All right. Well, thank you all for joining us for the no war machine webinar in support of the divest from the war machine campaign. We are super excited and grateful to be connected to all of you. My name is Haley. I am a campaign coordinator with code pink and just Do very quickly go over some logistics for the webinar. We are going to open up space to take some questions later on in the webinar. And so you can send us those questions throughout the session using the chat box that you'll see on the bottom of your screen and anyone joining by phone and Not to be their computer. Can email me questions throughout the webinar to Haley at code pink.org. So that's spelled H a L E y at code pink.org. So again, very excited to be connected to all of you and looking forward to giving you a lot of information on the campaign. And also some next steps and how to get these campaigns going in your communities. So now I'll pass it on to Christie. Hey, everyone. This is Christie. I am a campaign consultant with code pink. My background is in the environmental and climate justice movements. In corporate campaigning and direct action. So I am super excited to be here with you today. And and to be connected with this movement. So I feel really honored to be a part of this. Um, for those of you who are brand new to code pink. I'm not sure though that many of you. But if you're brand new to code pink. Don't know what code pink is Code pink is a women led grassroots organization that is working to end US wars and militarism support peace in human rights and redirect Um, not only our tax dollars, but all of our dollars away from what we not so lovingly call the war machine and into life affirming programs like healthcare, education, green jobs. And so that's really that last bit. Is it really the crux of what we're going to be talking about today. Um, but again, code pink is this really amazing organization that was founded in the fall of 2002 as a grassroots effort to oppose the war in Iraq and they'll lead up to that war. Um, continuing to organize for justice for Iraq is holding work criminals accountable opposing continued wars in Afghanistan in Iraq. Against torture for the closure of Guantanamo. There are just so many amazing programs that code pink has has worked towards over the years and and really code pink is is rooted in this network of local organizers and local organizations connected with online supporters. And and really emphasizing the beauty of direct action, including satire street theater, creative visuals, civil disobedience and and is really known for its bold direct action challenging power holders and of course wearing pink. And, and again, this is really this spirit is really what we're hoping to infuse our latest campaign, this divestment campaign with not just wearing pink but this this commitment to holding power holders accountable, this commitment to bold direct action creative visuals, and again really rooted in local campaigns, supporting local organizations. So that's a little bit about code pink, I've kind of teased a little bit now what this divestment campaign is going to be all about. So at this point, I will hand it back to Haley. All right. So today we're going to start by providing a bit of background on the campaign in general. Also in October we hosted a divest from the War Machine Summit in Washington DC to mark the launch of the campaign. So we're going to recap that event for those of you who weren't able to attend, or who maybe who haven't seen the videos online yet. We are also going to introduce you to a series of organizing resources that we're launching today. And then Christy will be providing a training on choosing a focal point for your own campaign, then after we'll open up space questions and talk about the next steps. So code pink and really the anti war movement more generally have long work to get our nation to stop buying war so push this message of don't buy war and to really try to get the profit motive out of war. So is directed these efforts to Congress and the White House. And as we are seeing almost on a daily basis, Congress and the White House are indifferent to the needs of the people in the planet. And Democrats and Republicans alike keep channeling more and more money into war and militarism and really embracing a policy of militarized belligerence. We're taking on this campaign to really take a stand and oppose the war economy. So this political economic system dependent on continued warfare. And at the roots of that war economy are the weapons companies that as we say are making a killing on killing. So for instance in 2016 741.3 billion dollars went into the war machine and 304 billion dollars went directly to corporations so almost half of that number. Also, the same amount that went directly to corporations fueling the war machine could put every unemployed person to work in the United States in infrastructure. So we're really coming at this campaign knowing that there is a desperate need to move away from a war economy that is extractive and oppressive and violent and to really move toward a peace economy that's based on sharing, caring community and also resilience. So while this is a campaign about the movement of money, the ultimate goal of this campaign is for it to be a tool to really build an anti-war movement that is powerful enough to get this Teflon Congress to end wars and stop fueling the global arms trade. So knowing that effective activism happens locally and it happens relationally, we asked how do we bring the cost of war home, how do we really bring the reality of war home and into our communities. So there are so many stories to tell and so many truths to expose. And when we do they tend to create a sense of overwhelm and sort of make people feel futile in the face of the war machine. So this campaign is about creating a pathway to action that lets us channel our action and channel our despair really into direct action. So we're working on creating the tools to begin to build power and to bring these bring our communities into this fight. And at its core divest from the war machine is a divestment campaign. Divestment means removing invested assets or pulling stocks from a particular set of companies or from an industry. And this campaign is urging individual investors and financial institutions to divest from weapons companies and their top funders and divestment is a tool that anyone can use. We don't have to be a millionaire or billionaire with a massive investment portfolio, or the fund manager of a massive university endowment, we all really do have power here, and all of our interests are represented by different financial institutions and we'll dive into that later. And really at its base, it just doesn't make sense to hold stock in weapons companies, while understanding the global and domestic consequences of endless wars and the spread of militarism. So if we help to lead this national divestment campaign focused on the stigmatization of these war profiteers and weakening their political capital, we can really build the momentum of a peace economy. We can reignite the anti war movement as a powerful force in the United States, and reclaim our institutions from the war machine. And as of now we are focusing on what we call the big five. So these are the top five US based arms producers, and these are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics. These are the top five weapons manufacturing companies both in terms of their, their dominance of the global arms trade, as well as in that they are the top recipients of contracts from the Pentagon. And each of these five companies has annual sales of tens of billions of dollars. All of their CEOs earned a combined total of about $100 million in 2016. So looking at this year 2016 Lockheed Martin CEO made $20 million and the CEOs of Raytheon and Boeing made around $14 million.  The number of displaced people globally, many displaced by wars and the war economy rose to 65 million people. And research now shows that 90% of deaths resulting from global violent conflicts are civilians and mostly women and children. So that these two realities exist, one of endless profits for military corporations and one of endless suffering for the victims of the war machine is horrendous. But we are using divestment as a strategy because it really enables us to channel our anger and channel our grief and our sense of overwhelm into direct action in our local communities. So we're building campaigns in city halls in mayor's offices on university campuses in partnerships with major foundations and more. And this campaign is truly needed at this moment because military corporations are thriving and the US war machine really shows a no sign of subsiding anytime soon. So as we remain engaged in seven active conflicts and as we inch closer to war with North Korea and Iran, military and aerospace companies are seeing their stocks soar and have seen their stocks rise 40% overall since Trump took office a year ago. So many of our churches and universities and cities and so on are supporting this and often unaware that they're supporting the war machine. And this campaign really gives us and our communities power to take a stand to expose these truths and also to cut our cultural ties to war by way of cutting our financial ties to war. So we can't wait to work with you to stop ourselves and our nation's institutions from again making a killing on killing and to tell us a little bit more about how we're going to do that. I'm going to pass it on over to Christie. Great. So as Haley mentioned, this campaign is not about asking Congress or the president or national power holders to act. This campaign is really about us reclaiming and building people power in our communities in order to divest these funds away from war and away from killing and towards these life affirming programs in our communities. So with this campaign, what this looks like is you all as code pinkers as folks scattered around the country and potentially even internationally. This looks like you all starting campaigns. So we've identified a handful of ways that this can happen. One of the ways is by getting cities and mayors to take pledges to divest city funds away from war machine profiteers weapons manufacturers and the like. This happens on the city level. This could happen on the pension level with unions and with city employees. This happens with students at universities getting schools and universities to divest from the war machine within religious institutions. We know that churches and other religious institutions are often. Most ironically, still invested in so many of these companies that are making a killing from killing. So these are just a handful of examples of places where the war machine kind of touches down in our daily lives. So through divestment we are again no longer going to power holders and asking for permission or asking them to act. Rather we are reclaiming our power as citizens and as participants in these various institutions that I've mentioned and and getting our institutions to divest and through this kind of collective action. We could actually leverage a lot more money away from these companies. Then a single bill might be able to and certainly with the Congress we have and with the president we have. Asking those institutions for for help is is no longer really a viable option as we see it and our option really is to rely on ourselves and to build this people power to divest from the war machine. So again this looks like you all starting campaigns on the local level in the way that makes the most sense for you all. Local groups picking targets and taking action. Code pink as an organization is taking on one of the big five. As Haley mentioned, there are these five biggest companies code pink has selected Lockheed Martin as its organizational target. But again, there may be a different company in your local community or it may make the most sense for you to take on your city or your school or a socially responsible investment company that you have ties with and really work on those levels. So divest divestment campaigns are really this incredible buffet of options where you can really pick and choose what ingredients make the most sense for you and your group. And we as code pink are taking on again taking on Lockheed Martin for its role as one of the biggest companies making a killing on killing. And it's the company that makes the most sense organizationally for us to take on. But there are a lot of other options and a lot of other ways to plug in. And really with this campaign one of our biggest goals is to do as much coaching to offer as many resources and to provide as much support to you and your local campaigns as we can. So as Haley mentioned, I'm