Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. Alright everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Friday, June 9th. As you can see I'm still in a hotel, still in Austin, Texas. Right after the show I will rush over to the airport and make my flight and travel to a home, to San Juan. So I'll probably do a show tomorrow and possibly on Sunday and those will be back in San Juan. And I'll be in San Juan, I'll be in Puerto Rico. I'll be home until Okon. Okon is at the end of June. So three, four weeks at home and back to a regular schedule of programs. So yeah, looking forward to going home. We are going to jump into, I guess we're going to jump into the news here. Just to remind everybody we've got the super chat feature on so you can ask any questions you want. Value for value, you listen to the show, hopefully you get some values from the show. Consider supporting the show as a return on the value you receive. But let's just jump in. I think a big part of the news these days is what's going on in Ukraine. And clearly there is significant action going on in Ukraine. There is the Ukrainian so-called counter offensive is in full swing. The Ukrainian military is attacking on a number of different fronts. Trying to repel Russia from territory they have taken from the Ukrainians. So I'm completely on board with Ukrainian's attempt to extricate Russia from Ukrainian territory. And hopefully they will be able to achieve that soon. You will be seeing a lot of photographs coming out and we are seeing a lot of photographs coming out right now. Primarily from the Russian side there's a lot of, Russia has really geared up its propaganda machine, if you will, for this counter offensive. So you're seeing a lot of photographs. Some of the most striking ones, the ones that have made the most press and the most noise are photographs of western equipment that has been damaged during fighting in the south of Ukraine. Particularly there's a photograph of a Leopard 2 German tank that seems to have been not destroyed because it doesn't look destroyed but it doesn't look like it's going to need repairs. It seems like the crew survived and it seems like the tank will be able to be brought back into operation. And then there's some Bradley US, Bradley fighting vehicles that have also seemed to be damaged and stopped. And a lot has been made of that called God, Bradley, and fighting vehicles and so on. But it's a little bit silly. Unless we start seeing large numbers of these, ultimately this is a war. Equipment is going to get damaged. People are going to lose their lives sadly.  Large numbers of soldiers are going to die. There's no question about that. The Russians have had a year to basically reinforce their positions in southern and eastern Ukraine. So it is much more difficult now for the Ukrainians to advance at all as compared to how it was last spring and summer when Ukraine made significant advances. But at the time the Russians were a lot less entrenched, a lot less didn't have as many defensive positions. And now the battlefield is filled with mines. The Ukrainians are going to have to use minesweepers. Tanks are going to roll over mines. They're going to be disabled by those. The nice thing about Western tanks is that the mines are probably not going to destroy the tank. They're going to disable it for a while. That capacity to be repaired. It is also a big disadvantage that the Ukrainians have that they do not control the skies. Now of course the Russians don't control the skies either. It's a strange war in this sense. This is not a modern, in many respects, not really a modern war. Because I think in modern warfare the step one is control the skies. Knock out anti-air defenses and put your airplanes into the sky. In this war neither side controls the air. And that was a big disadvantage for the Russians. And now it's a big disadvantage for the Ukrainians as they try to capture ground. They have air defense systems to prevent the Russians from controlling the sky. But they can't provide air support to their ground troops. Which is a real, it makes it much more difficult to fight a war. Much more difficult to fight a war. Progress is going to be slow no matter what for the Ukrainians. Again the Russians have invested a lot in defensive, in defense. It's going to be bloody, it's going to be destructive. And Ukraine is going to take significant losses. I expect ultimately the Russians will take bigger losses. And that Ukraine will be able to dislodge Russians from big swaths of Ukrainian territory. We'll see how it all develops, we'll see how it all goes. It is the fog of war right now. We don't know whether they are, the extent to which they advance us, the extent to which they don't. And that is a reality.  Both sides don't control the air. Both sides don't control the air. That is a fact. It's not speculation, it's a fact. And the Russians don't control the air to the extent that when they fire missiles into Ukrainian territory, they fire them from airplanes that do not cross the line into Ukraine, that are firing them from Russian territory. That is bizarre. And if Russia controlled the air they wouldn't have to do that. They would be pounding Ukrainian positions from the air nonstop and they haven't done that. That's because Ukraine has an amazing defense system, a defense system that has not allowed the Russians to control the air. Russia does not control either the tactical or the strategic airspace. It cannot fly its migs above operations because they would get shot down and they know that. The Ukrainians as Western sophisticated air defense system that the Russians cannot match and cannot evade using airplanes. If Russia controlled the airspace, they would be so much more further along in their war than they are. They don't. But neither do the Ukrainians. So it is a real challenge for both parties. And most of what's being fought now is using drones. Drones can much easier evade the defense systems than actual airplanes, but drones are also more limited in terms of what they can actually, the kind of payload they can carry and the kind of damage they can do. I expect that in the next few weeks, in the next months, we will discover that the Ukrainians are making significant breakthroughs right now, have made significant breakthroughs and will push the Russians away. It's hard to tell exactly what the Ukrainian strategy is right now. It is, and where they're attacking exactly, almost all the reports coming out of the battlefield are coming out from the Russian side. Ukraine is keeping media silence. Those people on Twitter and elsewhere that are following the war and following Ukraine tend to be pro-Ukrain and are not disclosing operational intelligence, which is good so that Ukraine has some element of surprise here in terms of its strategy and tactics. So we will see. But again, you will get a lot of negative news in the days to come from the Ukrainian perspective as Russian propaganda dominates the airwaves. The same thing happened by the way at the beginning of the war. It looked like Russia was going to take care of days, hours, days, certainly weeks. And it turned out that they were having a much, much harder time on the ground than anybody was reporting, certainly that the Russians were reporting. And that, I think, you'll see a parallel to that in this offensive. So this was not only a war on the ground. This was also a propaganda war. And the Russians have really ramped up the propaganda war in anticipation of this offensive from the Ukrainians. It is, but it is a war. And it's a large-scale war. It's a war with tanks. I mean, only dimension where it's not a large-scale war is in the air. And you're going to see tanks disabled.  