So there is no question that the Russian intelligence was operating in a very major way. And this is also a war zone where Russia's future is at stake. So they anticipated the coup. They anticipated the coup. They anticipated, not that, I'm very sure, 100% I can tell you that the contacts that the Western intelligence established with this person was known to the Russians, authorities. They monitored it. Saturday the 24th of June was quite a dramatic day on the Russian front, as they say. On that day, the chief of the Wagner Militia, Yevgeny Prigoshin, suddenly said that he was launching what he called, strangely, a march for justice, but which was in reality an armed insurrection or a rebellion attempt, however you see it. And his forces advanced to some extent. There was of course a great amount of joy among Western commentators and experts, all of whom suddenly decided that Russia was on the verge of crumbling, that Putin was fleeing the country even. But the whole affair ended quite timely, almost 12 hours later there was a negotiation in which the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko was involved. Prigoshin basically left the country. His operations ended and all those predictions of the imminent collapse of Russia were proved completely wrong. So what exactly happened in Russia on that day and over the past couple of days former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar has been somebody who's been closely following the situation in Russia and has written some very keen analytical pieces explaining what happened in Russia as part of that coup. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, thanks for inviting me. Yes, so I think for many viewers the first question, I mean, let's to look at the facts, basically the first question really would be what exactly was this 12 hour insurrection so to speak because when it came up, when it began Friday night, Saturday morning more or less, Prigoshin was like he's going to march to Moscow, he had all these demands of the saying that the Russian defense officials should meet him. He spoke as though he had been massively discriminated against and that he was on this quest crusade for justice. And then 12 hours later, everything kind of ended pretty timely. So what exactly happened behind the scenes? What is the aspect we're really missing here because a lot of people are very confused. You see the missing part is definitely that Prigoshin's descent incrementally, progressively transformed over time. And that is initially it began as a matter of the shortage of munition at the Bakhmut front for the fighters, the incapacities of all the inefficiency of the defense ministry and such aspects. Then it took on a form of a veteolic attack on the top brass, but including the defense minister, who's of course a very close aide to Putin. So it just stopped short of Putin. And then when the coup, it is a coup. I must have said, I should have said that in the beginning. There's no doubt about it. It is an attempted coup. When it began, as he moved from the camps in Lugansk, in Donetsk, now that is also an interesting part because the man realized by the time that after the Bakhmut operation was over, Moscow was circumscribing him, containing him by removing him to an obscure spot, pitching tents and staying put there in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. So at that time, when he lost the operation, if you see the last statement that he made in, statements or other number of videos that he made on Friday, there was very heavy political content. And if you have been, any discerning observer could have made out and if you have been progressively following him as I had been doing in terms of his telegram Twitter and all kinds of stuff that he was social media he was taking to, there was a dramatic transformation of a political content was introduced into it. And when he ended there, he made outrageous assessments like this entire operation was a contrived affair and Russia faces no threat from NATO or Ukraine. Now, this is exactly what you would have heard from Anthony Blinken or somebody in Washington or in capitals such as London, Paris and so on. So this means that, you know, that he had carried away from a dissenter in terms of his personal issues, Wagner's issues, corporate issues with the Russian Defense Ministry to an overt political stance of challenging. After all, when you say that the special military operation is all baloney, that there's no such, it was completely unwarranted. He's questioning actually the leadership at the highest level because if you remember the operations began with a very major address to the nation by Putin where he's spelt out the factors under this. So he was no doubt taking on the regime to answer your question. It was a conception that, his conception was that he moved out of the camps in Lugansk, headed for Rostov where the headquarters of the Southern military command is located on the borders, close to the borders of something like about just 200 kilometers from the warfront in Ukraine is Rostov. Now that is where the Russian commanders, including General Garasimov, they used to visit there and used to operate from there in terms of, you know, monitoring the operations and so on. So I think there was some kind of a feeling that he would be able to take as captives, hostages the top brass of the Russian army because the operations of the Ukrainian offensive was going on and so on. But in the event, he found that except for the generals who were running the show there, there were none of those guys, big guys from, big fish from Moscow. It's a place that even Shoigu used to. So then he threatened that, he took over. So there were no resistance there because it is an army command center, you know, it is not a fortification or anything like that. So he came and encircled the place and took over and then he said that he found that there was nobody there. He said he is marching on to Moscow. So he started marching on with his tanks and armor and all that on the highway linking Moscow. Now that is a very hopeless endeavor. It's an, of course, it's an expressway, all right, but it's still 700 kilometers away, you know, marching on Moscow like that. And some reports say that he was already approaching Moscow region when, you know, the Russians, you know, didn't stop anything, didn't challenge or anything like that. So the point is, it was a political move. The unknown factors here, which will come out definitely is this, he was not a political animal of this kind previously. He was a money-making machine. He was an oligarch and he saw in the Wagner an organization which is not audited by the state with unlimited funding by the state and where he was the titular head by virtue of which he had access to enormous resources. Now the New York Times says on Saturday that it lately he had also been secretly siphoning off weaponry and so on and storing it, which means that somewhere along the line he started developing a political agenda. Right. Because the point is his heroism at a personal level is not to be questioned because after all, he was there in the front in Bagmot and it was a very fierce battle, which war of attrition, a decisive war of attrition. And secondly, his capacity to use the social media, effective. Very effective communicator for better or for worse. I've seen actually in the whole hierarchy there only Dimitri Medvedev coming close to this in using the telegram channel. You know, but there of course polls apart. This man is really great in that. So it is 100% sure that a oligarch of this kind would have escaped the attention of the Western intelligence. The man's personal wealth is estimated to be 1.2 billion dollars. So they had their eyes on him for quite some time. Definitely, because he's also reputed to be very influential in the corridors of power in Kremlin and some people usually he's called Putin's chef in the sense that he started in the catering business and he got massive lucrative contracts for catering to the Russian army and government departments and including the Kremlin. And these things are conceivably possible only with some political support, you know. So you see, he made his millions there and then Wagner is a different kettle of fish. So you see, then he graduated to that. So the American side and the British side, the intelligence, you know, would definitely have been putting a mark on him, would have put a mark on him long time ago before the war began. And the problem generally with the oligarchs is that, you know, there is an unwritten understanding from Putin that they must, they can keep their loot. He said this in a famous. You had written about it. Ambassador, but before we go to the oligarchs, I think one question I wanted to ask you is that the biggest square, I think the biggest thing everyone was talking about, speculating about, wondering about was that, was this, you know, a blow or a humiliation for Putin or was this something probably the Russians are anticipating? I think that is what is really divided. Correct. An analyst, so to speak. There's a lot school who says this was a blow to Putin. Actually. But your view is different on this. Yes, actually the thing is there's no question that place where Wagner is operating was crawling with the KGB. I'm using the KGB expression because, you know, it's very well known as an expression. It's called in a different FSB. It is called FSB. But the tentacles are there all over the place because the Russian system works much the same way as Stalin worked in Stalingrad, which is this, you know, the generals fight, but the commissars are sitting there and the KGB is sitting there monitoring the whole thing and with independent communication to Moscow and, you know, from where the war is handled and the generals don't fight wars. The wars are fought from Moscow, you know. So you see basically that culture is still there in the Russian system after the disbandment of the Soviet Union. So there is no question that the Russian intelligence was operating in a very major way. And this is also a war zone where Russia's future is at stake. So they anticipated the coup. They anticipated the coup. They anticipated, not that, I'm very sure, 100% I can tell you that the contacts that the Western intelligence established with this person was known to the Russians, Russian government, authorities. They monitored it. Now the big question, why didn't they act? I heard some reports, discussions yesterday saying that the Russians, the Kremlin messed up because they should have acted faster and all that. You see, the point is they're in the middle of a war. And at that time, an action which is smacking of disunity at home is not the good thing to project to the enemy. And this is a very grim existential struggle that the country is fighting. So and Putin is in his, if you followed him all through, you know that he's a man of infinite patience. He never acts rashly. And only with calculation, he acts. And he knows also the ins and outs of the working of the intelligence system. So obviously, a decision was taken to give this man a long rope. But concentrating on finishing of that Buckmouth operation because there is a very major stepping up due in terms of a proper Russian offensive, which not many people do not understand is up until now, the war has been fought by the militia groups. But the regular Russian army, military, is just moving in now only. So the military apparatus was not there. They were firing artillery and lobbing bombs and you know missiles and so on. But the foot soldiers of the militia. So you see they were preparing for a very major offensive now because the Russians have concluded that a military solution is all that is possible. And only with the complete eviction of the United States and NATO from the face of Ukraine can this problem be sorted out. A half a house is not possible.  