going to be doing a little bit of a training later on in this training on target selection and how to pick a target that makes the most sense for you all. And we're going to be doing more trainings in the new year. There's going to be another webinar in January where I'll be doing a training on how to create a creative action in your community on on this divestment campaign. And we also have a whole bunch of resources that Haley and I are going to be talking about later that are going to be available to download online so that you can take those back to your group. And and use those as tools to really get your campaign started. And I actually see a question here in the chat about whether this webinar will be available to view online later to share with other other folks and the answer is yes. So these webinars will be recorded so that you can share them later with your groups. Even if you just wanted to watch like a short portion of the webinar that will also be available but really one of the goals that we've set out for ourselves is to create as much support for your local campaigns as we can. So if there are resources that your group could use if there is coaching or support that your group needs. Please let I think it's best for you to email Haley at this point but let us know how we can support you and what resources would be useful. Because divestment is an incredible strategy but it's a really big strategy which means that it really takes all of us in order to make a dent in these companies. So as best we can support you that's what we're here for. I kind of get you excited in addition to this webinar that we'll be hosting in in January on creative action. We're also going to be doing a week of action at the end of January or early February. We'll be hosting a week of action where groups can start taking action against these targets in their communities and start calling out some of these companies that are profiting from killing. I'm talking a little bit more about how to plug in with that week of action later on but I definitely want to make a plug now to invite you to think about what that might look like for your group. And as you as we go through the target selection training later on to be kind of viewing that through the lens of what could this action. Whether it's a day of action in your community or in some way participating in this week of action what that might look like for you and your group. So get excited because it's going to be big and super fun and awesome. And Haley I think you're up. Great. So we have an absolutely amazing coalition it's taking on this campaign with us it's currently comprised of I think the number actually just rose to 68 supporting organizations all around the country. We also include think tanks like the Institute for Policy Studies, also legal organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights. We also have many other anti war groups involved like the Black Alliance for peace, peace action and beyond nuclear. We are also working closely with other weapons divestment efforts. So namely don't bank on the bomb, which is a project of packs in the Netherlands. Also in support of I can which is the organization winning the Nobel Peace Prize this weekend and don't bank on the bomb is an international campaign focused on divestment from nuclear weapons producers and their funders. We have also all produced nuclear so they're on the same list, and their work has been really important to our own and we're plugging in on some city level work with them. So we're also partnered with some student groups like American University NAACP and Cal Poly students for quality education who will be using this campaign to take on their universities endowment funds and also in a more general educating students about the influence of military contractors on their campuses. And we are also connected to many faith organizations, including Christian peacemaker teams and Dorothy Day Catholic worker. We also have some coalition partners who are going to help us develop strategies very unique to our own campaign. So for instance we have war tax resistors that are going to help us develop a plan to divest our taxes from the war machine. Also we are partnered with the National Network opposing the militarization of our youth and they oppose recruitment in high schools. And so we're going to work with them to develop ways to divest the bodies of our youth from the war machine. So it's a super strong powerful coalition behind this campaign and it's really only going to get stronger and more powerful as we really get these local campaigns going. And so now I'm going to go over the divest from the war machine summit which we held October 21 and 22 in Washington DC. So we brought together historians voices from the government and military as well as experienced divestment advocates to really frame the war machine that we're dealing with. And to examine the power of divestment to make lasting change and take on powerful well established industries or global issues. So we heard from a number of foreign policy experts, for instance William Hartung he is from the Center for international policy. And he spoke to us about how this campaign needs to expose weapons companies as the merchants of death that they truly are. And he gave the example of Lockheed Martin. And in all of their press releases they call themselves a high technology company, but in reality they received 92% of their revenue from war and military services. And so don't want the public knowing or thinking about the fact that the high technology that they are producing is missiles and fighter jets and tanks and other tools of warfare. We also heard from Jean Mubarak, the founder of Black Alliance for Peace, and Vijay Prashad, a prominent historian and journalist. And both really told us that this campaign must cut both our financial and cultural ties to war, and that the politics and the history of the war machine as a tool to expand US corporate interests and really assert US global hegemony needs to be at the forefront of this campaign. We also heard from Larry Wilkerson, who you see pictured here on the screen. He was the chief of staff under Colin Powell, and he's now really a leading voice in the anti-war movement and calling for a reeling in of this unrestrained war machine. And he said at the summit, how did we get here? How did we get to this point where you have a man who has fought in three wars, who's been in the military, served nine presidents, seven of them in uniform, and I'm telling you the country is in grave, grave peril. Essentially, if we don't reduce our military and become an equal among equals. He also said that the nation faces a truly profound moment where it must decide whether to continue as an empire and collapse, or to scale down into a lesser power. And he really highlighted that amidst this state of absolute chaos, the country is in dire need of a long term focused anti-war movement like the divest from the war machine campaign. We also heard from Titans of fellow divestment movements. So we learned from Lisa Renstrom, she's from Divest Invest, and they've been a large supporter of the fossil fuel divestment movement. And she taught us that the biggest hurdle for divestment campaigns is that most people don't think of themselves as investors. But if you have a 401k, you're an investor.  If you live in a city, you're an investor. So people really have to relate to this idea of divestment and understand that it's an accessible tool for anyone and that anyone has power here, everyone has power here. And we have to really get past this hurdle of people only seeing others as investors. So we also heard from Garrick Ruiz, he is from the Boycott Divestment and Sanction National Committee. So targeting corporations profiting from them. So this is something that we need all of your help on as you build your own campaigns. So connecting with other divestment movements that are going on in your communities. There's some really beautiful, powerful divestment work happening in this country. So try to build coalition with groups working in your area that are calling for divestment from private prisons, from pipeline projects, fossil fuel companies, companies profiting from the occupation of Palestine and the list goes on. So we have a really amazing opportunity to plug in and really build movements here. And last, we also heard from Susie Snyder, who is from the Don't Bank on the Bomb campaign that I mentioned earlier. And she summarized the strategy of divestment for us by saying divestment is a long term commitment, but you can have really powerful short term wins and winning is fun. So we are super excited to start getting some of those wins with all of you both short and long term wins. And in order to achieve those wins, we are rolling out a series of organizing resources to help you get your campaigns going. So what we are launching is a general campaign guide, campaign guide for city level campaigns, one for university level organizing. And then we're also equipping you with a draft city council resolution and a mayoral pledge. So I'm going to let Christie hop on and start talking about some of those guides and we'll get them pulled up so that you can see what you're working with. Great. So as Haley mentioned, the first guide that we're creating is this general campaign guide. And so this is useful as a kickoff for any divestment campaign. It is a good job of sort of laying out what a divestment campaign looks like, what the overall components of what any campaign should look like and is a useful way of starting to approach a divestment campaign, whether it's a foundation, businesses, individual investment and includes information on how to request information and an overview of investments from any kind of financial institution who you would need to talk to, how you get in touch with people in positions of power at a financial institution, as well as some strategies and tactics on how and when to raise the profile and publicity of your campaign if you aren't getting what you want. It touches a little bit on individual divestment, but really offers also a lot of responses to common misconceptions about not only the global arms trade, but divestment and and all of the kind of informational pieces you'll need when you're approaching a campaign to target weapons companies. So this is really like the kind of big picture overview campaign guide that would I think really be useful for any group and we've written it for a fairly general audience. So no matter who you are you'll probably get something out of that guide. Right and the ultimate goal of all of these campaign guides is to answer the question of just sort of where do I start. Another very important thing to note about divestment is it's always a process of learning as you go. So these are a launching point for all of our campaigns and as we all go on and these campaigns take shape, let us know what gaps there still are, and we are here to fill those gaps and as Christy said really develop tools and resources that you may need. So next is this guide for city officials and activists taking on city level campaigns. So options are to propose an ordinance which changes city law and so that's a bit more legally binding and would put legal restrictions on what a city could invest in, or you can do a city council resolution, which are more symbolic but are also binding. And what's important to note about city level campaigning is that assets in state and local governments totaled to roughly $3.7 trillion in 2016 and in 2013, which is the year that the most recent data is available. So cities earned $215.4 billion more than they spent, and most of those profits came from returns on investments. So while not all city funds are invested in weapons manufacturers, it is, you can assume that some are. The portion of these funds that are invested in the arms trade would make a massively significant impact if divested from the arms industry. So, like I said earlier, we're also equipping you with a city council resolution to get these sorts of campaigns going. Great. So the next resource that we've put together is really aimed at students, teachers, alumni.  