Inside theCUBE in a while to the home of Cloudera where we sit in SiliconANGLE.com, I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE. I'm here with Chris Gladwin, the president and CEO of Cleversafe. Chris, welcome back. It's an easy name to remember, but it's a compound word that people have a surprising amount of trouble with it. We're here at theCUBE, we want to talk about just your business and some of the climate opportunity out there for folks and your customers and challenges. So first start off with, what's going on with you guys in Cleversafe and what's the update on the company? Well, John, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to talk about these topics. So the latest developments with Cleversafe, at a high level, what we're seeing is there's so much interest in cloud computing that it's really pulling through a lot of interest and awareness in cloud storage. Because obviously if you're gonna compute, you need to store. And that's just been really fortunate for us. Whereas two, three, four years ago it was just difficult to get awareness with these kind of issues in a broad sense. Now it's kitchen table conversation in a lot of places. Particularly within the storage industry, it's a topic. So that's helped us quite a bit. We've recently had some pretty key customer announcements, one with the US intelligence community. And then we also just completed a big round of funding and internally we're getting a lot of traction and momentum and excitement. What was the size of that round? 31.4 million dollars is what we need. Nice, congratulations, fresh money. Yeah, that's important. For technology expansion, sales, marketing, any particular focus all of the above? It's all of the above. I mean, the stage of the company now is we're about five and a half years old. And we began delivering product kind of on a limited basis a year or two ago. And really the middle of last year is when we began deploying production larger scale systems. So from a money point of view, it's, you know, we're still kind of expanding the capabilities, but now we're also from sales and marketing and all the other things that you operate a business for. We're Chris Gladwin from the CEO of Cleversafe. You guys are based in Chicago. We are based in Chicago, absolutely. You don't have to be in Silicon Valley to be successful. You guys are doing very well lately around storage, a different kind of storage and the emphasis on security. Can you talk a little bit about that aspect of your business in particular? Well, what we saw early on and there were a lot of surveys that we had access to about what's important to customers. And in a cloud environment, you're essentially giving physically someone else your information. So obviously security is a big concern. And that fortunately for us is something that we do well. So in addition to the capability of cloud, which is flexibility, limitless scale, things like that, you also have to do that in a way that's secure. And there's really three dimensions to that. You know, the classic textbook definition of information security includes confidentiality, means that the bad guys can't see it. That means integrity, which means that the data is perfect to the people that should see it. It's no good if they can see bits and the bits aren't right. And then finally, availability, meaning it's always available to people that should see it. It's kind of an easy acronym to remember because it's CIA. And you have some clients that are government related, right? It's a security aspect. Right, we recently announced a strategic partnership with Incutel. And Incutel is the kind of the business development arm of the US intelligence community. They work a lot with agencies like the CIA. So we have to differentiate it on the slide. But really, when we talk about information security, we mean confidentiality, integrity, and availability. And that's essential. I mean, it goes without saying, but if you have a system, data is the lifeblood of the business. It's the assets of an individual. Those things have to just be there at a very high level.  It's got to be right. And it's always got to be there, period.  There's obviously a lot of questions like the government, the CIA, with the funding from Incutel. But as an entrepreneur, life has some surprises. The world kind of spins your way once in a while. For you guys, it seems to be the case where the world has spun your way with the focus on obviously the adoption of cloud and privacy and security. So that being said, what are you seeing out in the marketplace for the key trends in the outside of security is one we'll dive into. But outside of security, what are you seeing out there as macro trends in the marketplace? One of the macro trends is I would say the cloud thing. And there are reasons why that are driving it. You see this again and again, and this is part of the cloud, folklore practically about electrical power generation, people used to make their own, then it became centralized and more efficient. It used to be that most companies had their own physical data centers, now everyone uses common hosting facilities. When I was starting my career, I was a network person and did some storage work too as I had a large aerospace company where I was responsible for the networking and the storage products. And back then, when TCPIP first came out, we had TCPIP, but it was our network. I mean, it wasn't an internet, it was, we had our own lease lines and so it kind of started out as a private thing, but eventually it became much more efficient to have that aggregated as a public service, which is just kind of aggregating a bunch of private needs into one thing. So the same thing's happening with kind of some of the basics of computing. Computing itself, storage, things like that are going through that transition now. And that really kind of did the whole focus of private cloud where IT has had their own kind of private environment and prizes in the lease lines as you mentioned in the old days to now dealing with public infrastructure for HAA, public cloud. Just like we saw, you know, you saw in the 80s with networking, whereas those technologies came out, they first were used for public, sorry, for private networks within enterprises and then became public. We see the same thing happening, even though there's a lot of visibility to public cloud storage, most of the business today is private cloud. So that's mainly what we've been selling is private clouds that we sell to government agency, you know, large bank, a big social networking site. That's, you know, mainly what we're seeing. You know, they're definitely longer term. Public is gonna be probably the larger segment of the market, but today most of the action is private clouds. From your chair here or in your office, looking at the industry, where are we with the whole public private cloud? I see there's a collision course between obviously the benefits of public, what inning are we in, so to speak, and where are we? It's creation based, second inning. I mean, what are the key challenges for this kind of collision? I see everyone's talking about test ops and test and dev ops are kind of going to the cloud and mission critical, but emphasis of production where the costs are heavier and scale issues are there. You get companies that have scale operations and they have to kind of move there. What are you seeing in the market for that transition? Well, I don't ultimately see it as a collision. You know, like a lot of things, it'll become both. You know, you'll take the requirements of public and private clouds and when those can both be met, then it'll kind of merge to one. I mean, if you look at networking today and people still VPN all the time over the internet to make essentially a virtual private network on top of the public infrastructure, you're definitely going to see the same kind of thing happen with cloud storage. And we already have the capabilities to deliver public, use of public infrastructure, but with the privacy, auto ability, manageability control that defines a private cloud. So, you know, a private internal requirement. So it's already possible today to kind of merge those two things. Obviously, very similar paradigm of the 80s with networking, seeing that now. Very similar. So you have this converged networking landscape, right? You know, storage guides, the networking guides, and the compute guides, the servers, kind of collisioning together. There's not a lot of talk going on around the compute side. It seems to be an abundance of compute. Storage seems to be the key linchpin in all the conversations, whether it's a Hadoop, which we're in Cloud Air as opposite here, to kind of, you know, industrial strength storage. And I wrote a post this morning called, you know, the storage cloud. How is storage changing in that equation, in the conversion networking equation? Now, I'll say it's more relevant. I mean, data's not going away, it's only getting bigger and bigger. Absolutely. But latency is an issue, speed, application support, multiple applications. How would you kind of summarize that whole dynamic?  Is it going to be something that's going to be slowly rolled in? Yep. Cloud is a part of the first real, like, change in the dominant architecture paradigm for computing since, you know, the 80s. You know, when the personal computer paradigm really became the dominant paradigm. And, you know, that from a storage point of view, where you basically had a hard drive and that primarily defined your data. As a local device that was associated with you as a person and it was typically in your PC.  Clearly, we're going through a big transition where we're moving to a new paradigm. And that's, you know, cloud is a part of that, where you say now I want my data to exist independent of a particular device that I might have. Because in fact, I may have 10 devices. I may have a computer in my, you know, office, one at home, one in my car, different sizes for different functions. So that answer has to become independent of all those devices I have my storage. And that's my information. And that transcends those devices as they come and go during my life, which those devices always will, the data persists. So that's a big driver to cloud storage that we see. And that's a big shift. So a part of that is the cloud, which is kind of the back end bulk store. And then clearly what you're gonna see, local storage effectively just becomes a cash off that. And, you know, for certain devices they'll cash a lot more stuff. You know, other devices they'll cash less because they're smaller, more mobile. But, you know, the net result application specific kind of scenarios, right? Yeah, but the net result is it'll just feel like your data's always there no matter what. And clearly that's something people want. They don't want this idea of well, if I use this device, I can see this. And if I use that device, I can see that. And I've got to try to sit there and figure out what goes where. That's way too complicated. So that's, that's, you know, that's a lot of what's gonna drive that paradigm. And that's a big part of cloud. And then you look at, you know, the technologies of cloud, you know, flash, mobile devices, multi-device kind of lifestyles. I mean, that's all converging to this new architecture. We're here with Chris Gladwell, the presidency of Cleversafe. From MIT, he's a geek. Developers got hundreds of patents here on the solution. Question for you from your definition, big data. Yeah. That's the big buzzword these days. I see data, data, big data, fast data, small data. Data in general. We'll get the Stratoconference next week which we'll be broadcasting live so that they angle the queue. What's your definition of big data? Big data, you know, the, well, let me first say that all the growth of data is big data. It was prior to 1999, most data, and when I say most data, I mean cut open a random internet cable or break open a random hard drive and count the bits. Prior to 1999, most data was structured data like data in a database and the data type itself was numbers or text. 1999 was when it switched over and that was driven by digital music distributed over the internet. Which you have some history with, which I have some history with. I'll get into that in a second. And that's when it, so image and audio data