Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Over the past few years, think tanks have begun to exert an increasing amount of influence on various aspects of policy and decision making in India. From the Observer Research Foundation to the Carnegie Endowment and Brookings India, these institutions are often at the centre of a vast network involving the bureaucracy, the media, as well as various officials. To talk more about this, we are joined today by Urvashi Sakar, an independent journalist who has extensively chronicled the work and influence of these institutions. Thank you for joining us Urvashi. Could you first talk about what exactly is this network of think tanks and the role in a very general sense? They play in the Indian context specifically. We know that they are very important in various other countries, but how exactly do they function in the Indian context? I think we could understand think tanks as a system of elite networks. And think tanks have been around in India for many, many years and especially, you know, started out with the government think tanks and more and more privately funded think tanks have, you know, come into the picture and in fact, one or two years ago, India was the country with the third or fourth largest number of think tanks in the world. In the Indian context, they operate a little differently from the US context and I mentioned the United States because that is where think tanks are really the most influential and most powerful and, you know, have a saying decision making. Indian think tanks, I think, would like to go the same way. They are not yet as influential as American think tanks, but, you know, they are slowly becoming, you know, very visible, very prominent. And are they influential on the Indian government? Well, maybe not as much as they would like to be influential because I think it works more like, you know, the Indian government might say, or a certain ministry, like say the Ministry of External Affairs might tell a certain think tank that I want a report done on this or that and that would be done. It's more rare that an idea formulated by think tank would be accepted by the government. That hasn't really happened extensively, you know. It's still like a very, it's still a field like the think tank, feel in India is not as mature as, you know, in the US or in the UK. It's still growing, but they are definitely and steadily becoming more influential.  So it's definitely an emerging sphere of influence. Right. And to talk a bit more about the private think tanks and the kind of funding that is involved here. So how does it, why is it that, for instance, so many corporates which actually may not have, say, so much to do with policy or writing are actually necessarily involved in the think tank sectors, so to speak. So I think we need to, you know, make a distinction of government, the government funded think tanks. And these are openly government funded and like, you know, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis is funded by the Ministry of Defense. And then there is RIS, which is funded by MAA, there is ICWA. So there are these government funded think tanks, but we increasingly see the private sector being involved in these think tanks because policy has to be influenced by various means. And the level, the ways in which policymaking is influenced are also growing increasingly sophisticated. So while you have, you know, your industrial bodies like Fiki and ASOCHAM, which clearly work for industry, but think tanks have their uses because they are perceived to be independent. And you have, you know, a mix of people working for them. So it's not always easy to pinpoint, you know, or link a certain corporation's interests with a think tank. But I think for a corporation, if they want to make themselves heard in a certain policy debate, in a certain field that they want to get into, so doing that via the think tank route is a very acceptable way of doing it. It gives them legitimacy, more openness. And many of these think tank events are open to the public. So, you know, anybody can go and kind of attend these events. So it's a safer way, I think, for, you know, corporations to also accept the influence. And coming to the most significant, one of the most significant think tanks in India, the Observer Research Foundation. And you've written extensively on it. So to ask a very basic question, why does India switch its man-need-a-think tank? Why does why is Mukesh Ambani and Reliance so invested in the Observer Research Foundation? It's a very interesting question and something that, you know, I also kind of grappled with while working on the piece for Caravan. The thing is that, like going back to what I just said, that corporations need to influence policy by different means. Yes, you know, the chairman of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani, is a very rich, very powerful man, India is richest and has unparalleled, you know, levels of influence. But that is the future to think about. And they are in it for the long term, the businesses for the long term. And so if you see the work trajectory of ORF, so, you know, in the first decade of the 2000s, they were working extensively on oil, on gas, on petrochemicals. That was a core, you know, area of work for them. They were also looking at Iran and Central Asia, which were sources of energy. And then around the time that, you know, Geo comes into the play, just coinciding a little before that or during that, you see ORF, you know, starting to work in the field of data, in the field of, you know, internet governance.  And this exactly coincides with Reliance's own work profile. So like I said, that policy needs to also be subtly influenced.  But it's important to say that, you know, a think tank researcher, for example, even an ORF or any of the think tanks, they don't experience interference in their day-to-day work. You know, most of them will tell you, we do our work, we have our defined areas. But I think if you even look at their output, you may see on a certain issue two conflicting viewpoints. But if you look at their larger body of work on a certain issue or on a set of issues, you'll see they point to a certain direction. And as for the think tank researcher being completely independent, you know, there are certain red lines which they won't cross. And they know it. I don't even think they need to be told, because it's very clear where the funding comes from, yeah. So what you're saying is what they do is to create an, shall we say, an intellectual ecosystem, which actually in some senses coincides with Reliance's interests considerably. It's not just Reliance's interests. It's about the larger direction that policy must take. It's about, you know, government should open up the economy more, should ask for more, should allow more private sector participation, should have more of a free market thing.  And this benefits, you know, the corporate sector as a whole and not just Reliance. So, and like I said, it's subtly done. You know, it won't be very clear in many areas. But when you see the larger picture, you see they're going in a specific direction, where output is being produced in a certain way. And it's not just output. It's also, you know, the events that they convene, where a certain think tank becomes the preferred partner of the government to, like, say, host the Reissina Dialogue. So, in fact, Ministry of External Affairs should be asked on what basis did they allow ORF, a privately funded think tank, to, you know, organize Reissina Dialogue, which is the country's flagship foreign policy conference. So these are the questions that need to be asked. Right. And to delve more into the Reissina Dialogue, as you were talking about. So we, some parts are clear, like what you mentioned earlier, for instance, that Reliance had interest in oil. Now it is interest in data. And the ORF, for instance, also, much of the research coincides with that. But how do we, say, look at something like the Reissina Dialogue, which is basically something connected to the government and the Ministry of External Affairs. And there's this big corporate and research foundation funded by them, and their role in it. So how exactly does that come into play here? So what is the, to put it very straightforward, in a very straightforward way, what's the gain exactly as far as Reliance is concerned? Yeah. Or the larger corporate ecosystem is concerned? So I think it's a big win. I think for anything tank to convene something like the Reissina Dialogue, it's very prestigious. And one of the main things that think tanks also do are events. That's how they get noticed and, you know, they gain traction. So if you look at Reliance's profile, its interests