Hello and welcome to the first edition of IMTV. That's the International Marxist television channel brought to you by Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist tendency. We're going to be bringing you regular news and analysis on current events, revolutionary ideas and today we're going to be having a bit of a birthday celebration. It's the 200th birthday this weekend on the 5th of May of the main man himself Karl Marx and he was born in 1818 on the 5th of May in Trier in Germany but he died not so far from here where we are today in London so as I said this weekend is Marx's birthday on the 5th of May and to celebrate we're going to be hosting a special event, Marx in a Day, hashtag Marx 200 in the very building where we are actually filming right now in University College London where we're going to be discussing Marx's ideas, their relevance to today, his economic ideas, philosophy, historical materialism and to explore these ideas more to explore about how Marxism is so relevant today in the 21st century. I'm joined by two guests we've got Josh Holroyd from Socialist Appeal, a regular writer and on the editorial board and Fiona Lali a student activist and president of the Soas Marx society and recognizable to many as the face of communism in the Murdoch press recently and this word, this idea of communism is as Marx said himself in the Communist Manifesto, it's a specter that's haunting Europe and you see that actually I think in the mainstream press. Just the other day, Mark Carney, the head of the Bank of England actually said that communism was going to be on the rise because of the mass unemployment, the wage stagnation due to automation. He said we could see communism within a generation and said that Marx and Engels may again become relevant. We see this all the time obviously in the bourgeois press, the idea that Marx was right I think was a headline in Time Magazine, in Rolling Stone, I think even the Pope was accused of being a Marxist recently and I've also been told that Joshua the owner of a manga version of Das Kapital. It's pictures, a picture says a thousand words. But Josh, why do you think it is that we're getting all these headlines and all these statements from people like Mark Carney? Why is it that Marx is back in the press? What is it that he's right about? Well, I don't know where to begin with that really but I think a big part of the recent headlines and editorials talking about how Marx was right can be found in the preceding period that over the last 20 to 30 years the opposite message was the one that we read in the media all the time that actually after the collapse of the Soviet Union that was categorical proof that Marxism was either always wrong or it perhaps had been right in certain aspects perhaps about Victorian production and now it's completely out of date. And it's really, really startling, amazing really to look at the kind of statements which were coming out of the leaders of the capitalist world and the intelligentsia of the capitalist world about things like the end of history. People will probably be familiar with that from Francis Fukuyama already talking about how basically capitalism and liberal capitalist democracy was the end state of the development of history. And now once we've reached that state all we've got to do is export it by mass bombings of course but once we've exported it across the world then we will live in perfect peace and harmony. Gordon Brown famously said that they'd done away with boob and bust. This was the kind of hubris with retrospect. He was 50% right. They got rid of all the boob. And now I think that there is actually a genuine shock. I think part of these headlines and editorials it's not simply like a cynical thing. I think that the crisis in 2008 and the great recession and the ensuing depression really that we've entered into and the political and social crisis which has come off the back of that has got many figures in the capitalist world and intellectuals, journalists genuinely thinking what on earth is going on and reaching out for ideas and finding none. It's very interesting that I think it was Paul Krugman who was a Nobel Prize winning economist said that the last 30 years of macroeconomic theory have at best been useless and at worst positively harmful. That's not a very good record. And so people I think are seeing crisis looking for some kind of explanation, not finding any from as what you call the bourgeois establishment. And so instead of pointing to Marx, usually with certain caveats that we can talk about. But I mean the fact that Rolling Stone magazine decides, I mean, I'm not that familiar with the production of Rolling Stone, but I thought that was a music magazine has decided to write a list of things that Marx got right, all of which he did get absolutely right, really tells us something about the deep, not just economic, but social and intellectual crisis that society finds itself in. I think that the 2007-2008 crash is probably the most graphic example of the central role of the banks to the global economy in history as far as I'm aware. We had a situation where bankers, they were called bankers, stock market traders and so on. They were called the masters of the universe. That was the title that not only they gave themselves, but they were given by the media, because in a sense, I suppose in a sense they were, in terms of the central role that they played in the economy, banks were too big to fail. And then they did fail. And the result was, first of all, chaos, but then the states that have been preaching non-interference in the economy, the primacy of the market, the perfection of the market, had to step in and spend billions and billions of dollars or pounds or whatever to bail those self-saving banks out. And I think that that has maybe it's taken time to seep in, but I think it's had very, very dramatic. I would even say revolutionary repercussions on the consciousness of ordinary people, perhaps also editors of newspapers, which is familiar. Yeah, and on mass consciousness as well. And particularly, I was going to ask you about this, Fiona, about with the younger generation, amongst young people, students, there's clearly a ferment kind of going on, big mass movements. You were, as I say, in the times, commenting on the kind of rising popularity of Marxism and socialist ideas, revolutionary ideas amongst young people, amongst students. Why do you think it is that revolutionary ideas, that Marxist ideas are gaining popularity amongst, can we say our generation, you're a bit younger than me, but amongst younger people, amongst students? Yeah, no, well, I think with my example anyway, I mean, I was 11 when the financial crash happened in 2008. So my entire adult life, my entire political life, I've only seen decline and I've only seen chaos in the market in the economy. So I've kind of, I've grown up in a system that is clearly not working and those are the headlines that I'm receiving. And that's what I see in the stock markets on the news all the time. And I think also, what's happening in the world at the moment isn't just an economic crisis that young people can see, but also politically. And so many countries are in turmoil with the election of Trump and with the Brexit result in the UK that no one saw coming. There were no political commentators or editors that thought that was going to be the result that we could see. And so I think people can see crisis on every single level of society. And on top of that, I just want to comment on the idea that Marxist fashionable or interesting as an alternative, which is something that's often put towards young people. There's this idea that we don't understand the world. We've not been, we're not old enough to understand all the idea that, you know, once I become old and I've worked for a bit, then I don't want to give up my money or all this kind of stuff. Which I think is, yeah, yeah, which I just think is wrong. I think young people are questioning this economic system because they see it can't work. And they're looking to the ideas of Marx and it's starting to make sense. Yeah. So Fiona, one of the things that you were talking about when, when you first got your press attention was on, as a result of an interview you did for BBC Radio for Today program with John Humphries. And from what I remember, they brought you on because of a survey that had been done showing that young people were more concerned or felt more threatened, if you like, by big business than by communism. And there's been other kind of similar polls showing, you know, the kind of radical mood that's there. We had one in the in the revolution paper that Marxist Student Federation produces, which talked about kind of the mood amongst young people for a rebellion or an insurrectionary overthrow of the government. And I think Wales was up there along with Greece and Italy and Spain as being where young people were, you know, willing to kind of overthrow governments. What do you think these, these kind of polls say? Like, where did, where do these figures come from? Well, I think, you know, for a young person today, if I take myself, for example, I'm going to graduate university with over 40,000 pounds in debt. I'm unlikely to ever live in a secure home that I know I'll be in for the rest of my life. The job market is virtually non-existent for graduates at the moment. And, you know, young people are faced with a situation of no possible future. Even in the UK recently, you know, there are certain parts of the UK that are actually declining in life expectancy. Wage growth in Britain at the moment is the lowest it's been since the Napoleonic Wars. There's no real, kind of, work hard, get a good degree and you'll live a good life. That idea doesn't exist for young people anymore and it's just not a reality. And people can see who is causing these problems. Yes, you're touching on there really this idea of the establishment that, you know, we are the 99%, the 1%. These are the kind of slogans that have kind of come back to the fore, actually. Interestingly, in the last 10 years, obviously Occupy and the kind of no-cuts anti-austerity movements that we see in Britain, you know, employing these kind of slogans again about inequality, the rich versus the poor. I mean, this brings to mind for me the communist manifesto, you know, the idea that all history is the history of class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors. It's an idea that, you know, isn't that fashionable a lot of the time in academia particularly amongst the kind of liberal media. The idea of class society is something to kind of hush-hush. And for that reason, you often hear this idea that Marxism is kind of outdated. You know, he's talking about a period in the 19th century where everyone kind of imagines workers, you know, being in the kind of the burning mills, the dark satanic mills and the capitalists with their kind of top hats, Mr. Moneybag type characters. And I think for a lot of those reasons, Marxism is kind of, like I say, it's painted as being outdated, old-fashioned, because it deploys this kind of class analysis, you know, calling for workers of the world to unite. Josh, what would you say on that? You know, is it fair to say that things have changed dramatically since the 19th century? Are we all middle class now? That's the kind of accusation that's thrown around by the critics of Marxism? Well, no. But to give a bit more of a developed answer, I think that things have changed since Victorian times, but fundamentally we live in exactly the same social system. It would be, it would be, I think, bending the stick too far the other way to say that nothing has changed in Britain since Victorian times. One major change in British society has been extensive deindustrialisation. And coupled with this has been an extremely, I'd say, a very right-wing reactionary idea that being work in class is someone who works down a mine, who works in a factory, and kind of conforms to these certain, usually very reductive tropes about how a person behaves, the kind of language they use and things like that. And so if you don't conform to that, if you go to work in a suit and tie, then how can you possibly be a worker? And that is absolutely fantastic from the point of view of the state of the ruling class in the establishment, because it leads to, frankly, a very bitter divide within the working class. You can actually see over the whole Brexit, though, the working class was split.  