there might be an official from the regime in Syria who is worrying about his future and will take the chance of going to Germany and seeking asylum so there might be concerns that amongst the asylum seekers from Syria there are people who are not politically persecuted with regard to those travelling for purposes of terrorism we're talking people who have been radicalised at home in Germany so it's not logical to apply disadvantageous procedures to genuine Syrian asylum seekers because people who have been radicalised at home in Germany are travelling to Syria and coming amongst them I'd like to correct the figure you said 2600 260 was the actual figure 600 people travelled from Germany now that is a high figure in Syria lower per capita than other countries in Europe I won't go into that in any greater depth but we're talking about people coming from Syria who are in their great majority politically persecuted the fact that there are amongst them people who are not is not a reason for restricting thank you very much we have a question there with the microphone I'm also from the Conrad Ardenhage Foundation I'm sorry I should have guessed as the chairman I have a question to the president and the interior minister what are you doing to counter these smuggling crimes that we're seeing well that's an issue of central importance and I have a very bad conscience about this because I believe we're not doing enough the revenues of the profits of the smugglers is estimated to be between 5 and 6 billion I don't know if that's right Mr Gutierrez it's a figure from the UN I can only pass that figure on we have smugglers in our own country but these are these are small smugglers we have many different bodies who are trying to get a grip on this problem we have cooperation but we need more cooperation with Libya with Egypt we need to also work on the links in the chain for example in Turkey it's extremely complicated and it's easier to say than do thank you very much we've talked about immigration we've talked about political refugees and economic migration but we haven't really talked about immigration within the EU you said that in Germany benefits are higher than wages in Romania so recently there was a decision with a young man from Nuremberg who came to Germany not wishing to work but wishing to seek benefits he was allowed to do that by the court so the question is to what extent is that allowable how can how can that happen and how long can it be allowed to happen I don't know really whether that belongs to the discussion this evening we have freedom of movement in the European Union for the establishing of enterprise and the seeking of work not some kind of benefit tourism so these are the rules these are the rules that can be applied and I don't think we should make too many problems out of it Germany really benefits from this freedom of movement and in Germany we really do benefit from it if you look at our hospitals we get very well trained nurses from Spain and Portugal where there is an unemployment rate of 20 and 30% of Spain and Portugal you have to ask questions of whether they are benefiting but certainly Germany is benefiting from the application of the freedom of movement and economic migration that certainly is taking place and as you know over the recent years we have been working on this it's a regional issue it affects a Dortmund, Offenbach, Mannheim and other towns in Germany we have addressed these problems we have to identify abuses but essentially use of the freedom of movement rules from Bulgaria and Romania is not an abuse if we put aside certain issues which I can't go into now because of lack of time it's not something that we really need to worry about there are concerns in terms of brain drain but we need doctors in Germany and we have many Romanian Bulgarian doctors the system in Romania is facing difficulties because of that but the rule of freedom of movement exists there are funds and resources available in Bulgaria to counter these problems so the prosperity gap is bigger than ever with the much larger European Union much greater than it was when there were 6 members of the European Union but the we don't want to do away with the principle of freedom of movement so ladies and gentlemen just to remind you this was the open forum rather than a Conrad Ardenhower Foundation sponsored event and I would like to thank the World Economic Forum for having organized it, thank you President thank you Minister and Antonio Guterres and Arne Sorensen thank you very much for coming


There was a demon. One of the Ganas was called Keshin, who was around Shiva. One day, he saw Shiva drinking out of his cow. He always had a human cow out of which he ate and drank. He was drinking out of his cow. Keshin said, Oh Lord, even I am thirsty. Can I also have the drink? Shiva said, Okay, give this guy to him. Keshin looked into it and saw a cocktail of 7 deadliest poisons. He looked at Shiva and said, If you give me this, I will animate your kit. And he drank this cocktail of 7 deadly poisons. His body started getting distorted in a horrible way. And Shiva looked at him and said, You are a true glorious being.  Even today in the traditions, Keshin is honoured. Whenever any big celebrations happen, Keshin always gets the first honour. People around me have no hair, but they are Keshins.  These are people who have the necessary intelligence to see that their own ways of thinking and doing has not really worked in any ultimate sense. So they have given in to something else which then all works.  They have the necessary intelligence to see that their own limitedness will not take them anywhere. So they are looking beyond that. Whenever there are people who are thinking beyond their own well-being, suddenly that place is awesome and beautiful.


