Waitress receives tip that will change her life, but boss refuses to give it to her. Her feet were aching and she lets out a moan as she nearly finishes another grueling shift.  Dreams that involved saving up enough to pay her student fees and starting fresh somewhere. Anywhere but here. She was already lost for words when she saw the life-changing tip on the table, but when her boss snatched it away from her, tears fell from the waitress's eyes landing on her crisp, red uniform. Sherkira Edwards had worked part-time at Diner for three years to pay her way through dental school. The dedicated and focused young woman could put up with being ordered around for the chance to secure her future, but she longed for the day when she could finally hang up her apron for good. As she ties her hair up, ready for another long shift, Sherkira looks at herself in the mirror and imagines how it would feel to be debt-free. Little did she know, later on in the morning she was about to find out. Sherkira was no stranger to having to deal with difficult customers, so encountering a kind and thoughtful diner would always take her by surprise. The woman she was serving that morning was a breath of fresh air on what had been a very stressful morning. She appreciated my smile, beamed Edwards. It was only when she started to clear the table after she and her husband left that she realized just how much she appreciated her smile. Right there, sat on the table amongst dirty dishes and empty bottles of wine, was an astonishing tip paid by credit card for over four thousand dollars. Sherkira's heart drops as she stares at the check open mouth. Picking it up, her hands shakes as a rush of emotion overwhelms her. It was like being handed a winning lottery ticket. She didn't like to bother her manager, but after drying the tears from her cheeks and taking in deep breaths, she slapped on a brave face and approached her manager to tell him the good news. But he would think differently. Making her way to the manager's office, Sherkira had already begun spending all the money in her head. After paying off some of her $33,000 student debt, she'd planned to donate to a mentorship program that helps teens with depression. Sherkira felt good knowing her money would be put to good use, but unbeknownst to her, her boss was about to pull the rug right out from underneath her. Sherkira's manager stares at the enormous sum on the check in utter disbelief. Could this be right? He'd heard of waitresses receiving huge tips like this before, but he'd never seen it happen on his watch. After some deliberation and a few awkward moments, Sherkira's manager carefully slid the check into his back pocket. I'm sorry, he said. But this is staying with me. And then he explained that, if she really wanted it back, she'd have to do something for him. Something she never, ever imagined doing. Sherkira's manager calmly informed her that he might let her have the money, but there was a catch. The exhausted waitress couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was he being serious? It hurt Sherkira the way they told her something like this as a business. And it was as if she was out of place and out of line to ask for something that she knew she deserved. Sherkira immediately started looking up other waitresses who had received astonishing tips like Sherkira and found hundreds of heartwarming stories of hardworking waitresses who'd seen their dreams come true. On average, waitresses in the United States can earn between $298 and $500 a week. So a tip like this was enough to make them break down in tears. All their problems were solved. But for Sherkira, that was her future in the manager's pocket. But could she ever do what he was asking? There was no way she could do it. Fair enough Sherkira could turn her entire life around, but what she'd have to do to get it was too much. Far too much. She takes a look at her graduation photo and remembers the only thing that mattered was to pay down her debt and become a full-time dental assistant. After she shots a stiff drink and takes a deep breath, MX Sherkira knew what she had to do. Her manager had told her that in order to process the tip, she'd have to track down and find the customer to confirm that they really intended to leave such a huge tip. But how could a dental assistant that worked part-time at a diner find someone who wasn't even a regular customer? It seemed impossible. Sherkira contemplated the actions of the manager and tried to decide on the best course of action. She wouldn't be surprised if someone at the restaurant tried to keep it for themselves. She knew that the business was short-staffed, low on supplies, and was defined by low morale. It wasn't exactly the Ritz. But then suddenly, she had an idea. Sherkira grabs her cell phone and took to Facebook and to Twitter in hopes of finding the person who had left her such a generous tip. But, unfortunately, after weeks with no leads, her search had turned up nothing. She was feeling both stumped and heartbroken. But, although internet users worldwide couldn't help her track the tipper down, they were soon sitting up and taking notice of her story. Soon after the post, the restaurant's Facebook page was bombarded with comments from people who had read about the story. Everyone thought that the diner had no right to withhold a tip from one of their employees. One user wrote, Are you kidding me? I'm sure that there's some loophole that will allow them to justify keeping it. Even with a winning ticket, just can't win. And it wasn't long before the local news stations got involved as well. Sherkira contacted the local news to tell them her story in the hope that the customer would see the broadcast and ultimately let her manager give her what was rightfully hers. The waitress felt the restaurant had shamed her by suggesting she should have been more diligent at her job and blamed her for spreading misinformation. Sherkira was incensed and she had every right to be.  But this was just too much. You're going to tell me that it's my fault that I didn't get the information on a customer when they left and tipped me, she said. I don't know who tipped me. We would like to make it clear that we would never withhold tips or wages from any of our employees. However, we also has an obligation to ensure that our guests are charged the proper amount for their meals, the restaurant said in a statement. In this case, the restaurant was obliged to investigate and verify the guest did in fact intend to leave such a large tip. It's alarming that not many people are aware that workers in the service industry aren't paid in the same way as those with jobs in other industries. They receive a tipped minimum wage, which only amounts to a fraction of the federal minimum wage. Tips are designed to cover the rest of a server's income, but there is no guarantee that they will. This leaves waiters praying their paying customers will be generous enough to leave a tip. It's an unfair system. But would Sherkira get what she deserved? We have met with Ms Edwards and advised her of the outcome of the investigation, and we understand the disappointment our server must feel in receiving this news, a representative said in a media statement. Despite their statement, Sherkira was still furious at the company she spent the past two years working for. But to make things even more worse, Sherkira was about to receive some bad news. We conducted a thorough investigation into this matter and has discovered the tip in question was made in error, the statement continued. It was ultimately determined that the guest, who is elderly and unfamiliar with the debit system used at this location, entered a tip amount of $4,451.61 when he intended to leave a $4 tip on his bill. Sherkira was heartbroken. We have also taken steps to ensure that staff is better equipped to handle similar situations in the future, the spokesman continued, We are committed to both our guests and our employees and will always seek to provide the fairest and most reasonable resolution under any circumstances. Sherkira couldn't believe it. All of her thoughts and worries that seemed to have faded away soon came crashing into her again. And there was nothing she could do.


