Respected viewers, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Current Events. I'm your host, Ali Jassim. Recently, the entire world witnessed the fruits of decades of crass negligence by the Saudi monarchy when more than a thousand Hajj pilgrims were crushed to death in what is being called a human stampede. The deaths occurred during the ritual known as the Stoning of the Devil, and this is not the first time something like this has happened. At least 270 were killed in 1994, 118 in 1998, 35 in 2001, 251 in 2004, and at least 346 in 2006, all during the same ritual. And in 1990, a similar stampede and a tunnel leading towards Minna caused the deaths of over 1400 Hajj pilgrims, so much for being the guardians of the Haramain. Most amazing, perhaps, is that the Hajj only brings at best 2.5 million or so people to one place every year, whereas Arba'in in Iraq regularly draws well over 15 million without any major incidents or mass casualties. This is while the Saudi regime has massive financial and human resources at its disposal, not to mention a high level of governmental and political organization, whereas Iraq has virtually none of these things. Based on the number and scale of repetition of this exact same tragedy in the past, it's not as though the Saudi regime didn't know something like this could happen. In fact, they reconstructed the entire Stoning area after 2006, supposedly to prevent another stampede. Sure, it only took them more than 15 years to figure it out that it might be worthy addressing, but better late than never, right? Well, based on this year, apparently not. More amazing still is that, instead of taking responsibility for its catastrophic failure to protect the Hajj pilgrims, the criminally negligent Saudi monarchy has been working around the clock to blame the pilgrims themselves. According to the Saudi Health Minister, the stampede was perhaps because some pilgrims moved without following instructions by the relevant authorities. He also said, this type of accident could have been avoided, however, this is God's will. What sort of psychopath believes that God's will is to murder his guests by the hundreds? The Saudi sort, apparently. Yet video and witness testimonies suggest the stampede occurred because of overcrowding due to the presence of the Saudi prince's entourage. According to this, seven out of 13 roads were closed due to the presence of the prince and his convoy, forcing pilgrims coming from different directions to converge at a point, leading to panic and stampede. Of course, the Health Ministry aren't the only ones blaming the pilgrims. Their so-called Grand Mufti has absolved the Saudi royals of any wrongdoing, saying that the obvious man-made disaster was simply fate. Reuters reports that Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Crown Prince Muhammad bin Naif in a Tel Aviv statement, you are not responsible for what happened.  As for the things that humans cannot control, you cannot be blamed for them. Fate and destiny are always inevitable. He then went on to blame all criticism being leveled at the corrupt monarchy as the result of envy, even saying, many are envious of the kingdom for its religion, the same religion that produced al-Qaeda and Daesh or ISIS. Some mouthpieces of the regime have even gone so far as to blame Iran and the Shiites for the stampede, which may be in part because so far Iran has been one of the only countries to issue unusually harsh criticism towards the Saudi government, adding that what happened is not incompetence, it is a crime. Stay with us in this episode as we discuss the unbelievable tragedy of the 2015 Hajj in-depth here on Current Events. My guest for this episode is the Imam of one of the largest Shiite centers in the world and an expert in Hajj and Arba'im pilgrimages. Please welcome my guest, Sheikh Abbas Panjou. As-salamu alaykum, sheikhna. As-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you and it is always an honor to be able to participate and to serve through Imam Hossein TV. We apologize to our dear viewers for the low quality of the video due to the poor internet connection. Sheikh Nas, we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, this is not the first time something like this has happened. Why hasn't the Saudi government done more to ensure the protection of the Hajj pilgrims? In response to your question, my dear brother, when it comes to the science of administering and facilitating the Hajj as a ritual for all Muslim men, you will find that this art or this science includes a number of dimensions. When it comes to facilitating the Hajj, facilitating for the whole judge, ensuring their security, ensuring that they are able to perform their acts of worship in a way that facilitates for the spirituality, you will see that there are multiple dimensions in that there is the dimension of arranging the logistics from the time that you enter into the country, whether it is a port of entry at Jeddah or Madina Al-Munawwara, arranging logistics for Hujjaj to move between Madina and Makkah and from Makkah to Mina and Arafah and the Mash'ar. So you'll find that the first dimension of facilitating for the Hujjaj is the dimension of logistics and then in the security personnel, emergency personnel, you need to have contingency measures if there does happen a disaster or if there is any sort of accident that occurs to have a contingency plan where you are able to secure and evacuate and ensure that there is a minimum damage or a minimum number of casualties that occur when such a large number of people occur in one place. All these logistical and security personnel and emergency contingency plans, all these dimensions on one side. On the other hand, you find that this in itself is not enough because what the Ministry of Hujj would possibly come forward and say is that we have spent millions if not billions of dollars in trying to ensure that we upgrade the facilities and expansion and show on so forth to facilitate for the Hujjaj. However, you will find that in response to this issue of the tragedy, majority of the times you will find that the Saudi government or the Ministry of the Hajj will come forward and will say that they are doing everything possible to control the large numbers of Hujjaj who are coming into Arabia. In that these numbers of two to three million people is a great number of people to manage in relatively constrained or areas such as Mina or Arafa or Makkah. And you will find this has actually been the primary region for the Saudi government to carry forward with expansions of the Haram. And this is the same excuse, the increasing number of Hujjaj in the millions. This has been the same reason for them which they have used to destroy a number of historic shrines over the years. And our response to them is that the increasing number of Hujjaj cannot be an excuse number one for destroying historic sites. And an example for this is a practical example is the Ziyara Arbaeniyah in Karbala al-Mukaddas. You have people that are 10 times greater than the number of Hajj that are coming in. If in Hajj you have two to three million people, well in Arbaen you have close to 20 to 30 million people who come to visit the city of Karbala. Much as it is constrained, much as it is small, you don't find that in Karbala people come out and say oh because we want to facilitate for 20 million people we need to start destroying all the other historic sites which exist inside of Karbala. So for example you cannot say that we will destroy for example Makam Aliunil Akbar to facilitate for 40 million Hujjaj. So what we find over here is that the reason which is given to destroy a number of shrines is not accurate and cannot be blamed on the large number of people that come as Hujjaj. Answering your question Habibi Haji, controlling the large number of people the solution does not only lie in logistical measures, rather the administration of a large number of Hujjaj the solution to this lies within the thick of Ahlulbayt. So long as the thick of Ahlulbayt in regards to the Manasik of Hujj is not embraced and is not made a part of the Hujj rituals, calamities like these and stampeds like these will continue to happen. If you allow me to give you a couple of examples from our thick. So what we are trying to say is that the thick of Ahlulbayt if it is implemented by the Saudi ministry of Hujj you will find that it will be easier to facilitate for 2 to 3 million people. In fact it will be possible to facilitate for 10 to 20 million people if the rules within the Manasik of Hujj which are taught to us by the fake of Imam al-Sadik are implemented. You see the issue of the stampede there are a number of theories that are out there but if you go for example with the excuse that the stampede occurred because there was a vast number of people in Mecca and the area is not able to contain or the Hujjaj did not follow instructions that were given to us or that were given to them. Basically the entire idea is that you have a large number of people in a very small area and when you are not able to control the traffic between these great numbers of people you have stampede and consequently tragedy these occur for a fake. For example you refer to one of the most any basic book in regards to the Manasik of Hujj and I will read to you some of the clues that we have by way of example from the Manasik of Hujj you have one of the most important rituals in Hujj which is the wukuf in Arafah. If you refer back to the fake of Ahlul Bayt you will find that our Maraja have made it clear to us that when it comes to being in Arafah we have two designated times you have the wukuf iqtiyari and then you have the wukuf iqtiyari meaning that you have an official you have a designated time of wukuf in Arafah which is the normal time of wukuf and then you have an emergency time of wukuf so the normal time of the wukuf the wukuf iqtiyari is on the day from the time of noon up till the time of sunset. However you find that our fake stipulates from the wukuf iqtiyari meaning there are certain categories of hujjaj who are exempted from performing the wukuf in Arafah during this designated time so instead of performing the wukuf between noon and sunset these category of hujjaj who are given the exemption are actually able to perform their wukuf in Arafah during the night time so that is from the time of madr iqtiyari until the time of fajr this is on the eve of hujjj so you take for example this consideration this ruling from the fake of imam asadik the people who are exempted from the standing at night or those who qualify for the exemption during the night are the elderly people the sick people the women similarly when it comes to minna or when it comes to the mashah you will find that there are three designated times for standing within the mashah or in minna so for example you will find that there are exemptions that are granted to the women to the children to those who are sick even those people who suffer from claustrophobia in that they cannot be they cannot stand and they cannot sustain being in an overly crowded place you find that our sharia gives them exemptions to perform the wukuf or to to be in Arafah or to be in the mashah or to perform the rami at exempted times so instead of being in Arafah for example during the daytime from noon to night they are