then cross 50%, so these large unstructured objects. Since then, with the emergence of digital video, it's now in the 65, 70% range of all data is this big data, primarily digital content. And then going forward, you know, the longer you go out in time, the more it approaches 100% of all data. So you're still gonna have structured data in a database, but it's just gonna be a sideshow from a bit point of view compared to big data. So that's how we would characterize just large unstructured data objects and it's already dominating storage. I mean the internet is pretty much already turned into a video distribution machine and it's gonna become just more so a big video distribution machine. Digital data is obviously big right now. You see iTunes and you have a little history in them. Talk about your background and the folks out there who don't know the history you have with music, which is the most popular digital asset out there. It is with video, I mean video is really happening. So like you said, I went to MIT, I was an engineer and then I worked for a large aerospace company as a buyer of technology, networking products, storage products, I did that for a while and then I switched to the vendor side where I made computer products and I did different jobs, engineering, product strategy, marketing. And then from there I started starting companies. And the first company I started was cruise technologies which at the time I thought the way to have a great company is to do something that's so hard no one else can do it. But the reality is you can be ahead of your market and that was way ahead of the market. That was the 90s, mid 90s and we were making wireless thin clients like an iPad. And needless to say, we were a little ahead of the market a little bit, a couple of years. Yeah, so we ended up selling that IP and then I started a digital music company called Music Now which was the leading business to business supplier of digital music services. So Best Buy, Clear Channel, Charter, Earthlink, they had digital music services, download stores, internet radio, music subscription services. But it was just their brand and it was all us. We aggregated all the rights, operated all the servers, figured out this penny goes to this guy and that penny goes to that guy. Micropayments dealing with DRM kind of. All the licenses and all that stuff. So that's obvious, complex, it was not simple. Yeah, it was, there was a lot of interesting complexity that certainly won aspectless technology. Back then that was big storage to store all music, not so much anymore, but back then it was kind of a big storage system. Plus that rights distribution was extraordinarily complicated. More so legally and just the reality of getting all those license, that was remarkably complicated. Building a system to administer them, pay them and audit and all that stuff, that was fairly complicated too. Let's talk about CleverSafe and your current project. Obviously you got a lot of funding, you know $34 million, no one's just writing checks, you know, guys in the street holding their hand out for the significant amount of capital. You guys have a five year track record. Where did you get the idea that rate is dead? I mean, not the candy and seeing the data is growing, but I mean you must have had some kernel of, you know, we're gonna do things a little differently. The world's maybe different in vision. Talk about where the inspiration wasn't the idea behind CleverSafe's technology. Well in my prior company music now, we built the system to store all music. And you know, we kind of experienced the state of the art as a customer. And honestly, I thought it was pretty bad.  And it just was beyond me, like how can this be? How can this be state of the art? There's gotta be a better way. A lot of my background in addition to storage products is in wireless products. And you know, when you talk to a storage guy, you know, they talk about a bit error rate every 10 to the 14, every 10 to 15 bits on a drive. In the meantime, the failure, you know, of, you know, a couple thousand hours or something like that, they have no idea what failure and bit error rates are. Compared to wireless, like when you're driving 60 miles an hour with a mobile phone and you're talking away, the amount of retransmission drama that's going on, packets are getting lost. You're driving by a building with a steel wall, a connection drive on and on and on.   And so as a wireless guy, you look at storage and you say, they're not doing this? Like a radio. Talk to each other, right?  And, you know, maybe you have one or two dimensional parity bits and it's like, okay, that's great. That was like the 60s in wireless.  Now, the reason why this hasn't happened before has to do with Moore's Law. Back in, let's say 1990, 1991, the CPU was a lot slower than it is now.  So to do some extra math would slow things down. But things have changed. In 1991, you know, the average hard drive, for example, took about 60 seconds to read or write all the data on the drive. Drives have gotten a lot bigger but they haven't gotten much faster. So now it takes somewhere around 16 hours to read or write the data on a two terabyte drive. So now this trade-off, and meanwhile, CPU's got a million times faster. So now you've got tons of abundance of compute power. Yeah, so now you can employ some advanced, you know, math is your friend. You know, in Moore's Law basically is the cost of math. And the cost of math is a million times cheaper. So you can do some pretty interesting stuff without really noticing performance degradation or without really noticing cost. And so that kind of transition, that crossover from, you know, driven by Moore's Law enables these kind of advanced coding techniques for storage, which to a wireless person is like hard to believe the industry isn't already doing this. And so you had the idea. So you start sketching out some ideas and you form a company around it. Is that kind of how it went? And then boom, you've got a product, some battens, and is that, yeah, you know. Well, having started a couple companies, one thing I wanted to do, which we did here, was I wanted the first thing, as soon as possible, to sell it. Even if it's not built, like go try and sell it and see what the reaction is. So the very first thing I did is I kind of wrote just a little very basic long sense replace prototype just to prove, okay, this is gonna work. All right, once that was done, the first thing I did is I worked with one of the other founders who also went to MIT, is an interaction designer. And so she created what looked like a completely functioning system. Yeah. Was it a vase kind of thing behind the curtain? Yeah, so essentially what she did is she went to the Yahoo Small Business site and screen scraped every screen and then pasted on there, like as a graphic artist, not as a developer, what looked like other menu options, okay? And so we had both done a lot of focus groups and so we knew how to pretend to be focus group moderators.  And we ran focus groups on what looked like a completely done system. And the things that we found were, I've done a lot of focus groups and you look for certain things, you look for unaided and aided awareness of the problems, people willingness to pay, satisfaction with alternatives. And data and information, it's just off the charts. I mean, the value of storage which really is your information as a business, as a person is immensely valuable and it's growing in its value. I mean, how dependent we are on digital information. So that's, I mean, if you wanna sell something to someone they better value it, okay? So that's highly valued. There was a great deal of aided or unaided awareness of problems, like, oh, when my hard drive dies my data's gone. And there was a very high level of dissatisfaction with the currently available alternatives. So, you know, that's the combination you look for. So we sold it and it's like, let's go build it and we did, right? Yeah, we ran focus groups. And you score these different, we did enterprise, small business, consumer and you look at these results and you're like, man, this is it. So then we said, all right, now we gotta go build it. And building a dispersed storage system, it's been, these advanced math techniques have been known since the 50s and they've been used in other industries like wireless. And there has been some use of them in storage, not so much in the commercial world, but in incredibly secure environments like the storage of cryptographic keys or weapon launch codes or things like that, they've used these kinds of techniques before. And there's been a lot of academic work in these areas over 20 years. So it's been known to some degree, but to commercialize it. I mean, just to give you a sense, so we had algorithms working in like 2005, the algorithms were working and that's interesting. But a customer doesn't buy algorithms, a customer buys a system that can be installed and upgraded, tuned and managed and configured in value. And secure and reliable and fast. And so building that whole ecosystem around that, well, that's taken us another five years. And we knew it was a long project, other companies tried and they really couldn't get it to go through deep tech. That's not what the company, your company Cleversafe. So you got some funding, how many employees do you have? I mean, right now we're at around 48. So you guys are growing. So where do you guys stack up in the marketplace? So your business compared to others in terms of who you're competing with and then just overall approach to the business. I'll say there's different approaches these days. You talk to anyone in storage and there's a big opportunity with a lot of the other players been taken out with that acquisition. Everyone knows about three part comparison and others. So there's a huge, big vacuum. Yeah, there's not a lot of mid-sized storage companies left. And there's not even a lot of like bigger, small storage companies left. What's the core strategy for you guys right now?  Talk about that. Well, there's kind of two phases to how we're building this business. The phase that we're in now is a phase where just having a product that's operational and ships and finishes QA and all that stuff is part of the answer.  They have a business result like they want the system to operate and deliver certain benefits. So, excuse me, little phone ring there.  Now that's the best validation you have. That means it really works and they want more. So, we're really focused on that and then having that customer be thrilled, that they're referenceable, that they score you high in terms of customer satisfaction. And we really wanna focus on getting that done, not necessarily with 1,000 customers, but currently with the largest, most discriminating kind of customers, lighthouse accounts in our key market. And that's really what we're focused on for this year. So, you're not seeing a lot of broad marketing where we wanna have 1,000. We've got a lot of- Very focused execution. Yes, next year is when we will say, all right, let's scale it up because we've done this enough that we can kinda bottle it and repeat higher sales forces and go crazy. Yeah, but we can't underestimate that step. And even though we know it works, if we stumble, so for example, let's say we have the world's best algorithms and the install program doesn't work. And the customer has a problem. And it could be some trivial thing in an install program. It won't matter that it was a trivial thing in the install program. The reputation of the other stuff doesn't work. So, you just have to get everything exactly right and that's what we're focused on. How are you guys competing against the EMC's in the world out of the big players? I mean, IBM, HP, EMC, the big whales out there and we're in Dallas right now and there's some solutions in place. What's the story there? Well, the closest competitor to us is the EMC of the product called Atmos. And they're using similar techniques. They got a little bit later start than us. So, they're not as far along in terms of the maturity of the product. But it's, you know, they're a smart company and they're on their way. And they'll certainly work through these issues. And that's good for us. I mean, actually, we want them to succeed because it validates. Get a comparable in the market. You got to compare the benchmark against. Yeah, I mean, our issue is not, I mean, we go head to head with them every once in a while but mainly what we compete against in terms of an actual live customer situation is a customer that's thinking about building it themselves. That's the number one thing we compete with in terms of our customers. Sometimes they're looking at like taking some Hadoop and some other stuff and wiring it together. That's normally what we compete against. And, you know, that still shows that our issue is kind of getting the market going, not so much, you know, A versus C versus the C, you know, D competition. When we get to that point, we've succeeded in kind of moving the needle, but we're still in the early stages. We're Chris Gladwin, CEO of Cleversave. Chris, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Question about the tech and the product, the product angle. What's the key differentiation for you guys in the product? I mean, you mentioned security and we'll drill a little bit down into that, but what are the key differentiates for you right now? Well, that's the one we wrap it around is secure cloud storage. So that's what we sell, secure clouds. Secure storage clouds.  