We're going to try and keep it going so that we can cover all of the areas that we can. As Heather Connolly said at the beginning, my name is Sarah Ladislau. I direct the Energy and National Security Program here at CSIS. And we're really grateful to be a part of this very important, very timely discussion today about the EU-US Transatlantic Alliance and sort of NATO security, energy security at the current juncture. I'm very, very pleased to have with me today three wonderful representatives to talk around some of the issues of energy security that I was very grateful to have Representative Keating and Representative Turner introduce in the last panel and hope that we'll have a bit more of an in-depth discussion about what energy security is, what it means in sort of the NATO context and what it means at today's current impasse in the time that we find ourselves at the place in history and also the place in the season with the weather becoming cooler here in Washington and similarly elsewhere around the world. I won't do introductions again because Heather already did them in her introduction, but I am very pleased to have with me from left to right the Deputy Chief of Mission for the EU here, Mr. Rivasso, the Ambassador from Lithuania, Mr. Pevelonis, and Ambassador Suleimano from Azerbaijan. One of the challenges when you're talking about European or EU-wide anything is there's a lot of perspectives. And so we would have loved to represent all of the perspectives that are currently at play within the discussion about European energy security, but we're not able to do that. One of the things we wanted to try and do is start with an EU-wide perspective and we will try and I know we have a lot of friends and colleagues in the audience that do represent not only other country interests in a formal capacity, but also commercial and other energy sector interests in the audience and so we very much look forward to including you in the discussion when we get to that portion. So I'd like to start maybe with Mr. Rivasso, we talked just a little bit just before coming up here and I said, you know, one of the things that would be very useful is to sort of put energy security in the broader security context, but then also one of the things we find in the energy security program is that energy security is one of those things that people talk about with a certain sense of urgency and interest and then when it really matters they talk about it with a different sense of urgency and interest and I think European energy security is not a new topic. It's not new to anybody in this room, it's not new to anybody who has dealt with it from a European government perspective or from a private sector perspective, but it has a new context today and so maybe we could just start with a simple question which is how is European energy security doing today? Thank you and thank you for this nice event to CSIS. Well you know when you are in Europe you have to realize that Europe has two main neighborhoods, Eastern and Southern and South Eastern and for half of European it's the Eastern neighborhood obviously the most important one, Ukraine the main crisis, Russia maybe the main threat, energy security surely an immediate and huge first priority concern but for the other half of Europe it's Iraq, Syria the main crisis, ISIS and Al Qaeda maybe the main threat and energy security is also a big topic but a bit less imminent, immediate, maritime security, terrorism maybe more immediate concerns even and so we as an EU we have always to answer to both challenges at the same time and in a consistent way we cannot do something in Iraq or Syria or say something in Iraq and Syria which would endanger or undermine what we are doing East in Ukraine for example and vice versa and we have also to try to exert our efforts on both sides in a complementary and mutually reinforcing way at a time of financial constraints and this is the global landscape within which we have our problematic of energy security and the follow-up of a NATO summit. About Ukraine and energy security it's tempting sometimes to say that it's up to Ukraine to face the military challenges and up to you for example to take care about energy security which is not entirely false that's globally mostly true but it's not the end of a story, the story is not so simple for a number of reasons given the specific nature of EU and you will know that with the exception of Finland's all EU Eastern members are also NATO members for EU given our special nature the security and integrity of each and any of all our member states is I would dare to say even maybe more important than for NATO partners because for us you know EU is a construction which is probably a bit deeper when it comes to human relations and feeling of community well both are extremely important but EU is very specific in this sense and we are nearer and when we come to Ukraine you know it was a EU flag which was on Maidan not the NATO flag so we feel a special responsibility also in terms when it comes to security and when you look at the new world order a concept which is Alamot you know if something is sure is that a new paradigm will be that civilian and military security will be more involved than ever be it for counterterrorism be it on cybersecurity be it also because as we have seen in the kind of conflict which it did every both in Ukraine or in Iraq we see that the way of countering them in the context where you have to hit targets in the middle of civilian populations you cannot choose in the same way the weapons of a second world war so you have to define a completely new environment where civilian and military have to work much more together we have seen very recently for 3000 men being sent by the US in Africa for fighting Ebola this is a premier also which illustrates this new mantra of interconnection between civilian and military and this obviously put a certain on us on us NATO summit has said that we had to go for a rapid reaction plan which according to General Bridlov was a triple of three new ideas a more rapidly available force more responsiveness of NATO reaction force and it's sure that we have still a long way to go before our preparation could match every challenges currently said general ridder there's no tactical headquarter that need we deal in NATO with article 5 specific threats this is also something that we have to keep in mind something that we have to correct probably and there has to be a forward presence in Eastern Europe but not a permanent presence so it will be a bit complicated to have rotations and all that just for the sake of a discussion let me just underline that you could have a small input into that we have in EU made a lot of preparation for having some headquarters you know maybe at one point it could be useful to to make use of this concrete preparation whatever the context could be but we are not starting from scratch at European level when it is when we talk about headquarters and the EU for once is not bound by the NATO ratio agreement which prevents NATO to have permanent advanced deployed force in Eastern Europe and when it comes to the second very important aspect which was discussed in the first panel of the commitment to increase or maintain our defence budgets you know that who is monitoring the EU member states different budgets that's the EU so we have also some role to play here and we have already begun to try to to play it so this is a context into which we see European security and the Ukraine crisis and strong political support for member states are giving us a new impetus to address these challenges which as you recall is not new today our policy focuses on three crucial and closely interrelated projects first the completion of internal energy market second the European energy security strategy and third the 2030 energy and climate framework and it's through the articulation of these three projects that we hope to answer the challenges of security in the field of energy Russia is obviously our foremost external energy supplier and Ukraine a key transit country for energy resources in all the EU and in this context any disruption in supplies from them would have an important impact on us must has been achieved since the last major disruption which was as you know in 2009 and we have new interconnection we have LNG facilities we are reverse flow capabilities and on the 24th May so four months ago we presented a comprehensive strategy with a series of details proposals which would help us hopefully to go towards a better position to address the needs of our citizens we have launched a series of energy security stress tests involving in the first place the gas sector these exercises focuses on the most vulnerable EU member states in terms of supply disruption but we are looking also at the contracting parties and candidates to the energy community which are as you know Ukraine Moldova Western Balkan Countries and Georgia the outcome and specific response measures will be discussed in a bit less than one month in the next October European Council we will also look how of a existing European emergency and solidarity mechanisms should be reinforced because we as a union we have to engage with our international partners to develop new solidarity mechanisms for natural gas and we work to that end with obviously the International Energy Agency US and Canada also bearing in mind our G7 statement common statement and as I said we need to include in all this strategy our most exposed neighbors Ukraine Moldova Western Balkan Georgia the recent agreement on reverse flows between the Slovak Republic and Ukraine is a big achievement a good example of what we want to do and obviously it is not without raising a number of questions how could we Russia react to that and we have seen some question mark appearing but let me tell you we are united on that we have in intensified also