I just got done recording what I thought was gonna be a best-to-worst list ranking the Star Wars films, all the live-action ones. It didn't turn out to be the case, as I was 30 minutes into recording and was still on the last Jedi. So I've decided to reshoot the whole thing, because I never made it past the last Jedi, and instead use this footage as a separate video altogether. Now I know this is nothing new, especially on YouTube, someone to complain about this film. It might not be for the exact reasons. You know, I'm certainly not crying about Mary Sue's or anything of that nature. I just don't like it from a normal standpoint.  Let's begin. Hey, before I dive in, if you hate the last Jedi as much as I do, make sure to force push that subscribe button. If you love the film, make sure to push it as well. Just do it a little lighter. It's gonna touch it lightly as a protest touch. All right, let's continue. What is there to really say about the last Jedi that hasn't been set online about a million times already? Not much. I hate it. How's that for a quick overview? It looks gorgeous. This may be, arguably, the best-looking Star Wars movie, full stop ever. I truly love the design. I love the atmosphere. It's got a darker vibe to it. It's got a somber feel. Ryan Johnson knows how to film a movie. I'll give him props there for sure. The score reflects that really well too. I love the music in this film. The soundtrack's phenomenal. The clothing, the ships, the designs, the porgs. I love me a good porg at the end of the day. I know they're just corporate, money-grubbing little shits created to sell merch. But I'll buy a porg. In fact, my son owns a porg. He has a little stuffed one in his bed. Looks at him every night. Haunts him.  Have you seen the original trilogy? Why we lie to ourselves? There is plenty to criticize in the last Jedi.  Or we don't need to harp on things that are clearly apparent in other Star Wars movies. More so even. That fight in a new hope? Were they just playing patty cake with the lightsabers and doing little twirls? Obi-Wan's like, Ha! Ho! Uh! Ho! Don't you wish your Jedi was hot like me? Don't you wish your Sith was a Jedi like me? Don't you? Plus we got Daisy Ridley rocking that gray ensemble. Just gorgeous. Love it. Love everything about it. We have to take a couple steps back and talk about The Force Awakens. A film that I defended. A film that I slit my wrists to, opened them up and said, I'm here, man. I'm with you, J.J. Abrams, to the very end. I was online saying, What are you talking about, Mary Sue?   Oh, she's perfect with The Force. She already knows Jedi tricks with no training.  Who cares? There's something going on behind the scenes. This is the first film of a new trilogy. Let it have time to breathe. Let it have time to grow. This is Disney. They have a plan. These are the guys that brought us the MCU. That clearly had goals in mind. It was set up, step by step along the way. They're not just going to wing this thing. I have a plan. I put on several videos. Apologist. Saying, Just wait.  You don't know anything about the next film. You don't know anything about what the future holds. Rey is most likely the daughter of Luke. She could have been Jedi Force Wiped, for all we know. She was left on a planet to fend for herself. We don't know the reasons why. Maybe the Sith is hunting down her father and mother, who we've never met yet. I can't wait to meet Luke's wife. I'm sure she's just a treasure. We don't meet her. We don't even meet Luke as far as I'm concerned. There's so much potential here. So let's talk about A Force Awakens. It built up a very similar premise to A New Hope. You could argue it was a carbon copy, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But it's a playbook that worked, you know, like a million years ago. Let's bring it back for a new audience. Let's bring those familiars in. That maybe didn't like the prequel so much, like myself. Let's win them over here. Let's say, guess what? We're back to the basics. You know this story. We're doing it again for a new gen. We're going to bring back the old Reliables, Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, R2-D2, C3PO, and then we're not going to use them at all. We're going to treat them like secondhand characters. We're going to treat them at this point like they're an old, retired person that needs to be put in a home and ignored for the later part of their years, because they're useless to us now. We have to think about the future.  Here's the ball. I set the hoop to three feet. So you just walk up, drop the ball right down in there, or dunk it if you want, and do a victory lap around the court. Wave to the audiences. Go by. Blow some kisses to the ladies. They're going to love you after this. We have some intrigue. The force is calling out to this new young Jedi girl. Specifically, Luke Slidesaber. That's some weird little orange alien chick has and says it's a story for another time. A story we're never going to hear! Luke has gone into hiding. There's a secret map that's so important and precious to stay out of the hands of the new Empire. Rebuilt. Rebranded. The First Order. Or the New Order. I don't know anymore. I don't care anymore. There's a new, mysterious, Palpatine-type figure behind the scenes, pulling the strings. Was he Palpatine's master this whole time? Is it Palpatine reincarnate? The evil emperor? In a new shell of sorts? Are we going to get some cool flashback to return to the Jedi where we find out a distressed beacon is sent out to Snoke and maybe even a couple more dark Sith lords?  I believe. My knowledge is a little sketch on that. So what? Change it. We change stuff all the time. I don't care about that.  That's lame. Now forget all that though. Forget all the things that you think would have been cool. Uh, Ryan Johnson and other plans. Now, there is an argument that I've heard after this movie came out that just boggles my mind. And that is, you weren't happy with the film because it didn't go where you wanted it to or your headcanon was different. So therefore, you're wrong. When has it been said in stone that you can't have a better idea for a film? Or where is it said in stone that you you don't have to like the way a film was written? Are we now defending films like 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight? Because when I look at those movies, I think to myself, man, there was a thousand better ways I could have wrote this. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I would be disappointed if you didn't come to that conclusion at one point or another when watching a movie. Like critically thinking about a film's plot and going, you know what? That doesn't make sense. That doesn't add up. Why didn't they do this instead instead of mindlessly watching a film and digesting whatever they put on the screen? Art is subjective after all. You don't have to like the same painting someone else does. You shouldn't like the same painting someone else does just because you're told to or because the score on Rotten Tomatoes is high. What the last Jedi essentially boils down to is a slow moving space chase for a few days. It doesn't push the story forward at all. Outside of we find out that Luke is useless and doesn't have anything to do with the franchise really. Outside of he was a failure as a teacher and he kind of turned his back on the force. There's some interesting ideas there. Don't get me wrong. The whole like throw out the Jedi scripts or the Bibles or whatever.  Okay, cool. Let's go into that a little bit more. Oh no, we're not going to? Okay, fine.  Hey, but Luke did do something. He gave those rebels a chance to escape. He bought them all of I'd say 25 seconds extra to go run into the back of the cave where Rey was conveniently on the other side force pulling the rocks up so they could get out. I don't think they needed Luke at all. I'm pretty sure Rey moves those rocks. She runs inside and says, hey guys, we can get out this way.  I don't dislike the last Jedi though just because Luke was mishandled. Okay, fine. He was mishandled. I don't like the last Jedi for a myriad of reasons. One, the tone is all over. At some points, it's dark and cool and mysterious. And at others, you're like out of a shitty Harry Potter film. And I love Harry Potter. This is a shitty Harry Potter film that was never made until last Jedi. Where they're in this casino planet jumping on cars, running away on these awfully rendered horse things. You got broomstick boy doing the force, which I don't believe goes anywhere. That's how the film ends. Like the force is awakening in people, which was the title of the last one, but they're awakening now. And then I don't... That doesn't do anything. It doesn't go anywhere. Almost every single character is mishandled in this. Rey has no growth as a character because she was already seemingly perfect before. She had some parenting baggage to get over, but that really didn't seem to hinder her in any sort of respect.  Even though it's conflict we'd already previously seen in the prequel films, albeit I think Adam Driver's a much better actor. No disrespect to Hayden Christensen, but maybe it's just because Driver had better lines to work with and scene direction. Something Lucas isn't the most equipped to handle. We have Princess Leia though, Mary Poppins in through space, Superman-ing back to a ship, looked atrocious, made no sense. She has force resurrection abilities? How? I thought it was cool that she was a trained Jedi like off-screen, and they did that awesome flashback in the final installment, which I loved, but they don't do anything with it. She's like, I'm gonna use the force like two times in this film, and it's gonna be pretty useless.    For some reason, the upper management is keeping secrets from him. I don't know why. It makes no sense. They're trying to teach him a lesson when they have a squadron of like 50 people left. Yeah, now's the time to start teaching lessons about being a leader. You know what? Maybe don't keep one of your main lieutenants in the dark about what your plans are, especially when it makes no sense. Then we have good old Finn, the Stormtrooper who couldn't. What happened? He was also great in a Force Awakens.  