So you see the agenda, why I'm saying all this very in a nutshell, the agenda is very profound and they didn't want a distraction there. So they let go and they were, I'm very sure that when I said Putin knows the working of the intelligence organizations and all very well, he was one of them. It's because you know that he knew that at any time, if the crunch time comes, they can act and just squash this guy. But why basted and why create a ruckus and why create confusion domestically? You know what is not outside, outsiders don't realize says that there is a very vibrant opinion making inside Russia also. If you see the social media telegram channels for instance, you will not imagine the amount of nonsense which is appearing there, critical of the Russian government, which is almost, you know, which even now Western correspondents sometimes quote from them to make their point. So you see the thing is there is a domestic opinion problem also for them to handle. So they let it run but supremely confident that they could fine tune it at its time and if a crunch time comes, they could act. They let it go like that. But when I think this, they think progressively developed this guy developedly, progressively developed the political agenda, the complexion changed. Because this is when that I mentioned to you the Putin's way of handling the polygarchs. Yes, actually I wanted to ask you more about that because it's interesting you brought in that aspect. There's been a lot of discussion about oligarchs after the war started, but even before how at one level they are seen as a key part of Russia's current developmental model. Unfortunately, they're very much there. You can't ignore them. On the other hand, there is also the feeling that they're widely disliked and they're seen as paragons of corruption in a sense. So how do you place pre-Gosin in this group of oligarchs so to speak, as in what role did the oligarchs play and how do you see pre-Gosin's rise in the context of that? You know, Putin watched the Elsin years largely from St. Petersburg in the initial years. Then he was brought over to Moscow as the KGB chief and then the A2 Elsin and so on. So he saw from very close quarters what was going on there at that time. And it comes as no surprise for anyone. He was a card holder of the Communist Party. He was a senior KGB official and all that. It doesn't need much guesswork to imagine the sense of revulsion within the security establishment of Russia that the country had come to this past. Decadence. Decadence. Even Prumakov was, you know, they were completely felt disgusted that the state was being stripped so clean and these guys were living in the fat of the land and having such a lifestyle and openly consulting with the Western countries to transfer wealth out of the country. You know, this is it. So, but he couldn't do anything because he was put in Elsin's appointee. When 2000 election, he won on his own, a mandate of his own on steam without any help from Elsin. Putin was a different man. He knew then that the time was available for him to push his agenda. So, in 2000, year 2000, in the summer of 2000, he took a meeting of these top 21 people. I've read various accounts of it. You know, I mean, Kremlin had never seen such limousines moving into this one and these guys coming out with their private armies and all that, you know, this oligarchs. That's what they were used to. They were calling the shots in the Elsin years. They had private armies, you know. They could commit murders. They could do anything they liked. And these are all people without any redition and who came from very sleazy background. By the way, Poroshen Iza also was a convict in the Soviet era. He was jailed actually, you know. So, this is the type of fellows who made rich by cutting corners and committing murders and so on. So, 21 of them came and then a closed-door session, he had a face-to-face interaction with them. Accounts have inevitably filtered later of what Putin said. So, if someone substance the message is this, that, you know, that look, if you look into the mirror, you don't look a very elegant people as you think you are. But then if you put the state of the country at that time, that also doesn't give a very elegant picture. Now, let's come realize this. Message is simply this, that I am in charge. And whatever you might have done in the Elsin years, it will not go on for long. I will want you to stop it now. But in the interests of the free market economy and its compulsions that have risen in the country, you can keep your businesses. And since you have this money and you were spending it on this kind of thing like private jets and yachts and all this kind of luxurious things or your children studying abroad and holidaying and all this kind of thing, I won't do anything of that kind. That is, whatever has happened, has happened. I am willing to live with that. But, and you are doing now also some of your very enterprising businesses which the country needs and the economy needs. But on the other hand, like you did in the past, do not interfere with the internal politics. Do not subvert Russia's governance.  Elections couldn't be held freely. Zhuganov, the Communist Party head, should have won in 1996 if it were a free election. That was Russia's history. But these guys made it sure that Zhuganov lost final round and he was towering so far ahead. Which generates help from the Americans. American think tanks and everyone got into the act to see that Zhuganov didn't make it because, you see, they would have been helpless if through a democratic mandate to the West European type, if a Communist Party had come back to power within five years of the disbandment of the Soviet Union. It would have given such a big message to a time when there was so much of triumphalism that communism was dead and communism has been buried. You know, this was the situation at that time. So you see, that is all the work of these oligarchs. So Putin's message was this. And then, you know, he... So he told them that you can keep this but don't mess around with this. Those who didn't take it seriously had to pay a very heavy price. Simply put, they had to leave Russia. They had to leave Russia. And Khodorkovsky, who's living in America now, was rated as the sixth richest man in the world with, at that time, and he lives in exile in America. He didn't kill them. He just told them, just get lost. Right. That is what it... And then their assets, their businesses were appropriated. Khodorkovsky's was the energy company. Was nationalized and they went on, life moved on. So you see, this, also the same thing is the... What I see is actually, Putin has not changed one inch from his previous thing. This is not a personal vendetta for him. He sees his mission as something where he's been vested with the power to protect the Russian state from these predatory elements. You see, this is quintessentially the thing. Look at the deal that they have struck. I don't... If you look at it, say, elements, one principle element is that this man has been told to get lost. Of course, he's not been allowed to fly away to the West. He's being taken under custody to Minsk, where Lukashenko will keep a very sharp eye on him for the rest of his life if he continues to live there. But if at some time I'm very sure, if he just wants to go and live in Switzerland or somewhere, Putin will not mind. And then he has been segregated from the Wagner group. This is something... Prasad, you know, we need to analyze also where they went wrong. And then where the Russians went wrong. Wagner's. Wagner, okay. Now, you see, that is also a story by itself. Wagner is, because you know, the Soviet time, they were patronizing this national liberation movements, and that was a very big instrument of Russian foreign policy. And it helped the Soviets expand their influence globally. We know that. I don't need to dilate on that. But after that, they were no longer in a position to bangle the such movements. The ideology had retreated from the Soviet system. And the main mission was one of survival and preserving the national interests. But the point is the interest still continued. And Yugoslavia was the best example that their incapacity to intervene cost them heavily to go to the aid of the second biggest Slavic nation in the world after Russia was Yugoslavia. And it was just dismembered in their presence. They couldn't do a thing about it. This, and this took place when Putin was just taking over. All this would have really worked on their psyche because they decided that they must also have an instrument to exercise power abroad, which is cost effective. Just like the Americans have, the French have and all the black water and all this kind of thing have. But without the American agenda of bringing about regime changes, that is to say, they will deal with whichever established government is in power. They will not subvert it. Their dealings will be with the government. And through the government, they will operate in that country. If the government invites them, they will operate in that country. And other than that, they will not pursue your agenda. That is Wagner's agenda. Wagner's agenda. And this was, I think the key point you also made in the article was that this was not Prigoshin's agenda. This was the Russian state agenda. State agenda. And also another thing is, mind you, a technical detail. This Wagner group is a progeny of the Russian security military establishment. That's very important because I think it's very important. People attribute it just to Prigoshin and state Prigoshin army. It's not massenaries. It's an organization created by the state as a long arm to operate in faraway countries cost effectively in a self-accounting manner to further the Russian national interests without getting into any ulterior agenda of its own, like killing political leaders, overthrowing existing regimes, taking part in factional strife or anything of that kind. This is what Wagner is. But then the point is the state at the same time wanted, didn't want to be upfront. So what they did is they did a, what they thought was a smart thing which is boomerangt, which is to bring in a non-military figure in the front. And that's how this man came to be called the founder of Wagner. He was not a founder. He's not a military genius, nothing. And then he put on his fatigues and considered himself to be a marshal of the army. And he's started, you know, challenging the top brass sitting in Moscow. So you see, this is what happened. And now in the deal that I, today I wrote, in fact, there are five elements there. And one of the elements is this, that you know that they, it clearly makes out that they don't want to disband the Wagner like that because the Wagner has a mission and it still is in the interest of the state. But it's running, it has gone, it has run amok. Now therefore they will now bring it under the control of the defense ministry with accountability. And it will be run by professional, I'm sure, soldiers, generals, colonels, brigadiers and so on. That I am just conjecturing. But it is being integrated into this. And the same thing they are doing also to the Chechen militia is also being integrated now. Which means, you know, that they will be drawing salaries, these fighters. They don't have to plunder the land for their livelihood. Their families will be taken care of. The social welfare schemes, which are lavishly available for the Russian soldiers, they will also be entitled to get. They will get lifelong pension, Medicare, blah, blah, everything, you know? So this is what they're doing with the Wagner and they have drawn satisfaction that the bulk of the Wagner was unaffected by this call for mutiny. And that is actually what also finally ended this, how the coup ended. The man had, you know, just a stragglers, a few foot soldiers with him. And he knew that he can't take on Moscow with this kind of support. And he turned back from there. Absolutely. So I think all in all, the evaluation pretty much is that this was in some sense of very classic a fall of an oligarch in what has happened in Russian history in recent times. It is no different in some ways from many of the histories of other oligarchs. Only thing, of course, it is happening in midst of a war. Do you see this in any way affecting the progress of the situation, the war situation with the Ukrainian counter offensive? Not at all, not at all.  