our diversification efforts and as it has been said in the coming years LNG could be an important flexibility element not at all as a competitor because we know the differences of price to what we hope to receive from countries here presented but as a projects which have to be part of a landscape and priority energy projects have been accelerated particularly to avoid joining up energy islands likely to India and this fall the Commission will provide an update taking stock of a progress med towards meeting the deadline of completing the internet energy market as well as identifying the main areas where we will see a new new steps still needing to be done so we propose to our US lies that for sale and renewable energy should be covered also in TTIP that's the last point I want to cover to underline our shared common vision of energy security and sustainability in TTIP we would seek global benchmarks together and contribute to develop a stronger set of rules for the energy sector in the multilateral change system we are not here trying to interfere into sovereign debate about the pipelines or more or less tracking that's up to the US to resolve we want to be totally neutral towards that our approach is to say energy is an important element of our transatlantic solidarity we should cover it somewhere and this somewhere is indeed excellent thank you very much it was a wonderful overview that bridged us from sort of the security environment that we were talking about in the first panel into some of the nuts and bolts of the plans that have been put in place by the EU and member countries to bolster energy security both in sort of the near and the longer term one of the things I will circle back on some of the details of that proposal in just a moment but I wanted to turn to Ambassador Pavelonis for just a moment because one of the things that is you know gets right to the sort of the heart of the discussion is is European gas security right so when you look at Europe as a whole we know that European energy demand is decreasing or has been and and that that the group of countries as a group is roughly about 50% dependent on energy imports but gas is a bit higher than that and and the perspective among member countries is very different right some countries have a good deal more insulation from or a good deal more variety both in their fuel mix but then also in their source of suppliers Lithuania has been in the news recently as taking fairly proactive stance about trying to increase diversity especially on sort of the natural gas side with your LNG both sort of the the import facility construction but also the sourcing of gas that maybe it would be a good time to talk a little bit about with you about the perspective from Lithuania on some of these issues and the measures that you've taken thus far to make your own contributions to the energy security situation thank you so much well I will maybe start with a tie I really friends I like your tie and this is the second panelist in your conference this is the Lithuanian tie you know presidency tie it says a lot about the success of Lithuanian presence in Italy so really thank you so much and maybe I will start with NATO go to Ukraine and then gas and energy because we discuss it in the first part well from one side like Baltic countries we are happy you know NATO decision was decisions in Wales was great reinforcement rapid reaction new C2 control and command elements headquarters and especially meeting in Tallinn day before NATO present Obama actually already second time in role in kind of it becomes wonderful traditional high-level dialogue and we hope it continues but this is looking from narrow Baltic corner what I miss here and here I would back to the first panel of our conference there is a feeling that there is a lack of kind of strategic vision still with regard first of all to the context in which we operate and of course I speak about Ukraine after NATO summit we have a strange impression that there is a very clear line maybe artificially clear between those who are members of member of NATO and those who are outside but those strategic partners who today face serious tough challenges and Ukrainians they were asking very clearly military support please what is our reply there is no clear military support we are mumbling something I I guess I hope and I think it will be discussed when president Poroshenko comes to Washington and addresses the Congress but there is no clear answer and those young guys you know maybe of my age I'm not so young but you know they are dying after one month of training in Kiev you know every third has a helmet they don't have you know normal means to resist a special forces killers from from Russia that Mr. Putin is sending there is it just it's not and I think we have to do something for this and well a lot of other things mentioned mention here we do not call it invasion we call it something else some of us uploads different kind of status they are getting there and or some kind of ceasefires that I think leads directly to another frozen conflict in Ukraine and the recent news about the postponed implementation of DCFTA who doesn't know those strange acronyms this is the the heart of the association agreement the deep and comprehensive rate rate part that actually changed the face of the Baltic States immediately we start growing by 10% GDP because you know it was it those were market forces who released that potential and you know who fight for a force very deliberately and efficiently different kind of Soviet phenomenon corruption and so on now it is postponed it's exactly what Putin wants so we are not giving military rate and we are kind of succumbing to economic pressures and if we say oh no it's not about military it's about economy but on the other hand we are postponing the military reforms and we agree we actually applaud it there is a strange feeling in the Baltics and I maybe go too far here but that you know we saw it already we saw it between the Second World War it's a it's a big power game you know somebody's playing big big game there with with things and means that seems to be kind of abolished but this psychology of it goes and spreading we have more and more big power play in Europe it reminds me 19th century it reminds me something we saw before the Second World War and as some people say well it reminds me that Ukrainians on sale you know we are selling the country and we see it we do not make it so openly like usually Lepidin and Bastard does but it's happening it's a good or bad I think it's very bad because it creates a big precedent that will ruin our insecurity of your Atlantic one including despite all the nicest we have and all the nice theaters and photos we have I go further we mentioned enlargement you know enlargement is disappearing from our agendas NATO and you including and I think Karl built was right in criticizing new Commission saying where is exactly enlargement portfolio there it means that we do not have our agenda we do not have the guts to to to spread our values and and spread this transformational spirit so much well reflected in the Baltics we are kind of on the defensive we are becoming the victims of the agenda of our guys in the region bad guys actually and we just react and reaction is not a good strategy at all I go further the things that may be Francois you like I know sorry for for for everything I told before but T tip you know when we've been listening to President Obama two years ago in state of the Union address I thought up till now we would conclude the deal because I heard you have midterm elections arriving you have you know new Commission new new bosses in Brussels arriving it was natural time to conclude the deal where is the deal you know it's somewhere you know in internal politics in America or maybe in Europe and I think that's wrong because if the world is going worse we have to do at least something to clear our house and to make it perfect to make it work and here I go to energy security I would agree with congressman that we do not have a kind of transatlantic response on energy security facing the the challenges we have from Russia I'm happy with what we did in Europe it's not enough but it's already kind of okay with energy bridges with unbundling with get trading of a third country monopolies but let's concentrate on LNG here you know first argument what I hear from American big officials they say oh in Europe you don't have an infrastructure wrong we have an infrastructure in the West and now in the East if you any us will be inaugurating our first Baltic LNG terminal on August on October 27th I'm searching for American gas and not able to find it it's it's sold out it's already even even the gas that will be appearing in 2015-16 in those terms it's sold out completely so we have a little problem here with timing Americans are very slow they think internal policy elections another elections climate change groups lobby groups guys you know the clock is really ticking so quick you know we are losing people people are being killed in Europe and we need to get rid of those energy monopolies who outsource you know big money out of big monopoly prices they create because gas market is not existed and then fueling their own armies that killing us in Europe that's kind of bad so timing is wrong and and there is no focus if you say America cannot solve those issues okay let's look to this nice little Baltic region you know in this nice little Baltic region that is very effective innovative creative competitive and so on we have Lithuanian terminal now ready polls will do it in March next year big terminal not even to copier with ours Finns and Estonians are trying to settle their little discussion but they are most efficient nations in the region they will do it I'm quite sure you will have smaller big terminals there so let's build a little terminal somewhere