Ychydig yn fy ngynllw Yr Walf Richard, a'w'r lliwmhaeth yn hyd i'r ychynllw ymlaen o projiffu yma, a'r llinwadau mewn o'r projiffu Microsoft. Rwy'r llunio yn ybrygiad yma, gyda'r llinwadau am rwyf. I'r llinwadau'n cymrygiad, rwy'n rwy'n llwmhaeth o projiffu yma, a'r llinwadau pan. Rwy'n hwnna ti'n wnaeth yna yn y gallu gyda'r llunwad yma, iddyn nhw'n ffrind y gwmd een ac y gallu'r ysgaf nhw, a galllywch chi yn siŵt o bwysig C2, C3, C4, and C5. Mae angen i bod mwy fawr angen i sicrhau ei gwasgweithio pan oedd gair yn gweithio casgliad y fywydd gan agosatwch sy'n gweithio gyrraeth. Udych chi'n ddweud ei wneud eich gwasgwyr ysgolion i'r ysgolion i ysgolion, a penderfyniadodd pa yn gweithio gweithio ghell eich gwasgwyr. Fy hynny'n gweithio gwasgwyr ysgolion ei wneud, roeddwn ni i gweithio angen â'r treiddi. Head in. Somehow I have ID 2005, task tab scheduled section of ribon. Honestly Arrow pointing to the right, which is the indent mosque And that gives us a 7-day duration because what project is doing right now? It is giving you the duration of the longest task within that Now marketing can be minimized so I'll click the arrow next to it Rydyn ni'n amser, yna'n ei wneud yn diodwch. Rydyn ni'n dweud i wneud allwch ar-4 tystyn ymlaen, felly yn ateb i'r ID2-5, ac rydyn ni'n dweud i'r ffordd o'r Llyfrgell Llyfrgell, felly rydyn ni'n dweud i'r Llyfrgell Llyfrgell. A rwy'n cael ei wneud i chi, yn adrodd ymwysig, y dynnu'n ddau'r ysgolion ym 16-deilig yn ymgyrchu. A rydyn ni'n adrodd yn ym 3, plus y 4, plus y 2, plus y 7. So, that's where that 16 is coming from. I'm now going to put in a different section called advertising and I'm going to leave marked in open expanded. So, and this is a dangerous thing to do when you're producing summary tasks, is leaving a summary task open and we'll see this now. So, I've now put in my advertising section. By now minimise market in, I can see that advertising is within marketing and that's what I don't want. So, an expanded marketing again. Now I'm going to outdent advertising. So, I'm highlighting the task advertising and I'm going to use the outdent feature which is the arrow pointing to the left on the task tab in the schedule section of the movement. And now for minimise marked in again. It's now by itself. I'm now going to follow the same idea as the marked in section. I'm going to put in full more tasks and I'm going to turn them all together. But after I've produced the summary tasks, I'll at least produce the summary task first. So, again I double check that advertising is not on the marked in, which it isn't. I can see that. But it's still good practice anyway to keep it minimised. Now I'm going to concentrate on advertising section. It's my ID 7 to 10 and I want them to be indented and I now want them all linked together as well. But first let me give them some durations. So, the task one I'll say is a five day. Then I'll say is an eight day. Then a two day. Then we'll say 15 days. Okay, so advertising takes on 15 days right now. That's because it's the longest duration in the section. I'm going to join them all together. And now advertising changes to 30, which is the five plus eight plus two plus 15. And I can minimise this one by itself. Now there's a quicker way of minimising the maximising. We can use what's called outline view. So, in the view tab, data section of ribbon, outline. At the minute, I've got all my tasks hidden but I'll say show all sub tasks. And I say that I only wanted to see the headings marked in and advertising and go back to the outline. And level one means all your main headings. So, I'm going to now show only the level one headings. And there's my marked in and advertising. I'm going to expand them again on outline. And if you want to do when doing this kind of work, you could put a blank row between the different sections. So, I'll do that for ID 6. Go to the task tab, insert section of ribbon and tasks of the narrow blank row. So, something that makes your sections look neater. Now at the moment, I've got marked in and advertising separate. And we can prove this by displaying the project summary task. So, I'll produce the project summary task on the ganchard format tab, show hide section of ribbon and project summary task. So, we can see the total is only showing 34 advertising. What I'm trying to do here, I want the combination of marked in plus the advertising to give me a total of 46 days. So, I'm going to join advertising to marked in. So, I'm going to double click on the ID 7, Processes. And I'm going to join that to ID 1, which is marked in. And finish the start. Okay. And there's the 46 day finish. And this now demonstrates how project can be used for producing project summary tasks, getting rid of the project summary tasks, and how useful outlining view is with this kind of work. This now completes the demonstration on project summary tasks and outlining. See you on the next video.


I checked in with him last night just to make sure he was good to go, you know, because I just kind of wanted to give Judgey a DH day and he was he was good. And I think part of it is, you know, I think in the first game, I was I got him out of there after seven innings last night, we went and get them out of there late. So, you know, I feel like those little bits help and I feel like he's in a good spot for us moving forward and he's been recovering well. Was there anything that that judge was doing that showed you that he could possibly use a DH day? No, no, I just I've been wanting to do it for a while. But obviously how we're set up now, it hasn't really worked out, you know, to to be able to give them those days. And obviously, especially as good as he is in the outfield, it hasn't really worked out. So today was the day where I was able to do it. And no DJ LaMahieu in the lineup, what went into that decision? Just again, another just a little banged up and, you know, in the middle of this, whatever, 27 out of 28 days, you know, just felt like he needed a day today. When you say banged up, what do you mean? I mean, I think everyone's a little bit banged up right now, but he's, you know, he's fine, but I just felt like he needed a day today.


We gotta give out some out of boys. Who deserves one guys? Hit the chat, I just saw all your comments. We're gonna start with Houston and Amari Cooper, okay? What he did in Houston, rather. He racks up 11 catches for 265 yards, two touchdowns. Cleveland gets the win. Brown's legend, Joe Hayden. What did you think about this performance, my friend? That a boy. That a boy, we love it. Joe Hayden on some golf course somewhere, I'm sure this morning. Listen, that's 265 yards, that's no joke. That breaks Josh Gordon, single game franchise record. He becomes the second player in NFL history to have a 200 yard game with three different teams. That's, he's in the rare air, rare company. I think Tio's the only other person to ever do that. He doesn't get talked about enough when we have conversations about the top wide receivers. Hopefully this changes things, especially he's got back to back seasons with 1100 plus yards in Cleveland. We don't talk about Cleveland enough, we know that. And this is a dude who's had six different starting quarterbacks. So add a boy to a Mari Cooper. Next up, a guy who came up huge in the clutch, add a baby, Gino Smith. Listen, this game was not without struggles, okay? This game had people bringing up drew lock, but that's okay. Game on the line, Gino did his thing. He capped off a 14 place, 75 yard drive with this game winning score to Cody Parkinson, fellow quarterback, RG3. You had to love seeing this, didn't you, RG3? Had a boy. That was Gino's league best fourth game winning drive people this season. It puts us back to the playoff picture as we look ahead to week 17. So finally, gotta give some love to a packer, a receiver, Romeo Dobbs. We see you. He was without Christian Watson, Jordan Loveless and Romeo out there. Jaden Reed, no go on Sunday. They were as thin as you could possibly be at the wide receivers spot. They were as thin as the mashed potatoes I made before adding cornstarch. Guys, I figured it out. Google, it's an incredible thing. Dobbs rose to the occasion, especially with the game on the line. He scored a key touchdown in the fourth quarter. He made this insane grab to set the packers up for the game winning field goal. Gronk, did you like this one? Had a boy, had a baby. Gronk doesn't like the packer, so I'm sure he's not gonna like that.  We'll see Gronk tomorrow, by the way. Can't wait to have him. The clutch haven't from Dobbs. Listen, the packers are live in the playoff race. Are they gonna do anything? I don't know. Can they beat Minnesota next Sunday? I don't know, but they are in the 50th.