allowed to be in Arafah from night till fajr in minna instead of performing the rami of the jamarad during the daytime they are allowed to do it during the night time if we were to embrace these teachings of ahlul bayt shekhuna you look at the people who are exempted from the wukuf ekhtiari women children elderly the sick those who suffer from claustrophobia these rules actually one of the benefits from that is crowd control subhanallah from three million hujjaj who are there in minna you count how many are women how many are children how many are elderly how many become sick due to constipation or dehydration how many of them suffer claustrophobia say very safely say one third of them free honey from a million people close to uh or 300 000 of them straight away you have decongested the the traffic inside of Arafah and and the mozdalifa and minna just by implementing this one ruling from the thick of ahlul bayt in that instead of you having all one million people in one place at one time when you follow the thick of ahlul bayt you find those who are granted exemption their wukuf is at a different time those who are able-bodied their wukuf is at a different time and the wisdom or one of the wisdoms behind this is that you are able to control the crowd and you are able to decongest the traffic which exists in these areas if you decongest the traffic then there are less chances for stampede like this to happen therefore this is just by way of a very simple example therefore our answer to this is that so long as the Saudi government or the ministry of hajj does not take into consideration the thick of ahlul bayt when it comes to administering and managing the manas equal hajj unfortunately tragedies like these will continue to uh to happen and even though we pray for them not to happen we feel that us as followers of ahlul bayt uh we have a very positive suggestion in how we can contribute through our fake to ensure that tragedies like these and stampede like these do not happen again in the future shirk how is it possible that a rock can host eight or nine times as much pilgrims at once during arba'een without any incidents with much fewer resources at his disposal while tragedies like this one seem to be regular occurrences during hajj absolutely um the first thing over here is that um anybody who is open minded and anybody who is sincere um uh in from from the heart will be able to tell you that the revolution or the commemoration of the revolution of imam al-hussein the commemoration of the zeal of imam al-hussein most definitely without a doubt without a shadow of doubt is protected by allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you see this is sofiq ilahi in that a country that does not possess perhaps even half of the resource that uh the arabian government or the saldi monarch holds despite having half those resources despite having half that wealth they are able to facilitate an event which is 10 times more grand and more magnificent in terms of numbers uh during the ziyara arba'een as opposed to uh the advent of hajj for the first thing that we notice is is that this is the look ilahi number one number two you find that the success of the ziyara arba'een iya if you were to look outside of the factor of the ghaib this divine factor that protects the zawar of imam al-hussein outside of this practice uh if you were to look at it on the ground from a very materialistic level the success of the arbala largely is due to the freedom which is given to the zawar in performing the ziyara and the rights of the ziyara you find that because of this freedom and the flexibility and the ability of the people iraqi nation as a whole to be a part of the ziyara to be able to host without there being strict government impositions and the imposition on the freedom of the zawar you find that as the people are free to choose their roots how they want to get to karbala on which days they want to get to karbala you find over here that obviously the system is much more manageable by granting the zawar their freedoms and by allowing to walk at their own pace by not imposing upon them unnecessary barriers or unnecessary restrictions you find that if you grant the people their freedom and you embrace the act of worship in the spirit that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has ordained you find that events like these will be stampede free um if the hajj at an act of worship was to embrace in the spirit that ahlul bayt wanted us or the way Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wanted us you will find that majority of these stampede and majority of these calamities would not happen as far as the muslim world is concerned the only function of the saudi government and sole purpose for existence is to be the guardians of the haramain so to say how was it that time after time they have managed to fail so miserably at this see um in regards to this i think the issue is much greater at hand with all your respect uh for the tragedies that have occurred and for for the death that have been suffered um the issue over here which the muslim world needs to wake up to is much greater than the stampede in itself the stampede and the deaths which occurred uh on the day of aid that minna is a single highlight of a number of major problems that exist within alisawud branding and marketing themselves as khuddam al haramein or or the leader of the monarch being called khadim al haramein khadim al haramein means what the protector of the custodians of the haram this title is given to him at what for what reason what have they done to achieve this title or to be deserving of this title the same person who says that he is the custodian of the haramein is responsible for destroying close to 90 percent of the historic sites that existed madina islamic heritage islamic legacy this is a part of our history and a part of our identity how many of these sites have been destroyed the sites of the grave the graves of the grandson of rasulullah in janat al bakia the house where the prophet was born i mean for you to just go and visit the cave of hera which is supposed to be a point of inspiration where you as a follower and a lover of prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam allah for you just to go there and to see where did the prophet receive this divine revelation and for you to seek inspiration from that you find that there are one thousand and one barriers that are given to you today you have that for nine months rasulullah would go to the house of amir al mu'mineen and say the fatima during the time of salat and would say to them allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has commanded us to perform the salat and would recite the verse inama yuridullahu liyud ebaankumu l-insha ahdal bayt wa yutahirakum tatheerah for nine months rasulullah would go to this house and he would knock on the door where is this house today do we have access to it are we able to see it you find that rasulullah lived in madina for ten years where did he used to pray where was his mehrab where did he used to say stay where did he used to eat which are the different mosques that are there in madina the battle of handak where did it happen the battle of khaybar where did it happen battle of mother battle of ahad all these historic places that exist over there why is the muslim world deprived of visitation of all these sites if you call yourself the custodian of the haramein running the custodian of the haram of rasulullah you need to be the custodian of the legacy and the history of rasulullah therefore for the muslim world we need to wake up the large of muslim world and we need to see these people who have placed themselves in a position of authority and who have granted themselves titles in regards to custodians of the shrines of the holy prophet and the shrine of makkah in reality do their actions match their words do their actions match their titles muslim umma needs to wake up in regards to this and they need to critique their leaders or critique those people who have taken the position of leadership and they should judge them by their actions and through this we are able to see who is truthful in their words and who is not truthful who is pretending to be a muslim who is really a muslim who is truly a follower of rasulullah and who is an enemy of rasulullah therefore events like these and the general attitude of ala sahud towards the judge towards the historic sites of islam towards other muslims their actions need to be judged and the muslim world really needs to wake up and see that are these truly the role models of islam and the guardians of islam in this day and age or more sheikh what does it say about the saudi regime when a tragedy like this comes immediately on the heels of the crane collapse that took hundreds of lives just weeks earlier um again in regards to the collapse of the crane which belongs to the bin Laden construction company um you know there are a number of um theories and a number of reasons that have been granted within the media um but um you know to a very conservative opinion in terms of trying to be um or trying to deal with this with minimum speculation the very least that can be said about this crane accident is that the collapse of the crane in itself you know it's a demonstration of the lack of compliance when it comes to security and safety measures within the construction industry this is something which ala sahud and the hanij um unfortunately they have been guilty of this crime not only inside of arabia but within the middle east you look at the construction of a number of the buildings within uh within the middle eastern countries be it katha or where be it in dubai and you know you read about the incidences of the number of deaths that have occurred of construction workers just due to this lack of regulation this lack of compliance to rules and regulations has led to unnecessary number of deaths and this is a general attitude which again ties back to your previous question you know when we call ourselves muslims we call ourselves custodians of the shrines and custodians of the principles of islam does islam teaches to cut corners when it comes to um uh to work like this or that islam teaches to be honest and to be compliant to rules and regulations even if they cost us when it comes to uh even if it costs us financially so this lack of regulations compliance to regulations lack of compliance to health and safety it shows us and it reflects a general attitude of carelessness from the leaders and this is what we need to address as the saudi government continues this criminal war in yemen and prepares for the execution of shia rights activist sheikh nimr baqran nimr and zafiu alia nimr is there potential for the most recent had tragedy to draw the world's attention to these other issues as well absolutely in fact um uh when you refer back to the verse of hajj and um when you study the philosophy behind hajj and um the the when you are to study the philosophy behind hajj you will see that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in surah took the hajj um himself if you allow me to read the verse of the Quran um Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says verse number um 27 and 28 um Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this verse commands for the call of hajj to be