The stuff that was previously set up thrown away. New stuff is introduced and goes nowhere in the next movie because you have two directors who supposedly were working together and chatting, making their own movies that don't add up to a cohesive trilogy. And then they have the gall to do these interviews pretending like it was all in the plans. And then they do separate interviews later saying, no, we never talked. And then later interviews saying, oh yeah, we were in constant communication.  The movie is also a chore to get through. It's incredibly long, just pacing-wise. It feels miserable to sit through even though it looks so pretty. And it has visually stunning sequences. Outside of the Mary Poppins stuff. I just don't care. I don't want to watch it. It's a miserable watch. Maybe a couple more porgues scenes and I'm invested again, but no, they're not in it that much either. Not enough. Not enough.  I can't even comprehend it. They're flying these little skiff planes or whatever.  And you have this massive army they're going against with state of- top of the line weaponry, just blasting these things. And out of nowhere, Rose Tico's side-swipes, Finn, sits down with the guy and is confessing her love to him. While the entire first order is looking at them like, brah, should we shoot them? But then they see who it is and they're like, nah, let's not even waste a laser on them. Do lasers run out? Apparently, fuel does in this film. That's new. But I don't know. I don't even think they'll waste a never-ending laser on them.  Alright, so at the end of the day, the rebels escaped the planet. At least we still have Snoke to deal with, you know? It's not just going to be some lame Rey versus Kylo thing.  Snoke's dead. He's not coming back. The big new bad is just Kylo Ren. The whiny, kind of unsure, spoiled little brat that will probably turn out to be good in the end anyways. Or at least, you know, make the right decision at the end. Just like, you know, Darth Vader did. Sweet. Alright, so that was my bitch-fest of the last Jedi. I didn't know it was going to go this direction, but I guess I should have. I should have known myself by now. Anyway, let me know your thoughts about the film. Has it become the next Empire Strikes Back for you?   Like, myself. Leave a comment if you haven't. Like the video if you want to. And make sure to subscribe, though. I put out a lot of new movie content every day at this point, so hopefully I'll see you around. May the Force be with you. Wow, what a ride. It certainly took a turn, didn't it? I'm not one with the Force, but if I could, join me on Patreon and give me a dollar or five dollars a month. Show your support or join right here on YouTube for the same. You get an exclusive access. An exclusive access. That's good English. You get exclusive access to a show called The Cringe I do once a month. It's satirical. It's just meant to make you laugh. I would love to support, though, most of all. It really keeps the lights on on the show. So, again, join me. Join. It's like a fly in here.


I have the honor of introducing our next speaker, Mary DeRosa. Mary is currently a distinguished visitor from practice at the Georgetown University Law Center. She came to Georgetown in 2011 after years of distinguished service in government, including two stents as legal advisor to the National Security Council. She served in this role during the latter part of the Clinton administration during the first two years of the Obama administration, at which time she also served as Deputy White House Counsel, Deputy Assistant to the President. She also served previously as Chief Counsel for National Security for the Senate Judiciary Committee. I had the privilege of working with Mary during the first months of the Obama administration on one of the most difficult issues the new administration was confronting, what to do with the Guantanamo detention facility. In my capacity as Ambassador-at-Lords for war crimes issues, I had lead responsibility during the last three years of the Bush administration and the early part of the Obama administration for the diplomatic negotiations necessary to transfer prisoners out of Guantanamo. Already during the transition between the administrations, Mary was very engaged on this issue. In my first discussions with her about it took place during that time. Once she became NSC legal advisor, I continued to work closely with her and I came away very impressed by her commitment to resolving a vexing national security challenge in a way that was incredibly thoughtful and ethical but which was also very pragmatic, showing that the two are not incompatible. A theme that is in keeping with our focus today, the centrality of rule of law in the fight against terrorism. Speaking from that perspective and from her experience at the Center of Policy Formulation and Decision Making, Mary is uniquely positioned to speak to us today on the challenges that lie ahead for the next president. So it's with great pleasure that I introduce Mary DeRussell. Thank you. Thank you so much, Clint. And thanks to all of our hosts, New America and Arizona State University and the McCain Institute for inviting me here. And I thought while you were chewing, I would talk a little about focus instead, some observations from the sort of being inside and practicing in this area and observing the real challenges for a president who wants to uphold the rule of law. Rather than talk about some of the substantive issues, I thought I'd talk about some of the practical and institutional challenges that any administration faces, but particularly a new one. So obviously we're in the last weeks of a presidential election and there are two very different scenarios about how that will come out. I'm going to only talk about the scenario in which we have a president who actually cares about the rule of law, in part because I'm not emotionally equipped to engage the other scenario but also because there's a lot less to say if you have a president that doesn't care or at least it's a very, very different conversation. But I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think we're going to elect a president who is very committed to advancing the rule of law domestically and internationally. And that commitment is the first step and the most in a very important step, but no matter how much she cares and no matter how committed, it's not an easy task. And so I'll talk a little bit about what some of the challenges are that a new president will face. So there's a new president. The president cares about exercising power with regard for legal constraints, following the law, considering ourselves to be bound by the law. She will believe or say she believes that we gain more in credibility and legitimacy by doing this, by considering ourselves constrained than we lose in flexibility. But what does that even mean in following the law? It's not always clear or it often isn't clear what the law is and what it requires. What if, as has so often been the case in the past 15 years, any threats from international terrorism, which is the subject of this conference today and other areas cyber comes to mind, just don't map all that well onto the existing law. What does this respect for rule of law require under those circumstances? And in that case, it requires of the lawyers and of the administration that they act honestly and in good faith to figure out what the law means in this new area. I have two early, excuse me, post 9-11 issues that I'm going to use as examples to give a sense of what I'm talking about or how these issues arise. We were attacked on 9-11, as everyone knows, by a non-state actor, Al-Qaeda. The international laws relating to force and conflict were written with state actors in mind. So if you look, do a literal reading of the UN Charter and related law, you could come away, and many, many commentators did and have, with the view that a non-state actor like Al-Qaeda cannot engage in an armed attack in a legal sense of that term. The implications of that are very, are quite significant because if you can't engage, again, in the legal sense of the term, if you can't engage in an armed attack, we the U.S. cannot respond in self-defense. And if you accept that view, then the entire legal framework related to self-defense and armed conflict is unavailable, would have been unavailable to the U.S. in response to Al-Qaeda's attacks. The U.S., as we all know, rejected this view. We viewed ourselves and we continue to view ourselves to be within the framework, the armed conflict framework and subject to international humanitarian law. So was this a cynical manipulation of international law? Did we fail to uphold the law by reinterpreting it to achieve the result we wanted? Obviously, I do not believe that we did. The technical or literal, in that case, interpretation of the provisions under the circumstances we faced would have made no sense. It would lead to a conclusion that is inconsistent with the purposes of those laws. That law should respond to experience and we took the position, the U.S. government took the position that the law could and did respond to this new threat. We were criticized and some continue to criticize that position, but that does not mean, of course, that we were wrong. But another example from the same period shows what I believe to be the flip side of that analysis, and that was the legal conclusion in early 2002 about the applicability of Geneva Conventions to our treatment of Al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees. The lawyers in that case that the Department of Justice lawyers concluded that, I mean this is simplifying the legal discussion in both of these cases, but too because the point I'm making is not the legal one, but they concluded that neither the third or fourth Geneva Conventions applied to the detainees and therefore they said that the U.S. was not bound by the conventions at all in its treatment of detainees. It was free therefore as a legal matter to ignore restrictions and processes in those conventions. Unlike the first example I used, I don't believe that that was a fair, credible analysis of the law in applying it to a new threat. When your legal analysis, very importantly, leads you to a conclusion that no law applies in a situation that's typically highly regulated by law. That should be a very big red flag and I agree with the comments that Hina Shamsi made just a few minutes ago that although you can use substitute and policy constraints are important but they are not an adequate substitute for law in these areas. So there