of CSIS, Korea Chair, and the Global Peace Foundation. We want to welcome you all to another in our series of discussions on Korea, Korea Unification. My name is Victor Chom, Senior Advisor and Korea Chair here at CSIS, as well as a professor at Georgetown University. And I think we have a really interesting discussion today about the role of Russia when we look at the Korean Peninsula, both in terms of issues of economics and investment, as well as looking into the future with regard to unification. I'll introduce our featured speaker in a moment, Dr. Zebin. But before I do, I want to give an opportunity to my colleague, Mike Marshall, from the Golden Peace Foundation to say a few words of introduction. So Mike. Thank you, Victor. Good morning. I'd like to welcome you all here on behalf of the Global Peace Foundation, which is the co-sponsor of this forum series. Thank you, sorry. And thank you all for coming. I'd also like to thank Victor, Ellen Kim and all of his team for working to put together this series of forums. This is the fourth of five. We have one more coming up next month, looking at Japan's role in the region and in relation to the peninsula. The purpose of these forums is really to try and take a fresh look at certain aspects of Korean unification and also at Korea's changing place in the world, which affects issues related to unification. The Global Peace Foundation that I represent is an international nonprofit organization that's committed to exploring and promoting innovative values-based approaches to peace building and development. We're active in the US, Korea, and 14 other countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, promoting initiatives for community development and national transformation. We have a particularly active chapter in Korea, and their major focus over the past couple of years and through this year is the issue of Korean unification. We are very interested in creating new approaches, looking at new possibilities in thinking about the Korean unification issue. That involves three main areas. One area is a very strong effort to reach out to engage the Korean public, particularly younger people, in the issue of unification and getting them to think about it. As many of you know who track this, there's a lot of indifference and apathy towards the issue, especially among young Koreans. We're seeking to change that. Related to that, we're promoting programs to get Koreans to think more about the history, culture of their country, going way back beyond 1945 when the division happened, and really starting to consider what Korean identity is and looking at that as a basis for some type of connection with the people of the North. That beyond the ideological divisions, there's a long shared cultural history. And then also, we're looking to engage civil society groups across South Korea. We're engaged with a coalition organization for Action for Korea United that is engaging NGOs and civil society groups in the unification issue. And finally, geopolitically, we're trying to put an emphasis on thinking of the future, not just of the peninsula, but the Northeast Asia region. Because the division of the peninsula and the possible unification in the future will affect the relations of all the surrounding countries, those involved in the Six-Party Talks, and others. So in that context, I think it's very timely that we've been looking at the role of the different surrounding countries. And today we'll look at the role and the interests of Russia in Northeast Asia as a whole and in the future of the peninsula. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Michael. And it has been quite a good series that we've been working with GPF on this year on different aspects of Korean unification. And today it's really our distinct pleasure to welcome Dr. Alexander Zebin, who, as many of you know, is director of the Center for Korean Studies, of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He has spent 12 years in North Korea as a journalist and a diplomat. And there are not many people in Washington who could claim that, I think. So I think we have a very unique perspective with us today. He joined IFIS in 1992 and since then participated in various international seminars on Korean affairs at home and abroad. Any of you who do any work on Korea internationally will know his name well and will have seen him at various conferences and events around the world. Dr. Zebin has been the director of CKS since 2004. His fields of research include political developments in North Korea, Russia and North Korea relations, the security situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula, the nuclear problem, as well as Russia-South Korea relations. He's the author of three books, many book chapters and many articles on Korean affairs in academic journals and policy journals, as well as in influential newspapers and media. He's a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also received his PhD from IFIS in 1998. So let me just emphasize, again, it's really a pleasure to have you with us here today. Dr. Zebin will open with some opening remarks and then we have a panel of experts that will all join on the stage and will have a discussion about his remarks as well as the issues more broadly. So on behalf of CSIS and GPF, welcome Dr. Zebin to CSIS. Thank you. I'm very pleased to have you here. No, you make the whole line look like a minor. First of all, I would like to thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me to the Center of Strategic International Studies. And my presentation will be mostly centered on Russia, policy towards North Korea, and of course unification of Korean issues. Since you have my paper already at the entrance, everybody can have it. I try to make some summary presentation that was written and to add a little bit what was not written in the paper. History says that any serious aggravation of situation, the more so armed conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. Always jeopardize Russia's security, compelled her to undertake additional measures to defend her national interests in the region. Several times, Russia had to use her armed forces in Korea to protect her national interests against non-continental adversaries. As it happened in 1904, 05, 1945 and on a very limited scale in 1950, 53. That's why Russia pays much attention to efforts aimed at maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. Developing constructive relations with both Korean states and promoting dialogue between North and South Korea. Moscow hopes that inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation firstly will remove the threat of military conflict right next to the Russian Far Eastern borders. And secondly, promote economic ties with two Korean states as well as will help implementation of multilateral economic projects with Russia participation in North East Asia. Absence of normal relations between North and South Korea obviously hinder realization of such projects as linking Russian trans-Siberian main lane with trans-Korean railways, construction of gas pipeline and electricity line from Russia via North Korean territory to South Korea. Why striving to promote in every way trading economic relations with South Korea? Moscow is not going to abandon her economic positions in North Korea whose economy was developed with Soviet assistance. And till now in many aspects is oriented towards Russian technological and resource base and commodity markets. More than 70 industrial enterprises were built in North Korea during Soviet period with Soviet Union assistance. I would like at the same time to bring your attention to the well-known but frequently omitted fact that Russia's turning to the East policy, including that to North Korea, was launched well before the Ukrainian events as early as in November of 2000. Six months after starting his first term in office, President Vladimir Putin outlined the major directions of the strategy in his article, Russia New Eastern Perspectives. The current situation in relations between Russia and the West just accelerated the development and proves how faceted this the Russian leadership was when it had decided to balance relations with the West with the more active ties with the East. When the Ukrainian events started to unfold, Russia was already prepared and promoting more active co-operation with major Asia Pacific economies, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, countries of Southeast Asia. Initiating a railway and gas pipeline project in Asia, establishing Ministry of Development of the Forest, it was done in May of 2012, holding a peck summit in Vladivostok September 2012, and signing the agreement on depth settlement with North Korea September 2012. All those endeavors were undertaken well before the Ukrainian events. For example, political decision to implement Hassan Rajin project was taken in 2001 during North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visit to Russia and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin. From the beginning, the project was sought as a pilot one for the Lincoln trans-Korean railways with trans-Siberian main line. Besides being economically profitable for both North and South Korea, it was expected that their joint efforts to implement the project is likely to contribute to the confidence building, reconciliation, and large scale economic exchanges between both parts of the country. Russia believed that such cooperation, I quote, will not only to be economically advantageous, but will also increase trust on the Korean Peninsula. In spite of deterioration of inter-Korean relations under President Liman Bak administration, Hassan Rajin project was launched in 2008. A joint Russian North Korean venture, Arasong Contrans, was established in 2010 to implement the project. I skip technical details and just say that Hassan Rajin project is, first of all, a business project designed to bring economic benefits to all its participants. Otherwise, Russia can hardly expect South Korea and some other countries would consider their joining the project. The participation in this project will provide the South Korea, for example, with a chance to build trust with the North and with opportunity to walk with Pyongyang within a new serilateral framework. Some experts hope that the Russian side can play an important role as a damper in kind to reconcile two Korean sides' possible conflicting views in running the project. It is also worth mentioning that the project can be viewed as a first practical step in realizing the Eurasian initiative put forward by South Korean President Park Geun-hae as one of her foreign policy priorities. President Putin in particular remarked, I quote, if South and North Korea are becoming certain political difficulties could agree to reconnect trans-Korean railways, if South Korean companies choose to join the development of rail transportation infrastructure, including port facilities in North Korea, this would be an important contribution to realization of the program proposed by President Park Geun-hae, which is indeed very interesting, a promise in one. The above mentioned developments in economic relations between Russia and North Korea and other economic plans of integration in Northeast Asia can be considered as a part of general economic integration and globalization process in Northeast Asia. Those processes provide us with new instruments for engaging North Korea. It is highly likely that more active involvement of North Korea in those processes may bring about positive changes in her international behavior. Lessons of German unification, downfall of socialism in East Europe and regime change scenarios imposed by United States and its allies on the Balkans in Iraq and Libya, alarmed North Korean leaders. Unless North Korean elite would be provided with clear guarantees of their personal safety, adequate social status and certain level of well-being after unification, it would stay united and remain very reluctant to open the country and abandon nuclear weapons. Economic cooperation will help to develop North Korean economy, to make the North Koreans more prepared to live and work in a modern society. In other words, it will help to lessen the existing gap between two parts of the country and cut unification costs. It will help to enlarge in North Korea a growing strata of people interested in sustainable, cooperative relations with the outside world. Only inviting and honest North Korea to participate in the realization of multilateral economic projects in Northeast Asia, including those proposed by Russia, it would be possible to convince Pyongyang that international community had taken on a road leading to North Korea's gradual and peaceful integration in the existing international