We're still talking football, top flight football in the land of Wood-of-water that's Jamaica returning this Sunday with a Reign-Nephew-Jamaica Premier League for the second consecutive season. The league will have 14 teams including defending champions, Mount Pleasant, Fellowsend and Team Limehall along with Treasure Beach from St. Elizabeth are the two newly promoted teams. Round one matchups, let's have a look at them now, Limehall Academy against Montego Bay United that will be live on Sportsmax, Treasure Beach against Humberland, Tivoli Gardens against Waterhouse, Mount Pleasant tackling Port Mora that's the reigning champions against the seven time champions that's live on Sportsmax and on Sportsmax two very united against Mullines, Arnett Garns will tackle Dumbledore Holden on Sportsmax two as well. Round one matches coming up in the Reign-Nephew-Jamaica Premier League starting this weekend. CEO of professional football, Jamaica Limited, Owen Hill is with us in studio to talk more about the upcoming season, well we did have the launch and we saw the presentations from yourself and other executives, we are on the eve now of the tournament kicking off, how excited are you? Well first let me say thanks for having me, I think I'm a little bit anxious, nervous, I feel like I'm playing actually. Well you have played it, you have played it in the past, when was it, 2015 for UWI? Yeah for UWI but normally just a little bit, always before the kick off generally you have these jitters but once you go live then all of that goes all the way, literally we're in the final stages of preparation ensuring that all the teams are you know set accommodated essentially and you know looking at what is to come, we've been having those discussions from an activation perspective with our major partners, the new title partners, we'll be moving into Draxall pretty much starting tomorrow, setting up, ensuring that you know all things are on the ground and doing what is right and the necessary PR and you know information is out there to ensure that the viewing public and the people who are willing to come to the game which we are saying you should, they're in for a treat, I think it's going to be a fantastic opening weekend. Alright about the season itself now and the fact that a lot of the games will be going back to the communities and the home teams now having an opportunity in their own space to welcome big crowds and so on which that format had been moved away from the COVID-19 2020 season with more centralized locations, how embracing is this for the home teams now that a lot of them will have the opportunity to be hosting matches in their own space? I think they're excited I mean from last season you saw that we were transitioning into the community, let us not be you know crazy about this but football is the community, most of the teams are community related teams you know they're nestled in communities so bringing back the sport to the actual facilities that they have in their community I think it does them a world of good and you know what helps is that you know some of these community venues are actually very good venues you know so when you look at the teams that are going to be participating in the competition and where they'll be playing their home games I think it all goes well for community development, for club development and by extension just the general vibe and atmosphere that you'd want from any football game. Yes speaking about development I instantly thought about the newly promoted teams Treasure Beach and Lime Hall what are you expecting from these two teams for this new season? Well let me put on my analyst hat no. Yes please. From a Treasure Beach perspective I think they're very solid structurally they've got the right pieces and they went shopping I mean I recently spoke to their coach Amirot Wedderburn he's no stranger to you know top flight football and you know having this kind of pressure being put on him but I mean he's quite comfortable he's ready there's an infusion of you know players who would have played in the league and then you knew one young talent that he would have had through the St. Elizabeth technical program so I think that's a good merger and the fact that you know Treasure Beach is from St. Elizabeth on that southern belt probably you know the only team that spans across Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland I think it gives them a nice mix of players and it all goes well for their program for Lime Hall and the other hand they I believe have benefited from some of the spillovers from Mount Pleasant you know so yeah I think we you know have neighbors their neighbors so I mean they're good neighbors by the way they share you know a lot of resources so the pitch itself they're gonna be using Draxall and they have a good you know nice mix of players some of the players who would have helped them qualify they're still there but they've refreshed the team, rejuvenated what is considered the squad expected to compete and I'm looking forward to what they have to offer in the league because I feel like you know these two teams if they hold their own which I think they will they'll cause some damage. Yeah and your response to Lance just now about the preparations you spoke about activations and for me whenever I see Ray and nephew anyway it's a party and it's a big deal because they come out really really big right what what is in store for us because I already planned to attend some of these JPL matches although I will not be on the broadcast right so what will Ray and nephew have for me? Well I can tell you Ray and nephew is excited about being this you know title partner they are becoming to the party literally bringing the party to the game I can tell you I mean all the excitement that you expect in a general entertainment space they'll be bringing it to football because football is entertainment so you'll have those deals at the venues but prior to you'll have community activation so they'll be hitting up you know the bars and the local spots and ensuring that if you purchase they'll have bucket deals they'll have ticket deals and then at the game you'll have you know prizes and surprises they'll ensure that the fans are engaged from minute one or probably before the game start until after the game and I think with their product it only helps to enhance it it enhances the vibe that you will have at these games and I think you know the patrons are in for a treat but we're always saying that it's a family oriented event so you know drink responsibly and we're always pushing that yeah looking forward yeah so happy to hear all of that right so I have said this a number of times on the show that I am not the biggest fan of the format okay just because I think the team that is most consistent over six or seven months should be rewarded but I understand okay why it is the way it is and clearly based on how the season ended last year it worked because the playoffs have been massively successful the turnout for the championship match Cavalier and Mon Pleasant fantastic cannot forget that how do we build on how we ended last season and take that through an entire campaign and not just when we get to the playoffs of this tournament competition because I think it showed last year that there is tremendous value in the Jamaica Premier League I again I have to piggyback on what you're saying because the truth is it depends on where you sit philosophically yes if you're looking for a league format seven eight months longer to football race to the top who is at the top wins the entire thing that there's merit to that argument however because of the nuances in the Jamaican space and the partners that we have on board we want to give them maximum value so what we've done is you know pretty much looked at the best practices globally and you know decided that hey we want you to continuously play good football throughout the season you will be getting some kind of reward incentive wise at the end of the regular rounds but then the cherry on the top is winning the Premier League truth be told I mean the bigger cherry is actually qualifying for these conquer cap games so when you look at what Cavalier and Harbourview is no doing in the Caribbean Cup and how they've advanced they're in the semifinal playing against each other when you look at how they've revamped that structure when you get to the top you're really just looking around to say how can we maximize yes we want to you know add more value to it so that you can have a bigger prize purse at the end of it etc but we want to also keep the fans engaged and we know that in Jamaica we like that short snap you know yeah in-movement kind of vibe and it will allow for good football because again you get amped up when you know that hey this is a do or die situation yeah just on a point of clarity did Arnett Gardens get rewarded for their regular season title last year and what was the nature of the reward so so they didn't get a cash incentive or they didn't get a trophy reward yes but going forward this is a part of the arrangement because I remember Teghurt Davis complaining as a coach last year that they were regular season champions top the league format and there wasn't anything for them correct and and the truth is then they knew this from before you know so let me ask you what will be in it this season for the team that wins the regular season so we've not decided as yet you know totally of course you know a trophy is definitely there but again you know a team probably wants to get more than just a trophy so we're looking at different ways permutation how it can work probably could get some qualifiers from the you know the two teams that are most consistent depending on the nature of these things but you know the process you have to go through submit what you think is the approach the rational fight and then there's justification for it going forward but again we are mindful that we need to incentivize people who do well yes you know we don't want you to finish six for argument sake and then you just soup the league and then that's it you know but that's a good scenario story for anybody yes so it makes for good kind of television I think yes and I think the teams are really hungry for that in terms of the influx of overseas players it's not new to see players from the rest of the Caribbean playing in the Jamaica Premier League but looking at what I'm seeing now maybe we have more non-Jamaicans who will be playing in the league than we've ever had before how much will that bring to the JPL you think so let me let me answer your question by saying I think sportsmax benefits heavily from that well thank you yes I think but I think we helped you get those for sure of course you're your preferred partner we love you but what I'm saying is when you have because the games are being broadcasted in over 26 Caribbean territories both you know locally and then you know it's in the tri-state area and in Canada and all these places you have more eyes on the product I mean I give you a basic well not a basic but I give you a very strong example of Trivante Stewart his last game was in the Premier League local Premier League and his next professional game was in Italy yeah and we're told no scouts came here to see him pretty much no scouts and and what enhances that is being able to watch broadcasted games being able to analyze these games virtually and then you can make a decision on a place so to really answer the question is yes we'll have more eyes on the product because you have more Caribbean players coming in but then hands down we have the best league in the Caribbean and it is proven there's a ranking by Conkercraft that speaks to where the leagues rank across the Caribbean Jamaica is the number one league in the Caribbean and everybody's looking at the league and saying yes this is a good launching pad it helps to catapult my career