If you are an alum of a university, you're an investor because universities often rely on alumni donations. So this next guide that we've put together is very much inspired by the fossil fuel divestment movement. There's been a really incredible amount of student activism around fossil fuel divestment in the last few years. And so this guide teaches activists how to examine the university endowment funds, how to build support on campus, how and when to ramp up the energy of the campaign, some good responses if you're getting a no or a negative response from university officials. And then just to underscore again that the onus is really on these institutions, particularly universities to create policies around divestment from weapons companies. And I think that it is safe to assume that unless there is a plan or a policy in place that whatever institution you're working with is invested in these companies. Assume that unless there is a plan or a policy that that your institution is invested and operate from that place. The next, the next resource we have is a sample pledge for mayors to commit to work with their city councils to divest city funds. Again, this is more of a symbolic kind of pledge, but is a useful tool, nonetheless, and could provide a good, a good set of talking points when you're talking to power holders and asking them to take a first step of signing a pledge is a great place to start. So these materials are really just a base for you to work off of as we as we move forward in the campaign, we're going to be creating even more resources. So again, letting us know what would be helpful. And we are always excited to coach people in creating and carrying out these campaigns. We're really here as a resource for you all because as I mentioned code pink is super grassroots, we're really dependent on local organizing. And so we're really here to support you because that's what this campaign is all about. So, don't be a stranger. Haley, was there anything else you wanted to add on the resource piece before I move into points of intervention. No, I don't think so. Just let us know what you need from us. I'm excited to hear your responses as you dive into all of them. And yeah, thumbs it up. Great. And maybe you can pull up the slides again. Amazing. Okay. So, to give credit where credit is due. This framework is was created by a friend of mine named Patrick Rainsboro he's the creator and founder of an organization now called the Center for story based strategy. And all of these materials are available online at their website. It's all open source. So I just want to say, like, big ups to Patrick and Center for story based strategy for creating all these awesome materials. So, um, and as I was saying to Haley when we were on the phone earlier, this training could be theoretically like a couple of hours long. I'm giving you the really like quick and dirty version of this. And again, if you want to dive deeper there are places online where you can like really nerd out on this stuff. But one of the first and perhaps most important steps in a campaign is deciding on the target points of intervention, which is the name that Patrick gave to this framework. There are specific places both literal and metaphorical in a system of power, where a targeted action can really interrupt the functioning of that system and interrupt the flow of business as usual. And so by understanding these different points. And by I think within the investment campaign really utilizing opportunities for action at each of these different points. So we have the ability to develop and implement a strategy that that identifies and puts pressure on the best places to intervene in order to have a huge impact. So that's kind of the beauty again of divestment as a strategy is that we can take action on all of these different points of intervention in order to amplify our collective impact. So social movements have traditionally intervened by taking direct action at physical points in the systems that shape our lives. With the spread of effective labor organizing and increasing power of media. Conceptual points of intervention have also become increasingly important. So we'll talk about both literal targets and kind of metaphorical targets. But truly effective intervention goes beyond simply disrupting a system to pose a deeper challenge. By challenging these underlying assumptions and basic legitimacy which again is really what we're getting out this this divestment campaign is challenging the legitimacy of these corporations that are making a killing from killing. And so this holds true whether the intervention targets a physical system like a sweatshop or a weapons manufacturing facility or targets an ideological system like war mongering and like police brutality or the war on terror. Can you see my quotation marks in my screen. So as we move into next slide my dear. So the five types of points of intervention are points of production. So for instance, like I said a weapons factory points of destruction like our streets police departments military facilities. Points of consumption. So within divestment that might be a retail banking location. Points of decision. This might be city hall a university administration the decision makers within your religious institution. Whoever's making the decisions about where this money is going to flow. And then finally points of assumption. So this might be around a foundational narrative. I really mentioned these companies love to position themselves as high tech companies or as job creators. So challenging that narrative, or a place of symbolic importance within the media within public space. So companies rely on these underlying narratives staying unchallenged.  And so we have the ability to challenge them everywhere because they are everywhere. So action at the point of production. This is probably what we all think of when we think of labor organizing but challenging the point of production is when workers or citizens organized to target the economic system where it directly affects them. And where that system is perhaps most vulnerable. So strikes picket lines work slowdowns factory takeovers even demonstrations at these facilities. These are all examples of action at a point of production. Point of destruction. A point of destruction action. I think these are made popular by my movement home which is the environmental justice climate justice movements. Point of destruction is where the is the place at which the harm or the injustice is actually occurring. So this is could be a place where the resources are being extracted like a strip mine, or where waste from a point of production is being dumped like a landfill. The design, the point of destruction is almost always far away from public attention. So for instance, we probably won't be doing a whole lot of point of destruction actions within this campaign because these wars are all happening really far from home. The exception being the wars in our streets and the places where these weapons are making their ways into our daily lives in communities. Which is why I mentioned police stations police departments in our streets around weaponized police and police brutality. So these these points of destruction also tend to disproportionately impact already marginalized communities and intervention at these points of destruction might halt an active destruction within the moment, but often calls attention on a larger level to that destruction. So point of consumption. This would be made popular by shopping mall actions Black Friday actions with we've seen within the movement for black lives within the last few years. But point of consumption actions are in the traditional arena of consumer boycotts storefront demonstrations. Where we're linking a location of interaction with a product or service that's linked to injustice. So again, this is why I mentioned retail banking locations your local Bank of America branch. The offices of socially responsible investment companies. These are often the most visible point of intervention for targeting commercial entities. And they're also really good way of getting the attention of corporations getting the attention of everyday consumers when particularly when government officials aren't listening. So we're going to the companies directly and we're going to the place where they exist in the public realm most directly. So the point of decision is where the power to act on a campaign's demands rests on power holders or decision makers. This is often one of the most self evident points of intervention and often one of the most targeted. So whether it's the office of a slumlord or the office of your university provost. There are the places where decision makers work and are doing their decision making are probably going to be the most obvious points of intervention on this campaign. It's also one of the most famous mobilizations of all time the 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle is a great example of a point of decision action where activists were targeting a summit meeting for a huge range of injustices. And and this is one of the most direct ways to put pressure on key decision makers. So finally, the point of assumption assumptions are really the building blocks of political belief systems and of the the culture that surrounds these issues particularly around militarization particularly around companies that are making a killing again. We're challenging their legitimacy we're challenging the implicit permission we've given them to exist in the political and public realm. Kind of on a free pass. Because this is our daily lives and we've kind of given these companies a hall pass to operate and to push whatever narratives they want without being challenged. So when we challenge basic assumptions we can expose these companies as being contrary to people's lived experience core values, and we can shift entire belief systems, because again as Haley mentioned, you know, we can't count right now on a president and a Congress that's willing to act on our behalf, we're really taking this power back, and reclaiming it and on our own behalf. So, point of assumption actions can be really effective at shifting the discourse around an issue and opening up new political space and new discussion around potential and reframing and reframing an issue amplifying the voices of previously silenced characters within the story that we're telling, as well as offering up an alternate vision for what we see. So that's where the alternate vision of investment in life affirming policies and program programs comes into play where we can really articulate what our vision is for not just divestment but reinvestment in healthcare education infrastructure that is life affirming and that can be enjoyed by all citizens. So, flipping the slide there. Turning creative action into real change is really what this is all about and it requires careful strategizing. And I hope we've talked a lot about so far on this webinar because I really believe in it. Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. So when it comes to divestment from the war machine, there are these points of intervention everywhere, because the war machine permeates so much of our daily lives. So when we identify these different possible points to target, we're taking a really important first step in designing actions that connect to this larger campaign and and going a long way towards meeting some of these goals around social change. So I've just talked a lot, and I want to make sure that we have time for questions. I see one question around wanting to know our emails contact information and the URL for where we're going to see the webinar. Really, is that something that you can just send out to all the participants after we wrap up? Absolutely. Awesome. We'll be sending a follow up email with a link to the recorded webinar. We'll put it up on that resources page because as we continue to do this series of webinar trainings, we are going to have them all accessible on the resources page. And then like you saw earlier, we have the new divest from war machine website up and running. And so there's a new email attached to that. So I'll send all of this in an email after the webinar. And there was also a question about where folks can access the resource guides. And so that'll be in the same email so that you'll be able to download all of these resources to your hearts content. There's a lot of just to plug the new website. Once more, it is divest from war machine.org so divest from war machine.org. So this campaign while code pink is happy to anchor it and provide resources for the campaign. This is really a standalone campaign that we want everyone to feel like they have ownership of. So really it's, it's yours. It's yours to take. And I'm going to put that URL in the chat right now. divest from war machine.org. Oh, the new website so pretty it makes me so happy. Any. We have somebody who wants copies of the slides. Yeah, we can put those up as a PDF, probably on the resources page. And then material for the last assumption point. I'm not sure what that means. She's offering she has. Okay, great. The last assumption point. Yeah, do you want to pop that in the chat I would love to hear it. If you have more material here in Costa Rica our assumptions are excellent I have a film