Those are the things that we lead with. Now there's other advantages, cost efficiency, which is kind of the same thing as power efficiency, space efficiency. You just need less servers, less electricity, less capital. And for some customers, it's cost. For some others, it's power and for others, it's space. And so those are some of the key things that we really focus on. And there's some other benefits we could talk about, like scalability, the system can scale to forever if you're using a object interface, for example, which is unique. I mean, you could literally have a namespace with 10 exabytes in it. And there's a lot of simultaneous riders in that same container. No one else can do that, but you gotta kind of pick your thing to focus on. And we really focus on secure cloud storage. What do you think about the efficiency message?  I mean, everyone has to have an efficiency story. What's your take on the storage efficiency messaging in general from other folks in the marketplace? And then what's your strategy and message around efficiency? Well, that's where dispersal has real advantages. The traditional approach people have used to create reliability is to create copies, as well as use parity bits, which is RAID. So in an enterprise environment, it's not at all unusual for someone to have three copies. And it's not at all unusual for them to have many more than three. But if you just say, you know, a person's got three copies, maybe two in one location or one remote or something like that, and they're using parity, you know, which means it's in a RAID array, which it pretty much already is, always is. If you add up all the bits you end up with, and there might be some other inefficiencies introduced by, you know, file system or kind of how they lay things out, but at a minimum, for every bit of original information, you end up with five bits to store. And now you've got five bits to air condition and five bits to, you know, buy equipment for and five bits worth of floor space and so on and so on. And there's just no way around it. That's what drives your cost. Dispersal enables you to get, you know, way higher reliability. So typical, talk about dispersal. We didn't get into that. That's your core different approach. You guys have a dispersal approach, which is spreading stuff around, kind of like dispersing the data and then having multiple copies. Just take us through that real quick. Yeah, so as I said, normally to create reliability, you would maybe have three copies. And so the value of that would be, I could tolerate two simultaneous failures because I got three copies. And if I put those in three locations, then I can handle two location failures. If I put those in one location, I can handle two server failures. So, you know, you configure that based on your business requirements. But that's a very expensive way to get reliability. And it has security problems because what you want to do from a availability point of view is make multiple copies and put them in multiple places. That's exactly what you don't want to do from a security point of view because you're basically putting your attack surfaces all over the place. And there's other things that doesn't address like data integrity. There's other ways to create reliability besides making copies. And that's what dispersal does. So a typical example would be, let's say I have a file or an object to store or a block of data. Instead of just writing those copies, meaning I'm writing ones and zeros that are the data, it might be encrypted, it might be compressed, doesn't matter, I'm just writing, it's real data. And then I might put a parity bit at the end if it's not a rate array. There's a different way, there's other ways to represent information. And you know, it involves a little bit more math, but math is cheap because the Moore's Law math is, you know, kind of approaching free. So instead of, let's say, so the way a typical dispersal environment would work is I'll take 10 numbers at a time of that data. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take those 10 numbers, I'm gonna do a little linear algebra. And I'm gonna make 16 new numbers that have the property that if I have any 10 of them, I can turn it back into the kind of original numbers. And technically how that happens, if you remember an algebra, if you have three equations and three unknowns, you can solve. Well, what we're really doing with those 10 numbers is we're making 16 equations with 10 variables. And that's what we're storing is the sums of those equations. So I get any 10 of them, I get 10 unknowns. Now that, and if I put each of those equations sums on 16 different servers and I could put them in one, two, four, six, 12, 16 locations, I could create incredible reliability. So for example, I could tolerate the simultaneous value of six things, because I have 16, I only need 10. So I get the reliability kind of like seven copies, but in terms of how much I'm physically storing, I'm not storing seven times what I started with, I'm storing 1.6 times what I start with. And that doesn't include the parity, the rate that I would use in a copy-based system. So you end up, a pretty typical environment, you end up with a million times the reliability with a third or a fourth times the bits. And that's a good trade-off. You mentioned securities, and you mentioned earlier about the storage guys not knowing the bit errors and things of that nature. So we've seen over the past 15, 20 years as a client server has been enrolled into kind of an internet environment. The converges between network guys and developers, app developers, completely different breeds, network guys and things provisioned. In security and storage, we see the same kind of dynamic. As you just mentioned in your example, you have multiple points of stuff being stored, you have more attack points. So a storage guy is optimized storage on paper, but ultimately is exposed security-wise. Talk about the dynamic you're seeing in the collision between security and storage from a people standpoint. Because there's security staffs out there, and there's network staffs, there's storage staffs, and we kind of have to live through the old today's world of network and app, you know, kind of kind of blending together. What's that status of the security storage guys? Are they kind of coming together, or is this still kind of siloed out? You know, it depends certainly upon the organization. What we found is that we're bringing advanced security capabilities to the market. But at the same time, you don't want to present it as something completely new and different. Any organization that cares about security is gonna have certain standards, like they have a certain encryption level or encryption type that they're gonna use or something like that. It's a very difficult conversation to go in there and explain to them why that's a bad idea and how you should do something better. It's a much easier conversation to say, that's a great idea. We're gonna still do that, and we're gonna add to it. And that's how we approach it. So, you know, even though at some level, what we find is the person that drives the purchase of a private storage cloud or even a public storage cloud is the security guys, I'm sorry, the storage guys are the ones that are really doing it, but they have to check in with the security guys. There's compliance and all kinds of other hurdles in the deal. Yeah, so the way you have to address that is you can deliver a lot of benefits to the storage organization, and they're really ultimately, they typically drive the purchase and operate the system. But you have to do it in such a way that when they take that to their security representatives, they can say, it's what you've already established as a standard and more. And that's how we've designed the system and that's how we communicate those benefits. We're here with Chris Gladwin, the CEO of CleverSafe. Chris, tell us, talk about, let's get into the sharing side and wrap this up. What advice would you give CIOs if they came to you and said, hey, Chris, I'm really looking at cloud. Seriously, we've done some toe in the water kind of things, but I really got to expand my storage footprint. We got to have a strategy. I need to get my arms around it, I need a framework. What should I be thinking about? What approaches should I be looking at? Well, the things that you want to look for are you want to have the good things about the system that you have now and more. You don't want to have a situation where you have to give up. So, you know, going back to security, for example, you don't want to have to suddenly relax your security standards. But there's other issues. So, for example, auditability, control, tuneability, manageability, those kinds of things that they're used to in their internal systems. They need to demand those same things because you shouldn't have to step back. You should get the benefits that they have from their own private resources and get more. Flexibility, cost effectiveness, scalability, whatever the kind of cloud elements that are important to them, they should be able to get what they add and more. So, that's what they should ask for. What kind of things would you say to the CIO if I asked you, if I was a CIO and I said, Chris, what kind of benefits should I be seeing from all this new tech, the clever save technology and or other tech around us that we're converging, consumerization of IT, however you want to call it. But I still need to comply and I still need security. What things should that be enabling? What environment? What things in my environment should be enabling and what are those benefits should I be seeing? Well, for the customers that we have now, we always link it to something that's essential to the business. As we grow in the future, we'll have a lot of customers. But for now, we focus on customers where something that clever save can uniquely provide is essential to their business. And that's a pretty intimate relationship with the customer. So, it depends upon the customer. So, in the government environments, security is incredibly important, but resiliency.  That, there are still parts of the government that consider those kind of requirements. So, for them, that ability to tolerate six simultaneous losses or a higher number because you can configure it that way, 10 simultaneous losses will still operate, the confidentiality, integrity, that really drives them. In other markets, it can be, it can translate into something about their business. So, for other customers of ours, what it really means is your bottom line is gonna have three more cents of earnings every quarter. And that's a huge, huge deal for them. So, it really depends. But technology capabilities are the same, but it translates into different things for different customers. We're here with Chris Gladwin, the CEO and president of Cleversafe.  You had a lot of experience as an entrepreneur.  