made such that people from every corner of the world from vast places may come to the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they may witness benefits for them these benefits what type of benefits are the who judge supposed to benefit from through the performance of hajj spiritual benefits economic benefits political benefits social benefits these are all the benefits that we are supposed to uh enrich our lives from through this institution known as hajj therefore one of the parts of hajj one of the important dimensions of hajj is that it is supposed to be a social and a political convention where the muslims get together they discuss their political affairs what affects the daily lives what is perceived to be an opportunity what is perceived to be a threat and together they strengthen themselves as a single muslim um hajj is supposed to be that single experience which unites muslims from every part of the world Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the quran says in the hajj is supposed to be that experience which unites all the muslims together from every part of the world and when the muslims from every part of the world come together and they see yasubhanallah the same people who are supposed to be the custodians of the shahans of rasulullah the same people who are supposed to be the image of islam globally are the same people who are killing their fellow muslims in yemen subhanallah the one dropping the bomb says and the one being killed on the ground is also saying ishadu Allah ishadu Allah ishadu Allah muslims killing muslims muslims themselves causing divisions within muslims we always used to say that this was the strategy and the tactics of the imperialists that they would rule and divide they would conquer by dividing the people and today we see that those who call themselves custodians of the muslims are implementing the same strategy as that of the imperialists in that they are the ones causing divisions between muslims they are the ones who are funding war and bloodshed between the muslims therefore the muslim umma as in umma needs to be little bit mindful they need to be aware when it comes to the political and ideological situation that surrounds us in that these people who are calling themselves as custodians of the religion they themselves today are funding and actively promoting war and bloodshed between other muslims can this be acceptable or not once the masses collectively start to realize this um through the help of media through self-education through this culture of seeking actively for the truth once this awareness grows within the minds of the masses you find that the masses themselves will stand up and will start to negate and condemn this self-imposed leadership upon them Sheikh we have seen horrific images coming out of bodies being dumped in piles and badly mistreated in similar past occurrences the government has even been photographed using bulldozers to shovel and move dozens of bodies around is this indicative of a broader disdain for lives of average human beings by solidarity or is it rooted in their more or less sociopathic religious views in regards to the mistreatment of bodies um regardless of whether it is um the victims of the stampede in minna or anywhere else Habibi hadji this reflects a general attitude from a people who do not observe the sanctity of life you are able to judge the character and the attitude and the values of a person through their actions self speaks volumes i mean just the way the bodies were being cleared from minna the disrespectful manner in which the bodies were being dumped on this itself speaks for the values islam teaches us rasulullah taught us that life is sacred to take the life of one person falsely to kill one person falsely is equivalent to killing an entire umma and that humanity if you were to speak to a person who does not even subscribe to a religion and you talk to them on how a dead body should be handled perhaps you will find more humanity from them these actions reflect an attitude which is deeply rooted within them and this attitude is lack of respect for human life images of dead refugee children have shocked the conscience of the world into action what are the potential legal issues islamically speaking around propagating images of these dead pilgrims with the same goal in mind would this be permissible or not or should this be encouraged or discouraged in regards to propagating the pictures or the images of the flight of the refugees and particularly those of them who have died you find that the jurists will will tell you that there are a number to be considered over here in that number one we need to go back into looking at the root reason for the propagation of of such pictures firstly you know the pictures that are being published uh we need to ensure that for example these are not pictures that that unveil for example the the dignity of of of of that dead person you know taking pictures for example perhaps revealing their revealing their privacy obviously pictures like those are pictures like those are are are not acceptable from a religious perspective but however when you have these general images that the media captures in regards to mass deaths drownings the flights of the immigrants that are there we need to look at when it comes to the permissibility of spreading these images we need to look down to the intention it could be that the person or that an organization or that the country is promoting the mass propagation of these images for political reasons they we live at a time where people have this skill where they are able to manipulate the sorrows and manipulate the uh uh you can say they are they are able to manipulate the suffering of a group of people in order to gain a political advantage these are there are certain type of opportunities to live and their their goal is to politicize and to make opportunity from propagating pictures such as these to achieve their own political agendas obviously because the reasoning is wrong then for us to support such type of campaigns is is an issue of uh ishkal however if a person is looking at this issue from the door of to create awareness within the community to awaken the conscience of the people to guide them towards the truth to guide them towards goodness to guide them towards humanity to guide them towards justice and the pictures are propagated in order for noble divine values to prevail then by all means in this situation the technology which is used to create awareness is seen as a rahman is seen as a massy it is seen as a tool through which we are able to perform amra be ma'ruf and nahyan al-monkar yes um with all the controversies surrounding the Saudis at a time when they are also chairing a UN human rights panel and while news has just come that Saudi prince has been arrested in Los Angeles for committing a string of suspicious sex crimes what does the future hold for the monarchy and how badly has their image been hurt in the eyes of the world can it ever recover again um in regards to the monarchy um it is absolutely clear that for them the position that they hold and that these are people who have taken religion to be a tool and a vehicle in order to gain political power and political muscle um uh over the people and again the responsibility comes down on the Muslim um to recognize who of our leaders are true representatives and true ambassadors of Islam and how many of them are false in their claim of being ambassadors to to Islam when I come and I see that this is a royal family who belongs to the family of the custodian of the haramain this person who is tomorrow going to get a position in an in a so-called Islamic government that is supposed to overlook the uh the welfare of the entire muslim nation do I want people such as these to be in a position of power are these people who truly reflect the teachings of Rasul Allah are these the people who reflect the teachings of the Quran within them therefore when you see actions of the monarchy in this way um what we need to do on our side is that we need to invite the general muslim um to an awakening to wake up from this deep slumber of unconditional obedience to these monarchs and groups of people who do not represent Islam who in fact go on to damage Islam and go on to to ruin the image of Islam I mean not only is this a stain on on on on the royal family in terms of this unislamic crimes and these immoral acts for which this royal has been arrested but when you look at the general attitude I mean you look at the rising cases of islamophobia in the west you look at the number of reasons why muslim families people born within muslim families are becoming non-practicing muslims as a result of the negative image of Islam and islamophobia which boils down to the actions which are promoted and propagated and funded by royals such as these it is a matter of time that the muslim umma will wake up and realize that these are people who have taken the religion to be a mask and to be an excuse and a tool for them to to gain their own political gains and wealth in the dunya and we pray for the muslim umma to embrace the spirit of the quran in that they become those who are conscious people who are active people who are able to realize leaders who are truthful and separate them from leaders who are false i'm sure viewers are curious to know this next question if this had happened in any other country in the world other than the world's largest oil producer would the reaction of the u.s and european countries be any different if so how um i believe that um you know had uh this is by way of a personal opinion if this incident would have happened in any other country in the west there would be an independent commission and the key term over here is independent an independent commission would be set up and those who are responsible for a human tragedy such as this would be made accountable in a court of law and and uh you know relative justice would have been dispensed um and um you know this is all due to a factor or to a to a fundamental principle that life is sacred now unfortunately the countries which claim to propagate islam they do not subscribe to this fundamental principle that life is life is sacred and therefore you find that issues like these and the massacres like these tragedies like these to a great extent are unaccountable and in fact they are justified and you will find this it was um uh it was widespread within the news that um you know one of the muftis who is uh who is funded from the paycheck of these corrupt monarch he comes forward and he makes a public statement saying that this was the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala aji and it is even funny that a number of people um you know the naif the name and also fall into this trap and they say la sahih we went for hajj and this time did happen it was not in the control it was the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala yeah will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this mentality is the mentality of obaidullah ibn ziyad mentality of bani umayyah obaidullah ibn ziyad when say the zaynah balkubra salawatullahi wa salam wa salawatullahi wa salam wa aleyha together with imam al-sajjad and the rest of the women when they were brought captives into the palace of kufa what did ibn ziyad say he says to