Hello everyone I'm James Milan and this is Talk of the Town and we are here outside Arlington Police Department headquarters with our animal control officer Diane Welch. We always like to check in with Diane as regularly as we can and certainly as one season is moving into the next and we are here here in August it seems it's come very quickly. Very quickly. But yeah we're happy to check in with you about a number of things going on for you and for the Arlington community at this time of year. I know that one topic that is on the minds of folks a lot and regularly throughout the year these days has to do with rats actually and the fact that there are traditional ways of approaching the rat problem and you know more exploration of alternatives these days. Just give us a sense of where things are at right now. It's an interesting that you bring this up now because I've noticed particularly I'm going to say over the last month I have been getting more and more calls from residents that are asking what can I use for alternatives. I don't want to use poisons. We found some rat boroughs in our yard. How can we treat those. And it's given me hope that word of mouth. I think that Arlington is very environmentally conscientious but I think through word of mouth the word is getting out there that we need to demand as consumers better alternatives from the past control industry. I think that just remind us what what what the traditional approach to this is from the pet control industry traditionally if you were to call a pest control company and you had signs of rats at your house. They come they put out their poisoned bait boxes. You don't ask any questions they do what they do and you're happy. You're just interested in getting rid of the rats you don't care how it happens. And I get that. I don't want rats around me. I'm not afraid of them but I don't want them around the schools or or my home or playgrounds and so without asking questions and again going back to the problem with that rat poison is that killing the rats takes time.  Did I say that no and even sometimes people's pets. You know I always worry about dogs or so to demand that they come up with a better alternative. I think it's going to come from public pressure. It's the only way that it's going to happen because cost effective for the pest control industry is to just throw poison out right. Right and you're saying that the that the rats after staggering and finally dying then if they're eaten by these other creatures then that rat poison may pass into the other creatures and affect their own health. Or even if they bring it back to the nest let's say it's a hawk and it brings it back to the nest and then poisons all of the young in that nest. So I'm seeing more I'm getting more and more calls from residents asking what can I use where can I get dry ice. It works very effective in the rat burrows to pack it with dry ice cover it up you never see them smell them they die underground it's fantastic it's CO2 and it sinks to the very bottom of that den. Sounds simple as well. It's very simple. The pest control companies have labeled it I think because it is effective and it takes business away from them labeled it I believe it's listed as a dangerous product which I grew up with dry ice being used in magic shows and school plays and so to me listing that as a dangerous product and not the wharf and or the neurotoxins that they're putting out everywhere is a little bit ridiculous but our board of health also has a lot of really good information you know if you're wondering is this a rat burrow is it a chipmunk hole they have great videos they've done a lot of training in rat behavior and signs to look for in your yard if you're wondering if you do have rats so that's also a great resource for people to go to but I am seeing more and more calls and it gives me hope that there's a quote by Margaret Mead that I just love and it goes never underestimate the power of a few concerned citizens to change the world for indeed it's the only thing that ever has and I love that. And you feel like that may be what you're seeing. I'm hopeful I am hopeful so. And you know with the caveat and the understanding that you're not endorsing any particular approach or anything like that are there other solutions out there for rat infestation beyond dry ice that you've already mentioned that people also could be looking into again just as a matter of information. There are some of the hardware stores home improvement stores are carrying devices that can zap the rats once they go in to abated non-poisonous station being electrocuted I think it would be safe to then you know properly dispose of it or hoping that it doesn't contain any other poisons leave it for a predator to take. There are my sister and I laughed at the name of this one. There's a device called a better way we loved that name and it's a CO2 charged metal spike that when the rat goes in it triggers it so it's it's killed instantly with the metal spike a better way we thought we love whoever picked out that name. But there are sounds electronic sounds that are supposed to prevent rats and mice from coming into the area and so there's a lot of alternatives out there I would say you know Google it Amazon it look at the ratings and see what works for other people. But again it's going to be public demand that comes up with something that is effective cost effective effecting at eliminating rats and easily accessible to the public. Okay well talking about public demand I have to just mention that we are speaking shortly after a gathering that you organized at town hall and just invited people if they wanted to know more about coyotes which have obviously been a more conspicuous presence here in town over the last little while and the place was packed and he brought in an expert to talk about you know to educate basically the public. Talk to us a little bit about that evening what was you know some of the most important information that was shared and just where you know where things stand with coyotes and Arlington at the moment. I have to say that I was so thrilled to see such a turnout you know you offered to have these town meetings up until I announced that I was going to have a town meeting on coyotes I was getting probably 10 to 15 calls a day on you know people were frightened by them some people loved them many were frightened and what about children and what about pets and what if you're out walking and so there was a lot of concern. The minute I announced that meeting the calls stopped immediately which I thought was so interesting but I went to Chief Flaherty and I said you know I see a need in education and she was so supportive and said let's do it. Right because I think what you're saying is people were frightened mostly because they just don't know enough. They just don't understand coyote behavior. We brought in John from Project Coyote and he brought up a really good point about and in talking about the public not having great information and having that fear on coyotes and he said the news has done a great disservice to coyotes. The only time you ever hear about and what sells the news is when there's a coyote grabbing a dog or a coyote attempting to grab a dog or someone's cat or jumping a fence or it never talks about the benefits. Right that disaster driven need. Right and what it doesn't mention is all of the rodents that coyotes eat the number of rabbits that they eat I get a lot of complaints about rabbits that are eating everybody's gardens and plants and coyotes to me are a great sign of a healthy ecosystem and that we have enough prey items to sustain them. We need them to keep the rodents in check and I thought John from Project Coyote just did an amazing presentation every time he speaks I learned something new from him and I think that people left feeling a little bit more empowered knowledgeable and empowered as to what to do if you encounter one he taught us how to properly ease one. And I even got a letter from a gentleman he had contacted me before the meeting was planned and he said you know we can hear howling at night from our home summertime the windows are open and my wife is terrified and then she can't get back to sleep and she was really frightened and it was so great because he sent me a letter after the meeting and he said we left with a better understanding my wife is no longer afraid and when she hears the howling she's not frightened and can sleep through the night now and that that made my day just even that little bit of a change peace of mind to that woman and to that husband and that's what the message we were hoping to get out there so it went really well. Yeah just excuse the interruption but I do want to remind people because we're referring to it that ACMI was there to be able to tape it live and that you can find the entire presentation on ACMI at ACMI.tv and by all means go check it out because as you said it was chock full of useful information. There's so much to learn in how to keep your small dogs safe you know we touched on the subject of outdoor cats and what to do if you encounter one how to properly ease it I had actually run into a few coyote situations in my own yard and I had called John from Project Coyote and said you know what's going on and he said you didn't haze it right and I thought what do you mean I didn't haze it right I thought I knew exactly what to do but I didn't I was hazing it wrong he was exactly right and what he explained for me to do but knew exactly what that coyote was going to do and it did just what he said so. So just to explain it very briefly what hazing is for for folks so hazing is trying to get a coyote to move on move out of your area and so not just get rid of him or her temporarily but but to put a fear into it that this isn't a comfortable place for you to hang out and of course for me I had always heard as many people hazing is to yell make yourself as big as you can bang on pots and pans whatever and make a big ruckus and I did that and yelled and I went up to the coyote and kind of confronted it right to the wood line what John was saying is that it's all in the eye contact right and we talked about there's a saying eyes in front likes to hunt eyes on the side likes to hide so think of rabbits with their eyes on the side and it's so that they can see predators coming from any direction right eyes in front who but humans is one of the biggest predators on earth I think and so you approach that coyote making eye contact you walk right at it making eye contact John said that it's going to run off it's going to stop I forget if you said 20 feet or 20 yards off and it's going to reevaluate it's going to turn and look to see what you and it's exactly what they do if you stop right there you've taught it I'm not going to follow through with it so you keep walking right at it eye contact then it's going to hide so you're supposed to put your hands on your hips and kind of scan the area the woods or wherever as it's hiding like you are the predator I'm the predator you need to be wary of me and that's the proper way to haze it so I loved that it wasn't carrying on and yelling and making myself as big as possible and that didn't work right I was doing it wrong yeah very interesting because I do think that that's going to take some training right people to do what what is recommended looking at just walking right at them because of course and you can clap your hands and but it's eye contact and walking like you're the boss you're the predator yeah so we've talked about rat poison rat poison alternatives and then and then coyotes to two big topics in Arlington at the moment but what are some of the other things that are going on again as we're starting to move into fall or finishing out with summer regrettably I know so fast it's funny because I was just talking to Kylie that works at the Board of Health amazing young woman and I think that we have had I was asking her yesterday is it six is it seven is it eight incidents where people have found a bat in their home in some instance instances children are in the home everybody's sleeping at night the bat could have been flying anywhere through the home and so that to us we take very seriously is a possible exposure where you could be bit by a bat their teeth are so tiny and so sharp that you don't even know that you're bit so we need to catch that bat and have it tested for rabies if we can't catch that rat rat the bat and let's say somebody lets it out and there is a possible exposure we always tell the residents to follow up with their doctors or pediatricians and follow their instructions and often that is to go through a set of rabies shots rabies protocol is very black and white there is no gray area and that's why we don't have much rabies in