You're going to see, on both sides, you're going to see large numbers of casualties. But this is not going to be easy, again, given the nature of what is going on. Let me just see something. All right. I think that's, yep. All right. Let's see. Yep. I think everybody knows that Trump was indicted yesterday over the documents issue. I find it fascinating how people are responding to this. Clearly, Trump did something illegal and wrong. Clearly, he took classified information and tried to hide it from the FBI. And when asked to return it, he refused. Not by declassifying it, and not by claiming he declassified it, but by denying and rejecting that he had it, by hiding it, by, you know, and there's now audio evidence that he knew he had classified information that he was not supposed to have. He also ran exercises on how to evade the FBI when they came to search. Clearly, clearly, what he's did is wrong. Maybe other people have done worse. That's fine. But what he did was illegal and wrong. And the real, you know, the real, and the real, what do you call it, tragedy and the real crisis would have been if he had not been indicted. If he had not been indicted, the message to the American people and the message to everybody is some people above the law. If you're a former president, we don't go after you. Now, maybe Hillary should have been indicted as well. Okay. It's interesting that Trump was there. Trump was a locker up and everything. And even Trump didn't indict Hillary. And I wonder why. I wonder why the Justice Department didn't. Maybe because they didn't have a case. Certainly, Trump was motivated to go after Hillary. But here there's a case. It's a clear-cut case. It's not a hard case. The evidence is pretty public. Just the public evidence is pretty clear that this should be indicted. And whether Hillary should also be indicted is irrelevant. Maybe next time we can indict Hillary as well. But Trump should be indicted just like any criminal, anybody who does things that are against the law. And I'm critical of the whole use of classified information and what counts and what doesn't count and all of that. And I think the biggest issue for Trump is that he tried to evade. He tried to evade. He tried to hide. He tried to get around. You know, actually following the law. So the special counsel here is not particularly left. The special counsel here is a pretty respected lawyer, respected both on the left and on the right. He's not particularly partisan. Nobody has accused him when he was appointed. Nobody accused him of being particularly partisan. A lot of people thought that this was a good appointment because he was pretty neutral. Now, I mean, this is, Trump is a bad guy. Trump has done bad things. Trump has done illegal things. He's indicted. He will go in front of a court. He will present evidence. There will be a trial just like anybody else who's indicted will have his day in court. And he will either be found guilty or innocent. He'll have an opportunity to appeal. He'll go through the same legal process as everybody else has. And if he's innocent, it's likely in our system of government that he will be found innocent. It appears that the judge overseeing the case now, right now, is a Trump appointee who is very favorable towards Trump. So there is a good chance that he will get favorable treatment for now on, but he should be treated like anybody else. And if there are injustices in terms of the fact that Hillary was not prosecuted or this person was not prosecuted, then fix it. Again, Trump had the Justice Department under his administration with his appointees for four years. For four years. So either you could argue he is absolutely unequivocally incompetent, which is true. Or maybe something else is going on here, but people... I mean, what is really interesting about all this, ultimately, is nobody cares about the truth. Nobody cares about the truth. And for everybody to come out and say, oh, this is the Justice Department using politics and not caring about the fact that we all know Trump did it. Everybody knows Trump did it. And instead of saying, yeah, Trump did it. This is awful. He shouldn't have done it. And yeah, by the way, there are other indictments of politicians that we should be pursuing, like Hillary. But Trump did it. Even his opponents in the primaries are so afraid, so terrified of the so-called Trump base.  They're so terrified. They're so afraid that not one of them will criticize Trump. Not one of them will say he's guilty. One did. Hutchinson, the former governor, I think, of Arkansas. The only one who will see what Chris Christie does. But all of them are just cowards, little baby cowards. And this is why one of the many reasons they won't win, because they're afraid to challenge Trump. They're afraid to challenge Trump base.   Anyway, so it's sad to see so many serious people, like the people running for president, be so afraid of actually following the truth, standing up to Trump, actually pursuing evidence, actually talking about what actually happened. It really is sad. And none of them deserve, as a consequence, none of them deserve to be the Republican candidate. If you can't criticize Trump, you do not deserve to be the nominee. All right, there's a big difference between what Biden did and what Pence did and what Trump did. And that is, yes, they all had these documents, the differences, the fundamental differences, is that Trump engaged in hiding the fact that he had the documents. He engaged actively in an attempt to deceive the FBI and to deceive the Justice Department in terms of access to those documents. He engaged actively in moving them around and preventing people. So the main accusation of Trump is not on the fact that he had the documents. Everybody makes mistakes and takes too many documents with him. I think that is true of probably every politician who's dealt with top secret. It is to what extent you go in order to hide them, to what extent you go in order to deceive those who would take those documents. So that is the main problem with Trump. It is not his possession of the documents.  But that's part of the cause for Trump. I mean, he's not that smart. All right. Oh, some good news. Good news. Good news that I'm sure most of you are not ready to accept, but good news. Motorite is down significantly this year in the United States. The sharpest decline in motorite in a... I guess they've got some data anywhere from three to five months. Sharpest decline in a motorite that we might have seen in a very long time, maybe ever. Motorite is down 12% in more than 90 cities that have released so far data for 2023. So it's incomplete. We'll see what the looks like. We won't know that really until 2024 when the FBI discloses the data. But cities report data on a month-to-month basis, some cities. And there's a significant decline. It has surprised everybody. 2020, as you know, saw a dramatic increase in motorites in the United States. In some places, 30% increases. Increases attributed to a lot of different things from, you know, just a lot of trouble caused by the fact that people were locked up, psychological problems, a lot of domestic violence increased, a lot of domestic motors increased during 2020. Also, a big factor was the anti-police attitude of BLM and the riots and everything like that, defund the police. And the fact that some cities actually went through with defunding the police or reducing funding for the police all contributed to a spike in motorite that continued into 2021. Again, saw significant increases. And so the highest rates in motor in a very long time, not as high as we saw in the early 90s or the late 80s, but higher than we've seen in 20 years. And then there was a slight increase in motor rates last year. So the trend, kind of the COVID effect, dissipated. A lot of the defunded police were reversed. There was significantly more funding flowing into police departments. Police got more engaged. And that contributed to a reduction in motor rates in most of the United States last year. And then this year there's a dramatic reduction in motor rates. You can pretend that the data is not real. You can pretend that the data is made up.  But the reality is that motor rates, not all crime, property crime is actually on the increase, but motor rates are dramatically lower. And that's true in a number of major cities. It's true in New York City where motor is down 13%. Shootings are down 25%. Relative to last year, motor is down more than 20% in Los Angeles. It's more than 20% down in Houston and Philadelphia. That's 30%. That's huge, right? Sorry, that's 20%. But in Jackson, Mississippi, in Atlanta, Georgia, in Little Rock, Arkansas, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a defunded police city, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, motor rates are down more than 30%. More than 30%. There are cities where motor rate is up. Memphis, for example, so an uptick after Tyree, Nicole's killing in January. But even Chicago has seen a decline, not as big a decline as New York and some of these other cities. Some Texas cities have seen an increase. Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio have seen slight increases. But then Houston, of course, has seen a 20% plus decrease in motor rate. This is all motor rate. And this has to do with police returning, police budgets being increased. It has to do with more deployment of police. It has to do with, I think, a lot of the COVID effects winding down. And many cities have used federal COVID relief money to hire more police officers. Adding police officers helped to reduce homicide. That's not that surprising. Drug gang programs in L.A. that were suspended during COVID are now in full throttle trying to keep L.A. gangs from murdering each other. But even in horrible cities like Chicago and New Orleans, murder is down. And even though the number of police has unchanged from last summer, even though the anti-crime candidate had lost in the Mayo race, there's something sociological going on that is just resulting in less death. In New Orleans, murder is down 8%. And in New York, in spite of the fact that they have 2%, fewer officers, murder rates are down 13%. So it's not just more police. Other factors are going on here that are hard to identify. And hard to tell what they are exactly. But the reality is that we are going back down to the very low, relatively, very low rates of murder that existed in the United States pre-COVID in the mid-20s. Yeah, so that's good news. And I know a lot of you don't want to believe it, but that's fine. It's not an issue of believing. It's an issue of reality. Let's see. That's done. Okay, so in court yesterday ruled in a kind of surprise ruling that redistricting in Alabama was unconstitutional or actually violated the Voting Rights Act. This is a surprise because two conservative justices voted with three liberal justices, leftist justices, and a 5-4 decision. The two conservatives were Kavanaugh and Roberts. And so in Alabama, what they ruled is that the districts, as they were drawn in Alabama, basically disenfranchised the black community in Alabama. The idea is that the lines were drawn to make it so that in every district the black population was a minority. And they were drawn in artificial, non-organic ways as to make every single district a white majority district, even though the black population in Alabama is significant. And even though they are concentrated in certain places, and this is to guarantee that they are not, don't find representation. It's a major case because many southern states have drawn lines this way. And this could really hurt Republicans in the House of Representatives. It could, to the extent that blacks vote Democratic, it could produce a number of Democratic House seats in the south that didn't exist before. This one is just about Alabama, but it affects probably other southern states. And it's a real issue that I'm sure Republicans are very worried about facing the next House elections in 2024. So it is interesting that both Kavanaugh and Roberts voted this way, how to tell exactly why. And I don't have a strong opinion about the legitimacy of this, but I think that somehow, I think gerrymandering, which happens on both sides, both parties do this all over the place, I think it's clearly wrong. It clearly, there needs to be a way to divvy up districts that is not done politically, that is done kind of geographically, demographically. I don't know exactly how you would do that, but getting politics out of redistricting is important to the extent that the Supreme Court can get the district to be more objective is good. Although I understand that many of you only care about this in terms of losing Republican seats. Democrats did this, I think, in a place like New York, and it was also ruled illegitimate and had been turned around. So the courts have ruled on both sides of this to kind of fix the attempt of both political parties to try to dominate particular states through the districting and it's time that we come up with some kind of better, more objective system by which to do this. So surprising, but one of the arguments I read somewhere is it could be that Roberts voted for this because they're going to rule against affirmative action in education, they're going to rule against racial, and he wanted to kind of present a balanced thing when it came to race, so who knows what goes on in the mind of Roberts. But that is one interpretation I read somewhere. Alright, just a quick word on deficits. The government is running at a pace of $1.5 trillion deficit this year. That'll be 50% above deficits that were being run pre-COVID. They were, at the time, were about a trillion, which was outrageous. The Trump administration ran a trillion-dollar budget deficit. It then spiked up during COVID, both during Trump and then during Biden, to above two and now it's at 1.5. It went down to below 1.5 and now it's spiking again towards 1.5 with everything the government had done. So in spite of this budget deal, the stupid budget deal that McCarthy and Biden agreed to, it's going to do nothing really to reduce government deficits that are running at 1.5 billion, a high percent of GDP. One of the things that's happening is revenue, tax revenue has declined. It was very high in 2021, beginning of 2022. It was above 19% of GDP. Now it's close to the 17% of GDP. So revenue is falling, spending is rising. Not a good combination if you care about government deficits. I think the problem is government spending. Not deficits, but anyway, that is the issue. How you deal with this, how they're going to deal with this? Hard to tell. There were a lot of, of course, calls for raising taxes. And in that context, there's an interesting paper out that shows that basically the rise and fall of deficits in post-World War II has nothing to do with tax rates and has everything to do with business cycles. That is, when you go into recession, tax revenues go down or the economy slows down, tax revenues go down. And spending doesn't. Spending actually usually increases during recessions because the government's trying to stimulate the economy. And that drives deficits up. Revenue is, as a percent of GDP, changes very little. As you raise or decrease taxes. So you get somewhere between 17% and 20% of GDP as revenue, no matter, no matter what the tax rates are, people find ways around it, people change their work, the way they work.  So it is not correlated. It is not correlated with tax rates. It is correlated with the state of the economy. Anyway, it's just a, I mean, we're at record levels of deficits and there's no, and of course, what is driving the deficits? What's driving the deficits to a large extent is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Those things, the Republicans and Democrats agree, cannot be touched. And with that kind of mentality, there's literally no way to close these deficits. We'll continue until some massive economic downturn forces our policymakers, forces all of us, I think, to actually face the reality of government spending, the growth of governments and the fact that our government is basically bankrupt and needs to restructure, needs to rethink what it does, how it does it and everything else. All right, and that means, by the way, reforming or phasing out or privatizing or doing something with Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. You cannot, you cannot and you will not have any impact on government spending and government influence on the economy as long as those programs are as big as they are. They dominate spending by a long shot. All right, let's take some of your questions. Rimo says, this summer I will go to holiday to Switzerland. Do you have some tourist recommendations for Geneva, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich? Now, really, I mean, Switzerland, I think the best thing to do in Switzerland is to get into a car and drive and go up the mountains and see the views and engage in that. You know, all those cities are extraordinary, beautiful cities. It's worthwhile spending a little time there and going on the lakes and just traveling around. But I think what really makes Switzerland unique is just the peaks, the mountains, the valleys, the scenery. The scenery is astounding and beautiful and amazing. And the best thing is just get into a car and drive and go see it. And if you're into