I see you've been to MIT, East Coast. We're here in California. A lot of folks out there developing stuff from MIT. Good tech coming out of these big academic institutions like Stanford, MIT. And cloud is massively growing market. Math is our friend. Math is free, ultimately free with the compute available. What advice would you give those guys that are starting companies? Not like, you know, I wanna build an iPad app. I mean, there are some deep tech going on. And here in CloudAir, we have some startups here in CloudAir Labs and SiliconANGLE Labs developing some tech. What advice would you give them? I mean, on your journey, five years, you took a different approach than some just getting some venture capital. What advice would you share aspiring entrepreneurs or multi-term entrepreneurs? Well, the first thing you gotta look for is a very significant benefit to the customer. It's, customers are not generally going to buy something from someone new and different. It's 20% better. That's not gonna work. And a competitor can respond to 20% better. You gotta find just fundamental, transform their business or transform their life and kind of benefits. So that's the first thing. You gotta have, you can't underestimate the competitors.  I mean, it's gotta be fundamentally better to be the new entrant. So that's the first thing you look for. The second thing, the number one reason most new businesses fail is they don't last long enough. They're usually right, but they're wrong about the timing and they're always wrong on the optimistic side. So you can't believe your own PR just because you're introducing this thing and it's great. It doesn't mean that everyone's ready to buy it and it doesn't mean they're gonna buy it tomorrow. So you also have to look at timing and I like to find businesses where the mega trends are on your side. Like in our case with Cleversafe, if you just look at hard drive storage, which is the bulk of big storage and eventually this will be true of Flash as well. Hard drives on a more logistic basis get slower every year. Eventually it will take a month, two months to read or write a whole hard drive worth of data which makes those systems less and less reliable because if they fail, it'll take a month to rebuild that. That's good for us because we solved that problem.   And so that's just a matter of time. And there's other things that we look for like that where we just know where this is gonna happen. And sometimes the customer is ready to go down so they'll be back in three years. But it's gonna happen. So that's what you look for. How does an entrepreneur handle the timing? Because you're right, I mean I would agree with you. Entrepreneurs are very visionary and they tend to be early. And a lot of the web bubble ideas were dead on. They're just ahead of time. How does an entrepreneur handle that timing issue? Because you said you mentioned in your, you have some scar tissue where you've experienced that in one of your first startups. In this one, maybe take a little different approach. What should an entrepreneur do? How do you keep developing? How do you keep the idea alive? Put it on the shelf, who test marketed? Well, you gotta get at least close. With the wireless tablet thing, I was off by 15 years.  You can be a couple years off, but you gotta be within a couple years. And then you gotta manage it like a business. At the end of the day, what businesses do is they deliver value to customers. And get paid for it. And get paid enough that they can make money. That's what businesses do. And that's never gonna change. So it's okay to have a front-end business model to keep you alive and keep you in the market getting data requirements. Yeah. You okay with that? Yeah, a lot of times what you're doing in the early stages of a startup is you're learning. You're learning how to describe the great thing that you've created. You're learning who should be the person, the type of customer that you should approach. There's a lot of learning that goes on. And you've also gotta be careful to not, there's times when you might think, oh, I gotta really start spending more money on this, this, this, and this. And this whole thing's gotta happen in the next three months. You gotta be careful not to do that too early. When that time comes, you gotta hit it. But you also, if you hit that wrong and you hit that early, it's extremely difficult to recover from. It's easy to recover from a little bit of hesitancy on that.  The question for you, obviously, you've done some really, really good tech and you've written a number of patents, hundreds of patents. The question I always get from entrepreneurs is when do I file a patent? If do I file a patent? Obviously, some of the internet stuff, time makes critical and maybe patents will work or not. Now, what's your view on patents? I mean, you have a lot of them. It's obviously on one end, it's deep tech to protect it, get patentable. When should an entrepreneur know, like, okay, I gotta start filing patents or provisional patents or whatever? It depends. I mean, it's always good to file. I mean, your patent is not arbitrary. I mean, the patent has very defined standards for what's patentable. It has to really be a genuine invention. It has to be usable. It has to be non-obvious, right? Those are the three criteria. So you have to have patentable stuff. It's just, you don't just get a patent because you want it. Not with a degree. So obviously, that's the first qualification. It's gotta be patentable, which is not necessarily an easy standard, because a lot of things, there's a lot of prior art. So that's, I mean, that's legally a minimum requirement. In terms of the, if you have stuff that is patentable, do you file? You generally want to. It has a lot of benefits. It will give you credibility in the market and it'll help validate you to your customers, to press, to potential acquirers, to potential partners, to investors. So it's useful in that sense. You shouldn't expect, as a kind of a new company, that you're gonna collect royalties. Because the time in which that could happen is way down. You're not gonna get the patent for four years. And the idea that you're gonna sue somebody and get money, that's very rare.  Yeah, so it's not so much about, I'm gonna monetize this and I'm just gonna sit there and collect royalties. But it does have value in all those other things. The credibility, the long-tracking investors showing some defensibility. Some of those key requirements of investment in our business.    But if you do, the most likely way will be defensive, is that you'll get sued by somebody else and you'll need it. We're here with Chris Gladwin, the president's CEO, Cleversafe, talking about his business and Cleversafe, the innovative approach with dispersal, talking about lessons for entrepreneurs, CIOs. Final question for you, Chris, is should the arrow forward five years or so? You talked earlier about how we've seen in the 80s the shift and how things changed. What's gonna happen over the next five years in your mindset? That's not so much from a Cleversafe statement, just from a market. What's gonna change? What's gonna be different in five years? What will continue? What might shift? Just speculate a little bit.  So for the past five years, I've thought a lot about cloud storage. So I can talk a lot about that. When you get me outside of that, I get really stale really fast. But in the world of cloud storage, it's gonna take at least five years for the industry to broadly transition. It's, I mean, look, everyone thinks like mobile telephony happened overnight because their experience of adopting mobile telephony happened overnight. One day they got a phone. But that's not how it worked. The time from the first working mobile phone call, wireless phone call, to the first commercial wireless phone call was about 15 years. Took a little while for that to become obvious. It's very obvious now, but it wasn't so obvious in the 70s. The same thing's true. I mean, you get in Silicon Valley and come to the Cleversafe office and it might seem very obvious what's gonna happen in cloud storage. But that doesn't mean every single storage administrator is on the page for next quarter's purchases. So five years is not that much time. And I think five years is really a realistic time of how long it will take for the industry to broadly adopt and deploy cloud storage. Congratulations, thanks for coming on. Chris, really appreciate your very smart and clever and got the credentials and great tech with Cleversafe. Security outside, big focus. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE.com and SiliconANGLE.tv. We're inside the Cuban Palo Alto at the home of Big Data Cloudera where we sublease some space and we have our SiliconANGLE labs. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for looking forward to next time.


During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of visits to the emergency department ED decreased significantly more than during the H1N1 pandemic. This suggests that people were more cautious about visiting the ED during the current pandemic, possibly due to fears of further spreading the virus or concerns over potential lack of resources at the ED. Additionally, the hospital occupancy rate also decreased significantly more than during the H1N1 pandemic, suggesting that people were less likely to stay in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article was authored by Fuad Basis, Hizam Zaidani, Ketem Hussein, and others.


We discussed all facets of it, but what we're talking about is that the thought of those deficits hanging over it is what's keeping the money market, they're keeping the interest up. Because of their reluctance to lend money, fear of possible return to inflation, skin decks. For the first time in, I don't know how many years, it's only down, it is negative. But I think the fact that interest rates came down the other day a little bit, that's it.


Suspense. Tonight suspense brings you as star, Miss Marsha Hunt. But first, an important reminder that wherever hospitality is the last word in luxury, the first name in wines is the R-E-S-T-A, V-L-A-N-C-A, Cresta Blanca, Cresta Blanca. Yes, you'll find Cresta Blanca wines featured in the smartest hotels, exclusive clubs, and discriminating homes. That's because these treasured wines are favored by people who know wine perfection. Let magnificent Cresta Blanca California wines distinguish your hospitality, too, for and enjoy a choice Cresta Blanca selection of Sherry, Port or Muscatel. These Cresta Blanca wine companies live in more California. And now, Shanley brings you Radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense, presented by Roma Wines. That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wines of Fresno, California, and starring Marsha Hunt in Self-Defense, a suspense play produced for Shanley by William Spear. Wonderful vacations. And it couldn't have been pleasanters. I really think it was the fastest divorce I've ever had. It always amuses me to hear you talk about your divorces, Mimi. You discuss them as if they were a hairdressing appointment. Don't look now, darling, but a young man has been staring at you all through lunch. Oh, don't be silly. But I'll tell you he has. Oh, he's coming this way now. Well, just ignore him. I'm sure he won't bother us. I beg your pardon. Hello, Bobby. Why, Fred? Oh, this is a surprise. Why are you staring at you? Oh, why, of course. Oh, Mimi, this is Fred Dexter, Mimi Carlisle. Fred's a very old friend of mine. Hello. How do you do? Do sit down, Fred. Mimi was just telling me about a mysterious man staring at me. Well, I guess I was staring, but I wasn't sure it was you. We were just going to order more coffee. Will you join us? Well, thanks. Thanks. I don't mind if I do. Waitress, three coffees, please. I'm going to make that, too. I really must run. Oh, no, I hope I haven't intruded. Not at all. But I must go. I have to see that wonderful lawyer of mine, and I know you two must have a lot to talk about. Oh, don't bother to get up. Nice to have met you, Mr. Dexter. It's my pleasure, Miss Carlisle. I'll call you during the week, Bobby. Please do, darling. Bye now. Well, Fred, where should we start? I'd like to start where we left off six years ago. You still turn a nice phrase.  