We have bureaucracy, the civic society, and even the opposition like Gennady Shuganov, the Communist Party leader, he gave a thumping. What is, I mean, it opens a stirring statement, you know, saying that whatever might be our differences with Putin, this is the Putin he didn't mention, but with the regime, this is a time that we cannot afford it because the stakes are high. And he said, external forces and their fifth column in our country, they still continue to operate. This is what it shows. He was the first leader in fact. Shuganov is the first leader to mention about Western powers and their fifth columns in Russia, you know. So you see, Putin has this as a result of it, the effective way that he handled it, ensuring that there is absolutely no bloodshed in this matter. It would have been spun out of control if there were street fighting and all that. I think he is now in an unassailable position and the Americans will have to learn to live with him now for a long time. And much after Biden has gone, you know, we'll have to live with him. That is the first thing. And the second thing is, you know, a little known thing is that I wrote in today's piece, I quoted that, you know, that on the 22nd, that is two days before the coup, or the evening, the day before the coup, Thursday, the Russian Security Council met. Now this Russian Security Council is actually speaking, the Soviet Communist Party's Politburo, you know. That is effectively, that is how it's functioning is. And it was a full quorum meeting. And that's, which means a message had gone out from the Kremlin that there is something of extreme importance is going to be, sensitivity is going to be discussed and everybody, Lavrov, Patrushev, Medvedev, everybody, Volodin, everybody was there at that time for this meeting. And that meeting gives, you must read that, you know, that meeting gives you a flavor of the Russian mode today.  And their hegemony can be stopped only if they are humiliated left, right, center. On the battlefield. On the battlefield. So your question is answered there. There are no way that the Russian operations will be allowed to be affected by this. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for giving us. I think what is a very unique perspective because a lot of reporting like we both have been reading has been completely colored by how the West and Western sources are very wishfully, I think, interpreting this situation. Quite true. The number of analysts who are like Putin has fled the country. It's quite bizarre. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you, thank you. My pleasure. And that is all we have time for today. We'll be covering further issues on the Russia-Ukraine war, of course, also developments across the world on People's Dispatch and NewsClick. Do visit our websites. Follow us on all our social media platforms and keep watching.


The Arleigh Burke class-guided missile destroyer USS Russell arrived in the US 7th Fleet area of responsibility September 20th. Russell will conduct theater security cooperation engagements and maritime security operations in the Indo-Asia Pacific region. Russell is a multi-mission ship with the ability to operate independently or with a strike group. Navy Week arrived in Oklahoma City on September 21st. Sailors will be participating in various community outreach events to educate local residents about the Navy. Historically, Navy Week events draw thousands of attendees from areas that do not have a local Navy presence. After nearly 28 years of naval service, the guided missile frigate USS Kaufman was decommissioned September 18th. Kaufman completed more than 20 deployments during the course of its active service. With Kaufman's decommissioning, USS Samson became the last Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate in the Navy. For these stories and more, visit Navy.mil.


In this lecture, we're going to focus more on Cold War America. We're going to talk about how the United States tries to go about protecting Western Europe and defending the people of Western Europe against Soviet aggression during the 40s and early 50s. We're going to talk more about the Cold War on the world stage, and once again how the U.S. in Asia is trying to do its part to contain the Soviet Union and contain the spread of communism. And finally, we're going to talk about this Cold War in the United States. How this growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union affects Americans and those who would seek to combat communism domestically. Now in our last lecture, we talked more about the origins of the Cold War and the early policies of containment that people like George Kennan proposed to help defend the United States by containing the spread of communism internationally. And this policy of containment becomes really the official U.S. doctrine that's employed to try to combat the strength and the spread of the Soviet Union. And containment of course has its American components as well. Americans become very concerned about the spread of domestic communism. And you get these, today they might seem extremely kind of ridiculous and exaggerated, but people really did believe that the United States was under threat by communism. And in some ways it was better to be dead than red. It was better to fight against the Soviet Union in one way or the other than to be under Soviet or communist influence. And so we may today sort of see this as kind of amusing or exaggerated, but people during the time really did believe it. And they really were afraid of just what kind of a threat the Soviet Union and communism might represent to the United States in one way or another. Well we're going to begin the lecture today talking about the Cold War abroad, both in Europe as well as in parts of Asia in the late 40s and early 1950s. Now by the late 1940s the United States had really assumed a role as a major player in Europe. The United States had troops stationed in Europe. They weren't a lot of troops at that point because many troops had been sent home after World War II, but there were troops stationed in Europe. And of course the Soviet Union had essentially put governments in place in Eastern Europe that were propped up by the Soviet Union as well. And so there was a standoff forming in Western Europe, especially over the boundary between Western half of Germany and the Eastern half of Germany, what becomes West Germany and what becomes East Germany. And this boundary between the two Germanies as a major focal point in the conflicts that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Now in the late 40s Germany was a very interesting situation. West Germany, the Federal Republic, East Germany, the Democratic Republic. And then you had this little enclave of the West in Berlin. Berlin was essentially a divided city, split down the middle if you will, between a Western half and an Eastern half. And in the West it was the American and Allied forces who were dominant in the East. It was the Soviet Union. Now this was an era before the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was built in the 1960s, so it was an era when Berlin was still relatively open. People in the Western half of Berlin could go to the East. People in the Eastern half of Berlin could go to the West. But it was also isolated because the only way to get into Western Berlin was through East Germany. And so there were a number of road and railroad connections that allowed people and supplies to be moved from the West into West Berlin across East Germany. And the Soviet Union didn't particularly like this. Soviet leaders like Joseph Stalin didn't like that the West had access to West Berlin and used a number of strategies to try to put pressure on the allies in the West to either abandon West Berlin and give it up to Soviet occupation and control or to perhaps cause some kind of a war that would give them an excuse to take over West Berlin. So Joseph Stalin and his leaders and his other Soviet leaders during this era were trying to come up with ways to provoke a conflict to force the West to abandon Berlin either voluntarily or through military force. And one of these conflicts emerges in 1948 and they actually had a very sort of mundane origin had to do with currency. The West German government established a new form of currency and they wanted to use it in West Berlin and the Soviets opposed it and argued that only the East German currency should be used. And as I said, it's a fairly mundane although at the time a very important issue that sparked off a conflict because in mid-1948 under orders by Stalin the East Germans cut off access to West Berlin and they block all the border crossings and they turn back trains and trucks and other equipment that were transporting coal and oil and that were transporting food supplies to people living in West Berlin. The goal was that they were going to starve out the West Berlin people and they were going to either force America and its allies to give up West Berlin or try to force the West Berliners to basically give up on their own and embrace Soviet and Eastern German domination. Well, things didn't go quite according to plan because American military leaders as well as West Berliners felt that they couldn't let this stand. Now at the time period the US and Western Europeans had worked on an agreement with the Soviet Union that they did have air access to West Berlin and they decided to use this air access and to launch what becomes known as the Berlin Airlift and essentially to resupply all of the needs of people living in West Berlin via aircraft, via these transport aircraft that would be flown from bases in West Germany to West Berlin. Of course, the Soviets didn't believe that this would be possible. They didn't think for a minute that the Americans and the British could support people of West Berlin either by transporting coal and oil or by transporting food but the Berlin Airlift is launched. The Soviets kind of sit back, there are reports that they use spotlights occasionally to try to blind pilots and cause accidents but for the most part the Soviets let this happen because they're convinced it's going to be a failure. Well the Airlift ultimately sustains West Berlin during the fall and winter of 1948 and the Russians are forced to back down. They don't get what they want and they realize after a while that the Americans and the British are just going to keep this up as long as necessary to prove the point. As a result the Soviets back