hiking, go hike some of the beautiful trails. You know, I've spent a little bit of time in Zurich, a little bit of time in Geneva. Again, beautiful cities. Geneva is quite a bit more expensive if I remember right, hotels-wise than Zurich. But yeah, just walk around the streets. But I think the main thing is going up into the mountains and seeing the views. Michael says, how do you train your mind to be stronger than your feelings? I think a lot of it is introspection. It's realizing, identifying those feelings and getting to understand them and then getting control over them. So the main mechanism by which you do that is through introspection. I encourage you to listen to Gene Moroni's, Harry Benzweig's wife's work on this, Gina Gorlin. So that is primarily psychological work, which I'm not an expert in. But I think Gene Moroni has a lot about introspection in my interview with her that I did a few months ago. We talked a lot about that and it was quite enlightening, I think. So I would encourage you to listen again to that and to engage with some of the material she has produced. Stodget says, a bad part of Trump's crimes is a self-righteous pontification of leftist commentators. The worst part is watching the GOP self-destruct. Thank goodness there's at least one voice of reason to turn to thanks. Thanks, Stodget. I appreciate it. I think there are other voices of reasons, but I appreciate you including me in that category. All right, Scott, you said you immediately clarified your fifth call of remarks, but do you have a link or title to your clarification? Yeah, it's in the same show. If you just don't take that few sentences out of context, it's right in the same video and then it's in the videos afterwards. I don't have a list because I only think people of ill will. I'm going to stand by this and even if it's insulting to some of you, I only think people of ill will misunderstood what I said. I think anybody who's followed me a little bit, anybody who's listened to my show more than one show, anybody who listened to that whole show carefully, anybody who listened to the shows before and shows afterwards knows exactly what I meant by my fifth column comment and did not misinterpret it. I mean, that column didn't need any significant clarification because it was within the context, it was clear. I was talking and always would be talking about people who justify everything Trump has done. Now, I'm against voting for Trump. I was against voting for Trump. I encourage people not to vote for Trump, but I did not accuse people who vote for Trump for being a fifth column. I accuse the apologists, people who will justify anything Trump does as being fifth columnists. And anybody honest who listened to the shows and who has followed my shows over time knows this. Leonard didn't misunderstand it because Leonard was never presented with the evidence. Leonard was only presented with your interpretation of the evidence, dishonest people's interpretation of the evidence. So don't bring in Leonard Peacock as you love to do, Scott. Your appeal to authority is pathetic and misrepresent what Leonard thought or what Leonard said or anything like that because you don't know. All right, enough me being angry. Remo, value for value, keep up the good work. Thank you, really appreciate that. Steven, they have empire on Ukraine, doesn't game over, never underestimate your opponent. Steven, you've been wrong about the Ukraine war from day one. So I would be very carefully making predictions. The reality is I've been right about the Ukraine war from day one and pretty much everything. So show just a little bit of respect for the fact that you've been wrong and I've been right. All right, let's see. Andrew says a Republican congressman said on TV that the border is not a crisis but a catastrophe. It's a cataclysm. Is the term crisis being overused politically to the point of losing its effect? Yes, generally what is happening in politics is hype. I mean, you hype, you panic, and this is the, you know, I think what Trump masked it. He was brilliant at this. The one thing he's brilliant at is identifying what I get people super excited, super afraid, super worried, super concerned and hyping that and creating a buzz about the crisis. And then people, you know, politicians now in both parties do this regularly in order to create attention. Now granted, this has been part of politics forever. I just think Trump was a master at it. You know, you can learn how to get people foaming at the mouth and hysterical over issues by watching Trump. So it's now standard practice to basically, you know, associate crisis with it. It's why people don't want to hear the good news about motorways going down, because God, there's no crisis in America's cities. What are we going to do? How are we going to get people excited and upset? Michael says, people promoting false epistemology have mastered the art of muddying the waters to make them appear deep. Yes, yes, confusion, complexity, vagueness is now considered profound. And I think that's right. Michael says, I think narcissism is a bigger problem in more than 11 of force in the culture than altruism. I don't think that's right. I think narcissism is superficial. Altruism is very deep. And, you know, you could probably find a link between people being narcissistic and altruistic, because they superficially reject altruism, but the only alternative they can find to it is narcissism. But deep down what's motivating both their narcissism and the guilt that they feel is altruism. Altruism is the dominant. It dominates people's attitudes, emotions, thinking about morality. Narcissism is a superficial response to that. It's a consequence of their discomfort with altruism. But it's not a force. The force is altruism. Michael says, will Trump make a deal to drop out of the presidential race if he can get his crime charge dismissed? It's getting more and more likely the Santas wins this thing. I surely hope so, but I don't think... I don't see how the Justice Department can make such a deal, because then the attitude will be clearly that this is political. If he can get off because he won't run for president, then the whole purpose of doing this was to prevent him from running for president. That would be awful if that was the conclusion of this. I hope that he withdraws for a variety of reasons. I hope he cuts a deal somehow, and we don't have to live through a trial. But I do not think he can cut that deal. I won't run for president and you dismissed the charges. I don't think that's a legit deal that the Justice Department can go ahead with. I think he's going to plow through this, and he's going to use every one of these indictments, and he's going to be indicted in Georgia. I don't think there's any doubt that Georgia will indict him over attempts to manipulate the election and to put pressure on. I think that's the one that I think is the worst, and I think it's the one that's worse in a sense that, again, clearly he did it. We all know he did it, and you should be prosecuted for that one. But we'll see if that goes through. Michael says Alex Epstein just did a one-on-one with Peter Thiel discussing altruism and why it's destructive. Do you have the interview? Have you seen it yet? I'm curious to see it. I mean, Peter Thiel is an interesting guy. I'm very curious to see how Peter Thiel deals with altruism, what he thinks altruism is, and so on. I've met Peter several times, and he is an interesting character. But good for Alex. By the way, Alex is sponsoring a Euron Brook show. Alex has actually paid to sponsor a show. I will be doing that probably next week or the week after that. It's going to be a show on, if you will, free market solutions to environmental problems that he's asked me to do, so he sent me a list of questions. So it's going to be a lot of fun and it's going to be a lot of interesting interest. I do also need to hook up again with Adam Campbell to see what shows he wants to sponsor, and we'll get all of that back to all those sponsor shows and a regular show schedule once I am back on a regular schedule and at home. All right, guys, I think that is the last question. We're only $44 short of a goal. It would be wonderful to achieve that goal if anybody out there wants to get us over the hump, that would be great. But let's see. So let me just say, my expectation is the next show