on how we arrived there. Great if you have a link to that material feel free to pop it into the chat that would be great. So, if there are no more questions. I wanted to take one last opportunity to plug this day of action again we're going to have a webinar in January where we're going to talk all about how to create and and make these creative actions. And then also I just wanted to kind of plug again this week of action at the end of January where we're going to be doing actions all around the country and internationally probably around divestment from the war machine and and really hoping that you all can be a part of that. Oh great somebody put in the the resource around this point of assumption piece. And I'm seeing one more question which I will definitely answer before we hop off so we can do next steps so there's a place on divest from war machine org for you to pledge to divest from your own your own assets for more. Choosing a target we have again big thanks to Center for Story by strategy for creating all of these amazing resources. We have a worksheet that you can take back to your group. Your group can start looking at choosing a target that makes sense for you all. We're going to be sending out a survey as well. There will be a report back on target selection and some group organizing in the new year. This January webinar joining us for a week of action in January and then also inhaling maybe you can pop this the link to sign up for the Shadow World bit into the chat but we definitely encourage folks to host a viewing of this really incredible documentary called Shadow World in your local community. So couple more questions before we hop off and so I wanted to answer those really quickly. I just wanted to thank folks for being here and for all of your patients. I know that these webinars are a lot to ask in terms of technology so I really appreciate your patients and kind of sticking with us. So just to answer a couple of last questions. Does CodePink have legal resources for legal issues incurred? Hawaii is a military state and arrest is highly probable. I don't know that CodePink does have legal resources but sometimes there's an organization and I plug this because my husband helped found it but there's an organization called Midnight Special Law Collective that no longer exists but they have all of their know your rights and legal resources available open source online. So I'm going to put the link to that in the chat. It's midnightspecial.net and you can find tons of legal resources on that website in case anything happens because sometimes things happen. Does CodePink have a faith-based coordinator, someone to help me connect with churches in the SoCal area? We don't but we will. We're working on it. And in the meantime there are definitely folks for you to connect with in Southern California. So zip us an email and we'll get you connected. And then is there a way, this is a similar question, is there a way to know if there are others located within our local community who we can organize with? Send us an email and let us know where you are and we'll do our best to connect you with people who are doing awesome things in your area. And if we can't connect you with awesome people in your area, we will teach you how to create a group so that you can find the awesome people in your area who want to do these things. Anything else before we hop? We will send out all of this information. I know we mentioned a ton of resources in this training. So we'll make sure that you have access to all of it and we can't wait to mix it up with you in the new year. It's going to be a lot of fun. One more question. Do we? What does it mean that Code Pink organizationally will be targeting Lockheed Martin? How does that affect what we do locally? It just means that Code Pink is taking that on as our organizational target. So we'll be connecting the Lockheed Martin work around divestment with previously existing Code Pink work that's kind of already happening. So it just impacts what you do locally, not at all because like I said, it's going to really take all of us. And so there are other groups within this divest for more machine coalition who are taking on other companies within the Big Five. And it just so happens that Code Pink is taking on Lockheed Martin, but you shouldn't let that affect what you do locally. You should choose locally the target that works best for you and your group because it is going to take all of us. This is a really big ambitious campaign and there are a lot of resources that we need to divest. So you could take on Lockheed and that would be awesome. You could take on a completely different target and that would be equally awesome. So don't feel pressured just because Code Pink is taking on Lockheed to let that guide you. Choose the target that makes the most sense for your group strategically for sure. And the Code Pink campaign targeting Lockheed Martin is going to be very direct action heavy, which we hope your campaigns are also, but divestment is often sometimes a slower process of getting in touch with fund managers or your city council representatives. And like Code Pink for instance is going to target. There's a youth sort of science festival in Washington DC in April and Lockheed Martin is one of the primary funders. They are one of the founders of this child science festival. So we're going to try to expose connections like that where it doesn't so much fit into the strategy of divestment. It's a little bit different, but yeah, we're super excited to connect it with and support other campaigns with that work. And, and like I mentioned, we are bringing on more organizers to help with coordinating students and faith communities and city campaigns and all of that so regardless of what target you choose you're going to be getting tons of support from us and from other Code Pinkers. So, um, again, thank you all so much for being here. This is really awesome. All right, thank you everyone. Fantastic to connect. We're still in the early phases and we can't wait to build this with you. Yay, see you all in January. All right, let's get to work. Thanks, bye.


On the eve of the Anambra elections, the gubernatorial candidates sign a piece of cord and IPOB makes a U-turn and cancels a citatum order. And also, Governor Babajideh Song Waluw inaugurates a six-member panel to investigate the cause of the Iqoyi building collapse. This is PLOS Politics and I am Osaogye Ogbong. Welcome once again to PLOS Politics on PLOS TV Africa. Candidates of the Anambra Govnorship election have signed a piece of cord. Chairman of the National Peace Committee, General Abdul Salami Abu Bakr called on candidates and political parties to abide by the letters of the piece of cord to ensure a free, fair and credible election in the state. He urged that aggrieved parties should not resort to violence but follow the judicial process. And in a surprise and turn of events, the leadership of the indigenous people of Biafra IPOB said it has cancelled its planned one-week sit-at-home across the southeast. Joining us to discuss this is Lalitpur Johnson, a legal practitioner and Ms. Alex Obunna, the National Publicity Secretary, Arnaz Endigbo. Good evening and thanks for joining us. Good evening. Thank you. Great to have you. Thank you. Arnaz Endigbo. All right. So I want to start, you know, and I think both of you would have to answer this. I'll start with Ms. Obunna. Do you, what are your thoughts on the idea of having to sign a piece of cord for something that should be as simple as an election? This part of the world, our own brand of democracy, the part that that cord has to be signed, because sometimes people have put the parties with crude minds, and because of that, you have some elements of violence associated with the election. So it becomes necessary that piece of cord has to be signed, but it's in order. Okay. And Mr. Johnson, do you agree? Do you think that this is simply just because of the, you know, the type of elections that we run here in Nigeria? Or would you say that this is a failure of Nigeria's system to, you know, to punish offenders? Well, it's a bit of both. We've, since 1979, what have we learned, you understand, if at this stage we have to be signing a piece of cord before an election, then it is a shame. It shows that we really have not learned a lot, we have failed, or we are regressing. We haven't made the progress we should have made. At the same time, as Mr. Obunna said, our Chief Obunna said that it is reflective of the times. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and say that we do not know the situation in the country as a whole, and especially what has been happening in a number regarding violence, events, and what have you. So it's a good, it's a step in the right direction, whether, I mean, that would keep the food soldiers, as it were, civil, after the results or during the elections, is left to be seen. It's good that the candidates themselves and the parties have adopted that, but I hope that it spreads down to the followers and supporters. Chief Obunna, would you also have suggested or thought that maybe, you know, a particular group who aren't necessarily contesting in the elections should have been part of the Peace Accord. And I'm talking about the IPOB now, who have called off their citatome order. Should they maybe have been brought into this Peace Accord discussion? Yeah. The way, the kind of politics we play here, we have the leadership of every political party is expected to be in charge, and it's always at the, by the structure of the political party, the leadership will now give a structure to the followers. So I think the Accord is signed among the leadership, especially the contestant, so that they will now talk to the leadership of their better parties, and the leadership of the better parties will now go down to the grassroots. It is difficult also to organize the followers, the grassroots all together in the Accord. So I think the appropriate leadership to key into the elements and the spirit of the Accord and then find a way to make sure that it goes out to the grassroots, for them to key into that Accord. So that's it.  And because of that, do or die, there's desperation, political fight in trying to secure votes. So it's important that the Peace Accord was signed. Thank you. Absolutely. And I'm going to stay with you. May I? Oh, Mr. Johnson, go ahead. I think you want to share something. Yes, may I just say that from what you actually said, it's difficult to, it would have been difficult to have included the iPod in the arrangements, which is what you're referring to, I believe, because it's a prescribed group. If you have termed a group that they're terrorists or what have you, then it's difficult to sit down and discuss with them. But if that hadn't been done, it would have been a good opportunity to have brought them to the table. But then, I think having called off the sit at home, they are actually thinking the way they should do. But it would have been difficult to have called them to the round table because they are not recognized by government. Well, I'm going to come back to you on that. But I want to go back to Chifogbuna now on IPOB. Like Mr. Johnson has said, they're a prescribed group. But even as a prescribed group, I'm sure that we can all tell or can all see that they have a really loud voice in the southeast, maybe even louder than the voice of the political and traditional leadership in the southeast. So Mr. Agbuna, what are your thoughts concerning they deciding to call off the sit at home order? They have also been criticized because this seems to happen every time that there is a major election coming in the southeast. They declares it at home. They say, oh, you never want to boycott the elections. And then a couple of days to the election, they call that off.  