imam al-sajjad that praise be to Allah who killed your father hussain ibn ali hajj he was responsible and had a hand in killing imam hussain karmala and he says la Allah killed them subhanallah today today we fast forward 1400 years later the regime is responsible for the stampede due to negligence due to abandoning for example the thick of ahlul bait and you have their scholar their grandmother come and absorb those who are responsible of the crime by saying la it was the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this was in the control of Allah for al-kom abna ul-kom you see that the same mentality that existed there that i'm a bani umayyah these are the followers of bani umayyah and hence they will resort to the same excuse so they try to justify islamically all these tragedies and all these crimes that are committed by saying no this is part of the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created Makkah a place of aman not a place of tragedies and stampede to be there therefore actions and stances like these um the more these actions happen and the more the monarchy indulges in in acts of violence and acts of negligence and oppression towards the muslim online general you find the more and more they expose themselves and the more and more the truth becomes absolutely clear now prince muhammad bin naif has been appointed to head the inquiry into what happened how can the world take such an inquiry seriously when the fox is being appointed to investigate what happened in the henhouse so to say and this is why we say that in order to resolve this the key word in a commission being appointed to investigate this tragedy is that the commission needs to be independent we cannot have uh we can otherwise there is a conflict of interest to appoint somebody from within the monarch um to provide a report and to perform an inquiry where potentially this inquiry will lead to uh establishing the ignorance or establishing the negligence of that very same monarchy and it shows a conflict of interest therefore independence is uh is the most crucial factor when it comes to setting up a commission which is credible a commission which is serious and a commission which is dedicated to ensuring the tragedies like these will not happen again rather than cover up uh false and cover up um those who are responsible for this act is it possible that muslim majority countries around the world could band together to demand saudi accountability given the scale of this most recent outrage or are too many of them in the pocket of the regime dependent on it either for financial support or a steady flow of hajj visas among other things uh in regards to the response of the people what we are or in regards response response to this tragedy is divided perhaps one could say into two parts you have a political response from as in official political response where foreign ministers from older countries that are affected by this tragedy um take up uh diplomatic status and diplomatic channels um and formal channels to address and to um you could say to try and uh form an official independent inquiry into what has happened this is one channel now the countries that will that are willing to put such type of political pressure in that country it depends on their political ties that they have with saudi or with arabia whether unfortunately many times political decisions that are taken the only factor is not the welfare of the general masses there are a number of factors and conditions that are taken in um the repercussions of uh trying to force such a commission on the saudi regime and what the political consequences of that will be keeping in mind that oil is a is a tool that can be used um to dominate foreign policies um having said that the other the other uh response is the response from the general masses and this is why you will find that during the course of the interview again and again we've placed that the importance of who emphasized on the fact that it is the responsibility of the muslim oma collectively to stand up against dulma to stand up against oppression to be very honest and to be very frank look at the muslim look at the state of the muslim nations today any nation that considers itself to be a muslim or that has a muslim majority look at the political and economical disasters that they are experiencing right now despite being muslims despite being the followers of the best religion a religion that guarantees them success in the dunya as well as in the akhira they are in the most sorry state of affairs why is it that the general larger public and the larger umma accept to be humiliated and do not have the carestous rule the question is why is because the muslim umma is lacking inspiration from a revolutionary leader who can teach them and inspire them to stand up against the dulma which is why we say to the people embrace imam al-khusayn sayyid as shikada the grandson of rasulullah is that personality who stood up against the greatest tyrant of his time yazid ibn muawiyah who was at the head of the greatest empire that existed at that time you find that imam hussain stands up with 72 people and is able to shake the very foundations of oppression and is able to bring down those leaders who oppressed the people in the name of islam just like the way we have leaders who oppressed people in the name of islam today yet imam al-khusayn through his revolution was able to change the entire course of history and every person every group of individuals that have followed imam al-khusayn and have taken him as a model of emulation who have taken him as an inspiration you find that they've become successful in implementing revolutions and changes for the betterment of humanity and the examples are numerous over here muslims and non-muslim figures who took imam al-khusayn as an inspiration who led revolutions based on that motivation and that inspiration from the revolution of imam al-khusayn this courage this ability to have a stance and to say no to oppression to to be able to be motivated to live your life through a value which is captivated in the statement this needs motivation this needs inspiration and you cannot find this in anyone other than say the imam al-khusayn there it is imperative for the muslim nations that in order to stand up and to gain this inspiration to learn how to overcome injustice in a non-violent manner despite being in a minority refer back to imam al-khusayn and for this reason haji you will find that every dictator will do everything in his power to ensure that his people are disconnected from imam al-khusayn from the time of shapa halawi to the time of saddab to the time of the imperialists and whoever it is you will find if they're a tyrant and a dictator the first thing they do is that they wage war against the vicar of imam al-khusayn because they've understood that if you disconnect the people from imam al-khusayn they will always submit to oppression but as soon as the people are introduced to imam al-khusayn they're allowed to seek inspiration from imam al-khusayn we are able to stand up in revolution and make this world a better place for all humanity thank you so much sheikh inshallah the upcoming hajj pilgrimages will be under new authorities you are very welcome thank you sheikh abbas panju stand more london uk again we apologize to our dear viewers for the poor video quality brothers and sisters this concludes today's current events we hope to see you next time we thank you dear viewers for watching and we thank our dear guest sheikh abbas panju for joining us be sure to join us next time on current events until next time as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh


Hi and welcome to the session. I am Shashi and I am going to help you with the following question. Question says, suppose that two cards are drawn at random from a deck of cards. Let X be the number of faces obtained. Then the value of mean of variable X is, we have to choose the correct answer from A, B, C and D. Let us now start with the solution. Now first of all let us assume that X denotes the number of faces obtained. So we can write let X denote the number of faces obtained. Now we know two cards are drawn. Now three cases are possible when two cards are drawn. First case is both cards are races. Second case is one card is A's. Third is none of the cards is A's. Now we can say the random variable X can assume values 0, 1 or 2. Now we will write the probability distribution of variable X. We know random variable X can assume values 0, 1 or 2. Now first of all we will find probability of getting 0 A's. It is equal to 48 upon 52 multiplied by 48 upon 52 where cards are drawn with replacement. We know number of faces in a deck of cards is equal to 4 and total number of cards in a deck of cards is equal to 52. Now outcomes favourable to 0 A's is equal to 48 that is 52 minus 4 and total number of possible outcomes is equal to 52. So this is the probability of drawing first card. Similarly this is the probability of drawing second card. Remember that here cards are drawn with replacement. Now simplifying further we get probability of getting 0 A's is equal to 144 upon 169. So here we can write 144 upon 169. Now we will find the probability of getting single A's. It is equal to 4 upon 52 multiplied by 48 upon 52 plus 48 upon 52 multiplied by 4 upon 52. Now clearly we can see this is the probability of drawing first card that is A's and this is the probability of drawing second card which is other than A's. So probability of drawing second card is 48 upon 52. It may happen that first card is A's and second card is other than A's. It may happen that second card is A's and first card is other than A's. So we will add both of these probabilities. So we can write probability of getting single A's is equal to 4 upon 52 multiplied by 48 upon 52 multiplied by 2. Simplifying further we get it is equal to 24 upon 169. So we can write probability of getting a single A's is equal to 24 upon 169. Now we will find probability of getting 2 A's's. It is equal to 4 upon 52 multiplied by 4 upon 52. We know total number of outcomes favourable to A's is equal to 4 and total number of possible outcomes is equal to 52. So probability of drawing first card is 4 upon 52. Similarly probability of drawing second card is also 4 upon 52. Since cards are drawn with replacement so probability of both the cards is 4 upon 52. Now simplifying further we get probability of getting 2 A's is equal to 1 upon 169. Now here we can write 1 upon 169. Now we know mean of random variable X is equal to Ex which is equal to summation of Xi Pxi where i is equal to 1 to n. Now we will find X1 P1 plus X2 P2 plus X3 P3. Now we can write 0 multiplied by 144 upon 169 plus 1 multiplied by 24 upon 169 plus 2 multiplied by 1 upon 169. Now simplifying further we get 24 upon 169 plus 2 upon 169 which is further equal to 26 upon 169. This term will become 0 and 1 multiplied by 24 upon 169 is 24 upon 169 only. Similarly multiplying these two terms we get 2 upon 169. Adding these two terms we get 26 upon 169. Now we will cancel common factor 13 from numerator and denominator both and we get 2 upon 13. So mean of variable X is equal to 2 upon 13. So the correct answer is D. This is our required answer. This completes the session. Hope you understood the solution. Take care and have a nice day.