in Pennsylvania where every third is Lithuanian you know let's let's license it and and you have problem solved why can't administration do it I cannot get it so to summarize everything that I told you know we are good on details but we don't have you know the whole picture we don't see the whole vision we face south we face southeast we face east we may be do a bit of the military in for the Baltics we don't see Ukraine there is no comprehensive kind of multifaceted approach and I think this capital is exactly capable of it it was doing it for ages that's why we are back on the blocks you know but now something happened and you know well somebody is very happy that we are so divided because they can rule us very easily but I think you know we have to do something with it and we have to be a bit more strategic and visionary like we've been and we we can do it like this president was saying we can do it well it's a great linkage between sort of the the strategic vision under NATO that we talked about before and whether or not we were heading towards sort of an expansionist vision or what the vision actually is right and I thought it was very interesting representative Turner or excuse me representative Keating meeting making the remarks that at some point in the not too recent past we were looking for a vision for NATO and we were looking for something to do and now we have plenty to do but the question is is how and what and and what sort of the grand vision should be I'd certainly take your point that it takes a long time to do things in Washington I wouldn't just respectfully offer that the counterpoint there is it takes a long time to do things in Europe as well and so now that we all have urgency behind us the question is is actually very interesting to me because it's put in very precise terms on the defense side because you have you have budget numbers right how much are we willing to spend for military how much are we willing to spend for people and capabilities and and there's a very sort of transparent process for seeing that I think it's a little bit more difficult to unpack on the energy side and so you talked a bit about the pace at which we're exporting LNG from the United States and not being able to find supplies for the LNG export capacity that we have that we have sort of currently planned and currently in the works and I would certainly be the first to to to admit that it has taken us a bit of a bit of time to figure out how our LNG export permit processing is going to work when we have LNG to export but but the bigger question seems to be not one of gas adequacy right I think most people have concluded there is a lot of gas in the United States and indeed there's a lot of gas around the world that can come to the market and and this proliferation of LNG importers can indeed be met by gas at the right price and so there is a question of volume adequacy and the infrastructure to get things where they belong and I agree that there is there is a good capacity in terms of LNG import capacity within Europe but the question is will US gas make it to Europe at the right price and how does US gas compete in Europe versus or how does European gas demand compete with Asian gas demand that we've seen that has you know here to force sort of locked up some of those prices that that's probably going to evolve over a period of time and it maybe give ambassadors to the man of an opportunity to to weigh in here both on sort of the larger security context but also in terms of Azerbaijan obviously having a very different energy position than a lot of different European countries with with sort of robust energy resources and seeking to make a contribution to this energy security landscape within Europe and that may be allow you to make some opening comments as well from your perspective and then we'll sort of dig into some of these issues thank you doctor so first of all I would like to thank CSI for this time the panel it's an honor to be on the panel with you again I know last time we had we've been in Georgia Tech and it's good to be with my fellow ambassadors here but I would like to welcome some other ambassadors who in and our good friends who in a in a in the audience especially the ambassador Dorsey who used to be American ambassador both to Azerbaijan and Lithuania so now she's happily retired and doesn't have to suffer anymore from either Lithuania's honor or us and well you'll tell us privately who was more difficult but I think the key issue here which was highlighted is the issue of strategy and strategic vision how do we move forward and as you understand and we all understand that energy security of Europe and energy security globally is a global issue it cannot be at least in one particular area or and ignored in other areas and that has always been what Azerbaijan been advocating for yesterday we had a very good celebration and JFK and at the Kennedy Center here of 20th anniversary of signing the what we call contact of the century that's the precursor to the Bakut bilisi j-han we changed the region it changed the region more than one way it does not only deliver oil to international markets for the first time independently it brings cast-pan oil to the world markets in a Mediterranean part of j-han it's transferred Azerbaijan it transformed Georgia in transformed Turkey it made Azerbaijan Georgia and Turkey work together so now building on that experience on September 20th in Baku there will be groundbreaking ceremony for the southern gas code so what is the southern gas code southern gas corridor is expected to bring major volumes of gas from shah-dhan east to which is shah-dhan east to project which is part of the bigger shah-dhan east project offshore in a caspian sea why does it matter but what we talk about different ways of providing for energy security in Europe shah-dhan east gas the southern corridor gas is the only additional pipe gas which will be coming in Europe in foreseeable future we could go dance a lot about this we could talk about different things then October comes and November comes it's cold again we'll all forget what we talked about and we go back to our habits which we will again discuss in May when it's getting more but what we need is not the discussion what we need is action and I have to tell you I agree with Ambassador Pavillionis that it takes a long time for Americans to take action and I have to agree with Dr. Radus that it takes even longer for Europeans to take action therefore Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey has made it is have made a decision together together to build to begin building the backbone of the southern corridor which is a town of Trans Anatolian pipeline that's financed by Azerbaijan Turkey and goes to Georgia with it and when we first began doing that people looked at us and said why are you doing it I didn't see much of a enthusiast now people come up to me said can you accelerate it and I said well that's actually real thing it's it's it's not like you know it's not a cake you can't really put it up and it gets better but I think the contribution of the southern corridor which will it will make to Georgia Azerbaijan Turkey and more importantly for the new region for Greece for Albania it's an important project on development of Albania and for Italy is is an outstanding project now this is the first step we're looking at it and it will provide the highway for the gas coming to the European markets and then in the future if others want to join that would be I mean we can't we can't speak for the others our gases there will offer it and will work with our partners in BP and other companies to make sure it happens now you know the project is 45 billion dollars in general it's a major investment it's already subcontracted most of it it brings about 30,000 jobs to the region I am very happy to say that just recently the Italian government has endorsed the environmental study assessment so we're moving forward there the Greek government has done a great job and working as a Turkish government so on that area move things are moving forward now it may seem as in not such a significant contribution for us let's put it that way in European markets it's not a it's in single digits the contribution of the southern gas corridor to the overall volume of gas in Italy already it's over 10% of supplies for some countries which are along the way it's it could be 100% depends how they how much they contribute they join that first as you mentioned Mr. DeVasso mentioned the West Balkans there there's a conversation about possibility of that extending into Western Balkans and that would be a game changer in many ways but the issue is not the volumes per se the issue is diversification yesterday assistant secretary Elka and reminded an old saying in the Casper region multiple pipelines happiness is multiple pipe it still is it's very simple there's not much to to contemplate about that the more diversity you have the more secure you and for us for Azerbaijan the more diverse do you have in terms of supplies the more diverse you have in terms of consumers the more diverse you have in terms of chances the better it is we want to contribute it and Azerbaijan wants to play it to be a responsible player but I want to say something you speak about the vision you speak about the the strategic approach takes leadership it's important Azerbaijani leadership Georgian leadership at the time a Turkish leadership has gone out on its way well as president had early if Demirel Chevrolet led that effort today president Ali in Azerbaijan leads that effort and at that time it was a leadership of the United States which made a crucial contribution president Clinton coming to Istanbul signing of the joint declaration moving forward with that I agree with my favorite panelist that the leadership of the United States is very important and when we talk about