And really what we need is for the working class as a whole to be unified precisely against those layers, against the establishment. What's happened on a worldwide scale is actually that the working class has never been bigger. Well, I think one thing we have to remember in Britain, we shouldn't have a parochial attitude, that whilst mines and steel mills and so on have been shut down in Britain, they have been opened elsewhere. Heavy industry still exists. It just has been shipped out, because actually it was possible to exploit people on even lower wages than in Britain. That's one of the reasons why that kind of production was unaffordable. But then you've also seen the rise of like things like Amazon warehouses, which many people describe as actually kind of like Dickensian Victorian conditions, right? I mean, you hear these horror stories, was it sports direct, where a woman apparently had to give birth while she was on the job because she was too worried about taking the time? Yeah. And people having to basically like wear nappies while they're working, because they literally can't afford to take the time for a toilet break, you know, it's the choice between eating and pissing. I mean, that sounds to me like things haven't even changed that much in some respects. But the thing I was going to ask Fiona was, you know, you're in the Marxist Student Federation, you're a student activist. There's been big strikes recently amongst the universities. Presumably a layer of society that, you know, 30, 40 years ago would have considered itself quite privileged. I know you were also out on the picket lines when the junior doctors strikes were happening. Again, a very privileged layer until recently. What do you think this says about, you know, the relevance of Marxist ideas in terms of a class analysis? Well, if anything, I think it shows that Marxist ideas have never been more relevant. And it, you know, shows in practice who the working class are and what Marxists mean when we talk about the working class. Because ultimately, it's about your relationship to the means of production. And so when we think of doctors, we think of lawyers and we think of university lecturers, we think of these people as quite middle class and quite well to do, that don't really suffer, you know, the harsh working conditions as people in sports direct, for example. But actually, in the past couple of years, we've seen them all on strike. And that's because I think we've seen the proletarianization of a lot of what would normally be considered relatively comfortable jobs. And that's the result of an economic crisis that we're in at the moment. And it demonstrates how important a class analysis is in order to fight back against these things. Because, you know, people are realizing who the enemy is, if you will, and who is causing all these problems in society. And I think the recent UCU strike is a great example, because we saw, you know, the majority of students supported their lecturers in that strike and all the polls. The majority of students did. And, you know, you had a lot of students out on the picket lines with them. And they understood that, you know, this strike wasn't just about lecturers being annoyed about their pensions. It's linked with, you know, the wider marketization of education. And on top of that, it's linked with the wider crisis of capitalism in society that's also hurting the NHS. It's also hurting lawyers. It's also hurting, you know, it's hurting everyone on all layers of society, no matter what their job is. Apart from the very... Apart from the... Yeah, of course. Apart from the bourgeoisie. And so, you know, it's a brilliant demonstration of how correct Marx is. And I think, you know, students being able to see their lecturers out on the picket lines and seeing them fighting for, you know, better working conditions, fighting, you know, for what they deserve will also have an effect on them, because, you know, they realize that that could be them, you know, in 20, 30, 40 years.  I think in that moment, the use-to-use strike has been a brilliant example of solidarity between workers and students who, you know, students typically are a certain section of society that isn't always associated with the labour movement because, you know, they're not technically workers. But, you know, in the use-to-use strike, I think we saw the importance of students and the role that students can play in the labour movement as a whole. So, guys, I think we need to address the elephant in the room, which is obviously communism, Stalinism, because this is really, if you like, the stick that's always going to be used above all to beat our movement with. You know, all these these articles about Marx was right. They always say, you know, they always start by saying, well, Marx's analysis of capitalism was spot on. You know, he predicted the crisis, he predicted the revolution and so forth. But, and there's always a but, there's always a caveat. And he said, well, look at the Soviet Union, look at Mao's China. You know, this is where where it gets you if you follow Marx's into its logical conclusion. You know, Fiona, this was what was thrown at you, obviously, when you tried to defend socialist ideas and Marxist ideas on Radio 4. I think you were called like an apologist for Stalinism or something like that by Orlando Fieges, Fieges, Figs, we're never quite sure how to pronounce his name. If you if you're watching, let us know, type it in phonetically, please. But yeah, you defended communism and the gains of the Soviet Union when you were on Radio 4. And like I say, you were lambasted for this by the Tory press, by the Times, the Murdoch media, by people like Fieges. And, you know, what what would you say in terms of if someone came to you and said, you know, I agree with everything you say, but the Soviet Union? Yeah, absolutely. No, I defended the Soviet Union because I think there's a lot we can learn from it, particularly the gains of a planned economy full stop.  And first of all, I would point out that Stalinism and the kind of degenerate bureaucracy that came about in the Soviet Union was the result of, you know, the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and not, you know, the resolution of it and not seeing it through. And moreover, I think that when people talk about the deaths under the Soviet Union, this is very much selective moral outrage because I would point out that five million children starve to death every single year under capitalism. And also the transition into capitalism that we had, how many people died under the British Empire? How many people died under colonialism? How many people died under slavery? These are all great deaths. How many people are dying every single day under capitalism? And academics like Orlando Fiegers or whatever his name is have made great careers out of slandering the Russian Revolution. Fantastic careers. He's written a lot of books about this yet doesn't have a word to say about the, you know, the atrocities that happen under capitalism. So I just think that point is really important to make when we start comparing deaths or numbers, which is obviously a bit grotesque. But yeah, I think, you know, even despite all of the problems with the Soviet Union of which there were many, you know, if you compare the Soviet Union to what it was at the start of the Russian Revolution to what it became, you know, 50, 60, 70 years later, its industry developed enormously. It became the second largest economy in the world, essentially. And that was thanks to a planned economy. And I and I don't think it's wrong of us to point that out. And it's important for us to point out what a planned economy can do. And also the impact of when it collapsed, right? I think, wasn't it? Someone I've heard statistics saying it was the biggest when you had the collapse of the Soviet Union, which she talked about earlier, Josh, it was the biggest collapse of an economy outside of wartime and life expectancy dropped by several years and poverty figures went up. And obviously what you've got in Russia today is hardly a paragon of democracy and kind of liberalism now under Putin. But, you know, rewinding from that, we talk about 1917 as being the greatest event in human history with the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks. Where did it go wrong, Josh? Like, you know, if that was the greatest event in human history and Fiona's described the kind of the endpoint of after this degeneration, you know, where did that come from? Is the degeneration itself proof that Marx was wrong, in fact? Well, starting with the first question of where did things go wrong, I think it's important to explain why we say it's the greatest event in human history. We don't say it because we think that thereafter everything was just an endless string of joys and everything was hunky-dory. We say it because it was with the exception of the tragically brief episode of the Paris Commune in 1871 where the workers took power in Paris and then were brutally massacred. It was the first time that the workers and the oppressed of society didn't just rebel but actually managed to physically really take power into their hands and try to forge a new society. Something that gave immense inspiration to oppressed peoples, not just workers, but all oppressed peoples, all over the planet. That is an enormously progressive event. Arguably one of the most, if not the most progressive events in all of human history. That does not mean, therefore, that anything that happens afterwards has to be a success. That's something that kind of the Stalinist frauds, really, who turned Marxism into a dead caricature. They tried to use the heritage, the progressive legacy of the 1917 revolution to justify all kinds of crimes not only against the people and workers of the Soviet Union but also against Marxism itself as a theory. They said things like they were building socialism in one country. I defy anyone to go through the collective works of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky and find a defence of this idea. It was something that was effectively made upon the spot to justify a false policy of a bureaucracy. And that's the key point. Obviously, we probably don't have time now to go into detail about the degeneration of the Soviet Union. It's worth the discussion in and of itself. But it's always important to remember where the revolution took place, where and when the revolution took place. It took place already, economically speaking, in one of the most backward countries in Europe. It's called, you know, known as the Sigmund of Europe. The regime, the absolutist Tsarist regime, was viewed all over Europe and the world as a bastion of reaction, of fascist-like reaction. You have a revolution against that which topples the absolutist monarchy and a process which is clearly leading towards dictation, whether that be under Karenski, the then leader of the short-lived bourgeois republic of Kornolov, an extremely vicious right-wing general in the former Tsar's army, or the restoration of Tsars himself. The Bolsheviks and the workers, clearly the most progressive layer in society, takes power. But that doesn't mean that they somehow are transported to another planet or to a different state of affairs. They had to try and build, not even socialism. They didn't see themselves as building socialism. Marx wouldn't have seen it that way. They were building the foundations for socialism and to act as the spark to set off a world revolution. Marx was always very clear, yes, in the Communist Manifesto he said, the workers had to settle accounts to use this expression with the bourgeoisie in their own country. Makes sense. I mean, they are together in a country. It did not mean that they then build a socialist paradise in that country. Capitalism being a global world system, it throws us into global crises as we're living through. It also requires a global answer. It needs a worldwide revolution.  