This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont and today we are going to explore the Champlain Region Model Rocket Club, a very exciting organization and we have with us the president of the Champlain Region Model Rocket Club, Howard Druckerman. Welcome Howard. Thank you. And tell us a little bit about yourself before we begin. So as a kid I used to fly model rockets all the time and so I used to fly little teeny Estes model rockets and as I got older they got a little bigger and then I had a family and kids and I would fly rockets with them and now that my kids are even older I get to play in a much bigger size. So I still fly model rockets but they're just bigger and they're much more fun at that size. And what about your background? Was your background in science or rockets? So I am an engineer. My background is in math and science. I've always enjoyed doing that kind of thing. I also had one advantage in that my dad was part of the Gemini program for NASA. So he was involved in that. So he was interested in rockets. I was also born on a missile base. Really? Where? White Sands missile base out in New Mexico. I only lived there for a couple of months so I don't remember it but so I've always been around rockets and missiles. That's really in the blood then. I mean the White Sands is where they did all the pioneer work and everything like that. It is. What they did everything, yes. Were you around for the Sputnik launch, October 4th, 1957 was a day of shock for me and a lot of my friends. I was not born yet. Oh, okay. Then we know your age now. Okay. You can bracket it, yep. Okay. That's great. This organization, when did it get started? So around 2000 a bunch of people in Vermont got together and they wanted to fly bigger rockets. So they created a section of the National Association of Rocketry, NAR, and we are section 643 of Vermont. We're the only rocket club in Vermont. And so that gave us the ability to fly much bigger rockets, be insured, have all kinds of guidance from the club, meet the national standards and safety requirements, all of that that goes along with flying rockets. What is the National Association of Rocketry? There are two national organizations recognized that can certify people in rocketry. National Association of Rocketry, NAR, is one of them. It's a triple E rocketry association. We are associated with NAR. And where do you have your launches currently? We currently have our launches up in St. Albans, Vermont, off McQuamshore Road. Farmer there very graciously lets us use his land and we are very appreciative of that and we're very protective of that. And how do you manage to, do you have any liaison with any of the airport or any other people to let them know that you're launching these rockets? So I will say that safety is our number one concern.  Every launch that we do, we have to file paperwork with the FAA. That has to be done 45 days in advance. Then two days in advance, we have to issue what's called a noticed airman, a notem that says this is the area we're going to be flying in. This is the space, how tall, how big and exactly where. In half an hour in advance, I have to call the Burlington Tower, the Boston Tower, Eastern Air Defense and remind them this is where we're going to be. And then finally, five seconds before pushing the button, I have to look up to make sure there's nothing in the way. That's amazing. And what was the most recent launch? So our most recent, we fly the third weekend of every month. So it would have been the third weekend of August, which I think was the 20th. What types did you launch then? We fly rockets from very small to the rocket that you see in the very front was flown there. That's great. Now what is the purpose of the organization? Is it entertainment? Is it skill? Is it scientific? Tell us about any interface with schools or people who are studying anything that's scientific or educational regarding it. So for most of the club members, it's just the fun of flying rockets. You get to work with unique materials, carbon fiber, fiberglass, Kevlar, or cardboard or whatever you want it to be. And that's what most people do. The club itself is available for any group that wants to have a launch put on for them. We have done launches for probably more than a dozen libraries in Vermont. We've worked with Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, 4H. So any group that is interested in doing a launch, we can help them put it on safely because we know how to do it.  That's great. Yeah, I want to shout out to the Brown L Library in this extension because that's where I found out about your group.  