this I'm not talking about military leadership I'm not talking about bombing anyone I'm not talking about sending military to I mean I'm just saying why don't you come and sign a joint declaration I mean compared to other things this is pretty easy to do really and I don't know why it's so difficult to why does it have to take so much discussion sometimes people ask me so what do you want from us you want our troops I said no and they said do you want us to bomb somebody I said no just come in and let's have a party which by the way is happening on the 20th of September so that's that's if you want to come a modern work on the last point going back to the security issues which we discussed I am grateful to for Mr. Riverser's reiteration of the importance of territorial integrity and security of all nations both in a European Union and the partner nations we welcome the decision the final declaration of the NATO summit which reinforce that for all countries in our region including Azerbaijan Armenia Georgia Moldova and Ukraine of course for us it's been a long story long ago we have we have initiated that conversation and we keep saying that consistent unequivocal support for independence sovereignty of our nations is the only way to sustain secure future for all people for all people in the region that had that should not have a room for maneuver maybe here there maybe there a little bit there and that's I think it's a very important issue and I'm very grateful that we've seen that in iterated in a NATO the question but I think that consistent approach should keep applying so violations of territorial integrity do not repeat themselves and they have unfortunate I don't want to take more time than this we'll know that's fantastic thank you very much for those comments I think in congratulations on the 20th anniversary of the contract of the century as you know very well people here have fond memories of that process that I hear about quite often even though I wasn't there I feel like maybe I could have been one of the things I wanted to talk about before we open up for questions is there there appear to be two discreet issues here one is is avoiding a near-term energy crisis in this it is one that between sort of October and you know pick your date we're hoping certainly over by March here of next year here in DC but is is sort of the acute issue of keeping a crisis that is currently particularly tense at bay long enough to avoid some sort of gas supply cut off in Europe under what form that might take and and and make sure that that doesn't sort of impact people's lives and livelihood and health and well-being and the economy in Europe over this coming winter that is a very discreet and important set of issues and exercises and you mentioned some of the stress tests taking place now I just thought maybe from each of you getting your perspective on what are the critically most important things that could happen near-term to to avoid that kind of a situation this coming winter and then and then secondarily and again please you know so we can leave some room for questions quickly over the long term I have not met a single energy analyst that can envision a future for Europe without Russian gas supplies so getting out of this current crisis and getting to a future where there is a better understanding of gas supply security in Europe is now a new undertaking right and when you on the security side envision a future that looks something akin to a Cold War you know 2.0 3.0 where there isn't a resolution of this situation I take with note not my personal assertion but some of the earlier panel this question about whether or not economic sanctions will work over the long term whether some sort of military pressure can be brought to bear in them in the in the near term and how long this sort of standoff of sorts can can last it could have longer-term consequences for the energy sector between sort of Europe and Russia and so I know the EU has a vision for for where everything is headed but I just thought one you know what what will the sort of near-term what are the most important actions to to sort of forego this sort of near-term energy crisis and to how is it recalibrating the way that that Europe and individual nation states are thinking about energy security over the longer run given what we sort of you know like to term energy interdependence and the realities the economic realities of that maybe we'll start with you and then go down the line again yeah we usually a bit better to plan for middle and long term and you in the US are better to plan for short term so you know short term planning is always very dependent of contingencies all what I can say that we have two axis of efforts one is the energy security one that I describe which could obviously not be enough would we be faced with an extremely severe confrontation with Russia in that case we will have cold and this is it and we should have to do with it because there's no other possibilities it's a reality it's a reality which we continue to assess as relatively unlikely because Russia in the same way that your analysts cannot describe the future of your European energy security without Russian gas the same expert tell us that there's also no conceivable future for Russia without exporting its gas for Europe for still a certain amount of time we know that before they could divert their production towards the east we still have a number of years so we continue to assess this situation as relatively unlikely but it could happen and we have to plan for every scenario and that's why we make all efforts to have only a good we have both ways to prepare for humanitarian efforts would it be needed to have a better coordination between energy security and foreign policy all that we have now you know in the commission we have tried to translate that into a political illustration we have now vice president who is in charge of energy security which is something new so for us this is really a concern of everything and the other answer obviously is that we continue to pursue a satisfying solution to the Ukrainian crisis through all diplomatic appropriated efforts if I may just add a little complementary point to yours ambassador on the DC FDA I know that there has been a broad reaction along your lines saying all but this is maybe a gesture towards Moscow don't forget that we do that also as a request of Ukrainian authorities themselves because you know the reality is and I think for the sake of you knowing the DC FDA will be implemented in other part which is cost which is means cost for Europe that's it we shall implement a part of this agreement the part which allows Ukraine to export all what he can's without fees the part which will not be implemented is that Ukraine will import European goods without fees Europe so you know if we were in a ticket in a trade negotiation the American negotiators say how is it that Europe is making such a one-sided gift to Ukraine it's because we are also count able about the survivability of Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian finances we in IMF European and in other context have to make sure that the Ukrainian economy is not completely breaking and this decision will also obviously allow Ukraine to continue exporting and receiving from Russia free of taxes their goods and receive from Russia their goods but you know all all that is basically to give at the cost of European taxpayer and the cost of European economy this has been to at least one year one year and a half of adaptation to the Ukrainian economy in order to avoid major breakdown it was a choice I think it's an honest choice that we made it's certainly a choice which is not in our financial interest you know so it's really an honest choice that we made and I think while understanding fully where you come from and why you say what you say because indeed you can say oh well Ukraine then will have not such a strong incentive to adapt as we Baltic State have made and why paying a great tribute to other way Baltic State have been able to adapt I say Ukraine is in a very bad situation you know we had to help them and that's why we did that okay okay I'll just continue on the same from Baltic experience and how much we help Ukraine well I don't know who asked whom Kremlin is reporting that some big states they were asking for this delay in implementation and in any case member states were not consulted properly in time and mandate for this trilateral kind of commission was kind of not exactly the same it was of explanatory nature and suddenly we have changes that directly impacts interest even of my own business because remember that Baltic States now face re-tariatory economic sanctions and we are searching for markets Ukrainian including that is a big market so and also kind of more theoretical response from our experience you know I will maybe go too far but KGB doesn't like markets and freedom and the Russians are people who will soon celebrate 100 years anniversary of KGB rule 1918 we all remember those glorious revolutionary times and you know from just go to live he way in examples of what I say in so drastic way I remember vice president Cheney visiting live he way in 2006 great speech on energy security great speech saying freedom markets to energy security it you know it has to be all those monopoly should be out from the map they are distorting the market it made such an impression in Kremlin that put in shut down drushba friendship oil pipeline to live he way in and he's fixing it until now it had to be serious technical damage done by this nice speech in in Vilnius we learned example we built our own our own oil terminal on the sea we created the market and we maneuver another example gas you know Baltics are dependent 100% on gas from whenever leave he way in here with vision and with leadership also my president despite all those big talks