are increasingly global. It's one of largest MNCs, and correct me if I'm wrong, possibly India's largest exporter. So the interests are not just in India. They're in Africa. They're in the United States. They're in Europe. They're in Singapore. They're everywhere. So, and so you increasingly see ORF is also, you know, trying to expand its profile abroad, doing events in Africa, in the US, forming these international partnerships. And so far, you know, ORF to get something like the Reissina Dialogue is, it's obviously a boost in Reliance's profile. It's India's richest and, you know, most visible think tank at the moment, and it does work to Reliance's favor. And Reissina Dialogue is where you'll have the heads of governments, you know, foreign ministers, and also, you know, companies, corporations being represented there in full measure. So this is also like a networking event where, you know, maybe deals are struck or, you know, that kind of thing also may be happening. Right, right. And to look at some of the other institutions, especially you've also written about Brookings and Carnegie and these are very well known institutions in the United States. And now both of them have their establishments in India as well. And they're also funded by a vast network of both Indian and foreign corporates. So what exactly is the intent behind, say, bringing for instance or supporting for instance some of these institutions in India right now? It's very interesting, you know, that's the basic premise which I also started out with, why are Indian corporates funding American origin institutions? So Brookings and Carnegie, I think now in India, they're incorporated as Indian entities. So, but the origins are definitely in the West. So one has to also see where Indian corporates are investing in and increasingly, their investments are abroad. They're in the United States and it's become even profitable to be there and they want to be heard in the US. You know, they want to be visible. They want a foothold there. So what better way than to, you know, help these so-called venerable institutions, you know, set up their offices in India. So it also works to the benefit of the Indian corporates. There's a convergence of interests, American and Indian interests. Yeah, these interests also, you know, they diverge in many points. Indian and American business interests don't always coincide, you know, they're also diverging. So also, I guess a lot of your writing also indicates that this is not purely, only a commercial thing. It's also, there's a lot of business, of course, but there's also a lot of geo-strategies and politics involved in it. For instance, I think the Quad initiative that happened in the Raisina dialogues last year. So it's also a sign of corporates increasingly having a say in the larger geo-strategic policy of India as a whole as well. The thing is that, as far as think tanks are concerned, like something like Raisina dialogue, it's not that ORF would be able to completely determine, you know, what kind of, let's say who the speakers are, who the events, it's done in consultation with the government. So for something like Raisina or even like, you know, the Gateway House Conference that's the other dialogue sponsored by Ministry of External Affairs, they will closely tow the ministry line. So if in a certain year, you see, you know, government of India's kind of, and China have hostilities, you'll see the think tank echo that position. So obviously, you know, there are interests and you know, like reliance industries would be in competition with, you know, maybe Chinese companies and that angle is there, but I think we need to, it's more important here to see that think tanks are not actually being independent, but you know, probably echoing government position. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching this click.


Space weather this week calms down just a little bit when it comes to big solar flares as we take a look at our earth-facing disk You can see region 3088 Rotating off of the earth's west limb here, but not before it goes wham right there and fires off one parting shot This is a very big flare and it launched a massive solar storm that actually became a halo in Coronagraphs, but don't worry this solar storm is headed away from earth not towards it So we're not going to see anything more. Meanwhile region 3089, which is still a big flare player is kind of quieted down a little bit We're going to wait to see if it rotates as it rotates to the Sun's west limb if it kind of picks up its mojo again And begins firing big flares that is possible Also look in the north we have a coronal hole this coronal hole about a month ago gave us some decent Storming and so we could get some decent fast wind from this again starting around the fourth So we're going to be paying attention to that for Aurora photographers and then behind that if you look at the east limb of The Sun you can see some bright regions There were kind of some glowing stuff in the back that haven't really rotated into view yet But if we take a look at the Sun's far side, this is stereo a and it's looking at the Sun just a little bit from the side You can get your bearings. You can see region 3088 kind of rotating off of the west limb there in stereo's view and launching all those storms 3089 is in center disc essentially in the south But look at all these regions as of about the end of the month on stereo's east limb. These are regions 3078 old region 3078, which was a big flare player along with regions 3081 and 3083 possibly and we are seeing through the far side heliocysmology that these regions are still well developed They also look to be firing off big solar storms So they could easily be big flare players, which means we are basically trading one big flare player for another So amateur radio operators and emergency responders get ready It looks like we're not going to get that long of a reprieve before Radio blackouts could be back on the menu and this means we have to be careful with space traffic and radio comms And this includes GPS users, especially anywhere near dawn or dusk For more details on this week's space weather including how these big flare players may affect you come check out my channel Or see me at space weather woman calm


The next item of business is our members' business debate on motion 5165 in the name of Emma Harper in celebrating international nurses day on 12 May 2017. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put in carassol as members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call on Emma Harper to open the debate. Ms Harper, seven minutes are thereabouts please. Thank you. I am really pleased to believe in the members' debate today in celebrating international nurses day, which happens to be on Friday. The motion states that nurses are the single largest group of healthcare professionals in the UK. They are estimated at greater than 20 million nurses and midwives across the world, and they account for 52 per cent of the healthcare workforce. The motion also acknowledges that nursing encompasses the autonomous collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families and communities in all settings. It includes the promotion of physical and mental health, prevention of illness and care of people who are ill, disabled and who are dying. Outstanding care happens everywhere and at every stage of life in Scotland and across the world. The International Council of Nurses presented a paper with case histories about the work that nurses do in different parts of the world. From HIV treatment and care in South Africa, family partnership for improved maternal care in urban USA, access and food aid in Syria, bariatric best period of practice in Australia and caring for people who have contracted Ebola virus in Sierra Leone to developing community respiratory early warning scoring systems for persons with chronic lung health problems in NHS of recent Galloway. I have my own case history. I am a nurse. Prior to Hollywood, Hollywood 2015, Hollywood was the other place I worked. I was a nurse for 33 years and my specialties are surgery and education. Even though I am not working as a nurse currently, that does not stop me thinking like and approaching problems with my nurse heed on. My sisters are nurses too, and between us we have 130 years of nursing experience and us Harper sisters have contributed to more than a quarter of a million nursing hours of patient care. Having a career in nursing allows us all to travel internationally and work and learn from other professionals and other cultures about the best way to care for people. Us sisters have worked with medical personnel from all across the world. The medical community is wholly international