And I'm sure that got some interest locally. Yep. And then immediately afterwards we did the Williston Library. Really? Yeah. That's great. Now what type of rockets do you fly? The club itself flies rockets anywhere from, and I'm going to pick up a small one from this small to bigger than what you see in front. This is the biggest one I could fit in my car today to get it here. But those are the different sizes and the materials vary. The littler ones are cardboard. The bigger ones start to be high performance plastics or fiberglass. And then if you want to spend a lot of money, you can make them out of carbon fiber. Who made these? These are all rockets that I have put together. Most of them are kits, not all of them. Some of them are custom. They take anywhere from 10 minutes to put together to several weeks. And are they special designs that you made or are they based upon rockets that are in use today, either for military or for exploration? So all of the ones you see that look like this one with the red fins, white body and our US Army Patriot scale models. This happens to be a one quarter scale. So the real Patriot would be 16 feet tall, 16 inches in diameter. This is 4 feet tall, 4 inches in diameter. This rocket itself is capable probably of going to 6 to 8,000 feet. And then it comes down under a bunch of parachutes. The one in front is a one third scale of a Nike Smoke. That was a 50s sounding rocket used by NASA to understand the upper atmosphere. That probably is capable of 15,000 feet if I wanted to pump it that high. Could you? Would we be able to do that? So in Vermont we can only go to 10,000 feet. So we're limited to 10,000. What about, are there any instruments or payloads on these or anything besides the propulsion end? Is there any guidance system? So there's no active guidance. There are active things that we do to release the parachute. When the rocket gets up to the very top up at Apogee, the rocket will split in the middle right here and a very small parachute will come out. All of the pieces are tied together and it comes down under a very, very small parachute for a rocket that size. So when it's up at, say, 6,000 feet, you don't want a large parachute. You want it to come down quickly. And then when it gets to about 1,000 or 500 feet, the nose cone will pop off and a very big parachute will come out. So it's only under that big parachute for the last 500 feet so it doesn't drift as far. We have a better chance of getting it recovered. We will fly with GPS or radio beacons so that we can locate them. Once we push the button, they go wherever they go. We don't have any control over that. So knowing where it landed is helpful. What kind of propellant is involved in these? So for the littler rockets, they use black powder. Same thing as gunpowder. For the bigger rockets, we use something called ammonium perchlorate composite propellant, APCP. It's the same thing that was in the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters. It's the same thing that the military uses in all of their missiles. We have one advantage. Most of NASA and the military want just high performance. We get to play around. The companies that sell these make them with blue flame, orange flame, pink flame, purple, yellow, white smoke, black smoke. And the one that I like the best is black smoke, yellow flame and sparks everywhere. And loud. That's great. And when you do this, do you make any recordations or monitoring of what took place? Do you have a log or a report that you put together? So for every launch that we do, I do a flight report. And you can see that on the club website. We record basic information of every flight. And then one of the members is videotaping most of the flights. I can't say he gets every single one of them. And he puts together a short synopsis of every flight. So for the entire launch, you can go see what flew, who flew what.  Yes. Several things have gone wrong. We have had people not put their motors together correctly when you get to bigger rockets. It's not just a slide in. You have to assemble the motor.  Instead, the rocket just burns on the pad. We have never had a rocket explode. We don't use that term. We have had them over pressurize, but never explode. We have rockets get caught in trees. And one of the things that we tell everybody who comes to our launches is, you're responsible for your own safety. You have to be looking up and rockets will land wherever they land. So we've had them land close to people. We tell people, we do call things called a heads up. If a rocket is going to be near somebody, we fire off a horn. And then we ask everybody to look up specifically and point to that rocket so everybody in the crowd can find it if it's going to land close to people. When you have your launches, how are the sites set up? It's a big, huge open field. It's a 5,000 foot circle with just pretty much open field. There's a couple of trees, but it's just no houses, no roads, no nothing. And what do the people observe? We have one central area where everybody goes and rocketeers and guests, anybody is welcome to show up and watch. We have one area that's, I'm going to say, a specific distance away from where the rockets are launched. What that distance is, again, is a safety regulation for little small rockets. We do 50 feet. As you get to bigger rockets, it could be 100, 200, 300, 500, or 1,000, depending on the size motor you're flying. That's great. And what kind of events do you have planned for the rest of this year? So we fly the third weekend of every month, typically Saturday, weather and field conditions dependent. So you can just go to our website and see, just look for the third weekend. We make a decision on Thursday nights as to whether we're going to fly Saturday or Sunday or scrub the launch. Again, it's all weather dependent. And if the field is pure mud and we can't