and the quality of the players really really strong so I mean you can argue against that yeah I also want to make the point because quite often when we speak about the views for Sportsmax and we speak about the rest of the Caribbean and Canada tri-state areas of course I don't think we realize how many eyes we actually have in the UK there you go and I think we underestimate that and through the Sportsmax app and an event like the Jamaica Premier League where it is not geoblocked and anyone right across the world can watch we get a number of views coming out of the UK so that's a big deal there as well and just to kind of you know augment what you're saying we at the JPL ensures that the players understand that you know you're not just playing in front of you know 1500 people when you get up you know every Sunday or Monday this is a global event that you have access to or people have access to you globally so every time you suit up every time the cameras are on you are playing for not just yourself but the opportunity to expand the league and people looking at players so I think it's very very important for us to underscore that point that the league has grown significantly we're building an industry and there are many different elements of our football industry broadcast is one you know apparel is another ensuring that people come to the game is another you know watching it on television is another so there are so many elements that we're looking to build out and we're saying if you don't support local sports through the different avenues then chances are we're going to always be looking internationally and asking why can't we be like that yeah I'm not sure you can answer this yet but I'm going to put it out there just the same he laughs so you speak about building an industry right and clearly the Jamaica Premier League has gotten more support locally in recent years but with the influx of more overseas players and eyes all over the world on the Jamaica Premier League when do we start to engage strategically engage overseas partners and by partners you mean we I could use sponsors okay I mean we have global sponsors so for example MasterCard is one of our global partners that you know we have tagged to Montego be United Montego be United has recently changed hands the button has been passed to you know an international partner for want of a better word because even though he's locally or they're locally orchestrating their businesses they have global reach so you know the opportunities are there we keep having those kinds of discussions but we have to keep building the brand value so that people can see you know and I think we've done that for the last three four years we've moved from a situation where games were all centralized and you know locked up in one space we got good enough coverage for that and then as we dive deeper back into the communities you know we're expanding the overall product and you know we are saying sustainably expanding because it's easy for us to just you know me and all the necessary advice is that come but if you want to build a product if you want the clubs to be better we have to take this approach and I think that's that's working for us right now yeah yeah and quickly before we go because I gather we're running out of time is everybody happy with the 14 team league everybody if everybody is happy with the 14 team league different stakeholders are you know sitting on different sides of the fence what I can say from a PFJL perspective is that we are very clear less is better because you want to sustainably host you know quality football games so we know the situation if it is that we had you know 14 more placements in the league then fine you know it would be fine but the truth is we have some clubs that are you know lower on the learning curve than others and we're saying we're trying to build that industry so as it is now we we have to work with the 14 yeah and we keep building what's the ideal number for the PFJL ideal number you're putting me on a spot though you're a goalkeeper you're a good at saving no he's a central defender I I would say you know the ideal numbers dependent on the quality of the teams that are in it so there's really no magic number to be very honest and I'm being very honest there's not a magic number we're not pulling anything out the hat if we have 14 solid clubs that can be says self-sustainable then we're fine we're good at that but as it is now we don't have that so we're not saying to cap it at 10 or 12 yeah we are saying let us expand sensibly because we're building a football industry yeah I think the fact is Chappellton Maroons and Falkland the 13th and 14th teams from last season yeah weren't up to mark but they got relegated so hopefully Treasure Beach and Lime Hall which is why I was happy to hear you say for example that Treasure Beach has a good system and structure both of them have a good real you know system and structure and I look forward to what they offer I know it's a long league yeah it gets a while you know but we're looking forward to what they have they're playing the music lands yeah we've got to go let's see the non-jamaicans and how they perform Melbourne Dockson has played three seasons in football in Jamaica he's from St. Lucia he's already won two titles one with Cavalier and one with Mount Pleasant so I get that story in itself is a story that will invite a lot of other Caribbean players to be in the Jamaica Premier League and don't forget there's a JPL action coming up on Sportsmax this weekend Sportsmax and Sportsmax too back with more after this


Hi everybody, Joe for jaskiescasebreaks.com coming at you with a 2020 select football blaster break Blaster box random team break number two with a chance to win some spots in that 60 box Mixer featuring optic blaster boxes and hit parade Now we'll do the break itself first big. Thanks to this group here for making this happen There's all 32 teams right here gonna do the break first different dice roll for the giveaways at the end of the video Five and a two seven times for names and teams one two three four Six and seven the final time two three And seven the final time after seven Here is the first half of the list right there and here's the second half of the list right over here and let's just print and rip Here's the final print out hot off the presses All right. Good luck. It could be some surprises in here AJ Dylan leads things off We got a red wide and blue kj. Hamler field level For Denver it's gonna be for Josh Oh, it's a that's a die cut too. That's pretty cool. You got a Alejandro Villanueva Club level die cut There's a Brady Brady for the Bucks Sean Villanueva goes to Sean and the Steelers as well. We got a silver van Jefferson Also for Sean. It's got a lot of spots in this Dwayne Haskins die cut for Washington.  Keep those fingers crossed. There's the new dice. There's a new list right here and It's gonna be The top six after five four and a one Top six after five. Good luck one two three four and fifth and final time So from seven on down, it's gonna be sad times Although Sean does have a lot of spots, isn't he might still be up there? So but sad time. Thank you everyone for giving this a shot. I appreciate it Happy times for the top six Jimmy's happy. So is Aaron Sean. There he is Barry Jose and Aaron Congrats to the top six. Thanks everyone for giving this a shot. I'll see you next time for the next one


We're on our way Move on, move on What are you guys doing?  Up there We thought it was you here Who thought it was a good idea To find you who were here Me What are you doing?   And then I just... Hi-Hack! Really? Hi-Hack?  You guys talking? Shopping? Yeah, why? I need your help!


Okay. Can you hear me? Hello? I'm trying what? What am I trying to do? I'm trying to wave my magic wand and have everything magically be perfect and work out. Can everyone hear me? Jackie, where have you been? You've missed a fantastic couple of days. Oh, you were still on vacation. Yeah. Anyways, we're going to try to get a quick move here. But does anyone remember what I said about the market on Monday? We're not leading our keyboard here, so we could talk a little bit while we're watching this. What did I say? Gerard remembers, I'm sure. Ed? Ed's back in the groove. No one remembers. So this is kind of called if we bounce it all the day, which we may not. It would be like a dead cat bounce. That's what they used to call it in the olden days. I don't even know if we're going to do that. But if we do a little bouncy ball here in the first five, 10, 15 minutes of the day, even in the first half hour, it'll be a dead cat bounce. It won't go anywhere. Trust me. So no one remembers what I said Monday, so I'm going to tell you. Monday I said this is a pivotal week for the market. It's a critical week for the market. It's an important week for the market because we could follow through with the gap up on Friday and the rally. We could follow through. And I said we could follow through for a week or two weeks, even though I still think we're lower, I said. But I said it's a pivotal week for the market. We didn't follow through. We fell. That's it. It's over. Kaputzi. We're lower. We're gonna break the area from June 16th. I can't tell you the exact second, but we're gonna. 284.30. Let's do 90 by 30. 90 by 30. 90 by 30 cues. Actually, let's wait. Let's do 80. 80 by 30. Let's do 80 by 50. 80 by 50 cues. 80 by 50 cues didn't trigger yet. Get it. Get it right now. Here we go. Let's see if we can get a dollar or two dollars out of this. Here we go. Here we go. 282. 281. We're going to 280 people. We were almost there last night. In fact, I think we were. I think we were. Let's check it out. You could still do it. You could still do it, people. No, we weren't. Why did I think that? Well, we might have been actually, because this only picks up. That was 282.11. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. Here we go. Under 282. Let it ride. Let it ride.  I am super focused this week, people, but I've been super focused all year. You could be out of this. You could be out right here. We're going to try to get one more push. Oh, you know what? Crap. I didn't look and see. Do we have any econ today, Drard? Somebody, anybody carry? Do we have anything this morning? 89. Do we have anything in 945? 940 people. Hurry, tell me. I was so busy scanning this morning. I don't think we have anything today. Today's Wednesday. It's tomorrow. Tomorrow is all the data. Here, one more push in this. No econ. Thank you, Drard. Drard lost a chicken. I think it was a problem when you bought that second dog. Two dogs and too many chickens is one too many dogs. Here, QQQ. Look at this. Look at this. This is selling. You're watching it. You're watching it live and we're getting it. It's called selling people, and you love to see it. One more push. I'm going to be out of this one more push. This is a good exit here.    Look how fast this is moving. Look at it. Look at it. It's go break 40. Look at how fast this is going. Oh, done. Don't care. Nice trade. Beautiful trade. It's probably going to go to everything and then some will hold the options. Great job. Wow and we could have done nothing today but we got it. Again, here we go. 281 if you're still in it. 281 in the break of 281 and 280 today. Oh, 1030? 1030? Yeah, Gerard lost a chicken.   That's a shame. Anyone still in this? I got out. I had a good exit. I had a good exit again. Hard to pick the low of the day but I still think this keeps going. Jeff's out. Jeff, what did you do yesterday? Did you end up doing Nike or not? Dream, Target and Nike for those of you in the option. Hello. Wow, everything's working. Everything's fabulous. Everything's lower. Here goes the market. Again, you could still be in this. Is anyone still in the queues? Let's look at the banks.  Yes, they do. All right. Let's just see what's going on here tonight. Another great day.