Massachusetts it's very strict and so I rely on Kylie's expertise in that I'll get the bat if I can catch it in the home and get it to her she knows just how to package it it's very particular in double triple packaging it refrigerating it labeling it biohazard calling couriers and getting it to the state lab in Jamaica to be tested even if your pets have become exposed to it sometimes you'll find your cat playing with the bat in the house we want of course all pets to be up to date on their rabies shots but if that bat is not accessible for testing then we're going to do a 10 day quarantine on those pets to observe them and make sure that they're safe so if you have a bat in your house it seems to be a pattern we've seen in the last week and a half call animal control we want to if at all possible it says Kylie and I were talking a little bit on how to get the right message out and that some people can trap it themselves safely only if safely with a coffee can and then sliding a piece of cardboard and then you've got it and put something on top of it until I can get there or somebody can get there to get it to be shipped off for testing so we want access if there's a any possible exposure to humans we want to be able to test that bat and you were what you were just describing is a process for that testing that you were saying that Kylie supervises should people wait wait for the results of that testing before you know having their themselves their children their pets checked out or should they go ahead and do that it's a really good question and that's why we always defer them to their doctor or pediatrician so they should make that call I want them to make that call with their doctor I've had a case where two little children were playing in their son room and one came in one came in crying to the mom and said I'm scared and she said what are you scared about and went out the child was barefoot and there was a little bat kind of crushed into the rug so did that child step on the bat probably and the dad in his panic took the bat picked it up with gloves and threw it in the middle of the street threw it out of the house and then it was run over I need that bat in the best possible condition to have it tested so I flew over there to get it to pick it up off the street it was able to be tested thank goodness it was negative but they started the children on rabies shots right away they were so frightened and so we always refer them to their doctor or pediatrician follow that doctor's instructions they're gonna know best so definitely as soon as the bat is contained contact your your doctor nutrition absolutely and thank goodness all the bats that we have sent to the lab to be tested have all come back negative thank goodness so great but just so that you know what to do if you ever should find yourself in a situation where there's a bat in your house and I know a lot of people are afraid of bats I love them I even got bit myself catching one in a woman's living room last week and I had my little gloves on and I thought the head I thought it was hanging upside down right like bats do but the head was up so when I grabbed it it was and I got a picture of it and it looks so ferocious they're adorable but they're tiny teeth ferocious and adorable they're so cute I love them and they eat thousands of insects so we need them but that little bite can be so minute that you don't even know you've been bitten so we always always err on the side of precaution when it comes to rabies and right as you just mentioned rabies in the context of rats I mean bats excuse me but I think people usually associate that as a danger a potential danger with dog bites right right and I know that that that you've got some some news to share with us around that right so dog bites it's funny when we were talking about excuse me coyotes I wanted to share with everybody at the meeting and never did but I get reports from the Board of Health anytime someone is bitten by a dog or cat or a dog or cat is bitten by another animal and brought to the vet we get what's called a bite report often it's sent to the Board of Health they then send it to me and I will follow up where animals need to be quarantined we need proof of rabies so I wish that more people knew that when their dog or their child or anything gets bit by another dog or cat a domesticated animal I would like you to treat it like a car accident in other words I know it's a very emotional it's frightening people are heated in the moment defensive try to take a deep breath and remember to exchange information very similar to a car accident very similar to a car accident we want to exchange information not for a good dog bad dog it's more that I need to know that that dog or the biter is up to date on its rabies shots right once I have that information both dogs or if it's a dog biting a child or whatever it's going to be quarantined for 10 days anyway which sounds terrible but it only means that you can't leave the state with the dog you can still walk it on a leash you can't go to a dog park in other words we don't want a chance of that dog biting anybody else but always try to remain calm and exchange information it's terrible that in some cases people will get their dogs and kind of run off they're afraid of a liability or a lawsuit or you know having to pay vet bills or and well I just want to ignore like pretend it never happened and but you need to get we need that information again rabies protocol I want to know that everybody's going to be safe everybody's up to date on their rabies shots and then it's a simple procedure 10 day quarantine a peek at the dogs everybody's fine you're free to go so always try to get that information from the other person parties involved you always want to treat it like a car accident get get the information phone number name the name of their vet all of that information it's critical and then if they don't provide the information I can get it so another issue that you know folks in Arlington run into on occasion is stray dogs lost dogs any thoughts or guidance for folks about how to deal with that I have to say that so we don't have many let's say wild dogs running the streets of Arlington thank goodness but whenever and it happens often I get a call there's a dog scene running on such and such a street anytime that I get to that location the dog is nowhere to be found nowhere to be found they're on the run thank goodness almost every single time some compassionate person in Arlington has an extra leash or gets the caller holds on to the dog till I and calls me till I can get there or the owner is frantically looking it just got escaped the gate often they have people contractors working at the house they left the gate open and the dog got out and thank goodness almost every single time the kind people of Arlington have stepped in to help that dog and I think saved it from being hit by a car and there's a lot of compassion and kindness in Arlington and I get to see it every day there's a lot more it renews my faith in humanity every day and you know we sometimes in talking to friends in the craziness that's going on in the world and it can be a bit overwhelming and I say to people you know what there is more kindness in the world I get to see it every day I see it I know it's true there's more kindness than not and I've got to say I'm just going to I'm going to recite the ovation you yourself received at the coyote you know the public gathering for around coyote information that must have been very heartwarming as you know how you're embraced by this community I am so humbled by the kindness and the support that I truly am humbled by it Arlington loves animals they have loved me and supported me and honestly their kindness has kept me going because I get to see more kindness than not and that was so touching to me at that in fact I was rewatching some of the ACMI dot TV rewatching it and I said to my husband look you have to see this Steve I said look at that and he was just like wow and I said I know my heart was just so full and I was so thrilled that that many people showed up they were supportive and enthusiastic and I went to bed that night with a big smile on my face so relieved and so satisfied that it went so well really well we we've covered coyotes and rats and bats and dogs is there anything else that you want to share it seems to be I'm just seeing in the last week and it's even made me aware at home skunks are on the move right so be careful with your dogs be aware it's an awful feeling when your dog gets sprayed by a skunk but they I've had several calls on skunks in just the last week if your dog does get sprayed by did I say your skunk it's great if your dog is all right you started out if your dog gets sprayed by a skunk number one don't let it in the house or your vehicle if you can avoid it you need hydrogen peroxide baking soda a little bit of Dawn dish detergent I put it in a metal pan because I didn't want the smell to be in like a plastic bowl or whatever a metal pan I added some warm water an old face cloth and I kept my dog outside once that smell comes inside it's you go nose-blind and it's going to be there for a long time and bathe the dog you can put that mixture in a spray bottle if you have one handy and then work it in with plastic gloves on work it into the fur and then rinse but that is the magic formula it will remove the smell don't let it into your house if you can wash it outside and I added not ice-cold water from the hose but warmish water to that mixture hydrogen peroxide baking soda Dawn dish detergent mix it up wash that dog you can do it with the face cloth if it's around like my dog who box and then get sprayed down the throat which is fabulous and it's it's so effective at removing that tongue spray so I would say be warned skunks are on the move right about now and this is not a product endorsement I'm curious about that the fact that you designated Dawn as the as the dish detergent in there is it is there something that people really should be getting that particular one yes and so even Dawn dish detergent is what's used it cuts through oils better than I'm sure there are other brands that maybe are as good I don't we always say Dawn if you think of it for my sister's a wildlife biologist and went down south for one of the big oil spills was it the big one in the Gulf of Mexico and they use Dawn dish detergent to get the birds to bathe them hundreds of them a day because it cuts through the grease so well but it's gentle and rinse them and release it cuts through that grease it cuts through that oily scent of that skunk so we always recommend Dawn dish detergent okay I just a mixture of these ingredients people want to know more can they you can Google it okay Google it doesn't matter the measurements I did a good dose of hydrogen peroxide like three tablespoons of baking soda a couple of good drops of Dawn I don't want it too foamy some warm water a towel gloves and it got every bit of smell off of him great yeah and people shouldn't worry about the ratios there sounds like make sure there's a mix of those ingredients right on the dog I had a friend whose dog just got sprayed Sunday and I felt so bad for her and she said I sent my daughter for tomato soup or tomato paste and I was like no that's not going to work that's old school you need to try this so it really does work so alright so we've added skunks to our mix our mix today anything we've missed that that people should know as we head into fall I was hoping that just as a side note that baby season was done I felt animal baby animal baby season I laughed referring to myself as the midwife for all of the animals wild animals in Arlington with baby birds bunny squirrels raccoons possums and I thought that baby season was done and we're still I'm still getting calls for baby squirrels pinkies this big and baby bunnies and I want everybody to talk to their resident squirrels and bunnies to just say it's time to rest just stop it it's time for us to rest baby season is done I'm exhausted we're done get the word out we're done time to rest and I think maybe we're done at least with this conversation at least for today always good to talk to you thank you so much very good to talk to you as always and we'll be back again all right before too long yes in the fall we'll see what's going on in the fall what's on the move and migrations and getting ready for winter and we'll look forward to all right you too all right always a pleasure to talk to our animal control officer Diane Welsh and we're glad to do so glad you were here for it I'm James Milan this is Stock in the Town thanks for being here