and what we learn from each other truly contributes to enhancing the lives of not only our patients but ourselves. According to the Royal College of Nursing, nurses are the superheroes of healthcare. I met two superheroes a couple of weeks ago. Marcea Ramsay, who is director of operations for Alzheimer Scotland, and Claire Stroin, the Wigtonshire service manager of the recently opened dementia resource centre in Stranraer. Both are nurses and both are proud of the new facility and the potential opportunity to develop this great service of support for people with a diagnosis of dementia, as well as support for their families. May 12 is chosen date to celebrate international nurses at nurses day, as it is the birthday of Florence Nightingale. Florence is probably one of the most famous nurses. She modernised the care approach during the Victorian Age and was instrumental in improving care by implementing the new mathematical science of statistical analysis. There are other famous nurses worth celebrating also. Mary Seacole, who is Jamaican-born, was a contemporary of Florence Nightingale. Both had different approaches to the care for the soldiers, but both had the same idea and goal to reduce the mortality of the people that they were caring for. Both proved to be formidable women who worked to save the lives of the soldiers. Pauline Cafferke, who almost lost her life when she contracted Ebola hemorrhagic virus when caring for victims of the virus in Sierra Leone, is going to talk a wee bit more about Pauline Cafferke in a wee while. Each year, the international councils of nurses celebrate by focusing on a specific theme. This year, the theme is titled, Nurses, A Voice to Lead, Achieving Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals are SDGs, and they are a set of 17 goals that are created by the World Health Organization and the United Nations. The goals tackle issues that affect people, property, peace, partnership and the planet. Goal number three is titled, Good Health and Wellbeing, but all goals are linked directly to nursing and promoting optimisation of the people's lives by addressing poverty, hunger, education and promoting gender equality to name the first few goals. David and Catherine at the Scotland Malawi stand next to the members block. They are supporting the Sustainable Development Goals as well. If you have not visited them next to the members lobby and had your photo taken, I would urge members to do that, to learn about what the sustainable goals are in relationship with Scotland and Malawi. I do not have time to explain all 17 goals, but I would urge anyone to read more about the specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. Nurses are key to partnering with people so that they work to achieve the who and you in SDGs. Those are not new tasks to the already challenging work day that face nurses across primary and acute care. The International Council of Nurses wants to make it clear that those sustainable development goals are already embedded in the current practice across the globe, and they want to highlight that for us all. I urge everyone to celebrate the work of nurses, thank your nurses when you meet them. I thank the Scottish Government for choosing to keep the bursary for nurses to support them during training at universities and Scottish hospitals. A career in nursing is hugely satisfying. My three sisters and I are already testified to that. Promoting and supporting men and women to step into nursing should be continued by the Scottish Government. I notice the sun shining on me right now. I call on everyone to mark international nurses day by doing we things, share a message of support on social media, watch and share the RCN support video as it contains messages of thanks from people who have received care from nurses across many specialities or donate to a nurse charity. Finally, I reiterate this to nurses across the world and certainly here at home. You are already contributing to the sustainable development goals. Let's just tell everyone to celebrate that and celebrate international nurses days. I move the motion. I also thank Emma Harper for bringing forward the motion today. Like her, I come from a family of nurses. I'm married to a nurse, both my brothers are nurses, and I'm not sure that we've clucked up as many years of nursing practices as Emma, but we're getting there. I would also like to refer members to my register of interests. I am a registered mental health nurse and I currently hold an honorary contract with Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, which allows me to continue my practice as a nurse. Florence Nightingill is often described as the lady with the lamp, but she was, as we can all appreciate, so much more than this. Not only did she challenge expectations, but she was a truly gifted healthcare professional, as skilled in the study of healthcare as the creation of new standards and practices, and as committed to research as statistical analysis, and a true pioneer in the planning of hospitals and wards. She was an innovator, introducing new strict cleanliness regimes that drastically reduced mortality on her wards, and she was compassionate, heading to the horrors of the cryomy of war to help the wounded. Fundamental and radical service redesign is how nursing was born with Florence, and it's how it continues to stay relevant and at the forefront of healthcare, and my own experience in mental health nursing has borne this out. There has been a concerted effort to reduce the stigma around mental illness, and we have encouraged people to access care and treatment at an earlier stage. We now talk about mental illness instead of shying away from it, and that is a tremendous success that I have seen as a mental health nurse. However, at the same time, those changes were difficult. Service users, carers, staff and the public were worried and concerned about bed and hospital closures, worried that services would not meet their expectations, and they were worried about safety. Change is the one constant for nursing. We develop and adapt to new ways of working and new practice. In short, we move forward with what works rather than sticking with outdated ways that don't deliver the results that we need. Florence Nightingale created and reformed nursing in part by redesigning wards, improving outcomes of care by reframing the environment, and in mental health nursing we continue to follow the spirit of reform, moving care away from the existing models and existing hospital settings to move care into the community. We have to be open to discussion about what can be done differently and what can be done more effectively to do what is best for our patients. Service redesign is a term that can still instill fear, but it is how nursing began. Changes to services can be challenging, but with the challenges come opportunities, opportunities to make real and positive changes to real people's lives. This year, the international college of nurses has chosen the theme, nurses, a voice to lead, achieving the sustainable development goals for international nurses day. Every day, nurses' work has a significant impact in delivering sustainable development goals, not just in ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing, but in areas such as education and poverty too. Those social determinants of health are the conditions in which people grow, work and live, and the work of nurses across the world seeks to address those wider issues, not just the immediate clinical needs. Pauline Cafferkey, one of my constituents, is an exemplar of those dedication and nurses to help to improve the lives of those with health and social challenges. Pauline and so many other volunteer nurses work tirelessly to help people in Sierra Leone who were affected by Ebola, and Pauline herself became infected. Despite that, she is planning to return to Sierra Leone and will continue to help those who need assistance. Pauline and her nursing staff here in Scotland are at the forefront of healthcare, with nearly 60,000 nurses working across the NHS in Scotland to improve the care and the lives of our fellow citizens. Every day, each of our nurses contributes to service redesign, to developing and redefining best practice, each carrying on the work of Florence Nightingale. The Royal College of Nursing is running a Twitter thunderclap where we can all offer our support online, and you can also write about a nurse that has made a difference to your life or to your family's life through the nurse hero programme. On 12 May, I asked the chamber to join with me in marking International Nurses Day in a small way. Let's tell our nurses that we appreciate the amazing work that they do and encourage the next generation of nurses, too. Thank