down but the Berlin conflict is one of the things that really convinces the United States and other Western European nations. They need to form a formal military defense alliance to protect the West against Soviet aggression and this ultimately this alliance that's formed is called NATO, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We have the flag here of NATO and the NATO is a political and a military pact designed to defend the nations of Western Europe against the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union attacks one of them it's attacked them all and the US pledges itself to defend the nations of Western Europe against Soviet aggression and potentially Soviet invasion. Well the Soviet Union establishes their own under the agreement in Warsaw Poland and it becomes known as the Warsaw Pact and like the NATO the Warsaw Pact is intended to the nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union defend themselves against any potential attack from the West although that was highly unlikely but they felt that it was a potential threat and so that it deserved to be essentially defended against the West. So by 1949 sort of the two essentially the two Cold War military structures have been put in place and as a result we have NATO defending the West. The Warsaw Pact the defensive organization in the East and essentially from this point until they really the end of the Cold War these are the two military alliances that govern Western Europe that governs sort of the conflict that brews in Western Europe. Now Western Europe wasn't the only place where containment was an issue where the Soviet Union or communism was a problem. Containment was also very relevant for Americans in Asia especially as the Chinese Revolution runs its course and in 1949 the Chinese Communists capture the Eastern cities of China and establish the People's Republic of China and this is just a very dramatic and shocking event for many Americans the Chinese Communists have managed to essentially conquer and and create an entire Communist nation in China under the leadership of Mao Zedong and other Chinese Communists and this as I said it's a very shocking moment and Americans begin to worry about the threat of Chinese Communists and they didn't worry about Russian Communism in Asia but now suddenly there's the threat of Chinese Communism and the Chinese leaders also proved themselves to be very willing to export the Communist Revolution to other adjoining nations and so gradually the Chinese begin to provide military assistance to the North Koreans they provide military assistance to communist rebels in Vietnam and so over the next 20 or so years the United States becomes very involved with defending Asia against the threat of communism in 1950 the United States enters the Korean War because North Korean forces with support from the Chinese attack across the 30th parallel which had been created as a dividing line between the two Koreas and attack the somewhat semi-democratic South Republic of South Korea the US and ultimately other United Nations forces defend South Korea and push back the North Koreans to the border of China at which point the Chinese joined in the invasion and essentially the US is fighting a war not only with North Koreans but also directly with Chinese a very miserable war that just lasts and lasts and lasts a conflict that lasts for nearly three years before a ceasefire is reached there's no there's no true peace agreement it's just a ceasefire another conflict as I already mentioned that begins under because of the Chinese attempting to spread communism is in Vietnam initially Vietnam is controlled by France following the word front Vietnam have been a French colony the French had reestablished control but they're fighting against communist guerrillas throughout Vietnam and once again the United States becomes involved in Vietnam by giving military support to the French eventually by the 1960s the United States will be directly drawn into the conflict we'll look at that in a future lecture but needless to say the United States is playing sort of global policeman by trying to prop up the governments the non-communist governments in Asia against the threat of communism spreading from Russia and spreading from China another thing that's going on that's part of this broader strategy of global containment the United States has to worry about is that many colonies especially colonies in Africa colonies and other parts of Asia are gaining their independence during the 1950s and early 1960s so a lot of former colonies are becoming independent nations and those independent nations are trying to decide what do we do do we embrace Soviet style communism do we embrace American style kind of liberal liberal capitalism and democracy and many of these nations were faced wars as they sort of struggled what to do the United States of course was very concerned about this because well if nations in Africa or parts of Asia embrace communism it just gives the Soviet Union a new foothold to expand communism throughout the world and so containment also involved trying to do something about these newly independent nations in Asia and parts of Africa now these new and newly independent nations many of them didn't want to be involved in the Cold War didn't want to become intermediaries in this conflict and actually some of them went as far as trying to create something called the unaligned movement which case they said we don't want to be either communist under influence of the Soviet Union or democratic under influence of the United States we just want to do our own thing and be left alone and so there are actually our efforts made to create these sort of unaligned this unaligned alliance between many of these new independent nations and it's it's only moderately successful but it is another front in the Cold War that the United States has to worry about now domestically the Cold War as I mentioned at the beginning the lecture is a major major concern we've already mentioned some of these things in a previous lecture but Americans are very fearful of the potential threat of communism in the United States and Americans become very paranoid that the communists are trying to undermine the United States either through military action or through spying or through other sorts of political practices and so Americans become very fearful of this looming threat of Soviet communism trying to undermine American institutions and put the United States under communism you know and go so far as people protesting people engaging in the kind of violent activities to defend the United States against communism so for the 1950s especially this fear of communism becomes very acute in the United States and supportive communism becomes equated to being supporting the Soviet Union you if you're a communist in the United States you're seen as automatically being a supporter of the Soviet Union and therefore you're seen as being anti-American loyalty becomes a very important idea in the United States this idea this phrase loyalty if you are opposed to the United States or your American policies in some way you're disloyal and if you're disloyal you're probably a communist and if you're communist while you're a supporter of the Soviet Union so you're bad and something needs to be done with you and so this idea of loyalty of communism and anti-communism becomes very much a part of American politics and American society during this decade of the 50s and go so far as people challenging for instance communist labor unions or a number of communist labor unions in the United States and or people organized counter-protests against these labor unions and it actually has a very strong impact on workers because communists have been very active in the 1930s during the Great Depression and helping organize labor unions so many of these communist labor unions had been actually very helpful in getting rights for workers but by the 50s it becomes kind of politically dangerous to belong to a communist union so many of these unions are destroyed the workers either lose representation or in some cases they end up joining other unions so it becomes very dangerous in the 1950s to be in any way affiliated with communism whether you belong to a communist union in the 30s whether you belong to some other communist organization those sorts of that sort of information can be used against you and a lot of people get in trouble and lose jobs and lose entire careers because they belong to some communist organization in the 30s and that's evidence is used against them to try to destroy their careers well to talk a little bit about communism in the United States we have to talk about McCarthyism. McCarthyism is sort of the catch-all phrase that's used to describe this effort to go after people who had supposedly communist loyalties or communist backgrounds and destroy them or in some ways is remove them from positions where they might have any influence politically or academically or socially in American society now McCarthyism is a phrase and it refers to Joseph McCarthy who becomes probably the most well-known practitioner of this style of action against people who had maybe questionable backgrounds but McCarthyism in a way predates Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s really the first anti-communist organization that was part of the US government was an organization called the DICE Committee and it's led by a gentleman named Martin Dice who was a US congressman and he was interested in creating an investigative committee in Congress to go after people who had potentially communist influences initially it's sort of targeted after the New Deal he believed that a lot of people in New Deal organizations under Franklin Roosevelt were communists and so he was part of an organ group that was actually sort of trying to bring down these New Deal organizations well the DICE committee eventually evolves into an organization known as HUAC which was actually shorthand for the House Un-American Activities AC sometimes also called the House Committee on Un-American Activities depending on what you look at well HUAC is founded is created out of the DICE committee and again becomes an organization to investigate and expose communists and government and other places by 1945 it actually becomes a permanent or a standing House committee in other words it has permanent funding it doesn't have to be reauthorized every couple years and it becomes a very powerful organization in Congress because it can force people to testify if they are called and if they're not if they refuse to testify they can actually be jailed for being in contempt of Congress and so they use the HUAC is basically will investigate people on HUAC pick who they want to investigate they go out in the issue of unsusapinas and they force people to appear in Washington DC and testify about whether they were communists or whether they have ever had any affiliation to the Communist Party and it becomes a very blunt instrument to investigate and also to really intimidate a lot of people in the United States HUAC has a number of very significant campaigns during its lifespan one of these is that it goes after communists and Hollywood are people who had supposed communist connections and what comes out of this is the so- called Hollywood 10 investigation these 10 members who were directors producers screenwriters in Hollywood who had communists supposedly communist affiliations and they're called before the HUAC committee in 1947 to testify and many of them take the fit they refuse to testify and they're held in