what's up guys we're back with another epic video today we're going to be doing the ultimate battle legacy yugioh versus pokemon yeah we're doing it we have legacy yugioh packs and we have shining face the most hyped pokemon set like ever it's ridiculous so we're going to be opening up 15 legacy yugioh packs and 14 shiny face this is a yugioh channel we get one extra pack but before that the giveaway i'll begin to weigh these three cards these are the promos from the crowbat v boxes and the promo that we pulled out of the crossroads of chaos 10 or whatever it's called the turbo warrior 10 i guess all you got to do like the video be subscribed and let me know who's side you're on you on yugioh side or you on pokemon side if you say pokemon the commenters are gonna roast you just like i'm gonna get roasted for opening pokemon it's gonna be awesome here we go and before we get started the legacy packs i got from rock sandy he has a youtube channel go ahead and check him out in the description below and i also got these pokemon packs from the pokey space official he actually hooked me up at a pretty good price not market because the market price is just insane but a little bit over retail but you know better than the 80 or 90 dollars everybody wants for like the the eight packs or whatever all right let's get into this let's move these aside and let's do uh let's do one pack at a time let's start off with yugioh we're going to do the one invasion of chaos pack you guys mentioned when we open 51 invasion of chaos the other day check that out it was weird it was very weird yeah it was super weird but here we go let's see if we can pull something good it's yugioh versus pokemon yugioh has one extra pack but the pokemon packs have like potential having like two or three hits per pack it's like ridiculous they're cheating over there so we're gonna uh you know have to pull something good here how many of these am i gonna pull that's the third one so if you guys spoiler alert if you didn't watch that 51 pack opening we pulled two of these no cd that's our third one three invader darkness in the last 52 packs that's pretty weird i mean it's not a bad pull though it's not a bad pull it is a secret rare so did we finish the pack yeah we did we did get a chaos sorcerer though which is a pretty awesome comment we'll take that all right next pack that's extremely odd just odd all right these open backwards i haven't opened any of this yet so i honestly haven't watched too much too much of it opened either so i know you can pull the the big boy full art shiny charts or whatever it's called so that's kind of what we're looking for i don't know if the uh is this thing like ruin the or though they all have a thing in about there okay here we go let's see we're not doing any sort of pack trick this is this is you go here we don't do pack tricks spinner rack here we go more peco rookie okay we got a shiny um okay tell me what in the world that is corvus squire near and her to that is our rude a yeah the wacky these cards are wacky okay yeah let's move on all right so that's one hit for the pokemon i don't know what these cards are worth they're gonna be popping up on the screen the value i have no idea honestly i don't know i think uh based on the quick search of the tcg player guide or the uh price guide player guy it was um suikun was like one of the best shinies i don't know what else is good so yeah we'll find out as we go we'll find out as we go that was a dud for yuki oh okay shiny fates battle here we go continuing can we pull the big boy let's move this out of the way you guys can have that i guess you want it because i'm not going to use it that's for sure snom we got a gossip lure uh i don't even know spinner aqua oh wait what is this why does it look like this why does it look like this is this like that uh that new rarity thing time out i'm gonna have to look this up all right i'm confused because i can't even find this card on the list so uh yeah somebody let me know is that like is that like amazing rare or something is that what that is i couldn't even find that i don't know bubonic vermin i have no idea what i'm looking at respect play oni tank let's pull jenzo where you guys in the tribe that's we're pretty stuck at all right okay now what we're looking for a little slow all right we got a creepy toad on here don't know what his name is and it's not the toad that you're that you really want it's not the run in toad in it's not the uh the swap frog all that stuff it's none of that some other toad okay yanma weasel grookey i don't want to say that card it just looks odd snom volcano have we had reverses this is weird oh it did oh okay that's pretty good isn't it this is one of the better cards i mean it's it's a v max that's good right i think that's good i don't know i don't know guys i i really have no idea you guys let me know in the comments if any of you even know what this stuff is all right next yugioh pack let's bring it back for the yugios let's pull some good jenzo come on baby steel ogre grotto shadow of eyes oni tank shift all right great fantastic we just brought the pokemon in here to actually get us some hits because apparently the uh reprint packs are not giving us anything right now so it's pretty rough all right this is uh interesting here we go the trapeze yanma weasel eve that and every pack coughing dreadnought literally nothing in this one wait so you don't get with something every pack are we just getting lucky i don't know but right now it seems like the yugioh is getting destroyed which was kind of expected because yugioh you're going to get one one pull every like five packs this you're going to get one almost every pack all right flying kama kiri types are a magic crusher but i believe it will pull something big and it'll help us win drill book as i pull drill book gravity bind that's pretty good harpy's brother okay all right all righty then shiniest of fates here we go the trapinch grook shinks cough wheeze rotom and boss's orders okay lexio team yell pharaoh's servant here we go here we go psv don't let us down we know you need a genzo it's been a while it's been like a month since we pulled a genzo twin fire dragon skull mariner like light force sore radius force okay all right we've only pulled one foil it's an invader of darkness freaking invader of darkness okay here we go horsey turns into a cool um king draw always a big fan of that one horsey shinks spinner at grook snam snam salami all right not that exciting not that exciting we are on a cold street for all packs now everything is cold but now we're into the spell rulers we're gonna hit lob eventually we're gonna pull blue eyes and it's gonna defeat the charizard how about that well let's just say this now if we pull blue eyes and we pull charizard blue eyes wins just saying psychic capo we got the lap of the wall tune world there we go we finally hit something good toll hate that card all right tune world yes super rare that is nice that's a good pull that's very good super rare one of the best you can pull there pretty exciting also i should mention we are gonna be uh doing a box break for cyber dark impact hobby it's gonna be pretty awesome it's gonna be tomorrow today's tuesday it's on wednesday it is actually already sold out to members and if you want to become a member and get a chance to get those early like they did and they bought every single pack in 20 minutes so it's looking like members will get most of the packs from now on so if you want a chance to get a membership click the join button below or click the link down below that says become a member and you can become a member a tier two special footage member you can get access to those 24 hours ahead of time and you'll get an eight dollar discount for each pack you buy and that's the cost of the membership so you actually save you buy one pack you double save as two packs and triple save on three packs so pretty cool all right there's that yeah so uh check out that live stream tomorrow probably around six o'clock tomorrow something like that it's gonna be pretty awesome live on youtube by the way not twitch all right rookie spinner act all right we have not had anything in forever which is good that's good we're rooting for uh yugioh right or are we all right this is a lot of packs this is like 29 packs not not a small amount of packs here it's like between a yugioh booster box and a pokemon it's like 24 yugioh 36 pokemon twin long rods wow bore soldier boring okay upstart goblin that was done we have an upstart goblin that's a good common shining face my voice is a little wimpy right now so sorry if it sounds a little raspy it probably gets some water after this pack oh man that's spoilers on that on that pack spoilers don't know what it was but it's something shiny all right spinner act we've got that guy we've got to rally it gossip floor okay indy dv okay not the Charizard I don't know what this card is but it is a secret rare looks like maybe or shiny or something so that's good I don't know I don't know if it's good or not to be honest okay but that's better than nothing that's for sure so nice pull there nice pull come on yugioh come on yugioh come on yugioh don't let us down yugioh do not let us down we all hate pokemon because we're yugioh fans right guys yeah we hate polby polby ancient brain shadow ghoul okay empress judge and labyrinth tank the tavern flank all right next pack here we still have a ton of packs left pretty good from these pokemon packs not gonna lie it seems like at least all right let's uh let's do that we got that that thingy let's get it out of the way oh my gosh these spoilers are rough on these they spoil it evie I can't help it rookie snow come on give us give us the give us the big guy the spinner act rillaboom v okay we got ourselves bruh what is this uh isn't this good this card looks sick it's black and gold 122 of 122 time out I'm gonna have to look this one up okay that's an amazing pack look at that imagine if that was a charizard okay time out let me check on this okay so uh that's like a $30 card I didn't check on this guy because I don't think he's that good but uh that's like a $30 card and not gonna lie that looks really cool you know we all hate pokemon I know definitely still hate it but that looks really cool that looks really cool okay metal raiders here we go all right true yugioh duelist here we go let's pull something good hard of the cards you're gonna lose your face the illusionist faceless mage ibekeme okay all right that's fine that's fine we don't want anything anyway no we don't want anything we did not want anything anyway it's totally fine and we're not we're not seeing a spoiler this time letting you guys know watch this okay there's that okay let's do this perfectly like like a real youtuber morpeko yanma trip inch gruk another one of these guys what what are these I don't know what they are what is this card we got another one though so it seems not that rare but maybe it is rare maybe we're just lucky all I know is that these pokemon packs have way too many hits we can't compete we can't compete yugioh we can't okay once we let me get to the we get to the hits part at the end it's gonna be embarrassing yugioh is gonna be sitting back like yeah we got like three fours and i'm gonna be like yeah we got 78 for us to unpack we got a wing dragon guardian the fortress cozy jinn that's a cool one saying and we like that cozy haven't pulled this in a long time there we go so we've hit a secret rare and now two super rares pretty cool cards though i am a big fan of most of the cards we pulled invader i still like even though it is the trolley it's not cd but i do like it it's cool all right another code okay here we go what's this here we go let's keep this nice and protective we got a cough we got a more more chuddle rolled it trapping nick it anisid jui regular hollow those even exist in this in this okay that's the first regular hollow we pulled all right nice nice okay metal raiders if we pull gay guardian we win calling it now just saying i'm just saying here we go the jew ride mo the cheerful coffin unhappy made gazelle king of mythical beasts and show the pic we still have these we still have these guys we have hope llb three packs left here we go come on baby this is why whenever we battle poky rev in those live streams he always wins because he pulls out these packs and they have a billion foils in them and it's just not fair just go ahead go to poky rev's channel tell him that he's cheating all right porcy coughing we'll get a shanks spin a rack more peko and mega another more peko you're telling me that's not a peek at you it's crazy all right blue eyes white dragon i'll show you what a blue eyes white dragon looks like that's for sure right here he know tom a soul let's do this red medicine 13th grave Missouri's i may i may i'll come to her okay all right no no we want that's okay all right two