you very much. I call Dorrel Carlin to follow by Anas Sarwar. Mr Cameron, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Sadly, I can't make it three nurses in a row, and I feel like I'm letting the side down. I'd like to begin by thanking Emma Harper for lodging that motion. I, too, like to put on record my admiration and respect for our nursing staff across Scotland. The chamber is definitely a richer place when MSPs from a wide variety of professional backgrounds are able to bring that invaluable experience into debates like that. I pay tribute to Emma Harper and Claire Hogey for their contributions, which are informed by their day-to-day experience. Nurses are, by and large, the public face of the NHS in our hospitals and community health centres. They do an incredibly tough job, often on unsociable working hours. As we heard earlier in today's debate, they are taking on increasing workload as demand grows. They are the bastions of our health service, and we must always remember that. As Emma Harper intimated in her motion, International Nurses Day was set up to coincide with the birth of Florence Nightingale, one of the most famous nurses in the world who was largely credited as the founder of modern nursing. Her persona, as has been said, as the lady with the lamp, made her a beacon of hope to the soldiers who were injured during the Crimean War. However, it is her significant contribution to modern nursing that she is and should be better remembered for. Her book, Notes on Nursing, was published in 1859, yet many, if not all of its contents, continue to have stark relevance today. Today, we talk about the issues of hospital cleanliness. Florence Nightingale tackled that. Today, we talk about the importance of diet. Florence Nightingale tackled that. Today, we talk about making sure that our homes are clean, ventilated and warm. Florence Nightingale tackled that. As Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and that springs to mind when we think and talk about Nightingale's observations on healthcare. One nurse that the motion does not mention, but I would like to mention, is Elsie Inglis. I want to mention her briefly as we debate this motion because she was a famous Scottish nurse, not for that reason alone, but she was an incredible person. She founded the Scottish Women's Hospitals Unit, which provided nursing staff, as well as a variety of auxiliary personnel to battlefields across the European continent, despite the incredible barriers that women faced at the time. Her pioneering work saved thousands of lives, and she and many others who go unrecognised in history should always be remembered. I mentioned some of those famous and renowned female nurses because it is important to understand and remember that nursing is a predominantly female profession. The most recent statistics show that almost 90 per cent of nursing staff in Scotland are female, with just under 60,000 women employed and around 7,000 men. That is not to say that we do not value our male nurses as much. Of course we do. Nursing is also a profession with vacancies. I do not make this point to score a political point, but rather to raise awareness of the fact that all of us in this chamber need to do more to encourage more men and women to take up nursing as a profession. We need to promote this sector to young people who are about to leave school or university and are unsure of what path to take. Nursing can be extremely rewarding and provides people with an immeasurable number of important skills. Indeed, as we continue the shift of care from acute to community-led services, the importance of community nursing will grow significantly. Deputy Presiding Officer, nurses are extremely important in our NHS, and we must always recognise that. Of course, yes. Apologies for intervening during a member's debate. I know that that is not the usual form, but I just wanted to state for the record that Elsie Engels was a doctor, not a nurse. By the way, you can intervene in a member's debate, so it is not a precious regime. I will perhaps take that up with a member at a later date, but my information was that she was a nurse. As I was just closing, nurses are the lifeblood, Deputy Presiding Officer, of the health service. Without their work, the service would not survive. I would like to state my thanks to the Royal College of Nursing for their service in representing nurses across Scotland and for their continued efforts to improve that service. I would like to close by wishing all nurses the very best wishes on International Nurses Day on Friday. Thank you very much, Mr Cameron. I thank Emma Harper for bringing forward the debate and directly congratulating her for her immense service to the NHS and that of her family. I am always struck by the number of people who come across who are NHS families who have their brothers, their sisters, their aunts, their uncles, their sons and their daughters also going on to work in the profession and dedicating their lives to caring for our fellow citizens. I genuinely thank you to Emma Harper and to all those people right across the country who dedicate their lives to our national health service. I also want to put on record all those bodies and unions that represent our fabulous nurses, whether that be the RCN—I would be like to say that Tresa Fife—of the RCN is in the gallery today, or indeed other trade unions, including Unison, who support those nurses all year round. Emma Harper rightly mentioned the sustainable development goals. She mentioned the Scotland Malawi project that we have as a stall outside the members' gallery. It is important to recognise the role that we take for granted here and the fact that we have a universal healthcare system here in the United Kingdom. That is an ambition that we should have right around the world for access to a universal healthcare system.  Do you have a healthcare system that is there to care for you and does not matter whether you have money in your pocket at nought? I think that that is an ambition that hopefully we can see come true through our work, whether that be directly through the Department for International Development. It is something that I am absolutely proud was introduced by Labour Government and then it is budget trebled under the Labour Prime Minister, or indeed whether that is individual healthcare workers who go from here to help to spread their own expertise and knowledge in other parts of the world. The world of poly and catharici is just one of many, many examples of people who risk their own lives to go to other parts of the world, sometimes in the most dangerous places to go and care for other people. On that, it is important to say that we still have challenges here in Scotland in terms of our NHS workforce, our NHS staff, on a daily basis perhaps have to come across people that have threatening behaviour, people who are in a very difficult, emotional situation, and they have to take that on the front line. I think that we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for that. As is being mentioned by Donald Cameron, there are pressures and strains on the NHS at the moment in Scotland. We have just had a debate all through this afternoon about the stresses and strains on our NHS staff right here at home. I do note with disappointment that we have just come from voting down a pay increase for NHS staff into a debate that I am sure all of us want to be part of, which is celebrating International Nurses Day. As the nurse who told me this morning that I met Graeme this morning said, goodwill is one thing and goodwill does not put food on the table. I think that that is an important thing for us to remember. I hope that all of us across this Parliament can resolve to work together not only to champion the role of nurses on International Nurses Day but to champion the valuable role of nurses all year round, whether that be at home or abroad, and that we can continue to have a national health service that is a gold standard beacon, not just for the rest of the United Kingdom but for places right around the world. We can say that we can do effective healthcare free at the point of need. Your society can recognise that we all come together to pay our dues so that we can care for all our members of our society no matter what their background is. That is a principle that I am so proud of in Scotland.  