contempt of Congress some even receive jail time and as a result they their careers are utterly ruined in Hollywood they were essentially what becomes known as blacklisted they're blacklisted their names are essentially put on the list and they can't get work no one wants to hire them to direct movies no one saw wants to hire them to write movies and it ruins many of these people it ruins their careers the blacklist become a very effective tool and a lot of people who are accused of being communists even if there's no real evidence find themselves blacklisted they find themselves unable to get work in their fields and forced some cases to essentially give up their careers and other cases forced to take assumed names and work kind of under under false identities as a result of this another one of these who act investigations that has very devastating consequences for one individual is a case against a gentleman by the name of Alger Hiss who had been a state department employee and was then accused of perhaps passing secret data and information to the Soviet Union Hiss is called before con before who act and investigated he gives testimony that's later deemed to be perjury that's being in other words a lie and he goes on trial and is eventually convicted in sentence to 10 years for lying to Congress about his potential connections with passing on information to the Soviet Union earlier in his life and so who act becomes a very dangerous and powerful committee another thing that happens is that in 1950 the McCarron internal security act is passed over the objection and over the veto of President Harry Truman and this internal security act essentially outlaws communism and outlaws the political movement of communism in the United States anyone who's communist or who has any affiliation to communism with the Soviet Union is forced to register with the government and essentially the the idea is that most people will stop being communist because they're afraid to register with the government and the idea was that of the government in an event of a war with the Soviet Union or other communist nation these people could be rounded up and essentially put in camps concentration camps for the duration of the conflict and so it really the idea is that it outlaws communism of course many people challenge this in court and courts strike down some of the provisions they uphold others but it's again a reflection of this paranoia this growing fear in the United States about the threat of communism well now of course the man who gives his name to the movement itself Joseph McCarthy McCarthy in 1950 breaks into the national scene he had been a junior senator from Wisconsin he'd been fairly unremarkable member of the Senate had really done very little to warrant much of attention but in 1950 he gives a very famous speech called traitors in high places and and he claims to have a list of 205 names of employees of the federal government who were communists or had communist affiliations and over the over the course of the next year or so the number changes sometimes it's 205 occasionally it's 57 there's no real consistency to how many people and eventually congressional committees investigate his claims and find that there's really not a lot of proof of it many of the cases some of the people he had named no longer even worked for the government or in some cases the names are simply wrong people who share the same names as somebody else who might have been a member of the communist party so there are a lot of errors but at the time the press just jumps on this number and McCarthy becomes an overnight celebrity an overnight powerful influential figure in Washington DC and he begins a series of investigations of communism both in DC and also travels around to other parts of the country and becomes well known for a style of investigation where he basically subpoenas people forces them to show up this committee and then browbeats them and accuses them of being communists it abuses them of being traitors and disloyal and just doesn't even give them an opportunity to defend themselves or forces them to take the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify because they're afraid of being arrested or prosecuted for various things and McCarthy just becomes famous for inspiring fear and and really for because of how he destroys the careers of people and forces them on the blacklist so McCarthy for a couple years has a very really very dangerous and kind of powerful career he finally overextends himself in 1953 by investigating the U.S. Army accusing a number of prominent U.S. Army figures of being communists or having communist affiliations and that kind of is just a little bit too far he pushes it a little bit too far and the army of course and people who support the army the army is very popular institution of course in the United States pushback and he also gets in trouble because it turns out that one of his aides was given preferential treatment when he was drafted and McCarthy's kind of career starts to come tumbling down eventually in 1954 the U.S. Senate actually censors censures him for abusing his power and for essentially doing things that were that were beyond the scope of what a senator should be able to do which essentially ruins his career and he's not elected he ends in sort of a disgraced figure but during his time when he was indeed a very powerful member of the U.S. Senate McCarthy played a huge important role in really destroying and ruining the careers of many people because of his ability to make accusations on a national level and even though there's no evidence of people doing anything and destroying their careers so in many cases leads to sort of conclude in a way the Cold War in the United States is certainly a record of abuse of power certainly in a record of abuse in a sense of paranoia and many people who were accused and later on exonerated but of course their careers are already destroyed or in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg two individuals who were accused of spying for the Soviet Union passing along secret information about nuclear weapons to the Soviet government they're actually executed in 1953 based on somewhat tentative evidence subsequently historians have looked at the classified information from the Soviet Union and it's pretty clear that Julius Rosenberg was indeed involved in spying he and one of his cousins were definitely involved but Ethel Rosenberg may in fact have known absolutely nothing about what her husband was doing yet both are executed in probably one of the greatest excesses of this Cold War paranoia of the 1950s so there were indeed victims many many many victims of this sort of cold paranoia and many people lost their jobs their careers were ruined in the case of the Rosenbergs they're executed and that's that's about as excessive as it gets but needless to say it was not not a very pleasant time period if you had any affiliations with the Communist Party or even some cases the Socialist Party or Socialist movements in the United States ultimately the question came down and as many cases still comes down to collective security versus individual rights did the government have the right to restrict your freedom refer restrict your individual rights if it deemed it important to protect the population as a whole of the United States did the government have the right to get essentially outlaw the Communist Party if that meant protecting Americans from threats by international and domestic communism it's a question that remains open to this day and certainly was not a question that was resolved during that time period but it was a question that became very important and made a lot of people concerned about what was happening in the course of the United States politically during this decade


Hi everyone Joe for jazby's casebreaks.com coming at you with What are we coming at you with? 2021 Chronicles football hangar pack number 19. So we've got three different dice rolls happening here First of all, we're gonna give away 10 spots within the pack break itself Second dice roll will be the break itself and the third and final dice roll will be given away those seven spots in that quick hit football Mixer that's coming up in the next video big. Thanks to this group for making it happen Let's gather all your names for the first dice roll new dice new list top 10 after nine Good luck one two three four five And ninth and final time After nine here's your top ten Matthew Brian Robert Matthew Steven Brian Alan Brian Steven Brian top ten after nine Extra spots for you again. We'll put those little rooftop symbols next to your name Let's see if those extra spots help you out one way or the other Let's gather all these names And let's roll it and randomize it. Let's do the break six and a one seven times for names and teams one two three four five six and seven six and Seventh final time Seventh final time All right, there's the first half of the list right there and then the second half Right over here. Let's print and rip. All right We did get a Trevor. Nothing too crazy in that hanger pack But we did get a Trevor Lawrence rookie card out of there that luminance design, which I think looks really sharp That's Brian Kay with the Jags All right now let's flip back over here. Let's see who's gonna get That That was the other randomizer. Let's see who's gonna get those a quick hit mixer spot seven of them seven after seven Good luck One and seventh and final time So top six after seven so from seven through thirty two sad times Steven very close no cigar seven through thirty two. Thank you For taking the risk giving this a shot, but only the top six can be in the next break. That's the six hit Or no, it is the top seven, right? So Steven you aren't so Alan. I'm sorry But we'll get him next time guys. Thank you for trying Steven. You're in so is Alan You didn't get an Allen Matthews in Allen again Jason Steven and Tanner There you go top seven after seven there we go. We'll see you in the We'll see you in the next break Jasper's case breaks.com