more packs of this shiny stuff two more chances at that shining zard let's try and pull it i believe that we can do it i believe we've already pulled that black and gold car that was pretty cool trap inch rally it make it she man ify and yen mega okay boring very that's what we want to see boring we want you go you go is going to need a blue eyes to win this i think blue eyes maybe red eyes dark magician i mean it's not to you guys who wins really so uh yeah i think they still got a chance all right we got the king fog the electro whip frenzy panda dark hole we got a foil okay another foil that is four for the yugio side good job yugio everybody give yugio a pat on the back dark hole we will take that that is nice so one more pack of each the battle ends here right now we're going to need a miracle for the yugio side to win just go ahead and vote for the yugio guys because we don't want to okay final pack here we go with the coughing shanks the buoys naked trapping gosh floor yeah oh yeah leaving the door open that's what i'm talking about the door has been left open for yugio the final pack legend of blue eyes white dragon this is our chance right here to defeat pokemon once and for all this will show them that we are the superior card game here we go 13th grade mr isame root water this is the big one right here could be the blue eyes white dragon it could show everyone yugio greater than pokemon right here okay nobody saw that right okay yeah good all right nobody saw that we can still say yugio one all right let's go over what we got in this battle so uh for the yugio side we did pretty good we got ourselves an upstart goblin we got a dark hole from L.O.B. cosy ginger metal raiders tumor from m.r.l we got an invader darting a secret rare from invasion of chaos let me check that out not a bad opening right pokemon let's see how they did oh they got a few foils one two three four five six seven eight 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 foils 17 also I just noticed we only got one regular shiny that seems a little low okay and then for reverses we got one two three four five six seven eight nine reverses okay those don't really count so just subtract those out of there and they're not really worth anything okay covis squire the shiny then we got two of these kyogre guys so i don't know what this is exactly but there's two of those we got one regular hollow those aren't really that important anyway either because they're like the fifth rarity then we got a v max this wasn't a was this okay i guess it's a full art i don't know what i don't know what the difference is there is this one it's not as shiny because it'd be blue i think there's two of these v's and then there's this guy which is clearly the coolest card i mean that card is awesome that card's really cool so pretty strong showing for the pokemon side you guys are gonna have to let me know in the comments what you guys think who do you think won it was a fun battle we might do some more of this in the future i don't know let me know in the comments what you think who won don't forget to check out the live stream tomorrow wednesday it's gonna be awesome cyber dark impact hobby we could pull the cyber dark dragon very expensive card it's gonna be pretty awesome and don't forget we're gonna be announcing a huge booster box opening coming soon and that's for today see you guys later peace look at this look at this card they're telling me this isn't a pikachu look at this card it's pikachu that got dipped in dye or something or


Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure for me to be here and to discuss the topic of women and how to exchange at different levels. When I was asked to speak about this topic, I thought that what I better to start this presentation and discussion than to share my own personal story, especially my own life has been in fact impacted by ordinary women. And these women are two women.  So, growing up a household that is typically an African family with many household members in it, at every given time, at least in the household where you grew up, it had over 10 people in that household. And I saw my mother taking care of each and every person in that household and ensuring that everyone is up in that household. She didn't care so much about her own needs and her own happiness, but she constantly talked about the dream she had for her children. She didn't have much formal education herself, but she had one dream and that dream was that her own children, and especially her daughters, would get a formal education. But somehow she understood the importance of education and quality education. And growing up I kept hearing her negotiating with my father about prioritising my own education and not just any education but quality education. And it's because of that that I am who I am today. And when my family, my father and mother couldn't continue to perform my education, my big sister, who was a student at that time and only had a part-time job, enabled me to pay my education throughout secondary school but also undergraduate university. And so for me it's like, you have very limited resources, but you are able to use those resources to make an impact in one's life. And for me that is really women making change, women making extraordinary, doing extraordinary things. And as Nora said, I'm a Rwandan, but I grew up and born in Uganda. And when I turned it into Randa in 1995, after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that I'm sure most of you have heard about, I saw women, at that time women were 70% of the Rwandan population. And I saw women, ordinary women with very limited resources, with limited opportunities, in fact transforming and restructuring their own families, their own communities, but also their nation. Today Rwandan Parliament has the highest women of members of parliament that are women globally. So they have the highest number of women in parliament. And for me it did just happen. It happened because of the potential that women showed. There's a slogan in Randa that people always say that women can't do it. You know that, whatever. Whatever one can do, how one can do. So just remove the stigmatization and discrimination against women, especially in the area of politics. So with that I'll turn to my presentation. And my presentation really is going to focus on the work that I'm doing with the Feminate and through working with different women, what we've been able to achieve and impact the change in different areas of Africa. So Feminate is an African women's race organization. It's a regional organization. It held a secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya, but we have members in over 40 countries in Africa, in all the subregions of Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, Central Africa, Northern Africa and Western Africa. So we have a representation of women's race organization in different countries. And how we work is a network. And so we depend on each other's capacities and experiences and different expertise to build a network that is vibrant, that we can count on each other in terms of having a stronger voice to advocate for women's rights and gender equality issues at different levels, both at the regional, at the national level, but also at the global level, as you are going to see in my presentation. So this picture is just a demonstration of how kind of women work with, in fact, at the first group of women coming from different communities, different countries in Africa. And if you hear about Africa, at least you are going to hear that Africa is raising, but also you are going to hear that Africa is young. It's raising because of different characteristics that are happening on the continent right now. We have been having an increased GDP for the past years in all different countries of Africa, an increased GDP in terms of economic growth, but seeing very little in terms of shared benefits of growth. So we have a situation of increased GDP that does not necessarily mean that there is increased well-being of citizens, but women in particular. So what that means is that we have increased GDP, but increased inequalities also, where poorer are becoming poorer and the richer are becoming, and the rich are becoming even richer. And the women tend to call the category of those that are becoming poorer. We have about youth demographic dividend. And the situation is that, you know, we are seeing this youth bulge as an opportunity for Africa, in fact, to use these young people as a resource to ensure that there is development in Africa. There is a lot of focus on creating jobs for young people, but very limited space for the youth to thrive and to have a voice and do whatever they want to do. That component is very limited. And especially with the Arab Spring that you know about, where the youth are the ones that led that revolution. And now there's a lot of caution in different African countries to be very careful on what youth can bring about. And as a result, we are seeing different, even laws put in place to limit voice, to limit freedom of speech, freedom of association, and those kind of things. There's also a lot of focus on economic empowerment. And we are seeing this also when you talk about women empowerment, that in fact, what we are seeing, especially from the government, is that they tend to look at empowerment from a narrow kind of perspective that is different from how we look at empowerment. Because for us, we look at empowerment to be more holistic, to include not just economic aspect, but social aspect, political aspect, the environment, environment, that in fact is holistic in nature and empowers a person as a whole. However, we tend to see more focus on economic empowerment versus other kind of empowerment. And I worry about that further in other slides. But also we have seen a lot of this cover of minerals in different parts of Africa, in different countries like Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and many others. And so I think what we can ask ourselves is to what extent are these discover of minerals, which is such a big resource, to what extent are they impacting the lives of African citizens or African people. And so what we are seeing is that in fact, it tends to be impacting the lives of the private sector and mainly foreign investors who get tax exemptions, for example, are the expense of small business owners who mean women, are the expense of small farmers, but also it tends to benefit a few politicians in different countries. So turning to the women as agents of change, one of the key things that we do to impact the change as a feminine, with different African women, is policy advocacy. And so with policy advocacy, we have been able to achieve our thought and we do policy advocacy at the regional level, mainly working with regional bodies such as African Union. And as a result, we have been able to ensure that we influence African Union at that level to pass policies that are favourable for women's rights and gender equality, but also working at ensuring that this then translates into the policy change at a national level. So for example, one of the things that have come out of the work that we do in policy advocacy is my protocol in short, which is in full the African charter on people and women's rights in Africa. This is like the version of CIDO, because CIDO is something that talks widely about women's rights at a global level, but then this focuses on women's rights in Africa. It's homegrown, so it is easier to use as a tool to hold the government accountable on addressing gender inequalities and women's rights issues because it is homegrown to as passed and adopted by African heads of states. And FEMNIT played a big role in terms of ensuring that the adoption was the drafting of the policy was effective and in fact took into consideration issues affecting African women, but also ensuring that different heads of states ratify and sign this protocol. So as we speak, we have 36 ratifications, which is the highest African union convention that is ratified by many governments. And it is because of the work that FEMNIT, together with other coalitions and organizations have done in advocating for this specific policy, but also some of the questions mainly seeks to address issues of gender discrimination and inequalities, seeking for gender parity at a different level. This is again an important tool that is being used to promote gender equality and women's rights, but also a plan of action on sexual and productive health and rights. This is also something that was passed that specifically focuses on addressing issues around sexual and productive health and rights of women and girls. So using these regional policies that have been passed, we were able to in fact go to the