On this, they have also shown concern over the because it is not the way that the on this conduct is not the better approach to some of the problems we have in the southeast. Four years ago, the iPop also came with a threat that there wouldn't be any election. We presided them, we had a, it was a prolonged one, eventually they had to key in. This time around, almost a day to the time, they also canceled the sit at home. So we are very correct in what you are saying. The important thing is that they have canceled it. But I also want to let you know that when you talk about iPop of now, apart from the leadership of the iPop, most young giveers, teams of support what they are doing. So it is very difficult to say these are the members of iPop. I don't know who are the members of iPop. Are you getting what I'm saying? Yes. I hope you are following. Yes, yes. So apart from the leaders, most people, most people boys, look at iPop now as a savior. Because it's like agitation that is very common in the whole southeast Nigeria. The agitation that is common, they look at them as being excluded from the government. They look at them as being marginalized and they are alienated. They look at themselves when you think about number of states, number of local government areas, amenities, road infrastructure, job opportunities, a lot of other things. So when compared to what is happening in some other zones, they get frustrated. It is that frustration that is now, they try to agitate against it. And that agitation is manifestly gaining weight and momentum because of reality on ground. So any person who is in form of depressed, in form of depressed in a way, losing by way of not getting unemployment and other forms of alienations and deprivations, all of them are key into the momentum of iPop. So it is now difficult to say these ones are members of iPop and these ones are not members of iPop. One can classify the society, the South East as two, the elite on one side and also the masses on the other. The masses this time now, those who are unemployed, those who are huge, who feel sidelined, who have one kind of problem or the other, and who feel that the only way to gain attention is to express their feelings and agitates. It is of that extent, you know, you classify them as a one or group or the other side. The masses now will be supported because of the reality of their condition. I hope you understand. Yeah, I mean, I get your point, but I'm trying to focus on the idea behind declaring an election boycott, declaring a seat at home, and then calling it off 24 or 48 hours before the election. It's happened over and over and over, and this has continued to lead to voter suppression in the Southeast. And of course, I've started to see people who say that the IPOB might be working hand in hand with certain groups to create that, you know, voter suppression and of course, then give the election to a particular group. Yeah, like I tried to, I support what you, understand what you said. And I cited four years ago when Obeano was to go for a second term. It happened this time again, it happened. I don't really think they are, it's a machination for one part for a particular political party. I don't want to believe that. I only believe that they say it because of the reality on ground and because of the pressure that often come, they cancel. But unfortunately, they cancel their seat at home so late in time that people have already made up their mind on the seat at home. Secondly, eat a map of mispronouncement like cancelling the seat at home. You see some, if you see some other LMS through the Afra group and they're going about to implement it. So people who are sitting at home now, it's not that they are in support of seat at home, but they fear, fear and trepidation because sometimes the security of, prefer a security of presence. They are not a great number to protect, they are to protect them. So most of them to be on the safe side, they just stay indoor. Not because they like to stay indoor, like if you go to the market or the rural women that serve matomato, pepper, green vegetable and so on. They are countering waste of all kinds. They are not happy they are countering the waste. But then the fear is that if they come to market today, they may have some other actors, not state actors that will destabilize them and of course they will counter greater waste. So because of that, they are sitting at home. They are sitting at home, it's not a compliance with iPop structure. But I try to be on the safe side. So that is what we find here. All right. Ladipo Johnson, let's bring you in on the same question. Would you agree with those who say that AIPOB may be working on the background with certain political parties in order to achieve voter suppression and be able to push the election victory their way? Well, you could understand that actually because really it makes no sense. If you are fighting your group, fronting and fighting for the emancipation in quotes of your people, you would not do that four years ago and do that again four years after, calling it off just the day before. You leave room and you begin to lose credibility amongst the people who are following you. So I begin to wonder why they would do that because surely, surely, they must have known that they would call the sit at home during elections off. I don't think it's because some people have gone to talk to them that as Chief said, maybe put pressure on them because they've known this and it's happened before. If it hadn't happened before, then I'd say, OK, yes, maybe Chief is right. Maybe pressure was put on them by people trying to negotiate for the elections to go on. The bottom line is that when people look up to a group or up to a person for leadership to leave them out of what they feel is a disadvantageous position, they begin to lose interest and begin to doubt the credibility of that group when things like this happen. So as Chief said, I'll say I'm not sure, I'm not certain that they're actually in co-hooks with any political party or political pressure group. But I would say that it is easy to believe that because of the actions they've taken. And of course, the sit at home have also not been able to convince anyone to release their leader. And that's also not very likely to happen. But I want your thoughts on the IPOB instead, playing things out in the other direction and that is convincing their members, convincing people of the Southeast to get registered for the election, get their PVCs and vote a candidate that they think would be better for them and for the Southeast. So Mr. Johnson, do you think that should be the message the IPOB should be preaching? Exactly. That ought to have been their message. That should still be their message going, heading towards 2023. Because if you're saying that you want the country to let you grow as a player or maybe some are saying that you want a referendum or what have you, your work becomes 100 times easier. If say you have some three of the state governors, members of the states, houses of assembly, the speakers or what have you, who are your sympathizers or your members? So one would have thought they'd be working the other way around. That with this popularity, yes, we don't want to go into politics or we want to influence things so that we can get our people in the position we want them to be in so that we can make them what we want to make. But I think they've gone the other way, but maybe they will listen to you and begin to work towards 2023 and make sure that they get the people of the East. You know, I'm not saying I want them to succeed. I'm a Yoruba man, the Igbo's are my brothers and sisters. We want them to still remain, but in a fairer, more equitable Nigeria that works for everyone and not just for a few. Alright. Since we're not sure who the IPOB will listen to, I'm not sure if they will listen to Anez and Igbo or the rest of the traditional leadership in the Southeast to set up a conversation where they are convinced to instead convince their followers and people of the Southeast to get involved with the electoral process and increase the numbers of people who get registered and thereby putting candidates in office that would work in their favor. Chivogwana, do you think that that's what Anez and Igbo should be telling the IPOB at this point? Yes, this is played out four years ago when Chifung Nyanwood was the president of Anez and Igbo. When they said there wouldn't be a lecture in the Anambasa four years ago, we advise them that they better look into the area of the contestants or the candidates and then support one of them who they believe, who they believed would carry the apple consciousness for them and from there they begin to grow in weight and in support and with time they give more support and perhaps actualize what they are looking for. So we have told them that much before but you can see like what I told you, when you talk about IPOB, we have two kinds of people in the Southeast. It is important that you note it. One they are called the elite now and the other one the masses. And when you come to masses now, those who are unemployed, those who are having one kind of thought process or genre, you know, those who feel entirely marginalized, the youth because of reality on ground. So you say for IPOB leadership is playing on the sentiments of the reality on ground as with respect to more infrastructure. So the masses are now on the side of the IPOB. They are the elites, those who perhaps are in government, those who perhaps are experienced, those who perhaps will see beauty of the vastness of Nigeria, the diverse nature of Nigeria and the wide opposite Nigeria provides for everybody. Like myself, I live in Kano, I live in Lagos. You know, personally, I know that Iboi Geniti can better be expressed in the larger Nigeria. We continue to tell them that it is better that we stay in a restructured Nigeria where we find equity will be the major proposal and the major part of the discussion and engagement in the leadership. No, but some of them who haven't got this experience like some of us, it's difficult for them to understand it. So I think as much as we continue to all of them to understand from the viewpoint of the advantage this Nigeria provides, so you discover that it has been the point for the elite leadership to convince them to understand the very benefits the larger Nigeria provides. It has been a problem because of the reality on ground. That is why we find that this requires a political solution that requires dialogue, kind of diplomacy. For instance, assuming that we are meeting the presence, the presence is okay, one more minister for you, one more state for you, one more this and that and that. And there will be jubilation galore and it will see how it will begin to have basis of convincing some of us that things are beginning to change him. And based on that, the leadership of the elite will be more. So long as everybody appears as if there's a conspiracy for magnaalization, magnaalization or conspiracy for the nation and things like that, it becomes difficult to manage the youth. So that is really a problem. And also what I think, the whole problem was the policy of exclusion and the policy of nepotism. We are at a point that appear that most positions in government will always go to one ethnic group which is wrong. Our nation have condemned this several times. We are appealing the presence to change attitude that that one is not the best for diverse nature and character of Nigeria. For example, if you look at the service chiefs in Nigeria today, we have about 14 of them. None is, he was not condemned there. Good enough for any one of them. In fact, every other area of policy he discovered that somehow the magnaalization is very clear. So these are the things the rules are, they're trapped. These are things that make it difficult for them to convince the youth. But if we see the presence and we enter into a dialogue and he says, okay, look at the way it is. Now there should be equity. There should be issues where it begins to balance issues. Then people will begin to jubilate and it will be easier for us to convince the youth to join us in our crusade for one Nigeria. I'm not sure if that is exactly the way it will play out. But let's wrap up with Ladipot Johnson. Your final thoughts, if you can share with us in less than a minute. How disappointing will you be or how disappointed rather will you be Mr. Johnson seeing electoral figures or voting figures tomorrow looking very, very, very poor? Will they break your heart or would you of course see it as expected? With what has happened, it is to be expected. If the turnout is good, then we will be pleased that people came out to vote, to decide their futures. But unfortunately, I think that as Chief Obona said earlier, you may find that some other renegade groups would take advantage of the fact that iPop had said there should be a seat at home and still try to cause havoc and mayhem in some instances. But the security infrastructure is quite robust. So I pray that it does, that the elections go well tomorrow. And I pray that the people of the state will come out and vote for a person of their choice to lead them in the next four years. Ladipot Johnson, thank you so much for your time this evening. Always interesting speaking with you. And also, the National Public City Secretary, Johannes Ndebo, Chief Alex Obona. Thank you also for your time this evening and for this conversation. Thank you. Thanks. And thank you for staying with us. We'll take a short break and when we come back, Governor Song Walu takes a step to investigate the cause of the collapsed Iqoyi building. We'll be right back.