At least 18 people were found dead in Bulgaria in an abandoned truck near the capital Sofia, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said on Friday. The truck was transporting timber and carrying an estimated 40 illegal migrants hidden in the load. It was found near the village of Lokorsko, some 17 kilometers northeast of Sofia. Health Minister Asin Medidziv told reporters that some of the migrants were in critical but stable condition. He said there had been a lack of oxygen to those who were locked in and that patients were freezing, wet and had not eaten for several days. The Health Emergency Center told state news agency BTA earlier that eight people were rushed to hospital in grave condition. Police were seeking to identify the truck drivers who had fled. Bulgaria is situated on a route used by migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan to enter the European Union. Police do not stay in the country, the EU's poorest member state, but look to move on to richer countries in Western Europe, often using elaborate networks of smugglers. In 2015, three Bulgarian truck drivers were arrested and later charged with the deaths of 71 migrants found dead beside an Austrian motorway. In December, Bulgaria was blocked from entering the EU's passport-free Schengen zone by Austria and the Netherlands over security and rule of law concerns, but the country will seek to gain entry again this year.


How can we help anxious children thrive in social situations? That's what we're going to be exploring in this week's episode of Pookey Ponders. Let's dive straight in. Okay, so to start off, let's have a little bit of a think about anxious feelings and begin to understand them a little bit. So anxiety, it's a common emotion, a common feeling, especially for children in social situations. It stands to reason. They're doing new things in new places with new people for the first time, sometimes that's scary for any of us. So we need to help to normalise that anxiety, help them to realise that it's okay, it's normal, it's healthy, in fact, that they have some of these feelings, whilst also they're focusing on building on that resilience, enabling them to feel the fear and do it anyway if that feels appropriate and it's something that they and we are motivated by. Understanding anxious feelings and exploring them a little bit, picking them apart, exploring them, seeing what they feel like and look like with our children and young people can help us and them to kind of empathise with those experiences and to see them through a positive kind of happier lens where we're curious and we're exploring what we might do differently and how we might be able to move forward towards shared goals without blame or shame or judgement or any of those things. So get curious about anxiety first of all, try to understand those anxious feelings whilst aiming to create an environment where those anxious feelings are validated rather than dismissed. So we're getting curious, we're putting the lens on them, we're looking at them, we're wondering what they feel like, what they look like, what's triggering them and what we can maybe be doing to overcome them without ever trying to place blame, shame, any kind of judgement on those feelings, we just notice them, get curious. Okay, so our first steps here in terms of enabling our children to thrive in social situations, we've understood anxiety a little bit, we've got curious about it. We're then going to want to think about creating a supportive environment. So creating safe, welcoming spaces for anxious children will help them begin to build their confidence. They need to do that with safe faces, faces they know in safe spaces and places that they perhaps feel a bit more familiar with. This is our starting point, our kind of baseline. If we can do it here, then we can think about beginning to make that world a little bit bigger. So creating that safe, welcoming space. We want to acknowledge their fears, we're going to notice them, we're going to name them so we can try and tame them, but again without judgement. This is crucial all the way through. We're going to notice the fear, we're going to notice the anxiety, the stress, the worries, the concerns, we're going to notice them, we're going to be curious about them but we're never going to judge, we're never going to enable that blame, that shame to creep into this. We should be looking to approach all of our interactions with the child with regards to trying to access these social situations that might feel so impossible with sensitivity and crucially patience. We're looking to create that atmosphere of trust between them and us. They need to know that we're on their team, we're not going to hurry them, we're not going to let them down, we're not going to trick them or cajole them, we're there by their side supporting them to do this at a pace that feels possible and safe, crucially safe for them. In order to help to build this rapport, build this trust, build those bridges, we can be practicing our active listening, making sure that child feels really heard in whichever way best works for you and the child. This is going to give the child the opportunity to express themselves, building on that curiosity about the anxiety, helping us to understand what are the barriers here to this child accessing this situation. Because social anxiety takes many different forms and there could be all sorts of different reasons why this child in this situation on this day is finding it hard. There is no one size fits all, we need to understand exactly what kind of monster we're trying to overcome today. Other things that we can do to create that supportive environment are offering choices within a controlled framework to empower our anxious children. They feel like they've got some control over the situation, but rather than giving them a completely free hand when their brain might be all woo and wah and all over the place when they're quite anxious, instead giving them a choice between A and B, C and D. They're still making choices, they're still feeling