drive on it, we're not going to get cars stuck. So we don't go on, you know, if the field is bad or there's four feet of snow or whatever. But we do fly year round or we try to. That's very exciting. Now tell us what kind of interaction or relationship you have with youth groups or school groups or people like that. So I have done talks for groups to explain what this is all about. There's a lot of science involved in flying a rocket. It's not just a straight tube. It's got fins on the end and there's science involved in what those fins do. I also, as part of, you said I was at the Essex Library the week, the month afterwards I was at the Williston Library. And as part of that, with the Williston Library, we did a launch for the, for anybody who wanted to, for Williston and Essex Library members where they showed up. They built a flying saucer and it's literally a plate that gets a motor. And then so we built, they built it. They color it. It's meant for little kids. They get to color it. We give them lots of markers. And then we go out. We went in the field behind the Williston Library and every kid who wanted to launch their rocket launched it. That's great. And every kid had a blast. Every single one. That's fantastic. And what, you know, in terms of interest in the field or related scientific endeavors and disciplines, have you seen any of that take place? Kids who, or other people who might attend your events, have any of them become really interested in rockets? I'm going to take your question in a slightly different way. We have had several, NASA has several challenges. There's a Team America Rocket Challenge put on by NAR. There are another, there's another group that does a challenge. We have worked with schools for Team America Rocket Challenge. We have worked with several universities in terms of working with NASA challenges. The NASA challenges are quite complex. One of them, for example, was to send a rocket up to a minimum of 5,000 feet. Boy, a payload that came down, which was a buggy, and then the buggy had an autonomously drive to a location. So those are the kinds of things. So that's a pretty involved challenge. So those are the kinds of people that we've worked with, several universities. The kids are learning at all levels, whether it's Team America or it's at the college level. They're used to this, working with this level of power that they start to have with rockets those sizes that they massifize and fly. What's the, maybe the penultimate launch you had, the highest it went or the longer the flight? Tell us if you have any of your special achievements that you remember. So we, there are three levels of high power rocketry. I'm just going to call them one, two, and three because that's what they're called. Maybe as high as you can go in the United States. At our August launch, we had somebody fly a level three rocket. It was 12 feet tall, six inches in diameter, almost 60 pounds at takeoff, and he had it up to 5,800 feet. And so a lot of power involved to get a 60 pound rocket up that high. And you got it back. And he got it back. That's amazing. Over a mile in the air then. Oh yeah. Our flight ceiling, we've had guys go to 10,000 feet, but that's our maximum. We have one guy in the club right now who wants to go to 25,000 feet. So he's going to have to go to a different launch, but he will do that.  Yes, every single month. Tell us about this big one here. Who made, who made that and what were the powers of the one in the front of the table? Right. It's got a tail of a, a Nike smoke. It's been extended a little bit to be a little taller so I can get a bigger parachute in it because it's, it's fairly heavy. When it's fully loaded, it weighs right around 25 to 30 pounds, depending how much propellant I put into it.  But as I said, it can go 25,000 if I want to put another 10 or 15 pounds of propellant in it. It is what I called that dual deploy where it gets to the very top, separates in the middle, comes down on a very small parachute. And then when it gets to a thousand or 500 feet, whatever I set it to, then the main parachute pops out and it comes down much more slowly. It will fly. It's basically a level two or level three rocket. In terms of the power and the level of the rocketeers that can fly it. It will go, oh, I've had it go 600 miles an hour. So that's not a big deal for these rockets. People do break mock. There is no sonic boom on something this small. Usually what happens is the sonic shock, if it's not built properly, destroys the rocket. So there's certain requirements if you want to go faster than mock. And that's your biggest one right now? That is not my biggest one. It's the biggest one I could fit in my car to get here. Wow. Several miles in the air now with these things. My biggest rocket is capable of 25,000 feet, five miles up. I can't fly it in Vermont because my limit is 10,000. And my pocket book is not big enough to buy that much propellant. But tell us about the organization. Obviously, we just mentioned a little bit of expenses involved. And tell us how your organization operates.  