I hope that we can all resolve to make that principle a reality for people right around the world. Thank you, Mr Sarwar. I call Alison Johnstone to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am proud to join others in this chamber celebrating International Nurses Day. I would like to thank Emma Harper for securing this debate, for her contribution to nursing and also for her passion and expertise on this issue. Nurses throughout our national health service and social care system do truly heroic work. We must celebrate their achievements and thank them for their dedication and tireless care. From our neonatal units to our hospices, nurses care for the most vulnerable and lead increasingly complex care in community settings. I also want to thank all our healthcare support workers for the vital work that they do working alongside our nursing staff to support patients. In the time that I have available today, I would like to focus on the tremendous impact that nurses have on children and young people's health. Sadly, not every family can take their newborn baby straight home from hospital. One in 10 babies born in Scotland will be admitted to a neonatal unit. Neonatal nurses deliver very technically skilled care and support families through unimaginably stressful experiences. Unfortunately, recent surveys led by Bliss show that too many neonatal nurses are not getting the protected time they need for training and professional development. We should have comprehensive standards for becoming qualified in specialty and developing further in specialised clinical practice areas, but we must ensure that nurses have real opportunities to develop their skills and good staffing ratios are key to that. As our children grow older and move into education, school nurses provide child-centred primary care. They can play a key role in tackling health inequalities in childhood. School nurses are trusted. They are well placed to help schools and families with income maximisation advice and provide universal, non-stigmatising mental health support. The Government had indicated that school nurses would start to take on a refocused role this year or in 2018, working more with children who have additional support needs with young carers and looked after children. I hope that the minister can update us on the progress of those plans. Strengthening preventative health care in schools is essential because we are seeing real increases in the number of children and young people with mental health problems or who need intensive emotional support. Nurses make up over 40 per cent of the total CAMHS workforce and demands on the sector are intense. The Royal College of Nursing has been calling for continued additional investment in CAMHS to enhance early intervention and preventative work and ensure a well-trained, well-supported workforce. Nurses working in our communities are at the very centre of early intervention. I support the expansion of the Family Nurse Partnership, an important preventative health programme, giving younger first-time mothers additional support during pregnancy and through their baby's early years. Evaluations show that this approach improves antenatal health, promotes strong attachment and leads to better health and developmental outcomes for children. That is all because of the therapeutic relationship between specialist nurses and new parents. Making this focus support available to more parents aged up to 24 is a good step forward. The key relationship between nurses and patients is the heart of our health service. I am proud to celebrate it today and to ensure that it is at the centre of our health and social care system in the future. We know that there are real challenges in recruitment and retention in Scotland and we must do more to provide more training opportunities in remote and rural areas to attract new entrants to the profession a bit later in life, too. Due to demographic changes, the role that nurses play supporting the elderly and vulnerable will change, too. We know that a high level of nursing posts are vacant in our care homes and, as health and social care become more integrated, we must have robust workforce planning to ensure that nurses can support people well in their homes for longer. It is often said that, in this city, we have more statues of animals than women. As the vice convener of the cross-party group on animal welfare, I welcome those statues, but I think that we could do far more. Last year, in this city, a plaque was unveiled commemorating the nurses who died during the world war 1—500 of them. I think that the sacrifice and contribution that nurses have made is often overlooked in the society. I would certainly welcome a campaign to see that recognised with a statue in this city. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First of all, thank you to Emma Harper for providing the opportunity to discuss this important subject. Perhaps, in her motion, the thing that I most noticed was the name Mary Seacole, not someone of whom I had heard anything in my life whatsoever. The opportunity to go and investigate who she was and what she did with her life is one that I am very much welcomed. Like everyone else, of course, I have a few nurses in my family. My father-in-law, my citizen-in-law, my second-in-law, my second-in-law, both trained in the Middle East in the 1950s, my aunt Stuart, another Stuart Stevenson, and her sister Daisy, who registered as nurses in Bradford in 1925, my niece Susan, who is now a transplant co-ordinator in Queensland, Australia and, of course, my sister, Mary. Perhaps most critically, from my point of view, my own five months working as a nurse in 1964 in Strifedon's psychiatric hospital. If things are a bit difficult now, let me just say that we did 108-hour fortnight, 12 days on, 2 days off, for £6.50 a week. The staffing issues are horrendous. One weekend, when we worked double shifts, there were two of us looking after 32 physically ill psychiatric patients. It would just never happen today, so progress is being made. I think that one of the important things that we should think about nurses today and give them support for is that the nurses today are highly trained, they have skills and knowledge that, when I was a nurse in 1964 and all my antecedents, ancestors and relatives, definitely did not have. Today, the nurses are trained to a level that is higher and more effective than my father was as a general practitioner, qualifying in 1945 at the comparatively elderly age of 44. My experience of nurses as an individual is universally good. My campaign scar, when a dog bit me in the Falkirk west by-election in 2000—that was a nurse—put the six stitches in my hand and allowed me to return to canvassing for our candidate. Unsuccessfully, I may say that she was not that successful in repairing me, obviously. The five weeks that I spent in hospital in Bangawa some 30 years ago for a condition that I will not share with you, but it was one that none of you will wish to experience, not critically ill but certainly needing nursing. I am grateful to nurses in my personal life. It is worth saying that, in modern times, I have a particular relationship with many of my age group with the McMillan nurses. As one gets to an age, more of one's friends and relatives are reaching the end of their lives. The work that the McMillan nurses do, in particular, in supporting people to end their lives with dignity and comfort in their homes, is absolutely magnificent. The campaign with the motto, nurses a voice to league, sounds to me absolutely spot on. Nurses are important now in primary care in a way that they did not used to be. I would rather see the practice nurse for most of the things that I would wish to go to my GP for, fortunately. I do not even know the name of my GP and that is how infrequent I am. I hope to remain in that position. Some nurses are brave beyond the point of full hardiness. My best man, his mother, was a nurse.  