political and economic order, instead of forcing on the country a regime change scenario. That's why I disagree with those advocating postponing practical implementation of multilateral economic projects in Northeast Asia with the North Korean participation, until the nuclear problem in Korea is resolved. Since 2014, one can see a drastic increase of various contacts between Russia and North Korea. Both countries have agreed to step up bilateral trade, bringing it in 2020 to $1 billion. Last month's Russian Minister for Development of the Forest, Alexander Galushka, traveled to Pyongyang for the seventh session of intergovernmental commission on economy, trade, science, and technology cooperation. Large-scale projects like modernization of railway and electricity transmission lines, networks in North Korea, oil and gas, and other natural resources, exploration were under discussion. Sure, so far most of those projects are at the initial stage. However, it looks like that both sides are much more interested in their fulfillment than ever before. Speaking after coming back from Pyongyang to journalist, Alexander Galushka said that canceled visit by Kim Jong-un to Moscow will not affect in any way implementation of the agreements reached at the meeting of the intergovernmental commission. Facing international sanctions and tense political relations with China, North Korea is trying to diversify your external economic ties. On the other hand, turning to the East has become one of the Russia's main foreign policy priorities. Promoting relations with North Korea is one of the important components of this strategy. Many experts in the West are underestimating the degree of Russia's influence and role of Moscow bilateral contacts with Pyongyang in recent developments in North Korea, foreign and domestic policy. For North Korea, both Russia and China too, reform experience is valuable, first of all, from the point of view of their political results and lessons. During trips to Russia, the North Korean high-ranking officials get a firsthand experience that market-oriented transformations in even political reforms not necessarily should result in a loss of power by the current ruling elite. These elites in Russia and China and Vietnam too generally have retained their positions. There were no large-scale purges, et cetera. The fact may convince North Korea leaders that a market is not so terrible as it was used to be painted, that it is possible to realize economic transformation and not to lose at all political power and retain key institution of the previous model, such as dominant position of the ruling party. A few words specifically to elaborate on Russia position on unification on Korea. Moscow position concerning inter-Korean rapprochement and possible results is determined by Russian national interests. This interest certainly will benefit, first of all, from liquidation of long-time conflict next to Russia for Eastern region and from founding in the end a unified Korean state capable of maintaining relation of friendship, good neighborhood and cooperation with Russia. Secondly, better relations between North and South Korea as I said, along with providing Russia with more favorable conditions for development of trade and economic cooperation with both parts of Korea. Would open new opportunities for economic development of the Russian forest and for linking Russia economy to integration process in Asia Pacific. So both on security and economic reasons, Russia is vitally interested in peace, reconciliation and unification of Korea. This conclusion seems especially important in view of continuing attempts by some experts to convince public opinion that none of the neighboring countries, including Russia is interested in Korea reunification. So what the problem? In my opinion, history of the Korean settlement for the past 25 years, including time and again encountered difficulties in solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula makes us to conclude that without solution of a certain key fundamental problem directly related to the region's future security architecture, we will continue incessantly stumble of minor problems and will not be capable to tackle them. This fundamental key issue which any peace process in East Asia should resolve is defining an acceptable for four big countries, Russia, China, United States and Japan, a place for a future reunited Korea and the regional security system. Short of such vision, each and every participant of the negotiating process will remain very suspicious about other plans and intentions. It's equal to attempt of six teams of construction workers to build house without agreed project. Any team will have different vision how many stories, how many windows and where they will be entrance to this house will be. Many politicians and experts in United States of America, in Republic of Korea and in Japan have already listed the reunited Korea as a member of this relateral military and political alliance between United States, Japan and Korea to which Australia has been already linked by number of agreements. However, such plans are unlikely to be welcomed in Moscow and Beijing. Both countries are likely to perceive such a triangle as a deterrence against Russia and China. Such an alliance would be tantamount to imagines on Russia Eastern borders, a body similar to NATO in Europe under the umbrella of missile defense system which is actively deployed by United States and their allies in the region. Calculations to the effect that future reunited Korea will be de facto a forward base of maritime powers the United States and Japan against continental China and Russia can hamper and is already hindering both the establishment of reliable and sustainable peace system in Northeast Asia, the solution of the nuclear problem and the reunification of Korea. Thank you very much. Well, thank you, Dr. Debbon, for your remarks. Before we continue with the discussion, I want to introduce the other members of the panel that have joined us this morning. To Dr. Debbon's immediate left is Andrew Cuchins. Andrew Andy is the senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia program here at CSIS. And then to Andy's left is Gil Rosman who is the Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, Meredith as well as in the editor of the Asan Review. The Asan Forum. The Asan Forum which is new and quite dynamic online journal with issues related to East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Eurasia. And so they both agreed to join us this morning and offer some comments as well as engaging in discussion amongst us on the panel but as well as with you on the floor. So perhaps maybe Gil, could we start with you and you want to start off with some initial reactions to the conversation going? Well, I think Dr. Debbon has introduced a very important point of view for understanding what's happening in the Korean Peninsula. His comments in some ways echo what he wrote in the newspaper Niza Visumaya Gazeta, two articles in April. I've been following things he's written for many years. And basically I think as you saw the comments unfold they start with proposals for cross-border economic interaction that are long-standing and refer to the Hassan-Rajin-Rasson cross-border development which South Korea has been interested in but they go keep going and going. And essentially what I think they say is while the United States policy is centered on preventing Pyongjin, the guns and butter goal of Kim Jong-un, Russia's policy as expressed here is to help Pyongjin give the economic development in North Korea and then trust them to turn around and become a responsible state that may eventually denuclearize. So it's really the opposite approach. Beyond that, as he pointed out towards the end of his remarks, this is an approach that says if South Korea wants progress and cooperation with dealing with North Korea it's got to abandon the alliance with the United States. That the alliances are the problem in the region and a regional security structure is the solution. And that now what the US is doing with Japan is pushing it into a new Cold War in Asia where we heard there's a NATO in Asia forming that's a threat to Russia and China and now something must be done about it. I think he goes further in his articles to suggest that without North Korea getting more assistance and arms they are being left somewhat defenseless and therefore it's time for Russia to start, I get the implication, helping North Korea with armaments as well as with economics and that kind of rebalancing of the peninsula is the way to create the environment for prospects for reunification. Maybe I, he will disagree with some of what I'm reading in his remarks but that I think is the overall approach here and meanwhile there's a sense that South Korea has lost the trust of Russia because President Park did not go to the Sochi Olympics because she did not go to the 70th anniversary celebration the other day and that really South Korea is with its interest in missile defense is joining in with the containment policy that is against Russia's national interest and this goes along with a view of history that is being increasingly expressed in Russia where the Korean War was a just support for the regional structure that emerged after 1945 and that the 70th anniversary is the time to recommit Russia to the Cold War balance that still hasn't been resolved and we now need a new regional security framework that will get us beyond the Cold War and in the meantime let's assume that the Korean Peninsula is still in the Cold War and that Russia has to do what it can to balance what the United States and South Korea are doing to try to reestablish to strengthen their dominance and to bring about what is regarded as a civilizational threat, a regime change and a breakthrough that ends the agreements in Asia, the way Ukraine policies of the West and the United States have broken down the post-war agreements in Europe. I'll stop there. Okay, all right, a lot of food for thought there. Andy? Thanks Victor, it's a real pleasure to be here and also thanks to the Global Peace Foundation as the Russians are fond of saying Mirtiessen, it's a small world, and Mike Marshall, his wonderful daughter, sung in, very smart and talented, worked here with the Russian Eurasia Program for a couple of years and in fact she was just here in town and saw her a couple of days ago for a big launch of a set of programs, activities that we've been doing on Central Asia. I have just a couple of comments about contemporary events. You know, this story about the supposed executed general hit me a little bit close to home because I was in Moscow several weeks ago at the Ministry of Defense annual conference where the North Korean general, Hyeon, spoke and hearing the reports yesterday of his supposed execution, now there have been doubts cast on that. I saw it in the newspaper. Yeah, it kind of hit me a little close to home. Not that I'm great friends with the general or anything but it's such a bizarre story. But then also it kind of gets to the point of the question of whether Kim Jong-un was gonna come to Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations. And I was traveling in Tokyo to Tokyo and to Beijing earlier in the spring, excuse me, in early April and my interlocutors in Japan and China were quite skeptical that he would do so with the reasoning being that for Kim Jong-un to make a first foreign trip to Moscow and particularly to be on a podium where he would be with Xi Jinping would be a little bit maybe provocative. You know, I think where he makes his first trip is important but I defer to those on the panel here who are far more knowledgeable about these things than I am. But it does remind me of Mr. Putin's experience back when he first came to power in 2000 and his meeting with Kim Jong-un's father. And subsequently Mr. Putin then made his first major appearance on the international stage by going to the G7 at that time meeting in Okinawa. And of course, his interlocutors there were very curious about his impressions of Kim Jong-il and it was there that he made public the supposed offer that the North Korean leader had made of trading off giving up its aspects of his ballistic missile program in return for opportunities for international space launch. Several weeks later though Mr. Putin was very much embarrassed when Kim Jong-il said that was basically a joke. I don't think Mr. Putin found that joke very funny and I'm certain he did not forget it. I was reminded again, I was thought of North Korea this spring also in the context of Mr. Putin's 11 day disappearance and there are very few leaders that disappear with no explanation for 11 days. But I could imagine this happening with Kim Jong-un, North Korean leader perhaps. But I don't think that, I mean it was bizarre. Now in the spring when there was talk about the possibility of Kim Jong-un going to Moscow and the opening and what that represented I was asked on many occasions by the media was this something that the Russians were doing to kind of poke it in the eye of the United States. And the answer is basically no. It's not so much tied to the United States. Although of course in the context of the aggravated conflict between Washington and Moscow for the past 15 months with the war in Ukraine, it's easy to jump to that conclusion. But in fact I think there are very important strategic reasons for why Moscow and the DPRK have been reaching out to each other and they were illustrated pointed out by many of Dr. Jebin's remarks. Let me put it in kind of my frame. First of all if we look at the Korean-Russian relationship historically, think that four times in the first half of the 20th century Russia fought wars against Japan. 