national level, work with different members to ensure that in fact these get to be translated to the national level through, for example, ensuring that the national constitutions are engendered. So if you see that the constitution that have been passing lately, at least each one of them will have a clause that talks about non-discrimination based on any identity including gender, ethnicity and age and other differences, but also almost all countries have laws on ending men's against women and girls. Again, how we have been impacting the change is through speaking out for change where especially things happen that we feel that are in fact discriminating or marginalizing women and girls. And for example, you might know what happened in Nigeria where over 200 girls were abducted and after now are still missing. So FEMNIT was one of different organizations that mobilized at the continental level and had a series of speaking out, protesting going to the different embassies, going to governments in Nigeria. What does this mean in Nigeria? To advocate to ensure that girls are returned home safely. Not much has been done, but we believe that just with this kind of campaign and advocacy, something similar will not happen in the future. Another situation is another campaign that we call Justice for Lease. This is a 16-year-old girl who was gun-repped in a community in Kenya called Boussia. This girl was gun-repped when she was coming from a valley of her family member. And she went to report to the police and she was able to identify the people that raped her. And the police only told the boys to slash grass and live. And that was a punishment in our understanding. So when we learned about that, it was such an acceptable issue and we started a campaign where we... In fact, it went on vows. I don't know if you have heard about vows which is like an online network that amplifies campaigns and ensuring that many people not across Africa but globally sign the petition. So we had over one million signatures that we corrected. And we delivered those to the Inspector General of Police in Kenya. And he said, this is unacceptable. A girl cannot be raped and the punishment is to slash grass. So we did a lot of campaign around that. And as a result, at least one of the perpetrators has been arrested. The case is in court. But also they have formed a committee of inquiry to do more research about... And they've used to get this case. Before it was in fact neglected. The girl had developed a fecital out of this rape. Her spinal cord was broken out of this. She couldn't access any treatment from the hospital, from the public hospitals in Kenya, a country that in fact has a law that says that survivors and victims of rape will get free access to medical care. But when it comes to practical ways of doing that it is not in fact the case. So she couldn't even access medical care. And so it was an NGO in Kenya called Gender Recovery Centre that in fact then took that case and provided medical care for that. So it is after this campaign that in fact this case started getting a lot of media attention, other stakeholders taking it up. And as we speak, she has recovered. She was in a wheelchair when that happened. But now she's walking, she's able to walk, she has recovered, the history has been treated and the case is in court. So for me that is change. My Dress, My Choice is also another campaign that has, we studied recently as a result of girls being stripped naked in Kenya, in Malawi, in Tanzania, in Uganda, in different countries because they were wearing short dresses. So for us, we thought that is an attack on women's and girls' bodily integrity and their freedom to choose what they want to wear. And so we started this campaign to say it's my dress, it's my choice and really no one should strip another person. And how come the men don't strip women, but men are stripping women or girls. And for example, when this thing happened in Kenya, in a country that I thought is very democratic and for choice, I thought if these things would happen maybe they are going to happen in Sudan or another country, but I would suppose that they were actually happening in Kenya and one of the girls that were stripped naked after a few days committed suicide, much of they don't want to admit that this contributed to that act but I believe that in fact it is such shame because once you are stripped naked, when you go home, there's a lot of victim blaming that even your own parents might tell you why did you go home wearing that short dress? Why did you go out wearing that tight trousers? And that kind of victim blaming can in fact lead to an act such as committing suicide. But with advocates that were doing and also it collided with the time of 16 days of activism that in fact we did a lot of we went on the street and started protesting, we have used the social media in terms of Twitter, Facebook we have treated the president, we have treated the minister that is in charge of gender issues and when the president came to launch the 16 days of activism one of the things that he said was that people have a right to, every person or every citizen has a role to play in protecting marginalized groups of people including women and children and we're saying how come people are able to show videos of people that are stripping women but they're not doing anything about it you are just watching which was good I really liked that kind of statement the only disappointment I had was the fact that he did not talk about the role of police the role of his government in protecting women and girls so again we continue tweeting him we continue addressing him and writing articles in newspaper saying he needs to take responsibility and his government is taking responsibility for the security of women and girls and as a result we have seen that some of the people that have addressed the girls and women have been arrested so again there's progress in addressing this issue influencing decisions of heads of states again like I said from the beginning one of the things we would do is to influence the African Union and the outcome of the African Union summits so for example in I think 2003 I don't remember the year exactly but the theme of the African Union summit was on maternal health and through that we were able to have East African Caravan because the summit was taking place in Uganda and we were able to in fact do a lot of advocacy collect a million signatures talking about maternal health of women and you can see here it reads that no woman should die while giving life and that was the strong slogan that we carried throughout which was really to talk about the fact that many women are still dying while giving birth from curable complications which is really unacceptable but also the Great Lakes region heads of states summit which was on section database violence again Feminite played a very important role in ensuring that we give key recommendations to heads of states in the Great Lakes region to address section database violence and that included in fact ensuring that we bring women themselves that have faced this issue to speak to heads of states, to speak to the first ladies and talk about the issue that affects them how sexual violence affects them and what they want their governments to do so this again was such a game changer and we saw that most of the community that we put forward are in fact were adopted in the conclusions of the summit I want to speak about how in fact women at the grassroots, women at the regional level have been able to influence global agendas and I will just give a few examples for example Feminite was the focal point for Africa when NGOs were advocating for establishment of UN women from UNIFEM as you know UNIFEM was smaller it wasn't as big as other UN who are agencies such as UNICEF and others and we wanted a UN agency that is in fact the strongest is World Resource to adverse the issues of women's race and gender equality in the UN system but also at the global level so we played a key role in ensuring that UN women gets established and it did in fact get established and so what we are doing currently is also to ensure that UN women is held accountable to serve the roles and responsibilities that we are expected them to do when we are advocating for its establishment for example I am on the advisory committee of UN women regional office that is best in Nairobi Kenya and so through that advisory role I am able to advise the UN women on key issues that we see and how they should carry out their planning their programming their advocacy in terms of women's rights and gender equality issues the Belgian platform for action which was adopted in 1995 as we speak we are in the process of the regional reviews for this for 20 after 20 years but this is something that has been reviewed every 5 years and something that has been playing an important role in mobilizing women across Africa to see that the Belgian platform for action remains relevant it is delivering its promises but also with their two gaps we come up with specific recommendations on how those gaps can be addressed so with the 20 years we just had the review actually about 2 weeks ago and we were able to come up with key specific emerging issues that are still affecting African women and we have we developed those as women's race organizations and individuals from different countries and we were able to carry them with us where the government is doing its own review so from the to influencing the government discussions and we saw that most of the recommendations again from our convening from our consultations informed the outcome of the government regional discussions so again that was changed because it is those regional agreement that are going to go at the global level of global outcome ICPD that's international convention on Population and Development which was adopted in 1994 in Cairo and again this issue talks so much about women especially on issues concerning sexual and productive health and rights and so again you have influenced this adoption you have influenced the different reviews that have been happening including the recent one that took place last year then the post-2015 development framework I don't know if you have been involved in this discussion but there have been a lot of discussions around post-2015 development framework a development framework that is going to replace the MDGs as they come to the end in 2015 which is next year and so Femnet is the first organization women's race organization but also a social organization in the general that in fact was the first one to see that the consultations are still taking place and the role of women African women in particular to define their own priorities and to influence that the global development agenda in fact puts into consideration the issues affecting African women and girls and so we started mobilizing African women, we started organizing organizations, we started mobilizing other social organizations engaging with different policy makers the UN system engaging with a high level panel of eminent people that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon put in place to work on issues of consulting different constituents and come up with a report on post-2015 and our aim was really to ensure that the issues affecting women and girls in Africa are in fact part of the conversation and also they inform the next development agenda and because of that advocacy we saw that the high level panel report included a specific goal on addressing gender equality and overcoming gender inequalities and issues of also women's rights also some attempted to mainstream gender in other goals in their report we have also seen that the open working group that has been happening also played an important role in mobilizing African women to be part of that conversation it was difficult because these conversations were happening in New York but we mobilized both resources and human resources to ensure that in fact every time those conversations were happening some of the African women went to the UN in the headquarters in New York and spoke about their own experiences and spoke about what they want to see in the development agenda and because of that then we are seeing that at least the report that are coming out they are putting into consideration the issue that we have advocated for and we have been really advocating for a transformative approach to development that focuses on improvement of a world being that in fact the human being is at the center of this development agenda but ensuring that in fact when you talk about development what does it mean to us is it just about GDP increase is it just about is it really empowerment and improving the world being of citizens including different diversities of