we just build the terminal the price miraculously decrease though we were paying six times more than americans are paying for natural gas here with our little pockets and salaries so the market makes an impression on KGB and they can say nothing on that that's why Putin was so much insisting on delays of association treaty and of delays of the asf tmica yeah because you know when you have this wonderful western american invention you can do nothing because you know it's it's competition you have to adjust state aid rules you know all those kind of so that practice practices disappears and put in losses it's all buttons that he has in Kiev because of it of course he doesn't want to do it but the problem is that we kind of allow this to happen and it's okay that Ukrainians will be able to export beef but if you don't have the market pressures from the west it will not change your economy if the market changed if you were near beyond the recognition that's why to even today we are one of the fastest growing EU economies because we just make made it all and Estonians made it even better you know they just opened their markets for free trade with you from the day of the signature of association agreement in 95 and that's why it took just two years for them to wait for invitation for accession talks for us it took four years so you know we learn from the history and we know if you want to face it if you if you want to change your country do market please and do market please with LNG you know with LNG exports including if America is great because it invented market it's the oldest democracy so make democracy in energy please it takes leadership yes but you know if you have 20 or more terminals waiting for license to export and you're not allowing it something is wrong with this American ideology in energy we're gonna allow for one more comment please for Mr. investors Suleymanov to because we were running out of time I do want to take I'll take a couple questions just so we can group them together but I know you guys have a hard stop at about 10 30 but but before I just wanted to to sort of briefly also bring up the point that that there is a permitting process now for LNG exports in the United States and it has taken a bunch of time to get sort of up and running but but but lots of folks you know from from the US perspective would argue it is up and running now and so while while it takes a long time there is a process for that happening and so I think that that question that often comes for US policymakers is what additional actions can and should be taken to be more permissive about LNG exports and in sort of absence the delay the long delay and getting to this point what additional steps and measures people think are required now to sort of support that free trade argument so ambassador did you want to look what I'll just say very briefly something in response to a second question it's obviously clear that she's a major producer of gas and it's not going away and that's understandable nor should it interdependencies are good if there's a large supply right next door to you why should not be sold the question is not that the question is that how do we all benefit including the Russian producers as a matter of fact in terms of pricing and in terms of development how do we all benefit from more diversified more secure energy markets and this simple question responses the diversity it's good for Russians it's good for the Europeans it's good for us it's good for the more diverse the more different sources come to the European markets the better it is for everybody and of course it's illogical to speak about replacing Russian supplies they're just too large in volume and it's also it's not an issue of challenging something or competing with somebody it's an issue of diversifying the mix which is actually good for every producer because I think in our case a certain degree of market competition and diversification actually promotes your own efficiency makes you a more lean and mean company which is probably good for anybody absolutely great points okay we've got time I'm gonna take two quick questions and then we'll get sort of a quick response we'll just take these two right here please identify yourself name an affiliation and please a quick question if you can thank you my name is Valery Kowalevsky I'm a former Belarusian diplomat I have a question regarding military help for Ukraine which has been asked for but never received several days ago Minister of Defense of Ukraine mentioned publicly that Russia threatens to use technical nuclear weapons against Ukraine in this crisis and if Ukraine does not receive military help from the West then Ukraine will turn to develop its own nuclear weapons and they probably have everything they need technology capacities and deliveries means of deliveries on the one hand this kind of undermines the very subtle and very complex nonproliferation regime that exists in the world now on the other hand who would blame a nation that faces existential threat for turning to such such a means to defend itself I would appreciate your comments on this issue how acceptable it is how feasible it is how welcome it is to see Ukraine turning to the last resort thank you Rafiq Gurman Zada my question is to Ambassador of Lithuania I wonder how Lithuania may benefit from the southern gas corridor if we consider that in the new future the volume of gas may increase I wonder whether the has a physical infrastructure like pipelines which could enable reverse flow of gas to I'm talking about the pipelines between Poland and Lithuania and Baltic countries thank you very much maybe if we take the second question first and then if anybody feels particularly capable or interested in answering the first I it's a very very important question I think maybe the first panel would have been you can answer that okay that's great okay why don't we take why don't we take the second question first and then end on that well we have another important project going on despite our LNG terminal it's a Lithuanian Polish gas interconnection we really hope that it's possible we already finalizing with Poles our electric cable to connect us to Central European system but if we do gas that's exactly that solving our issues because Poles they have their own connections back to the regions mentioned that is an old idea by the way we discussed it with chain already in 2006 yeah it takes time it seems and then investors yeah obviously everybody is attached to the non proliferation treaty and particularly you for which the rule of law is essential so there's no way this will have consequences in mind but you have also to put yourself with the mind of Ukrainian what did they see since the number of months they have sea question marks because you have since the 1993 commitment by the nuclear weapon state not to threaten non nuclear open states you are the special agreement concluded in Budapest of security guarantee when you friendly renounce its nuclear weapons and you have some question marks about also INF so you know you could imagine in the stressing situation where Ukrainian are that some declaration could be done of that kind so I think this doesn't change our commitment to the rule of law and the non proliferation treaty which remain the same but we have also to have a political context in sight to to to to understand where these declaration that obviously nobody just tried to in practical terms but I don't think this is so practical this was more a mark of stress and they're worrying this is a just a little remark not on practical but on theory when I was a student of international relations and I also learned a lot in and I you know in Paris you know Pactos on serve under you know one of the Western principles if we have this Budapest memorandum on security guarantees to Ukrainian it and its security is not respected right now so it's just gives another good point of discussion between President Obama and Poroshenko what about then bilateral security guarantees if we're not able to do it in NATO but you know we have a signature of American president there you know if and if we cannot believe you know we cannot trust the signatures of American presidents on security so this world will go ruin that's an important signal so we have to do something on that and American president has a wonderful opportunity to discuss it with Ukrainian president in one day well that's very good point there's there's a lot going on in the space it will be a busy week it will be a busy month it'll be a busy winter one of the things that I think was brought out on the first panel was again this resurgence and interest in sort of the sort of NATO security construct the vision for security within the alliance and within the region that is touched by the alliance but bringing it back to what Stephanie and Heather alluded to when you bring this to sort of the larger geostrategic events that are at play there's a lot a lot going on within the Europe context within the US context and and quite frankly within the Russian context and with this many sort of vectors sort of twirling about it at present I think we're in for some fairly dynamic times for my little corner of the world energy it's no less dynamic there's lots and lots happening within these markets and all of the strategic decisions that are made both within the European context and the US context surely do matter so as much as there is a security vision needed there's likely an energy vision needed quite similarly and so we will look forward to continuing those conversations we know you all have very very busy schedules and we are very deeply appreciative that you choose to spend time here with us today in order to keep you coming back we let you leave on time and so we're going to do that but if you guys could please join me in thanking all of our guests here today for a good discussion.