will be tomorrow, probably at 3 p.m. East Coast time, and then I will probably do a show Sunday evening just because I'm behind on the number of shows I've done. I haven't done a lot of shows because I've been traveling. But then next week will be a show every day, a new show every day in the mornings and then some evenings there will be shows. So we will get back to that regular schedule. Andrew has a quick question. Is there more to the affinity between certain conservatives and RFK Jr. than just weakening Biden? Yes, I mean, RFK Jr. is a conspiracy theory nut. A lot of conservatives are conspiracy theory nuts. RFK Jr. is an isolationist when it comes to farm policy, I think, so are many conservatives. RFK, I think, leans towards Russia, so are the conservatives. RFK Jr. is convinced that COVID vaccines are killing people, so are many conservatives. So I think that's the affinity. The affinity is a conspiratorial view of the world and an anti-American view of the world, in my view. So I think that's part of it. I will do a show on RFK Jr. One of my goals over the next few months is to do a show on every one of the leading presidential candidates. I want to do a show dedicated to DeSantis. I want to do a show dedicated to RFK Jr. A show dedicated to, I don't know, who else is a major candidate on the Republican side? But do many of them, and as we discover who the bigger people are, that would be better. Alex, of course, debated RFK. He's just, he's horrible. All right. Thank you, Andrew. And yeah, I'll be watching the Ukraine war, trying to filter out what's propaganda and what's not. And yeah, much of what Ukraine is going to publish will be propaganda as well.  It's not just a ground war. And part of the job of intellectual is to try to figure out what is what, what is objective, what is not. I have to pat myself on the back, since I know some of you won't. I think I've done a pretty damn good job of that with the Ukraine war. And so far, so good. We'll see if my predictions continue to be good. But so far, the information you've got in your run book show regarding the Ukraine war has been amazingly accurate. All right. With that self-compliment. Oh, we got another question quickly. What do you think of the merger of the PGA and live golf, creating a big monopoly in golf sports? And I don't believe it's heavily regulated. Does this mean that even in free markets, monopoly still exists? I don't know. I haven't studied really whether the PGA is protected and how the PGA is protected. But I have no problem with monopolies in a free market. Monopolies, if you mean to dominate a particular industry, why not? You know, in your, where you British pounds, are you in England? The British football league is a, you could argue a monopoly, but you know, some industries, you need one league. It doesn't make sense to have competing leagues. So I have no problem in quote monopolies in a free market if they are a result of a free market. I've never have. I've never said that if you mean by monopoly is a dominant overwhelmingly dominant company or presence. I think it's a disgrace that they're merging not because it creates some kind of monopoly, but because, because it basically brings the Saudis strong into PGA. Live was a disgrace because I think the Saudis are disgrace. I think working with the Saudis, I think cooperating with Saudis is disgraceful for a variety of reasons. How they treat their own people, how they treat their own women, how they fund terrorism, how they've, you know, how they treat the West and how they manipulate oil prices in a variety of different ways. So my view is don't deal with the Saudis. PGA was the only game in town before Live came about. PGA is back to being the only game in town. I don't know anybody who suffered as a consequence of that, who exactly suffered. It did a good job. People enthused about golf. They generated revenues for themselves. They should, the golfers made a lot of money. People got to view golf on TV and everywhere else. Who is the loser? I don't see who's going to be the loser in the future other than, you know, relationship with Saudis create all kinds of losers. Okay, we're going to do these two last questions quickly because they do have to run the airport. Michael says, do you think this need for uniqueness phenomena we see in the culture is driven by narcissism? And let's start hitting these super chat goals, people. Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate you getting us over the 250 goal and appreciate you encouraging other people. You know, I think it's driven by subjectivism. There's some narcissism in there, but I think a lot of it is subjectivism. A lot of it is the idea that you need to be different. You need to be unique, but in a superficial way, not in a deep sense, not independence. But you need to rebel. Every teenager has experienced this. But it's the subjectivism in the culture that leads it to be, you know, just anything goes. Kind of uniqueness rather than uniqueness that is driven by intellectual independence. By thinking for yourself, by actually pursuing values, but that you can objectively identify as values. Thank you, Michael. Demon, last question, talking to my social friends and we got down to the point of him saying, if it came down to the dream, then I would be on the chopping block. Thought, I don't understand that question at all. Talking with my social friend and we got down to the point of him saying, if it came down to the dream, what dream, then I would be on the chopping blocks. In other words, he would be willing to kill you in order to achieve his dream. I'm not sure what the dream is. Let's see if he's clarifying here. Demon says, we talked about more end game socialism and capitalism. He was saying, if it came down to it, I was blocking the dream, then I'd be the one to be removed. Yes, I mean, force, coercion, violence, murder have never stopped ideologues of the left and of the right from achieving their goals. That is, collectivism does not value the individual. Collectivists value some collectivistic dream, some collectivistic goal, and you as an individual don't matter. So if you're an obstacle, you must be eliminated. And this is true of every authoritarian, every collectivistic regime. It doesn't matter left, right or center. Religion views it this way. Socialism views it this way. Fascism views it this way. Individuals, this is what unites the authoritarians. This is what unites political evil in the world.  And it is truly horrific and truly dangerous. And this is why we must fight collectivism in every form it takes. And we must not align ourselves ever with collectivists because collectivism is the real enemy. Alright everybody, I will see you all tomorrow. And I will be home by then. Thanks everybody. Bye.


Thank you very much and good afternoon to you all. As you know, we have just finished the first part of the session, the special session of the Board of Governors on the safety, security and safeguards situation in Ukraine. I've been already working for some days on this issue, but as always I'd like to focus my comments and information on your particular interest on the matter, so I'd rather take your questions and address the issues accordingly. So I'm at your disposal. Hi DG, Jonathan Tyrone with Bloomberg News. On Ukraine, have you verified that all material is within safeguards, perhaps with the exception of the regions in Donbass and Crimea, which are a little bit different? Yes, yeah indeed. We have in operation a number of remote monitoring devices which are operating normally, checking seals and other aspects. So in this regard we can continue our safeguards activities. We also have scheduled physical inspections, not now. I say this because there were some information going around in indicating that we have withdrawn inspectors from Ukraine. It's not correct, which doesn't mean that safeguards, continuity of safeguards activity has been compromised. So we continue for now and as you say, you know that there is a special situation when it comes to Ukraine preceding the current situation. And with the exception of that safeguards, continuity continues.  