1904, 1905, 1937, 1938 and again in 1945. So I put a little context I think maybe on how Korea and Russia look at each other. Secondly, the next point I would make is when the Soviet Union, when Gorbachev normalized relations with Seoul in 1990, he, they basically sold Pyongyang down the river. And I think that that is clearly viewed by the Russians today and for a while as a significant mistake, the way they cut off ties with the DPRK. Now the reason why Gorbachev did it is because the Soviet Union was going bankrupt. He needed money, he was desperate. And that was the basic motivation for it. I mean to do it in a way that there was the potential of a possible $3 billion credit at the time. Now why is it, why was it a mistake? Well, I think it gets to, we talk about today, Russia's pivot to Asia. And you look at, well you look at Soviet and Russia engagement in Asia, even going back to the Cold War. Ever since the beginning of the, and I think it's very important for the Washington policy community to understand, particularly in today's environment where relations with Moscow are worse than they've ever been since some point in the Cold War, I would say the earlier part of the Cold War. And why are they so bad? Okay, they're basically bad because of a fundamental dispute over European security. And it's important to remember that Russia is a huge country with major interests all over its periphery. And when Moscow looks at Asia, it looks at it quite differently. And of course the fundamental factor, the starting factor there is China. And so the experience in the early 1950s of the Sino-Soviet alliance, that was not a happy experience for either Moscow or Beijing, then you had the Sino-Soviet conflict and the border conflict in 1969. And from that point on, I think that Moscow looked at US military presence in Asia in a somewhat different light than it did in a European context. I mean NATO and US military presence in Europe has always been viewed pretty much negatively. In Asia, it's different. And mostly it has to do with China. To some extent, Japan, there was the theory about the Japanese-American Security Alliance puts the cork in the bottle, possibly on Japanese remilitarization, potential return of a more nationalistic Japan that Russia contended with, with difficulty in the first half of the 20th century, et cetera. So I think it's important to keep this kind of perspective and background when we look at Moscow's relations with Seoul as well as Pyongyang today. Now, the current pivot to Asia, okay, Moscow sees exactly what the rest of the world sees, that the balance of economic power in the world is shifting to Asia. This is a more dynamic area. And for the development of Russia's eastern Siberian and Russian Far East regions and the resources there, it's gonna be primarily Asian investment, which is gonna make that happen. And it's an important thing for Russia's development into the 21st century. Russia's well aware that China is gonna be the largest investor in this, but it's very important for Russia that they do not feel over-leveraged by Chinese investment. So the way to do that is to attract other investors, other partners. And here's where Korea plays an important role, Japan plays an important role, other Asian countries, and also the United States in this context as well, as well possibly. Now, on the other, another important aspect of it and Mr. Dr. Jebin's descriptions of some of the economic projects, gas pipeline, electricity grid, railroad, connectivity, connectivity. I mean, there is a fundamentally important thing that's happening on the Eurasian continent today, and I mean Europe to Asia, Russia to India, and it's reconnecting, reconnecting. Sea trade of course is dominant, it will be dominant, but every country is looking at some version of kind of a Silk Road strategy. President Park announced it a couple of years ago. Russia as well, how are they going to be able to take advantage of and to be part of these new transit corridors, trade and investment relationships they're developing, and are having a fundamental impact on kind of changing the geo-economic landscape of Eurasia. And this is where the reunification or soft landing of the Korean conflict is important for Russia. Because none of these projects can happen unless there is some kind of rapprochement that takes place between Seoul and Pyongyang. And I think for South Korea, for North Korea, I mean every country that is on China's periphery shares some degree of concern about the concern I just mentioned that Russia has, but even a country as large as Russia about being over leveraged by Chinese economic power and thus political influence. And so they wanna have kind of a multi-vector foreign policy and they wanna have options and alternatives, that's the best way to advance their sovereignty. And I think this is the context that I see Russia's approach to the Korean Peninsula and why Russia is unequivocally supportive ultimately of the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. I'll stop. Great, both Gil and Andy, thanks so much. So I think also there are a few people in Washington who could claim to have been at a conference with General Hyun, the North Korean general who was reported in the news to have been executed yesterday, so kudos to you, Andy. So I think listening to this, there's sort of three areas and I'm gonna give Dr. Devon a chance to respond. There's sort of three areas I think that we've covered. The first is the so-called Russian pivot to Asia, the Russian pivot to the Korean Peninsula. What are the drivers of that? And there I also wanna add a specific question which was, which you addressed in your paper, you didn't go into the details in your talk, but this, in particular this coal project, this coal transport project in Najin between the Russians, North Koreans, and the South Koreans. And the specific question there, I think that, that is sort of a tangible example of the so-called pivot to the Peninsula and I guess the question there for you specifically is they did a pilot run of a few 100,000 tons of coal and I think you mentioned in the paper, a certain capacity that the Najin port needs to be able to reach in order for this to be cost profitable for as an investment. I guess the question to you is, with this as an example and more broadly in terms of Russia, interest in infrastructure and connecting the Peninsula, how much of a capacity problem is there when it comes to the North Korean peace? Like I don't think there's necessarily capacity problem on the Russian side. There's certainly not on the South Korean side. How much of it is just a political issue with regard to North Korea and how much of it is a sort of nuts and bolts capacity problem to be able to move beyond some subsidized projects to something that can actually run on its own. The second set of questions has to do obviously with North Korea and Andy really raised them with regard to all these, the cancellation, the last minute cancellation of the visit by Kim Jong-un to Moscow. I think it at least sounded to me based on what I read in the press that the Russians were quite forthcoming in announcing that the North Korean leader would be coming so they must have felt pretty confident about that. His cancellation of that, this reported execution by some means, we're not exactly sure of General Hyun. You as someone who's lived in the country and has studied the country, what do you think's going on here? Sort of what's happening? And then the last is the broader conceptual arguments that were in your presentation as well as in Gil's remarks of this whole question of how the, from a Russian perspective, how the US alliance system fits into a broader discussion of Korean unification. Gil put out that the proposition that some of your arguments here and in your past writings are basically positing that the US alliance system is actually an obstacle to unification and to increased, reduced insecurity, increased economic reform in North Korea and I was hoping that maybe you could address these three questions and then we can open it up to the audience. So, Dr. Sevin. Thank you for the question and thank you again for the Global Peace Foundation for organizing and inviting me along with the Center for Strategic International Studies. I start from the last question since Dr. Rosman also raised it concerning the United States, South Korean alliance. I never said that Russia demands abrogation or consolation with alliance. Of course, the situation should be resolved in complex. There is a China, North Korean military treaty and the United States, South Korean military treaty. My idea is that for China and Russia, United Korea with American troops and missile defense on its territory, absolutely unacceptable from strategic, political, other points of view, especially for China considering American pivot to Asia and American attempts to arrange kind of a senator cordon around China borders to orient defense and foreign policy of neighboring middle and small states around China towards Washington and achieve some kind of a military and political isolation China in Asia because economically it's not possible as I isolate China. For China, the North Korea at the current stage even more important than Taiwan. Taiwan is Chinese historically and so on, so forth but for China, North Korea strategically because most of Chinese military industrial complex in Manjuria to lose North Korea is will be huge damage to China authority and position in Asia. Who among those small and middle countries around Chinese borders will ever rely on China as a defender, as a ally if China will seed without any fighting such traditional area which was hundreds of years in China's fear of influence like Korean Peninsula. Just one example, in 2009 after North Korean second nuclear test China supported resolution of the United Nations Security Council condemning North Korea but several months later Chinese premier when they about travel to Pyongyang and lay flowers to Mao Zedong, Sun Grave, Mao Anin who died during the Korean war. Those who read oriental politics and the symbolic politics it was a clear signal to United States, to South Korea to everybody in the world that China lost one million lives in Korean war not just to let North Korea go to be the future bloods down or base for threatening China. It is absolutely clear in spite of all discussion in China among China experts and academic society that present leadership of China and maybe next leadership will consider the situation from that point of view. And one important point for me is that too many experts believe somehow that United Korea will develop according to the liberal democracy rules and market economy rules, market economy maybe but experience of China Vietnam testifies that market reforms are possible under the leadership of communist party like it happened in China and Vietnam so the even introduction of market economy in North Korea not necessarily will lead to the change of the key political institutions and ruling elite. That opens quite different perspectives for development of events on the peninsula. Let's, I move to the other points. The first question was about the Russian pivot to Asia and Russia as I said started it in early last decade and we developed relations with China very actively. Why North Korea should be an exclusion. We are working with Japan, we are working with Vietnam and of course we pivot to Asia was also the major idea was to balance relations with East, with Europe, with relations with Asia because Asia was becoming very dynamically developed economic region and we are not going to just make, exclude any country in our efforts in this area. China, Mongolia, South, North Korea, it was, everything was in due order according to necessary political, economic and other conditions. When they are ripened, they are moved in that particular direction as the same with North Korea. After President Putin came to power again in 2012, the decision to settle the debt problem was taken very quickly and the signing of the agreement was in a few months after he came to office. Concerning the Rajin Hassan project, yes, Russian feasibility study says that for the project to become profitable, it's necessary that the Rajin pot handled four, five million tons annually. For this year, the task is already 1.5 billion. It is possible to reach it and I don't see any political obstacles. 