I believe that interpretation was inconsistent with the spirit of the conventions and was in fact an attempt to escape restrictions. So I mentioned these examples again not to relitigate them. These issues have been resolved but there are many issues like that that have come up for the current president and that will come up for the next one in the counterterrorism area and others. And the new administration and the new president and the new lawyers have to be very aware of how they are going to think very hard about how do they approach these new and difficult questions when they come up. So I want to raise two specific institutional challenges that make this task harder, the task that I just described, the task of developing the legal analysis in this area, harder in the national security area than it might otherwise be. First, because of the nature of national security decisions, how they are made, the sensitivity of those decisions, there are as a practical matter considerably fewer formal and informal external checks on the lawyers who practice in this area, the lawyers in the government who practice in this area. So that's the first issue that I'm going to address is how you, the quality control, how do you maintain quality control in this very important legal area. When you have relatively fewer, less guidance and fewer external checks on the lawyers. Second, I want to talk about the failure of Congress to engage in the past several years on more powers issues and use of force issues and the strains that that places on separation of powers and related rule of law and the rule of law challenges that it raises. So the first topic, good quality legal advice is essential obviously to protecting the rule of law. That requires good lawyers and we have very, very good lawyers in this field. But good lawyers are critical but not enough and many of the things that provide sort of quality control, informal and formal quality control mechanisms in other legal fields don't operate the same way for lawyers in the national security world. U.S. courts are reluctant to become involved in national security legal matters relying on a number of threshold doctrines, political questions, doctrine standing, etc. To avoid for, you know, and these, the doctrines, I'm not saying that this is, that they are incorrect to do this but the result is that they avoid review in many, many sensitive national security matters. Legal analysis is less available to the public for comment and criticism. So that informal check that most lawyers have in most areas of law is less available. Members of Congress have less insight generally speaking into the legal advice in this area and when they do they are often constrained in what they can say about it publicly. And beyond that the sensitivity of national security decisions risks even internally limiting the number of people who can or do deliberate on these issues. And so all of that inevitably just as a matter of human nature there's nothing that inspires you or focuses you like knowing somebody is going to be looking over your shoulder and judging what you're doing. And there simply is less of that in the national security area. And that is on top of the fact that these are some of the, these are issues that relate to decisions, policy operational decisions with the highest of stakes often and so the pressures are tremendous. So what does a new administration do to address this not very concrete but very real issue with national security legal decision making? I would suggest that there are some processes and trends in the current administration that the next administration would do very well to continue. First and this is, this is a little in the weeds I recognize but it's a pet issue of mine and I actually, I think it's very important and that is the lawyers group. So what is the lawyers group? It's a group of lawyers cleverly and it is a group within the national security executive branch legal decision making. It's the senior lawyers from the State Department, the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, the Defense Department, both the General Counsel and the Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Counsel to the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA General Counsel and the NSC Legal Advisor, which is the role I played who coordinates this group. They meet regularly more than weekly in person or by civets video conference and they, so this is the group that deliberates on and develops in the current administration. The legal advice for the President on most of the serious high level issues, legal issues that the President and his senior advisors are considering. So this group, this entity existed before but it has been in this administration, so for almost eight years now, the key forum for deliberation and the lawyers work together the dynamics of the group. The lawyers work together to reach the right answers. It promotes quality both because it ensures that a diversity of opinion is represented in the legal decisions and also for a lot of just human reasons that people, you know, the dynamics and you know, you come in, it improves the quality of the discussion because everybody wants to make sure that their peers are, you know, that they are impressing their peers. I mean that's a simplistic way of putting it. But in any event, and it also provides importantly a buffer, the group operates to provide a buffer of sorts to increase independence of legal decision making. So it's not very well known and it is the kind of process that I think it could go away tomorrow if the new lawyers and new administration don't commit to it, but I hope they will. So that's my little pet issue, although I do think an important one. Another important step, and we've heard very important for a number of reasons, but specifically on this legal issue, is the push for transparency in particular about legal analysis. So one way to ensure that more people are, as I said, you know, the informal check of public comment and criticism about legal advice. One way to ensure that is to make sure more legal advice is public even in this area where every instinct is not to make things public. Not for self-protective reasons, for valid national security reasons, but it is the more that can be out in the public the healthier it is. So the Obama administration has done this in a number of ways, in particular about legal advice. It's declassified some legal opinions. There have been a series of senior officials and lawyers who have given speeches on legal positions, particularly use of force positions and international, different surveillance law, different international law issues, cyber issues. And I cannot emphasize enough what a pain it is to work through and develop these speeches, and everybody is incredibly busy. And so, and there appear sometimes when you're trying to persuade people that a speech needs to happen, it's very, very easy to see the downsides in the immediate sense and very hard to see the upsides. Often when you're developing legal advice on a day-to-day basis, you're answering the questions that are before you, but if somebody is going to give a speech, you have to think about the questions you haven't dealt with and think about how they fit in and think about the impact of developing the sort of broader legal structure is going to be. And that is hard and that is irritating, but it is incredibly healthy. So this administration has done, I think, and obviously I'm not its harshest critic, but I think it's done a terrific job at pushing on those things. And because it is so difficult, I think that is, again, it is a lesson, I believe, that this administration has learned over the course of the seven years that I would hope would be that the new administration would pick up on. I'll mention also the PPG and the transparency on targeting policy and other kind of policy, transparency initiatives, a real push by the intelligence community or by the DNI in the intelligence community post-Snowden. These are all very healthy and very healthy in particular for the lawyers who are developing legal advice in this area. As I said, it's not easy. It's a classic example of something that has indirect long-term benefits and very direct short-term downsides. You almost never come out with a speech or a legal position on something in here. Thank you. That's great. Now I get it. And instead you hear, well, what about this and what about this and what about this? And you didn't answer this. And I don't agree with this.  And that's super irritating. But it's really important. And it is very important medicine for the lawyers in this area. And it is because it's hard and because it is against the natural instinct of most national security policy makers and personnel, there's going to have to be a real decision and an effort to push in the new administration to continue that. So one, how I'm doing on time, one final challenge that I wanted to mention for the new president is obvious challenge, not something that only I have noticed. And its solution is extremely intractable. But that is the disinterest in the United States Congress currently or in recent years to play its constitutional role on war powers and use of force issues. Use of force overseas is the decision to use force overseas has significant consequences. Obviously, it's one of the most momentous, one of the most important decisions that a president and a government can make for the nation, for its citizens. And it is an area where participation of both of the political branches is most needed. But what we have seen in the past several years as the threats have grown more complicated, the solutions have become less clear, the approaches are more fraught. There is, for a variety of reasons, the United States Congress is becoming less and less likely to become involved, particularly in authorizing use of force. And that's not to say Congress isn't interested in these issues or that it ignores these issues. They certainly pay attention. But what they've been reluctant to do over really the course of this administration is to act as a body to authorize or to refuse to authorize, decline to authorize a president's decision. So generally, of course, it is the president who takes the heat for this and for acting without congressional authorization or in some way, you know, inconsistently in the view of many, some people with congressional authorization. And the criticism goes that either the president hasn't sought authorization or the president hasn't sought authorization correctly or convincingly has not exercised sufficient leadership to get Congress to act on these issues. And I'm not saying that those are unfair criticisms. I think that there is, you know, probably blame on both sides and lessons to learn from both sides. But the other side of it that doesn't, I think, get talked about as much is the president can't duck. The president can't. The president has to make policy decisions and operational decisions. And if you're in a situation which has come up on several occasions in this administration where everybody, in Congress, generally everybody's in the same place about a particular use of force or that you're acting in a certain way overseas. But Congress doesn't want to be asked to authorize or doesn't act to, you know, determine whether it will authorize.  