We now come to the most awaited moment. We are privileged to have an eminent writer and publisher as our keynote speaker, Dr. Istevyn Kirei. Dr. Kirei is a Naga poet and author who currently lives in Northern Norway. The majority of her writings are based in lived realities of the people in Nagaland in Northeast India. Her novel, A Naga Village Remembered, 2003, was the first novel by a Naga writer in English. Some of her novels include A Terrible Matararchy, 2007, Marie 2010, Bitter Warmwood, 2011, Journey of the Stone, 2021, among others. Kirei has also translated 200 oral poems from her native language, Dinidie, into English. In 2011, Dr. Kirei was awarded the Governor's Medal for Excellence in Naga Literature. She was also awarded the Free Voice Award by Catalan PEN Barcelona. Bitter Warmwood was shortlisted for the Hindu Prize in 2013. A Terrible Matararchy was selected to be translated into U.N. languages. And some of her novels have been translated into German. In 2015, her novel, When the River Sleeps, was awarded the Hindu Literature Prize. We are honored and eager to hear from you, ma'am. Over to you, ma'am. Yes, good morning and thank you. I'm embarrassed about the long introduction because I treat Tito as a family and introductions are not necessary between family members. But thank you anyway. And it's a pleasure to be here. I'm actually in Kuyema at this point. And a bit nervous about electricity because these days we don't get electricity in the day. So I'm going to make my speech very brief so that we don't run out of battery on my laptop. Yes, yes, Tito College, thank you for inviting me. I look forward to the day when I can physically visit you again. And yes, I'll just go straight into the subject matter. Your seminar, I read that it is about voices of the marginalized with special reference to North East India. Also, please stop me whenever necessary if you want me to put up my volume. I'll be banking on you, Anjan. Now, I want to start with this statement. Let us interrogate the idea of marginalization. I don't like that word marginalization. Who is marginalizing who? Let's question. This is an age when we need to question a lot of preconcepts and a lot of things that we've taken for granted in the past and had them passed on to us. The term marginalization has been around for many decades. When we were students at university in 81, 79 to 81, it was the thing to be marginalized. But that is really all hat. And I feel that it's more than high time that we turn this concept on its head. And I want to ask this question.   And I want to stop there a little because it reminds me of one of the first questions that God asked man in the Garden of Eden. He asked Adam, who told you you were naked? And Adam had no answer, but we'll come back to that. So keep that in the little section of your brain. And let's just think about it.   And then we started to see ourselves as marginalized. So let's rethink this again. And let's do that today now at this moment. As a writer from the Northeast, I frequently get asked questions like questions or get asked if we are from the Northeast, me and all my writer friends from the Northeast, if we are hoping to be more included in the mainstream. And this happened when I got the Hindu award for one of my books. It was asked several times, are you hoping to be more included in the mainstream now? Then I can tell you that I've been asked about root questions and ignorant questions at all the literature festivals outside the Northeast. And the root questions always come from a politically motivated corner.  We can't do anything about it. It's just shrug your shoulders. Kia kerega. But the question, do you want to be included in the mainstream? What should we do to be part of the mainstream? These are such ludicrous questions. And these are things that the Northeast has been asked time after time. So when your seminar used the word marginalized, I wanted to say that it suggests that there is a center and there are margins. And by that reasoning, we the Northeast are the margins. So I just want to say and share that this is a very dangerous idea. It's dangerous ideology. This is a mindset that has been accepted by political situations and people are still trapped in it. But let's sort of separate it because it works in a political situation. We think of Delhi as the center and it is. Or if we want to be very argumentative, I looked at the map of India today and I saw that Delhi is so way north. It's not the center. Bhopal should be the center. We could argue like that, but there's no time. Life is too short. So I call it a dangerous ideology because when you divide regions into center and margins or peripheries, you get so many complexities that go beyond the geographical. And in layman's language, I want to say it messes with your mind. It really messes with your mind. And the thing is you get a mindset.  And what happens is you see yourself as forgotten. You see yourself as neglected. You see yourself as victimized. You see yourself as overlooked. And there's nothing positive about such a mindset, really. And okay, that may be true. It's not, I'm not saying no, no, no to these things. It may be true that in the past or even now these things are going on, but let's not adopt that. Let's not go around living with that mindset because it is so negative. Why should be appropriated? And it's something that we should resist with all our hearts. And why should we in the Northeast try so hard to be part of the mainstream? Why should we run after a mindset that depends on our inferiority complex in order to survive? You got that. It depends on our inferiority complex in order to survive. So this is a thing that gets me all riled up. I've been discussing this topic in Sikkim in Gantog, then in Aizol, then all the way to Goa and the wonderful thing Goa because Goa is also considered a periphery by the center. So we were all in agreements that we don't want to accept ourselves as marginalized because it's so unhealthy.  They never want to see themselves as marginalized. And we in Naglain should never, never see ourselves as marginalized either. My next sentence, please don't misunderstand it in literature. In literature, it's highly dangerous to accept the idea of a center and margins. As I said before, it works fine for political geography, but we are not under that. And we don't have a problem that they have centers and margins in political geography, but let us not make the mistake of adapting or integrating it into the field of literature. Why? Because when we start to acknowledge the presence of a center, what happens is we give authority away to the center. And then we give it the authority to define us. See, it's really, really dangerous. I'm not just saying some pretty words or some current words, but the center gets the authority to define us. It gets the authority to make decisions about our writing. And I say this from, I speak from experience. And then it gets the audacity, the temerity to put expectations on us, how we should be writing, what we should write, even the content, it starts to control the content. So I'll give some examples about that. This is so dangerous for our cultural survival and the threat of homogenization of the Northeast. It's very real. And then if we continue to believe in a center, we will lose our quintessential selves and we will lose those elements that make us unique, make us original. And then another danger is that it takes power over the writing of our histories, especially the writing of our political histories. And it decides what can be written, what cannot be written. And Aizol has experienced that. So let's remember, even from a political angle, the center is a creation that is only interested in protecting itself. I'm being very radical, but this is the truth. It's a creation that's only interested in protecting itself and not about, it's not about us at all. So yeah, I want to go on from there and then I want to also add that there will always be inequality, injustice in the acknowledgement of a center and inevitably it's margins and then it's very insidious. So the insidiousness of the culture or having a center, sorry, the insidiousness of the culture of having a center could lead to de-legitimization of our stories, de-legitimization of our stories. And then at worst, it could lead to de-legitimization of our existences as ethnic entities. So let's be aware of all that. And then, yes, I talk about re-centering the center, re-centering the center. And this is basically about choice. You make a choice to re-center yourself. Then you make a decision to reject the definitions that others have given you about yourself. I'll give you two examples here. As Dr. Huesa has mentioned, the first images that we had of ourselves were from the colonial gaze, the colonial officers, the writings, the official writings, and also the anthropological books written on us. If you take time and read through, you can just make a list of how many times we are called barbaric, how many times we're called savage and all these derogatory terms. And then we who read it at first grew up thinking, okay, I'm educated, but my ancestors were barbaric. My forefathers were savage.  So because we accepted that definition given of us by others, then the other is this magazine that all of you are familiar with, North East Sun, North East Sun, right. That has given a definition about the North East, which is accepted wherever that magazine is read. And I'm so angry with it because it sells violence, it sells conflict and sensationalizes the North East. And it always picks on something happening somewhere a bomb blast or, but you know the level of violence we have here is so low actually, so that when something happens, it is news. Other places, it's happening all the time. It's no longer news, but we're created as these groups of people who are always in conflict. These groups of people who thrive on violence because our forefathers were headhunters. See, look at the way it's designed. So we can think about alternatives and an alternative is that is about the recentering of the center and then you take charge. Don't let others take charge over you, over your destiny. You make the decision to see value in what you have because when others define you, they devalue you. In the past, we've been devalued so much. So I always use this phrase being naga centric, being naga centric as opposed to being Euro centric. And when I say naga centric, don't feel that communities that are not naga exclude that. No, is anyone born in Nagaland? I had this wonderful student when I was teaching at university in Nagaland and he was originally from Bihar, but born and brought up here. So he said, when he went away to study in Delhi, he came back saying, ma'am, they're not like us. And you know what that means, they're not like us. He couldn't fit in because he was a naga in his heart. So let's make it very inclusive. It's anyone who thinks of Nagaland as home. Don't allow others to devalue. Don't allow others to define you. And what you do is you recall all the positive things that visitors say about us. And I think 90% of visitors to the Northeast, they like it, they love it, they return. And then they have so many positive things to say about us, right? Except for the ones who get drunk and fight with somebody. Most of the time we hear positive things, let's take those things and then add to that. Add to that the things we know about ourselves that are good because that is our real value. And that is where our center should be. So if we need a center, remember we are the center. We are the center. We are where our center actually is. And we should take pride in it and we should take care of it. So re-centering the center is not allowing others to dictate to us. We've been dictated to for so long. Our literature has been dictated to say, oh, it's such a young literature, but actually we have a very old literature. Let's remember that. We've crossed from