1.5 million. 1.5 for this year. Million tons, yes, million tons. And to be profitable, four to five. Four, five per year. And I don't see any political obstacles for that. We need just to, of course, there's a new project and it should compete with other pots in this area. It's necessary to win trust from, international companies who deal with logistics and cargo shipping in this area that they will start more actively using this pot. But as I said, it's purely economic problem, not political problem. The next one concerning the Kim Jong-un council visit to Moscow. The same day when there was announcement about the council visit, I published my interview to Interfax news agency in Russia and my first reason was that Mr. Kim was reluctant maybe to promise Mr. Putin that he will not test anymore. Anybody who can read this interview can find these words. And that was the key problem. And as you know, two days later, Mr. Kim visited Satellite Command Center and several days more later, they tested. So I think that that was maybe the major reason because Mr. Kim would feel himself very uncomfortable when in talks with Mr. Putin maybe he, this problem was certainly on the agenda. And to promise that, especially in view of the coming anniversaries in North Korea, 70 anniversary of liberation in August 15 and 70 anniversary of the ruling party which comes on October 10. And my personal view that it is quite possible that North Korea will try to celebrate as the 70s anniversary of the working party by launching another satellite. In October. Yeah, in October. Why not? I don't think that they spent a lot of money to construct this center, Command Center for launching satellite and just to waste money. They are preparing something. And quite possible that it event will take place in October this year. But it's my personal opinion. Well, that's interesting. I don't necessarily disagree with you on that point. Yeah, I kind of worry about October as well. Okay, I'd like to now give a chance to folks on the floor to be able to ask some questions. Yes, sir. Please wait for the mic. Thank you very much for great conversations. I'm Takahiro Mottei, the visiting fellow of Japan chair. What I'd like to ask you there is a reason of cancellation of basically came as a visit to Moscow. When it comes to the reason, there are a few views and I think more persuasive one is that because so Kim Jong-un found that there was a big gap between his request and hospitality Russia can provide. I mean, for example, when they took a picture, Kim Jong-un insisted to have to stand up by next to Mr. Putin or something like that. But I mean, Russian government doesn't cannot accept this kind of request. So do you agree with this kind of view from Russian side? Is there this kind of thing? Thank you very much. Thank you. There are some people who argue that Mr. Kim failed to come because he thought that he will be among many others and not so visible. But as far as I know, Mr. Kim invited in September to China, the same problem. Maybe among much more others, he will be. And I strongly doubt that Chinese leaders can pay much more attention to him in Beijing than he was expected to get in Moscow. So these arguments doesn't work, it seems to me. Hi, Dave Caprao with both GPF and Brookings. It seems after 70 years, we should be trying some new dynamics. I really commend you, Dr. Jebin, for your talk today. I think unlocked a lot of ideas of serendipities. And I wonder if you or any panelists might concur that there's positives in the reset that both Obama and Bush have tried with Russia. The Eastern, Western flank has been alluded to, but some possible positives of Russia's engagement in terms of the U.S. dynamic with Russia as we mutually try to find ways to enhance what President Park Gene has put forward as a top priority of unification. So I would like to think that there's some positives in the Eastern front could occur from the kinds of investments and other scenarios. And I'd also just note that we have other allies. These forums have been so wonderfully organized with Dr. Cha, looked at other angles of potential recasting of good relations or peace dividend in the so-called bonanza of Park Gene. And I see our leading mongolist here, Dr. Alicia Cappi, another forum dealt with Mongolia, which has excellent ties with both Russia, China and the U.S. We have Ye Ching Lee here next month. They'll be with UNS CAP, a joint forum on young leaders across Northeast Asia and a service alliance also examining perhaps some other track two or 1.5 possibilities. But I'm just wondering, are there any others that see positives in terms of the U.S. relations or other relations in that neighborhood through this type of Russian strategy? Thanks, David. Thank you. I just say in response, I mean, I think the, I mean, I think this coal project's very interesting because it's still at the pilot stages, but it's clearly something the Russians have been focused on. And the South Korean government has been participating very quietly, they've been participating. And, you know, in that sense, I think, you know, they're asked, I think in many ways, Russia has very unique, if you look at the surrounding powers around the Korean Peninsula, Russia has very unique economic interests on the peninsula in the sense that of all the powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula, arguably, Russia is the one whose economic interests are most about connecting the peninsula, right? Because of the infrastructure. More than, you know, China has interest in the Korean Peninsula, but it's really mining in the North and then commerce with the South. You know, Japan eventually will have investment interests in the peninsula, but Russia is the only one that actually has interests that seek to connect the peninsula. Now, you know, the 850 pound gorilla in the room, of course, is other countries are not really gonna bind onto that or support that as long as the nuclear issue remains in the state that it's in. But I think it's interesting that the South Korean government has been quietly participating in these projects, you know, with the hope that it might spur, you know, some sort of opening or reform in the North. It's, I think it's a long shot, but I still think it's interesting. Nick, I'd like to respond there too. Thank you. I think that for 20 years or so, there have been arguments that Northeast Asia is the easiest environment for the United States and Russia to find common national interests. And that the transformation of North Korea could be a really important means to accomplish this. The first problem, I think, is that Russia has not created an attractive investment environment despite the heavy use of funds in Vladivostok at the time of the APEC summit a few years ago. They really haven't done that for either the United States or Japan or even South Korea. So all of them have said, we really want to be part of some transformation. So, but Russia is now saying, I think, we're gonna rely very heavily on China and there's this important, this summit between Xi and Putin the other day is a very significant development. I think it's as significant as the Abe Obama Summit and people haven't paid enough attention to what it means. But it really is a more of a deference to China. And I think the implications that both want to restart than six-party talks without conditions in a way that's consistent with this line of analysis that we've just heard. And so I don't see how we can be optimistic about the Russian great interest in reunification and the Russian desire for a massive macro-project development going through the Korean Peninsula. Unless Russia creates the conditions for that. And those conditions just haven't been created. Rather, I think what Russia is now saying more and more is it wants to strengthen North Korea and put pressure on the others. And if they don't follow what Russia is seeking, then Russia will do things with North Korea that will make it unlikely that the others will be willing to cooperate. So I think that the door has been open. The reset I think had a lot of promise for this, but that really what Russia has chosen is North Korea over South Korea and as its means of restarting the reunification process. I'll give you some, let me get Andy to say something and then we'll go to you. You can collect all the comments. Thanks, it's a great question, David. You know, I definitely believe, for example, that Russo-Japanese rapprochement is in U.S. national interests. And that what I was alluding to or trying to state in my remarks, the outset, is that our fundamental difference, U.S., with Russia is in the European theater and in Russia's near abroad. Now, I wouldn't say that Northeast Asia is the easiest place for the United States and Russia to find common interests, but there are common interests there. But you can look at a lot of other theaters where there are common interests. The most obvious one where there was the greatest, most robust security cooperation in the 25 years since the Cold War ended was in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 and the work to take out the Northern Alliance. One could point to other radical jihadist terrorist groups, ISIL and others where we share a common interest. On the Asia question, again, I think that as Victor was saying, the Coal Project and these other connectivity projects, if they are commercially feasible, why not? I think we need to try to walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm not saying obviously to set aside the nuclear dispute, but that's, the nuclear dispute is not the whole game. There are a lot of other aspects to the strategic environment in which this is taking place and the degree to which there is greater connectivity, a more robust economic relationship between North and South Korea seems to be the only way to make sense to kind of help to facilitate a softer landing if and when we ever get to that point. Just a couple of points. First of all, nuclear issue. The recent experience of the last 25 years starting from the agreed framework proved that it is not possible to resolve nuclear issue without addressing North Korean security concerns. Any economic inducements wouldn't work. Agreed framework, leave the ideal, layman-buck, 3,000 open as the organization, all failed because for North Korea security, for this system, security is top priority. And unless security concerns will not be addressed, there will be no progress in the resolving of the nuclear issue at one point. And we should think about it. And second point concerning the, what Dr. Rosman said about the North Korea, North East Asia and North Korea in particular as a very promising, was very promising area for Russian United States cooperation, transformation of North Korea. But what will be the result of transformation? If the result of transformation will be swallowing by South Korea and North Korea and Korean unification on South Korean conditions with American troops and missile defense moved to Russian and Chinese border, I hardly expect that China and Russia will be ready to cooperate to bring American soldiers right on Chinese and Russian borders, like it happened already in Europe. Gorbachev take it face value, value promises by the West that NATO will not be expended to the East. I'm sure that Chinese know that well and they will buy the second host, the same host as the second time as Americans say concerning dealing with North Korea. And they will not promise your, they will not believe your promises that American troops will not move north to the 38 parallel or they will move only to withdraw American, North Korean nuclear weapon and so on, so forth. It will not work. Yeah, thanks Victor. I forgot I wanted to mention one other thing. I totally agree with Gil that the biggest weakness of the Russian pivot to Asia is the failure to address the environment, investment environment challenges. But on the Sino-Russian relationship, I think it's important to keep a certain degree of skepticism about this. For example, on these so-called gas deals that go back to May of last year and the second one in the fall of this year, I think there's significant unhappiness on the Chinese part about what is viewed as delays and