OK, so moving on, Q&A we will not have. 520, it was Q&A. So we'll just go on to the next session. Maybe what we'll do is we will prepare a Q&A webinar session just for Q&A after we post this video. So we'll give them one week or something. Let them look at the videos. If they have some burning questions, we'll have a webinar, like an interaction. So submission and evaluation methods, let me go through it quickly now and present my screen. So this is for all the participants. There are a lot of questions regarding the submission and evaluation methods. So we are going to present what is being evaluated and how the submission should happen. The contents for this presentation will be what are available resources. All the experts, these experts have gone through before me. Please look at the videos, what are the resources, and how you could use that for solving the problems. Please also note that there is one problem that is your own choice. So for that choice, also only ISRO data should be used. So please don't use any other data because it is a different problem statement. Use only the ISRO data and an open source software. What is required in submission phase we'll go through and key points to remember while submitting, especially the map details. Mr. Nile had gone through how to add each part of the map, legends, north arrow, all those are important. Please take note. What is the evaluation criteria we have set as a team? We will go through that. And so the available resources, QGS tutorials for the software is available online and also with our own partners spoken to Toria and Fossi. All the ISRO data links are shared in the home page of the Mapathon. Please refer to the data links. If there's any question regarding any data, please put it on the forum or on this YouTube comments section. We will address it shortly. Some people would have difficulty in our planning boundary of district, state, or India. So I've added a section on data available with shapefiles of all the districts in India and states and national boundaries. Feel free to use it for this research purpose. There was some questions regarding what, for a particular problem statement, what is the scale of analysis? That is also the freedoms given to the participant. Please pick a scale that is relevant for your problem statement. For example, if you're looking at Locust movement, you can take a particular district movement. You can take a state movement or also across India how it moved, because it came through Rajasthan and then moved up to UP and also in the South. So you can take any scale, any boundaries you feel comfortable. Again, the evaluation criteria will go through what we'll actually look for evaluating your product. So please look at all these above links in the resource page. ISRO links, the boundary data tutorials, everything is given in detail in the resource page. Any questions, please put it on the YouTube link. Submission phase, the submission for this mapathon is a two-phase system. First, after the registration is closed, every single participant will be given a model link. A model is a software that we use to collate all the entries and update it on our database. So instead of having you submit through an email, we will ask you to submit through a model link. We will give you instructions on how to use the link and submit your entries. Email us if you don't get your link to the registration by 20th December, because there is a registration until 18. We will take two to three days' time to update all the participants their submission links. So just give us two days, which is 20th December. If you don't get it after 20th, let us know by email. We will arrange it for you. You can submit up to 100 MB of outputs. So some people were asking, some participants were asking, how many maps are you requesting? If you could explain your problem within one map, that is good. And you can take any number of maps that you want to explain your problem statement. Again, your problem statement is the code. Using ISRO data is the code. How many maps you make is your creativity and problem-solving skills. So please use as much as possible. But due to a shortage of storage and managing this database, we require each submission to be not more than 100 megabytes. So please keep it within 100 MB. So you know that one JPEG could anywhere be around 5 to 10. So that gives you still that flexibility of 10 images if needed. Can be edited multiple times. So suppose you finish your submission by 20th December, you submit it. And somehow you think that, no, you could have done better. You have more time. You can always come back to your model link and resubmit. You can download your previous submission deleted or add it or update it. For example, if you submitted one map by 20th and you want to add two, three more maps, that is also possible. So please don't be shy on adding or deleting or editing your entries. And that can be done until December 31st, midnight. Submission is a two-stage process, which means two outputs we would require from you. One is a map submission. It should be a map. Could be an image like how you export your map from QGIS or any other format, PDF, JPEG, anything is OK. But it has to be a map submission. One is a map, and the second part of the submission is a document, a document on what you did, how does it relate to the problem statement that you chose, and what are the applications? Applications are very important for selling your product. First step, map submission. Access, first step, what you do as expected is access relevant ISRO data. All the ISRO links are given and the tutorials are given in this YouTube. Use an open-source software, example QGIS, make the map, learn the software or the data, using the resources link we have given and for CNST. Do the map. So do the map, add a title. So when you do the map or develop the map, please add a title and also legends and not arrow. A legend is what are you trying to map and what are the categories in your map. That is very important. I'll show you an example. Otherwise, we will not be able to read your map. Your north arrow is very important for us to align your map. So and it is a very important commodity of a map. Your details and scale. Scale is also important. Please add it and your details. Your details as in what you would like to be shared in public domain. Please don't think that we are asking for details to be published. It is only what you feel comfortable, your name, your email or something like that. Why? Because if someone is interested in your map, they can contact you. You could also leave it. It is not compulsion. It is optional. So you can put your details or not. That is purely your optional. Submit any number of maps as long as within 100 MB for each. There are around 3,000 teams. So please submit 100 MB each team. Let's take an example. A very, very simple map that has been made. Using QGIS, ISRO boundaries that we used to demarcate the Western Guards. The Western Guards is one of the most hot spots of biodiversity. According to UNESCO, it is called Hottest. So we never see that term. So it is one of a very fragile ecosystem in the world. And we would like to know the boundaries and how it changed. So that was our problem statement. And so we used the different products of ISRO to demarcate the Western Guards, which is purely a forested biodiversity system. And it spans across states. So we've done that map. And we have the map of the boundary and which states are sharing the boundary on the right side you see. And it's India side. So I've added a scale to let you know what the size of the boundary is. And some legend, a legend which shows the India boundary, state boundary, and the Western Guard boundary, which is a great one. This is a very, very simple map. Those who have limited computing power, this is that kind of a map. So you don't have to exert or too much pressure on the map. There's not much calculations or something. But it still is a very, very important map. We don't have this boundary. I'll tell you, you cannot get this boundary just from online. You'll have to make this boundary. So that is what we have done. So the example 2 is a map on. So you could see the title, what I've requested. In the previous also, the title was below. Here, the title is up on the top. And we will be sharing this template. So those who like to have this template, like a very professional one, you could use it. It's still on the resource page. Go to the resource page and submission. You'll get this template. So what do you see here is a map of a regional transport network in Pune. So now I know that this is Pune. And you could see that I've added multiple data layers. It's not only water bodies. I could see roads. I could see urbanization, which is being calculated by different ISRO products and other things. So I've also added my own data. So sometimes, like an airport. An airport, you have data. You know where it is. So you create the data in QGIS and you put a legend. If you see the planes, the two planes, and that is where the airports and proposed airport is coming, we could put that as a new thing. So for example, a proposed airport, you cannot get that from a remote sensing image because it's still not there. But you know that that is the area that has been demarcated for, an airport that is going to come. So you can go ahead, mark it, and then say this is the proposed airport map. So you could clearly see how the road networks are connected to this proposed map. And that is your map description and analysis on the right side. So a small documentation that goes along with your map. So when we promote this map, all this comes as a one-fold picture. You have your introduction, a small details about the maps, and what you try to map. So all this has been beautifully covered on the right side, very less number of wordings. And on the bottom is very important. Let's go one by one. So legend is very important so that I know what the different colorings are, what is blue, what is yellow, and stuff. The north arrow to show me which side my hash should be oriented and the scale. And the map description and analysis, what analysis was done, and something very important things about the map. The last item is about you. So the details that I've asked so that when we promote this map on a sharing basis, on an open access basis, the participants can be contacted using this details map. So here I have a logo. It's IITB student who did it. So let's have a logo. And a team name has been given. The team name is what you gave in your registration. Your topic that you chose, the problem statement, or your own topic. Team member lead, you can put the name, organization, and contact email. So you can put your email, your phone number, your web page, anything that you feel comfortable. There is no, it is purely optional. It is for your map to get recognized. So document submission is the second part of your submission. What you would need to do is you need to add a paragraph on the methodology, which can include but not limited to. Mention the ISRO data use. This is very, very important. So for example, when I go to my previous map, I told you that I use ISRO data. But unless I particularly tell you which data I used, there are multiple ISRO data that could have been used. So don't give us that question. Please let us know which ISRO data was used so that we know if it is a good data that you used for the particular problem statement. Because there could have been another better ISRO data that you should have been using. Or are you using the highest resolution data, those kind of things. Specific steps that you did in QGIS. What steps did you incorporate to get from ISRO data to that map? Complexities, if any, involved. You would have come through some issues. This is very important for us also so that we make sure that the next products in ISRO or QGIS, we can write to the forum, are more friendly for the users. So also, the complexities in your map itself, like how many layers, how many layers did you have to take to make that one single map? What are the different calculations you did? So in one paragraph, we would like to see on the application. What do you propose as the application and use of the map? So you have a methodology on how to address the problem statement. What are the data you used and methods and techniques? And then a paragraph on the application and use of the map. So based on this, the evaluation team which would comprise of IIT Bombay, ISRO, and Rudra people would look at 100 marks evaluation per map. This is also a graph. We can still update it if there are different categories of maps. So right now, this is the evaluation pattern. The methodology, ISRO data used and GIS steps would take 40% of the marks. You would be assessed and given marks up to 40 for your methodology, which should include your ISRO data, details, GIS, et cetera. Your complexity, what different things you did or what are the different complex tools you used would take 20 marks. Your potential and application of the map, this is very important, that would take 40 marks. So you have addressed your question and what are the uses? That is the last part of potential application. For example, if you say, I mapped the road network in my village. So now we have given me the road network. What are the uses of that? From your angle, because you know the data, you did the work, you should know how it could be used. If I see it, I would say, oh, good. I could know where the roads are cutting your water resources or encroaching into the map. But you would have a different application. So we would like to see your application. So based on this evaluation criteria, we will shortlist participants for the finals, which will happen from Jan 4 to Jan 10, 2021. What would happen in that week or so finals is that you would be asked to present. So make presentations and show us how you did it very quickly. It would be like a 10-minute presentation where you would show the data you used, what are the critical steps that you did to come at those maps. Participation certificates will be given to all submitted teams and participants. So this question is very important. A lot of people have been asking me. The certificate will be given to each and every person in the team, not for one team, one leader will get. If the team is four, all the four will get. So you will get a participation certificate with all these important personal signing. Winners will get special prizes. So all the shortlisted and the winners will get a special prize or certificate, which is different from a participation certificate. We'll also get an opportunity to do an internship at IIT Bombay for the QGIS team. So if it is very good and like every year, we do incorporate students for a paid internship. We do a full paid internship. And depending on the work and the potential, we would see if there's any opportunity for such kind of internship. This I'd like to thank you because of the technical issues. We were not able to do this as a live webinar. Please put your questions in the comments section in the YouTube link. We will get back to you. Oh, please soon. Thank you.