Funny that you should feel that way after what happened. Oh, I was hurt deeply at first. Call it pride. Are you happy? Was it really worth it, Bobby? Oh, here's our coffee. Oh, thank you. The usual one lump of sugar? No, but thanks for remembering, and black will be fine. You haven't told me if it was worth it. I have everything I ever wanted. Are you happy with it, Bobby? Please, Fred, let's not talk about it. What are you doing here in Florida? I just got in a few days ago. Business. Sort of a troubleshooting job. Probably be here a few months. Did you come alone? If you mean I'm I married? No, I haven't found a girl rich enough. I guess I deserve that. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that. We're getting late, Fred. It's almost two o'clock. I'm afraid I must be going. It's been wonderful seeing you. Can I see you again? Yes. When? When? I can't say for sure. Oh, how about lunch tomorrow? We'll meet here at one o'clock, huh? Well, you talk me into it. See you then. I must admit it was quite a surprise meeting Fred Dexter. When I left Chicago, he was the one person I never thought I'd see again. But I couldn't decide whether or not I was happy that he was here. At dinner that evening it was like any other night in my marriage. The usual business group was there. Big cigars stuck in their flabby faces. All nodding in unison as Jonathan recited the day's news from Wall Street. I knew the speech by heart. Cotton up three points, sweet up one, steal up two. Tonight it annoyed me more than usual, but I just smiled and remained the perfect hostess. I'm sure it wouldn't have bothered me as much. Had I known then what Jonathan was going to tell me later. I was sitting in my room when he knocked on the door. Come in. It's a delightful dinner, Barbara. You're charming as always. Thank you, Jonathan. I'm glad it pleased you. I have a bit of news for you, my dear. News? Yes. Sure it won't depress you too much, but I must leave on a business trip to South America. Oh, when are you leaving? My plane reservations are for tomorrow morning. Oh, you'll be gone long? Probably two or three months. We're opening a new branch office and naturally I'll have to see that everything is organized and properly launched. I'll cable you when I arrive. If you have a spare moment, I'd like to hear from you. All right, dear Jonathan. Thank you, Barbara. Good night, my dear. Jonathan was right. I wasn't at all depressed that he was leaving. In fact, I could hardly believe it. This would be the first time in five years that we had been separated for more than just a few days. It was a newfound freedom and now I decided I was happy that Fred had arrived in town. The next few weeks passed quickly and I saw Fred regularly, so he had to be careful where we met. It was a complete change for me and it was wonderful to feel alive again. But for Fred, it just meant that he was falling more deeply in love with me. Perhaps it wasn't right to encourage him, but I was enjoying myself thoroughly. One evening, just before Jonathan was to return, Mimi phoned and invited me to a party. It was a typical Mimi Carlisle affair with bright lights and dull people. Bobby, darling, I want you to meet Alex Maynard, that's he playing the piano. Oh, he's a perfect dream. Come, you must meet him this instant. Very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Jonathan Newell, Alex Maynard. Bobby to you, Alex. How do you do? Hello. And now you must excuse me, I'm going to practice my smile on my desk. I'll see you both later. I hope we didn't interrupt your play. You're not. I was just noodling around. Well, don't stop, please. I love Gershwin. Oh, he's my favorite too. You play beautifully. Thanks. It's sort of a hobby, something to do with doll parties. What do you do if there's no piano? I find a beautiful young woman like you. Talk to her. Somebody else would like to play for her. Maybe you're right. I thought it could never happen to me, but it did. The moment I saw Alex Maynard, I knew that for the first time in my life, I was in love. I spent every moment I could with him, but it was still necessary to see Fred occasionally. I lied about why I hadn't been with him much lately because I knew he'd make trouble if he found out about Alex. Everything was going along beautifully and I was so happy. But I knew it would all end the minute Jonathan returned. I couldn't bear the thought of living without Alex. And I decided to explain how I felt to Jonathan in the hope that he'd give me my freedom. It was strange, but I didn't even want any of his money. I only wanted Alex. He knew that Jonathan might not be willing to give me a divorce. The thought kept pressing on my mind. So I began thinking of other ways to get rid of him. I even thought of murder. From the world's greatest reserves of fine wine. High food prices, meatless Tuesdays and eggless Thursdays, puts the American homemaker on her metal to create tempting menus with inexpensive dishes. But millions of women have discovered an easy way to transform the simplest meals into adventures of enjoyment. The secret, at dinnertime, simply serve robust Roma burgundy or delicate Roma sautern. Even the plainest dishes take on new glamour with Roma burgundy or Roma sautern to bring out all hidden flavored goodness. So try this easy recipe for mealtime pleasure. Serve tempting Roma wine. Remember, more Americans enjoy Roma wine than any other wine. That's R-O-M-A, Roma wine. And now Roma wines bring back to our Hollywood soundstage Marsha Hunt as Barbara Newell in self-defense. A play well calculated to keep you in suspense. It wasn't long after I'd met Alex that Jonathan arrived home and immediately surrounded himself with his associates. It seemed that the two of us were never alone long enough to bring up the subject of divorce. And it was beginning to upset me terribly. I was becoming nervous and irritable, and Alex didn't make it any easier for me because he was continually asking about it. It was the first night when I finally got to speak to Jonathan alone. The household help was off for the evening, and Jonathan was in his study going over some papers. I thought he was wrapped up in his business plans, but I must say I was rather surprised he was thinking of me. But after a long silence, he spoke. Barbara, you haven't been yourself since I've come back. You're jumpy and always on edge. Is there something on your mind? Yes, there is, Jonathan. I wanted to tell you about it, but I haven't been able to get you alone. Oh, we're alone now? Jonathan, I want a divorce. You know how I feel about that. But I don't want it because of your money. I swear I won't ask you for a penny. This doesn't sound like you, Barbara. I know it doesn't, but I'm not the same person you left three months ago. You see, I've fallen in love. Come now, my dear, you don't expect me to believe that. It's true. You must believe it. Does he have more money than I? Of course not. Well, then you can't be in love with him, not you, Barbara. Just an infatuation, like a summer romance. I'm sure you'll get over shortly. I'm sure just tired and need a change. Why don't you take a trip? To the Hammers, not so. You will do good. And then when you come back, I'm sure you'll regain your perspective. I don't want a trip. I want a divorce. I thought we had an understanding, my dear, but apparently you've lost sight of it. But we don't love each other, and we never will. Quite aware of that, and I always have been. I'm sorry, my dear, but you can't raise any sympathy from me. You've gotten everything you wanted from this marriage, and I don't owe you a thing. I won't give you a divorce under any circumstances. Good night, Barbara. I knew all the time what Jonathan's answer would be, but I had to ask anyway. The next day I met Alex at our usual place in the park. It was a pretty little spot in a cove just off the lake, hidden from view by a row of hedges. He was charming and attentive as always. I just couldn't tell him that Jonathan had refused to give me a divorce. I needed more time to think and to plan. And my mind kept wandering back to the night before, and I guess I wasn't paying any attention to Alex, because he became a little annoyed. Hey, remember me? I played the piano. Oh, I'm sorry, darling. I guess I was daydreaming. Well, do it on your own time, huh? What, uh, what were you dreaming about? I was just thinking how nice it is being here with you. I wish we could stay here forever. I'd like it, too. How long has it been since we've known each other? Oh, a couple of lifetimes. It does seem a long time, doesn't it? It's funny that when you're in love a few weeks can seem like forever. Are you in love? Uh-huh. Uh, anybody I know? Maybe. A funny-looking fellow, name of Alex. Oh, he's a lucky guy. You know, I wish I knew him. Uh, I'm in love, too. Anybody I know? Maybe. She's the most wonderful woman in the world. Who is she? My landlady. You know you're silly. You know I love you very much. Oh, and I love you, darling. Yeah, that's the way it's always going to be, huh? Have you spoken to your husband about her? No. No, I hadn't had a chance yet. He's been so busy since he came back. I haven't been able to get him alone for a minute. But you must speak to him, darling. How long can we go on like this? Look, I don't want to see you just one or two days a week in the park.  Don't you think I want that, too? Why don't we see him together? Have it out once and for all. I know we can make him understand. Oh, no, Alex. We mustn't do that. If you don't know Jonathan, it's better that we do it my way. Well, I have a share in this, too. It isn't right that you should have to face him alone. Let me go with you. Oh, please, darling, let me take care of it. Just be patient a little longer. I know that Jonathan won't stand in our way. Yes, I knew that Jonathan would no longer be a problem, because now I have the answer. I thought about it for several days and then decided I'd go through with it. It was a desperate plan, but a woman in love will do desperate things. You see, the plan included bread dexter and murder. I meant to see you sooner, Fred, but it's the first chance I've had to get away since my husband returned. Oh, I didn't know he was back. He got back last week. Are things still the same between you? Yes, still the same. I don't love him, and I'm sure he's not in love with me. It would have been different had you married me, Bobby. I know that, Fred, and I've been thinking about it lately. I had a lot of plans for it. It was going to be an ideal marriage. And then you decided that money was more important. I'm sorry because I know I would have made you happy.  Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can correct those mistakes. Would you like to try, Bobby? Oh, Fred, that's what I want more than anything, but it's so difficult. Come here. Come here, sit next to me. Oh, you know how I feel about you.  I can't bear to see you unhappy, darling.  I guess I've always loved you. There's never been anyone else. It's not too late. We'll go to your husband and we'll explain it to him. I'm sure he'll understand. He's got to understand. That won't work, Fred. Have you asked him already? Remember the first day we met in the café? I knew then that I wanted you and that I must get away from my husband. I asked him for a divorce that very night and he refused me. I kept thinking about it all the time he was away, and when he returned, I begged him again. But the answer is still no. He says he will not divorce me under any circumstances. There must be something we can do. He has no right to stand in the way of our happiness. Do you think I want the rest of my life to be as empty as the past six years? I don't know what to say, darling. I don't see how we can possibly get rid of him. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it exactly. We'll get rid of him. Fred, Fred, what are you thinking? Oh, I'm just thinking of you, darling. I want you and I'm going to have you at any cost. Oh, Fred, I love you so much. My darling. It was so easy.  When he kissed me, it made me ill. But I didn't mind, because I knew this would be the last time I'd ever kiss anyone but Alex. My performance was so convincing that I didn't even have to suggest the murder myself. It was all Fred's idea, just as I wanted it to be. It would take place on a Thursday night when the household health would be off. Fred was to be hiding in the shrubbery at the side of the house. He would have the poker from the fireplace in our library. I wasn't worried about it being seen because the house was in an isolated neighborhood. When Jonathan came home at 7.30, as we always did, I was to pretend I had a headache and get him to go to the drugstore for some acid.  