And just very briefly a follow-up. And I'm sorry, this has to do with another issue. What would it take for you to be able to draw a rapid conclusion on the outstanding 153 issue with Iran? What would it take for me to do that? Yeah. Iran to cooperate with me. Okay. If they do, we'll be able to do that. Hi DG. Hello. Yes. As you know, the focus in the broader nuclear context right now is more on the talks across town on Iran. And so it seems one of the main sticking points in those discussions is the issue of the outstanding safeguards questions you have with Iran. And so for weeks now we've been hearing basically exactly the same thing, that Iran would like some kind of 2015 style final assessment worked into the JCPOA discussions. And that you've said no, or that you're opposed to that at least, and that you have the support of major powers on that. So where do things stand now on that? And is there any kind of creative solution that can be found on that if things simply haven't budged in such a long time? Well, I would say it's work in progress right now, as we speak. It's no secret that these negotiations, which are not my negotiations, we are participating and being consulted that these negotiations are coming to a decisive point. And of course, this issue has been brought to the fore. Our position on this has always been the same. These are distinct processes, although there is obviously mutual influence. But for us to be able to solve these issues, what we need is an integral and very substantive process. And I'm optimistic that we will be able to do that without any politicization of the issue or making it contingent or depending of the closing, hopefully, of the JCPOA negotiations. So we have to continue our own work. So you're optimistic that what can be achieved exactly? A process, a full process to clarify this, which would not be influenced or affected by the current negotiations or any agreement that the JCPOA partners may be reaching or not. It's not my call. Hi, this is Jordy from FIDG. I have a coming back to Ukraine. Yes. You said in your statement that you received a letter from the Ukraine authorities requesting immediate assistance. Yes. What does this mean? Is it somebody has to go there? Or is it remote? Or what kind of assistance? Yeah, indeed. The situation in Ukraine is, as I described in my statement, is, of course, complex and difficult to grasp, because on the one hand, as I indicated, there is normal operation of the nuclear power plants and also other sites, including Chernobyl. This does not mean that everything is well and there is full comfort in the discharge of these very sensitive activities. Of course, there is an ongoing conflict there with all the dangers and the constraints coming with it. The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency of Ukraine, I've been in contact with him, I must say, apart from letters, has sent a letter requesting formal assistance. Of course, Ukraine is a member state of the IAEA and they are entitled and expect to get assistance when there is a problem. In this case, related to the safety of their facilities. Obviously, in the present circumstances, delivering assistance is not a straightforward or easy process. This is why I am in contact with all sites to ascertain in which effective way we could be providing this assistance. Since these consultations are ongoing, I would not be in a position to tell you right now what kind or when this assistance is going to be delivered. But I can confirm to you that active consultations are ongoing between myself and all the relevant partners in this process. It could include that, of course. Hello, DG, this is Albert Ottiti, PAHM and Price Agency. I know I understand that you're saying it's all very much in flux. This question of help. But can you at least tell us sort of what in what areas or to understand what type of help the IAEA could conceivably provide? There are many areas. In my statement, I identified a number of them having to do first with the physical integrity of the facilities having to do with the efficient operation of the safety and security mechanisms there, having to do with staffing issues and the way in which the activities of the staff is being carried out, having to do with the insurance of power, outside power to the facilities, having to do with the transportation and supply chain that any industrial facility needs to and in particular, in this case, may need to have. I also referred to the communications side. So there are a number, I would say, a pretty long and big number of issues where we detect that there could be a need for some assistance. I must say that I am encouraged by the fact that in the discussions, in the ongoing discussions, there has been a widespread support for the agency's readiness to engage with with Ukraine and also with Russia naturally to facilitate this much needed assistance. Of course, as in many cases in life, the devil is in the details because of the ongoing situation, including the military operations that are ongoing, but for us, safety and security are primordial and paramount. So I personally am going to exhaust all every possibility to try to be there present and give the concrete assistance that they need. I hope that we'll be able to tell you more in the coming days, but I beg you to bear with me if at this point I cannot get too much into detail because this is a matter of a very sensitive negotiation, which is ongoing. But certainly there are many, many things that we can do, including remotely, including from here through our teams in the Nuclear Safety and Security Department and our Emergency Centre. Thank you. This is Stephanie Lichtenstein. I'm a freelance journalist. If I may ask two questions, the first one on Ukraine, could you maybe describe for us a bit the risks? What is it exactly that you are worried about in the current circumstances with Ukraine's power plants? And the second question just briefly again on Iran. So you say it's not your negotiation, but the safeguards probe is your negotiation. So I was wondering what can we expect? Are you conducting these talks here in Vienna in parallel? Or you're referring to Ukraine always? No, this is the safeguards probe with Iran. Yes, my second question. OK, well, there are two big questions. So the first was on the Ukraine. And what are the risks? The risk. I explained the risks and the risks you're worried about. Well, you have to then look at the nuclear facilities spread all over the Ukraine. One of the unique features of this situation we are all seeing is that this is an ongoing military conflict taking place in a country that has a vast nuclear program. Fifteen nuclear reactors for big nuclear power site plant sites and all the facilities associated with it. So there is a lot of nuclear material physically present and also the factor that these facilities provide more than half, more than half of the electricity of the country. So that already in and by itself, itself says a lot. The important matter here is that when there is a conflict ongoing, there is, of course, a risk of attack or a the possibility of an accidental heat. In terms of attack, we do not expect this to happen. I believe that all countries without exception are going to be respecting the decisions of the IAEA and the General Conference many years ago, where all of us agreed not to ever attack or threat to attack a nuclear facility. And I think that the Russian Federation itself has indicated that they are not aiming at this kind of thing. But, but, and this is a big but, and I have addressed this in my regular updates, which you may have seen. We have had cases where places, facilities, the vicinity of facilities have been hit accidentally or not by shelling or, or even in one case, a missile. So there you have a distinct possibility that something may happen that could affect the containment of a place where you can have, for example, there were two situations in places where Ukraine has nuclear waste, low level waste from hospitals and other activities. So what you could have is a release of radioactive material if, if that happens. So what we must make sure is that these these things do not happen. In terms of an active external kinetic activity and also that there are no problems related to to your question just before that because of problems related to the lack of external power or the lack of staffing or spare parts, some safety essential activities could not be performed in the way they should be performed. So the really the work is, is, is vast. And I would like to recognize I think it's we all