failure of Russia to actually deliver on the gas deal. President Xi has met Mr. Putin, not sure around ten or so times and still there is an agreement on paper. There are tremendous challenges and problems involved in the project itself and the fact that the Russians came back in the fall with the desire for the so-called Western route of an additional 30 BCM of gas, this is not really what the Chinese want. It's not the right delivery point for the gas and it's important to keep a very realistic eye. Certainly in the context of the alienation, the deterioration of Moscow's relations with the West in the last 15 months, it's natural that Moscow is going to want to make much more of this relationship with China but there are still significant problems in it and a long history of distrust and a long history of failures, I think from the Chinese perspective, the Russians to deliver on what they promise for oil and gas deals regarding China. We should divide political vision and commercial disputes. There are very strong commercial disputes between such allies as the United States and Japan concerning agriculture and automobiles. The same between the United States and South Korea, the same. American meat, American automobiles. So commercial disputes, it's one side of the matter but political vision and security is the interest. It's different and I think that if you look at the recent history of Russian-Chinese summit meetings, joint statements and practical dealings in political and security sphere, we see almost total similarity, unity and agreement. Of course, like all commercial partners, they can be, it should be differences but I think that it can be resolved and world history and world economic history knows examples of South resolution. For example, there is always dispute about which line. East coast line in Korea or west coast line of railway will be more profitable or should be built first of all. Line which goes from Seoul, Kasson, Pyongyang, Sinaiju, Dandun or from let's say Kasson and Vonsan, Chongjin and Hassan. I think that both lines will be built in the final end and experience of Europe. European integration started from the European Union of coal and steel where there was quotas for each country. The same with China and Russia. East line will get their quota and west line which goes to China will get their quota. Commercial disputes as practice and history shows can be resolved. Major point is a common strategic vision of the security and political situation in the region and from this point at the present point the positions of Russia and China as was once again testified by a recent visit by CGP into Moscow is almost endatical. The interesting thing about what you propose with regard to Russia and the Korean Peninsula is separation of politics and economics. It really takes a page out of what the South Koreans did with the Soviet Union in 1990 which was really to separate politics and economics. They had something called Nordpolitik or Northern policy where they emphasized the common economic interests with the Soviet Union and with a lot of eastern bloc countries. So as you know well from 1988 onwards the South Koreans normalized relations with Hungary, Poland and many other countries leading to the Soviet Union in 1990. That time it was easy to separate politics and economics because the larger superstructure was changing, the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union and South Korea didn't pose a direct military threat to the Soviets in any way. But the North-South also separated during Kim Tae-joon and Nomukhyeon time. It was quite successful it seems to me and I believe that if South will continue the same path now North-South relations at the moment are much more better than they are now. And of course the one challenge that remains is that the nuclear problem is not getting, it seems to be getting exponentially worse which was something that didn't exist in the early 1990s. Unfortunately I know I'm sure that this conversation sparked lots of questions and comments from the audience but unfortunately we're out of time. Dr. Zebbins paper I think is available outside and we'll have it online as well. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to come out here and be with us and I want to thank my panelists also, Gil Rosman and Andy Cushins for joining us and you as well. Thank you all and have a good day.


I just want to pop in real quick. You may have noticed on the Barrier Fest website that they have released the Barrier Fest workshops. I am in fact a part of the Barrier Fest 2024 workshop team. My workshop is called Seeing Spots, and we're gonna be painting Apollosa Pattern, Apollosa Blankets in acrylic. The workshop is being held on Saturday, July 13th from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. So I'm going to go through all of the different patterns that exist on Apollosa's, how we can achieve them with acrylic paint, and there's several different methods you can use for spots. So we're gonna go through all of that in this two-hour in-person workshop.  There will be a fee for the workshop. You have to register online to pay the fee to get in. There's limited spots. Yeah, we get to learn and hang out together, and I'm very nervous about it. I've never done something like this, but I'm also very excited. I think it's gonna be awesome. All the supplies and everything is included, so you get a model. It's not gonna be a workshop where we necessarily finish a piece.  So I'll be at Barrier Fest. I've never been to Barrier Fest, so I don't exactly know. A lot of people have been asking me where I'm gonna be, how things are gonna go down. I don't know. I'm just updating you with stuff when I know it, so I don't have any plans other than that. I hope to see some of you guys there, and I just wanted to tell you before the tickets come out so that you can get a spot into the workshop because it's gonna be a great time. Thank you so much for watching. I hope to see you at Barrier Fest.


So, Iran has revealed mock-ups of their human spaceflight capsule, and there are multiple reasons why we should take them seriously. This is your Spacepod from March 31st, 2015. To understand how Iran has gotten to the point of seriously working on a human spaceflight program, I would like to trace its origins, like most rocket and space programs that all began with Wernher von Braun's V2 rocket. During World War II, the Germans developed a V2 variant called the Wasserfall Surface to Air Missile, or Anti-Aircraft Missile, and it was about one-fourth the size of a normal V2 rocket. It was designed by Walter Thiel, and it used a hypergolic mixture of mostly nitric acid as its fuel. After the war, the Soviet Union recovered several V2 and Wasserfall rockets, and reverse-engineered them. The V2 was duplicated as the Soviet R1 rocket, and the Wasserfall evolved into the R11, better known as the Skud missile. The main innovation on the R11 was its engine, the Isayev 9D-21. The main thing about this engine was that it had simpler plumbing, it was lighter, and it performed better than the German V2 engine. These innovations would be adopted and expanded by the Soviet Union, and used on almost all of their future rocket engines. Fast forward to 1979 or 1980, and North Korea obtained its first Skud missiles from Egypt. They proceeded to reverse-engineer the rockets so they could manufacture it themselves. North Korea's version became known as the Hwasong-5. In 1985, Iran acquired the Hwasong-5, and started its own production of the rocket under the designation of the Shahab-1. In the late 80s and early 90s, North Korea developed the Hwasong-6 to make minor improvements upon the design, and it was exported to and built by Iran under the name of the Shahab-2. At the same time the Hwasong-6 was being developed, North Korea was working on a larger upgrade they call the Rodong-1, which was in operation as early as 1993. The rocket is almost twice the size of a normal Skud missile, and it has an upgraded engine. Iran financed a large portion of the Rodong program, and in return produced the rocket as the Shahab-3 as early as 1998. Since then, Iran has produced several upgraded versions of the rocket, including a two-stage suborbital rocket, the Kavoshgar-1, and the two-stage orbital launcher, Safir. Although North Korea was simultaneously trying to develop multi-stage rockets, between the two, Iran was actually the first to succeed at multi-staging, and they launched four indigenously produced satellites into low-Earth orbit. Their first was the Omid satellite, which was launched in February of 2009, followed by the Rassad-1 in June of 2011, the Navid in February of 2012, and the Fajr just recently on February 2nd of 2015. All these satellites launched on either the Safir-1B or the Safir-2 rockets, and some of them may have even featured solid rocket strap-on boosters. It's kind of hard to actually get specific details out of Iran sometimes. Meanwhile, North Korea and Iran have been building bigger rockets that are very similar in design. Iran has been building this Simorgh rocket, which may or may not be the Safir-2, and North Korea is building their Unha family of rockets. It's unknown if Iran has actually launched their Simorgh rocket or not, but as for North Korea they have launched their Unha rocket three times. Although the first two attempts were actually failures, they were able to successfully launch on their third attempt, their indigenously produced satellite, which I can't pronounce, but which means Bright Star 3 or Load Star 3. Number two, because the first one was launched on one of those previous failures. But the successful launch was launched on December 12th in 2012, and was successfully placed into low Earth orbit, but a very low Earth orbit, and it decayed after just a couple of days. This was the first time that North Korea launched its own indigenously built satellite. They have launched other satellites before, but on other providers' rockets. Not coincidentally, just a month and a half later, on January 30th, 2013, South Korea launched a satellite from their own soil for the very first time. It was launched on their NARO-1 rocket, which is actually mostly Russian-built, but we'll talk about that another time. After North Korea's satellite launch, though, they were condemned by many nations, as well as NATO and the UN, and a lot of them claimed that they were breaking treaties that they wouldn't develop ICBM technology, intercontinental ballistic missiles. North Korea's intentions have always been to have ICBMs, and launching a satellite for them is more of a prestige project than it is an actual scientific endeavor. Iran, on the other hand, seems to have a more serious agenda of utilizing satellites for scientific communication and observation purposes. They're even planning on eventually sending humans to space, and that can be gathered from all their animal testing that they've been doing. They've also expressed interest in cooperating with China on the China Space Station program. It should also be noted that Iran was one of the original 24 founding nations of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and they produced such documents as the Outer Space Treaty, the Astronaut Rescue Agreement, the Moon Treaty, and the Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the upper atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. All of that and the progress that they've made on their manned spaceflight program have convinced me, at least for now, that their intentions to send humans to space are genuine. I'm going to leave it at that for now. But the next time that you see me, we're going to talk about the progress that Iran has made over the years on their human spaceflight program. Until then, thank you very much for watching this space pod. My name is Michael Clark, and everyone, please give a warm welcome to our newest space correspondent, Ariel Waldman. She made a really cool video about mapping supernovas with a 3D slicer, and you should definitely watch it. Tomorrow, you're going to get an update from Lisa Stojanowski about the year-long mission at the International Space Station. But until then, I would love to know what you think about the Iranian space program, either below or on any of your favorite social media. This is a crowdfunded show, and if you're interested in helping us to bring you content like this, then please visit patreon.com to find out more information about how you can become a citizen of tomorrow. Thank you again for watching this space pod. I know this is a very controversial subject that we talked about this time, but you have to remember that I'm biased. I do support every human spaceflight program, no matter who is behind it. And at least in the case of Iran, I wish them all the luck in the world.