Such was the personal charisma of this nurse that my best man's father proposed to his nurse and married her three weeks after meeting him. The real trick is that he was badly burnt, bandaged from the neck upwards. When she got married to him, she had not even seen his face. That is nursing the bravery of the highest order, but I can tell you that it worked, and it worked extremely well. Ending on a humorous note does not, in any way, diminish the very serious and valuable work that nurses throughout their health service do on behalf of us all. Let us hope that we never have to meet them, but we know that they are there when we need them. I never fail to wonder where you are taking us with your speeches, but I never fall asleep. Mr Lindhurst. Deputy Presiding Officer, it is a great pleasure for me to be speaking today in this member's debate led by Emma Harper, not least because my own mother was a nurse, and I well remember her telling the story of how she became a nurse. At the time, she worked as a young secretary in an architect's firm in Ayr, and one day the senior partner came dancing into her office, singing about her becoming another Florence Nightingale. So, for some reason, he had received the letter confirming her acceptance for nurses training in Glasgow rather than her. It was not too many years later that my aunt Esther followed her big sister Edith into the nursing profession, making it a Murray sister double act. International nurses day, or week in the United States of America and Canada, gives us all the opportunity to reflect on the outstanding work that is done by nurses across the world and to reflect on the particular invaluable abilities that are required of those in the nursing profession—a selfless, caring, patient, understanding and dedicated attitude and approach. Those are just some of the qualities associated with these important workers in our health services. Those are people that we depend upon to help us through some of the toughest times that we experience in life, or for some of those closest to us, those are the people who have been there for them in the most difficult of times. I know that many of us in this chamber have pointed already to examples of nurses in their lives or others who have taken up these roles, and that is exactly what this day encourages us to do. I know that I and my brothers and sisters all benefited from our mother's skills and training as a nurse, and I know that countless others did as well, including in my mother's later life when she worked as a volunteer nurse at children's summer camps. It is important on a day like this to remember the debt that we owe to all of our healthcare professionals who work to help save life and limb, and particularly on this day to remember our nurses. When the Murray sisters worked in the Gorbals in Glasgow about the late 1950s, they could walk alone through the streets night or day in their nurses uniform without any fear of harm. Sadly, it is not in common nowadays to hear stories of a lack of respect being shown not just to our nurses in our hospitals, for example, but even to other essential emergency services. In closing, I would like to say that it is important that we re-emphasise the need for respect for our nurses and the work that they do. Nurses are essential in our society and deserve all our respect. I hope that by celebrating this day, including here in the Scottish Parliament, we can reinforce that message. Thank you very much, Mr Lindhurst. It is always interesting to hear backgrounds of members in here that would not hear otherwise except to members' debates. I now call on morning watch. Close for the Government Minister. Up to seven minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I, too, would like to thank Emma Harper for bringing this very important debate to the chamber today and congratulating her on that and on her and her sister's contribution to the NHS. It is amazing and must be congratulated. As Emma Harper said, nurses make up the largest single profession in our NHS. They are at the heart and care of every single person, young or old. They work not just in our hospitals but in GP practices, home and care homes and in communities across the country, and every person in this chamber has often literally been touched by a nurse and our lives improved because of that encounter. It is my privilege, as a Scottish Minister, to be able to thank each and every nurse across the country for their commitment and professionalism, and on behalf of all the people of Scotland, recognising International Nurses Day, to thank you, the nurses and your unstinting service. We leave due value and appreciate you. The Government is committed to supporting our nurses and ensuring that we have a sustainable workforce who have fulfilling careers and are able to play the fullest part in delivering the health and social care that Scotland needs both today and in the future. Scotland has a long and proud history of supporting our skilled nurses. The first nursing unit to be set up at a British University was opened in 1956 at Edinburgh University by another nursing heroine that has not been mentioned this evening, Elsie Stevenson. Nursing has changed beyond all recognition from the pioneering days of Florence Nightingale and Mary Sicoli. I am really surprised, Presiding Officer, that my general knowledge in this occasion is better than Stuart Stevenson's, because I did know about Mary Sicoli. In fact, when I was passing, when I was on Clapham High Street in London the other month, there was a Mary Sicoli centre, and I was able to tell my daughter who she was, so one up on Stuart Stevenson for once. As Donald Cameron mentioned, the basic commitments of nursing, the basic hygiene in the food and the diet that Florence Nightingale pioneered are very much still to the fore, but the equipment and skill that is required by our professional graduates delivering increasing complex care for a more diverse population in a wide range of setting is certainly challenging. It is more important than ever that we ensure that we have the nursing workforce that is fit for the future with the right numbers, the right skills and the right opportunities and the right support. It is important that we make sure that everyone who wants and has a desire to go and an aptitude and an ability to go into nursing can do so, and that is why our chief nursing officer has commissioned a review of the ways to support and widen access to nursing education and careers, and that is being led by Professor Paul Martin CBE. In terms of supporting nursing, the Scottish Government is delivering a record number of qualified nurses and midwives. Over 3,400 more nursing and midwifery staff are working in our NHS today compared to five years ago, creating a thousand extra training places for nurses and midwives over the course of this Parliament and supporting our student nurses to keep their tuition free, protecting their bursary, as many have mentioned this evening, and creating a million-pound discretionary fund offered as a safety net for those students in greatest needs and transforming nursing roles to maximise nurses' vital and unique role in the health and social care system. Developing a fresh vision for nursing in Scotland, which our chief nursing officer is taking forward in developing and in partnership with nurses across the country, and we are investing £3 million to train an additional 500 advanced nurse practitioners as part of our health and social care system, plus a further £2 million to enhance the skills of general practice nurses in supporting the wider primary care transformation aims. We are committed to enshrining safe staffing in law, which is ground-breaking work and to looking at our nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools and putting that on a statutory footing. It is also important to mention the return to practice scheme because we have a rich resource of former nurses who have dropped from the register for one reason or another. In January 2015, we announced 450,000 funding over three years to reintroduce a national return to practice scheme. I know that my university and constituency of RGU are at the forefront of that. As others have mentioned, in terms of international context, we know about Florence Nightingale's nursing team in the Crimea and Mary Sikola not being allowed to join Florence Nightingale's nursing team, but she went anyway, which showed her determination. It is important, as Clare Hawke mentioned, to mention the number of nurses and clinicians who go to other countries to learn about other ways of working, but also in helping, as many mentioned tonight, for achievement of the development and goals. In Malawi alone, we have supported Scottish NHS clinicians to work with nurses at Malawi's major hospitals to improve their skills, including working with oncology nurses at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantar to develop a multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment. We have supported a visit to the UK of Malawi and breast care nurses for experience in diagnostics and follow-up clinics. I myself have visited Mount Melange hospital in the south of Malawi, which has a lot of connections with Scotland. As we speak, nurses are working away, saving lives and comforting those in pain and delivering world-leading care in our communities and in our hospitals. In terms of taking forward a recognition of international day, the Scottish Global Health Collaborative seeks to create a framework for volunteering in global health that recognises challenges and constraints, as well as the benefits at home and overseas. It intends to develop guidance that is helpful to both clinical and non-clinical staff for those in training and those trained and their employing organisations. We are in safe hands, not just on international nurses day, but every single day. We thank the nurses and appreciate you.