Even the Labour Party was affected with the Trump's English Clause 4. All of these things are immensely progressive. The reason it declined and degenerated, which is indisputable, is precisely because of the isolation and backwardness exacerbated by the bombardment, by the invasion of foreign armies, by the blockade, the bombardment and the constant attempts to undermine and destroy the entire enterprise. It strikes me as slightly hypocritical to say, oh, that didn't work when your class effectively, or the system you defend, has spent the last 100 years conscientiously, and in some cases quite effectively, trying to strangle it at birth. It seems to me like a slightly, I don't know, tasteless argument to me. What failed in the Soviet Union was, yes, a nationalised planned economy, which I consider to be enormously progressive and achieved miracles considering where it was. And sat on top of that was an enormous, monstrous, vicious bureaucracy, which not only committed crimes against its own people, but ultimately it starved the economy, led to stagnation and collapse. What exists now in Russia is more or less the same bureaucracy, is now in charge on basically a mafia oligarchic basis, but without any of the benefits of the planned economy. It seems to me that capitalism, its wonderful systems managed to retain the worst aspects of starvation and lose anything that was progressive and worth fighting for. And so we also have to, we have to ask and answer the question of, okay, we reject Stalinism, how could that have been defeated, or how do we make sure that the revolution that we're fighting for avoids those kind of things. And internationalism is the key here. Even at the darkest periods in the history of the Soviet Union, there were glimmers of hope when you had revolutionary events in places like Hungary, which was over the other side of the Iron Curtain at the time, but also in France in 1968 and in Britain. And in America, there were plenty of opportunities for the workers to actually lead the overthrow of imperialism. Let's just stop and think for a moment what the effect in the Soviet Union on the oppressed workers of the Soviet Union under the, you know, the Stalinist jack poop would have been if they'd been a successful overturning France, which was very much on the cards. So we took discussions like this should endow us with a sense of responsibility, that if we want to fight for a genuinely democratic, progressive socialist society, we can't relieve ourselves of the responsibility by saying that an attempt 100 years ago didn't turn out successfully. We have to set ourselves on the path to achieving that in the here and now on a worldwide scale. There are no excuses not to, in my opinion anyway. So coming to today, talked about, you know, the need to put theoretical ideas into practice, to link theory and action. Fiona, you're in the president of the SoS Marxist Society. You know, we've all spoken at Marx society meetings around the country, and the thing I always get is, these days I find more and more, is that people will agree with everything you're saying in terms of, you know, they nod along saying, yeah, brilliant, socialism, Marxism, revolution, sign me up, you know, how, how do we do it? How do we have a revolution?  What would you say to people who you come across, young people in particular, who have that burning desire to change the world? Yeah. Well, I think first I'd point out that Marxists don't start revolutions. You know, we don't spark a revolution. A revolution happens when the working class, you know, in its masses, you know, takes control of its own destiny, you know, moves to take control of its own future. And that happens with or without Marxists. There have been plenty of revolutions throughout history. What Marxists can do is, you know, push and give and preach the ideas in that movement, in that revolution, to make sure it's successful and to see it through. And that is what people should be doing if they're serious about socialist revolution. And that's why we put emphasis on the role of Marxist theory and the need to study Marxist literature in order to understand history, to understand how the world works. And so I would say and encourage all students to join their local Marxist society, you know, get involved.  And that's something that students can get involved with. And I would just encourage all people to do that so that they can, you know, be a part of seeing through socialist revolution in their lifetime. All right, well, I think that's a good place to end for today. Thank you Fiona, thank you for Josh. Thank you to all our viewers and our listeners if you're on the podcast. Write in if you've got any questions or suggestions for topics that you'd like to see discussed on future episodes of IMTV. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more of the latest news and analysis of current events and revolutionary ideas. In the meantime, check out www.socialist.net and www.Marxist.com for all the latest news and analysis there online in terms of articles and videos. And also, as I say, come along to our Marx in a Day event on the 5th of May in UCL in London. We'll see you there for a great day celebrating Marx's birthday. Thank you very much. See you next time.


Hi, thanks everyone for coming. I'm Kim. Today I'm going to talk about the status of Embedded Linux on RISC-5. So RISC-5 is a recent architecture and there has been a lot of exciting stuff that has been happening in the community. And essentially, I'll just cover what this architecture is about at a high level and various projects, their upstream status and where things are currently working in progress and where help is needed. So I think in the end you can ask questions as we speak or you can reserve your questions towards the end. And so we'll hopefully at the end of the talk you will have a lot of pointers if you're interested in RISC-5 ecosystem and you know you may be working on various things in Embedded Linux. It could be the kernel, it could be tool chain, it could be other spaces and I'm hoping that all of you will find something new and or something to look forward to in RISC-5 ecosystem. So just an introduction. It's called RISC-5 and because it's the fifth iteration of a RISC ISA from University of Berkeley, it has 32-bit, 64-bit and a 128-bit wide instruction set. As you can see, 128-bit is basically a learning from past industrial experience to have it reserved even though there are no designs yet which are using 128-bit wide instruction sets, but it's there. Primarily, you will find 64-bit is by default the instruction set that is being used today and there are certain embedded variants which are also using or are tending to use 32-bit and we'll cover that a little bit more. It's a little endian by default and I pointed this specifications link. So as we know it is all open source and we all can participate. At least we can look at the specifications. So I encourage you to go there and look for all the specs that has been designed. Certain specs are still being discussed and some specs are locked down so they're available for implementation and so feel free to look through and if you have inputs, there are mailing lists. You can participate, provide your inputs. It's all open. So primarily you will see this RV32i, RV64i and all these conventions. So basically there is a core instruction set and then there are extensions and they are denoted by these letters here and for example if you have an extension to implement multiply division, it will be denoted by M, atomic memory accesses by A, floating point, similarly double floating point and compressed. And there is a naming scheme to represent the ISA that you have in the end and there are also extensions that actually which can be non-standard and you would basically mark them with X. So there is this naming scheme that you would follow when you have a customized instruction set because the idea behind is that you can enhance it the ways you want, provided you built upon the core instruction set. G is basically a abbreviation for general instruction set and it's actually a combination of these extensions added on top of the base ISA. So you would see that it's actually expanding to RV64imafd. So we'll talk about this more because this is generally what is being currently followed for various software ports. So I'll now give you a little detail on where the status is with respect to the various software in the ecosystem. So the software is developing very fast for RISC-V and what I'm going to talk today may be obsolete tomorrow and some of it is already is obsolete because a lot of upstreaming, so the effort is upstream first. This is a learning from various other architecture ports and that the RISC-V community has taken the step to basically make sure that all the basic support in tools, in kernel, everything is upstream first. This strategy is actually being followed by a community and as a result we have seen that a lot of the basic tool support, especially you need compilers and a basic tool chain, a CC++ tool chain to do the rest of the work, all that has landed now upstream. So in Binitl's 228 we got the RISC-V 64-bit support, GCC 7.0, sorry, onwards we have the support, G-Libc 227 earlier this year got the 64-bit port and then the 228 which is the recent release will have the RV32 port, Newlib 3.0 which was also released earlier this year. It also has the RISC-V support, so Newlib is required if you're doing bare metal, so this is a C library you would use for bootstrapping your tool chains. Kimi is very important, it's a very important cog in the wheel when you don't have real hardware and 2.12 actually got the full support for emulator, for RISC-V, word emulator actually in upstream. GDB currently in 8.2 which was released very recently, there is support for bare metal that has been upstreamed. So if you are doing microcontroller stuff you can build all your tool chain upstream from various upstream releases. For Linux actually there is a fork that we have currently on RISC-V.org, github.com slash RISC-V and you'll see there are lots of folks there and GDB is also one of those folks that we use. Hopefully this is being upstreamed as soon as and maybe next time when we meet it will be all upstream. Bootloaders, Coreboot actually got its support very early on in 2016 I believe, all the support for RISC-V was upstream. Uboot has recently accepted the word board support upstream and the proxy kernel and the Berkeley bootloader are actually the original bootstrap bootloaders for RISC-V spike platform. They are in a way used even to bootstrap the Linux kernel right now. They already were upstream and they are already available on the RISC-V github. So with kernel 4.15 was the first time when it got first user space ABI changes into kernel and the basic support. Drivers were not all there and since then it has been trickling slowly and 4.19 which was released recently actually contains the drivers for communal word board. So you can build the kernel from upstream and boot on QME if you use the word board as an emulation platform. So there are major contributions that happened from Berkeley and sci-fi and Andes to do all this great upstreaming work over the past few years. So now moving on to other operating systems these are kind of like the basic high level components that we have that you would require to bootstrap other softwares. And Zephyr is actually one of the RTOSs