control, they feel empowered in the situation, but we've done that in a really controlled way and with a framework that we perhaps thought about ahead of time. We can also take steps to reduce any overwhelming stimuli in social settings. So this is going to depend on the child, but for example, if like many of my listeners, you're supporting neurodivergent children, we might be thinking about how we can reduce stimuli such as vocal auditory stimuli, using loops or ear defenders, for example, to dampen down those sounds, or we might be using dark glasses in bright settings to try and remove some of the visual stimuli. Just remembering that we're focusing here on the social aspect of things, and if there are other things that are going to be causing overwhelm, any steps we can take to reduce those stimuli to prevent that overwhelm is going to help us with our other aims here of engaging socially. Further things that can help here, as ever, my favourite routines. Routines and predictability will always ease anxiety. Things that feel familiar, that feel known, where we know what to expect, are less scary for us. So we need to take away as much guesswork as possible as we can from these newer situations that a child might be entering into. Think about if there are familiar routines or rituals that you can introduce here to perhaps make the unknown feel known. You can also think about looking ahead, looking at the place that you're going to go, thinking about the people that you're going to be with role playing, this kind of thing. We're just looking to make it feel less new. The familiar is less scary than the unfamiliar. How can you help your child to feel slightly more familiar with this new situation? As the adult, you can also think about role modelling, the skills that you're hoping to see in your child. So think about what you're looking to actually achieve in these new social situations. What are your hopes for the child that you're supporting? And how can you, as the adult, actually role model those behaviours, those actions, those attitudes that you're hoping to see? Now, if you find this hard, just take a step back for a moment and consider whether what you're asking and expecting of the child is reasonable and realistic. And also though, remember, it's okay if you find it hard, but you still have these hopes for the child and maybe the child has these hopes for themselves, then the thing that you can role model is your vulnerability and how you overcome these obstacles. These are really important lessons for your child too. So we've kind of got curious about the anxiety. We've thought about building a supportive environment in which we can begin to explore new things. Next, we want to build up those social skills gradually. So we can use things like graded exposure, where we gradually get more and more exposed to the scary thing over time, a very, very well accepted practice within treating and working with anxiety that can work really well with some children. If the thing that we're hoping to expose them to is actually safe, we need to be sure before we start any kind of graded exposure where we're trying to gradually increase a child's interaction in a certain environment, we need to make sure their needs are actually met, that they're actually going to feel safe when they're exposed. The idea about kind of graded exposure, gradual exposure, exposure ladders, however you want to think about it, where we basically increase how much we do a thing over time. The whole reason behind that is because we can only maintain anxiety at a certain point for a certain period of time. And if the anxiety is kind of irrational and we're actually safe, then gradually being more exposed to this actually safe situation, we kind of go through this exposure curve, anxiety curve, and our feelings, those anxious feelings, both physiologically and psychologically, will reduce over time. So we'll be exposed to the scary thing and we feel that big spike of anxiety, but with exposure and with a bit of time, things begin to calm because we're actually safe. And we can kind of do this and build up our tolerance and build up our exposure over time. And that's all good as long as we're actually safe. What happens if the situation, the thing that we're trying to do graded exposure with isn't actually safe, is that we then make things worse. Because instead of the child's brain and body going, oh, okay, okay, I'm feeling really anxious, but nothing terrible has actually happened. It's okay. Take away your fingers from the big red panic button brain. It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right and gradually calming. If instead the child is actually not safe, then that big red panic button is going to be pressed and we're just going to exacerbate things and they're going to be even more anxious next time. So grad gradual exposure, stepped exposure, this is good so long as the child is safe and motivated. You can't do this to a child. You need to do it with them. They need to be motivated to make this change. So if we accept that this is a good thing that we want to do with this child, that they are motivated, they want to learn to do this new thing and we think that their needs will be met and they will be safe, then we can break down social interactions into a series of manageable steps and exactly what those steps will look like should be negotiated between you and the child and each step should feel tiny enough that it can be taken confidently and it should feel sustainable. But things we might do when approaching a new social situation might include just first talking about it in the abstract, not being anywhere near it, just talking about what might happen, what it might be like, who's going to be there, what we might smell and see and so on. Next, we might watch that social situation. So be an observer from afar with no pressure at all to join in and then we might take a next step that would be like a low stakes try. So picking a right moment to join in a tiny, tiny bit perhaps, very much scaffolded and supported at that moment and we gradually