oral to written and we're still in the transition page, page, phase, sorry. So because we're still in the transition phase and our written literature is not as much in volume as others. It doesn't mean that we didn't have literature before written literature. We had masses of beautiful, wonderful oral literature. So that's what we have. We should always take both into account. Then this thing about marginalization, it makes that mindset makes us, tries to make us feel we're missing out. It tries to make us feel we're missing out from something because we're far from the imagined center, okay? And we are not, no way, because we're not missing out on air pollution for one. We're not missing out on city crime. We're not missing out on stressful living. And we have clean air except maybe in November, December when the dust level rises. Otherwise we have such good, clean air. We have good water. Quema water is so sweet. I can't drink enough of it. I know in democracy, water is also good. The streets are safe for women. Still, our streets are very safe for women. Sikkim, Gangtog, they said, a woman can walk through the town at 2 a.m. in the morning, never get molested. What is that? That is life in the Northeast. That is normal to Gangtog. Then we live in a place where there's respect for people, for fellow humans. So why exchange all that for the opposite of it? Why exchange that for cost bigotry, for food politics, for gender violence? So we don't want to get close to the imagined center. We don't need to. We have it so much better here. Yeah, so I want to also say that we have to stop using the political center as a yardstick against which to measure ourselves. And then we have to relearn to believe in our own worth. Then let's take care of a center, as I said before, and no one else can take care of our center as we can, as you can, as I can. Recentering ourselves is learning to own ourselves again. Own ourselves, own our stories. Here I want to pause and tell you about a student, another student who was in Syaks in Bangalore. He needed to write something about the Angami Festival of Sekrengi. And somebody told him, recommended a book by Anon Naga, I won't say names, but I always call her a cultural thief because she takes away our stuff and publishes them and becomes the expert. See, that is the thing we have to, please, that's a college. I want you to take this up. Cultural theft is going on right and left and something like a body like yours can do a lot to stop it, to educate our people. So this person took away the story of Sekrengi, wrote about it, put it in a book, and this young student was told, that's the best book on Sekrengi. That's the best book on this Angami Festival. So I, luckily he wrote to me and I told him, I'll translate it for you. Don't you ever use that book? Use a book by Anon Naga. And if not, I'm going to translate and I did. I spent two days translating, but I can't, as long as I'm alive, I can't allow him to use stuff written by a cultural thief. Okay, so that is how we take care of our center. That is how we own ourselves and take care of our intellectual property, our cultural property. By insisting that we are the experts, because we are the experts. It's not, I don't say it with pride. You are the experts on Reema and different tribal cultures.  And I am the expert, or I try to be the expert in my culture, et cetera. And let's not have an inferiority complex about that, because this is something that we are born into.  There is a play behind the concept of marginalization. And don't be a watered down version of yourself, because if you submit to marginalization, you will become a watered down version. There are groups that want to water you down so that you fit in, but that's really fitting in is not the question at hand. They want to water you down so they can label you. And as a writer, I can also tell you that there's a very irritating trend to label a writer and have been labeled as feminists and eco-feminists and what other East. So at least it's not ISIS, but I'm not happy with that because I'm not, I'm not this one East or another East. We are human beings. Don't allow people to East you. And it's so one-sided, it's so unhealthy. And also there are some researchers who get very angry if I don't write about conflict in other areas, conflict in the North East, but I'm insisting that conflict is just 9%, 8% of what I write about when I write about my history, the history of my people, that's not the main focus. And you're trying to put me in a box, I refuse to be put in a box. And the same thing here for all of us, when as scholars and as also as people, as human beings, don't allow anyone to put you in a box and label you. We're not commodities, we're human beings. So let's not compromise on our identity because it's God given. And when we ask the question, where is our center? I want to tell you this Adivasi story. My Adivasi friend, Sovendra Hansa, has a story that's very similar to Anangami story. And he said, when they're born, they bury their placenta in close to the place of the birth. And then many years after, when they feel homesick, they long for the place where the placenta is buried. And we have exactly the same version, that homesickness is that you feel homesick for the place where your placenta is buried. So that is the designated place that we consider as home. That is your center, home. The place where you feel at home is your center. And it's just really lovely that both the Adivasi and the Nadas shared this story. And all these marginalized people will have stories like that, stories about belonging. It's about belonging. And where we belong, that is our center. So let's not be deceived. If you feel discontented, are you feeling discontented? I would like to ask, and are you feeling marginalized? If you are, then can you recognize that this is coming? The discontent is coming from an external source, an external source. Come back to Adam.  And Adam had a very flimsy answer because it didn't come from himself. It didn't come internally. It came from an external source. So he was deceived, but let us not be deceived. Let us recognize where our center is. Let us work on some things and work on perceptiveness. Work on self-knowledge and let's grow up. Let's grow up. Let's not keep adopting theories, adopting whatever that somebody somewhere sends down. Let's not put it on. It doesn't suit us, you know? Let's stop comparing ourselves with others and then let's just work on improving ourselves because that's the best gift you can give yourself. And yes, I'll stop from there. Thank you very much again. And I've been invited to the next session, but so long as my battery lasts. So thank you all again.


Now, the next song is Two Finger Blues. On Two Finger Blues, we'll be playing two strings simultaneously for the first time. Now, a lot of students struggle with this a little bit because they want those strings to ring at exactly the same time. That's not really what we're working for here. We're going to be playing two strings on a downstroke with our thumb. It's going to go down. And really, if you hear that in slow motion, there's a little bit of a delay. But we're going to get across those strings quickly. So the trick in Two Finger Blues is to get the two strings as close to the same time as you can, but they will not be simultaneous. So let me go ahead and play it for you and you'll get a feel for this. This is another one of those songs also that you can decide to have your index finger on the second fret or your middle finger on the second fret depending on which is more comfortable for you.  So here we go, Two Finger Blues. Now Two Finger Blues with a little bit of swing in it.


Helping parents understand changes in education, changing society is really a role that schools have not taken on historically, that, you know, you send your children to us and they're under our care. But trying to make sense of change, particularly rapid change like we're in now, really puts a new burden on schools to kind of discern what these changes are. But to engage parents, to say that, look, we're trying these things by enlisting parents and talking about trying to help them make sense of change in society. Not only are we getting their support, but we're getting their input, we all have kids best interest at heart, and yet we may not all be operating with the same vision. So by having community discussions about what is the role of technology, that it won't change X and we're going to keep doing this, but other things it will change is we're not lowering standards by having new technologies and having kids have more choices. We're still going to be teaching things they need to know, but how they go about their business. We hope to see difference when you come to visit, that your children are doing things that grandma and grandpa couldn't or didn't. And that's a sign that we're probably on the right track, but we want to make sure that everybody's involved in this conversation. We're preparing kids for a future none of us can see. And so how do we make reason judgments, not rash, not just take the latest technology because it's something new, which is another challenge. I think that's a new role for schools to think about in terms of their outreach for parents and parent engagement in their child's education. Fear of the unknown is a big issue about change, and I like to say that none of us have a crystal ball that works very well in the sense of that we know what tomorrow's going to bring or months, years, or decades. And so helping all of us try to make sense is an interesting exercise for all of us, particularly as we think about lifelong learning and navigating society where there's this rapid change.


I do not remember when I first heard about the Holocaust. As an Ashkenazi Jew who was born in Ukraine, the Holocaust, its horrors and pain was always a part of our lives. I had the feeling that I was born into this. The narrative that 6 million Jews were murdered just because they were Jewish. I have heard of my mother's brothers who were killed in Poland. The entire family of my grandmother, who was executed along with over 32,000 other Jews in Babiyar in 1941. That was the story of my relatives, my roots, my family. There are no rights to kill the whole family. The story goes on in the Middle East. The story goes on in the communities of Lita. In the first year, there were 225,000, but there were 27,000. In your memory, there were more than 100 people who were killed, 94% of the Jews were killed in the Holocaust. There are people who are killed by the Holocaust. But there are people who say that it is a war in Ukraine. It is absolutely not a war in Ukraine. If you listen to the story, you will see that there is no connection. That is the most correct thing to do. Because in the end it happened to the Jewish people, and we are aware of it. When we say we are going to the world, it is not going to the Jewish people, it is not going to anyone else. And more than that, I will tell you, it is also our way to love each other. In the Antisemites and in Christianity. And I think that our message as an Arab community, that we come here and say, we are here to learn. We are here to know and to know. And on the way, it is also our way to learn, to get to know each other, and to know each other better. And so we are going to get to know each other better, and to know each other better, and to know each other better. When I hear about Joseph's visits to Auschwitz, I rest an eyebrow. Why do they need it? They are not Jews. Their family had nothing to do with it. Why do people really need to learn about the Holocaust in our days? After all, many years have passed, and almost everyone who witnessed it is no longer alive. In addition, how Holocaust stories and this journey to the concentration camp can bring us Arabs and Jews together. There are a lot of stories, a lot of stories about the Holocaust. What they did during the time when they were building