Johnny. The cold voice whispered. Her words were getting more and more raspy, starting to sound as if she had smoked two packs a day since we'd been kids. Yes, Ellen? There was a pause. You know my one regret, Johnny? She'd been dead for going on six months, yet considering the circumstances she still smelled delightfully well. I had a hunch she kept a bottle of old perfume down there with her. No, what is it? An audible sigh could be heard from underneath my bed. I just wish we would have had kids, you know? Terror gripped me then, for more reason than one. I thought over my most strategic answer is not to anger the dangerous thing that watched over me as I slept. Uh, yeah, me too. I mumbled, do you mean that? She asked, popping her head out from under the bed and nearly giving me a heart attack in the process. Jesus, I screamed, jumping back against the wall. There was a single plump worm in her left eyeball now, looking to have fed happily since her untimely demise. She growled then, bearing her teeth, which were unusually sharp and hissing, before floating back out of sight and into the darkness.  Do I really look that bad? I paused, then recovered. No, no, not at all, honey. It's just the worm caught me by surprise, that's all. She sighed again. I know I don't look so good. She replied, consciously forcing herself to stop growling madly. Love is love, right? That made me think back to the first night I'd seen her. I'd thought I was dreaming as I watched the fresh corpse of my girlfriend gently push open the window. She'd kissed me on the cheek and slunk under my bed. I don't want you to see me like this, she had said, not without my makeup. My thoughts now in the present again, I sighed. She'd look so much better back then, when she was only freshly dead. Johnny, I've been thinking, I'm not getting any more life, you know, and I think my lady parts are still intact. I interrupted, Ellen, honey, you're dead. Since when has that ever stopped anyone? She replied indignantly. She slid back across the floor, her red eyes starting to glow as they looked into mine. Look, all I'm saying is, I want us to try.  I know you've got options. I see the way that little Susie still alive looks at you. It was true, Susie had the hots for me, and I was ashamed to say I had thought about asking her out for coffee since Ellen had died. It would be nice to have a girlfriend that liked going places, other than beneath my bed and sometimes in my closet. Ellen, it's just terror washed over me then, and I remembered that whatever my girlfriend was turning into, I couldn't talk to her honestly like I used to. There would be consequences. Johnny. She continued, her voice becoming calm and demonic as her red eyes glowed more brightly. You either try and give me a baby, or one of these nights, you'll find yourself underneath this bed with me.


You've already learned about the plus plus increment and minus minus decrement operators. They update the variable without needing an equal sign. The variable is changed in place. You can also put the operator before the variable name as shown here. Why two versions and what's the difference? When the operators are all by themselves, there's no difference. But when you put them in an expression with other operations, there's a big difference. In this example, the plus plus follows the variable and it's called a post increment. This is what things look like after we initialize quantity in the first statement. Here's what happens when C encounters the second statement. It accesses the value of quantity, which is 10. Then the plus plus takes effect and the variable quantity becomes 11. Then we do the multiplication, getting a result of 50, and assign the result on the right hand side to the variable total. Now let's try it with the plus plus before the variable name. This is called a pre increment. At the end of the first statement, quantity is still 10. When evaluating the right hand side of the second statement, because the plus plus comes before the variable name, the increment happens before accessing the value of the variable. Now when we look at quantity, we get 11 and multiply that by 5. And here's what we end up with. Quantity is 11, but this time the total is 55. How would you evaluate an expression like this, which involves more than one increment and decrement? Here's a technique that I've found to be very useful. Find all the variables with a pre operator, the plus plus or minus minus preceding the variable name, and write it out before the statement. Now find everything with a post operator, the plus plus or minus minus following the variable name, and write it out after the statement. Then go through the statements in order. Here's the situation after the first two statements. Add 1 to y, multiply x by y, and finally subtract 1 from x. And there's the correct answer with all the correct values for the variables. What happens if you use the same variable with both pre and post operators? The answer is don't. Just don't. Not only is it hard to understand, but in C the result is undefined. It can depend on which machine architecture and compiler you're using. In summary, much of the time you will use the increment and decrement operators all by themselves. When you're using pointers, however, these operators are used in expressions, and you need to know if a pointer is incremented before or after you access its value.


It's a big pleasure to share with you some insight into these issues that we have now with SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 pandemic. And it's maybe interesting for you to know that I am also already since the beginning of the crisis. I'm linked with some of your Kenyan colleagues in around Lake Victoria and CIA district around in order to really go at the periphery to look at this problem of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. So it's a thank you very much again for this invitation. What I want to do with you, I want to share some of the issues that we have not only in Switzerland, but actually how we can again, in the spirit that I've always followed is this mutual learning for change that we can learn together when we think about in this case now the pandemic, how we can learn together in order to make a difference in global public health. I have prepared a few slides and I hope you can see the screen. I can see it, that it is shared, but otherwise you just must shout if you don't see it and you see me as well now. And I would like to start with some basics. I want to give you the end of this possibility. The big question in all the countries and in the areas are always the question of which strategies and which approaches that you have to do if something unexpected happens and how you go with all this. So I start with this picture on the strategies. These are some basic slides. You know this is actually when everything was in full swing here we were driving through DRC in 2005 and then suddenly in full swing something happens and in this case it was this snake that went over the street and we were actually, this is an easy case when this happens to you.  Now when it came to COVID some people actually and particularly scientists they just looked at it in a strategy in a different way. They looked at the strategy in this way that they would say oh we have a very big problem and without just let's look, let's examine, let's do some research, let's find out. But with this attitude as you can agree I mean the rock, the big rock still remains and they will not move away and you are just doing some very nice descriptions and some analysis. Another important thing for the strategies in such pandemic situation but always actually is this picture is that you need to have the right tools. You know this man here doesn't have the right tool to knock down the tree. So whenever we actually design strategies sometimes very theoretically we are actually challenged to have to also ask which are the right tools. So just keep these pictures that there is another strategy that many people have tried at the beginning of not only the SARS situation they have actually done this what this penguin man does it's do one brave thing today and then run like hell. That's what they sometimes do and this of course as you can see it looks nice it's attractive but it's not the strategy that carries us forward and if you just do one thing that you think is fine you may in danger hear the mama penguin that actually when the ice bear wakes up as a serious problem. So what we are in now in the strategy discussion is actually this one is actually that we do fun and have extreme sports fun means that we do our science with enthusiasm not just happy life enthusiasm committed and we are actually targeted to what we have to solve we protect ourselves but actually we are very much determined to reach that. So this is one of the basics that we always have to think that we are not dropping into these strategy traps that are very often if the strategies are not rooted to the realities as we I don't have to say in Ilri about it is something which I had and this is not to teach you but actually I had actually a really big problem in some other context to actually show people that this whole issue of emerging and re-emerging diseases is actually very much linked to something which is dear to me and what you do is really the one health issue that we have here to deal with sonotic diseases and that means that we are actually not just actually can say it's why we have SARS, SARS-1, SARS-2, MERS and then the thing is over but the potential all over is large and that we have to have a spirit of surveillance in order to really detect what is coming for us and also this surveillance spirit is important in our strategies to fight the pandemic now and I think this comes particularly as you know there are from 1400 pathogens 800 around across the animal human barrier but more important is what you know very well is that we have always not just the neglected disease and emerging disease we always have and that's particularly clear in many settings nowadays it's the triangle the tripod of neglected diseases neglected people but also neglected health and social systems you see when we are now wanting to have a strategy of control then actually we very often see what we have to control but we don't have the systems to carry that through so these are basic slides that you mostly know but I just wanted to remind you that because this is important when people discuss strategy and the most important one is this basic slide that some of you who know me and have seen it before that is actually to understand if we come from an efficacious tool to an effective community action or a health systems action and it is this famous cascade downhill cascade that we actually have here an efficacy of a tool let's say an efficacy of a sorry of a drug which is 80% but actually what counts that you reach effectiveness in a community is that you need to ensure access the blue the target that you need to know whom to target you must have from the provider the compliance and from the consumer the adherence these blue factors are health system factors but they're also factors on how we collaborate together so if you have also a very nice efficacy of 80% if you do not reach here 100% if you are actually low in these health system factors your effectiveness in this example collapses to 29% if we do not effectively work together we collapse the effectiveness and that's at the end what counts and that's particularly important if you take interventions and tools like masks if you take interventions like distancing and if this is not 100% done then you can imagine that the efficacy of a tool reduces then its effectiveness in a substantial way so I think this is something which is very specific now but is something to think about in all our health interventions when we that we not only aim at the magic bullet the drug or the vaccine but we also think what it means to carry this magic bullet to the community's concern and of course if you have not 100% effectiveness you ask the question do we reach everybody and that's particularly important in a situation where you have a pandemic situation that you are not that you are equitable if you have 80% effectiveness but the remaining 20% are actually the poorest people the most neglected people then you have not the high equity effectiveness this is just now basics I say now when does he come now to SARS-2 COVID-19 then actually it's now the moment but this is the fundamental thinking about the strategies that apply for all the countries