Good morning. We welcome everyone to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have one item in public today. We will hear from the Scottish Commission on Social Security on upgrading regulations. All members have already indicated questions so far and themes that you wish to cover. I'll just move to agenda item 1. Our first item of business today is a decision to take item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? Fabulous. Our next item is an evidence session on the upgrading regulations with the Scottish Commission on Social Security. I welcome to the meeting Marilyn Howard, member of the Scottish Commission on Social Security. Hi there, good morning. Thank you for accepting the committee's invitation. I've just got a few points, the usual rules about the hybrid meetings. For Marilyn, I would just ask, please wait until I or the member asking you a question, addresses you before speaking and please allow broadcasting colleagues just a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you begin to speak. Colleagues in the room should indicate to myself or the clerks if they wish to come in and ask a supplementary question. Members online should please use the chat box or the WhatsApp. So I will move straight to questions and to kick us off for theme 1. I have questions from Paul MacLeanon. Good morning, Marilyn. The first question is really just talking about adequacy of social security payments and we all know already about the impact of the cost of living crisis at the moment. Is that affecting the realisation of social security principles? I'm a new member of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, so I'm really pleased to be here to talk about the upgrading report. Perhaps in answer to your question, I could start with outlining some of the social security principles that the Commission think is particularly important in relation to upgrading and then say a little bit about the cost of living. So the key principles that we think are important, particularly with upgrading, is that social security is an investment in the people of Scotland. Social security is itself a human right and essential to the realisation of other human rights and that the social security system is there to contribute to reducing poverty and that opportunities should be sought to continuously improve the system. In terms of the cost of living, clearly increases in inflation can affect the mobility of social security to contribute to reducing poverty and to realising various human rights, such as the right to an adequate standard of living. It's difficult with mechanisms such as annual up ratings on its own to tackle the issues around the cost of living. In particular, the turbulence that we've seen and the high rates of inflation over the past year also means that annual up rating mechanisms are certainly relevant but, on their own, can't really address some of those issues. Both the UK Government and the Scottish Government have introduced various cost of living measures and also the Scottish Government doubling the Scottish child bridging payments. Obviously, they are important additions to upgrading, although, obviously, claimants have been experiencing those high rates of inflation before some of those measures could take effect. It's important that they are. Marlon, thank you for that. Can you touch on my next question, because you talked about the impact of inflation? When we looked back at it here and at inflation forecasts, there were nowhere near where they actually ended up. There are two parts to the next question. One is in the about does underlying adequacy of benefit payments need to be reviewed? As obviously, Scots have a role in that review. Colleagues will know that this is one of my favourite questions in terms of how to deal with that. Social security is a demand-led service. If the Scottish Government needs to find more money in terms of upgrading, which it has had to this year, where does it find the money? It has to take it from elsewhere. In your opinion, should the Scottish Government and the UK Government be looking to have discussions around additional borrowing powers to deal with such as that, as I said, coming back to the point that we didn't forecast inflation anywhere near where it would be this year? Certainly, the adequacy of social security benefits is really important, although in relation to the upgrading report, we haven't really looked into that, but I would think that the commission would be well-placed to participate in any review that the Government might undertake. I'm not really in a position to comment on borrowing. That's beyond the Scots' remit. I'll now move to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy. My question relates to the points that you have raised around the covering of the cost of living. Are you aware of any plans to assess the real cost of living and the additional costs faced by disabled people in Scotland? I'm not aware of work of that nature now. Are you aware of when that was last done? I'm not, no. I don't know if any of my colleagues are. We could certainly maybe take that away and send a committee a note if we can find further information. That would be really helpful. In terms of the review of adult disability payment and child disability payment, it was really just to get an understanding of whether you thought the payments as they stand are adequate to cover those costs. Right. That wasn't something that we considered in this particular report, because we were looking at the upgrading regulations for this particular year. Obviously, the disability payments are really important, and they will feature in future work of the commission. It may well be that we can come back to that in the future. Okay. That would be really helpful if the commission was able to look to see what if any work had been done to assess the cost of that. Thank you. I have no other questions in the area. Thanks, Pam. Do you want to lead us into our next theme? I've got you down. Thank you. We've kind of touched on it, but have the commission considered any ways in which we may, in Scotland, maintain the value of benefits without changing from the CPI, because I note from your papers that you say that keeping that link is appropriate for now, but it may need to be looked at differently in the future. What kind of mechanisms are open to the Government to do that? Currently, as we mentioned in the report, the September CPI is probably the most sensible mechanism in the short term. In the longer term, particularly when agency agreements with the Department for Work and Pensions have come to an end, there may be scope to take a different approach to how inflation is measured in relation to social security uprating. We identified some issues in our 2019 uprating strategy report, so I think that we would certainly want to be involved in any future discussion about what the policy on uprating could be going forward. Did you mention a timescale for that discussion, or that you would expect that discussion to start in? I'm not aware of a particular timescale. I think that it would depend on what was sensible in relation to the agency agreements and other factors around social security. I'll move to questions from James Dornan, who is joining us online. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. Obviously, inflation is very high just now, and it is expected to fall rapidly. Inflation is still likely to be greater in the UK than in the rest of Europe. Do you think of the implications of that for the benefit and uprating policy and also how it will affect people who need the support of the Government? Yes. Obviously, inflation is difficult to predict, but some of the forecasts at the moment are looking at potentially 4 to 5 per cent this coming year. That doesn't necessarily mean that the cost of living is going to go down. It probably means that the cost of living is perhaps not going to rise as fast as it has been doing in the recent past. The particular elements that low income households are likely to use and spend their money on disproportionately compared to higher income groups are items such as food and fuel, and they are the items that have been increasing within the overall CPI average rate. The implications are that, if inflation goes down, benefits are uprated to the higher amount, so going forward, those uprated benefits could make a greater contribution to some of the principles. For example, reducing poverty. Obviously, the way that the inflation measure and uprating works is that it copes with peaks and troughs. In theory, it evens itself out. Obviously, at a time when there is very high inflation, as we mentioned a bit earlier on, there is a case to look at, if there are particular mechanisms outside of uprating, which need to be brought to bear more quickly than an uprating would be in order to tackle issues around the cost of living. That is a lucky dip, isn't it? When the uprating is made, the reference month and how that is going to affect your payments over the coming period. The example that you have said is a positive advantage for the people who are receiving it. What sort of disadvantages do you see in the single reference months? Is there any way that users and organisations have been able to feed into the system that is being used? Well, the commission obviously looks at the regulations that the Government refers to it regarding uprating every year. As I mentioned earlier on, there was a policy report produced in 2019 concerning the broad approach to uprating. Uprating is obviously a kind of system whereby if the reference period is in September, in times of fairly stable or low inflation, things may tend to even out over time. Obviously, the issues at the moment are higher and more volatile inflation, but that is perhaps where some of the additional measures around cost of living and having various uplifts or increases during the year, rather than waiting for a particular uprating point. Obviously, the time lag between the September reference period and when people receive their increased benefit in April means that it is low to respond, but then again, it is sometimes difficult to think about what an alternative might be. Ideally, it might be something closer to when people receive their payment, but setting it in September does allow for seasonal variations to be dealt with. It also links into the timeframe for a budgeting process. It is one of the issues that could probably be looked at in longer term, but in the short term, the September figure is— I appreciate that it is difficult, but what you seem to be saying there is that the way that is being done is for the benefit of the system as opposed to the benefit of the individual. I am not criticising at all here. I understand how difficult that is, but is there a way—you were touched on it earlier on about trying to get some mechanism outside of the tickler month? Is there a way—for example, just now, we seem to be particularly badly hit—I mean the UK here—with inflation generally accepted down to Brexit? Is there a way that circumstances such as that could be taken into account or there could be some flexibility where an increase in support over a period of time, even if the inflation starts to fall, could be put into the system? Well, I think probably that flexibility is there. The cost of living payments and energy ports and Scottish child payment support has been introduced as part of that in-year flexibility. I think that it is important that any system can be administered so that people do receive the payments as soon as they can, but certainly at the moment, because of the timescale that it takes to make those decisions and implement, then September seems to be the most practicable option at the moment, but as we were saying earlier on, there is scope to maybe look at potential alternatives in the longer term. Can I just ask one final question, convener, and thank you for your patience, minister. Do you have any input into how those decisions will be made as an organisation today, as a commission? Do you have any input into what you think might be a sensible suggestion on the way going forward? The commission offers detailed advice on regulations that are referred to by ministers. If there were to be a review, I would hope and expect that the commission would be involved in some way. That's good. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, James. We'll now move to our next theme for questions on the Scottish child payment, and I'll move first to Deputy Convener Emma Roddick. Thank you, convener, and good morning to Marilyn. I note the recommendation around making clear whether an increase to the Scottish child payment is upgrading or a different sort of increase. I do doubt that folk who get more money than they expected will mind or maybe even know the difference between an increase and an upgrading, so could you explain why you think it's important for the Government to make that distinction? Yes. I think it also relates to what we were talking about a bit earlier on. Our report refers to in-year increases, and obviously they're important, particularly if upgrading is only an annual process, but actually being clear about what those increases are for can actually help people understand when their benefit will increase and by what amount and on what basis, and it will also help people who advise payments to do that. The response to our recommendations from Ministers was that officials were going to consider whether those in-year increases can be communicated a bit more clearly and earlier at the time. Okay, thank you. The Scottish child payment has, of course, had a 150 per cent increase in the last eight months and is now five times more than what campaigners originally called for in the Give Me Five campaign. On the increase to £25, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation did say that the full roll-out of the Scottish child payment is a watershed moment for tackling poverty in Scotland, and the rest of the UK should take notice. Would you agree with that? Certainly, the increase in Scottish child payment clearly makes a significant contribution to reducing poverty, but that would certainly be welcome. The payment does not exist elsewhere in the UK. I would like to ask you the same question that Child Poverty Action Group has posed. Is it not the case that if the Scottish Government can make this kind of serious investment in protecting children from poverty, so, too, can the UK Government? I am afraid that what the UK Government does is beyond the commission's remit. Thank you very much, Emma. I will now move to questions from Faisal Chowdry, who is joining us online. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I have a small question. What data and evidences were collected prior to the decision to increase the Scottish child payment? In terms of the uprating report that we have just produced, because the timescales were quite short, the commission itself did not have the chance to engage external stakeholders in discussions. Although we have done some death-based research and some of the publications from various organisations were considered, and they are referenced in the report. Thank you very much. We will now move to our next theme, and I have a question myself. Those who find themselves above the qualifying criteria for benefits are in an extremely vulnerable position just now. I know that Scots suggested that the Scottish Government might want to reexamine earnings thresholds. Do you have any opinion on how that could be calculated? For example, should increases reflect wage inflation, price inflation or another method? That is certainly a very good question. At the moment, the uprating for the earnings thresholds in carers allowance was undertaken by 5.5%, which is the average wages figure. Obviously, at the same time, CPI was higher at 10.1%. Certainly, at the moment where there is an agency agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions, then how those thresholds are uprated for relevant benefits needs to align with that. Certainly, we at the commission believe that there may be a case to reexamine how earnings thresholds are uprated in the longer term. We would hope to consider the earnings rules for Scottish carers assistance in more detail during our consideration of draft regulations, which we anticipate that we will have sight of later in the year. I am just kind of leading on from that. Many social security Scotland benefits are obviously passported from DWP low-income benefits, so eligibility is essentially out with Scotland's control. Does Scots think that a more effective way of tackling the cost of living would be to have all social security powers devolved so that we did not have to rely on passporting them from UK Government benefits? That was not something that we considered in relation to that particular uprating report, I am afraid. I am in a more general sense. Do you think that that would make that easier in dealing with Scotland's social security system? I am a new member of the commission, so I do not know if there has been previous work on this, but I certainly would not be able to respond to you today, I am afraid. That is fine, Marilyn. I do not want to put you on the spot. I will move on to questions from Jeremy Balfour. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. I hope that you are settling in and enjoying your new role, and I am a committee to look forward to working with you. I just wondered whether you previously or recently looked at passporting benefits and how they interrelate between the DWP and the new social security Scotland, and if not, is that something that you might want to look at in the future when you have time? In terms of the uprating report, we simply considered whether there was an agency agreement in place that would affect the uprating policy. Clearly, the interaction between reserved and devolved benefits is a matter that is likely to come up with regard to a range of regulations, but there was nothing specific in relation to uprating. I just want to add what you have asked. Is the increase going to reflect on household bills as well? A lot of people and families are getting hit by gas and electricity bills as well, so I do not want to add what you have asked. I just want to add this to the question. Obviously, household bills are still very high, relatively speaking. As I think that we were talking about a little bit earlier on, food and fuel in particular is increasing at a rate, which is faster than the CPI average. Although inflation may be due to reduce overall in the coming year, some of those aspects that increase household bills may still be rising, but not quite as fast as they were rising a few months ago. I am just wondering in regard to the information that you have from Scottish Government, the transparency, the quality of the information, the timeliness of the information. In previous reports, there has been an issue around getting all that information at the right time and in the right format. Was that an issue here or were you happy with how it was provided to you? Obviously, the uprating process is a very compressed timescale, so that limits the additional work that the commission could do. For example, we did not have the time to go out to external stakeholders in this instance, but we received timely and helpful responses from the Government in relation to our role. My final question is just around a bit of about the process. As a committee, we are keen to look at a human rights approach to decision making and how that works. Is that something that you, as a commission, are taking and looking at in regard to one of the principles that you are judging me by of a human rights approach? Do you see that in the decision making of the Scottish Government? Obviously, the scrutiny that the commission undertakes takes into account the social security principles and various human rights provisions. We obviously want to be looking at the regulations that are referred to us through that particular lens, and it is something that we might wish to consider further in the future. That brings us to the end of our evidence session. I want to say thank you very much to Madeline for joining us this morning and providing evidence, especially considering that you have only recently been appointed to the commission. We are really looking forward to working with you. We will now move into private session. Can members who are joining us remotely please use the team's link to join the meeting? Thank you.


Today, we're going to go through some of the penny stocks that I feel are undervalued based upon the research and what analysts are saying as well We'll go through that in this video. I've got to say I'm not a financial adviser I'm a business teacher in my daily life, but I'm by no means an expert on the stock market So I'm going to get right into the information for you and waste no time Let's get into the information of this direct approach. So first of all, I want to mention though before we get into the stocks So I did suggest this a few days ago when it was at zero a sixty and it's now at one twenty nine So we've had the double up on this stock. It's even going up after hours even further I think that this stocks going to reach two dollars at some point. Okay, so there is potential to still get in it But again, you got to be wary of this because it's already run up So I would maybe shift your focus to other penny stocks, but again, this still got potential to run up forever here I think on this stock and I we suggest it zero sixty. So anybody who got into that and doubled up well The next one is galaxy next generation again. This isn't in the list. I'm going to go into some of the list These are just previous ones. We mentioned Okay, this one's up Essentially from zero point zero ten when we suggested it is up zero point zero three zero now And it's even off for hours. It's gone up a fair by twenty two point eight two percent So this stock is going up forever and forever I think this is one of the stocks that is not too late to get into yes There's been a run up but also I think that this stock has got a lot of potential to go much further than it currently is That as again, we suggest it at zero point zero a ten. Okay So what I want to go into now is there's some of the stocks that I've got for you today Here so the first one I've got for you is called emerson radio now. Who is emerson radio? So there emerson radio corp is one of the nation's oldest electronics Distributors with a recognized trademark and continuous use since 1912 emerson continues to be one of the most respected names in the consumer electronics industry Emerson engages in the design and marketing of audio and video products along with microwaves Tursters ovens clocks radios wine coolers and more so now why is this important? Well, this is an industry that's got a lot of potential in terms of the profitability of the products And actually it's a it's at a decent price at the minute So it's actually sitting around one dollars and six. It's down to one dollars and five pre-market The analyst here there's only one analyst So you've got to bear in mind that you know take this with a pinch of salt because it's only one analyst It's always good to have a collection of analysts to see what they think the price tag is this has only got one analyst But they're saying that they have a low high and medium of five dollars on this particular stock It's trading at around one dollars What I would say is if you can get this around zero point ninety zero point nine five This is certainly a buying opportunity. I think this stock has got a lot of potential or anything closer to one dollars so anywhere about zero point nine five to one dollars and Three cents around that price you get it around there I think this got a lot of potential and let's say that this is just slightly over Optimistic shall we say well if it just goes to two dollars three dollars then you double in triple in your investment there So I think that this has got a lot of room to move upwards and there's a lot less downside I think there's that ceiling on this was this kind of lowest level on this was about zero point seven zero But then the upside could be two three four dollars So I think there's got a lot of room to move upwards Comparing to it moving downwards. So this stock I feel is underpriced here And I just want to look into certainly put this on your watch list Look at what you feel comfortable with in terms of getting into this stock as well. So that's emerson radio corp, okay? Now I do want to mention before we get into some of the other penny stocks is there Thank you for everybody who's liking the videos and subscribing to the channel. It