And then if they don't authorize it and everybody still, you know, if they don't act, you know, that is a, that is a, and maybe it's the appropriate, maybe it's the appropriate decision. But it is not without some significant consequences if you have a policy where it's not like they're saying, no, we don't think you should do this. They're saying, we just don't, you know, just don't ask. Or you say, well, I would really like you to authorize this, you, the president. But I don't think you need to, I don't think I legally need your authorization. And then Congress says, well, then why would I do it if you don't need it, you know? So it is, I mean, and I don't mean to suggest by a long shot that everything has, you know, that this administration, I don't think this administration would suggest that everything they have done is exactly right. But it is a problem at least as much of the Congress is making. And so, and this is an area, I mean, if you talk about the current president, where really some of the, some of the most significant criticisms of legal positions that this administration has taken have been in this area. It has been about interpretation of the War Powers Resolution or interpretation of the 2001 AUMF. Interpretations that many believe are strained, some believe are not available, not credible. And so putting aside whether those criticisms are valid, I think it's significant that what the president has done is significant, not again in a sort of defense of the president, but in a, in a how you deal with these as significant as a sort of sign of how you can in difficult situation deal with these situations is, in the end on those issues the president has said, has interpreted a statute, has said, found the authority by interpreting a statute rather than by saying I have the power under the Constitution to take this action on my own. And so, so even, so he's preserved in that a role for Congress and has recognized the authority because if you're interpreting a statute you're saying Congress you could change this, you don't agree with me you could change this. So, so that is, you know, but that's the situation we're in, that's the kind of issues it raises. What does the new president do about this? I have absolutely no idea. It is, I mean, it's, it is important I think to recognize the problem and try early in a new administration, maybe a fresh start, maybe a new set of people involved can be used to change the dynamics. I wish that I were more optimistic about that. But the other thing I would say is dealing with this requires people in the executive branch to some, sometimes to in a way act against your own sort of personal institutional instincts. I know, and I mean I admit that when I was first in the, in the Obama administration and lawyer and sometimes issues would come up or suit, is there a question here should we try to get Congress to raise, you know, revisit the 2001 AUMF. My instinct was like, oh no, why don't we want to get them in our business?  Normally in a world in which Congress is, is, you know, engaging and defending its own constitutional territory, that's an okay, that's a perfectly okay instinct on the part of the executive branch because Congress is going to push back and it's going to, it's going to work itself out. But that is not an okay instinct in the executive branch in the current climate and, and what I think people need to recognize at the beginning of the new administration is you can't act on those natural instincts and you have to in fact push from the beginning to get Congress to engage on these issues because it's only going to hurt, it's only going to hurt the administration and it's only going to hurt the country and it's only going to hurt the rule of law if you have a situation where, where the president is, is acting without, without the Congress being involved in some of the most difficult issues. So I think I will, I will stop there. I mean, other than to say new, new president, new administration needs to focus. I hope we'll focus very early and thoughtfully on these issues and recognize that just, just wanting deeply caring about, about respecting the rule of law is, is really not enough and you have to, and you have to deal with some of these institutional challenges. So I will stop there and take questions if anybody has them. Okay. Here. Hi, I'm Larry Weiner, ASU College of Law. I'd like to ask you about what you described as your pet interest, this legal group, which I find very intriguing, particularly because of the obvious parallels to private practice, how a private law firm or a private corporation legal department might operate. So within this group, for example, how do you determine who the client is? A particular individual, a governmental department? What about confidentiality? I mean, how, how freely can you even talk amongst yourselves about some of the issues? The public interest. Is the public interest however might be defined to determine, does that go into your deliberations in giving legal advice? I don't know how much you can say about how this group operates, but it's really quite interesting. No, I think it's a great question. And the issue of who is the client for government lawyers in this area and in other areas is always, is it interesting and, you know, philosophical to some degree, you know, but, but it can have, I mean, it can make a difference. And I would say in this group, the client is the, at least the president or the, you know, the policy of that the president and the senior, the National Security Council is pursuing not to say that if it's an elite, you know, that you, I guess the presidency. And the National Security Council as an institution is the client, not the individual agencies. And that is one of the benefits.  And they are, they are representing the views and the interests of that department. But I think one of the positive things about the lawyer's group is that that is, you know, heard and understood, but there is then because of the nature of the work that they have to do tends to fall away. And what, what really drives, and it sounds maybe like I'm being, having a sort of two rosy view of this, but I really do, I have seen this and I, and I do believe it that, that the best legal argument and the legal arguments do tempered by reality. I mean, these are practical people in practical jobs, but, but the law does, does prevail in the discussions and not the, the institutional interests of the particular departments. It's one of the things that is, it is very important that those interests are in there, but not everybody isn't just sort of in their own corner. Public interest absolutely I would say is part of the calculus in, in all, in all of those discussions. So, yes. Yes ma'am, my name is Kambi, but I'm with the Pakistani Spectator and you said that politicians, you use word congressmen, they are constrained by saying something or saying not, not saying certain thing. And my question is, are they constrained by some legal or moral obligation? Are they are constrained by political calculation? For example, I mean, this is a very debatable, because of this election season. Most Republicans believe that Obama doesn't want to use word Islamic terrorism because he doesn't want to irritate his Muslim vote, who majority, as you know, go to Democrat Party, especially nowadays, because other guy is very loose cannon and he is saying every kind of thing what he could say. So, so, because of this Obama's calculation, not even using something that is very factual, given that most of the terrorist event are, are Muslim, so I'm being very careful not to call myself terrorist. But most of the terrorism act was committed by Muslims, so there is nothing wrong to say Islamic terrorism or Muslim extremism. So Obama's very, very, it's, it's that, I mean, it's, he come across as a kind of coward with the Republican standard that he doesn't want to use this word. So, are they constrained by some legal or moral obligation or they are constrained because they don't want to lose their vote bank? Thanks. So, what I was talking about was, was much more mundane and that is the, that this is, the information is classified. Very often information that is shared with the Hill is, is, is classified and unless declassified by the executive branch, it is, they are constrained in speaking about it publicly. They can press it, but that, that is their constraint. So that, that is the point I was making there. Obviously there are any number of political, you know, constraints and incentives for members of Congress and others to, you know, to, when they are speaking, but that was particularly in this area. I was really just talking about the classification issue. Yes. With regard to your last comment about the Hill being constrained to not make public to their constituents anything that the administration says is classified. I wondered if you'd comment on my understanding which is that that's not really true because when we set up the intelligence committees, we put a provision in the resolution creating them that says if a majority of the committee disagrees with the administration based on what we did with the church committee as a co-equal branch, they can, if it goes to the full house or senate and there's a majority vote in a closed session, make it public. And in fact this has been done at least once with regard to the Panama Canal negotiations where they made public things that the administration under