build it up over time. So the key thing here is those tiny steps. Each step must feel tiny to the child, so tiny that they feel absolutely certain they can do it. We then sit with that step for a while until it feels really comfortable before we ever think about moving on. Sometimes we'll move back and forth between the steps. We may need to go backwards before we go forwards. It's a gradual thing. It will take time. We can get a little bit creative in terms of enabling our anxious children to practice social interactions, to practice these skills, to try them out, try and make it fun, try and think about what's going to motivate this child with these other children perhaps that they want to spend time with or in this place. So you can do anything here like get brainstorming with the child, think about what would be fun. Fun is a really good way into this. What do they want to be able to do? But things that often kind of come up in these situations would be things like adventure themed scavenger hunts or doing interactive table playing board games for small groups might be nice or exploring in nature or doing outdoor activities with friends if that's the kind of thing that floats this child's boat maybe quite literally. They might want to do like cooking or baking collaborations or get together with friends to create video content or put on a puppet show. It doesn't matter what the thing is. It's about finding something that this kid really wants to do that they think would be fun, that speaks to them and their passions and their skills and their interests so that they're motivated to want to try. And you can also notice what's working. So just noticing in day to day life and in any interactions that you do try to support, notice what's working well and then very, very slowly just start to build on this.  When your child does begin perhaps to interact for the first time you might want to whoop and cheer and jump around and tell them well done and that's amazing but if you do that at the wrong moment it can just pile on the pressure and suddenly everything falls apart. Instead just a little bit of quiet noticing later or a little note to them or an emoji or you know little tight like they need to know you noticed but if you make too big a deal of it with some children it can actually cause backward steps because it kind of heaps the pressure on for it to happen again. So notice quietly is often the way forwards. You all know your child that you're supporting better than I could so it might be different for the child you're supporting but for many socially anxious children big praise, big pressure on the great thing they've done isn't always going to be helpful so just be a little bit mindful there. Something else that we can do to support our anxious children overcoming their social anxiety is to promote positive friendships. So building positive friendships is a great starting point for easing social anxiety so even one friend for a child who they feel comfortable with can make a really big difference to their ability to begin to access social situations and to do the things that perhaps they're really keen to do. We're looking as ever for quality not quantity in these friendships so look for that one special friend or that tiny group which this child feels really safe with and think about how we can utilize this friendship these bonds in order to help this child to access the things that they're keen to do. It may be that for the child you have in mind there aren't those relationships yet but you're keen to build them so we can be looking to support this as a first step towards then later social interaction more widely by doing things like helping children to build meaningful friendships through interest-based clubs or activities finding the thing that they're actually passionate about that they would talk about all the day long and hooking them up with other kids in a group perhaps or even in a one-to-one to talk about that thing or to do that thing together. We can practice with our child conversation starters how to start conversations with another child and think about role-playing that out so that they could practice if they do kind of begin to make a friendship but aren't quite sure what to do next. We can do kind of play dates host little play dates if you're a parent or carer in small kind of controlled settings and you can also kind of enable this to happen at school as well kind of encourage children together who you think might get on well and create a good environment for play. Again at home you can do things like really take the pressure off by putting a film on and having like a cozy movie night with popcorn but where we don't have to have loads of social interaction the film can be doing the talking and we're just alongside but actually that can still just being in the presence of someone even in silence is actually bond building. There's really interesting research around this that I've been reading recently a very interesting research about adults it was who were walking alongside and whether they were encouraged to socially interact or not as in whether they verbally interacted whilst walking alongside or not made no difference to the increase in that bonding and relationship that they reported after going for a walk together. So walking in silence was as effective as walking whilst maintaining conversation so don't underestimate the potential power of just being alongside for a child and a potential new friend. You can also get kids collaborating on things like DIY or science based projects get them working together with a common goal great way to begin to build a friendship and then we could do things like initiate gaming or creative challenges so just trying to build those friendships recognizing that even one positive friendship may be a great gateway in for a socially anxious child to begin to be able to engage more with other children. Finally as we move towards the end of today's episode of Boogie Bonders I want to remind you just to love the child that you have. Some children are going to be more