the country here, they did it in the 90s. In the 90s? Yes, in the 90s. They had this kind of technology. Yes, they didn't know what to do. But they didn't know what to do. Yes, they didn't know what to do. Yes, they didn't know what to do. I want to ask you how we look at the future. We look at the future as a group. Because we are the people of our lives. We need to understand what we are doing to them. We are the people of our lives. Good morning to everyone. Good morning. I am very proud of everyone. It's 4 a.m. This is a great honor. Because the stories we have shown, the stories of history, we have never done anything like this. Especially in a number of ways. But we are doing stories today. Dear passengers, once again welcome LL Flight 561 from Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, to Warsaw, Poland. This coming Thursday, Israel will mark Yom Azikaron, a memorial day in remembrance of the Holocaust and all of those whose voices have been silenced forever. I have three children. I have two grandchildren and two grandchildren and I am still a member of the United States. This is my dream. I was born on September 29, 1927 in Kusice, Hungary, today Slovakia. My father, Laius, was alive and he did not work in the Hungarian government. There were two alive, Magda and Clara, who had a very good music. My name is Ersel, and I was born in Alfaor, in the Giza Valley. I was chosen to be a doctor for Dr. Josef Mangel. I have been used as a model in Jumbaz and Raqqas to stay on the edge of life in Auschwitz. I am not like the Arabs. I live in the country. The Jewish people are exposed to injustice. I killed 6 million Jews in Hitler and Nazism. I do not know what they were doing here. I did not know. Until I went to Yad Vashem. I got to know him. I do not know if I can really get to know him more and more in Auschwitz. Josef, what is the Arabic word? The word is the Nasi language. Yes. Did you not buy anything? The Nasi language. The Holocaust. For the first time, I traveled here to Auschwitz. I liked it. I wanted to travel from here to the right place. We were like this. We were like this. We were not like the right people. We were like this. We were like this. We were like this. We were like this. We were like this. When I was little, there was a day that I did not know much about the character and the character. People used to tell me simple things but I did not understand. They used to tell me more than necessary things. The first time I heard about the character and the character was when I was in 11th grade. We were the first to learn the things about Bagrout. Why do we, the Arab community, in the Israeli society, have to know about it? Because we live with people who do not know such things or people who are new here or people who do not know such things. So we have to know who we live with, what is their history, where they came from and what happened with them so that we can live together. And here we are 80 years later, the delegation of Arabs and Jews arrived in beautiful Krakow to learn about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, what can we learn about the Holocaust after so many years? And surely the attitude towards Jews here is different today. Am I wrong? I do not know what is going on in this building. I do not want to try to understand from here.  But I will let someone come here and look at the building and see how it was done and see how it was done. Of course, there are no other options to think about. It is well-known that it is a Jewish issue. We are here because of the Israeli war. And each and every one of you and each and every one of you is the sound of the Israeli war. And we are as Arabs. We open our universe as Arabs. It is not important whether it is Christian or Muslim. What is the difference between us? We are here because of the sound of the Israeli war. There is no doubt that when someone hears about the genocide and the massacre they do not like it to come back again. Because each and every one of you is very close to the Ukrainian people they feel that they are becoming like a massacre they are becoming like after the death of the people We are not going to be able to do it. We are not going to be able to do it. We are not going to be able to do it. The Nazis attacked Poland in September 1939 and for 18 days they took all of Poland. No one knew what was happening to them in one of the Jews and what was happening to them. They did not know. 9 km away from here was a small Jewish village called Svinzitsa. He was a family member. He was a soldier. He was a man who was 10 years old. And two small children.  His wife, because she was a soldier in the first World War she told my father that she was a soldier so she took everything to work. But we were all fine. And so they did almost all the things all the families. When the Nazis entered the village they did not find anything. Only the elderly and people and the children were taken care of. They told everyone to take care of their homes and put them in life. Say it in the song. Nuno Achika. Nuno Tudorba. How does someone go from someone who supports and believes and is enjoying his comfortable wealthy life with Nazis to someone who ends up saving 1200 Jews but I believe it started from a personal connection he had. He started to see what was happening to the Jewish community and at first he started to see that it impacted him negatively financially. There were 64,000 Jews in Krakow specifically all of them were expelled to a ghetto first in Poland and only 10% of them survived the war. The majority of the Jews from Krakow, not all Poland but from Krakow who survived were because of Oskar Schindler. And there is a day for which we went through this journey. The day we arrived at Auschwitz. I see a line of people who spent their money to get in. To enter a place that 80 years ago people were willing to give everything just to stay out of. The atmosphere of the place is indescribable. The order, the systemacity the efficiency and the perfect symmetry. Every wall, every stone every part of the complex puts you in a dark mood for one very simple reason. The product of this factory was death. It's not easy for one to accept the idea that it's nothing, just because a specific religion or a specific person just because the Jews went to the Nazi camp near the 6 million Jews. Someone who said that there are many people without a line and here there are 1000 people without people. It's a mess for me. There are a lot of other things that every day are very difficult. We really need to understand that the whole world is in a hurry. I'll tell you something one of us doesn't know. Really. There are a lot of things that don't come to mind. And there are people who are afraid to leave. There are people here and all of them and there are people who are afraid to leave. The Jews are afraid to leave. They don't know what to say. They don't know what to say. You must film at this. The documentary is moving. We're with them. This is a situation for filming. Just turn it down. Good. It wasn't easy at all. It was hard. It was sad and emotional. I saw all these people who have nothing to do with this place. Nothing to do with these atrocities. Nothing to do with the pain of our people. But each of them cried. Felt my pain. And sympathized with the victims. And each said never again. How did you feel? No, no. I felt... Of course. It was my first time here. And it was very difficult. What did you feel? I felt myself there. I felt myself standing there. I felt that there were people who I knew. I felt that my family was there. And I was able to do it at the same moment. And I didn't feel emotional. Apart from feeling everything. I didn't know how people were able to live here for a year or two. They were able to live here for a year or two. It's something that's hard to handle. It's something that I don't understand. Again, I learned about it. I know what it's like. I experienced it before. But when I got here, I realized how people were able to be here. And to be here. And to stay here. Even for a year or two. It was something that I didn't feel. It was something that I didn't feel. It was something that I didn't feel. A few hours ago, we said we paid the money to get here. We paid the money to get here to visit the museum in Auschwitz. You remember how many people were able to pay money 80 years ago to get here. And this is the sentence that expresses everything It was the most exciting the most genuine and the most incomprehensible ceremony because only in this place can any person regardless of race gender and religion understand the magnitude of the disaster that was here. I don't want to be a part of all of this what we are experiencing not one and not two and not three. And a year later it will be more and more and more. Wow. All of us together all the Christians Muslims and Muslims That's the way it is. Muslims are not necessarily Think about it, we are here not necessarily not necessarily We are here Not here We are here We are here Muslim friends that the Jews would not have done Muslims and Muslims and Muslims They are not here We are here We are here I don't want to be a part of all of this We are here to live in the state But you don't know how to talk about it. Your plan? No. My plan? I believe so. There are many Israelis who are very close to the country. Who are close to you? I want to talk to them. What? Who are close to you? I want to talk to them. But let me tell you just one thing. No, I didn't hear you. Let me tell you just one thing. Who are you? I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. I am a citizen. That is what I am. I am more than a citizen of Yemen. And I am here with a lot of Israelis who come here to fight. They have the memories of my family. They are friends too. And I say, I say, the people of Yemen are like Jews. They are like Israelis. Who are close to you? Who are close to you? I am not talking about who are close. No, no, no. I am a citizen.  Really? You didn't know. You didn't know. You didn't know. I'm really so touched by what you're saying, because you went to the trouble to look, to find, and I can see that you want peace. You don't want war. And I'm wondering myself, how is there ever going to be peace in Israel? This. Us. What we're doing. Us. This is the real Israeli society. This is the truth. This is who we are. Druze, Christians, Muslims, Jews. All of us here together and we are growing up. Now I have to share with you one more thing. We came here as 35 people. Since three days ago, we came to Krakow and we've been in the Jewish Quarter. We've been in the Shinder factory. We came yesterday here for a tour. As I told you, we had the ceremony in Arabic. Today we're in the March of the Living. Since three days ago, we've been getting messages from Arab Israelis, Arab around the world. How can we join you? We want to be here. We want this. Next year, I am telling you, not only are we going to double the number, not only are we going to triple it, it's going to be even bigger than that. And this is that's why how it will happen. It's us. It's this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. It's us. Well, it really warms my heart to hear that. And I'm really in awe because outside Israel, we all think that Israeli and the Arabs and the Jews, they're at one another's throat and they hate each other. I love you. So I often think, how is there going to be peace? Who is going to do it? And I think that you really give me hope that one day there will be peace. It does my heart good to hear this. And I can just only hope that in future you'll all live in peace. The world is not perfect. We have many disagreements because we see this world in different ways. But what I learned during the journey is that we can try to empathize with the pain of others. Yes, everyone expresses empathy in different ways, whether it's by traveling to Auschwitz or by empathizing with Ukrainian people or simply being tolerant of people who are different from you.