and I know very well for instance your Kenya being in Kenya at the Lake Victoria area this issue of just saying we have masks we have distancing and things are fine if we don't have the compliance and adherence we are actually losing the effects and this was actually seen in the first wave in the CIA area very clearly before it was reinforced this is how it started for us for all of us this is an old graph when we actually got these dramatic pictures of doubling times every two days in some countries Spain Iran Italy we got the doubling times here in central Europe Canada Australia and then we had actually that was the very beginning when we didn't have any data a lot on the African situation I show you this is just out of this situation many of the countries were totally totally overwhelmed and particularly it's also true for our country and it's very interesting then when science coming science only came in after we had the lockdown so the scientific task force to inform the government about how we would move in this difficult situation actually came only in force in the first of April that the government created a science task force to assist the federal council at the crisis team and the steering committee but we had the lockdown already on the 16th of March so until the political level realized oh basically we should also involve the scientists to inform us about the scientific basis it took some time and what we do as a scientific task force that's very important for many of the settings we are produced we produce policy briefs and situation analysis and these are all public so on this website and I will give you a whom or others at this presentation and you can distribute it can be distributed we are actually all what we produce as scientists and that's a very important point is not only for the government but it is for the public and for the whole world everybody can read our website where actually these policy briefs are basically in English but also of course in our national languages and what we do in addition as this task force just to show you how we try to inform the government is that we are actually have continuous input into calculating and projecting the effective reproduction rate as well as the TTIQ this reads as TIC it's the TIC that means it's the it's testing it's testing tracing the isolation and quarantine the system that is partly based also on an app and this is actually the scientific contribution to constantly inform not for the whole country but actually for the regions the reproduction rate as well as the contact tracing situation so it's these two elements that flow into the decision-making process the measures are actually then decided in the social political discussion not only by the scientists but by the federal council but with community representatives and with also the different private sector and all the peoples that are then involved in our economic and social tissue so clearly it is not that we say what has to be done but we inform about options of things that could and we sometimes are a little bit stronger by saying should be done but we are not we are actually making policy relevant statements and options to act but we do not do policy prescription as soon as you go into the field and that's internationally an important issue you can see this always if the science does not just makes policy relevant statements but makes policy prescriptions we run into problems of of politics and then the people say science is no longer independent the scientists support are corrupt or actually really only have their own self-interest so as you can see from this very summary we actually face with science to inform policy we actually are walking a tight rope between really these relevant statements the scientific evidence and the policy prescription so this is I'm sorry this is in French but I think this the scientists also have a duty and this is not only just that is epidemiology but also with social science with economics that we are not just saying oh we can actually we can kill corona by just having a heavy caterpillar with a large ball that breaks all the transmissions but then what remains at the end is a heap of an economy that is collapsed a social tissue that is collapsed so this is actually not to discuss in detail that looks wild but that's actually is what we produce in the science is that for the country but also for the different regions we have this the the solid lila line is the reproduction rate effective reproduction rate of transmission and so we follow from the beginning over time if the case reproduction rate is over one and we know now that we have actually we have we went down and it was the terrible situation that we have went into the second wave and and this is something that was known to the politicians and a there is something where science should in my opinion should have been stronger because here what happened in July August our reproduction rate was always above one but we had still lower case numbers but it started to build up and this is actually the period which is important that you have if you have long period over over with a reproduction rate that was over one this would actually predict that you run into troubles as we did at the end of October and beginning of November and I think this is something which is not a justification or an excuse but it shows that despite we had these measures of surveillance and projections in place we were actually not able to bring in the evidence that if you have over a long period reproduction rate that stays over one and accumulates not too many cases that so politically social politically people said are we are in a low case situation but this low case operation produced then the difficult situation we have with the consequences of cases hospitalization as well as afterwards death below you see another issue which we were often asked from the politics measures you see here it is you don't see it very clearly but it just shows what actually was forbidden in within a short period and it's it's all clear to all of you as scientists of all of scientists that you have a multi causal situation so when people then politicians ask so what is more important distancing or masks then you of course you cannot disentangle this if you have the measures brought in in the same way combined with the effectiveness issues that I showed you before so we went up but this is we went up and I want just to add a few other important characteristics which are also important for your country and for all the country in in SARS-2 corona we have one difficulty and this is the heterogeneity so here is our country Switzerland that the more it's red or dark the red it's more you have a higher proportion infected and what you see the whole of Switzerland is not in any has those doesn't show an equal distribution so we have a heterogeneity in space then we have a heterogeneity in age as you know very well the younger people they can be infected but they are not seriously sick and there is only the problem with those who have a co-morbidities so if you have to deal with a disease that has heterogeneity like this measures on a national level become difficult because as you can imagine if you say it's a big problem now in Switzerland some people in the central part would say what are you talking about we have no hardly any cases it's not our problem so a general measures face a problem or if you say everybody be careful some people say we are in full swing we are not getting infected it doesn't affect us more much so no problem and so the communication and the tailoring of messages and measures is actually absolutely crucial thing and I think this is something where I can say we were failing we were failing because we are too many general measures for a whole of a country but we had less tailored communication also we are in a in a political situation that would help us I mean Switzerland we have 26 cantons and health education is a is continental affairs so we have a a major decentralization and you have also decentralization in Kenya Tanzania decentralization is an important tool to tailor an intervention whatever it is to a given a setting so despite this decentralization possibilities we have a not very well handled in our situation to use decentralization to really go in a very targeted way where things happen so now with with the measures I would say a few thoughts about the measures not to saying which is right and wrong but actually just on what we build on and the interesting thing in in COVID was that the past lies ahead of us this old picture shows you even before we had the germ theory shows you professor Semmelweis and who discovered that the students coming from the anatomy lessons practicals actually had transmitted much more infection to women giving birth and the measure at that time when we didn't know anything about bacteria in the mid 19th century was that one said hand washing so you see the hand washing thing was actually what came up as a first thing in the measures not only in Switzerland these were the posters not from Semmelweis period but from this spring where we said do wash your hands this is so we were actually going back to experience from before but what I would like to think about more about choosing measures and what were considerations you see the basic the basic issue in measures is the question that they are feasible that you can bring it into a population acceptable and it's also proportional that it is actually relative to other risks and measures is it really making a is it justified to have one strict measure compared to the living situation the social tissue the economic tissue and of course it is important that there are joint efforts and that there are actually cross-border issues I mean you had this in very clearly also in Kenya I mean we cannot just sit in a country close up the country New Zealand did it New Zealand sitting on islands was actually just closing everything and then they got actually through very very well we in a country like Switzerland sit in the middle of Europe we have to see what France Germany Austria and Italy do then came the question of the lockdown the rock down the first lockdowns were done because we were overwhelmed and had to stop once to get a little bit quiet and to reflect and we also know that lockdowns severe lockdowns are okay to reflect but then to open again but if we repeat then actually it's a socially and economically fatal if you go up and down into into lockdowns and then you shut down economy you shut down social life to a large extent and then you come up again and this is very important for the period right now and for the festive period people think of the so-called circuit breaker circuit breakers are just short hard lockdowns of two to three weeks or four weeks and there the problem is that if you if you do a circuit breaker now before Christmas and then you open everything again you can still have the risk that you get into a new wave this is the so-called yo-yo effect that many people know from diets you actually do a diet you lose weight and if you don't do anything afterwards with your food behavior you are actually back to your old weight very soon again of course we have the outlooks for for the vaccination but if this major efforts are being completed it still takes time even if now like uk announced that they would start vaccinating this week or next week takes time then the last issue which you are scientists are interested is of course the herd immunity and some of the countries chose a strategy just to say let's have the transmission going on people get infected they are afterwards immune and and and things are fine the problem here in in covid are twofold one that the immunity to corona is not an immunity to measles where you are once infected once vaccinated and you are safe for life we know that the immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is a shorter lift maybe half a year and not everybody has a after exposure a very good immune response and we have the best immune response when you have been ill and and better even if you have been severely ill and actually then you get also a good amount of neutralizing antibodies and then you have the other point if you have solved the immunity side you must solve that that you must protect as a society we have the duty also to protect risk groups not the ones who are in old people's home but those who are actually risk groups that are having comorbidities but are still actually in our social and economic life so these are some of the