sociable than others and that's okay. If your child is alone and lonely if they have a yearning to join in with the things that other kids are doing then we take these steps and we throw ourselves into it we do the very best we can to help to support them but we never can underestimate how challenging this can feel for the child and we need to respect that our kids are all different. The child that you're supporting may never be a social butterfly they may never feel fully confident in social situations they need not to feel like a failure because of that they will have myriad other strengths and superpowers of their own and we need to find those and celebrate those we need to celebrate their strengths and find some joint motivation with the child for overcoming any challenges that they are facing and we should celebrate every little step along the way no matter how tiny but never ever losing sight of the perfectly imperfect wonderful beautiful great brilliant fantastic all the words little person that you have in front of you love the child that you have not the one that you feel you could should would have this child is brilliant in their own way find the ways that make them brilliant support them in the ways that they would like things to change. Okay as we wrap up this episode remember that by understanding anxious feelings creating supportive environments gradually building up those social skills and fostering positive relationships we can help children to thrive in social situations it won't be quick but it can happen it's all about empowering them with the tools that they need to navigate the world with confidence and resilience. I hope there were some ideas in here that will work for you if you liked what you heard today please subscribe and share my work you can support my work further by joining me over on patreon where you'll get early access to all of my resources and the chance to influence what I work on next or you can invite me to speak at your next event or in your setting either virtually or face to face thank you so much for listening and for everything that you are doing for the children and young people in your care this has been pookie ponders with me pookie knightsmith until next time stay curious stay compassionate and keep pondering over and out


I just checked out Apple's Vision Pro headset. It is damn good. It is really, really good. Okay, how do I start this video properly? Because, let's just go back to the keynote. Keynote happened, we sold the headset, we sold the price, $34.99, coming out next year. I was like, okay, this thing is probably good, but maybe not that good. Fast forward to me, literally 30 minutes ago, I just came from an hour demo with the Apple Vision Pro headset. And I have to say, I was thoroughly impressed. I was shocked, and I'll tell you why. I kind of just take you through the whole process I went through. Now, with this demo, we went over, we weren't able to record any of our interaction because, again, this was early for them so they said, no, no recording, but you can experience it. And they made sure they were able to kind of size and calibrate the headset for each individual. So in my case, I got the headset, I had two Apple employees in the room. The reason I say that is because my interaction with them while using the headset was quite interesting. The headset itself looks exactly like what you saw on the keynote. Well built, really solid. This had the battery pack attached to it because, of course, it was running longer demos. We do know the headset itself, two hours of battery, with the battery pack, Apple promises all day. Now, I was able to put on the headset quite comfortably. The band on the back is nice. There's a little kind of rotor that can tighten it a little bit and there's a top strap. And then you've got the crown. Now, in terms of functionality, most of the functionality is done with gestures, with your fingers and looking around with your eyes. The crown is kind of going back to home screen or maybe, and also just increasing the opacity and blocking out the world. Kind of getting into your own space, right?  And this is where the magic happens. This is where you jump into it and the first thing you see is VisionOS home screen. Very simple, very clean, but what was cool about it is the spatial distance. You've got lighter sensors, depth cameras. You have multiple cameras on this thing and it felt like an episode of Black Mirror where people had the VR headsets or VR headsets and you could clearly see the floating display. But this wasn't like jittery, it just felt fixed. Now, I had a rep on my left and the distance between the rep and the display, I could calculate it, it was like, probably like a foot and a half. And I liked that it was there, it was fiscally there. And then came using gestures. I thought that would be difficult, right? I thought it wouldn't work well. That was one of my biggest concerns. So initially, you know, to tap on an icon or open something, you have to just basically tap with your fingers.  And I realized in like three to five minutes, like I didn't have to raise my hand up. And just like the video from the keynote, I was just like right below down there and I was just like tap, tap, move and stuff. So you could tap, drag, drop, you could move windows around so multitasking is really easy. I thought it would be difficult. Now, this also helps because you've got sensors around your eyes while you're in the headset. So that tracks that, you've got sensors outside. So while you're moving things around, it doesn't feel like it's floating or you're gonna get dizzy or any of that stuff. Tracking is really good. Now we looked at photos. The Photos app was cool because you could go through photos, navigate through, swipe through. You could also check out the panorama photos and once you get into that, it just takes over your whole view and you're like, okay, wow, this is what panorama images should look like. Now there were also 3D photos and 3D video. I really liked the video because it felt like you jumped into a memory.  