Our next speaker will be Mike Latorra. Mike is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico State University. He has served on the boards of Humanity Plus, or the World Transhumanist Association, as it was formerly known, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Among his publications are the paper Transspirit, Religion, Spirituality, and Transhumanism, in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, and the book A Warrior Blends with Life, A Modern Tau. Professor Latorra is an ordained Zen priest, Abbot of the Zen Center of Las Cruces in New Mexico, and a formal devotee of Avatar Adi Da Samraj. Please welcome Mike. Good morning. PowerPoint is going to be coming up here, and I've been told that it will be available online as a slide deck, so I will go through some of these slides rather quickly. The title of my talk is Where is Heaven? For the purpose of my presentation, I'm going to be defining transhumanism as, first of all, a form of melliorism, the idea of progress leading to an improved world for human effort, and also as a form of satisfying where we're considering alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. In other words, we want to make things better, but we don't have some particular ideal in mind. I'll also be employing the Buddhist Two Truths Doctrine, and this distinguishes a conventional truth of ordinary life from an ultimate truth. The conventional truth can be understood by reason and looking at our own experience. The ultimate truth is more philosophical and abstract, and becomes only obvious as truth when the person actually engaging in spiritual practice moves to a higher level of understanding. I'll also define heaven as the ultimate place. Paradise is defined as a really nice place. So a transhumanist paradise would be possible, but a transhumanist heaven would not be, because heaven is reached by other means than the technology that we'd be employing as transhumanists. Let's look at the world, universe. According to Professor Nelegrass Tyson, there are about 100 billion atoms in a single strand of DNA, about 100 billion stars in a typical galaxy, and about 100 billion probable galaxies in the universe that we can see. But there's also a multiverse theory that there are many universes. And Professor Andre Lind says that a self-reproducing inflationary universe consisting of different parts exponentially large in uniform because of cosmic inflation would have each part looking like a separate mini-universe or a pocket universe independent of the other parts of the universe. Professor Lind and his colleague Vitaly Venturen calculate that the number of possible universes in this multiverse with different geometrical properties is hugely large, 10 to the 10th to the 77th power. Then there's the ancient mythical cosmos. Stars as lights on a crystal dome and this individual in medieval woodcut, breaking through that dome to find out that the universe is actually much more complicated than just a dome, but as you can see, they're level upon level. I'd like to look at the Buddhist cosmology and I'll go through the next few slides pretty quickly. Basically, the traditional Buddhist cosmology divides the cosmos into three broad realms, a sense sphere realm, a fine material realm, and an immaterial realm. Each of these realms is subdivided into several subsidiary planes for a total of 31 levels. The sense sphere realm has 11 planes, including the one we exist on. There are seven better planes and four worse ones. We are at the lowest level of the better planes. Below us is where things get really bad. But above us in this same realm are several better planes. These we might think of as what transhumanism could take us to, or which we could access perhaps in another lifetime according to the Buddhist theory of rebirth. Next to the fine material realm, this is 16 planes. And this includes planes that do not have gross matter at the level that we exist, but a finer level of matter. Denizens of these realms enjoy greater bliss, power, luminosity, and vitality than do denizens of the sense sphere realm. And these planes now correspond to the first four levels of Jhana or bliss meditation as taught by the Buddha. Then come four immaterial realms. This is mind only. This is the most abstract. Denizens of these four planes enjoy enormous lifespans extending for 20,000, 40,000, 60,000, 80,000 great eons with the term eon never being precisely defined. But we can think of this as subjectively for times that seem to be almost eternal. These four planes correspond to the second group of four blissful Jhanas or levels of Buddhist meditation. These planes are named after those four Jhanas, infinite space or boundless space, infinite mind, nothingness, and neither perception nor yet non-perception. But none of these worlds in the Buddhist cosmos is true heaven in the sense that I'm using that term as the ultimate place. Life in the cosmic world arises due to conditional factors. When those conditions no longer obtain, life ceases. So life experience in the cosmic domain is impermanent, not fully satisfactory, and lacks an essential being. Bhikkhu Bodhi, who is a western born Buddhist monk, describes the situation this way. In the Buddhist cosmology, existence in every realm, being the product of a karma is the term from Sanskrit that you've probably heard of. Karma is the poly-language version and I'll just use the Sanskrit karma. Being the product of karma with a finite potency is necessarily impermanent. Beings take rebirth in accordance with their deeds, experience the good or bad results, and then when the generative karma has spent its force, they pass away to take rebirth elsewhere as determined by still another karma that has found the opportunity to ripen. Hence the torments of hell as well as the bliss of heaven, or what I would call a paradise, no matter how long they may last, are bound to pass. For this reason, the Buddha does not locate the final goal of his teaching anywhere in the conditional world. He guides those who are still tender to aspire for a heavenly rebirth and teaches them the lines of conduct that conduce to the fulfillment of their aspirations. But for those whose faculties are mature and who can grasp the unsatisfactory nature of everything conditioned, he urges determined effort to put an end to wandering in samsara, that is the conditional realms, and to reach nirvana, nirvana is this Sanskrit term. Nirvana transcends all planes of being. Now I'd like to look at the cosmos according to Avatar Adidas Samraj. Adidas Samraj was born in 1939 in New York, his given name was Franklin Jones, and after many years of spiritual practice under several different teachers, he realized his own enlightenment and eventually took the spiritual name Adidas. This is one of the most important slides in this whole presentation. Adidas describes life as having seven potential stages. The first two stages into the third are about childhood, adolescence, and becoming a mature adult human being. The fourth stage, spiritualization, divine communion, is where real religion begins. When I say real religion, I'm talking about a religion that actually helps people to grow, not merely to believe something that they find comforting or distracting. I'm not, of course, a Mormon, but one of the things I've noticed about Mormons, and the Mormon Transhumanist Association in particular, is that you have a greater foundation in this fourth stage, and as a community, I think better practices for raising your children through those first and second stages to become mature adults. As you know, in American society today, we have all kinds of problems, and I'm sure the Mormon community is not exempt from those, but I think you're better off than a lot of folks in this regard. Beyond this fourth stage, there are a couple of more stages of spiritual ascent, which is mystical in aspect, and that would be a simple way to describe it, and a sixth stage, sometimes called self-realization. Adidah uniquely teaches seventh stage as awakening from all egoic limitations, and this is not a seventh stage that comes after the sixth, as if you were climbing a ladder, but rather an orientation that can be given throughout all the stages in