issues in general about measures what we then need actually and that's something that's a learning from previous situations in in in disease control is that we actually of course went this is you can say the swiss cheese model here is our virus we have the different measures bringing together we know that each measure has some holes in it but if you bring measures together like distancing washing hands wearing masks and early testing of symptomatic people then you can actually protect your population so with this picture you should go back to my initial picture on the effectiveness and then you realize that each of this decay of efficacy of each of the of the measures follows this law and actually it's clear that you are a bit better off if you actually have a multi layered situation but still the question how you you prevent and that's important not just that you don't get the transmission through but that you are detecting very early transmission occurring and so the backbone of the swiss approach but also of some of our neighbors but less was actually a learning that we had from working with neglected emerging and re-emerging diseases that we actually have surveillance response some of you remember that in WHO when we were actually having the scientific advisory group to Tedros on malaria elimination which I had the privilege and pleasure to chair I mean one of the key messages was that we actually have to do surveillance response that means that you actually not collect data in monitoring and evaluation mode but you actually do surveillance and you collect data minimal essential data in space and time in order to find out where transmission occurs and then you can give a tailored intervention we have actually had a technical a technical addition which helped a lot this is the so-called swiss covid up for after the testing you do the tracing and those who are infected are isolated and the main contacts are in quarantine this actually this TTIQ this tick you can do traditionally but if you have an app this helps a lot this app and that's very interesting on this technology I mean initially people said we should just take an app from Singapore or from South Korea but this will not work in our country because of the data protection act where we should actually not create a central database and therefore the swiss covid app is totally free of having a central database the the internet protocol on your computer is destroyed after 14 days so it's really something that is just the help to be alerted when you have the contact with a positive person but it is not not a control issue as you could see you had in the in South Korea Singapore but also in Israel and so on so this there we lost time to develop it because we had to follow our our laws but what we remain with is really surveillance response detector let's see the picture below where a fire starts so that you can go there and act and this is possible if you have the decentralization you do this in the canton's in the districts in your situation and you actually have a public health response package tailored to the transmission setting if you have to have a a transmission starts in a party a parlor if transmission starts in a choir of a church if transmission is in an old people home your your action is different totally different and so this surveillance response is a key issue because as long as you can no longer do the tracing and go early then you run into a wave and that's what happened now is the second wave that our contract tracing system was weak processes were long and therefore we run into the wave that you know very well as many other countries but we have actually with this and compared to say for instance countries with very hard lockdowns where you could only leave your house for one hour for one kilometer as a situation this did not bring a better control of the of the pandemic and but it had a huge effect on the social tissue of the people the key issue in in surveillance response in this approach is communication it's the tailored communication and particularly because of what I said with this heterogeneity you can imagine and some of you remember when we had Ebola in 2014 Ebola was much easier to communicate because from the baby to the grandfather everybody who was infected had a risk of 50 to even 60 percent to die this is a much easier issue to get the community understand the severity and the and the community to engage in measures in SARS with the heterogeneity we we don't have it so therefore communication is key and it comes back to this issue that I've told you before it is really if you want to be effective the question of adequacy appropriateness and acceptance is very important or very important and it is what we learned even if you have very nice TTIQ processes of contact tracing with nice technology it's the processes that count that we are actually in time not only just transmitting by email but also doing the analyze and act quickly otherwise surveillance response does not work and then surveillance response is like this picture so we must through processes through sharing and well definition of roles and responsibilities in a given ethical and legal framework we must accelerate these processes we must not have another new technology another new technology that's how we can make surveillance response work there's something which comes up in all the countries now is really and this is just a an introductory slide to show what is basically necessary is really to look we have in Switzerland we did a stress study concerned about people long time in quarantine having lockdowns having homeschooling and home office together particularly in in poor settings where six people are in two bedroom apartments and have only two computers that is actually the issue where stress comes up and indeed about during lockdown and afterwards 50 to 40 percent had stress and it's only 26 percent 30 percent after lockdown that said no I'm fine I'm in top shape it's very interesting that those who didn't have stress during these times they all said I have it more relaxations I have less obligations and I can actually have less to do also for the schooling so I'm fine but more important for society is actually what those mention about stress I mean the burden through the workplace changes to child care changes for being alone for and worrying about the future the job worrying about that you are actually don't have so much freedom anymore that was very significant and this study is now being brought is continued because this is really the issue where science must contribute a lot on long-term effects the mental health as well as then the societal tissue to what extent actually the societal tissue is actually affected so I think this is something which when we talk about science and such a pandemic the lesson from this small slide here is not just to concentrate on epidemiology and infection control but also look at the not just to do social science but really do at the effects on well-being on the social tissue because it's the social tissue that carries the economic tissue and not the other way around and I think this is a key area where science still must contribute a lot and I mean talking to Ilri you have actually there the issue that you have always populations that are in a one health situation where one must optimally balance really the well-being of the society that is actually largely carried in the pastoralist groups by the well-being also of the of the animals and the productivity of the animals so this is an outlook where science still has a lot to do even if we have a vaccine these longer-term effects of this one year of a relatively dramatic situation that has touched the world has to be looked at because that will certainly determine on how we are actually interacting together not just traveling but actually how meaningful are some of the relations and how meaningful or not meaningful are just to to work in distance with zooms and so here I mean the outlook for vaccination is now good and you read also the the journals and I think just wanted to have summarized on one slide that this is all fine and but we know that we still have I mentioned it before on herd immunity that we have the natural immunity which is not as fantastic as in a case like like measles the positive thing is that we have nowadays thanks to the work that we did in Ebola thanks to the work that we did for instance in malaria we have new ways of doing clinical studies in rolling procedure overlapping phases this is actually what we have installed quite a lot through the work in in particularly Africa where we have actually learned how we can ethically correct develop tools quicker than standard procedures we have all these of candidates that's all very nice we should not be a bit careful about the intermediate results because they were only taken after a shorter period and we really need to see that full phase 3 results are there because that determines registration but also post-registration registration conditionalities also these preliminary results that are looking very well we have to see there is a immunity induced against infection and or disease or and very important how long does this go the good thing again is that we have this iterative process with regulatory agencies to go on and accelerate registration but on the other hand each country will have a huge challenge where also science can help is really to have the whole supply chain the supply chain management of such a major operation is not the easiest thing in the world how do you set priorities for risk groups and in this case health staff and their families and how is the communication again so this is a slide to show that we are on good track what we have to think about and that we have really to maintain not just to maintain the scientific standards but also the ethical standards because that determines acceptance in the in in in the in the communities so we here we have something to come we could actually discuss a lot about these many discussions which are really the ways of transmission and the roles of aerosols we have the issue of the children here as a key sentence is that children are not the drivers of the epidemic they can be infected they can transmit but they are not the drivers you have all the discussion on what does what does actually the PCR tests do and not do and also which rapid diagnostics tests are now being used even using saliva no longer the difficult nose throat swaps that you have to go through then the famous discussion on masks where the difference is very often not made between masks as a barrier versus mask wearing behavior most of the risk with masks is how you wear it and how you keep it clean it then it's the mask as such and the immune and the vaccines we discussed these may be questions that will come up afterwards but what we have learned in academics and also is the discussion with the the politician is actually what I want to come back is here the title we must be humble we must say that we are scientists we show what we know and what we don't know but we must also be pragmatic and this goes back to this scientist here you saw at the beginning who is looking and studying and here when when I see such a scientist and coming out of this crisis I would say remember my dear friends always the sentence that Sir Bradford Hill made in the time when Sir Bradford Hill was discovering the relationship between smoking and lung cancer initially people said oh you need more studies you need more studies you need more studies before you can say this is a real something that is connected and many of you have written in your thesis the sentence this problem warrants more research when I saw this with a student I said you can write this and I agree but if you don't know what the more research is if you are not able to formulate the research question you better should not write this sentence so what does this mean for public health and for the link with the politicians is actually what Bradford Hill said in this nice long sentence but it basically says the science does not know all at once but this does not mean that we are not doing anything in public health even if you don't know all and you have to do more studies you know enough to already do something and I think this is one of the key issues in the dialogue between the scientists and the politicians it's always to say what you know and what you don't know but also what is what you know and what you don't know already can be done for the benefit of the population for benefit of a country in