dumbbells. In this series of videos I'm gonna show you how I teach my dog to work with the dumbbells and so if you're thinking about jumps and everything, how I teach my dog to properly jump is a separate series of videos. In this series it will be only about the dumbbells, how the dog supposed to hold it, how to pick them up, how to bring hay enough. And so very first step is to teach the dog to hold it properly because the dog cannot chew or all the dumbbell you lose points in a trial for that and so what I usually use is my favorite PVC pipe is the first to to start working with this. The reason being is that any other toy my dog knows to chew and so if I give the dog anything that they already know they will be chewing on it and rolling in their mouth and it's very difficult to stop the dog doing this with the toy that they used to and for that reason I introduce something new and something that is not too pleasant to chew so the dog knows how to deal with it at first. So this is very very first step and then we eventually obviously progress to other things but today and for the next several sessions all we'll be doing is that he needs to learn the command hold to hold the pipe and he needs to hold it calmly without chewing without rolling without any anxiety and he needs to actually know to take it in his mouth when I say hold. So today is very first time we've never tried this before so I don't know how it's going to to go but I have high rewards which are treats they're little smoked hot dogs that he likes and I also have a toy reward so occasionally I'll be rewarding with the toy but I do it with food because and high reward food because I do want the dog to want the reward but not to have a drive so he's running around excited too excited I want him to focus on what he needs to learn okay why don't you sit very good okay I'll let him sniff it first because he've never done this and then I gently place so I'm gonna hold one piece of reward and I gently place it in his mouth he doesn't want to do that so you still kind of forcing him to do that wait wait yes very good very good he knows command wait and so I'm kind of guiding him to to say that's okay to have it for a second and I don't force him to hold it for too long try again wait wait wait wait hold yes very good good boy good boy again wait hold wait hold no good yes I do hold his mouth because I don't want him to play with it as you can see he's trying to roll it and roll it that's natural for him hold this I have a food in my hand no you have to hold this first you have to hold this wait yes very good good boy I want to make sure I'm not rewarding when he's rolling that's why I do it for a very short period of time and if I see that he's losing interest I'm gonna switch to a higher rewards next time he does it I'm gonna reward him with the toy because I already see that he's distracted why don't you sit sit hold yes very good so I'm giving him a break come on come on I want to make sure he likes the exercise I good boy okay so we raise the excitement now we're back to the treats hold good hold yes very good good boy good boy good hold no wait good yes very good he's getting there you can see that he's not he's willing to open his mouth now and hold it hold it hold it hold it hold good hold very good yeah very good good boy I want him to actually take it from me good hold yes very good good boy once more and then I'll reward with the toy good hold hold wait no no wait you have to hold it very good yes very good good boy run a little bit come on if you can see his wagon his tail so I want to make sure he likes the exercise I don't want him to be too forced because then it's a problem and dumbles are important for part of the trial in the competition hold good wait yes very good very good yeah very good good hold hold hold hold hold yes very good hold good boy good boy I still need to help him to get it in his mouth but less and less than it was at the beginning hold good no he almost got it in his mouth he was willing to open the mouth that's very good good progress you have to hold it come on wait hold hold no hold hold good hold yeah very good good boy good boy come on hold good yes very good good boy let's see if he's gonna hold it hold no hold hold good yes very good so he opened the mouse now by himself I just had to hold him on the top hold good yes very good very good very good yay good boy good boy give it to me come on good boy sit good boy hold hold good yes very good yes very good he does it now very good hold hold yes very good I'll finish at that very good finish I think that's pretty good for the first time good boy happy training


Well, thanks, Eric. It's basically I can't do any better than that. So I guess I'll just go step down. Yeah, so Eric asked me to give some reflections on lessons learned or something like that. And so I decided to include the technology development program, but actually to go back all the way back, as Eric just described, and tell you some of the things that sort of influenced. I felt influenced my career. And I don't know, I never give advice. I always say that to applicants and so forth. But some reflections, observations, things that I've noticed over my career. And if they're useful for, none of them are novel. But maybe the way they were put together or the way they were derived will help some other people. So actually, I need to get out of this. Escape isn't doing anything. Click. There we go. OK. And the crazy title, by the way, is I've been here 24 years. But humans only have 23 pairs of chromosomes, so I had to add one. Sorry. So when I first thought about this, OK, 24 observations, lessons learned shouldn't be bad. Yesterday was a little sweat, but OK. So when I joined the Genome Institute at that time, as Eric mentioned, called the National Center for Human Genome Research, we had fewer than 50 people on the staff. About 42 of them are pictured here. As, again, as Eric mentioned, Jane Peterson recruited me to join her in running the centers program, which at that time involved about a dozen centers, most of which were building genetic or physical maps of the human and model organism genomes as a substrate for the Human Genome Project. I spent the first year learning and occasionally developing acronyms and learning NIH grants and administrative processes from the inside. During my first few years, let's see. I think I better, yeah, OK. During my first few years with such a small group, and yet with the need to do many of the things that much larger institutes do, we did a lot as a team. In particular, any plans related to program development and implementation were discussed with the entire program staff, all eight of us. Beyond that, for example, when it came time for developing and presenting the annual budget, all of us took part in preparing the congressional justification and the briefing cards that the budget officer kept in a flip book to back up the institute director who testified before both houses of Congress most years in those days. During those first few years, I was given primary responsibility for organizing three planning workshops, one on YACC library construction, one on the 100 kilobase resolution human genome physical map, and a third on validation for the upcoming DNA sequencing pilot projects. So this leads to my first list of lessons learned, and I'm not going to put the lessons up because for a lot of these, I'm going to actually flip through some slides to just give you images of those times. So I'm quite sure I didn't think about these things at that time, but now looking back, these were all critical lessons that influenced my time at NHGRI then and subsequent career at NIH. So first, understand your organization beyond your immediate role. And then some of these have corollaries from the other side. Give your people, if you're running the organization, give your people the chance to get to know the organization. Nothing beats immersion. Next, give your employees independence. They'll work harder, and they'll learn faster. Take on responsibilities and assignments, even if you're not sure you're ready. And the corollaries, of course, give your employees responsibility. Be willing to make decisions in a timely fashion. You don't know everything you need to know. With responsibility and independence, come accountability to learn to listen, to evaluate multiple viewpoints, and then to select a path thoughtfully and insightfully. And learn to work as an effective team member. Learn how to lead, learn how to follow, and learn how to keep those in balance. So when I'd been at the center's branch of NHGRI, now by this time NHGRI, with the establishment of the Intramural Program, for just four years, a couple of our key program directors, actually they're shown on this photo, decided to leave and join another institute. So technology development being a key element of our portfolio needed leadership. Our leaders gave me the option to take on this new role. I still felt quite wet behind the ears and thought perhaps I should continue under the wing of a more experienced program leader. Plus we were at a critical and very exciting stage in the center's program, having just developed the RFA for the pilot sequencing centers to begin scale-up towards sequencing of the human genome. But NHGRI was offering me an almost irresistible opportunity to step into a more prominent role, in a critical area to the human genome project. I also knew I'd have the support of my colleagues and after all, each program with the possible exception of LC included technology development to further its own goals. So I took that leap and became the program director for technology development. And by the following year, I'd released NHGRI's next in a series of technology development RFAs. So that same year, the small size of NHGRI again came into play. The NIH director's office was forming a new trans-NIH group called the Bioengineering Consortium. I was anything but a bioengineer, as Eric mentioned, my backgrounds in cell and molecular biology. Or knowledgeable about those approaches, but technology development was the closest thing we had in the institute, so I became an NHGRI's beacon member. Through this activity, I met program directors with portfolios related to mine, but ranging much more widely from across the entire NIH as well as a couple of other agencies. Through formulating several annual symposia held on the NIH campus and each attracting over 600 people, we developed a path for NIH to better engage this community of scientists and engineers. I learned a lot of new science. I learned a lot about how other institutes conduct their business, and I met a whole new community of investigators, that little circle that appeared down there is AIMB, and I had the honor to chair one of the symposia, the Nanomedicine Symposium, and to chair Beacon for three years. And one of the early measures was that quite a large proportion of the awards that were made under this program announcement, by the way, not an RSA program announcement, a large number of them were to new