Okay, so the first talk is going to be a double act with Gabriella Lopez Gonzalez at the University of Leeds, handing over to Richard from Rottenstead. And they're going to be talking about two years of Elixir UK Fellowship and UK study. Hello, I don't know if you can see me. So, yeah, the title of our talk is like the two years of Elixir UK Fellowship and we're going to talk about the two NERC related case studies. I think the next one. So just a bit of background so the Elixir Fellowship Program is a program that was created to tackle the some of the hurdles related to research data management, which were identified by the team as time and funding buying skills. So, the idea is that the fellowship will create a cohort that will embed research data management and know how in UK universities and institutes, and that the group of fellows, we will create training materials and deliver training to our own research groups. Can you get the next one? Yeah, the other side. Yeah. Gabriella's upon the screen. So I just have to use the right window. And we're still on the three, three four to slide there while we have a little break. It's strange because it's not showing me the side control. Okay, so as you can see there's a dragon and that's because Shania who's the community manager, like really created this visual imagining of what happens so we have like universities can be seen as castles. We have lots of data, but then the, we can't access the data we can manage it properly, because of the hurdles that I mentioned properly that, and those hurdles are like a significant represented by the dragon. So here very much in like a spirit like a fellowship of the rings fellows, we want to fight the dragon. We want, we're going to be ambassadors that we're going to learn from each other and our mentors to prove our research data management in our organizations. So that's in a nutshell what the fellowship group is. And then it's like, how are we going to do it or how the, the organizing team, the management team visualizes so to buy in so how do we manage to solve the buying problem and the solution was target fellows of any career stages and in different fields. The next hurdle which is time and funding. It's not just so you get the fellows but you need to make sure they're engaged. So, and Richard and I have the rest of our fellows we get paid an honorarium. So we can our timing our buying, we're compensated for it. And also we have access to expert consultants. And then the third solution is, well there's a skill so the idea is that the group of fellows also became trainers that can deliver training locally. And we all have received a train to trainer courses. And we also have mentors with, of course that help improve our skills. And for me, as an example, more importantly has been the communication that I can have with other fellows like Richard. So we can talk about similar problems, and then share ideas. And of course, the buying the time, the funding and the skills have a outcome that can be easily identified so we're all producing a RDM bytes, which are videos that you can access to access to the lexical website, but also there's training materials training courses. And other activities. The next one Richard this. So like in a nutshell. So, after two years of the lexical fellowship that there's now 24 fellows from 18 organizations as you can see, and we all have different reasons for apply I will talk more about in my section about that why I applied. But then having access to skills and mentoring. That's been fantastic so it's like, I think it's working and not the, some of the benefits that people who apply for this have experiences like benefits, career promotion. And in general it's like just having a really supportive environment, some of the people who are interested in data as much as you are, and you can change ideas with them. So most of the most of the fellows are in the life sciences, talking about genomics for the genomics and very kind of different to what Richard and I do. So, but then so that in the first cohort, it was more like life sciences really like hardcore life sciences and then the second cohort where Richard and I come in. Ecological related fellowships so I'm going to be talking next about my link to elixir and how I can be a nerd related case study and have the next one Richard. So, a very important thing about elixir is that we have a there's a community of experts and we all as fellows have access to them so we can. It's been really interesting to talk to people from different institutions and learn about how they're managing their data and doing research in their organizations. Next one. And of course, so in the UK we have those organizations but across Europe there's 22 countries so this year I had the, I was invited to attend the elixir all hands, which took place in Dublin and it was fantastic to see people from all those 22 countries, talking about what are kind of approaches they take to data management in their research. So now I'm going to talk about how do my research links fits into elixir and how it also relates to next so, as I said earlier I'm going to love as I work at the University of Leeds, and my role is on, I develop a conformatic tools for long term long term monitoring research. Previously I worked for a project called forest plots, where I was a lead developer on the data management application for managing forest data, tropical forest, and now I'm applying my experience of working in tropical forest to peatlands, deciding a similar kind of approach where we have a network and a database that we used to manage our data in a standardized format. Next one. So that's what I'm a research but then I want to talk about why, why do you apply for the fellowship so I applied because I wanted to develop some RDM training materials where there's no materials. So, the peatland community we do lots of things hands on, but there's no much training on materials in relation to research data management. So I would, my, my plan is to develop the training materials but also embed those materials and other materials produced by by the fellowship members and other people for elixir. So I would like to build those materials to the, my organization but also my pizza network and work to create a community of practice, which looks at what happens in the field, but also takes very seriously the research data management. So we can answer some of them. It's related research questions. Next one. So something really important for me that I'm getting from this fellowship is that I want to build a community of practice practice for peatland monitoring. So when we bring together academic researchers NGOs and government agencies, and also all the volunteers citizen scientists working on peatland research, and at the core of the training we have the research data management. And why I'm saying like we wanted at the core because last last year when I was at the IUCN peatland conference. One of the big discussions we had is like, where is the data, what data, what data is being gathered and where is it, where is it, and how can we make sure that our data is best maintained and made available so of course that completely resonates and having a thinking about RDM skills for the people in the RDM skills to the peatland community, and also have practical advice on how to verify our data sets. I think the next one. I think that I found by joining the league series that there's also lots of communities. And there's one recent community has was a group of interest but now it's a community. And it's the biodiversity community which kind of overlaps a bit with, with what we do in peatlands because quite a lot is about understanding which pieces live in the peatland sites. And my plan now on as an add-on is to think how I can link what I'm doing with the peatland community. I'm with the kids and in Yorkshire with a broader biodiversity community RDM people from Elixir.