really helps support the channel out We've been growing massively recently Unbelievable growth on the channel. So thank you for everybody who's liking the videos and subscribing Really do appreciate. I did say can we get to 2k subscribers two thousand subscribers by new year? Well, we've actually smashed that goal to two thousand one hundred and forty one subscribers So thank you everybody who's subscribed. Let's get right back into the information Now what else have we got for you? So we've got this one. I've been I've talked about this before. Okay, and I understand that You know I just really like this stock. I think that it's a good stock. I feel that it's incredibly Undervalued still it's called selector biosciences cl Biosciences clrb is a ticker. He's sitting at two dollars and fifteen cent at the minute The buy zone for this is between one dollars and ninety to two dollars or five Okay, if you get it around that price, I think it's a decent price to get it out Now the there's five analysts. So there's five of them here. So bear in mind Decent amount of analysts there and they have this a lower three dollars a medium of five Fifty and a high of ten dollars. Well, this is trading close to two dollars at the minute This stock is incredibly undervalued. Um, and it's an incredibly interesting stock. It's involved in the obviously biosciences sector It's it's um producing um products in that particular sector now one of the most important things about this Is it it's gone to a cheaper price actually? Uh in terms of where it was at Um here, um, so it's actually because they've had a direct offering for one dollars Thirty five a share or one dollars forty. I think yeah one dollars thirty five per share Okay, so the the price has gone down. It was trading about two dollars eighty You know and then they did this direct offering and it's fell down to this two dollar range And the and because of this direct offering at one dollars thirty five a share here public offering Okay, so I think that this is going to you know, it's taking this dip and it's a good buying opportunity Now it could dip to one dollars eighty one dollars seventy one dollars sixty around that level If it does then I would say a load up on that stock. I think that's a really good price. But again The downside is that it goes down to sale one dollars fifty potentially maybe penny stocks are always Unpredictable, but let's say that goes down to one dollars fifty Well, the upside is saying that it could go to three dollars five dollars or ten dollars So the upside is much bigger than the downside and it's a good stock to look into So to do some research into this stock and see what you think about it certainly got a lot of upside potential. Okay The next stock I've got for you is called mustang bio, which is another uh, pharmaceutical kind of Company here in terms of what they produce there now. This one is most importantly is undervalued. Okay This one's undervalued. So it's at three dollars ninety two. Okay, and The stock analysts here. What do they say? So they have a low of seven dollars a medium of eleven dollars fifty and a high of thirteen dollars And it's trading at three dollars ninety two at the minute I would say if you can get this stock anywhere between three dollars fifty three dollars eighty It's certainly worth buying into Okay, I think that it's got a lot of potential to run from its current price And and it's an interesting company. It's got So do some research into that. I'm just giving a list today Okay, so for you to just have a look put it on your radar But I certainly think this one is undervalued and if you can get this particularly around three dollars fifty I think that'd be brilliant. And I think that it's got a lot of room to move up The next one that I want to mention it's obviously not a penny stock But I just thought I'd mention I do talk a lot about penny stocks But I want to start introducing more long term stocks and growth stocks and and those sorts of stuff as well So alibaba I think is actually an interesting stock to get involved in so recently It's been under investigation in terms of having a monopoly in china So it's been under investigation at the minute. So the stock price has plummeted a bit It wasn't what trading around like 320 330 something like that and it dropped right down to 210 It's starting to make a bit of a recovery now, which is a encouraging sign There so This this is making a recovery now. So the analysts, what do they say? Well, they have it in 12 months of a low of 1786 a medium of 2324 and a high of 2005 and 17 now now. I feel that this stock price Is highly optimistic. I mean this this is with 50 analysts, but I think that's a highly optimistic View of that But let's just say that it does recover back to its previous levels Which was around 320 and it was always gradually moving up Okay, so let's say it recovers to 320. Well in in two months or three months. Well, 232 is a bargain Okay, so this is an undervalued stock. I think at this level 232 It's worth buying if you can get this around the 210 220 mark Certainly worth buying because I think that this is going to go back up to 300 and beyond This could reach buy in the next six six months or so I think that this could certainly reach 320 to 380 Okay, and and beyond here again. I feel that this stock analysts are very optimistic here But again, even if it does half of that, that's that's an incredible increase and on its current level. This is an incredibly Undervalued underpriced stock right now. Okay, so this is one to look into here So thanks for watching. So actually I've got one more slide, haven't I? So thoughts thought of the day. So I've got the stock thought of the day in this video. So what that is is patience Okay, sometimes you have to be patient with these stocks both when you actually invest in them because penny stocks they do Volatile naturally, so they're always going up and down. So you have to be patient with them You have to give them time to run So that's the first point and also the second point is be patient when you want to buy and don't buy at the high Okay, don't buy when it's already up 200 and Already up 500 percent or something ridiculous Don't buy at the high. You want to buy at the low you want to buy when the when there's when there's opportunities Okay, don't buy at the high. Okay. So you've got to have patience on your investments Okay in terms of letting them run up But also when you want to enter into a stock make sure that you're patient with that at the end of the day If you miss a stock, there's loads of other opportunities out there. That's why I say with DSGT Yes, it has run up 100 Percent essentially since I suggested it But I do think it's going to go potentially to two dollars But that's why I say maybe consider other stocks alongside a little bit of that Maybe a bit of position on that and then a couple of others Because that's already run up slightly And you've got to be careful there when things have already run up But you know make your own assessments do your own research But I think patience think about what you're doing before you do it obviously And and and that is all good. So thank you for watching the video Don't forget to leave the video a like if you found this somewhat helpful And then also subscribe to the channel and let's try and reach that a 3000 subscriber mark as fast as possible So thank you for all the support and I'll see everybody In the next video


The Nigerian Senate has passed the medium-term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper MTEFFSP for 2024-2026 set of assumptions that will be used to prepare the country's budget over the next three years. The upper chamber approved a document with a borrowing plan of 7.8 trillion Naira for 2024-9 trillion Naira deficit and federal government total expenditure of 26 trillion Naira. The Senate approved the benchmark oil price of 73.96 dollars and 69.90 dollars per barrel for 2024-2025 and 2026 respectively. These approvals were sequel to the consideration and adoption of the recommendations in the report of 2024-2026 medium-term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper at Wednesday's plenary. The report was presented by Senator Sani Musa and considered by the Committee of Supply with Gospela Pabio as chairman and adopted in plenary. The joint committee chaired by Senator Sani observed that a significant number of the federal government's revenue-generating agencies engaged in arbitrary frivolous and extra budgetary expenditure and recommended that a review of the law of all revenue-generating agencies be carried out. The revenue expenditure framework upon which the 2024 federal government of Nigeria budget will be predicated is as follows. One, daily crude oil production will be 1.78 million barrels per day. Two, benchmark oil price will be USD 73.96 per barrel. Change rate will be 700 Naira per dollar. Growth domestic product growth rate will be 3.76 percent. Inflation growth rate will be 21.40 percent. Federal government of Nigeria retained revenue will be 16.9 trillion Naira. Total federal government proposed expenditure will be 26 trillion Naira. Federal deficit will be 9 trillion. For GOEs, new borrowings will be 7.8 trillion Naira, including foreign and domestic borrowing. To all our colleagues, chairman of committees that overseeing these agencies of the government to please let us pay so much attention, whenever they appear before you, it's what is the status of your revenue we want to see and how much are you allowed by law to spend out of this money. For agencies that are exceeding or not following the law, they can be brought before the national assembly to come and explain why they have to take more than what is expected of them in every financial year. Mr. President, Distinguished colleague, another area I want us to please, as the chairman have said, in the area of waivers, in 2024 alone, they are providing for 2.7 trillion waivers. Who are the beneficiary of these waivers? What do they tend to achieve? Are they at the value to the economy? And why are they granted these waivers? And this is one area I believe is of interest and utmost importance to us as a Senate. If the economic agenda of this current administration must be met. Another recommendation that attracted a debate was the recommendation that the Niger National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, work towards reducing its production and operational costs to increase available government revenue. After the polarized arguments, the resolution was adopted on Altered. So I think what we need to do is for our oil-related, oil and gas-related committees to really engage with the NNPC and whoever is involved as an operator. To know how we can do that is very sensitive and I will not advise that we simply say they should go and reduce. We should find a way of making it possible for engagement to know exactly what can be done. But if we say we just fed a company, we should just say, go and reduce it. How do we know? So I advise that we should be very careful. Thank you. This is a very simple recommendation. All we want is how do we make NNPC to reduce its production costs, aside by celebrity emirates, I haven't learned. At one time, production costs per barrel used to be $20 and now NNPC has worked and brought it down to about $15 per barrel. And according to us, mainly carry the GM, the NNPC, saying they are working towards reducing it by about $10 per barrel. So all we need to say is that NNPC should continue to reduce its production costs, simple.


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