that is hosted on the Linux foundation. It was one of the first RTOSs that got ported to RISC-V and there is a sci-fi high-fi one board which basically was the initial target along with the QMU emulation for RISC-V32. And then since then there have been a few more boards that has been added. So 1.13 was the first release for Zephyr upstream and that got the RISC-V port. So now if you download a standard Zephyr release SDK you would find RISC-V supported by default in there. It is one of the supported architectures. So distribution port so moving on to primarily the Linux ecosystem distributions. There are a few things here. For example there is a understanding so most of you might have attended this morning's talk about RISC-V org and so there has been an understanding. So this organization basically is there to steer some standardization of efforts around RISC-V. And there is an understanding with all the distributions and RISC-Vs to basically adopt RB64 GC as the general ISA because we talked about there are so many variants that are out there but this will be a generic binary distributions could use and it's a understood or I'd say agreed upon ABI to be used. So a portable software can be written. So you'd see there is RB64G and C. C stands for compressed instructions. And those of you familiar with the ARM or MIPS these are the thumb equivalent of ARM instruction and MIPS 16 equivalent of MIPS ISA. And these are by default so you can get best of both code compression, code density and performance. The embedded Linux distributions that will cover a few of those. They do have RB32G port as well that ABI variant is now upcoming now that G-LIB C port is upstream. We would see that there are distributions that are already now supporting that as a possibility. I'm not expecting that in desktop or server distributions to be the default but embedded distributions and frameworks they will still have these options. So if you're designing one of those boards you might want to look at some of those infrastructures. So Fedora has actually done a lot of initial heavy lifting and they have actually a dedicated page up there now for which lists actually all instructions in detail how you could install Fedora on RIS5 or you can use an image to bootstrap into an emulator. So they were releasing certain phases of bootstraps throughout last year and the final bootstrap was finished this year, earlier this year which means that now RIS5 is like any other architecture supported in Fedora and the Koji build form which is the default build form for building the packages in Fedora is actually churning out the RIS5 RPMs like other architectures and you can see Fedora 29 and Rohai which is their kind of like the bleeding edge Fedora. They all the packages in there they are now had they have moved over to build using their standard Koji build system which is a great achievement for RIS5 within a few years to be one of the main supported architectures over there. Currently it supports the high five unleashed board from RIS5 from sci-fi and also the Kimi which is emulator so you could have images installed either on Kimi or also on the high five unleashed board. Debian has also done a lot of work and I'm just pointing to the top of that wiki. I encourage you to go there read about it. I've included this one slide here one graph here that is from from Debian packages how many packages are how many percentage of packages are building for various architectures and it's not a very high definition here but as you can see RIS5 is somewhere you know hovering around along with X32. So not bad actually you know it has left behind several other architectures that has been around for a long time. So what this tells us is you know the the porting effort is actually ongoing at an accelerated pace and more and more packages are being ported as we move into 2019 and that's actually a great sign. Fedora does have I think the cross-bill system currently does have few caveats there so it doesn't have the tool chains building for cross-bill system as of yet I think they are but they do have a way to do it and they have documented it really well on this wiki page. I tried it it works so if you are working with Debian you know you are no less behind any other distribution if you are considering considering RIS5. They do publish images which are actually from a sign developer. Minimal images are there and then you can boot strapper system from there on and the standard ISOs are not there yet. Open embedded so I'm also an open embedded developer so I've been involved in doing port on open embedded quite a bit so I can give you some information on open embedded as well. It was one of the initial distributions that was actually being uh ported to run on RIS5. Back in those days you didn't have QMU you had the spike emulator which is actually a spike simulator very slow but very good for you know accuracy and hardware simulation. It was sort of a fork and it never merged back for a few years until last year when we started to work on it to upstream all those changes so a lot of work was already done there and so we started for upstreaming all this all the all the work from the fork into upstream and because the way open embedded is organized we could actually create a separate layer and then we could use the forks like glibc fork and gcc fork and pinutiles fork and everything and then take all the core changes and still bring them to the core but have the tool chain boot strapped from a separate layer so that kind of helped to to do the the upstreaming effort fairly early on while you know other distributions were probably doing some work but primarily were pushing the changes upstream and eventually today after like you know the 2.6 release which is going to happen there is actually all the core changes are upstream there are hardly any changes that we are carrying in that layer except the BSP layer changes which basically defines you know meta RIS5 related tunings and options and machine definitions and things like that other things are already upstream so currently it does it supports emulator and it supports the sci-fi freedom u540 board you know and you could also build the cross SDK so you know the the power of open embedded is that you can build so many artifacts to do different kind of developments so you could build a cross SDK if you're building things in a cross environment or you could build a on device SDK which means you build an image which has all the tools and everything in it you boot it on emulator or you boot it on on the freedom board and you can develop your software so this is currently working really well and you could also generate bare metal rv32 SDK so we talked about Zephyr and the bare metal SDKs are useful actually there and the SDKs that Zephyr project is generating actually is using open embedded Yachter project to do the SDK work so currently the 32 bit tuning especially from the bare metal perspective that's in there and the rv64 for a hosted environment like Linux is also in there so currently actually we are also working on trying to add continuous integration so we can kind of run builds on when people summit patches against meta v5 for example we have few challenges there in terms of because the build times are too long so we have to have a dedicated CI loop somewhere and so we're still figuring that out we do have the infrastructure in place we don't have machines to run it as of now so hopefully we'll figure out something by you know next time so open embedded builds a whole lot of packages cross build packages and as you can see we run through the world builds almost a few maybe three days a week and currently there are a few packages which are failing obviously you know the reason being they haven't been reported or there are other compile related problems or other issues in there but if you consider out of 8,000 9,000 packages 38 failures you know it's not that bad as far as I am concerned but there is some work to be done in there especially like you know supporting gstreamer and some of the key packages that are currently not compiling so this is a snapshot from the we could run tests actually in a cross environment in yachto so basically when you have a package change it can actually run the full test run in in an emulator so that is also currently working for risk 5 emulator and currently we have failures in xorg test as as of recent so we need to look at those but there are several other tests that we want to enable on those so you can have a lot more auto tests that are then happening automatically build route actually build route has done a great job of putting the changes recently I think the 64 bit port went in it was accepted and there was this fork we had on risk 5 github handle and the risk 5 start branch actually describes how to build build route for 64 bit emulator and very recently as of I think yesterday or day before the 32 bit port was submitted for Linux to build route so actually that's a great news as well and there is also a article actually that is published and I think you can find the links over there to that article which describes the step by step procedure if you want to build you know the build route for risk 5 so if you are a build route user go ahead and try it out and you know interact on the mailing lists if you find issues just the build route mailing list should be able to help you out so now on to some of the ongoing efforts this five llbm actually most of the support is upstream so you can build actually a llbm compiler but then there are few patches few features that are still in there that are still being upstreamed so if you go into this repository it lists actually all the patches that are being rebased and then being sent upstream for review and merge so I think the base support is being there is a big step so these are basically enabling other features that actually is a more of incremental changes that are going to go in there so that's a great news and similarly the lld is the llbm linker and that port actually has been also submitted upstream I'm not up to date as to whether that has been accepted yet or it's still under discussion muscle muscle is another sea embedded sea library and it has been ported to risk 5 and it has been actually recently submitted upstream as well and you can see the discussions or basically it is planned for the next release there are a few discussions currently happening between the developers and before it gets submitted but I'm hopeful that very soon we will have the muscle support as well upstream so what this means is that we will have an embedded library along with glibc and this will also make sure that you know we have projects like openwrt actually be able to build from upstream openwrt does have a port by the way for risk 5 for I couldn't cover all that here but even the openwrt port is already published and they have submitted the port completion emails to risk 5 mailing this so that's also a great news openocd so moving on to some of the jtag stuff if you're doing embedded development there is a risk 5 out of 3 support it hasn't been upstreamed so they but the port kind of worked and it probably might need some refinement if it needs to be submitted upstream and I think that will be something that I think some of the openocd efforts would take over but if people here are interested you know there's room for improvement there the linux os port or the linux application gdb port as I mentioned earlier is not upstream yet it's available on the fork though and so in due course I think that's also going to go upstream similarly there is ufi I think the standard body has accepted there is 5 into 2.7 I believe version of the specs and there is some work in grub v8 node jas I think all of these there are all the ports are available on some of these ports already available on risk 5 handle and in some cases they are fully functional ports in some cases they may be done on a previous version of package and