Now it's been a hot minute since we've actually had any new Nintendo Switch to rumors. And this was a little bit unexpected because we thought mass manufacturing might be happening last month and we would get more leaks and stuff. And maybe that hasn't happened or it has, but things are very tight behind the scenes right now and more so in a few months when manufacturing's been going on long enough and they start to expand it to more and more lines. Maybe that's when we will finally see more leaks coming out. But what's interesting of course is that only that that stuff dried up but all the people that've been talking about the Nintendo Switch to, be it Nekro Felipe from Nintendo Universal or even Nathan Haidt have sort of gone silent and maybe they were taking their cues from Shintaro Furukawa who came out and shot down a couple of rumors himself. And in doing so, I think might have put some cabaches on certain things that were happening. As an example, Stefan Dottillo publicly said he was working on a Nintendo Switch to report and it still hasn't seen the light of day. Again, potentially they're just respecting the wishes of Nintendo's president for this stuff to sort of be cabashed. But today we have some brand new rumors and absolutely you need to be putting on your Tim Foyle hat and having the appropriate level of skepticism. In fact, I've got my Tim Foyle hat right here at the ready. We'll just throw it on for a brief moment because folks, I gotta show you who this rumors coming from and we actually have two different places that we need to talk about. One a bit more reliable than the other but let's get into this first one here and it's coming from Hot Girl Videos 16.9.  So this is why we do pay attention but again, skepticism, skepticism, skepticism and I don't follow or pay attention to any of the other stuff this person tweets. So we're just gonna stick to the rumors that avoid the rest. But it says Nintendo rumor, next gen Nintendo Switch console at one point in its development utilized a cartridge slot on dock only with handheld mode being entirely digital. Mobile device controller support is built into the dock. Backbone style joy con attachment, dev and abandoned. So what they're saying is these are all ideas that Nintendo is no longer using and look, I glad they're not. I don't need a backbone style controller. I also don't want the cartridge slot to be dock only. That would be super inconvenient but there's more going on to this and something we can actually detail on a bit. So an additional Nintendo rumor says it is believed information on the current next gen Nintendo dev kits will likely leak before Valentine's Day. So more information from dev kits dropping before February 14th. Also supporting information from previous Bloomberg reports and rumor that Nintendo had worked on and perhaps now has a first party cloud gaming service. Rumor about Nintendo cloud gaming service originally utilized a cloud gaming service developed by a Korean company, white label for use by Nintendo. Nintendo rumor dump is over, have a good night. Now this stuff of course is extremely fascinating because we're dealing with, how do we put this? We're dealing with rumors about something that I don't know that you guys are that interested in a cloud gaming service. Personally, I do see value in cloud gaming services and look what Nintendo did on Switch and what these third party companies did on Switch, that is not what we wanna see. We've already seen Google Stadia do it better although obviously ripped to that and yes, Xbox does it better as well. Sony does it better too. They have a cloud gaming service in place to play their classic PlayStation 3 games. So these are three companies that Nintendo is sort of in competition with that all do it significantly better than Nintendo Switch did and Switch arguably is the one that needed it the most and didn't have a good service for it. There were a few exceptions like Resident Evil Village actually ran okay through the service but that's probably more accredited to Capcom than Nintendo because Capcom was running their own service for it. I do see a value and this is the one thing I wanna throw out there for those that are like, oh, I'm never gonna cloud game, always play local demos. So one thing I do on Xbox a lot is I try games through the cloud gaming service and then if I'm enjoying them then I'll know I wanna pick it up and play it. I know the cloud gaming service isn't gonna give you a one-to-one experience with just downloading and or installing a physical game but it at least doesn't have to take up a ton of space on my system, super long download times, all of that just to try it out and that's one thing I do see as video game sizes keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger that cloud gaming services can really help all gamers with. Give us a taste before we buy. Does this mean you need to do a limited demo? I don't know, a time demo, maybe it's the complete game but they only let you play it for like an hour or something, cool. That's still a demo, we still get to try it out and maybe make the save data transfer locally and then you can just keep playing it if you buy the game. I do find some inherent value in that and I think that is something I hope Nintendo, well, I don't think it's something, I just hope Nintendo explores it and I know some of you guys are tired of me calling this damn thing the Nintendo Switch 2. I hear you guys, look, get over it, it just means the next generation Nintendo system, it just so happens all the rumors and reports seem to suggest it's still a Switch-like device so that's what we're going with. Maybe we prefer Super Switch or something but we're sticking with Switch 2. That being said, we're not done talking because Necro Felipe, remember I just brought him up earlier, hasn't been talking, well, he said something I think is worth paying attention to even though I wouldn't call this a rumor, it's more of a prediction. This was over on Twitter or Necro Felipe from Nintendo Universal. We have this translated from Portuguese that my personal expectations, so again, this would be like a prediction but it's what he's actually expecting is for the announcement of Nintendo's next system by March of 2024. So I take that to mean by the time March 1st rolls around, it should already be revealed so January or February, of course, I'm not really sure how mannerisms work in Portuguese, maybe by March of 2024 means by the end of March 2024. In English, that's not really how that would be represented but hey, this is a translation so we've got to consider both possibilities and then so with an investor meeting taking place in the first week of May, the company would start, it's 2024, 2025, fiscal year, very well by introducing the successor to Switch and then you see the big 2024 graphic. Now I've been saying for quite some time that I think this makes a ton of sense because well, I think Nintendo's holding back. This is just a personal opinion that we'll see either verified or not pretty soon but if you look at Nintendo's 2024 lineup only one brand new game is on slate and that is Princess Peach Showtime which most of us don't look at as this big game that people are gonna get super exciting for. It feels like more of a content filler game. Now some of you will go, no, I'm really actually looking forward to, you know, a thousand year dollar. I'm really looking forward to the Ouija's match into HD and that's fine and those sort of HD remasters of those games are exciting in that of themselves but they're not new and for a long time, Nintendo fans, they're not really what we're gonna get excited for. Like heading into 2023, we already knew about Tears of the Kingdom. We already knew about Fire Emblem Engage as well so we had two semi-big games to look forward to in addition to a smaller title like Princess Peach Showtime in Bayonetta Origins. We also eventually heard about that Kirby game as well as the end of the season return to Dream Land Deluxe. So look, I am really excited for what Nintendo has cooking. It's just there isn't anything known to be excited for unless you wanna keep talking about Metroid Prime 4 and now it's back in 2017 which we haven't seen or heard any public hints from Nintendo about. So I am just gonna sit back and wait and see what happens but it seems to be the expectation even from insiders who have had knowledge in the past is that this thing's being revealed in the first three months of next year. Released, I don't know. Revealed, it does seem to be like that is slowly becoming the expectation and I'm really, really excited for that because with such a weak slate of games right now it would make sense for them to like have this blowout and that's when they start to drop all the games. You have a February or a March Direct and then one of the time it. We've got Pokemon Day coming up with probably brand new Pokemon games. We're about to get slammed with a bunch of Nintendo stuff I think in the first three months of 2024 including Switch 2. I've already put out there my personal prediction that maybe Zubi Tech was correct. Again though, we hype you responsibly around here so take that for what you will.  I don't have any insider knowledge on this.  We gotta have Hopium around here and when it doesn't happen, we'll have Hopium for February and then March and then whatever until Nintendo finally gives it to us. For the rest of you that think this system's not coming out till 2025 or six or seven, kudos to you, we'll see who's right. I'm betting 2024 at least. Thank you guys so much for being here. I am Nathan DeRoboJazz from Nintendo Prime. Be sure to subscribe, like the video and all that jazz especially if you're looking for all the latest and greatest whether it's rumors or once we get real information from Nintendo, actual news on Nintendo's next generation platform. Catch you guys in the next video.