Russia's strategist and troll army wages in for war against US support for Ukraine. The Washington Post reviewed a trove of internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service and found proof that a Russian propaganda operation is aimed at weakening American support for Ukraine and discrediting Ukraine in the public eye. The operation poses a grave threat as US support is now crucial for Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russian aggression. However, Congress has stalled the aid package with over $60 billion for Ukraine for over six months. Without this aid, Ukraine has no choice but to retreat as per Ukrainian President Zelensky. The Russian propaganda campaign seeks to fuel anti-Ukrainian sentiment by encouraging American isolationism, heightening concerns over US border security and exacerbating economic and racial tensions. The campaign, which intensified in January 2023, involves the creation of thousands of fake news articles, social media posts and comments by Kremlin-linked strategists and troll farms, according to the Washington Post. The metadata from many of the leaked documents points to their creation by a team working under Ilya Gambashidze, the head of a Moscow-based PR firm called the Social Design Agency. Last month, the US sanctioned Gambashidze for his role in a sustained and malicious foreign influence campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin. This campaign, which Western officials have dubbed doppelganger, involved setting up websites masquerading as legitimate European media outlets. More than 100 leaked documents spanning from May 2022 to August 2023 provide insight into the scale and tactics of Moscow's efforts to weaken support for Ukraine, not only in the US but also in France and Germany. One tactic involved creating a fictitious American character who opposes military aid for Ukraine. The character argues that the government should instead allocate the funds to secure America's borders and claims that he sees that Biden's policies are leading the US towards collapse, the Washington Post reports. The Kremlin's strategists recommended numerous ideas for articles and social media posts, including one comparing homelessness levels in the US and Russia, suggesting that the United States increasingly resembled a third world country. Kremlin-linked strategists send out written proposals for social media posts, comments and YouTube videos that would inflame racial and social tensions in the US and highlight themes of widespread poverty, high inflation, economic stagnation and the potential loss of jobs for white Americans while suggesting that colored and degenerate people and invalids receive special treatment. NATO believes Ukraine destroyed most Russian tanks with drones over the last several months. Over the past few months, more than two-thirds of Russian tanks were destroyed by Ukrainian soldiers with the help of the FPV drone, which shows that Kyiv relies on this particular weapon more and more amidst the acute artillery ammunition deficit. Foreign policy reported this with reference to an official representative of NATO. The story says the FPV drones used by the armed forces of Ukraine have low efficiency. They are equipped with cheap cameras which makes it harder to aim at night or in cloudy weather and often carry improvised explosive devices which sometimes explode right in the air or do not detonate at all. It is noted that in the third year of Russia's full-scale invasion, FPV drones have become nearly ubiquitous on the Ukrainian battlefield. Many of them can carry 10 pounds of explosives or more and after nearly 780 days of non-stop war, drone pilots on both sides have gotten plenty of practice. But for every success, there are nearly as many blooper real worthy incidents. These aren't the 20 million dollar apiece predator drones that the United States uses to hunt terrorist targets in the Middle East. These are inexpensive off-the-shelf drones that go for $400. The analysts surveyed by foreign policy believes that the FPV drone attacks on the Russian tanks have controversial results. Rob Lee, senior fellow of the Eurasian program of the Institute of Foreign Policy Research indicates that a general accuracy of FPV drones in less than 50% and in some cases as many as 10 or more drones are needed to destroy a tank. At the same time, Lee states, Russia is running out of armored vehicles and tanks so while preserving current dynamics in the combat zone, Moscow may lose its quantitative superiority and make conducting its own offensive operations in the future more difficult. The issue is that Russia's getting a lot of manpower, Lee added. At the beginning of the year, the UK Defence Intelligence analysed the influence of FPV drones over the situation on the left bank of Kursen Oblast and explained why it is difficult for the Russian occupiers to counteract them.


You're welcome back. We are being joined by Mr. Esse Anya, a public affairs analyst, and we'll be looking at the evasion of the presidential debates by some presidential candidates. And we also will look a little bit about the newly printed money, new narrow notes that have been introduced into the society. Mr. Anya, welcome to the run-up. I don't think Mr. Anya has joined us yet. Mr. Anya is nowhere to be found for now. Okay, until he joins us, this debate will continue and we'll keep talking about it all the time. Bio, you're there and the discussion is on people who want employment evading an interview as it is. I don't know how you personally feel about that, Bio. For me, to be honest, it worries me. It worries me because since the return to the Democratic rule in 1999, I don't think we've had a scenario like this, you know, where, if you like what you described as the front-runners, avoid the scrutiny because that's what it suggests. And even though legally they are not obliged to be part of this, but it's something which has become a tradition and not only in Nigeria, but in non-democratic environments. So, like we said the other day, if you come into a presidential debate, then you get asked questions. If you are in a campaign run, nobody asks you any questions. So campaign run is a choreographed while presidential debates are not. And this is for me where I think those who manage presidential candidates have to impress it on them the importance of appearing before or at presidential debates. Otherwise, there might be few suggestions that there's something to hide. The question is, is it really the presidential candidates that are running away from their mind as the people who are in charge that are making sure that they don't attend because maybe there are some things that they are hiding? These same people that should impress upon them to come might even be the ones that are preventing them from coming. Is it not possible? No, it's possible. And if that is the scenario or the situation then it's unfortunate because part of your job as a manager of public information on behalf of a candidate or your principal is to prepare your principal for such tasks. There is no candidate that gives 100% performance in a presidential debate. There is no candidate. And I think this is why you have a series of presidential debates so that you can always use the very next one to improve on your conduct in the previous one. And we see this in the U.S. because the U.S. exemplifies this whole tradition of presidential debates or governorship debates. If you don't do too well now, the very next one, you are polished up, you're better prepared and you go there to improve. But not appearing at all then suggests that those minders are either not doing their job properly or don't even know how to do their jobs. And therefore would want to prevent their candidates from appearing. And then I think it speaks of the personality of the people that we are dealing with. How do you ignore the call of the people that you hope to lead? The call of the people that you intend to serve because that is how I choose to see it. I mean, you're coming into an office, generally, I think it's disrespectful, honestly, to both the people, the organizers, the people who are at home hoping to watch, people who are sending in questions. It is very disrespectful and it shouldn't be encouraged. In fact, I put up a video on one of my social media handles and people kept answering the question because I asked, do you think that it should be made mandatory for people seeking political offices at whatever level for it to be made mandatory for them to attend these debates? And everybody was getting yeses from different angles and different levels.  We don't know what you have in mind. You might as well, just like Bayo said, come to your rally grounds and say whatever it is you think we want to hear and move on. But when we get to the chance to be able to ask these questions the way it's burning in our minds, it makes a difference. And there is something about close contact when you're standing there and we are closed and we are firing you these questions. Actually, there are so many things we are looking at apart from whatever answers that you give. You go for an interview and they ask you, can you work under pressure? This is our own pressure. We want to give you and ask you the questions. If you cannot stand before us and answer the questions, how then can we hold you accountable if you do wrong in office?  It means that the time that you get there, you are the Lord and they be all. And we cannot ask you any questions. You can do whatever you like. Because if you can do whatever you like now, then when you get there, you will turn to a tiger or something. Our guest is here finally. You see, it's not only that during this presidential debate, we get to ask questions. It's also a good forum for interaction between the citizens and the candidates. And I give an example of this. I mean, sorry, the candidates can also learn. There are a lot of things that they get to know. For example, I think the last presidential debate, there was the president of the Center for Citizens with Disabilities, if I remember correctly, CCD, David Daniela. David was in that as part of the audience. And he asked President Gohari a question about passing the bill to allow persons with disability to vote in elections. And that the National Assembly had finished the process and they understood that the bill was supposed to have been sent to the president. And I think the president said that he wasn't really aware that the bill had come to him. But guess what? Two weeks later, the president signed that bill into law. That happened during that presidential debate. I remember very, very well because I was monitoring that bill and that issue as well. So this presidential debates are a very good opportunity for the candidates themselves to learn, to hear, and to know maybe there's something they ought to have done or were expecting them to do, that they may not even be aware of. But when you go to a rally, a rally is just a jamboree. I'm sorry to use that word. People that are dancing, it's a carnival and everything. And it's many parties, supporters who are there, and they are not asking of course anybody else. Okay, Mr. Anya, I think Mr. Anya has joined us. Mr. Anya, are you there? Good morning. Yeah. Sorry that we couldn't connect the first time. Yeah. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. But you people have been discussing that there was no question directed to me. Yes, yes. We couldn't hear you at first. So we were waiting for your audio to be better. Now that you're here, you must have heard us talking. But let's get your perspective. Some presidential aspirants are running away from... Okay, well, they are not attending debates. Let me not say they're running away. Give them the benefit of the doubt. So what do you think about that? And what do you think is the place of debates, presidential debates in an election like that of Nigeria? If you want to sell yourself as a candidate in any first set of elective position, either as a governor, presidential, local government, the best place to sell yourself free of charge is through debates. Because you are not going to pay for airtime. You are going to be invited to the station by the station that is organizing the debate. So if I were to be one of the candidates, I would jump at it because it would give me an awful opportunity for me to sell my manifesto to the electorate that would then vote for me. We'll just have to wait until when he comes. But in the meantime, yeah. I hope he reconnects very soon. I have a... That's why it's a very salty debate. But somebody is actually prepared and drawn up a good manifesto that he wants to sell to the electorate. He should jump at it so that we have an opportunity to sell the electorate or whatever he has in stock for them. So I think Nigeria should look critically at this kind of things. Anyone that is a wedding debate should know that that person has nothing to offer. Because if he has nothing to offer, he should be able to come out to tell the electorate what he has in stock for them. So I'm using this medium to tell Nigeria that any country, whether as a government, senator, presidential candidate that has a wedding free debate, they should not vote for such a person. Because that means it's a signal to the public that he does not have something to offer Nigeria. That was what happened in 2015 when President Buahari was a wedding debate. He didn't appear in some of the debates. I don't think he will appear. Today we have seen how the country is. Today the country is at the verge of disintegration, insecurity everywhere, hunger, pains. The dollar is very high now. It's now changing for $850 to a dollar and all that. So this is an opportunity for them to sell themselves. And anyone who refuses to attend such a debate, Nigeria should not vote for such a person. He's not capable. He's inept. He has nothing to offer. That is why he's trying away from debating. Because debating is the apple opportunity for any candidate seeking the vote of the electorate to sell themselves, to sell their manifesto. Okay. No debate, no vote. That's a summary of what Mr. Anya has to say. Yeah, that should be the news as long as no debate, no vote. Yeah, actually there's a hashtag that has been started on Twitter and all that. No debate, no vote and all that. I hope that... He said go do it. Okay, well just quickly because Atam is running out Mr. Anya, if you have a comment on the newly unveiled Naira notes, I'm looking for the word unveiled Naira notes. The central bank just changed the Nigerian currency or just redesigned the Nigerian currency, gave it new color and all that. What's your take on that? Very briefly because Atam is up. Okay. I don't think Mr. Anya can hear us. Yeah, I would really have wanted to get his perspective on the new Naira notes. Well, Bayo, you're there and we've really not had this conversation before. How do you feel or how do you react to the newly unveiled Naira notes? Well, I think that, personally speaking, of course, one of my personal views, I think we've been abusing the Naira. I think there are certain aspects of our culture. We're not even a culture. We can't attribute it to culture. This is an acquired culture where people spend money, people throw money on the ground and start stepping on it. We have people use money to stone people. You know, I see all kinds of funny and strange things that we do with the Naira and I wonder if foreigners were to observe us doing these things, whether they would actually, what they would think of us, you know. And this cuts across. They educated, they're not so enlightened. We all do it. And for me, it should stop. Now, that's on the cultural, philosophical dimension as to what we do with the Naira. As to the reasons advanced by the central bank for redesigning the notes to say that there's a sizable chunk of money outside of the banking system and they want to capture substantial, if not all of that, back. And I think in the first two weeks, it was reported that 52 billion Naira fundings were back into the banking system. So I would say that it's well thought out if from open sources the information we are getting acts of, it means it was well thought out but I think some people have expressed worries that the timing may not have been sufficient because we have this festive season coming and we also have elections following almost immediately afterwards. But if within two weeks, I think now it's been like four weeks since it was announced if within the first two weeks 62 billion Naira fundings were back into the banking system I think then they are beginning to actually achieve the reasons for which they know what we designed. I would just say that what is important now is to make sure that the transition is smooth. People are able to exchange the old notes for the new notes. There are no bottlenecks, there are no unnecessary queues and that doesn't constitute another big problem especially because of the festive season and then of course after the festive season people have to face queues for the new year. These are lots of questions that would have loved to answer as we continue this banter on the newly unveiled Naira notes but we want to take a quick break let's keep it at the back of our minds because we're going to have a bit of that conversation when we return how does the CBN intend to make sure that some people are not left out these are questions we've been asking over time but we're going to keep asking until we get the right answers that we need we're going on the break now the news will be up at 12 noon when we return the run-up will continue don't go anywhere stay with us


It's going on everybody got Kyle and Shawn here relating sports cards up in two boxes This one is panini prime racing and it's for Nicholas R. Good luck. So let's see we got let's see a really nice jumbo logo patch Those have been a lot of fun the sponsor patches see a nice auto for you, sir One second. Let me complete the order. All right, let's do it Prime racing these are these are gonna be fun. Let's see. We got my man Some jumbos are deegan. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The jumbos are awesome, man The jumbos are awesome. That's some really cool ones the other day and redemption on the back. Oh, I remember who's been redemption Don't remember say based on the front of 49 gonna be Cole Custer Cole Custer on the base to 49 got a race use jersey to 99 that one's gonna be Chase briscoe. It's actually a sheet metal. I thought it was a piece of Jersey He's a sheet metal there on the gray. That is Chase brisco And 99 he's a sheet metal We have a John Hunter Nemechek 19 out of 25 that one's gonna be a race to use fire suit. Well, that's sick 101 got a 101 That's a guy. I know it's a good start 101 on the sponsor logo patch is gonna be a Denny Hamlin with the X for FedEx Nice one there. Mr. Nick will get a mag on that that is clean the driver hat relic 101 That is the X for FedEx right there Custer's last. That's right. I figured he was related to general This one there will get a mag on that the 101 Denny Hamlin with the the hat relic driver worn hat. That's very sick The FedEx logo and we have a Clint Boyer. That's gonna be the on-card 75th anniversary signatures Clint Boyer. Oh did anyone last night really? Let's go What's up, Sam? I see Sam comes around. I told you his dad's a huge Denny guy. His dad loves Denny, man It's got the FedEx FedEx. He loves Denny. What's up, Sam? How we doing today? Savarino. I asked Sam if he wanted to go to poker and he says go into the go to the Pro Bowl He's scared. He's going to the Pro Bowl. He's scared. He's scared. Sean's gonna take his money. That's a problem I get it. We have a this one's gonna be souvenir signatures of Chase Boucher He's a sheet metal there. That's a pretty sick piece of sheet metal to three color there souvenir signatures Walking and watching there we go Sheet metal Jersey Otto and then we have a door number signatures. That one's gonna be of Ryan Blaney Door number signatures. I don't think I've seen that set yet Nice one there Ryan Blaney on the door number signatures. What number is Blaney? I don't even remember Sam and Sam and Jake were going last night. Dude. They were going off They were blaming everybody's numbers and cars. All right box two. Good luck Nicholas Box two some nice stuff than that first one man. I want a one sick Really Yeah, I would probably was it then I Remember I went to Daytona one time and they had like those like pretty good simulators like a little bit better than like a regular Right, and like I was playing the crap out of that To 25 we got a champions Brad keselowski Brad keselowski there on the champions 13 out of 25 base There's a dual race use in 99 Brad keselowski both fire suit relics there back to back keselowski's To 99 I never really had the NASCAR games. I don't think There's a five-way relic and another one-to-one that is a five-way prime coverage Brad keselowski That's pretty sick That is another one-to-one for you here Nick back to back boxes back to back boxes It's gonna be a prime jumbo one-to-one sponsor tag of Daniel Suarez That is a Laundry tag as well. I guess Alpine Alpine laundry tag Prime jumbo glove laundry tag Very nice one there another one-to-one get another mag on that That is sick Is a race used a glove glove laundry tag The Blaney door signatures at 12 very nice So that's his number guy figured it was out of the number since it was they said the door signature That's kind of why I asked kind of figured it was very nice there another sick one-to-one the jumbos and the jumbos are awesome Should I really like those? We have a 75th anniversary number to 75. That's gonna be Alex bowman on card auto Alex bowman 75th anniversary to 75 And we have a legendary signatures. This one's gonna be Kyle Petty 10 out of 25 Kyle Petty The Hot Wheels logo Kyle Petty to 25 and on the back we have a die cut auto to 49 this one's gonna be Carl Edwards That is to 49 on the 454 or hundred 445 starts as a good bit nice clean on card out of there of Carl Was the back flip out of the car remember that all righty there mr. Nicholas that'll do it for your two prime racing not bad my man two one-to-one patches and some nice nice autos there Get that right. I'll see my man


FEMS is committed to advancing microbiology for the benefit of humankind. We had a history of eight congresses organized on an extremely high scientific level. These congresses are held in different European locations and host some of the biggest names in microbiology worldwide. COVID-19 epidemic affects FEMS events that were planned, scheduled and almost completely organized to be held in 2020. FEMS summer school for postdocs we started with this in 2019. Then FEMS education summer school starting in 2019. A new event of FEMS that was scheduled to start in July this year is FEMS conference on microbiology. FEMS from the beginning of official announcement of global pandemic set up a special emergency task group to follow the situation and take proper measures to overcome potential risks and problems in a best possible way. FEMS conference on microbiology scheduled in July 2020 in Belgrade Serbia was postponed for 2022. We decided to organize online conference in second half of October 2020 with the same program we considered to add a session on COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first FEMS conference of this type. We are all very enthusiastic, excited and happy to be part of such a promising event. FEMS summer school for postdocs scheduled for end of August until 7th of September 2020 at Medals. Clear Croatia because of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Summer school 2020 was also postponed for 2021. We kept the same program and the speakers and mentors who also confirmed they will participate in 2021. FEMS is organizing 9th congress in July 2021 in Hamburg, Germany. I strongly believe that pandemic will be behind all of us by then and I hope we may get together for this exceptional event in old traditional way. However, FEMS will follow situation and take the best possible actions according to the situation. Most probably this situation is crossroad and evolution of lifestyles and understanding of life. Microbiologists are in the first line of defense of the humankind working closely with microorganisms on a daily basis. Interfering their natural appearance, manipulating their characteristics primarily for various benefits of humankind. There are also possibilities for mistakes. Current epidemic, pandemic is making humankind more prepared and stronger to face future challenges of any kind. My message to all colleagues, microbiologists and others who work with microorganisms will be following fight for real science. Fight for truth in the science and fight against fake scientific information, intentional or unintentional. Share knowledge, information and experience of real science and real results and also keep the symbiosis, meaning harmony and friendship with microorganisms, with microbiologists and with all people around the world. FEMS will always support you on the best possible way. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.