Meanwhile, I was to open the library wall safe and disarrange the furniture. We wanted to give the impression that a struggle was taking place. I would then go to the drugstore myself and make a purchase to establish an alibi. When I returned, I would call the police and tell them there had been a robbery while I was out, and that my husband had been murdered. Simple, wasn't it? A nice, neat plan with no loopholes. This was the first time in my marriage to Jonathan Newell that I wanted him to be home on time. It was exactly 10 minutes to 7 on the night we had sex, and the doorbell rang. As I opened the door, I was thinking it was rather nice of Jonathan to be early for his own murder. Bobby! Alex! What are you doing here? Where is he? Where's who? Your husband. I can't stand this anymore. I've got to talk to him. Oh, Alex, you promised you'd leave this to me.  But I haven't seen you all week. How much longer do you think I can wait? Please, darling, this is no time to discuss it. Jonathan will be home any minute, and if he sees you here, it'll ruin any hope we have. Maybe he should see me here. But that's not the way. It won't help. I promise you that after tonight, everything will be all right. Bobby, that's what you said the last time. You've got to believe in me, Alex. Just give me tonight. All right. I guess you're right. It's just that I love you so much. I understand, and I love you. But please, you must go now. He'll be here any minute. Okay, I'll go. Call me in the morning, huh? I will, Alex. Good night. Goodbye, darling. Poor darling thought he was doing the right thing. But actually, he almost spoiled any chance he would ever have for happiness. It's a good thing he left when he did, because just a few minutes later, Jonathan came home. I was sitting in the living room with an ice pack on my head as I heard the door open. Is that you, Jonathan? Yes, Barbara. Well, what's the matter with you? I have a spreading headache. Oh, but we're having dinner with the Vanders tonight. I really don't feel up to it. You go without me and give them my apologies. But Charlie's very important to me. I... Oh, well, if you'd rather... Oh, there is one thing you can do for me, Jonathan. We don't have an aspirin in the house. The servants are all gone. Would you mind going to the drugstore and getting some? No, not at all. I'll go soon as I drive. Would it be too much trouble to go now, Jonathan? Pain is unbearable. It will only take you a minute. All right, if you insist, my lady. Thank you. Soon as Jonathan left, I went to the library and set the fridge. Then I returned to the living room and waited. I suppose I should have felt his sense of guilt, but I didn't. I only felt a warm glow, knowing that I would soon have Alex forever. In a few minutes, Fred opened the back door and dragged the body through the kitchen. He was carrying out the plan perfectly, and I could hear him placing Jonathan in the library. When he finished, he came into the living room with her other servants. Well, it's done. Did everything go all right? I had some trouble unlocking the back gate. It took a little time, but I finally managed it. Did you put the poker in the room with him? Yes. Yes, and it's a very pretty picture. Would you care to see it? I'll take your word for it. You know, Bobby, I've read about things like this, but I never thought I would wind up doing it. Are you sorry? Oh, no. No, it's not that, darling. You know, I'd do anything, anything for you with no regrets. That's the way I feel, Fred. No regrets. I guess... I guess when you do something for the one you love, you're never sorry. I know just what you mean. Well, I... I'd better be getting out of here so that you can get to the drugstore. I'm not going to the store, Fred. Huh? Why not? Did you change the plan? Yes. There's something I didn't tell you. Oh, what is it? This. What? What are you doing with that gun?  Oh, look, Bobby, look, we're both upset and I'm in no mood for jokes. Come on, let's finish what we have to do and just... I'm not joking, Fred.  Bobby, you know what you're saying. This is what you wanted, what we both wanted. Your husband's out of the way. We're free. We can be married. I intend getting married, but not to you. But I thought... Of course that's what you thought because that's what I wanted you to think. I've never loved you. I never could. And why did you lie to me? Because you were interesting for a while. After five years of Jonathan, anybody would have looked good. It just happened to be you. Oh. But then I met someone else. Someone I loved very much. And I realized I needed you more than ever. But for this...  I'm afraid I do, Fred.  You might even go to the police and give us both up because you can't have me. I can't take that chance. You'll never get away with it. I'm sure I will. I figured this out very carefully.  Oh, no. No, I'm afraid I'll have to shoot you in self-defense. You're insane. They'll never believe you. Look, Bobby, look. I'll go away. I'll never tell a soul you'll be clear. I promise I'm... Operator, give me the police. I'd like to report a murder. I knew exactly what I was going to say to the police when they arrived. Yes, for a moment I was very happy and quite pleased with Barbara Newell. Everything had gone smoothly exactly as I had planned it. Except for one thing. I should have looked at the body of my husband. If I had, I might not have been convicted of murder. My scheme would have worked perfectly, but I overlooked a very important point. It happened occurred to me that Fred had never seen my husband, Jonathan, and the man he killed coming out of the house was Alex Maynard. The Spen Self-defense starring Marcia Hunt presented by Roma Wine. That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wine. America's largest selling wine. When you serve your favorite Roma Wine, you enjoy the rich reward of nature's treasure. Selected California grapes. Gently pressed at their peak of goodness. Then with ancient skills and unmatched wine making resources, Roma Master Ventners guide these natural juices unhurriedly to tempting taste perfection. These Roma California wines are placed with other Mellow Roma wines to await later selection from the world's greatest reserves of fine wines for your pleasure. If you are expecting friends this weekend, give everybody a treat. Serve glorious nut-like Roma sherry, fruity Roma port, or Mellow Roma muscatel. Enjoy the better taste that has made Roma Wine America's favorite wine. That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wine. Marcia Hunt may currently be seen in the United Artists film Carnegie Hall. Tonight's suspense play was by Arthur Julian and Howard Lee. Next Thursday, same time, you will hear Dennis O'Keefe called Suspense, produced by William Spear for the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California. This is Truman Bradley with today's reminder from Roma. Your community chest supports supervised children's recreational centers in neighborhoods and youth organizations. These are red feather services needed by every boy and girl. Keep them going. Give now. Give generously to your community chest. In the coming weeks, Suspense will present such stars as Louis Jourdan, June Havoc and others. Make it a point to listen each Thursday to Suspense, radio's outstanding theater of thrills. This is CBS The Columbia Broadcasting System.


Salus, salut bonsoir mon amy jemapè wadamaya kese ke tu vie le achite le komplesoir le moa eek le kon poa le moa le vu Abra le don't ask me what I'm saying I don't know what I'm saying But this week it seems that I've been speaking French Trying to translate French all the time So my French is actually improving Before all, I know was Je suis malade, but now I know Kese ke tu vie achite le moa I'm taking you guys to Congo once again I think this is going to be my last video On the vaccine spreading in Africa Only if the minister don't react to my video again I'm going to learn that a video is circulating In social media And I've seen it myself My message tonight Is to pay attention We need to know what is really happening Yesterday I reacted to the video When you were saying that And today you came out to say that You were misinterpreted And this is what you mean Mon intention En parlant du vaccin COVID-19 N'était pas d'affirmer Que nous allons commencer la vaccination en RDC Sans qu'il soit testé auparavant En Amérique et ailleurs Des essets de vaccination On déjà commencé Dans ces pays Notamment les États-Unis et en Chine Mes et ses Je ne vais pas dire C'est du moa Je suis moi-même congolais Et ne permettrai jamais D'utiliser les congolais comme gobaï Pour l'instant Nous nous focalisons À maîtriser la pandémie du COVID-19 Dans notre pays Le plus important pour le moment Est d'observer Les gestes barrières Et les mesures Pour lutter contre la pandémie Du COVID-19 Ensemble Nous allons vaincre le COVID-19 Let me know what you think I really want to hear from you This is my comment They just accepted the money And the pressure that was coming from people Were just too much So he had to come out And say that Oh, you guys misinterpreted me It doesn't make sense Because from what you've been hearing The country has already accepted 49 million US dollars To fight the vaccine Which is a lot of money, you know I stand to be corrected Because I don't have facts So just let me know what you think And like I said Be an ambassador For your country As a young African Africa belongs to us It's about time We wake up Unite And fight for work


Thank you very much once again and I've been reminded of the time as politicians. I'm not too sure we are time bound because politicians, where they mount platforms, they speak and they continue talking until the people say that chairs on. So probably I have to try and stick to the time over here. I must also commend the organisers. I've been much convinced to attend this particular forum and I must say that for the past two days I have learnt a lot, that I have to go back. So I agree with you that we change the forum to urban therapy, not everybody, because a lot of information that I have received here will really impact back home in Accra. I come from Accra, I'm the mayor of Accra and Accra is a very beautiful place by its own standards. It has got its own issues. I'd like to tell you more about Accra in 1991. This is how the space of Accra looks like. It is about 11 kilometres. By the year 2000, you had some urban areas that sprung up to about 17 kilometres. By 2014, urban sprawl and you have Accra with about 20 kilometres from someone back to Accra and then back and forth. So the city has grown for the past 20 good years in terms of population and then in terms of space as well. The population of Accra grows at around 5.5%, which is more than the national growth rate of about 3.1%. And the density of the population, which used to be in the 1991 traditional area, has also spread. So the density has spread and we are confronted with the issues of density in some other areas as well. The population of Accra is about 2.4 million in the evening, but that's a resident population. Using a 3.1% growth rate nationally, 20-10 population housing census. But during the day, there's an influx of about 2 million people coming into the city. So you'll be talking for about 4.5 million people during the day in the city centre. The city economy is structured formal and informal and you have 26% formal and informal, 74%. If you have a city which you are confronted with an informal economy of about 74%, then you have a challenge. And the challenge is where politicians always term that informal sector as a nuisance economy because there's a difficulty in collecting your rates. There's a difficulty in reaching out to people. And oftentimes, because the formal sector is easy to assess, we much concentrate on that. And that leads us to the big issue of inclusivity. How do we marry these two issues? Because if you have a city that has an informal sector of about 74%, it's extremely important as a leader to pay attention to that sector. 