order to move and this is not just a scientific issue that's also an ethical issue so I like very much this sentence because this has guided me through four decades of research throughout and I'm very happy that I had the privilege particularly also through collaboration and particularly through collaboration and partnership with Africa to learn these issues on how one actually generates scientific evidence and one can translate it into into public health action and you have certainly now seen that the road to success has no shortcuts this is this driver saw this as well and I would say what the what the thing is please don't give up let's be committed we are sitting in one boat as our colleague says don't give up and I thank you very very much thank you very much Max and for this beautiful and excellent talk there's a lot of take-home message from the talk you know going really from the deep science into the policy and also the reflection of the public health career applied for this particular pandemic at the moment so a very rich talk and you know I look at the time thank you very much for you and I feel and so now you are you know I hope that you are okay because I feel a little bit sense in the voice but you talk with people in Nairobi but also our colleague in different countries including Ethiopia Vietnam but even you know our colleague has been sitting in Switzerland for that so time is almost up but we during the you talk you know our colleague put a lot of questions and the question has been answered with the long of the talk so some of this thing was clarified but here I would like us to take one or two questions from the group and our colleague Eric Ferrer asked you I think that is quite two interesting questions and I read two and you can you know give some element answer if you like Mark said my question is about the role of science and policy making there has been a lot of confusion and disagreement in the science community on how to manage COVID-19 how should scientists have prepared politicians to respond so that is the first one but I link also to the second question maybe it's dear to you because of Switzerland the question is about shutting down the economy Europe is about to have a big fight over whether to open ski resorts in Switzerland or other country versus allowing that important sector of the economy to continue working so in Kenya for example there are arguments over opening bars and churches it is making people you know mark and politician and so nervous so how can science be convincing on this thank you Mark said thank you very much everybody thank you very much whom I mean I still have the time and I've seen these questions also in the chat I was reading that one now to this first question the great parent in declaration and so on I think the point is that the scientists should as I tried to say at the beginning always make scientific relevant statements based on the evidence they put together and I think this is the key issue as soon as you're making with a declaration basically a prescription you run into into a discussion that is not helpful because in a crisis situation it is important to work together and not to say I believe this I think this and I think this is something where away from covid I in my work in the academies I it's my biggest problem to in also other topic like gene technology in issues like biodiversity climate energy is really to find this interface between what do we know as scientists and what actually are options to act but not prescriptions to act and I think this is the that is the first part of the question I think that we remain there so I if a if a if a great barrington declaration is is written in a way where you take all the evidence together and you scrutinize this evidence be it meta-analysis and other procedures on how we do comparative analysis of what we know and we don't know then this is fine all these issues become difficult when scientists become leaders of a group of beliefs because then we are back to more touchy religious issues and you know mankind has not profited a lot from religious wars over a thousand years and more so this is the point now the skiing resort issue is a very good discussion it's not just because of skiing and Switzerland it's because a typical example of where a one must reconcile the issue you know skiing as such is not a problem you never get infected while skiing the problem is where actually when you are going in your cable car so when you are going in the evening when it's cold into a small hut in the mountains and so on that's where your transmission can occur so the scientist must only just state that's the scientific statement and it is to say what matters is distance what matters is hygiene what matters is contact if we need to go out of this situation that we are now we need to give in case numbers down we should see how we can avoid these these these multiple contacts also contacts across the different the different bubbles where people interact that's why we have restrictions that you can only meet 10 people out of two bubbles maybe two families and so on and i think this is something which is there the scientist should not say let this skiing resort in the eastern part open and in the central part not but actually really only say this is what we know as scientists what favors transmission so for the inside rooms it's also the aerosols the non-errated places of bars and discos and so on and actually this is what we state but we don't say close it now that is actually after the social-political discussion where also the economic considerations come in and Switzerland has now a policy for instance that we want to keep certain social life we are not like other neighboring countries where they say we make a hard lockdown we want to keep some economy and therefore also social life going and we keep the schools open in order to allow this but in these situations one must really respect these basic measures the problem is that everybody understands that and is basically happy but once they are in the situation and once the restaurants are open people are getting less careful this doesn't mean they don't respect but as you could see from my very the second the third slide on effectiveness if you are only doing things half two thirds it has already a huge impact on effectiveness and this is actually the biggest problem that's why my point also communication and not propaganda communication in order to keep compliance and adherence high and this is that's the key thing today at two o'clock our federal council will actually decide how they want to handle ski resorts and christmas and we were actually advising exactly in this way saying you can basically always find a concept that works but it is afterwards the big issue and that's also a scientific issue communication science how you can maintain high degrees of adherence and compliance very good it's just another point which comes in is the rapid uh test brief I mean the rapid test question of course these rapid tests and particularly the ones now on the saliva if well validated have an important point because they can it's not that they replace all the tests but it can be used for instance if somebody wants to travel or wants to visit also people in an old people's home you can do a rapid test because we know they have a very good specificity have a lower sensitivity but if you are positive in these rapid tests you are infectious so you can bring this into your control strategy in a very effective way and even with the vaccine we are not uh we are not then free and can forget about tests so if you see this rapid test now coming plus the vaccine coming we will have some more tools tools for an integrated control over okay thank you very much max and actually you are reading also the message and actually very nice that you brought this rapid test time so not up but you know max and maybe I take the ability because I have the microphone now to ask a short question and I want you to tell us only in one minute maybe you always talked about mutual learning for change among us in research partnership and now for this COVID context you see example of Vietnam where I come from and sometimes I'm proud of that we control COVID quite well with China so and you know that's kind of low you know in middle income countries and when you look at Europe and North America as a situation it's much more you know uh you know it's a very drastic increase on this thing so so what what is the short comment on the you know mutual learning for change within these two contexts how how we can learn from you and how some of this you know heavily hit by COVID-19 can learn a bit from from some countries they have you know they have a better control in the sense of number of cases number of death at the moment where I refer to Vietnam and China thank you thank you very much I think it is an important discussion and I think it's actually we looked a lot about the Southeast Asian situation and here as I tried to mention briefly with the with the app I mean it would have been an easy thing and we would have done better if we would have just taken the South Korean and Chinese app systems but this actually leads to a situation where we are not being capable to introduce that in the population the biggest hesitation is also Birgit Habermann asks similar questions the the the situation is that we are having we are people are suspicious to have a central database and to be controlled also Israel we did very well at the beginning and in Israel you they just had to switch over the contact tracing to the secret service system and they could actually have each smartphone in the whole of Israel and in the occupied territories look and this is something which was not accepted so the learning was that we needed such apps the learning was also that it could not be transferred immediately and we we had it to detach in the case of the swiss covid app it from a a gps-based link so that people could not be linked where they are and actually it had to be uh delinked from a central database and so it was a learning in in in a situation but it is also comes acceptance and feasibility in a given social political uh system and that's very important so the same thing is when Birgit in the same context asks about the ample system that the traffic light system i mean a traffic light system for a whole of a country is basically not possible with the heterogeneities we have because if you would do this then some parts of the country would say for us it's green it's not red and and if you want to to do this by by canton or by district it becomes very complex to have really real-time information and not creating also systems that the situation that we have we had in Geneva we had a lot of cases as a consequence people they they they close the bars and restaurants and everything what happens they went to the neighboring canton and they had there the big parties and so on and then as a consequence these cantons run into a much quicker second wave so having this ample system or this traffic light system is is is is is is a tricky issue and particularly if you are close together of course nobody if you close the bars in Kenya in Nairobi will then run to Mombasa for a party but i mean it's it's a different situation if you are are are very close so this this adaptation to the local setting is in these situations absolutely important thank you very much that is very nice comment and input from you Mark said time is up but i would like to say that it was really a big privilege to have you today with our in-risk staff and thank you very much for your contribution and sharing and i wish you all the best and we hope that you know we keep this contact going on and i take this opportunity to thank you you very much for the past support to our partnership in Riyan Suti Pesh thank you very much Mark said thank you all everybody thank you very much i will send whom the slides and the geek and then distributed to all this is our open and free for everybody and and without any doubt i mean we will continue our partnership and i still remember the time when i was at Ilri when it was still Ilrat and i i i now see where you are and i i followed your your part from actually 1976 onwards when i was working with Hiromi on the cultivation of the cultivation of the bloodstream forms of tripanosomes that was actually part of my PhD thesis in 1977 so i mean i i'm very much linked to all of you and i admire the work you do and uh we Bila Shaka we tuna in the lay up a mocha a Sunday nissana thank you very much