you know it needs to be first forward ported and then upstreamed similar for golang and others are also in the same category so contributions so I did this little search and on linux kernel so you can do some get munging there to find out the unique contributors and as you can see in 4.18 risk 5 shows 31 contributors so we need to take this number off so you know please join and start hacking on risk 5 and submitting more and more patches hopefully you know this number will go up rapidly and we'll have a lot more to report next time so if you want to find out more it's a very good page that is maintained actually on risk 5 or and a lot of stuff that I have here is also reflected over there in different form so please check there all the time that page keeps updating as and when the upstream effort is going on and things are moving upstream there are also a page for you know various risk 5 course because several people are designing course based on risk 5 so this page is very important and very interesting from that aspect that you want to know more about you know who all are designing risk 5 course and what's available for you to use go in there and yeah check for this so so linux kernel actually has a separate mailing list now it's called linux risk 5 so if your discussions around risk 5 want to participate use that mailing list so there are more things more ways you could get involved so there is still standards work happening you would see that the specs are being discussed and proposed and finalized ABI for example the embedded ABI is still under works and so you know you could influence and provide your inputs there and we could improve you know the linux distribution port so I covered a few of those there are more that can be that are being worked on to be forward ported and then the existing ports for example can do better there are loose ends that you know you could support due to to be fixed in the distributions that are already supporting it and port more software packages to risk 5 so you know if you are maintaining a package or using or developing a package that is not yet ported to risk 5 go ahead you could basically currently you have everything to to start pack is porting those packages to risk 5 most of the software is upstream right so you really don't need folks upstream first strategy is actually core to the risk 5 software development community and most of the software that's already upstream you can participate as usual if you have a gcc patch participate in gcc community llvm participate in llvm community there is no specific involvement from risk 5 community that you need to have you might want to cc them that's fine but most of these discussions are now taken upstream like any other architecture so there are specifics under github risk 5 handle so these are some of the in progress ports so if you see a fork of something there then you know that it is in progress and some of the projects are actually upstream there itself for example you know some of the projects i mentioned over there like the architecture layer for open embedded or the bbl and all those and spike for example they are those are basically the upstreams for those so there's a software discussion mailing list feel free to join that and risk 5 on free note actually it's a channel available if you are on irc and there is a stack overflow tag as well that you could use there is a buff today actually so at six o'clock this is hosted by the folks from risk 5 and sci-fi and then western digital who are actually at the forefront of risk 5 architecture today in terms of hardware and software so if you want to learn more in depth you know some of other stuff that you have questions for encourage you to go there they're very knowledgeable people and they'll give you like you know the latest and details that you might be seeking if seeking for so i just want to leave with this parting thought before i end and then open for questions seats have changed so um some so many years ago you know there was this mail that was sent which was describing i wrote this small os and then you know you want to play around with it please go ahead and today that project is 22 million lines code 14 k plus contributors and it's actually the most successful open source software project the key is open source right so in the software world it did change the paradigm of software how people thought about doing software and all of you who are sitting here are actually the people who made this happen so i believe that history tends to repeat well usually when we forget it but this time to build upon some proven efforts that we have taken in the past so this could be a history repeating for hardware a open source hardware so with this thank you very much for listening to me and so if there are any questions i'm open for those is it micro coding so i actually don't have much information into this area but it's a s it's a cp implementation that is based on risk five i'm not sure if it is microcoded though it's a pure design yeah paul might have more details yes so question is have you tried building open embedded SDK with new lib the answer is no we haven't yet tried it um well in a way yes so um we've tried the bare metal bills for open embedded that did not use nearly as per say as a library but it used it to bootstrap it so in a way yes but the new ways that you probably think where we add nearly as a library option that hasn't been used so it has been used just to bootstrap it yeah because um it's primarily done for zephyr and zephyr doesn't need any libc they have their own yes sir so can you repeat a question uh so development box costs um uh just below thousand dollars um but keep in mind it's a very high-end board um and it's first of its kind right so um it's just gonna go down as we kind of like have more iterations of those boards and currently i think it might be a little on the higher end of the pricing and i'm hopeful that you know there are more boards coming which will be basically affordable and i see that happening very soon more questions okay so going once twice no more questions okay thank you sold thank you very much


At this time every year I make a year end roundup and I'm usually like this was the best year ever and I make a sweet montage of all my adventures and talk about how grateful I am. Well this year as we all know has been different that might be a nice way of saying this year has been a struggle not only for me but for a lot of people around the world. It's been a strange year, a hard year. When this first hit in March I lost a handful of jobs and it was scary. I felt like we were living in a sci-fi movie. Every day I'd read more news from around the world that was just mind-blowing. It was nuts. But thank you to Netflix for taking my mind off the doom and gloom. Banzai, Daniel LaRusso here for LaRusso Auto. Lockdown as a single guy was very lonely. It was just me in this little apartment eating a lot of cereal. But I'm not here to whine. My situation is pretty darn good and I'm incredibly grateful that I have a roof over my head and a kitchen full of beans and I'm very aware that there are people teetering on the edge of survival and my heart goes out to humanity as we navigate this challenging time. So I'm gonna take this opportunity to talk about all the good things that happened in 2020. First and foremost, it all starts with you. Yes, you. You sitting right there. That's you. I get messages every day from people all over the world who tell me about how biking or running or just getting outside has made your lives better. Hi, my name is Armando. I'm a Cuban immigrant living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin right now. Biking has made a great impact in my life because when I came here to the U.S. I didn't know a lot of people and through biking I got to meet a lot of new people who showed me the city and not only that but in the first couple years because the winters are pretty cold here I was just kind of hunkering down and kind of hibernating during the winter and they taught me how to go outside and have fun in the snow like I did a lot of biking in the snow with the fat bikes and skiing and all this stuff so they kind of taught me how to enjoy the outdoors during the winter time not just during the summertime when everything is nice so yeah it's just helped me make a lot of great friends in a place where I didn't really know anybody. Bike riding in 2020 changed my life by getting me off the couch and away from potato chips out the door and on the road. It allowed me to see more of my own backyard it gave me a chance to enjoy fresh air but it also stopped me from having really bad knees. I used to have bad knees when I ran on the pavement and even when I ran on dirt but then I rode the bike and my pain went away so it changed my life and allowed me to see so many more places in a shorter time with less pain. A few months back I switched my car for a bicycle and now I am one less car on the road. Cycling has allowed me to play a huge role on the environment. It has also showed me a new way to look at everyday life. On a bicycle I have the freedom to explore and discover new places in my city that would otherwise be overlooked in a car. Riding bikes quite literally saved my life. From being a former drug addict to now being a year sober when I first got on a bike again as not a child but as an adult on a bike it was extremely foreign but it gave me a high that I had never had in my life and since that day it's been nothing but bikes. And the support of the communities that ride bikes is one of the warmest communities I've ever found. My husband and I recently took a bike tour from southern Utah to Columbus Ohio to get married and for my wedding ring I asked for a bicycle. I didn't want something that I could wear on my finger I wanted something that I could put mileage and strength and movement under me. Running clears the mind it's like your internal therapy that you can deal with things you can run things through your mind how you may play things out better worse regardless but it's helped me climb the you know the professional ladder it's helped me personally with relationships. At the end of the day keeping the body in motion just clears the mind which makes you make better decisions. Pay attention to the little things out on the trail the trees the wind the bird the sky clouds all that and just kind of lose yourself in the soft sounds of the crunchy trail and that provides a kind of peace that not a whole lot of other outlets can can provide. I've run my first 100 mile ultra marathon this year I've seen it inspire my kids and now we get to go out and run the trails around my house together so ole ole ole. Cycling really helped me get through 2020. Whether I was riding to work riding to the shops or just out riding it meant I wasn't trapped in a car trapped at home trapped in traffic it's something my fiancee and I love doing together something my son and I love doing together it's quality time outside in nature. Cycling is fuel-free freedom of autonomy self-sufficiency a harmless freedom of choice agency adventure not a quick fix but a permanent solution it's focusing on what we have in common cycling is the definition of necessity the mother of invention innovation cycling is a timeless romance on a warm summer's night or frigid rainy chills rolling down my spine for the love of cycling cycling is love love cycles. It was about four years ago when I really really got into mountain biking and then from there I was able to get a job at a bike shop it's just the community of biking is really what's changed me. Finishing that first bike tour in October of 2019 changed my life it awakened a passion for bike travel it's given me confidence to work through my fears constantly testing myself on the bike has given me the gusto to try new adventures that I wouldn't even have thought of before. The bike has given me the life I always wanted but was just too scared to