56% of Accra population is made up of young people. We have a very youthful population in Accra. And I could see that 71% of that is economically active. I want to show you some slides about the social economic classification of Accra. And it tells you where the people are living. So Accra Central, which is the central business district of my office, that's what the yellow column represents. And then you have the first class residential area when you come into Accra, the airport area, Continent East Lagoon. These are the first class residential neighborhood. And then you have Old Accra, which is along the beach. And Old Accra, it became old simply because by 1965, when we had a hubble there, it was moved to another town, which is Teman. So it turned to be Old Accra. Once the main state of the economy, which is the hubble, was moved out, that led to the economic downtown of the Old Accra. And then you have Sukura, some informal settlement. And let me also share with you that in Accra, every community that you find, which is high class, there's an adjoining informal settlement. And the connection of the informal settlement to the high class residential area is at the feed-in turret. The high class residential area also needs people from the informal settlements for many jobs to supply them with a couple of things. So there's a connection between the formal and informal settlements as well in Accra. And then we have Old Fadaman. Old Fadaman is very popular. I'm sure those of you who have been very active in the urban issues know about Old Fadaman, which is popularly called also at Sodom and Gomorrah. It's the largest informal settlement that you have with over 100,000 people. But we don't call it Old Fadaman. And then we have the Kale Lagoon, which is the only main water body that cuts across the city center and entered into the sea. These are the two sides of Accra. It's a sharp contrast of beautiful plates and then a truck pusher. But they all live in the city. How do they interface so that we will ensure inclusivity that the people who are living in the high class residential areas will acknowledge the contribution of the people in the informal sector and also the people in the informal sector will also recognize that they have an aspiration to live a better life as well. This is what brings us to the challenge in Accra. And we have the building blocks for me on the building of social capital on the inclusivity. I just want to share with you an experience about Accra, who we are, and Accra, talking about inclusivity, where we live, what work we do, as well as talking about our means of recreation, our level of social and economic security, our level of community engagement, and also how we perceive others in Accra. Who we are as a people. First of all, I want to emphasize on the fact that as a people, we'll appreciate education so much. Because of time, I just want to cite an example on each of the social capital blocks that I have mentioned. Education is compulsory at the basic level, from kindergarten, and it is also for free. But what is the contribution, and that's for the state, but what is the contribution of local government authority? Local government authority also support by making sure that we provide more of the infrastructure and then as well as many other things. Where we live, where we live in the very beautiful city, we try as much as possible to do a lot of landscaping and also to provide, you know, toilets to household, especially in the informal settlements. Because Accra was run as a seven-day city in 2014, and for that matter, and it is because of lack of toilet facilities and as much as possible, government is subsidizing the provision of toilet facilities by 70%. What we do as people, well, we support also the informal setup which is predominantly the density of the economy in Accra. You could see that we have a lot of markets in Accra and the comments in Accra, what is the market in Accra, basically we have all the big markets in Accra and everybody in the country comes to Accra Centre to do business one way or the other. It's a retail market and as well as bug breaking. So everybody comes to Accra to come and do one business or the other. Our means of recreation, sports is one major event that we could use to turn around informal settlement. All our big players, all our big starts in boxing, all of them come from the informal settlement. So promotion of sports in informal settlement is one way of promoting inclusivity and this one is a stadium that we put up and we are using it so much now in Accra. Level of social and economic security, we try as much as possible to make sure that people who are vulnerable are also part of the society and 5% of the assembly's common fund, we have a common fund and we make sure that 5% of it is dedicated to support people who are disabled. On Monday we are providing a lot of things for people who are disabled. They choose what they want to do and then we provide them with the means as well. Level of security and many other things that we try to do. Level of community engagement as part of our responsibility as a city, we engage because it's mandatory that as part of your policy formulation, your budget preparation, you engage a wide range of stakeholders including informal settlements. So you have to engage, it's a law. And we do a lot of cultural events as well to promote arts and culture, which is primarily the responsible, what's the informal settlement also do most of the times in the city centre. I've spoken a lot also about public engagement and I will continue to... Airborne mobility is also very critical. 53% of the people in Accra move by foot and we have to ensure that pedestrianisation is key. 70% of the people that involve in casualties, road crashes, are pedestrians and it is very important that we ensure pedestrian safety and for that matter pedestrianisation is encouraged in Accra so that people can move about freely and so easily. I would like to end by making some few recommendations. One is that I think that research that we do should be very systemic. It should cut across. I've heard a lot of speakers who are talking but the city is where we live and everybody is very active and plays part in the city. So when we are conducting our research it should be very systemic and then as well setting up better systems. It is very unfortunate that in our part of the world and especially in Accra data is missing, especially at the city level. We have macro data but we don't have micro data so at city managers how do you take decision? Your decision has to be driven by data and it's very important that we look at the data and five months ago I have set up a data centre that is also helping us in making sure that we do some of this. Reducing the size and effect of the underground economy. Often times because of the informal sector, 74%, they can't be seen. Many of them cannot be seen and how to reduce the size and effect of the informal economy so that a city authority will be able to tap into some of these resources. Government is introducing tax identification system which everybody if you want to do business you have to get a team number. Government is also introducing what we call a national identification. We have different IDs, either driver's license or whatever we want to make sure that we have national identification which everybody can hold onto so that and then we have introduced digital addressing system that everywhere you are you will be able to generate an address which is about 5.5 meters square meters so you will be able to generate address which is very unique and you will be able to trace them. So these are ways that we are using to be able to reduce the effect of the underground economy and finally we need to also ensure that the coverage and connectivity of economic and social service such as reduction in accidents and number of people established jobs through the assemblies found to vulnerable groups. These are some of the ways that we believe that if there are no steps we will ensure inclusivity in our system. Thank you very much.


Members' statements. The Member for Beaches East York. Thank you, Speaker. This past weekend we opened Patios and built a field hospital in Toronto, and residents of Beaches East York are incredulous and not in a good way. They're fed up with the chaos that this government has created with its refusal to keep them, their families and their children safe. They're tired of cycles of premature openings and lockdowns that leave small business on the edge of bankruptcy, schools in danger of closure, again, jobs and incomes evaporating, evictions and housing precarity, a growing homelessness crisis, a third wave of increasing numbers of variants that cause more severe illness, a healthcare system in danger of overwhelm, a vaccination rollout that is mired in confusion in mayhem and that does not prioritise the most vulnerable communities. And when the most vulnerable among us are not protected, all of us suffer. The four government needs to begin by caring for the communities that have been hardest hit by COVID, communities of black, indigenous, working class, immigrant and people of colour. They need to ensure that people have paid sick days and rent relief so that income lost to COVID doesn't result in arrears and rent debt and that they can't be evicted into housing precarity or homelessness. They need to ensure that people working frontline in any capacity are also given priority access to vaccinations. Care for the most vulnerable among us is ultimately the most cost-effective, the kindest and the most compassionate way to end the lockdown cycle and get the pandemic under control. The chaos needs to be ended and the government needs to act now. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next statement, the Member for Mississauga Mall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, five Ontario airports located on federal land, including Pearson from my riding, makes payment in lieu of property taxes or PILT to their host municipalities. PILT is calculated based on the number of passengers paid two years in lag and capped at 5% increase each year and there is no limit on decreases. Mr. Speaker, COVID has impacted all of us. Here at home, the number of passengers have reduced to 27% of pre-COVID levels as the aviation industry is projected to recover slowly. GTAA is expected to recover in five to seven years. However, due to 5% increase capped, PILT will not return to pre-COVID transfers for another 35 years, resulting in a massive loss of revenue for City of Mississauga for 25 years at this time. It is worth noting, Mr. Speaker, that GTAA is also going through a tough time despite the devastating impact of COVID. It has paid 40 million in 2020 and will be paying 42 million in 2021 and has fulfilled their commitment so far and I thank you for them. In addition, all the airport tenants paid 25 million in 2019 to City on top of PILT. Mr. Speaker, COVID has taught us one thing. When we work together, we can overcome the greatest challenges. Tough times call for tough actions. That is why I support removal of 5% cap and I look forward to cooperation between the government and the GTAA to work together and overcome the challenging time ahead. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much. The next Member's Statement, the Member for Kiwet and Monk. Good morning, Speaker. Today is World Water Day. The theme this year is valuing water. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us again on how important water is to our health. Many of us are lucky. We can wake up in the morning and turn on the tap and have clean water. Across the far northern Ontario, this is not the case. Too many First Nations and Kiwet and Monk live under long-term boil water advisories. We have lived them for so long that they have become normal to us. In the Skandiga, there are now generations of people who have never had access to clean water in their homes. How can this happen in one of the richest countries in the world? There are lots of reasons, but indifference and the lack of political well have brought us to where we are today. And it is also disappointing that the ongoing racism, the ongoing oppression, the ongoing colonialism of governments means that so many live without clean water. And we know that these three things are alive and well today. I know that because I faced it two weeks ago. And we live it on a day-to-day basis. But words are words. Action speaks louder than words. And I hope you will use this day to think about what water means to you and to remember those who don't have clean, tricky water. Miigwech. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Scarborough Aging Court. Good morning, Mr. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Speaker. During these challenging times, there are many positive cooperation stories between the provincial and the federal governments to help our citizens. One such successful initiative is the investing in Canada infrastructure program to stimulate the economy. I was proud to join Premier Ford and many of my provincial and federal colleagues on March 12th to announce the historic 3 million funding to the Armenian Youth Centre under the ICIP's Community Culture and Recreation Stream. This unprecedented cooperation will help Canadian Armenian youth fulfill their potential and contribute to the well-being of our society and province. I am confident that many Scarborough Aging Court residents will benefit from this funding. Similarly, our residents are eagerly waiting for the Bridal Town Community and Medical Hub funding announcement after 12 years of delay. Finally, this project will become reality. I am delighted that my relentless effort on behalf of Scarborough Aging Court residents on these two projects have paid off. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Premier Ford, Ministers Lori Scott, Monty McNaughton, Peter Pettenfoley, Paul Kalandra, Stephen Leche, and MPPs, Rod Phillips, Vincent Ke, Stancio, Christina Maitas. I am confident the similar future cooperation between the two levels of government will be beneficial to Ontarians. Promises made, promises kept. Thank you. Next Member of State and the Member of Thunder Bay. Thank you, Speaker. Today in Thunder Bay, we are in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis. Over the weekend, we saw over 50 new cases diagnosed by our public health unit. We continue to be in the gray zone, and our schools are only virtual, which we know leave many behind. We have outbreaks in retirement homes, long-term care homes, and our hospital. As many predicted, our hospital needed more resources, and we're not able to meet the demands. ICU patients are being sent to Southern Ontario, away from their families, elective surgeries are being cancelled, and vital tests are being cancelled. What we have seen in the last month is a lack of clear, proactive measures from this government, time after time, for jails, for shelters, for schools, and for vaccines. The people of Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario are left waiting. I was happy to hear of more resources and a promise of more vaccines, but we need to do a lot more. We need to declare a COVID-19 hotspot now, with all the resources to end this crisis as quickly as possible. Northwestern Ontario often feels neglected by our provincial government, and this slow and insufficient response by this government has not helped people feel that this situation is under control. Once again, I'm calling on this government to immediately declare Thunder Bay a COVID-19 hotspot, and get us the necessary help and vaccines to get this situation under control, and our sick family members back home. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have the member for Ottawa, Van. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Saturday, Francophones from all over the world celebrated the Francophone World Day, and this week we continue to celebrate the French language and the diversity of the French language. Every March is an important time to think about our history of resilience and success, but we also think about all the work that we have to do to make sure that Francophones can contribute to the prosperity of the province. This inclusion starts in our school, but today the lack of French teachers is undermining our efforts. Francophones and French Ontarians are not able to have access to justice when the services are only offered in English, and this leads them to vulnerable situations. So, yes, it's a week of celebration, but as Francophones Ontarians, we live every day facing challenges. Ontario is home to the largest Francophone population in Canada, so the government needs to implement strategies so that we can contribute to the prosperity of Ontario. Thank you. The next member's statement, the member for Willowdale. Thank you very much, Speaker, and good morning. This past Saturday, Iranian-Canadian celebrated the 3,000-year-old tradition of Nourouz, Persian New Year. Nourouz celebrates the day of vernal equinox and marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, as the sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes day and night, fact of the day. Families gather to celebrate the New Year with ancient rituals. Celebrations usually include Charchon Asuri, a prelude to the New Year celebrated on the Wednesday before Nourouz, and is marked by jumping over bonfires and fireworks. Pre-pandemic, Speaker, I enjoyed attending many of these events and celebrating Charchon Asuri with my Persian friends and neighbours at Malasman Square in my riding of Willowdale. And this year, I certainly missed the singing, amazing food, the fire jumping, and my terrible dancing, as we ushered in New Year at what would have been the 16th annual Iranian Fire Festival. Willowdale is home to many Iranian-Canadians, as well as the neighbourhood often referred to as Little Tehran or Persian Plaza, a great place to enjoy traditional Persian cuisine, pick up exciting ingredients from stores like Horok supermarket or shop for stunning jewelry and handcrafted gifts. This Saturday, of course, was a Nourouz like no other, but I still enjoyed ordering some takeout sabzi polomahi and celebrating the New Year by Zoom with my Persian friends and neighbours. To everyone who celebrated in Willowdale and around the world, Nourouz Itan Pirous. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next Member statement, the Member for Sudbury. Thank you, Speaker. I want to share a poem from a Sudbury edful member. It's called 100 Days. The Member says, We've recently celebrated 100th day of school in my classroom, and while students were quick to pick up many new routines, more than 100 days have gone by without proper ventilation in these classrooms. 100 days have opened windows. 100 days. 100 days of trying to be safe with proper paper handling routines. 100 days of students eating lunch barely one metre apart. 100 days of being in the classroom while students eat a morning snack. You can't eat with a mask on. 100 days of no one caring that the Ministry of Health guidelines tells us to maintain a distance of two metres. 100 days of repeatedly telling the same students to pull their mask up over their nose. 100 days of trying to maintain a safe distance but needing to get within a foot of a student just to hear their shy, soft voice under their mask. 100 days of tending boo-boos or teeth falling out while trying to be safe. 100 days. 100 days of multiple squirts of sanitizer, the same sanitizer that's drip, drip, dripping onto one of the heaters in the school and wearing away layers of paint. 100 days of fogged up glasses. 100 days of sweating under a mask and a face shield. 100 days. 100 days of hearing from the Ministry of Education that teachers were all trained to teach remotely. 100 days of teaching a vague new math curriculum without any training. 100 days of hearing about no transmission in schools. 100 days of not listening to the people who work in the schools. 100 days of stress and anxiety of tears of sleepless nights of worrying about my own health and that of my family. 100 days of teaching and caring for my students. 100 days of disappointment. Thank you. Thank you. Member Stevens, the member for Whitby. Well, thank you, Speaker. I'm pleased to share that our government is providing $7.1 million to Durham College and $4.8 million to Ontario Tech University to help them address the financial impacts of COVID-19. Now, Speaker, this investment will support their sustainability and ensure Durham region students continue to get the skills and education they need for the in-demand jobs of today and tomorrow. Speaker, the post-secondary sector is critical, absolutely critical to the region of Durham's prosperity as a key source of job creation, skills training, research, innovation, and commercialization. We need to make sure, Speaker, that students continue to receive high-quality post-secondary education and get the skills they need to get good jobs. That's why we're establishing a fund for severely impacted colleges and universities to help address the financial impacts of COVID-19 and to maintain Ontario's position as a global leader in higher education. And the next member's statement? The member for Oakville. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As always, it's an honor to be able to speak here in the legislature, and this morning I have the pleasure to speak about a couple of upcoming charity events here in my writing of Oakville. In every part of Ontario are not-for-profit organizations and charities have been hit hard by COVID. And charities have had to pivot to new virtual events in order to fundraise. The Oakville Hospital Foundation is bringing one-of-a-kind virtual adventure around the world. Oakville's own The Expedition is filled with fun, impact, and delicious food and drinks from the comfort of your own home. The adventure begins with a three-course dinner for two provided by Oliver and Bonacini and led by a professional chef. Funds raised, most importantly, will be supporting the cancer care program at the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. This will help support those living with cancer. Your neighbours, your friends, your loved ones will need to look no further than their own backyard for access to world-class community health care. With one in two Canadians expected to develop cancer during their lifetime, the Hospital Foundation was committed to growing the cancer care program to ensure more patients will receive the care they need close to home. Another important organization in the community is the Lighthouse for Grieving Children. It's a community fundraising event and donations in order to offer grief support services for grieving children. A virtual event on April 30th with world-famous tenor John McDermott will be taking place, and I encourage everybody to participate. These are just two great examples of charitable organizations pivoting and working hard through the pandemic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. That concludes our Member's statements for this morning. Before I invite oral questions, Member for Humber River Black Creek has a point of order. Thank you, Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to immediately pass Private Members' Motion 135, calling on the Ford Government to implement a COVID-19 equity strategy for racialized communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic and ensure that essential workers in hard-hit communities like Northwest Toronto, Scarborough and Peel have equal access to the vaccine. I direct the Senate with seeking unanimous consent of the House to immediately pass Private Members' Motion 135, calling on the Government to implement a COVID-19 equity strategy for racialized communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Agreed? Agreed. I heard a no.


The World Health Organization's WHO draft guidance on conflicts of interest in national nutrition programs has been criticized for failing to adequately address potential conflicts of interest between governments and private sector organizations. In particular, the guidance fails to take into account the framework of engagement with non-state actors, FUNSA, which requires who to ensure it that any engagement with non-state actors does not compromise its integrity or independence. Furthermore, the guidance also fails to recognize the potential for corporations to use conflicts of interest as a means of increasing their influence over government policy decisions. Finally, the guidance suggests that countries should be able to accept donations from non-state actors even if there is a conflict of interest, which could lead to corruption and undermine the integrity of the WHO. This article was authored by Marke Rodwin.