citizens being able to do all that it has not been done without challenges and the current challenges that we are facing in the area of advocating for women's rights and gender equality some of the challenges we face one is fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism as I have already shared I think you saw it up in Nigeria the Baku Haram abducting girls it has been happening in Uganda you know that Uganda we are calling again abducting girls and women it is happening in Kenya, Sudan and many other countries and of course the majority that are being affected by all these women and girls as I spoke about before the general focus of empowerment and this is shaping and influencing African position in global negotiations in the post-relifting women's framework if you look at the Africa agenda which is called Africa Agenda 2063 which is Africa vision for the next 50 years and this came in place last year in May when African Union was celebrating in 50 years and it is very clear that you know there is a conversation on the continent to see that Africa has its own vision and it is driven by its own vision but there is a tendency to focus a lot on economic empowerment which I think then is a missed opportunity considering that economic empowerment is important but it is not the only thing that is important especially when you talk about women empowerment the issues of patriotity continue and matters who have been trying to change this kind of system but it is still well and alive you know and we are seeing this through attack of women girls bodily integrity being affected but also the shrinking spaces for civil society and we are seeing this in different countries for example in Ethiopia if you talk about advocacy for women's rights just mentioning that that is a crime and in fact you are going to be arrested and persecuted as a terrorist so it is that serious that is just one example but in Kenya also there has been conversations around a civil society a law that will limit civil society's operation in terms of you cannot get more than 30% of your finances from outside and yet we know that most NGOs in fact continue to operate and do what we do through support from outside so by putting a law in place that states something like that already you are saying that most of the NGOs will not continue to operate so it will be difficult to operate in such a kind of legal framework but has it yet passed anyway we are advocating that it doesn't pass but who knows just what is below here is just a demonstration of how patriarchy continues to affect women you know and I have just given different examples of that for example there was an indecent dressing bill in Nigeria in 2008 there was a miniskirt law in Uganda in 2014 the traditional court bill in South Africa the anti-homosexuality act in 2004 in Nigeria that was passed and also in Uganda the same bill was passed in 2014 although lawyers were able to go to court and challenge this bill in Uganda and in fact they won the case so that's a victory just watching the time and I think this is the last one this last slide where we talk about different opportunities in the existing framework and this demonstrates you know a political way to adverse women's rights for example 2020 period was declared by African Union as African women's decade and there are a lot of opportunities with that the thematic area of heads of states for 2015 is going to be the year of women empowerment and movement towards African again in 1963 we are seeing this as an opportunity that African Union is entirely focusing the entire year just to discuss issues affecting women's empowerment and we think this will be the opportunity for us to unpack what women empowerment means but also the post-2013 women process is also another opportunity where we can in fact unpack what development means for African women and girls the emerging process as I spoke about earlier is also another process that provides opportunity to advocate and to ensure that the emerging issues of women's rights and gender equality are taken into consideration and also I wanted to just highlight that Kenya and Ireland actually are going to be co-facitating the post-2015 negotiation that are starting next year and I'm seeing that as an opportunity to invest in Kenya so we have access to Kenya police makers but I'm here in Ireland making connections with new people and you have access to your police makers here and if you want the agenda in terms of approaching the person who is going to be co-facitating the post-2015 and just pushing the issues affecting women and together we can work together to ensure that these two co-facilitators are joining the discussion towards a favourable, transformative sustainable post-2015 women's framework and you know I just wanted to know that change begins with me together we can end it and we build our agency and the struggle continues and we work together to do that thank you


For those who don't know me, my name is Detective Inspector Bob Hitch from the Brisbane West District. We've got two purposes today for the media release. The first is in relation to seeking public assistance in relation to an attempted abduction which occurred earlier this morning, sometime just after eight o'clock at inaugural. The second is also purpose is to just make people aware and to be vigilant in relation to in and around the schools in relation to suspect persons. What's occurred is just after eight o'clock this morning, a female student from one of the local private schools was walking from the inaugural railway station. She was walking from Pickering Street near the Pickering Street Wardell Street overpass. She was walking up the entry ramp onto Wardell Street come South Pine Road when she was approached by a stranger who grabbed her, has dragged her into the nearby park and bushlands. Now during the attack, the student, the 13 year old girl from the school has bravely put up some resistance and has fought with her attacker and has managed to be able to get away, attend her local school and police were notified. The girl herself is currently still assisting police with inquiries. Her parents have been notified, the local school has been notified. We have also reports from other students, approximately 10 minutes before this incident took place, who report seeing a mail of a similar description in that area acting very suspiciously. We're treating this as very serious, we've had police on the ground today. We've conducted searches of the local area, we've done door knocks, we're still taking statements from possible witnesses. I'm hopeful that we may be able to have a conflict to be able to give it to you later on but it's early stages of our investigation at the moment. That's basically the appeal, I have a description, the description is vague description but there are some parts of the description that I'm quite certain will be able to jog someone's memory out there or be able to hit a cord with members of the public. The mail attacker is his mail, Caucasian, approximately 176 in height, thin build. The distinctive characteristics is that he's got short hair which is receding from the front, he has an earring or a stud in one of his ears and he has been described as having a squinty or a lazy eye and at the time of the attack he was wearing an oversized white coloured t-shirt come singlet top. We're relatively sort of striking descriptions and I'm quite certain that our attacker may be someone within the local area so we're appealing for people in the local area who may have seen this person today or may have seen that person in and around that parkland or in Mordell Street or Pickering Street over the last week or so. We ask that they come forward and contact us easily through the crime stopper's number 1-800-333-000. Could you confirm was she 13 or 14? She's a 13 year old. Was she injured in any way? Look, she's bravely put up a fight. She's not seriously injured but she's certainly been shaken and there was some physical elements to the assault. Was she sexually assaulted? Look, I won't go into that but no, the attack took place very quickly and she's been able to quickly make her escape. But obviously she and you think that was the intent of the event? Look, we can't rule out what the motive would have been and that certainly would be one of our lines of inquiry. So other people saw this person but were not approached or...? Look, a couple of the girls at this stage and we're still going through seeking witnesses and we appeal for anyone in the local area, especially the school community, to come forward but a couple of the girls from the same school were walking ahead of this student and has seen this man behaving in a strange behaviour. They've been able to walk around him without any sort of incident but he certainly gave them the creeps. What's your message for young girls walking to school by themselves? Well, the best message is to travel in pairs where possible and the girls in the earlier group were walking as a pair and they did act as a pair, they both were suspicious and they took actions. That part of the street at that time of the day is a very busy area for school traffic, especially from the inaugural rail station. So the easiest message is to travel in pairs and to report any suspicious behaviour straight away. We're unable to respond unless people report behaviour. If they think it's bad they should report it and let the police do their work from there. She screamed or yelled and fled up toward the school. She's put on a brave fight, she's physically fought with her attacker and has been able to make her escape and that's where she's gone to the school. Can you tell us what school it was? I'll look for privacy reasons for the school, I'm not but it's a local private school in that area. Was the attacker on foot or were you in a car? We have no motor vehicle associated with our attacker at this stage. We believe the attacker is on foot and it was predominantly hanging around that park area there. There's a bit of a creek, a bit of green area. Has there been any other similar incidents like that in the area in the last couple of months? No. We've had no similar incidents in the later stages of last year and none this year in that area. You can stand in my door again? Oh look, certainly and that's the purpose of our appeal to seek assistance so we can identify and catch this person and just to make people aware that there are these sorts of people out there. Is she wearing earphones? Look, I can't comment but not to my knowledge. Given the nature of the area, it's a pretty brazen attack would you say? It is because of the time of the day. Today's a very wet day as you know and of course that reduces the amount of foot traffic and there's a lot of school buses leave from the inaugural rail station but look, it's still you know considered to be a, it would be a brazen attack in my view. Why do you think he's from the local area? Oh just the nature of the attack and the manner in which the attacks take place. It look, we can't rule out that it's someone who lives locally, someone who can travel by foot. Was he, was she approached from behind after she passed him? I won't go into the dynamics except to say that the strange is prodded or on the street itself. You've been door knocking, what will you do now, how will your investigation receive? Well we've conducted sweeps of the area on foot and using the police dogs, of course the inclement weather doesn't help us too much. We've conducted some door knocks, we'll no doubt expand our door knocks over the next day or so. Certainly it's around the businesses and Pickering Street, it's a very busy street. We'll increase our patrols particularly in that area. We'll alert the local schools, private and state run schools. Hopefully when we finish our interviews today with those witnesses we'll have a better idea of a description. We're hoping to get some sort of a confit if that's possible out there. It'll be the local detectives will conduct some investigations in relation to our local knowledge in the area.  There will be someone, if he is a local, that will jog someone's memory and we ask those people to come forward and help us. I won't go into any of the conversation, and can I just say we're still in the process of formalising a statement with the witness, so I'd be going beyond my bounds of knowledge to say any more. Was it only today that other witnesses had seen this bloke? That's correct, yeah. We have no reports of any suspicious behaviour previously to today. We have no other similar incidents like this. So today is the first time by our appeal that may jog people's memories about some other behaviour. Sometimes people see something suspicious but they don't report it. We ask them to come forward. Thank you.