Anybody can come fly with us. That low power, totally unregulated, not involved, nothing there. When you start getting into the high power rockets, that's where things start getting involved. To fly high power, you must be a member of a national organization, whether it's NAR or Tripoli, TRA. And to join those, that gets you your insurance and your ability to certify. Mostly insurance is the reason that they do that. And then from there, if you're flying low power, you can just show up and fly. We're going to help you. Our goal, there is no competition in what we do. Our goal is to have everybody be successful, whether you're a club member or not. We want to see you have a safe flight, go up, and you get the rocket back. So there is no competition. We fly one rocket at a time. We all watch it go up. And we all watch it come down. And we help the person get their rocket back. That's great. Now, how are these rockets on the pad and where are the controls? How are these ignited or set off? So we have a wire that runs from wherever we're sitting to the rocket. There's an electrical igniter in each motor to light it. The distance, as I said, that you are from the rocket depends on the size of the motor and the complexity of the flight. And basically it's just a wire and a push button switch to a 12-volt car battery. Going in three, two, one. And when you say motor, what does that consist of? Motor is the propellant in a container with a nozzle at the back. And so we light the propellant and the exhaust comes out the bottom end. And there's a way to adjust that for the time and length of the flight? No. You pick a motor and once you've picked that motor, you get the characteristics of that motor. Your average little SD's rocket motor burns for about seven tenths of a second, maybe a little longer, maybe a little shorter. For the big, high-power rockets, if I pick a class of motors, and I'm just pick a number, H, each motor can run anywhere from seven tenths of a second. To six or seven seconds. The average thrust for one that burns in seven tenths of a second is very high, but it's for very short. But an H motor defines how much propellant or the amount of propellant there.  Anybody who wants to fly, the only requirement we have is if you're flying high-power, you have to be certified to that level. And have an active membership in whatever club. That's great. What other kinds of activities do you have? How do you sustain all of this? Obviously, you must need funds or membership fees or something like that. How do you sustain this offer? We have two fees to join the club. We're not very expensive. We're $15 a year to join the club. That's it. We charge a $5 a month launch fee. That's basically for things that we burn up. The clips that get into the exhaust don't last very long. We go through a lot of those. We have a lot of launch equipment that we maintain. We maintain a lot of safety equipment. We have a fire extinguisher, which we have used several times. We have to keep getting that recharged. We have a first aid kit. We have a PA system. We have a warning horn. All of that stuff to keep everybody safe. That sounds very exciting. It's really a lot of enthusiasm, I suppose, when people get together for this. We are all dedicated to what we do. We all have fun at it. That's great. That's fantastic. In terms of outreach, do you have any lectures coming up in the future or any type of other educational visits or anything like that? Not particularly. Nobody is asked for anything right now? You're up for that. Any time anybody asks for something, schedule a work, we do that. Like a school or something of that nature? Yep, we've done schools. Like I said, schools, clubs, whatever. I know that a lot of the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts do rocketry, and some of them do them on their own, but we have advantages if they call us in in that there are things that we can do to make their launches safer. So you're available to consult with other people? Always. So the experts in the county then, or at least in the region? Yep. Nationally, there are around 5,000 level 3 rocketeers, which is as high as you can go, and I am one of those. There's only four in the state of Vermont. That's really great. It sounds very exciting, and you're always looking for people to join or people to consult with you. Anybody with any interest is welcome to come just watch the first time if they have little rockets of their own, or they work to build little rockets with their kids. We have a pretty massive field that they're not going to lose the rocket in if it's a little kid flying his rocket. That is really wonderful, and you have a really very excellent website, which also launches are shown and all the information we've discussed today, and we're going to put that up, but also we're going to be able to show some of your recent launches. Thank you for providing that for us. It's very exciting. Well, that is really wonderful, Howard, and I want to thank you very much for appearing on Positively Vermont, and we'll maybe see you in the future if you get any more operations going. It's really good, and take a look at these rockets. These are really awesome items, I'll tell you. That's fantastic. Well, thank you very much. My guest today on Positively Vermont has been Howard Druckerman, the president of the Champlain Region Model Rocket Club. Thank you for watching Positively Vermont.