That's the visual representation. It didn't look like I was watching something flat. It felt like I was there and that can be recorded off the headset itself, right? Using the cameras externally and that's how they capture that. Then you have like Home View. Now Home View allows you to go in and pick kind of like a backdrop that you want, whether it's the mountains, it's the city and it gives you like this view that almost takes over your whole screen.  But here's the kicker with that is that when somebody walks off, say, in this case I had my two Apple reps there and one was sitting on my right and I looked, I could clearly see them coming through. They kind of fade through slowly, which was interesting and actually pretty cool, meaning that whenever someone comes around you can actually see them clearly and it doesn't necessarily interrupt your viewing experience as a jarring thing but it's just more like, oh, they're there. So that actually was actually, that was cool. That was really nice.  Like, you're real. It's like, yeah. Now, persona is, it's a bit weird to me because you can tell that it's a simulacrant of someone. It's like the higher version of a Memoji, much higher version because the animations match. You can see him move his hands while he's talking, the lips are moving pretty close to what it should be but it just felt a little bit weird but it still worked out well so I can see how that can be used. Now I was able to drag, you know, the FaceTime window around wherever I want to and spatial audio here is great. Moving that, you know, from one end to the screen I could actually hear his voice travel as I move into the right. Now, when you have spatial audio in this headset watching movies is a great experience. So I went into like the cinema mode. I played Avatar and Dear Lord. Avatar was in proper 3D. It felt like watching Avatar 3D in the theaters and it was great. Oh my God, it was absolutely fantastic. That was very, very impressive seeing that. He also had like this 8K video, 360 video where they shot different things like Alicia Keys singing in the private concert. I felt like she was in front of me singing. Somebody was climbing a mountain and I was like, okay, that's kind of trippy. I was in the city, different things like that. I was just completely, just very immersive and I felt I was there. But the biggest one was that last demo called Encounter with Dinosaurs. And why I liked this demo was simply this.  Now I gotta give it to them with the M2 chip, the R1 chip, everything felt like it was working in sync with this device. And when that portal opened up, pop into this prehistoric world where there was like a dinosaur running around and finally ran away and then a massive T-Rex came and it walked towards the portal.  So think about it from like a content creation perspective, like you can create a portal to different worlds. And you know, they said I could get up and walk closer. So I picked it up, I picked up the battery pack and I walked closer and my depth of field changed to match my distance. It didn't feel like it was shaky or anything else. The portal was still where it was at the wall but the dinosaur walked through halfway and I felt I had a dinosaur in front of me. Not like, it's hard to explain, it's not cheesy AR or cheesy 3D rendering. It felt realistic. I mean graphically, yes, it doesn't look like a real dinosaur but it felt really there and I was able to get close to it. And as I think it, I'm like, think about, you know, they talked about partnerships with Disney or like in my case, look, I'm a DC fan, right? I'm going to watch the flash and being able to run into the world where the flash is creating chaos and you know, changing things around or Harry Potter Francis, right? You could open a portal to a different world to go into Hogs words, that kind of stuff. Like that's what this thing can do. And if I were to ask the question, if you ask me the question, is it worth the 3,500? Yes. As a piece of hardware and what I experienced, it definitely wasn't. I am shocked that I am this impressed. I'm really impressed with what they actually showed, how it was implemented, the fact that things worked. My biggest thing again, gestures, it's worked really well. Is it for everyone? I don't know. We'll have to wait and see when it launches but Apple is going to shake up the whole industry because this is not like the iPhone to me. I think this is bigger, but also might take some time but the Apple Vision Pro is legit. Anyway guys, hopefully you liked it. I've got a flight to catch. Heading back to New Jersey. So you see this video in the morning. If you like it, definitely subscribe. Leave a comment down below. Let me know your thoughts and always enjoy entertainment.


We make the raw glass that goes out to other cardinal plants where they do the value added. They coat it, they jump for it. They make the insulating units and then they send that on to the window makers. Our biggest challenge is just keep this place running. Keep it maintained so that when it's needed for production that it's there and available and runs like it's supposed to. With the shortage of maintenance text that's in the market, we take individuals like Scott who hasn't had a formal degree but has a lot of talent. We bring them in here and they can work with him and give him the skills that he needs to do the job of a maintenance tech. I went through the motor control open lab course at CVTC and I feel that it helped me a lot. It gave me a good base to build off of a lot of the things I see every day with our automated equipment. I like the open lab concept because you work at your own pace. So if you already know things and you get them right away, you can move on. I learned a lot. It's all about exposure. They give these techs exposure to the different devices and what controls this automation maintains our production. When we first got involved with CVTC there was three companies. Now it's expanded to a big area with like 19 different companies getting involved in this training. People are finding out the value of what CVTC has to offer.