So, what we will do in this session, what you will do in this session is an activity where you will evaluate two papers. The goal of the activity is that two papers A and B will be given, they are on similar topics and the broad goal of the activity is to critically analyze and evaluate the two papers. So, this is the broad goal, so let us see how to do it. Firstly, you need to form groups of two, so you can just turn to your neighbor right now, pick a partner and shake hands with them, introduce yourself to them if you do not know who they are. Take a minute to do it, find a partner and with your partner, you will be writing the answers to the questions in the worksheet, you can write the answers in your notebook. There is no submission here right now, but I will be asking a lot of questions from each of the remote centers, so please answer each of the questions enthusiastically and sincerely. Where to find these files, so there are two options for you, these files have been uploaded on Moodle and an email was sent to all the RC coordinators, so one possibility is that you can open the files on a PC or on your laptop, they are available on Moodle. The second option is that in some RCs printouts are available, so if you have a printout of the worksheet, you need three files, you need paper A, you need paper B and you need the worksheet. So let me just read out the instructions and then I will let you figure out how to actually open these files. First you need to read paper A, each paper is six pages long, paper A is the one on effectiveness of learning simulations of electronics labs. The file name is paper A.pdf if you are opening it on the PC and paper B is innovative lab experiences for introductory electrical engineering students. So let us read paper A, then answer parts of question one related to paper A. So I will show you what I mean by this, this is just the first part of the worksheet. You will see a table, there is an item in the table, in the table you will have to answer a yes or a no and there are about ten such items in question one. Similarly, there are questions two, three and four where again you have to analyze the papers and the worksheet tells you precisely what to do with the paper. So first read paper A and answer all questions related to paper A, then read paper B and answer all parts of question related to paper B. In order to answer the question, you and your partner can discuss the answers and write it in a notebook, so this is a pair activity. Once you have finished entire question one where you are comparing the two papers in terms of about ten features, you need to go to question two. And in question two, again there are three parts, you must at least try to finish question two till the end of the activity. We will spend about 45 minutes on this activity, you may need more time because it will take you about 15 minutes or so to read the paper. You cannot simply skim through the paper, you have to really read it. The reason you have to read it carefully is if you look at question one, it says locate the following items in the paper. When you find the required item, circle it and make notes on a paper, on the paper itself if you have printouts or if you have, if you are doing it on a PC, you can locate it on the PDF file on the screen and write it in your notebooks where which section, which page number, which paragraph did you find this item. So the items, some of the items are not easily, you cannot easily find them. So you really have to read it line by line and paragraph by paragraph in order to locate these items. So read the paper, look at the items, locate them, write them, fill out the table and the worksheet as a pair and we will get back, we will assemble again here at 245. Assemble again in the sense, we will start interacting again at 245. In the meantime, you have to do this activity and we can actually see what you are doing. So please take this time to fill out the worksheet and do the activity. So what we will do in this session, what you will do in this session is an activity where you will evaluate two papers. The goal of the activity is that two papers A and B will be given. They are on similar topics and the broad goal of the activity is to critically analyze and evaluate the two papers. So this is the broad goal. So let's see how to do it. Firstly, you need to form groups of two. So you can just turn to your neighbor right now, pick a partner and check hands with them, introduce yourself to them if you don't know who they are. Take a minute to do it, find a partner. And with your partner, you will be writing the answers to the questions in the worksheet. You can write the answers in your notebook. There is no submission here right now, but I will be asking a lot of questions from each of the remote centers. So please answer each of the questions enthusiastically and sincerely. Where to find these files? So there are two options for you. These files have been uploaded on Moodle and an email was sent to all the RC coordinators. So one possibility is that you can open the files on a PC or on your laptop. They're available on Moodle. The second option is that in some RCs, printouts are available. So if you have a printout of the worksheet, you need three files. You need paper A, you need paper B, and you need the worksheet. So let me just read out the instructions and then I'll let you figure out how to actually open these files. First, you need to read paper A. Paper A is six pages long. Paper A is the one on effectiveness of learning simulations of electronics labs. The file name is paper A.pdf if you're opening it on the PC. And paper B is innovative lab experiences for introductory electrical engineering students. First read paper A. Then answer parts of question one related to paper A. So I'll show you what I mean by this. This is just the first part of the worksheet. You will see a table. There is an item in the table. In the table, you will have to answer a yes or a no. And there are about ten such items in question one. Similarly, there's questions two, three, and four where again you have to analyze the papers and the worksheet tells you precisely what to do with the paper. So first read paper A and answer all questions related to paper A. Then read paper B and answer all parts of question related to paper B. In order to answer the question, you and your partner can discuss the answers and write it in a notebook. So this is a pair activity. Once you've finished question one where you're comparing the two papers in terms of about ten features, you need to go to question two. And in question two, again there are three parts. You must at least try to finish question two till the end of the activity. We'll spend about 45 minutes on this activity. You may need more time because it will take you about 15 minutes or so to read the paper. You can't simply skim through the paper. You have to really read it. The reason you have to read it carefully is if you look at question one, it says locate the following items in the paper. When you find the required item, circle it and make notes on a paper, on the paper itself if you have printouts or if you're doing it on a PC, you can locate it on the PDF file on the screen and write it in your notebooks which section, which page number, which paragraph did you find this item. Some of the items are not easily, you can't easily find them. So you really have to read it line by line and paragraph by paragraph in order to locate these items. So read the paper, look at the items, locate them, write them, fill out the table and the worksheet as a pair and we'll get back, we'll assemble again here at 245. Assemble again in the sense, we'll start interacting again at 245. In the meantime, you have to do this activity and we can actually see what you're doing. So please take this time to fill out the worksheet and do the activity. Let's begin our session again. I hope all of you have got a chance to go through the papers and do the worksheet, read the papers and so on. If you are still in the computer lab, please make sure that everybody is back where a view can be seen. What we'll do in this session is the continuation of the analysis of paper activity. We'll go through the worksheet, some of the questions of the worksheet and also see how to locate, what to look for in a paper when you're trying to critically evaluate it. Let's begin with just summarizing what the activity was about. You had two papers. A was about the effectiveness of learning simulations for electronic labs and B was a similar paper. It was about innovative lab experiences, is what they call. There was a lot of lab-related material in the paper for introductory electrical engineering students. So before we look at the worksheet solutions, worksheet answers, let's just reflect for a moment on what was the learning objective of this activity. What did you learn by doing this activity or what was our objective in assigning this question for you as an activity? And what we would like you to be able to do after doing this activity are three things. One is you learn how to critically read a paper. And in order to critically read, there is a lot of analysis of the paper that was required and you use that to also compare papers. The way you did it is by looking at the features in the table in question one and asking questions which were there in questions to ABC, question three and so on. So the point I'm trying to make here is that whenever you need to read a paper, for example, for your lit survey section in your own research study, or if you want to analyze a paper and try to evaluate whether it's a strong paper or weak paper, you can go back to these features and these questions. So use the worksheet as a template to be able to analyze a paper or to compare papers. Let's say you're refereeing a paper and you have to review a paper for a conference and you have to decide whether to accept it or not. You can use similar features because this is exactly the checklist that referees get on how to evaluate a paper. So let's move on to the actual papers right now, the actual questions from the worksheet. These items are related to the problem and I've picked out three rows. I believe these are the first three rows or the first two rows and one from the bottom. All are about whether the problem, what problem is being addressed by the paper, whether the importance of the solution is located somewhere in the paper and whether specific research questions or objectives are present in the paper or not. So if you recall you have to try to identify the location of each of these items. You have to pick out whether the papers contain these items or not. So here is that table summary that each of these items was present in paper A. This is the one about electronics lab simulations and where they were present is also given and we see that these items are only partially present in paper B. So what you can do at this time is take your filled out worksheets and do a self-assessment. We'll also look at reasons why we have put yeses and nos here. You also had your reasons when you discussed with your partner. So use those reasons and the worksheet that you filled up to do a self-assessment. So let's go through each row one by one. In a paper that we call as a strong paper or the desirable features in a strong paper we saw this earlier that the problem being addressed has to be there up front. It has to be very clear which teaching learning issue is being addressed in the research study. What problem the authors are trying to solve and so on. So if you look at paper