owe it a huge debt of gratitude to people, the nuclear safety people and nuclear security regulators in the Ukraine, which are who are working almost without interruption and without breaks and rest for the past 10 days or so. So that was the first part of your question. And the second was on the issue again, on the issue of the ongoing negotiations. Of course, we do have permanent consultations with Iran, Stephanie, in many, in many ways, in person, virtual, and otherwise, and we are working very hard to try to come to an agreement. I don't know if that is what you wanted to know or there is something else. You're not planning to to travel again to Iran. Or everything is possible. Everything is possible. Yes, everything is possible. Hello, Setsuko Inaki from Nippon TV. I have also one question for Ukraine and one for Iran. And for the Ukraine is that I want to hear a little bit about the communication from the Russian side. What is the Russian rationale of doing this? And how have they communicated to you? That's number one regarding the Ukraine and on Iran. In the last, when the agreement was made, you know, back then, the it was the nuclear probe, you know, of the history, the historical, military dimension was like almost like the last piece, which really didn't. And then, I mean, the IAEA had to make an inconclusive report and it left the judgment to the BOG to decide how they judge on that one. Do you foresee that same thing would ultimately may happen? And my question also is how do you think are you at that point or yet or what's the time feeding for this? Well, on the first part, you were asking me about the rationale of the Russian federation to do exactly what this is what I don't understand. For them to guard or to to have the nuclear Ukraine and nuclear facility under their control. What are how are they explaining to you? They are not explaining motivations. This is a military operation. And they are not explaining to me what is the motivation to move their forces around the country. No, they don't they don't explain that. They they give information about the location of these forces when it comes to nuclear facilities. So about the motivations and the rationale, unfortunately, maybe you should ask them on the source so that the only information that you're getting from Russian is the position of the forces and the from their side of report about facilities operating in a normal status. Is it in terms of the operation? No, the all the information we get, we should never forget that my partner is the Ukrainian regulator and they are the ones we are interacting with. But Russia has been informing about movement of troops and in the particular case of Chernobyl, confirming that they that their forces took over the site, which doesn't mean that they are operating it. It is the Ukrainian operators that are that are there. Then on your second question, it is a bit of a speculation. You know, I don't know it is it is clear that the although, as I said, answering to Mr. Murphy's question before the these issues are, of course, separated. One thing is the JCPOA or the return, the possible return to JCPOA. And the other is the issues that they have to explain to us. Obviously, there is an interrelation. But getting into too much of a interpretation of how one thing would be influencing the other. I don't think it helps, honestly. I think that what we need now is to have sound, good agreements on both and then any interrelationship would always be positive. This is what I would say. Sandra Tomman, Yomer Shinron. Hi, Digi. Digi, you said in your update from today that Russian forces took over the surrounding areas from an NPP in the southern part of Ukraine. Indeed. So does it mean it's just a surrounding area or is it the site itself? And do you have the feeling that they will take over the site itself too, if not until now? Well, I think they are in control of the of the surrounding area and of the site as well, which, again, does not mean that they have taken over the plant itself or the operation of the reactor and etc. So they have the physical control of the perimeter and and the surrounding area, including the village, where most of the employees live. Hi, Digi. Thanks a lot. Good to see you. A couple of questions on each issue, if I may. If the IEA were to send people to Ukraine for assistance, what are we talking about here? How many people potentially could you send? And have you discussed that with Russia and have Russia said that they would be open to that and would provide the security that would be needed? I just want to come back on Ukraine. Also, Russia and Vladimir Putin have made very specific allegations about Ukraine working on nuclear. I elicit even producing nuclear weapons. Can you just state very clearly for us, is there any evidence of that? And then I have two on Iran. Do you want me to wait and then come back to them? Oh, let's. Yep. You talked about a full process in terms of the safeguard probe. And I've heard some talk that there could be another kind of road map with Iran on how you deal with these these issues. I wonder if that's right. But I presume the key point for you is that there is no pre-fixed end date on that process. Is that correct? And I'm just curious as to why you think Iran is so keen to have this probe closed and when are the reports coming? Thank you. Well, thank you. How much time do you have? You have a couple of hours. As you'd like to bring the coffee. And anyway, so the first was about about the assistance, as I said, please be patient with me. It's very difficult. It's a very, very difficult conversation, as you can imagine, because having access to to a zone which is basically, you know, a zone of military conflict, the war zone, what could define it is would be extremely delicate. And we have to consult, of course, those in control and also Ukraine. So on this, maybe we can give you more information on this a bit, a bit later. On the on the process of the clarification of all these outstanding issues with the with Iran, all I can say is that we have made sure that this process is not affected by any other external process, that this process has its own merits. If I can use the word merit has its own reason to be there, and it has to be clarified. The idea of road maps or calendars, et cetera, I would say this is I am not so I would say fixated on that. It is obvious that being a long process and being a process that will concern and be applied to different issues related to different places. There will be a sequencing. We cannot do everything at the same time on the same day and in the same week. So there will be some sequencing. Of course, we have to do that. And in terms of timings, one thing without getting into specific dates or things like that, which I tend not to like too much. I think it's fair to say that we do not expect this to be an open ended thing. We need to come to a point, hopefully the sooner, the better, the sooner, the better, where we will be able, I will be able to draw a conclusion, be it in either sense. OK. Sorry, sorry. Councilor Nozhi from the BBC Persian television. Two questions on Ukraine. I just wondered whether you can simply tell us how worried the world should be today looking at what is going on in Ukraine. On the nuclear front, Iran, of course, as you know, demanding as part of this deal here in the in the nuclear talks that the IAEA stops this investigation in the foreign declared sites. Can you envisage a scenario in which the IAEA as part of the broader interest in a bigger deal might do that, might just drop the investigations. Thank you. I understand. First, the first question, how worried? I think in a in a in a general sense, we must always be very worried, very concerned about war and about the use of force. So we are very good in terms of the specific mandate that I have. I think everything that we have been discussing is my answer. We are trying to make sure that we will not have again added suffering because of any radioactive release or anything having to do with nuclear facilities, which is which is my mandate. I'm not in the international law or territorial integrity or security council domain. That is not my thing. But where I am responsible for, we will do our most. And second on on on your question, of course, the IAEA will never abandon a process that it launched because of the necessity