President Carter said could not be made public because they were too classified. So my question is one, is that your understanding and two, is that the position of the executive branch now or do they still maintain? For example with regard to the torture report that Congress could not have made the entire report public as opposed to just the introduction? Yes. So I am aware of that process and this is one of many areas where you have differences of legal opinion between executive branch and the legislative branch about authorities. I've worked on the Hill but I'm a creature really of the executive branch. My view is it is, and I think the cases support this, that is the decision to classify is a decision that is a power of the president. But certainly under the congressional process that you talk about, they can in very little limited circumstances have taken that action. You see it very, very seldom and I think in part that is not because there's a concession about the legal or the authority issues. And it's more because as a practical reality the executive branch controls the information and can decide with whom it will share that information. And so there's a concern and members of Congress are responsible people. They don't want to be in a situation where they're releasing information that could be harmful. So I think as a practical matter that comes up very seldom. More often what you see is if a member of Congress thinks they know something that should be declassified, they press the government to declassify. And they might even say publicly there's something I know that I think needs to be declassified. So go tell them to declassify. So it's more that kind of process than the one that you described. Hi, I'm Leanne Howard and I am with the Defense Department but I am not a lawyer. So my question is more on your experience and if and how you look at opportunity costs and risk in some of the counter-terrorism decisions that have passed by you. And specifically in terms of leading opportunities over time that change or the impact of making a decision or not making a decision at a specific point in time. Does that make sense? Could you elaborate on that a little? Sure. So anecdotally if we have a policy that allows us to do something in a certain part of the world but not another part of the world but then the opportunity presents itself in another part of the world. And it's a fleeting opportunity critical to national security but the strict interpretation needs to be reviewed as to if, how and when we could do something. I'm just curious from the legal standpoint, from the NSC standpoint, what is the discussion that takes place with the policy makers in that or even with whom to partner or when to accept or reject a partnership offer. How does the legal office get involved in reviewing those types of gray areas? Thank you. The constraints that you're talking about is a legal one, is a legal analysis as we can do it here and we can't do it there. Then the lawyers would, the lawyers in this area work very fast often. The issues come at you very quickly. You try always to get ahead and think of things that might come up and often that does happen. So the lawyers would tell the policy makers, what is the legal reason for this? And look and try to see if there's a way to do what the operators or policy makers want to do in a way that doesn't have the same legal issues. If it's not a legal issue, if it's a policy guidance and then the lawyers still often or at least in their roles, in their departments, I know in my role as the NSC legal advisor, I would be in that meeting. And so part of my job was not just yes it's legal, no it's not legal, you know, sit back. It was thinking about how you need to make the decision in a way that is going to be a sort of judgment and process and how do you make the decision in a way that is going to be most sustainable. And so you might even give advice, not yes you should do that or no you should not do that if it's a policy matter. Not that lawyers never speak on policy but that's not your central function but a central function is also, I don't know exactly the situation but I can imagine a lawyer saying, look, you know, you have a policy out there that says you can't do that. You need to have, if you're going to change that policy on the fly, you need to explain why you're doing it and go through a process to understand it. And that I think is also a role of the lawyers in this area, not so much the lawyers group that I talked about but in their counseling and advising positions. Maybe one more question. Okay, one more, right here, sorry, I hope I'm, okay. Thank you, it's very interesting actually. Two weeks ago the Congress passed very interesting law, JASTA, Justice Against Sponsors of Tourism, despite the veto by Obama administration. Do you think this bill, by the way, created a wave like tsunami across the world, you know, with criticisms worldwide? Do you think this law would help the next president fight against terror? Another law right now in the Congress is about to designate Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organization. Would this law as well help the next president in his fight or her fight against terror? That's something we need to know. So, I mean both of these, you know, JASTA I know is an example of this, a not uncommon conflict between a president or the executive branch. It's thinking about, you know, sovereign immunity and how, if we can sue them, they can sue us and the larger impact of some of these issues. Not that the presidents or executive branches don't care about the personal consequences to, in that case, the 9-11 victims and the litigants. But tend to, particularly in second terms, see things in a kind of a broader, the broader more strategic issues. And sometimes that is not, that the more immediate appeal of people like the 9-11 victims is, you know, has a little more residents on the hill. So you have situations where, you know, in this one where the president vetoed, I think it's his only veto, maybe, and the veto is overridden. You know, and so I think it's a similar dynamic probably with the other, I don't know about the other bill that you mentioned, but no, I don't think that it will help the next president. I think that JASTA being out there will help the next president. I don't think it will. I think it raises the institutional concerns that the president, that caused this president to veto it. So overall, I would say not likely to be a positive for the next president. Thank you, Gary.


What's up everyone it's your girl Kenzie here from Leighton Sports Cards and I'm ripping 21-22 Panini Mosaic basketball choice five box break number one random teams. It's not updating. Again here is the look at the random results. You can always find these at leightonsportscards.com under the results tab. Link is also in chat for you. All right here we go. I do know that that title is not correct. I'm trying to save it. It's not saving. I don't have to ask of course here after this break. All right here we go. So for this we'll do just um autos. Good luck everybody. All right up first we have a silver rookie of Scotty Barnes. Got mosaic of Marvin Bagley third our choice exclusives nice one here Scotty Barnes. That one is 67 out of 88 on the debut. Nice sit there for the Raptors. We have a Steph Curry for the Warriors. Nice in there dub 71 out of 88 and a Julius Randall for the Knicks. Now one is 31 of 88 then our red and green are Christmas parallels here. Southie Aldama Grizzlies not numbered any Scotty Barnes rookie Raptors. That's a fantastic box for you and first auto up we've got the red and yellow fusion of Joshua Primo. Spurs. Red and yellow fusion. All right first box there. All right first up silver Darius Garland. Got mosaic of Jeremy Grant. A James Wiseman for the Warriors. That one is 35 of 88. Marcus Morris Sr. Clips 66 of 88 and a Gary Harris for the magic. That one is 30 of 88. The green and red is Mongruma Rockets and a Isaiah Todd wizards. And the auto for this box is going to be a Bobby Portis for the Bucks. Bobby Portis. Let's see a Nebula or a Peacock. A redemption. Silver rookie of Brandon Boston Jr. Mosaic of Anne Franny Simons. Got Talon Horton Tucker. Lakers 44 of 88. Isaiah Stewart for the Pistons 85 out of 88. And a rookie for the Jazz, Jared Butler 54 of 88. Green and red. We've got Trey Man for the Thunder. Nice one there. And a Isaiah Jackson Pacers. Redemption time. Good luck everyone. Rookie autographs mosaic choice fusion so it's going to be not numbered on the red and yellow red and yellow card two of Cade Cunningham. There you go Detroit. Pistons Todd P. Congrats on that one Todd. Nice Cunningham redemption. Distance like yeah. We'll mag this redemption. That's four. Yeah it was. Here we go. Silver KD. Mosaic Al Horford. Nice Josh Giddy to 88. There you go Thunder. Very nice card 44 of 88 on the Josh Giddy. We've got Mikal Bridges for the Suns that is 23 of 88. And a Ben Simmons Nets 56 of 88. Our rookies Jalen Johnson for the Hawks and a Jalen Green Rockets. Man what a box here. And our fusion red and yellow auto rookie Zair Williams for the Grizzlies. All right last box here. Last box of this break. We've got one more of these right after. All right Silver Austin Reeves. Lakers. Mosaic of Precious Atua. We've got Black and Gold of Kemba Walker. Black and Gold Kemba Walker for the Nets. That is seven out of eight. Going to Steven B. We've got Nebula. One of one Nicholas Claxton. Sick one of one there. We wanted a Nebula and we got one Brooklyn. Congrats on that one Steven. We'll get this in a mag for you. Yellow for the Pistons. That is out of 38 of 88. Green and red we've got Jeremiah Robinson Earle for the Thunder and a Josh Giddy for the Thunder. Okay C. Uchiel. Doing well on the last two boxes there. And our auto is going to be a Rudy Gaubert on the Black and Gold two out of eight. Nice one there for the Jazz. Nice Gaubert. All right what?  Great five box break. Go ahead and do a quick recap here. Again we had the Black and Gold to eight. Rudy Gaubert for the Jazz. Zyra Williams Grizzlies. A Joshua Primo for the Spurs. Bobby Portis Bucks. And our Magikards. We had the Cave Cunningham on the Mosaic Choice Fusion Red and Yellow for the Pistons. And then the one of one Nebula of Nicholas Claxton for the Nets. That'll do for the first one. We've got one more of these coming right up. Thanks everyone.