a spiritual community that practices according to this teaching, the cosmos, as Adidah describes it, is what he calls a cosmic mandala. This is a series of concentric planes or spheres which can be seen during the death transition or in stages of visionary experience. The red realms of existence are lower than human gross levels. These include the four planes of deprivation in that Buddhist cosmology, the four lower planes below us, and we are at the place where the red turns to yellow. The golden yellow plane, human embodiment, and the lower aetheric or astral realms. This includes most of those 16 planes in the Buddhist fine material realm that I discussed previously. The silvery white is the highest astral realm and corresponds to the upper planes of the Buddhist fine material realm. The dark blue or black is a transitional zone or empty space between the higher astral planes and the lower subtle realms. You can think of this as entering a room at night when it's dark before you turn on the light. The brilliant blue is the subtle planes which correspond to the Buddhist immaterial mind-only realm. After Adidah has spoken about the subtle realms as benign places or dimensions of existence where the sense of separate self is hardly noticed, thus they are places, so-called, of apparently limitless joy and bliss. Typically, free of fear where one is free to notice and participate in the inherent nature of existence itself, which is self-radiant, love-bless, consciousness, and light. The experience of pervasive and indescribable joy, love, radiance, and awareness is characteristic of the subtle realms. Even in the midst of such potentially magnificent experiences, however, from the perspective of the highest realization, even this most refined state of existence, as full of joy and bliss as it may be, is still a condition of suffering, of non-realization. It is not nirvana. At the very center of the cosmic mandala is the clear white, radiant core of all light frequencies which is often manifest as a five-pointed star. This is the portal or gateway between the subtle realms and the realm of radiant transcendental being or the divine domain, what the Buddha called nirvana, is the exit from the cosmic domain to what I'm calling true heaven. Now I'd like to share with you some first-hand reports of devotees of Adidas Amraj, who through his grace and spiritual influence and direct instruction had some experience of these realms. And Rajas said, in an instant, without any noticeable transition, there it was, another world. This was a beautiful place and extremely attractive. I was in a room made out of amethyst crystals, yet there was no feeling of sharpness to the scene. It was peaceful and bright and felt very happy and serene. Directly in front of me was a throne made largely out of crystals. Beyond the throne was a window. It felt as if the room were an entry room or foyer into another world. I approached the window and opened it. It was glass with a frame and hinges to open and close. I could see through the window, but I opened it to take a better look at the sight behind the throne. It was an earth-like meadow, but of the most beautiful quality. There was an exquisite light that made the colors of the meadow very vibrant, like the light here sometimes after a rain. There were flowers of different colors growing in the spring-green lawn and beautiful billowing trees that grew in a line which led up a slope to an inviting forest. The place had the most serene and inviting quality. It had a radiance that is not often felt on this plane. Connie Mantis had an experience going even beyond that. She said, first there was an explosion of inner sounds, then I felt the layers of the body-mind release and fall away. I was separating out from the physical body and seemed to fly upwards, whirling through dark space at an incredible speed. I was moving toward an overwhelming, brilliant light. At one point, I recall slipping through a kind of grid as a speck of consciousness. For an instant, I did seem to lose all self-awareness, but throughout the rest of the experience, I was aware of the most remarkable clarity. I found that I felt more familiar and at ease traveling without the body than when I was dragging it along, anchored to it by my usual physical body identification. I felt myself to be alive as consciousness, at ease as a witness of mind and attention. At different moments in this cosmic journey, I felt the deep urges of the body-mind drawing me back toward embodiment, and I sensed the frustration of having no physical body through which to enact or fulfill desires. This made a stunning impression on me, and I remember feeling how foolish it would be to waste the opportunity of a human lifetime to do this spiritual practice that could help free me of the binding attachments I had now seen so clearly. Adi Dha describes his visit to the high place of transition for beings who were in the last stages of embodied existence, about to pass through the star portal to the divine domain. He said it is the place of great souls who are being divinely translated, not by any mirror of their own, but because they are attracted by the living divine. I'm recalling now the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths of conventional and ultimate. So everything I said in the previous slides was moving from the conventional toward the ultimate, becoming less and less conventional along the way. Now here's Adi Dha Samraj speaking the ultimate truth. You are not consciously a separate entity. Even though you may presume yourself to be such an entity, it's through your usual association with experience. Conventionally, you believe that the realm wherein you are one with God is somewhere other than your present circumstance. You believe that the divine is someone else or other. You think that the divine is so profound you could not realize God except in a totally different state, circumstance and dimension than this present one. But God is simply the shining conscious being that is your nature at all times and under all circumstances. So in conclusion, let me say that heaven or the ultimate place can be realized by spiritual transcendental practice. Paradise or circumstance of enhanced human life can be realized by transhumanist means through science and technology. We need both, transhumanism at the base and transcendence at the apex, moving from conventional improvements to ultimate realization. Thank you. I have time for a couple of questions I'm told if anyone has a question. Yes. Why is there so much resistance in the scientific and technology community to this point of view that I've presented here? I would go back to something that Carl said earlier about a linear and nonlinear thinking process. I think that people who are very rational would like to not have the kind of experiences or that thought process inhibits these kind of experiences. I would like to think that we can actually balance and have both and in my own case it's my experience. Thank you.


The meeting between the Nigerian Government and the Trade Union Congress to reconvene on Tuesday, June 6. Speaking to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting on Sunday evening, a director on the defunct Tinnibu-Shatima campaign organization Daily Alakaz said discussions went well and they have made appreciable progress. He said the TUC presented a list of demands, the top of which was to increase the minimum wage of workers to cushion the effect of the removal of subsidy on petrol. Alakaz said the government's representatives at the meeting asked the TUC to give them leeway to consult very exhaustively and reconvene on Tuesday to look at the viability of implanting them. When asked to comment on the absence of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Alakaz said the government is also reaching out to them. Also speaking to the President of the TUC Festus of Seafol who led the Union's delegation to the meeting affirmed that demands of the TUC were presented, the top of which was the upward review of the minimum wage in line with current realities. On why the NLC was not present, he said the neck of TUC was able to conclude its meeting and set up its list of demands within a short time.