of clarification of certain situations in Iran because of a political reason. This is not how the IAEA works. And I as director general would never do that. So what we need to do with Iran is to sit around the table and try to clarify these issues. These issues, the only way these issues go away is if they are clarified to the full satisfaction of the IAEA. This is the way just very briefly. Digi, can you please give some detail on why the 30 kilometer safety zone may be particularly challenging for you to help to enforce? Well, what you refer to is an idea that the chief executive officer of NRGO Atom mentioned in a conversation with me a few days ago. This is one idea that that he has. Of course, the IAEA has no power to enforce an exclusion zone or any measure with a territoriality aspect in that regard. So it's an initiative that he has been talking about. But frankly speaking, is at the moment, it's not something I am considering. What I am trying to do is to see what I can do in these consultations to ensure the safety of these places. These other things would spill into other competencies and jurisdictions, and I would never be able to help there in this way. But yes, on the safety. Hi there, just in the car from AFP. Also one on each, if that's OK. I just noticed in your statement on Ukraine. You said it's imperative to ensure the brave people who operate, regulate, inspect and assess the facilities. Are able to do their jobs safely, unimpeded and without undue pressure. Yeah. Why did you say that? Well, I say this. Thank you for the question. I say this because you know that in any as in any other work, and in particular in industrial or this type of facility, you have shifts. So people have to go home and rest. And in it has been challenging to ensure that there is a full change of shifts. Some people, this doesn't mean that they are working nonstop without sleeping or eating or things like that. But in some cases, we know that people have to stay the plant and then continue working the next day and not take the necessary time off and things like this. And in this, in any activity, but in particular here, where you have to be really very, very focused and and and not make mistakes, this can lead to mistakes. So what we are trying in our discussions with with Ukraine and also with Russia is to facilitate this, to make sure that things like this do not happen. And I praise them because even if they had all the rest in the world, they could go back home and back to the plant. The whole situation of that country is extremely dramatic. So I think they deserve a lot of you have to understand, for example, our emergency center is 24 seven. They are working all the time and they are in contact with these operators all the time. And they are answering our questions. They are giving us the readings of the different systems that they have. They are checking on things and all of these in the circumstances that they are having. So go figure how difficult, how stressing this may be when their families could be in danger, where they may have lost people they love and when their own country is in this situation. So I think they they really deserve our praise. And the reason I am mentioning this is because the issue of having stuff which is well rested, competent and present there is very, very important. It's not only it is a humanitarian issue, but not only. It's also a technical issue. And sorry, I just want to ask one on Iran if that's OK. Can you just give us a general idea of, you know, since we last spoke to you in the last few weeks, couple of months, what have your interactions been like with the Iranian side? Have things visibly improved? Have you seen any progress? We are working hard. We are working very hard. How would you characterize their cooperation? We are working very hard. OK. Hi, and to be again, coming back to the Ukraine. I mean, if you remember the Fukushima, that the trigger was out of power. Sorry, there was no power. And then I guess, yes, yes, yes, yes, that you also mentioned about the concern about electricity feeding into that. And of course, that there is, of course, a generator, whatever. But how safe is it? And then also, like with the fuel, probably power generator, how long can an Ukrainian power plant can operate without electricity? It's good that you mentioned Fukushima, because as a result, I would never say thanks to Fukushima. But as a result of what happened in Fukushima, as we always say here at the agency, there have been vast improvements in terms of nuclear safety. And one of these improvements that we have is that, of course, the first thing is that external power is not interrupted. But even in that case, the availability of stationed power generating units like diesel, for example, has been vastly improved and their autonomy has also been extended in some cases between seven days and even 10 days and beyond. And this is the case in Ukraine. So, of course, God forbid that such an event happens. But if that was the case, the availability of secondary sources and alternative sources of power would be much easier and less traumatic than it was the case in 2011. Yeah, but the question is that if it's for 10 days, the power station electricity connection is cut off because of the war, then there's no way to supply the electricity. So it would have to solely rely on the diesel. And then you said 10 days and it could be more. And please, I think we should stop speculating like this, because first of all, there is no interruption of power. And secondly, if that happened, the point I'm trying to make is that you have time, which was what we didn't have in Fukushima. You have time to restore it within that period of time. There is ample time to while you are continuing the cooling process, which is indispensable, you have a lot of time for everybody, all concerned to work on that. But starting to say 10, 12, 11 is not an area that I would really like to. And I don't think it adds anything. Frankly, thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. I just want to come back to a question from Lawrence. You didn't answer after the Russian allegations of a possible nuclear idea program after any indications or any. Thank you for thank you. And I'm sorry for for having omitted that. But the question was so vast that I got lost in my in my answer. So the this issue, I mean, for us is very clear. We do not have any information that would question the nonproliferation credentials of the Ukraine. It's important to say, as I indicated earlier in the press conference, that we have we continue our safeguards operation and we do not have any information that there is any deviation of material, any anti-clare material or activities leading to the development of nuclear weapons. This is our answer to that. Short follow up. Maybe a couple of short ones and can you explain why you have not can you explain why you have not issued your quarterly Iran reports to member states and when you're expecting to do so? We're working hard, as I told them. Sorry, Digi. Also a bit of a follow up. You. Digi, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Just a follow up because you've mentioned in your in your daily updates on Ukraine, you know, you keep appealing for no one to do anything that would jeopardize the security and safety of Ukraine's nuclear facilities. Just wondering, has Russia offered you any assurances at all on that? I think Russia has been repeating that they do they do not a, you know, have any plans to attack facilities. Right. But you're talking about their public their public pronouncements.  Well, as I was saying, I'm in contact with with my Russian counterparts. And of course, this is an issue that is essential and central to the to the conversation. And I'm convinced that nothing like this could ever happen. Of course, we need to be active on this. We need to make sure that there is no unintended or accidental problem. And this is a possibility for as long as you have a conflict. So we are discussing these things. We are discussing on specific sites. But but on that, I would ask you to bear with me, as I was saying, since it may involve sensitive information about plants and activities. And I cannot get too much into the detail, but we are really covering everything. Yeah. So I think you're much for your attention. And we will keep in touch. Thank you very much.