at Chainsafe Systems. Thank you. I'm also one of the co-organizers of East Berlin and I used to work on various EF and ESP grants in the past for both execution layer and consensus layer clients. And among others, as Franzi already mentioned, I launched the Grally Testnet with a bunch of cool people that are also sitting here in the room in 2019. So what I'm going to cover today is I want to briefly dive into the Ethereum protocol history prior to the merge. And then specifically take a close look at the implications of the merge on the testnets and finally give a quick guide to selecting the testnet for your project. So yeah, let's dive right into the protocol history. Everything started with the testnet. Does anyone here know what's the meaning of the Ethereum Genesys extra data is? You might know the Bitcoin extra data Genesys extra data contains a news headline. Does anyone know what the meaning of the Ethereum extra data is? It's actually a block hash from a testnet. Ethereum was publicly fairly launched by announcing a block number on an Olympic testnet that was 1,028,201. And once this testnet was mined on the test, once this block was mined on the testnet, this hash could be inserted into the Ethereum Genesys and the public mining on the Ethereum mainnet could start. Olympic was the last pre-release testnet before the Ethereum mainnet was launched and the first public Ethereum testnet after the launch was Morden. Morden was a proof of work testnet using the same e-shash algorithm as mainnet and interestingly it had a custom starting launch of 2 to the power of 20 to prevent transaction replays on mainnet. Most of us probably remember the Shanghai attacks during DEF CON 2 in 2016. An attacker exploited the long discrete time of the Xcode size opcode in one of the client implementations which caused the denial of service of the Ethereum mainnet. Here's a photo of the amazing guest team investigating the issues and coming up with the solution. To address this issue two subsequent hard forks were scheduled for Ethereum. The Tanguin whistle fork to fix the attack vector and the spurious dragon forked to allow cleaning up the state afterwards. However, this protocol change caused a consensus failure on Morden. This was specifically caused by the different ways how the clients handled this custom starting launch and it was then decided it's not a good idea to have a custom protocol on the testnet and therefore Morden was discontinued and replaced by a new testnet called Roopsten. Roopsten was the first testnet to launch with ShineID right from Genesis. The ShineID served the purpose of simple replay protection according to EIP 155. So the Roopsten testnet was also powered by the e-shash proof of work engine. We all know proof of work is fairly permissionless so there is no good incentive to secure a zero value proof of work testnet. So attackers moved to DOS Roopsten and the testnet was unusable for weeks. In response, parity launched the Coven proof of authority testnet and guests launched the Ring B proof of authority testnet. For the first time Ethereum had a way to have a more stable testnet environment. However, Coven used the Parity Aura consensus engine and Ring B used the guest click consensus engine and they were not compatible. Coven was therefore only accessible through the parity Ethereum stack whereas Ring B was only accessible by guests or tooling that relied on the guest stack. So in 2018 the girly initiative attempted to address this by ideating a cross client proof of authority testnet. In the end, the initiative managed to implement click and parity and subsequently in 2019 the girly testnet was launched as a first cross client proof of authority testnet with validators from both guests and parity Ethereum. At the same time, coincidentally, after DevCon and Prague, I believe, the Pantheon client was released. So there was even a third client available for running validators on this testnet and soon after also Nesamind joined the validator set. Yeah, later this same year parity exits Ethereum and leaving Coven fairly unmaintained. Unfortunately, now going fast forward in time, just earlier this year to prepare for the merge, some of the older testnets had to be deprecated. The protocol support team announced the end of life for Rupsten and Ring B on the amazing Ethereum foundation block. They argued the older testnets are harder to maintain due to growing history and state and to growing complexity to run the testnet setup. So in foresight, however, a new testnet was launched, Cipolia. Interestingly, Cipolia that was just launched not even a year ago, it was launched as a proof of work testnet using the same ESH algorithm as mainnet back in the day. It was the first time since the Rupsten launch in 2017 that we actually launched a new proof of work testnet. The reason was potentially to have another testnet similar to mainnet to allow for once again testing the merge and now mainnet conditions. Okay, so let's recap the testnets prior to the merge. Morden is fairly dead. It was replaced by Rupsten in 2017. Rupsten then again was just deprecated a couple of weeks ago. Coven died with parity leaving Ethereum. Ring B was also deprecated just a couple of months ago and that leaves us with Curly and Cipolia as the latest testnets for Ethereum. And now let's just take a look at what it actually means to merge. I took a lot of time to build these slides. So in Ethereum, the merge stands for an event where two blockchains are literally glued together. You need a consensus layer beacon chain that takes over finality and fork choice considerations here shown in blue. And this consensus layer beacon chain replaces the legacy proof of work consensus or other consensus mechanisms on the execution layer here depicted in red. So the slide shows the timeline of the testnet merges and I added a lot of details here. I'm standing in front of it. I added a lot of details here but let's revisit the slide in a bit after talking a bit about implications. So just to recap, the proof of work consensus mechanism is permissionless as per Nakamoto consensus. So you can just turn on your CPU miner and hope for a block in theory. On the other hand, proof of authority is permissioned. Obviously, only authorized accounts may take part in consensus. And then again, proof of stake is fairly permissionless. You have this token and you can stake it to take part in consensus. So what does it mean for Ethereum mainnet to merge? Obviously, moving from proof of work to proof of stake just does not change much in this perspective. It was permissionless before the merge. It was still permissionless after the merge. But how does it look like for the testnets? So Gurly was merged with the Prata beacon chain testnet and to get access to the consensus on the Gurly testnet prior to the merge was permissioned. So Gurly was running community maintained value data set. However, after the merge, it transitioned to a proof of stake consensus. Interestingly and suddenly, everyone can participate in consensus given you have access to Gurly. So Gurly used to be permissioned. It's now permissionless. But what about Zipolia? As I mentioned, prior to the merge, it was powered by the permissionless ESEH, a proof of work algorithm. You can see my Zipolia miner. I was happy that I once again can mine a testnet. And yeah, I did not ask for permission. I was just able to mine the blocks. I got a lot of Zipolia either. But now there's something unique about the Zipolia beacon chain. Since it was apparent that Gurly will no longer be permissioned, there was actually the quest for having another permissioned testnet to have certain stability guarantees. So it was decided that Zipolia gets a beacon chain with a modified deposit contract that does not accept regular ESEH deposits. Instead, it tracks the validator set through an ESEH 20 token. So in that case, Zipolia is a proof of authority version of the beacon chain, and therefore access to Zipolia consensus is permissioned. So let's take a look at this overview again. This is a timeline actually on the X axis. The first testnet to merge was Rupsten. Rupsten was fairly similar to Mainnet. It was proof of work. And after the merge, it was proof of stake, right? So permission less, permission less. Then Zipolia transitioned with this modified beacon chain. So technically, the consensus algorithm is still proof of stake, but through this permissioned ESEH 20 token that you require to take part in consensus, I call it for simplicity proof of authority here because the access to this consensus is actually permissioned. And then, girly merged with Prata and testnet were exactly the opposite happened. The proof of authority girly testnet became a proof of stake girly testnet after the merge. And then, yeah, we are here. Eventually, just a couple of weeks ago, the Mainnet merge occurred. So yeah, just take a look at the post merge testnet landscape. I showed you that Rupsten merged. However, it has been deprecated by the ESEHM Foundation's protocol support team. And it leaves us with girly and Zipolia as the only longstanding public post merge testnets. So I will conclude my presentation with a testnet selection guide. I mean, it's only two testnets. How hard can it be? I mentioned how amazing the ESEHM block is. It's just a great resource. I found this slide on the ESEHM block. Basically, just recaps what I just said. The open validator set for girly, on the one hand, the closed validator set for Zipolia, on the other hand. Obviously, since girly is much older, it has a large state that gives some better network effects. So if you have an application that you want to deploy on girly and you require other applications or interfaces, you might find them on Zipolia, on girly, but not on Zipolia, because Zipolia is fairly new and not many applications on libraries are deployed yet. However, it's also longer to sync and more involved to run girly infrastructure. So to summarize this, please do use girly testnet as it is most similar to the ESEHM mainnet. Girly is especially interesting for you if you plan to test a beacon chain validator. If you want to test your setup, if you want to test upgrading client versions, if you want to test going through protocol upgrades, girly is potentially the best or if not even the only testnet where you can actually conduct this. Yes, please also do use Zipolia testnet. Zipolia comes with the best stability guarantees due to the permissioned validator