So I'm Sabine Duchamp. I'm working for the Alliance Biodiversity SIEHT. I was coordinating the forage program in Asia. And now I'm a coordinator of the Li-Chan project. So most of you know our Li-Chan project very well. I will just make a very short recap. So the project started in 2019 with preliminary assessments and stakeholder consultations. And of 2019, we finalized our proposal and work plan. And next slide please. Thank you. And we decided that we would aim at stimulating system transformation, livelihoods, environments, equity and market access to empower highland farming communities, through abundant, life-sub-based interventions in northwest Vietnam. So the project adopted a system and landscape approach focusing on multiple livestock species, working closely with communities and particularly ethnic minorities. And this contributes to Vietnam's livestock development plans for the region. So it is implemented by the Alliance Biodiversity SIEHT, Hillary, SLU, Niasz and IVR, Nomasi, the Department of Agriculture of Son La and People's Committee of My Son District. Next slide please. So in 2020, we started with baseline survey and village typology. Three systems were identified with respect to their accessibility. So we have remote extensive systems in the high altitudes with low access to market, fragile environment, mainly among ethnic minorities. We have in the mid-altitudes some mixed livestock system, mainly Thai ethnic minorities. And in the lowlands, we have more intense systems with good access to markets and a better capacity for innovation. So finally, in September 2020, a bit more than a year ago, we first engaged with six villages of Chengchung and Chengluang province. Sorry, Chengchung and Chengluang communes. We have Mon 1 and Mon 2 in the lowlands. We have Kua and Ouy with intermediate accessibility. And we have Buong Kuan and Samta in the remote islands. Next slide please. So training, awareness raising and piloting were then carried out on five complementary thematics. Animal genetics, animal health, feats and forages, livestock and environment and livestock and livelihoods. So while doing so, we did our best to take into account the effects that an intervention can have on one dimension. The intervention on one dimension can have on the other dimensions. And it's not about bringing in a technology blindly. Next slide please. So here I would like to take my favorite metaphor. This is the motorbike helmet. So system characteristics and cultural values must be taken into account. Otherwise, the new technologies can result in ill-fitting. Next slide please. So with LeChan, we have worked closely with communities building on their creativity and adaptation skills. So this is what we try to do with LeChan. So I will now give the floor to my colleagues for some more details on activities and on achievements and learnings. Thank you very much. Come on. So I think the next one is Ms. Huyen. Hello everyone. I am Huyen, the director of LeChan University. I have attended a group of experts. I would like to change my group to be more specific. Some of the things I would like to talk about in the time I have been working on this project. Next slide please. So based on the results we have achieved in terms of cost-effectiveness, the demand for training, and the traditional way of the year 2019, we have built a series of training courses, including the selection of beef and beef. And then we focus on the training courses for the development of the beef and the development of the beef. The training courses are similar. So the participation of these training courses is very diverse and diverse. For example, the selection of beef and beef is mainly a group of people. The number of staff members and the training courses are more technical than the number of staff members. So mainly the number of staff members is more than the number of staff members and the number of staff members. Also, the people who work in the field of farming. So for our goals, we have come to the table to organize the training courses for the development of the beef and beef, and the participation of those who work in the field of farming is the same, for example, for training courses, we have come to 44 percent. And the participation of the women also corresponds to the number of training courses that can reach 50 percent. The age of training courses from 20 to 40 years old, in the last 30-40 years. We have seen that there are initiatives that have been carried out by the Ministry of Finance. We have the importance of the local government and the development of agriculture, as well as all the activities to continue supporting the people in the future for the next few years. The result is that we have seen the early steps of the activities in agriculture in the region. After the exercise, we have the support of the activities in the rural areas. We have the importance of the people as well as the ability to use the artificial intelligence on the floor and on the floor, especially on the floor, after the exercise. For example, the people, we see that they are more concerned about the same tasks and choices and have more people to implement the artificial intelligence, especially on the floor. In the past, there were people who performed the artificial intelligence on the live and the outside, but very few people performed on the floor and there are still many left. But after the exercise, also the support after the exercise, the number of people confident and the artificial intelligence on the floor has increased. And some of the organizations have been concerned about the artificial intelligence on the floor. For example, in the present, there is only one person in the Central Government to perform the artificial intelligence on the floor. But now, for example, in Thuy Sa, where Mr. Cui and Mrs. Thu are very eager to be concerned about the artificial intelligence on the floor. Let's move on. And the lessons that we have learned in the process of performing the artificial intelligence on the floor, that is, we see that the development of the artificial intelligence has a very good impact. The farmers have learned from the farmers they have learned from the success and failure in the operation and implementation. Because the people are important to understand who are the people who start using the technology. And what is the result of the success and failure? And so they have more faith and more fear to use the technology that I am talking about the artificial intelligence and the artificial intelligence. And we realize that the artificial intelligence has a very important role in the support of farmers. They are the role of the farmers in the transfer of knowledge into the field. For example, a lot of knowledge has been transferred to the farmers but when there is a problem the people are looking for the artificial intelligence that is the artificial intelligence so that they can answer the questions, ask the questions and from there the artificial intelligence asks the experts to see to recognize the answer or the direction for the farmers and one more thing we realize is that women are very excited and motivated to participate in the same operation. This needs to be encouraged because women are very motivated and we hope that the success and participation of these women will affect women's dreams and so the female intelligence to participate in the research and development of the technology will be expanded. Next slide. So some of the results we see is the combination between the artificial intelligence and the artificial intelligence especially the artificial intelligence in the middle of the environment has attracted a large number of people and other participants to the artificial intelligence that they do not feel that it is difficult to understand because it can be rational and it may be difficult but when the artificial intelligence is directly implemented and there are the following questions and so they have the confidence and continue to find the technology in the artificial intelligence and we also realize that the success models after the artificial intelligence are highly recommended by the people and the artificial intelligence in terms of the use of the artificial intelligence after that for the people in the artificial intelligence the more they learn and the more they practice they increase the attention increase the understanding and they realize the technology they understand more and this is the motivation for them to use the artificial intelligence to understand the results of the artificial intelligence I would like to explain the following first of all I would like to take this opportunity to thank the NIVR team for their hard work and now I will be briefly talking about animal husband flagship activities next slide so our major achievement are to organize various interventions for farmers and animal husband professionals local vets as well as to sell at the demonstration farms the first of all we organized two training for farmers which were conducted in October 2020 and January 2021 so more than 100 participants had attended the workshops the main contents were to instruct the importance of biosecurity farm management visitor control how to spray disinfectant properly animal quarantine and use of vaccine antibiotics etc we also organized training for animal husband professionals in December 2020 and July 2021 especially the second one was focusing on lump skin disease which is the new emerging pathogen in ruminants in Asia including Vietnam the fortunately vaccine is available which is much easier for disease control and prevention than African sun fever the main contents were the introduction of diseases by species and outbreak investigations miscommunication disease control and prevention etc currently we are conducting practical intervention for 15 demonetized farms from six villages so basically those farms are selected based on survey which are willing to invest more money for their livestock as well as to to change their behavior for better productivity so our team is providing technical and practical consultation on farm renovation biosecurity farm management as well as to provide free vaccines such as food and mouse disease classical sun fever and Newcastle disease etc and some vitamins and mineral stones for livestock so we also ask the farmers to weekly record an event in their livestock in the diary such as importing new animals clinical signs newborn deaths and vaccination date etc so our team still contact them every two weeks by phone so this information is useful for farm management this is monitoring surveillance and control prevention measures the next slide please so each training we conducted before and after cap survey to evaluate the improvement of their Norwegian attitude I did not put various descriptive statistics but as you can see Norwegian farmers have slightly increased for the first training 7.33 to 8.16 8.16 and second training 8.53 to 9.47 especially a total of 61 people had received training twice roughly 60% so we found that their knowledge increase are slightly better compared to farmers who got only one training 4 demonstration farms as you can see some pictures on the bottom some farmers already built a new pen for pigs based on our consultation which is helpful for bio-security and farm management as I mentioned earlier we distributed livestock diaries please see the picture on the right side if we find any serious outbreaks or events in those farms we will contact village vets and local authority for outbreak investigation and proper interventions in a timely manner since we are collecting farm information and from a long-term perspective these indicators can be used for project monitoring and evaluation so we also share this livestock diary with other flagships so how to capture more information what they need next slide please so we think that it is very important to keep a partnership and collaboration with local authorities for project sustainability so these are the ones who can support veterinary services outbreak investigation pre-vaccine implementation of disease control and prevention in the community in addition the more community engagement is cruel for project sustainability as I mentioned a total of 15 demonstration farms were selected and we expect that other farms can learn by watching and experience from them so our project can be scaled up in the