go after. My name is Barzine I'm a competitive powerlifter and for 10 years I lived for squat day that's all I cared about when a car accident injury took a chunk of bone from my knee I made it so I couldn't squat anymore I didn't know what to do with myself I gained a bunch of weight got pretty unhealthy and pretty down a friend of mine Luke Young so just I get on a mountain bike and he he's pretty pushy so I poured myself into that ended up loving it and now two or three times a week I'm in the trails it's the best I've felt in my adult life and kind of re-spark me going back to the gym I still compete in bench press now and from that I've taken my press to top five in the world all time and I owe the health to keep doing this and stay alive long enough to do this at my size to biking I'd all started for me back in college when I had a back injury and I could barely walk or move and my good friend Craig got me into cycling and helped me start moving in helped me heal and I really fell in love with it so I started riding to work every day I did that for eight years straight at the rain sleet snow everything and it became a huge part of who I am two years ago I helped my wife Janice by her first road bike and just for Christmas this year our son Allen got his first road bike we love to ride as a family and it brings us closer together throughout the quarantine your videos have inspired my good friend Bill and I to plan a ride almost 600 miles south to Key West in 2022 hello I'm Alan Rose and this is Hartman Rocks outside of Gunnison Colorado this is one of the places I love to ride my bike and hike you can see all the trails up here that people ride on in the summer ski on this time of year fat bike it's a lovely area I wanted to talk to you about why I love to ride my bike so much I'm a cancer survivor and it was instrumental physically and mentally in my recovery running is my coping mechanism when able to when I'm able to get out and run I'm able to clear my mind I'm able to work through issues that I've got going on think through everything quietly with myself only to listen to I come home and I have a new found strength to get through the rest of the day or the rest of the week bike packing has given me a sense of ownership of my own life before any trip really anxious taking risks I got to make sure I have all the right gear then you just hit the road and you keep paddling and paddling and somewhere along the way you're surrounded by incredible humans enjoying some beautiful scenery and you realize this is my life I chose this and now I know I'm ready for whatever life could throw at me I'm kind of excited biking has changed my life in three ways one more exercise I feel great moving my body it's really fun to explore new places check out the world that we live in and three it's brought me great friends and allowed me to travel to beautiful places cycling what it's done for my life is it just it's been something far cheaper than what therapy could ever buy and I've discovered that it's where I get the most quiet time with God and reflection in nature and just all creation and just miles and miles of a whole lot of me listening to to what my God wants for me when I was 13 I really got into cycling and when I was 14 I got the opportunity to do a 500 mile tour around Colorado through chilly Colorado camps I'm now 57 and still bike cycling is my main passion but cycling it's really done for me and now even through bike packing gravel biking is it just opens up a whole new world of exploration running has changed me in so many ways both in the physical and in the spiritual so to say or the the mental it's it's taking me to great places it's brought on so many good friendships not only here locally but across the entire world just being able to connect at the interpersonal level and more than anything taking me to great heights and kind of appreciating the world for what it is and on top of that it's made me a better person not only with people I work with but also being a husband and a father I run to keep myself grounded I noticed a difference in my life I learned how to be positive and inject that into my running and into life hey Ryan I went on my first bike trip a couple years ago and quickly learned it's the absolute best way to travel I love that you can smell and hear and sense everything going on around you it's just no greater way to experience traveling through the countryside I want to say that you inspire me to get on my bike every day and not only have you inspired me but also your buddies John and Mira they've inspired me to get our little get up here and this is my little buddy Lucky and I got my little rig here for him and you together with John and Mira have inspired me to start not only riding more but getting out and getting my dog out there with me thank you to everybody who sent in videos and they inspire me I'm constantly inspired by your stories of triumph I want this channel to be more than just you watching a guy riding a bike and singing Olay this is a community and I care about you and your goals and I want you to accomplish your wildest dreams it gives me an idea I want you all to think of something that scares you and then I want you to go out and do it it can be anything like climbing a really tall tree or running your first 5k or going on your first bike packing adventure after you complete your challenge send me a photo of you looking all tired sweaty and awesome okay let's talk about some of the great things that happened this year in January before we even knew what coronavirus was I traveled to Baja Mexico and rode the last half of the Baja divide it was there that I met John and Mira we became fast friends and had the time of our lives I mean come on how can you not love Mira it was love at first sight with that goofy dog you just want to lick it love that's you in March I convinced my mom to travel with me to one of my favorite places on the planet the copper canyons in northern Mexico I was really excited for my mom to experience the magic and although I didn't know it at the time this would be my only race of 2020 and another great thing happened in March my little brother Ethan and his wife Melissa welcomed a new dozer to the world that's right there's more of us now his name is sander and his favorite activity is swinging with his sister what you think gallery how's sander doing looks like it huh during lockdown I tried to put a smile on people's faces by riding bikes around town and blasting dance music happy Thursday happy happy Thursday Scott jurick and I ran a backyard marathon on the day that should have been the Boston marathon okay final six miles like this I went on a backyard bike packing trip to my mom's house on her birthday long-distance burrito cheers and I gave a virtual graduation speech to the class of 2020 yes this is weird oh and I can't forget this one Dan and I rode bikes to Denver to get a donut look at this amazing donut it was the little things that made life brighter this year in June I auctioned off my love cycles bike and with your help I donated $3,000 to black girls do bike and the bike packing routes by pock adventure grant which will fund bike adventures for people of color later that month I went on an amazing adventure around Lake Tahoe with my dear friend Dominic in July I set off on a dream trip down the great divide riding a bike that I helped create with my friends at priority and guess who came to join the fun John and Mira you all saw the stunning beauty in my videos but what really sticks with me are the people we met along the way it was trail magic every day we'd like to think that we have four acres of love right here in kindness and we just hope that any of that love and kindness we just spread out into the world so that's what that's why we do this in August Dana and I took advantage of a COVID road closure on Mount Evans and rode our bikes to the tippy top 14,000 feet I celebrated five years of being sober which is still the best decision I've ever made and Scott and I completed a local adventure called the Longs Peak duathlon biking 60 miles and running to the top of Longs Peak near oh and including this video I uploaded 82 videos this year that is a new record for me when I look back on all this I think right on this dumpster fire of a year turned out okay I learned a lot about patience and I'm even more grateful than ever for the things that I do have this year didn't go as planned for any of us but like with most adventures they never go exactly as planned and I've learned from a lifetime of doing hard things that everything is temporary and you got a role with the punches be grateful for the good times and when challenging times hit take a step back breathe deeply and work on a solution every day there's something new and magical nature is always putting on a show I'm gonna end by saying thank you creating videos on YouTube is a dream job and I couldn't do it without your support my goal since day one has always been to inspire people to get off their couches and with every year that passes I get to reach more people and that is so cool so keep on sharing liking and watching my videos and if you feel inspired you can join my patreon so I can keep this channel moving forward alright I don't jinx us but here's to a great 2021 I have a feeling that things are gonna be better and if they aren't while we learn some great coping mechanisms this year that will help us on our journey I'm wishing you all the best and here is a big safe COVID hug I'm sending to all of you now get out there


Hello everyone, I'm Alicia Woodruff and welcome to the Fort Worth. So this week I'm with Whitney Ellis, the Riverside Community Center supervisor to talk about Camp Fort Worth. So Whitney, can you tell us a little bit about the program? Sure. We have 19 community centers in the city of Fort Worth and each summer we have children ages 5 to 13 who come and spend the summer with us. We're doing games and activities with the kids all day long. Our part is field trips, we have guest speakers come in, we have these beautiful parks that the kids get to enjoy. It's really one of the biggest benefits is that children get a chance to be outside to unplug and to make new friends and it's just a lot of fun. So it sounds like a really, really fun summer activity that most people have never heard of. So if you were trying to get a child to come here, what would you say are the requirements to be eligible and how much it costs? All the requirements would be to show up and register. The fee is $180 for the entire summer and so it's a 10-week program. So if you pay it all up front but it ends up being like $18 a week if you were paying it out. But you pay it up front, 180, 10 weeks, it's from June 11th to August 17th. We offer a full day of activities from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. We also offer an extended care for an additional fee if some parents need to drop off early or pick up a little later. So the extended care is from 7.30 in the morning till 6 at night for an additional fee each week you can participate in the extended care program. Also field trips and swimming are additional fees that the children could pay in order to participate in those programs. We've done actually some studies. The last couple of summers we have monitored the amount of activity that the children were receiving here at our Camp Fort Worth and we came across a result of an hour-and-a-half moderate activity and an hour-and-a-half of intense activity on average for our campers here at Camp Fort Worth. Thank you so much for your time Whitney and what a wonderful program for our city. Absolutely. So if you'd like more information about Camp Fort Worth you can always visit the city's website or visit your nearest community center and don't forget that Fort Worth has many different activities and programs for your family to enjoy not to mention the Marine Pool which is actually reopening on May 26th. Check it out.