set. Since it's fairly new, it is fastest to sync and also it has the best long-term guarantees. So I would lean towards recommending to test your applications or even migrate your applications to Zipolia instead of girly at this point. Yes, do not use Rubsten, obviously. When I prepared my slides, I realized that we are just in this transition phase where big service providers already start shutting down infrastructure, so you have to expect interruptions and downtime. Don't use Coven for obvious reasons. And yes, also I would not recommend using WinkBee even though there is some long-term support planned for WinkBee for almost another year, but you will potentially not get more protocol upgrades on that network, so I would also not recommend using WinkBee in that regard. Yeah, right. There are some caveats, so as I mentioned, the girly testnet has ESA supply issues due to the sheer amount of users trying to test their validator setup. Each validator requires 32 ESA, and if you want to have a more involved setup with, I don't know, 1,000 validators, it quickly becomes a huge problem to access these required testnet tokens. This is something we still need to figure out going forward, so if you have an idea, please hit me up. Yeah, and in terms of testnet age, girly is also fairly old, so it comes with a fairly big, rich history in state, and is therefore more difficult to synchronize, especially now that it's merged with Prata, which also comes with a fairly old beacon chain in combination. And yes, Zipolier is relatively new, as I mentioned. I wrote down lack of infrastructure. I put it in brackets because it's changing really rapidly right now. I just noticed while preparing my slides that even MetaMask has a Zipolier testnet switch now, so it's happening. I'm really happy that we get all these integrations now. But yeah. Okay. This is my subjective recommendation. If you want to test infrastructure, if you want to test your validators, I would recommend you to run them on girly. If you want to test your applications, I would even encourage you to skip girly and go straight to run your stack on Zipolier. Okay. This was my talk. Please use girly or Zipolier going forward. Find me for some spare ESA cards from East Berlin. They are preloaded with girly and Zipolier ESA, so if you want some, I will not throw them into the audience, but just find me after the talk. And yes, since we have a couple of minutes left, please ask questions. Thanks for the presentation. Is there any tutorial or manual how to be a validator in Zipolier, how to be, to help in infrastructure? Short answer as you can't, because as I mentioned, even though it's proof of stake, you need a special ERC-20 token to get access to this validator set, and you would basically have to Google Zipolier GitHub repository, and there is an issue where you can request to be added to this validator set, but in general, not many teams will be accepted just to keep it really small, the validator set. Maybe two questions here. One, when EIP 1559 came around, it was very hard to test that in advance, because you have these proof of authority networks that had no fee market, and then you have these proof of work networks that had kind of a fee market, you could kind of reason about what that change would do. Sorry, I am leading into a question here, I'm just giving some background. And then COVID, if I seem to remember right, was like parody technologies maintained it for the old open Ethereum parody climb, sort of the idea. And I think now the execution layer is a spec, there's some value behind testing clients. So I guess just to sum it up to a question, both testing features and execution layer specs, has there any thought behind testing those kind of things moving forward, spinning up test nets or forks of test nets to do that? Sorry, I don't think I got the question. I don't have the speakers, if you could just try to speak up a bit. So testing specific features of Ethereum forks like a fee market changes, or testing or validating the execution spec was sort of the goal, because you had like open Ethereum or parody and geth, and whether they synced up or not in terms of whether executing EVM basically correctly was always a question, if they ever split. So that's what I'm asking, where is the test net infrastructure sort of going in terms of forks and things, they're just going to spin it up whenever, whatever I want to beat this to death. Yeah, I hope I understand the question correctly. So I was talking about public test nets today, and public test net is always a really final stage of testing everything. So if you want to test execution layer changes, content layer changes, and whatnot, you usually go from local simulations to permissioned deaf nets to a lot of holes until you actually get to a public test net. And these test nets, like when I recommend girly or sepulia, they will only get protocol upgrades that have been sufficiently tested before. I don't know if this answers your question. Okay. Hey, Alfred. That's loud. Do you know why did the mergers happen the way around they did? Wouldn't it have been more logical for Gaulie to continue as a proof of authority? I think I have to come down. I just need to read. I'm just wondering why the mergers happened the way around that they did, as opposed to Gaulie continuing as a proof of authority and sepulia transitioning. Yeah, thank you. That's a very good question. The reason is that it merged with the Prata test net, which used to be a consensus layer test net for a very long time, where many teams already tested running validators for more than a year or one and a half year. So it was already the proof of stake test net available. And it was decided not to launch a new test net for Gaulie specifically and just use the existing one. So that's why we had this flip. It was also discussed to maybe have a new deposit contract on Gaulie, but in the end they decided it's actually worse for testing the merge to do the big merge. Because Prata was also the only consensus layer test net that had about approximately the same amount of validators as main net. Yes, and it was very, very valuable for specifically the consensus layer teams to not sunset this Prata test net. And you cannot move this Prata test net to another execution layer because it's all linked to the deposit contract. Have validators or the external participants on these test nets and you need to do a bug fix? When you need to do a bug fix on the test net code, are the external participants such as validators having to rebuild their validators on a new machine image or a new version of the code base? And how often does that happen during the test net phases? What's the question? If there's a bug fix on a test net, how often you have to rebuild your clients? Yeah, what's the workflow when there is bug fixes applied to the test nets? If you are a validator, there might be a protocol bug. So does the validators get coordinated and they redeploy their nodes multiple times during the test net rollout? Yes, this is basically, the answer is yes, but this happens very rarely because most bugs are usually not caught on test nets, but much, much earlier. Thank you everyone.


The high seas, a vast expanse of ocean, transcending national boundaries, home to countless marine creatures. Fish travel thousands of miles to these waters to feed and breed. These seas are a vital source of oxygen and help regulate our climate, but they do not fall under the control of any country. Overfishing and dumping of industrial waste is common, causing a destructive ripple effect that can cripple coastal communities where fewer fish return and dangerous pollutants are washed ashore. It's time to cast an eye to the future. There's an opportunity for change, a new international treaty, the first of its kind, offering security for those who rely on the health of the high seas. What if all nations agreed to end lawlessness in the ocean? What if businesses and governments were held accountable for their activity? And fragile areas were provided with protected status. What if, through a trust fund, everyone could share in the ocean's benefits, and, by sharing technology and knowledge, we could all play our part as stewards of the high seas? It's a resource that covers half the planet, and it belongs to us all. We want the ocean and the people who depend on it to thrive. We need to act now. Join us, I.I.E.D.


Hi and welcome to the session. I am Priyanka and let us discuss the following question. It says AB and CD are respectively the smallest and longest side of a quadrilateral ABCD, C figure 7.50. Show that angle A is greater than angle C and angle B is greater than angle T. Now this is figure 7.50 which we need to refer. Let us start with our solution. It's given to us that AB and CD are the shortest and longest sides of a quadrilateral. We need to prove angle A is greater than angle C and angle B is greater than angle D. So for that we need to do a little bit of construction. First of all we need to join AC and then we need to join BD. Let us draw the given figure once again. This is AB, C and D. Let us start with our proof. First of all let us join AC. Let us name this angle as angle 1, this as angle 2, angle 3 and angle 4. Now it's given to us that AB is the shortest side that means AB will be smaller than BC also. So therefore angle 2 will be less than angle 1 because sides opposite to or angles opposite to greater sides are greater. So the angle opposite to BC is angle 1. Therefore angle 1 is greater than angle 2.  So therefore angle 4 is greater than angle 3 because of the same reason that angles opposite to greater sides greater.  So this proves one of the parts of the question. Proceeding on with the question again let us draw the diagram once again. Now let us join BD and let us name it as 5, 6, 7 and 8. Now AB is smaller than AD therefore we can say that angle 7 is greater than angle 5 because of the same reason that is angles opposite to greater sides greater. Similarly we are having the knowledge that CD is greater than BC in triangle CDB. So therefore angle 8 will be greater than angle 6. On adding 3 and 4 we have angle 7 plus angle 8 is greater than angle 5 plus angle 6. Angle 7 plus angle 8 is angle B is greater than angle 5 plus angle 6 is angle D. So we showed that angle A is greater than angle C above angle B is greater than angle D here. So this completes the question that was given to us. I hope you enjoyed the session. Bye for now.