future so actually some farmers started implementing vaccination visitor control use of disinfectant purchasing mineral stones etc so it is very encouraging that farmers whose main source of income is still crop, corn and rice etc in Lichang but now they are considering livestock as their main source of income so I think that is very positive impact in addition more training is necessary for any more professional in the village level so their local farmers can get better accessibility to high quality veterinary services lastly I would say that we need to generate more evidence and tools to support disease making such as developing risk maps and disease modeling through epidemiological investigation so those tools can be useful for providing cost-effective and evidence-based control and prevention strategies in the community the next slide so that's all from my side thank you hi everyone I hope you can all hear me my name is Mary Atyano I work for the Alliance of Biodiversity International and SEAT based in Hanoi and I'm the Feeds and Forages focal point for Vietnam priority country project so today I'm going to present a summary of the results and achievements under the Feeds and Forages flagship next slide please so for Feeds and Forages we started the year before in 2020 and also in 2019 with a rapid assessment of looking at the availability and use of local feed resources identifying challenges and constraints opportunities for improved animal nutrition as well as this enabled us to propose context-specific feed-related interventions for the three typologies or the six villages located in the study area so the main interventions that were proposed to the livestock farmers in my son district included improved forages so different forage varieties including grasses and legumes different techniques, different trainings on animal nutrition techniques and for the improved forages we provided seeds and planting materials to different farmers who had selected who chose the varieties that were interested in growing on their farms for feeding their livestock and out of this activity so far we've managed to reach and work with more than 155 households who are currently growing different varieties and even though we just started implementation this year we already reporting an increased average area grown with forages and as indicated on the slide across different typologies or villages we are seeing farmers having increased from as little as 0.01 hectares to four or five or six times more of what they had initially where most of the farmers were growing local Napier varieties and now they have different grasses and also legumes which they are feeding to their livestock and earlier this year as well we had trainings on different feed techniques and this was divided into cattle and buffalo feed techniques as well as different animal nutrition methods for the local pig breeds in Mison these trainings attracted around 180 households in the six villages and it involved theoretical introduction to the proposed techniques as well as practical demonstrations on different feed processing and preservation methods such as preparing silage how to treat rice straw that's urea treated rice straw how to mix different feeds feeding regimes for different age groups for both cattle and pigs and also feed fermentation using probiotics for pigs which is also a good alternative to the local method of preparing pig feed which is usually cooking of mostly food waste and the third achievement we've seen so far in the feeds and forages front is that there's been a strong stakeholder engagement and this has really ensured successful implementation of our activities we have worked with the local institutions such as the National Institute of Animal Sciences helped with the trainings on animal nutrition as well we've had village chiefs enthusiastic or champion farmers also helping with trainings providing materials distributing materials to farmers and also taking the lead in trial monitoring for the households that are growing forages on their farms next slide please so the learnings we've reported so far is even though the farmers have just started harvesting and using the different forage varieties that they selected and were provided with is that farmers have already reporting a high preference for three grass varieties which have a high germination rate high germination rate biomass and palatability and moderate preference for forage legumes as well as mulatto where some farmers reported that their cattle or rather their livestock had some digestion related issues and this had to do with the cutting time and feed preparation for these different feed materials another learning we have reported is due to the COVID-19 restrictions we've not had enough chances or follow-ups to guide the farmers on how best to manage and utilize different forages and also in applying different feed techniques however using farmers feedback as well as knowledge from the technical team we've been able to prepare some forage fact sheets and these materials have been distributed to farmers and hopefully will help them will help to guide them on different areas of interest whether they express some concerns such as appropriate cutting time how to mix feed and how to generally use different feed materials and feed methods techniques another interesting learning we reported was that we maintained a gender balance for all the flagship activities be it from the initial assessment trainings and also subsequent forage trials and this has seen more female farmers actively participating in trainings and also in different in other activities as well for example the trainings for introducing the forages and also for animal nutrition we had at least 48% attendance from female household members next slide please so the implications and also more like a way forward that we would propose is that so far we can see this potential for adoption of high yielding and high quality forages and also feed techniques to improve livestock production in this area as most of the small livestock farmers have mainly been relying on low quality forages and use of crop residues which hasn't been optimum enough to improve livestock production also preliminary results have reported high yields from the forages that have been taken by the farmers and the farmers have also reported increased feed availability for their livestock from these crops however it's still early in the project to really evaluate the impact of the feed interventions on livestock productivity savings on labour and time and also changes to household income but we are hoping that in future we would be able to evaluate the impact indicators and see how best this interventions that are proposed are able to improve livestock production in this area one of the main challenges that was reported during the initial assessment is that the main feed related challenge in this area is winter feed shortage and monitoring the ongoing forage trials and adoption of feed techniques in the upcoming winter season will enable us to inform changes to the feed basket due to these interventions as we started at the beginning of this year and the winter season is just coming up in the next few months it would be interesting to see if really these you know interventions have been able to address to a certain extent this challenge of winter feed shortage also as my colleagues have also mentioned this is the role of stakeholders capacity development would be a key would be key in ensuring continuity availability of material say for seed so strengthening seed systems in the area knowledge exchange between different stakeholders and also this would be a good driver for scaling different interventions not only feed but also other interventions or project components in this area and beyond thanks that's all from my side can we do the next slide my name is Emmanuel Muema and I'm coordinating clean application in my son let's look at the livestock and environment aspect next slide please so from the baseline assessment that we did we find that there is limited or very few nitrogen addition to the soil despite continuous cultivation practices in almost all the systems and also we find that we have more erosion especially in farms that are located in upland area or region we also did nitrogen balances and from the assessment we see that the remote farms are mainly having negative balances due to residue burning and also limited use of fertilizer inputs however we have some farms like Monwan, Ori and Coa which have substantial mineral fertilizer that has kept their farms to have a positive nitrogen balance we also see a contribution of organic fertilizer to be very low and also biomecycling in most cases next slide please so what are we recommending from our study we recommend proper manual management production and use of improved forages across the systems we also recognize that improved forages can minimize water loss through evapotranspiration because they mature more faster than the inherent crops also to the farms that are located in upland areas or highland areas we encourage a use of cover crops and control farming so that we can prevent soil erosion activities and also retain improved soil water retention another thing on the nutrient balances we encourage recycling of organic matter and also prevention of residue burning in our systems next slide please so far the key achievements have been to quantify the environmental footprints of the different systems and also the nitrogen flows and recycling important is also we have done some trainings on erosion control measures soil fertility and biomecycling as well as crop residue composting and animal manure next slide so thank you so much that is the environment and flagship project next presenter yeah good morning good afternoon everyone can you hear me well my name is Tink Nguyen I'm a local focal point of livestock and on behalf of the team I would like to present some highlights from our flagship next slide please yeah regarding the key achievements first we conducted a market study the study was to provide insights into ventilations of pigs and cattle and also to suggest intervention for ventilating improvements next please the study found out production of pigs and cattle in the 30 areas were mostly a small scale and farmers faced quite a lot of constraints particularly regarding to breathing practice, financial resources easy control marketing and also the animal feed and there were weak linkages among Valetian items farmers seem to have low bargaining powers so based on those fighting to overcome those constraint collective actions were recommended based on the fighting we came up with the facilitation of the formation of farmer common interest groups or CIGs in short name the purpose of the CIGs was to promote the value of group working and also to have farmers better access to a lifestyle policies and support because those policy supports are more likely to prioritize farmer groups rather than individual households under this activity we organized a series of trainings next slide please next please under this training we organized a series of under this activity we organized a series of trainings we also supported the formation and operation of five common interest group in the six targeted villages and in the early September 5 CIGs were officially launched with almost 60 household beneficiaries and next please so what we have learned from these activities first the appropriate approach is very important for the success of CIG formation so instead of approaching a large number of villagers who show interest in CIGs we selected each village three to five most active or most enthusiastic farmers this farmer acted as chain agents who would make spillover effects to other farmers in the communities after deeply understanding and involving in CIG activities this farmer were invited for intensive training and later become calm members of CIG at each village and the second learning is that the integration with other flagship is very important to lay a good foundation for the establishment of CIGs as mentioned in the previous slide that farmers in the study areas face quite a lot of constraint regarding breeding practice animal feed disease control and so on so other friendships such as genetics animal health, feed and forage have organized quite a lot of trainings and intervention to solve those constraints