A, the very first sentence in the abstract right below the title says that the work investigates the efficacy of software simulations of electronic circuit labs to support doubly students. So they set the stage right away and if you just look a little later in section 2 they repeat this in a slightly more detailed and precise manner. They say that the studies reported here investigate the extent to which lab simulations may replace electronic physical labs. So the reader knows what the researchers have done and they also know what to expect in the rest of the parts of the paper. So this is one of the starting points when you start thinking of a research study and that's what is the problem that's being addressed. Paper A does that quite clearly. Paper B does it to some extent. Let's look at the next point. Fairly early on the researchers have to establish why the problem is important. And if you look at paper A in the introduction section there was a sentence which says which talks about the benefits of electronic simulations. What are the benefits to students? What are the benefits in terms of cost and in terms of scheduling and so on? So why are you trying to solve the problem that you have described is another point that you have to describe quite soon and in detail. The third point about problems is that after stating the broad problem at some point you have to state the specific research objectives preferably in the form of questions because then they become very easy to answer. Again in paper A if you look at section 4 the first paragraph of section 4 the two questions are precisely stated. To what extent will subjects who use the simulations with physical labs improve their performance? A similar question. On the other hand a weak paper might have a problem. Most papers, most research studies do think of a problem but it's not mentioned as concretely precisely and as much in detail as we saw in the strong paper. So weak paper might mention a problem in a broad and fuzzy manner even if the authors have an intended goal in mind. What was done was mentioned in a very, it was mentioned but the importance of the problem was not established. I think some small part of the slide seems to have gotten cut off here but there is a sentence in paper B in the background section which tries to describe the problem. It says the paper describes new experiments and open-ended design projects and it tries to make a connection to the ABIT criteria. But it's not clear why this problem is important and it's not clear what exactly is the research objective of the paper. So to summarize let's just go back a few slides. The three points about the problem have to be present in the manner described in a strong paper. By now I am sure all of you have guessed and even maybe before while you were doing your own worksheet you could have guessed which is a strong paper and which is not the strong paper. Let's go to one more point now. If you look at the next few rows of the table it asks whether the paper that you read had described prior work that had been done to solve the problem. It also asks about the gaps in the prior work whether they were established or not. So again you can look at the filled out worksheet. Your filled out worksheet compare with what's written here. I'll just spend maybe few seconds for you to look at this. But then we'll look at each one in detail. In a strong paper the related work is stated and analysed and what we mean by this is two points. If you look at paper A section 2A the section is called related work. Section 2 is called related work and section 2A is about the electronic simulations. The first two paragraphs of that section talk about other papers and other simulators which employ a solution approach very similar to what this paper has done. So here the authors are talking about prior work that's related to the type of solution that they have implemented. If you go on to section 2B it's called learning issues. The researchers talk about a number of motivations and number of theoretical aspects, educational theory aspects on which the simulations are based. So they talk about what are the features in their simulators which are based on different learning theories. That's also considered as related work. Moreover, if we go back to the other solutions other similar solutions we see that section 2A in paper A has a sentence which says that both circuit tutor and electronic workbench these are the previous prior work, the previous solutions. Both of these may reduce the cost and time of lab experiences and then they have a but, this but is very important because that's where they are trying to establish the gap. But the efficacy of these simulations compared to that of physical equipment labs is not well understood. So they have analyzed what has been done and they have synthesized what's missing in the work that's already been done. Paper B on the other hand doesn't have any sentence or any section where analysis and synthesis of previous work has been written about. And if you remember what we talked about in the previous session we kept saying that your solution to your paper or your solution in your research study must be innovative. We emphasized that in all the examples and at that point there was one point that was made that one way of establishing that the solution is innovative is to describe what else has been done and see how your work compares or how it fits what all has been done so far. To bridge the gap between what's been done and where you are you have to analyze what's missing in the related work that will establish that your solution is indeed innovative and it also establishes the fact that you are trying to address the gap. So the relevance of your solution is also addressed here. Let's go on to the next point when we are comparing the papers. There were two items about in the table and these were about the solution, the description of the solution. One item talked about the outline of how the authors solved the problem and the other item was about the details of implementation of the procedure. So here again I am not sure if you were able to locate this because it is really buried deep into paper A. But if you look at section 4 in paper A, let me go to the next slide. The very first sentence in section 4, let me zoom this a little bit. Very first sentence gives an overview of all the experiments that were done. It says that two experiments were performed and experiment one compared something, experiment two was something else. Before going into the details of what was done in each experiment these two summary sentences are present. That's what we mean by broad overall solution is explained first and then the details. If you look at the next several paragraphs on that page and even on the next page, each of these topics, methods, subjects, procedure and many others, each of these is described in great detail in one or more paragraphs. So a strong paper does both. It first gives a broad outline of how the authors solved the problem because people need to know what you are doing before getting into the details and then it also does the details. On the other hand, if you look at paper B, there are a lot of details, but there are two problems here. One is that all the details are related only to the development of the material. It talks in a great length about the types of labs that were developed, which circuits were used there, what components were used. But it doesn't make a connection to the problem that was stated initially and secondly, it does not give the overall solution. So we will come back to this point in a few minutes. What this paper B does not have is the thought process behind the solution. So why did the researchers come up with the solution? Why do they think the solution should work? Why should it address the problem? So even before going into the details, the reader or the referee of the paper has to know why you as a person who is doing the research study came up with the solution to solve the problem. That's another way of talking about the broad outline of the paper. So the weak paper usually has this part missing. On the other hand, the strong paper, when you read a strong paper, this process is easily visible to the reader. So when you are writing your papers, you have some idea behind why you are doing the research study and why you are implementing the specific solution. That has to come out when you are talking of the solution approach. Let's look at one more point that was there. There was an item which said, do the papers have the educational theories on which the solution is based. And we will talk a lot more about this both a little bit today and a lot more next week. You will have to do some assignments related to educational theories because this part might be somewhat new to faculty members in engineering and computer science and the sciences. But we will start off here. If you look at paper A, they do talk about the learning theories and the learning issues on which their solution is based, whereas this point is completely missing in paper B. We will come back to this point a few more times. So let's now come to the point about evaluation of the solution that is proposed by the authors. Again this is a feature that we talked quite at length in the previous session when we were looking at the different examples. That one important feature that must be present is that the solution must show some evaluation. This and I think all of you would have immediately seen that paper A does this extensively because there are about four pages regarding the evaluation of the effectiveness. And I am not sure, take a moment and think about if you haven't done this yet. See if this was present in paper B. Something is written here but if you haven't read it yet, go back to the last paragraph, take a moment, and see if the last paragraph in paper B indeed talks about the evaluation of the solution. Did you all find it? Little bit. Let's see what all must be present in the evaluation. Again we will go back to paper A which does this extensively and see how they evaluate the solution. So in order to evaluate and defend the solution, essentially what you are trying to do here is to establish that your solution indeed works. You are trying to convince the referee and the readers that your solution is valid. So firstly you need to show data and results. You would have to have done some experiment. And secondly you have to show that the results are actually solving the problem. What we mean here is that the data that you collect and analyze must be understandable and typically in scientific papers results are in the forms of tables and graphs, tables or graphs and some explanations that go along with it. Writing long paragraphs of text is not the most optimal way. It's not the best way to explain results. You would need text but tables and graphs are highly recommended as methods to present results of scientific experiments. And educational and technology experiments are also scientific experiments. That's why I am using that term. So let's just zoom into the stable for a moment and see what's there and let's compare what the authors write in the text right above it. And educational and technology experiments are also scientific experiments. That's why I am using that term. So let's just zoom into the stable for a moment and see what's there and let's compare what the authors write in the text right above it. These are the data and what the authors say is results of the written post test indicate a significant difference in scores of the two groups after