Y Trefanydd y Blwysnys pwysoch yn fwrdd i gael chi eich cyllideb, rwy'n ei wneud fy modd o bwysig bod yn fwy o ddwyllwr sydd y mae'n mynd i gweithio'r ddefnyddiau. A rydym yn amser'n gwybod cyn ffelly dda wedi bod hynny o'r cymryd i gweithio'r cymryd o'r cymryd, ond i'n gallu y dyma, a'r darllwch yn ddal yn gweithio iawn o'r bwysig iawn. Addw instructions eisiau i bwysig iawn i'n ddyneud iawn o'r newb만. Felly we might expect to see natural fluctuations throughout the year, given the high levels of deaths noted in March, we do intend to investigate further. All NHS boards use the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool to support high-quality standardised review of each neonatal death. In addition, some may be subject to a more in-depth review as part of the maternity and neonatal perinatal adverse event review process for Scotland. In addition to those local reviews of each case, the Scottish Government jointly with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the Scottish Perinatal Network and Public Health Scotland, will undertake further investigations into the potential causes of the increased neonatal deaths to understand and address any possible contributing factors so that we can continue to improve the care of the smallest and sickest babies in Scotland. Thank you for your answer, Minister, and I too wish to pass on my condolences to all those families affected. Although there is so little known about these deaths at the moment, it is important that health visits are running as normal, even despite the huge pressures facing our NHS. Do we have the right resources in place at the moment to deliver the three home visits, as outlined in the Health Visitor's home visiting pathway? Can the minister explain what mitigations are being put in place while we investigate the causal factors behind these tragic baby deaths? I certainly, throughout the pandemic, despite the moving around of staff that occurred at all times during the pandemic, maternity and neonatal care and family care were prioritised. People in roles such as Midwifery and health visitor were not moved to the same extent as some other roles in hospitals, because we knew just how important the work that they do is. There are undoubtedly—the number of deaths, although absolutely tragic, is thankfully small. That makes it particularly difficult to pick up on trends and what might be the underlying causes. We are looking very carefully at the rate of mid-death in March. We will absolutely learn any lessons that can possibly be learned and ensure that, if there are any particular institutional lessons that need to be learned, that that will be taken forward as well. Unfortunately, Presiding Officer, I will only have one supplementary question. I would like to add my condolences to anyone who has lost a baby. The Government has been right to make clear that there is no link to neonatal Covid or to the Covid-19 vaccine, but Dr Sarah Stock, who co-led the Covid-19 in pregnancy Scotland study, has said that further research is required to understand the effect of Covid-19 in pregnancy, because Covid-19 can cause pregnancy complications such as early birth. Dr Sarah Stock has also said that the wider impacts of Covid-19 on NHS workforce and services needs to look at. Can the minister confirm that the inquiry will look at those issues? Can she say when she anticipates updating Parliament further on those issues? I can certainly say that there are several surveillance programmes that are focusing on the direct impact of Covid-19 on pregnant women and babies. Those are under way, including the COPS and the BPSU study, both of which are looking in detail at population-level monitoring and analysis of the occurrence and outcomes of Covid-19 infection and pregnancy. Of course, worldwide, the vaccine has been used in millions of pregnant women. I know that there has been a lot of concern about using the vaccine in pregnancy. The evidence thus far suggests that the virus is significantly more dangerous to pregnant moms and to babies and that the vaccine improves the safety. At the moment, I would like to give reassurance on that front. It is an evolving situation, and it is really important that we think about all the factors that might have contributed to the current rise in neonatal deaths. The pressures on workforce occurred at that particular peak at a time when workforce were under the most immense stress that they have experienced throughout the pandemic, so we will be looking at those issues as well. It is important that we learn lessons and make changes going forward, as far as we can, to ensure that we are absolutely taking care of any preventable factors that might have contributed to these neonatal deaths. To ask the Scottish Government what its reaction is to the reported awarding of almost £1 million compensation from Police Scotland to an ex-officer following an employment tribunal ruling of victimisation. The Scottish Government takes extremely seriously any concerns raised about Police Scotland, whether that is by the public or by officers themselves. When things go wrong and mistakes are made, the police must be held to account and lessons must be learned and improvements must be made. The findings of the employment tribunal clearly demonstrate that Ms Malone's experiences were wholly unacceptable, and that has been fully recognised by the chief constable. He has apologised to the claimant, making clear that misogyny, sexism and discrimination of any kind are deplorable and have no place in society or in policing, emphasising his personal commitment to leading change in policing in Scotland. Daniel Johnson Minister for that answer is right that the police must be held to account, because the situation that Rona Malone faced was one of bullying, harassment and, ultimately, suppression of her complaint was all underpinned by a culture that was described at the tribunal as an old boys club. However, nobody should be under any illusion that this is isolated or that it was unavoidable. Dame Eilish Angelini's report into complaints handling highlighted the treatment of minority groups and officers leaving on account of the culture that they faced. It was unavoidable because I personally took the account of a whistleblower to the most senior levels of the police, including a meeting where I described it to the chief constable, and nothing took place. I acknowledge the chief constable's commitment to change, and indeed the report from the police service of Northern Ireland that is forthcoming. I have written to the chief constable to review the circumstances leading to Ms Malone's departure from the police force and to hold those to account, those who failed to examine her complaint and those who suppressed it. I would ask if the minister and the Scottish Government would join me in making that call to the chief constable. I think the member for raising his personal experience that he's had with Police Scotland in reporting incidents like this. I would expect the chief constable to reflect carefully on what Daniel Johnson has said in the chamber today. In terms of the substance of his question, in the days after the judgment was issued, the chief constable made that commitment to commission the external police service to carry out the independent review of this particular employment tribunal decision and make any recommendations that will require action by Police Scotland, whether they are related to performance, culture or conduct. Obviously, we know that the police service of Northern Ireland is finalising that work. I would say that the service has recognised that improvements are needed and Police Scotland has established a strategic oversight board to push forward progress that is needed on equality and diversity within policing. We must enhance complaints handling procedures for police when they make complaints about the service that they serve within. The Angelini review made some good points, but the last thematic progress report was at the end of 2021. Ultimately, in this circumstance, there's at least one other police officer who left directly because of making those complaints and other places that left armed policing. Will the minister commit to expediting the recommendations from the Angelini review, specifically with renewed focus on complaints handling and whistleblowing, including creation of a third party organisation to handle that? We must also enhance the powers of the perk around practice and policy review and the power to call in complaints when the perk no longer has confidence in the police forces handling of them. I would say to the member that many of the things that he has mentioned just there are things that are under consideration by the Government at the moment, but I will ask the Cabinet Secretary to respond in detail to some of the points that the member has raised there. On the Angelini review, that was action that was taken by the Scottish Government in 2018 to review police complaints handling, things like investigations and misconduct in Scotland, recognising that potentially there was an issue there. The Scottish Government accepted the majority of those recommendations, but we're shortly going to be consulting on legislative proposals with a view to delivering new laws to improve transparency and to further strengthen public confidence in the police. That will consult on areas such as duties of candour and co-operation, gross misconduct proceedings and adopting barred and advisory lists in Scotland to strengthen Police Scotland's vetting processes. Those measures will ensure that anyone who doesn't meet the high standards required are not able to continue working within policing. I note the comments that the member made about the recommendations of the Angelini review. I would gently say to him that it was only six months or less than six months, I would say, since the last thematic report. A significant amount of work has been under way to implement that, and currently 34 of those recommendations have been implemented to date. I've been investigating Scotland's police complaint system for years. It has broken and unjust with taxpayers' money being used to crush and silence officers and the public. Police Scotland tried to buy Rona Maron's silence with an NDA. Other officers signed gagging orders because they did not have the strength of the money to fight for justice. Given that safeguards already exist to protect victims and sense of information without the need for NDAs, will the minister commit to ending their use in policing? My understanding is that obviously an NDA was not used in the final settlement of the case that we are discussing today. I would also say that obviously NDA is part of UK employment law. I would say that there are some legitimate uses for NDAs, but they should not be used to cover up discriminatory behaviour, misconduct and things of that nature. I would say that the chief constable has responded to this particular case by apologising to the claimants, making clear that sexism and discrimination has no place in policing and also making a personal commitment to leading change in policing in Scotland. The majority of police officers, I think that we would all agree, work very hard to protect our communities. When things go wrong, as they have done in this case, the member is quite right. We must have robust, transparent mechanisms in place for investigating those complaints. A great deal of work has been done on this already. I have obviously responded to Daniel Johnson on the issue of the Angelini review, but there is more work that needs to be done on this, and the service has accepted that more work needs to be done on this. We will keep Parliament informed of the work and the progress that is being made. As the minister said, the Scottish Government has already taken steps to improve transparency by introducing the organisational duty of Canada in 2018. Can the minister outline what further steps the Scottish Government is taking to improve transparency and further strengthen public confidence in the police? As the minister has already alluded to, will the delivery of standards and public fit services for short individuals and their families should rightly be able to get answers and justice? In 2018, we took the action to commission Dame Angelini to review the police complaints handling investigations and misconduct in Scotland. Her recommendations provide a very strong platform with which to drive forward meaningful improvement in collaboration with our partners across the policing sector here in Scotland. We are shortly going to consult on some further legislative proposals with a view to delivering new laws, which will improve transparency and further strengthen confidence in the police. Those measures will aim to ensure that anyone who does not meet the high standards that are required are not able to continue working within policing. I refer the chamber to my register of interests. This is but the latest example of its type in Police Scotland. There are so many other cases of bullying and victimisation of whistleblowers in other public services as well as the NHS has been widely reported. Does the minister agree that those examples make the case for establishing by statute an independent office of the whistleblower for Scotland? I would have to give that proposal some consideration. I will come back to the member on that point. In general, we have a high-quality police service here in Scotland, but it is right that, when things go wrong, Police Scotland must be held to account and lessons must be learned. I would like to take this opportunity to assure the chamber that the chief constable in this case has taken responsibility for this. He has personally committed to driving and leading that change in policing in Scotland to ensure that those lessons are learned and that improvements are being made. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the anticipated delivery date of the ferries under construction at Ferguson Marine in light of recent reports that the number of faults in the two vessels has arisen. The letter sent from Ferguson to the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee at the end of March sets out the new timetable and costs for the vessels following the legacy cabling issue. Critically, that new schedule has been developed in partnership with CMAL, and CMAL has endorsed that timetable. 801 will be delivered between March and May 2023, and 802 will be delivered between October and December 2023. At the request of the NZ Committee, the Ferguson Marine chief executive updates the committee on a quarterly basis, and the next update is due at the end of June. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. It is also a very welcome shift in tone from the SNP benches after the disgraceful comments made by one of their MPs in Westminster, who asserted that we somehow need to change the record and stop talking about ferries. Well, let me say to the Government benches that islanders of Arran that I spoke to this morning are furious and they want us to do anything but change the record on the issue of ferries planning officer. Sadly, what I didn't hear in the answer other than repetition of what we heard months ago was not an answer to the question about the increased level of faults in the vessels. I want a cast iron guarantee. So do our islanders that vessel 801 will be in service by this time next year, and vessel 802 will be in service by the autumn of next year. We all wish the new chief executive at Ferguson the very best of luck in delivering these vessels, but our islanders want to know if their vessels will actually be in service. Let me ask the cabinet secretary on a confidence level of 1 to 10. How confident is she that the Glen Sanex will be sailing passengers to Brodic by this time next year, and in the spirit of taking responsibility will she put her job in the line if it doesn't? I remind the member that I represent a community that is set to benefit from one of these vessels, and I was in the sky as recently as Friday speaking to them, so he is not the only one that represents island communities. In terms of the faults that he has identified, I wonder if I could specifically address that. A senior member of the sea mal team has quite recently been seconded into the Ferguson marine senior management. Sea mal's owner's observation reports, which is what I think he is referring to, are now treating as the snagging and defect list, and that is typical of any large construction or ship building project. The list of OORs was 237 in March as engagement, and the relationship between sea mal and FMPG improved and between the respective teams. Good progress is being made in clearing those issues, so the list of OORs was assessed and 119 are assessed as category 1. The rest are assessed as minor snagging. Within 119, there are engineering solutions for 83, leaving 36 that are still being worked on. Solutions are expected progressively without delays or impacts on the programme. That work, Presiding Officer, briefly is being led by the FMPG compliance director, and until recently he was also employed by Lloyd's Register of Shipping, the classification society that surveys both GlenSanix and 802. The CEO is a naval architect and a classification surveyor by background. He is also personally engaged in the process, particularly with issues relating to stability and safety. Solving all those issues is critically important. It is part of the programme, and I think that we have the best people on the ground to do that. We do have good people, but we hope that we do not have them as an answer. No castarian guarantee. Once again, no one in the SNP is willing to take full responsibility for the delivery of those vessels. Of course, that stems back to the miraculous missing email that the First Minister gleefully attributes all the blame on this to Derek Mackay, an email that magically appeared in the opening minutes of an opposition debate. That email still does not answer key questions in the eyes of Audit Scotland. Why did the contract pass two rounds of due diligence, contrary to legal advice? Why was 80 per cent of the agreed price for the ships paid when the progress on the build of the ships was anything but that, and did the First Minister herself give the go-ahead for the contract to be awarded to her friend, Mr McCall? There clearly remains a very real risk that those ferries will not be delivered more than five years after their due date, and the cost is now spiralling to more than a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayers' money. The cabinet secretary cannot answer those questions that Audit Scotland wants answers to. Will she answer those two from me? Will the Government commit to the Deputy First Minister making a full statement to this Parliament on his role in all of this? Secondly, will the Government agree to fill public inquiry into their handling of the shambles? I am here once again another week answering questions on Ferguson marines. In terms of scrutiny, scrutiny for the last two months has probably not exceeded any other form of scrutiny. We have said when it comes to a public inquiry that we have accepted the recommendations of the Audit Scotland report. One of those recommendations is to persevere with getting the boats delivered and after they have been delivered to do more in-depth lessons learned. Obviously, the Audit Scotland report comes after the cross-party inquiry led by the WREC committee, and so there has been a comprehensive overview of the situation already with more than 200 documents having been published. In terms of the specific question, I have been absolutely crystal clear on what I expect from Ferguson marines in completing the vessels. It was not a document that resulted in delayed construction to the vessels. That is a question of construction, and he does not need to believe me on that. He just needs to read the Audit Scotland report on that. It is quite clear that the reason why they are overdue and over-budget is a question of construction. That is why my priority—I was at Ferguson marines as recently as last week—is to make sure that those boats are delivered, not just for his constituents but for my constituents too. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that the workforce of Ferguson marines is entitled to expect better than the constant attacks from the Tories, where Mr Greene's action was in the yard only last month and heard exactly what was said by the managing director? Mr Greene did hear that. The constant attacks from the Tories is also Labour on its treatment in the words of the GMB as a political football. The member is absolutely right. Again, it is not about what I say or what the Government says, it is about what the workers say. To hear the GMB blasting the Labour Party and to hear the Conservatives dismiss the concerns of workers is really problematic. I was at Ferguson marines last week. I spoke directly to union representatives and to the workers and their morale is being eroded. The future of the yard is being questioned as a result of elements of the discussion that is going on amongst politicians. I think that it is absolutely right that the Opposition holds the Government to account and I think that it is absolutely right that the Government ensure that there are plans in place to resolve the issues. That is why I am here again, answering questions why we have had several debates on the issue. It is one thing to criticise Government. It is quite another to constantly erode the morale of the workers who have a job to do and whose job is based on their skills and on their talent. The cabinet secretary will be aware of a report in the press today of an email sent from Derek Mackay to Stuart McMillan. She knows that one of the issues around all this has been the lack of refund guarantee. According to the email from Mr Mackay, he says, and this was sent in February 2015, while CML's board in line with standard industry practice has a preference for refund guarantees, it has on occasion taken alternative approaches to ensure that shipyards including Ferguson under its previous owners were not excluded from bidding for Government contracts. What does the cabinet secretary have to say to that? Can she explain why the Government has been taking such a cavalier approach to ferry procurement? The member will be aware, because I am sure that he has read the Audit Scotland report in great detail, that the Audit Scotland report identifies areas where Government has indeed made changes already. They have made changes when it comes to Government investment in private companies. We have also made changes to procurement. The example of that is very much to be seen in the most recent contract that has been awarded. The contract was awarded by CML in its capacity as procuring authority. That is well known and well documented. It is also well known and well documented because of documents that have been in the public domain now for almost two years. CML expressed concerns about a full refund guarantee and the documentation that has been in the public domain for two years, although it took the Opposition quite a while to find it. The critical email is 8 October, which shows that mitigations were put in place to combat the lack of a full refund guarantee, including CML taking ownership of all equipment and materials that were supplied to the yard. All suppliers having to ensure that they had a full refund guarantee and the schedule of payments being changed. The cabinet secretary says that she expects the vessels to be completed next year. It is clear that island communities expect a national ferry building programme to create a modern and resilient ferry fleet. The next stage of replacement of the ferry fleet will be to replace smaller ferries, work that could easily be done at Ferguson's, on the issue of supporting the workforce. Assuming that the current timescales are met, will she confirm that it is the Government's intention to award the contract for the replacement of CalMac ferries to the yard, or will that work be gone abroad to Turkey too? It is the first time that the cabinet secretary has asked me a question about the future of Ferguson marine. That is far more critical right now in ensuring that there is a pipeline of work at the yard. The yard is actively pursuing opportunities for future vessel contracts. I do not know if he joined the delegation of cross-party MSPs that went to the yard last month, but the chief executive will probably have outlined what they are doing in terms of securing future work. We will do all that we can to help the yard to secure those opportunities. He is right in identifying that there is a £580 million ferry investment programme that is under way right now. That will include the small vessels replacement programme. Those conversations are actively on-going. I think that this is the kind of territory that we should be on if we want to boost the morale of the workers. That concludes topical questions. I will allow a moment before we move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is a debate on motion 4 4 2 8 in the name of Mary Gougeon on supporting Scotland's islands on their journey to become carbon neutral. I would be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate could press their request to speak buttons. I call on Mary Gougeon to speak to and move the motion up to 15 minutes, cabinet secretary. I am delighted to open the debate today in support of Scotland's islands on their journey to become carbon neutral. Today, I will outline the Scottish Government's progress in supporting our island communities in their climate change journey, not least our exciting carbon neutral islands project, which puts islands at the forefront of our climate change ambitions. First of all, I want to acknowledge and to thank the members for the proposed amendments to the motion today and to set out that I am happy to support the amendment from Rhoda Grant confirming that moving to net zero requires a just transition. The carbon neutral islands project will not only benefit the environment but will support local economies, green skills and general wellbeing. I am also pleased to support the amendment today from Rachael Hamilton. The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting our island communities and this innovative project that highlights islands as...