and this efforts provided great input for our work on CIG later the most farmers who are members of CIG have been participated in those training and intervention so later when joining CIG they can use the knowledge and skills gained from those training from those intervention in developing production plan of the group and this one please and to certain the operation of CIG in the future first building is very important because especially for their self managing and developing CIG in the future experience from farmer group model developed by other development projects so thus the common interest groups later they can upgrade themselves to become cooperative in the future and the next one is development of linkage among CIG in different villages are very important for knowledge sharing and also for potential common activities and the last one that the involvement of local authorities is very crucial for the sustainability of CIG in the future especially when the project withdraw from the ground and thus there's some updates from the last CIG thank you so much for your attention this one please who is presenting this one right Hello everyone today I would like to talk about the concept of image and in this room we have all of you 20 of you right? and you are very familiar with this concept the concept of image is a concept of CIG and in I will use the project as a tool for everyone to discuss about the issues in that project in the project in the last year and I have sent 20 images for 18 villagers and 2 local authorities and everyone who is COTOBOY in this room right? Yes, I heard that there are 20 people in COTOBOY now so everyone can remember that COTOBOY project started from the first floor and I sent these images and then I took the images of the images from Trang Nguoi and my life and then I had the opportunity to sit together and look at the images and choose the images that I want to talk about that project in that project if I see any information I will meet the people in the project and I will continue to ask and in June I had an interview about the use of images and the story and then after that I had a meeting with each other but because of the COVID when the COVID spread I didn't have the chance to meet 30 people I also tried to meet about 10 people to talk about the story and the images about the result of the project one of the results that I have today is the the story about the stories and the images of the people in Trang Nguoi are being presented by the Viet Nam Ministry at the end of this afternoon and tomorrow we will have a meeting and the reason why the project uses the use of images is a way to evaluate the use of images in the project and the stories of the images is a way to communicate when participating do you agree? about this there are many in the project and about the story I can also hear you sharing that you feel very happy because when you are taken by the images talking about the images talking about the real and you also feel very happy when you are taken by the images and the result of this project it will be a way to review it when you take the images and the stories of the people in the project you don't have to work you can just take them down and go to the interview when you are taken you only know a bit you only know the story and also the story of the people in the project and also the story of the project the people in the project can talk about the story and talk about the experience of the project and not the story and the pictures I will also talk a little bit about the products that are being produced in the community. I will use those steps to deal with the problems in the community. Yesterday, I talked to the people in the scene. What are they doing? What are they doing here? What are they doing here? Anything else than before? Apart from that, I also talked to the people in the scene. When I talked to the people in the scene, and there are people who have a different opinion, they can all share their opinions. The first thing is that it is normal for the previous case, we also have a lot of complaints, but in those cases, only the people in the scene do the questions. In these cases, it is the people in the scene, the people in the crowd, the people in the scene who share their opinions, And I also want to share some information with you. When you participate in the event, you will be able to see how effective it is. For example, Mr. Duong Van Niu, a friend of mine, Mr. Sabin, can you go back to the previous slide? On the screen, you will see a picture of Mr. Trong's husband. This picture is of Mr. Tung Truc. Mr. Trong and his wife are taking care of each other. One side is green and the other is green. The other side is green and the other is green. This picture is of Mr. Van Niu. Mr. Trong and his wife are taking care of each other. In the past, there were still many people who were worried about the size of the baby. The baby was too big and the mother-in-law couldn't stand it. But in the past, there were a lot of success. The baby was born twice a month. However, the baby was too big and the mother-in-law couldn't stand it. The baby was too big and the mother-in-law couldn't stand it. In the past, there were many people who were worried about the size of the baby. On the other side is a picture of Mr. Trong and his wife. In this picture, there was a picture of Mr. Trong. When asked about the most meaningful story of the story, Mr. Li and I took a picture. He said, this is the picture because he was very happy to be asked about the new things and ask about the experiences. In the picture, Mr. Trong and I were also asked about the experiences of Mr. Trong and his wife. Mr. Trong and his wife were taken to the hospital. They were taken to the hospital. Mr. Trong had to carry all the protective equipment. Mr. Trong was also taught about the baby's health. Next slide please. After 2 months, do you know how many pictures we took? We all took 5,000 pictures. We took 5,000 pictures and took 170 pictures. In the picture, there were 169 pictures that were selected and they also felt confident. When they participated in the analysis and analysis of the project, there was a comment from a friend of mine who said, when the baby was taken to the hospital, he was happy to see the pictures. Mr. A-M-O-N-O-M, so this is the way to take this picture. It is a straight-forward method and a way to participate in the analysis and analysis of the project. Thank you. Is Jim here for this presentation? Yes, I am. Oh, super Jim, okay. Thank you. Good afternoon to the colleagues in Vietnam. Good morning to those who are in Africa or Europe. My name is Jim Hammond. I am a scientist working for ILRI. The activity I will tell you about was not planned at the start of this project. It was in response to the coronavirus pandemic and as you all will know, all across the world governments tried to contain the virus. So we conducted a study in the project area to understand how these containment measures affected the farmers with whom we were working. Next slide please. In September of 2020, nine months or so after the coronavirus pandemic really began, a survey was carried out in Maishan in the intervention villages with approximately 300 farmers. In the photo you can see a farmer being interviewed. This was in the early days when not too much was known about the effects of the disease and also the effects on the livelihoods. So we produced some nice infographic documents, short summary two-page documents, both in Vietnamese language and English, showing accessible charts and figures. I hope that many people have had a chance to look at these documents and perhaps over the course of the meeting they can be shared, even the hard copy provided in Son La to the meeting in Son La because I think it is important to understand the effects. In fact, building on the work we did with Le Chan, we repeated a similar study in six other countries in Africa and another location in Vietnam. We produced a manuscript summarizing all the findings. Next page, please. Next slide. What did we find out? Well, the impacts on the farmers were severe. Almost 70% of the households lost income compared to usual and that was through decreased income from selling their produce. It was more difficult to sell produce and the prices obtained for sales were lower. They were lower than usual for all the different products generally. Also, opportunities for working off the farm were less than usual. There was less cash paid work to be done and travelling to access it was also difficult. Both farm income and off farm income were reduced and about 70% of people experienced this. Also, due to lower amounts of cash available in the household and difficulty obtaining food from markets, a lot of people had to eat less food. So, 40% of the households ate less food than usual and 60% of the households ate less diverse food as usual. Perhaps they ate less meat or vegetables or expensive food. But on the plus side, the measures were very successful in reducing the spread of coronavirus. So, in fact, during the survey, no respondents knew of anybody who had suffered from coronavirus. There was no disease but the trade-off was the food security and economic impacts were high. We did see one of the most popular coping strategies was to sell livestock, especially chicken and pigs. So, that underlines the importance of the work Lee Chan is doing with those animals. There was also evidence that poorer households recovered slower. So, the survey we conducted was in September of 2020 and the most severe restrictions were during April and May. So, we asked households, you know, what was the impact during the worst time and then had they recovered six months later and households who'd had most severe impacts were less likely to recover. So, there was evidence that households were not bouncing back, farmers were not bouncing back quickly. You know, we are one year later now, we're towards the end of 2021 and we should monitor whether these effects are still going on and if they can be supported, if the recovery can be supported. Next slide please. So, what are the implications and significance of this? Well, the food security and income disruptions were serious. They ought to be addressed and it was not only in Vietnam. So, we, as I said, we carried out this study in six other countries and also in Tainuian province of Vietnam. So, a similar effect was seen in East Africa, Southern Africa as well as Vietnam where income disruptions, sale of agricultural produce, purchase of foodstuffs all were disrupted to a lesser or greater degree. So, based on this, we recommend a few actions. Teared mobility restrictions, we travel allowed for economic reasons to keep the rural economies moving. Now, short-term price guarantee schemes are probably underwritten by this state in order to stabilize the food system. So, that means sale of agricultural produce, a minimum sale price and when it comes to purchasing foods, a maximum threshold for sale prices. Now, that's not easy to implement but it would, in my opinion, be the strongest measure to reduce the food security and economic impacts due to the coronavirus restrictions. Direct aid would be important in locations where incomes were severely disrupted and the farmers have had to use all their assets in order to continue to survive. And finally, the distribution of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides if needed and livestock medicines and vaccines. Yep, that's the summary. So, thank you for listening and over to you.


By uniting governments, international institutions and businesses, the Broadband Commission plays a vital role in directing investments into the digital economy. Infrastructure is only part of the challenge. Turning digital into sustainable economic growth will depend on the success of entrepreneurs innovating and bringing new services to market. The tech ecosystem in many developing countries still remains small, fragmented, and requiring financing. At the International Trade Center, we continue to partner with tech startups and hubs to strengthen national ecosystems and ensure better access to talent and information while creating links with investors and markets. The Broadband Commission report 2019 provides very valuable suggestions to address and scale up this work. Let's make sure connecting the other half by 2025 is accelerated through digital entrepreneurship.