investigators. Now, these were not necessarily early stage. These were people who had never had an NIH grant before. We were trying to bring them into the community. So through Beacon activities, I was asked to be one of the NIH representatives to the interagency working group that developed the budget and the plan to launch the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Much like my experience with Beacon, I met a lot of people and learned practices across the federal government and once again learned a lot of new science. The NNI graduated from an executive order to having its own congressional appropriation. The NNI group from an initial six agencies, I guess nine agencies, this was actually a little bit into it, but we started with six agencies to 25. We developed a plan for NIH relevant nanotechnology research and tracked the activities both in the science and budget perspectives, preparing annual supplements to the President's budget, reporting progress and plans. I had to travel a lot speaking about the NNI and about Beacon to a variety of groups, so the scientific stretch was considerable and I had to convey this information to widely varying audiences. I even had the opportunity to testify before a Senate committee. So very clearly, my activities in these three realms in NHGRI technology development in Beacon bioengineering and the NNI nanotechnology research provided substantial interplay scientifically and programmatically. So lessons learned could be applied across all those activities. So some more lessons learned, be enthusiastic about shifting gears, taking risks and expanding and learning even when it's scary and corollary is give your people the opportunity to shift gears to expand and to learn. Staff turnover opens opportunities. Be enthusiastic about taking on extra work to make the most of those opportunities. I couldn't possibly have done my NHGRI, Beacon and NNI work in anything remotely like a 40 hour work week. I felt the extra investment was worth it. Some of your staff will be able and willing to take on extra work, but not everyone can do that. As an organization, don't take that for granted. So in part, as a result of my activities across NIH for Beacon and NNI, I was known to NIH leadership. And so when the first round of NIH roadmap initiatives was being developed, I was asked, as Eric mentioned, to lead one of them and then a medicine initiative. I ultimately ended up co-chairing that initiative. There's no question that the experience I gained to that point, firmly grounded at NHGRI and complimented by the Beacon and NNI experience, has helped inform the approaches to developing the nanomedicine roadmap and vice versa. So provide opportunities for your staff to become known to agency leadership. Wider exposure of our staff benefits the individual staff members' careers and the institute's programs. I should have gone through these a little bit more quickly because oh, there's just reflections of things that look familiar from the nanomedicine and some of our programs. And in addition to making your staff known to agency leadership, the other thing that this set of images represents is recognize your employees for their accomplishments. And NHGRI does a very good job of this, in my opinion. In early Beacon days and during the initial formulation of the NNI, we at NHGRI were putting together the Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science. That's not a good sign. Okay. Which I've coordinated since the beginning. Ideas developed and experienced gained in each of these fed into the others. And we launched the SEGs in 2000 and had our first annual meeting in 2003. That's also when the strategic plan for NHGRI after completing the Human Genome Project was published. The year before that we held a series of workshops, one of which led to our launching the near-term and revolutionary genome sequencing technology programs. The program is, you've all seen these slides many times, the program is fairly widely considered to have been successful. The program funded a wide variety of ideas through small grants and large grants, a varying duration but long enough to make progress at academic institutions and at company laboratories and substantial commercialization resulted. So for the purpose of this talk, what are the lessons learned from that program? So one is that we required participation and considerable information sharing at annual grantee meetings. Much information can be shared even in a very competitive field and that advances the science. The annual grantee meetings stimulate progress because investigators do want to impress each other and their program director with substantive reports and platform and poster sessions. Grantees are also motivated by learning how fast the field is moving. The grantee meetings stimulate novel collaborations. We had lots of people who ended up collaborating and even submitting applications who'd never met each other before these meetings. Publishing together promotes common cause. Students are immersed in rapidly advancing science from which they can see substantive beneficial outcomes to science and society and they also find their further training and job opportunities. An open meeting back to back with the grantee meeting widens the discussion beyond the grantees to include other academics, industry and the press stimulating additional collaboration, investment and dissemination. The success of a program may entail risk. The institute staff and advisors need to buy into the need to fund risky grants. I had tremendous support from the institute and from our advisors without which we would have failed. Close collaboration between extramural components in particular program and review offices can increase flexibility to advance the science without compromising the roles. Programs succeed in a relevant context the development of which the programs can help to stimulate. And finally, user demand helps drive technology. As these technologies were being introduced and were rolling out, they were pulled very quickly into many different projects that had different needs and that really helped that technology move forward. And finally, not to forget the need for community service. Community service is important. So just for example, I worked with Genome Canada over a two-year period as they were implementing their disruptive innovations in genomics program. Also worked with the local high school, though not as much as I should have. And of course, it's good to keep some service close to home. So this was my father's day card when my son finished first grade, our first year here. I don't know if you can see it says double helix straightened out. So in closing, just one more lesson. Each transaction in which you participate is an opportunity to build trust and confidence and to demonstrate your good judgment, integrity, and collegiality. So I hope a few of those will be helpful to some of you. Thank you. I am sure Jeff would be, if anybody has questions or any comments, Bob? So Jeff, I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit if you don't mind. You've been looking back through all this talk. I wonder if you could make a few comments looking forward. Where do you think the sequencing is gonna go? Well, I'll repeat something I've said to this group before. I don't think we're anywhere near done. The qualities, the sequence quality we're getting today is pretty good, but there are a lot of qualities of that sequence that need considerable improvement. Both in terms of individual base pairs and the way the data will flow into pipelines. So I think we have a ways to go. I think we actually have examples now from nascent technologies that sequencing, well, we already know sequencing isn't a big deal if you have the right infrastructure, but now the infrastructure needs are changing considerably. So that you'll be able to do sequencing quite routinely, as you all know, as part of almost any kind of characterization of any material that you'd like to. So that's clearly a sea change. By sequencing, I guess I'd like to expand the definition of that, and we should think about sequencing not only of DNA nucleotides before, but all the modifications and all the other kinds of molecules that are made out of nucleotides and their modifications, RNA and those modifications, but perhaps with some creativity, we can sequence other kinds of biological molecules much, much, much more readily than we can and read out those modifications, including maybe even what proteins and other molecules are bound to the linear strands. So I think of sequencing in that much bigger context. And I guess if we could do all those things, and as we've been talking about through this meeting, pull that information together in an intelligent way, then I think a lot of the stumbling blocks we're reaching now might be somewhat overcome. There's a lot of other stuff that has to happen. The other part I guess I'd like to say is that if we can think about using some of the principles that have been applied to sequencing, to some of the other characterization challenges, and I'd include things like phenotyping, not even just molecular phenotyping, but other kinds of phenotyping with sensors and so forth, which after all, sequencer is just a sensor, that we could tackle some of the really hard problems that we're having in bringing genomics closer to the clinic, so a few thoughts. So I have something else that I need to mention, and that is, how did I get this? Yes, we have another major event happening at NHGRI, and that is one of our esteemed members of our bioinformatics portfolio is also retiring, and he's gonna be retiring before the end of this year and that's Peter Goode. So Peter's been around NHGRI for 15 years, almost as long as I have, not quite as long, and when Peter arrived at NIH in 2001, the state of our databases was nowhere near what it is today, and he really played a major role in helping to develop a lot of the really critically important infrastructure that we now take for granted and actually are worried about, can we support it all? So it grew very effectively and now we have to meet other challenges, but Peter had the insights about the importance of these data resources to the biology community, he came in as a developmental biologist, so he knew how important it was to have these kinds of tools and information at your fingertips, and he really helped to build that program. Peter was also critical in helping to start a number of large and visible programs, including the Cancer Genome Atlas and the Knockout Moss Project, so Peter's played a very important role, he also had a rich and deep portfolio of R01 and R21 grants. He worked with BISTI, so Peter's made major contributions through NHGRI and across the NIH. Most of you probably know Peter mostly from his work in ENCODE. So Peter and Elise started ENCODE and the early days formulated the concepts, launched the program, completed the pilot projects and then moved on from there. So I just wanna recognize Peter who's in the audience and I hope you all have a chance to wish him well.