the treatment in favor of the combined group. So what they are saying is that the combined group did better which you can see from the numbers. So the numbers are consistent with the text and they are supporting each other. The text you can think of as explaining the numbers in the table. So showing results in the form of tables and graphs is highly recommended and explanations to make them more clearly understandable. This is necessary but it's not sufficient because what you have to do after you show results in this manner is okay, let's just for a moment compare what the weak paper does and I think again this point would be clear. A weak paper might have a tense to evaluate the solution but the evaluation is either not systematic or it's not thorough enough and so on. The sentence here is from the last paragraph of paper B. They say that outcome I was easier to measure because it was less subjective students who received the highest scores reference journal articles and conference papers the students who got lower scores merely served the web. That's the only part written in the entire paper about evaluation. So as the reader you don't know what experiment was done. You don't know how they got these results. There's no numerical results present and so on. So even though there seems to be some attempt at an evaluation this is not sufficient for a strong research paper. The second part about the results is that they should connect back to the research questions. They should be consistent. What we mean here is let's look at paper A. Somewhere on page 1 I believe there was a sentence which is the objective of their study. They say that our goal was to establish that the electronic lab simulation could produce results comparable to physical labs. Later when they have analyzed the results they have shown a table. In fact in this case the result is not very favorable because they did get an improvement but they are connecting it back and they are saying that the improvement cannot be attributed to the lab simulation only. So they are actually making some connection here. Whether you get favorable results or not whether you can say that your solution caused the results or not you have to connect it back to the research questions and say what it is. Did it work or did it not work? Finally let's look at an important item and this is called the contribution of the paper that the authors claim. So you may have a good idea you may have a problem that you started solving you may have a good idea and you did something you may have done the evaluation but at the end what is it that others should take away from the paper? What is the important contribution to the entire field that you made? Again paper A does that the last paragraph says tells the reader that after you read these studies you will have an idea so that is implied here that these studies provide an indication that there exists a simulation that yields learning at least equivalent to physical labs that was essentially their objective. So what is important is that you should be stating this very clearly and you shouldn't make the reader search for this. Weak paper on the other hand does not have a clearly stated research contribution even though there may be a contribution in terms of teaching learning materials or in terms of effective teaching strategies all these may be there on the other hand the research contribution may not be there very clearly. So to summarize paper A and B we go back to the very first session this morning and the goal was to go from ET practitioner to ET researcher. What we see is that paper B is still at the ET practitioner is still talking from the ET practitioner's perspective because they have developed a lot of lab materials they may be effective but they don't have any of the features that need to be present in a research paper. B on the other hand has taken a teaching learning idea and has implemented the further steps to that will take it to ET researcher perspective. I see a lot of chat messages which say that this last point seems to have been understood by all participants and that you got it before while solving the worksheet. So that's very good to see. So let us talk about a few other things that must be there in a well written paper. This wasn't there in any of the items but let's just go through them that a well written paper should have a consistent flow. We will talk a lot more about this in the next few sessions. Each of the pieces each of the aspects of the study must be connected to each other and this is the final summary of the features that must be there in a strong paper. Again we are repeating this often because it's very important what you need to keep in mind when you do your own research study. So until now we looked at the question one of the worksheet and your task was to self assess whether your answers matched and to see if your reasons were similar to the ones given and so on. If you have done so then it looks like you are on your way to becoming an ET researcher. You have taken the first step. There were some other questions in the worksheet which paper did a better job of analyzing prior work which paper and I see that all of you are already writing in the chat window that paper A was better in all of these. So by now the answer should be very clear but what's important what you need to do is to think about the reasons because of which you gave the answer that paper A was better in terms of analyzing prior work in terms of describing procedure and so on. So when you get a new paper to analyze you have to be able to answer these questions by looking at the features in the table. So let's actually this was supposed to be an activity which got moved to homework assignment and then it got moved back to an activity. So this is an activity that you will do right now. You will start this activity right now and you will continue it over deep because we have from now until 4 p.m. to do this activity. You can continue your activity while drinking tea. It's an individual activity to begin with. So by now you know all the features that must be present in a strong paper. The goal of this activity is to assess your own idea that you have submitted in the pre-workshop assignment and check if your idea contains all the features in the activity. So let me repeat this again because what we are now asking is take what you learnt while analyzing others papers and apply that those knowledge and skills to your own idea. The idea that you have already submitted in the pre-workshop assignment. So I will put up the table on this slide in a moment but what there is one note I would like to make here. Some of you at this point might have decided or might have come to a conclusion that you don't want to work with the same idea that you did in the pre-workshop assignment. So this is a right time to change your idea if you'd like. If you thought of a better idea while talking to your partner or if you got a better idea by looking at the examples in the morning, you can change your idea. So if you think you want to work with a different or a better idea than what you submitted in the pre-workshop assignment write your new idea first. If you want to work with the same idea that you did in the pre-workshop assignment that's also fine. The reason I am repeating this is that the assignment that you will do from today evening onwards for the next coming week is also is an extension of the pre-workshop assignment. So you need to have your idea concretely in place before you leave the workshop today. Once you have your idea you can just do this in your notebooks and it's an individual activity. Self-assess which of the features below is present in the idea that you submitted in the pre-workshop assignment. The criteria for self-assessment are given here and at this stage there's a there's a point that we need to make here. Your idea may not contain all the required features because last week when you uploaded the pre-workshop assignment you had to just write an idea. This is okay it's not because it and the reason it's okay is that you will work on incorporating all of these in the rest of the sessions today as well as over the coming week and on next Saturday. So what you need to do is think of your idea you may have it written in your notebooks or you might remember it and simply note down first whether the idea is present or not. If it's not present think of what else you need to do in order to incorporate this feature because each of these features now you know is essential to have in your idea.


There will be no fighting climate change without raw materials. There will be no batteries. There will be no windmills. There will be no solar panels. The dilemma that needs to be managed is how to do mining in a way that we can defend and where we focus not only on fighting climate change but also fighting the loss of biodiversity. One dilemma is that not every member state would have the fiscal space to support their industry. We cannot rely on state aid to develop Europe because then Europe will develop in not just in two speeds but in many different speeds. What is important for us is that there is legitimacy also in mining investment and legitimacy is supported by transparency. But I don't think that it necessarily will have to come through the European Commission. The European Commission is a huge bureaucracy. It's not a bank. The second thing is that mining in Europe is not enough for the needs. We need to get materials from outside of Europe and of course we need to recycle in a completely different manner compared to what we do today. So we need a European approach to all of this because I think it can only be justified to mine outside of Europe and to do it the same way as you would mine inside of Europe which means that you need to change how you see the value change so that the resource which countries get their part of the value chain it is their raw material. It's not ours. And having seen for instance copper mining also in Chile the effort that it takes to get the copper we should be ashamed of ourselves if we do not reuse it over and over and over and over again because these are precious materials and the effort that it takes to get it from the planet is enormous.


Russian significant figure wounded during Ukraine's military intelligence raid in Belgorod. During a mission conducted by Ukrainian intelligence operatives in the Belgorod region of Russia, significant losses were inflicted on the enemy's live forces resulting in casualties and injuries. One of the severely injured individuals was a significant figure, according to Kyrylo Budenov, the head of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Not disclosing details, I can say that one of the severely injured individuals was quite a significant figure. A helicopter was immediately requested for evacuation right after the scene, stated the head of the military intelligence. He decided not to divulge further details about the operation carried out by intelligence operatives on enemy territory. Budenov also noted that this raid was a routine operation for us. Once again, I came back to what I said. We are in an open war and there's no reason to be surprised. Those who wage war on others sooner or later face it themselves. Ultimately, that's what's happening. Concluded the head of the intelligence service, the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense reported a raid in the Belgorod region of Russia. During the operation, losses were inflicted on the enemy and the exact number of eliminated or injured occupiers is being clarified.