Why preparing a plan is compulsory for new teachers? Lesson planning is one of the most important elements of successful teaching in the ESL, English as second language, classroom and every TEFL, teaching English as foreign language. Lesson needs a plan, particularly so in the case of the less experienced teachers starting their career in a foreign country. The often cited argument that overplanning can create a less fluent atmosphere in the classroom does hold some truth but just as the artist is tutored not to attempt abstract heart until first mastering the art of realism, the teacher likewise is best placed not to address the class unprepared until first mastering the art of pre-planning. Many proficient teachers will attest to the fact that successful lessons are the direct result of organized lesson planning as it allows the teacher to address the class with the type of confidence and originality that only comes from being prepared. What does your success depends on? Success in the classroom depends on various factors that should be taken into consideration when drafting a lesson plan. A good lesson plan attempts to set out a well thought out step by step set of instructions for a lesson based on subject or learning objective, main aim and desired outcome for the learner, implementation of the objective, directivities, process and materials, and assessment, to measure the successful achievement of the objective, by giving thought to anticipated problems and solutions in advance. These factors assist the teacher in administering a standard teaching pattern so that they are better equipped to respond to questions from the learner without deviating from the lesson objective. The key to good lesson planning is to always have an element of flexibility built in for this very reason as it will allow the teacher to respond more calmly to unanticipated challenges in the classroom. What are the benefits of lesson planning? There are many benefits to lesson planning which consequently support the teacher in achieving their objective in the classroom. By investing time into planning and documenting the lesson, the teacher is able to more coherently set up a strategic plan to bring those goals into fruition by completing all planned ESA, engage, study, activate, stages of the lesson within the required timeframe. In addition, by keeping all lesson plans on file, the teacher gains a better understanding for the needs of the students which in turn enables them to plan ahead more effectively and provides a record to refer back to at a later stage. For this reason, lessons should follow a consistent theme which ties into both past and future lessons. What strategy works best? A good strategy for a beginner teacher is to follow an organized and systematic approach to lesson planning. A good lesson plan does not necessarily always have to be overly detailed in nature and could merely be a holistic overview of the objectives for the lesson and provide an outline of how the teacher intends to teach the material to the class. Simplicity is an important principle to consider in this respect as it allows the teacher ease of reference during a class where there may already be many distractions. What's a perfect lesson checklist? In addition, a lesson plan should include an act as a basic checklist the teacher can refer to before a class to ensure they are sufficiently prepared. This may include a list of materials, making sure all the equipment works, preparing blackboard notes as well as pre-planning seating arrangements to fit with the classroom space. By ticking off all the necessary to-dos, the teacher benefits from the peace of mind which allows them more time to set the mood as the students begin to enter the classroom. The organized teacher understands the importance of time management and the principle of delivering the lesson within a given and realistic time schedule. A good lesson plan should always expect the unexpected and incorporate contingency plans which will allow the teacher spontaneity to react creatively to any given situation. It is therefore advisable for the teacher to time you all planned activities in the classroom so that content is not transferred over to the next lesson. The essence of lesson planning is to teach more effectively by considering whether the needs of the students will be met through a specific language point, grammatical or phonological, receptive skills, reading and listening, or productive skills, speaking and writing. How to prove your lesson plan is appropriate. The planned lessons should be made understandable for the students and include different ways of explanation with examples students can relate to. Thought should be given to activities which assist in student understanding and retention and allow the opportunity for revision. Good lesson planning should pursue uniformity in structure and incorporate variety and a good balance of activities to keep the students engaged and enthusiastic throughout the duration of the lesson. Lesson planning is very much based on trial and error and therefore it is important to keep a record of lessons learned as it provides a platform for continuous improvement. An even greater benefit is the fact that the teacher is able to build up a portfolio of lessons for later use, ultimately saving a lot of time in the long run. Do you want to teach abroad? Take a TEFL course today. In conclusion, good lesson planning will enable the motivated teacher to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of their lessons with a view to improve their own personal skills and knowledge in such a way that allows them to simultaneously more effectively support the students in their care. Investing time into lesson planning is an ultimately rewarding experience and an important aspect of teaching which every new teacher should carefully consider and adopt into their teaching regime in their own individual way. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us tollfree at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.


The mysteries of Islam fascinate us time and time again. This is no different from the life story of the Prophet. Who was Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wasallam? An illiterate dozen merchant who one day stumbled upon amazing Arabic rhetoric. Or was he the creation of Allah's greatest light, sent down to earth to pull man out of ignorance and bring them to the purest of truths? I, Ali Burji, am on a journey to discover the real story behind the Prophet, the real story behind our religion, the roots, the beginning, the cradle of civilization. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Let's continue like this. Of course, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi, in that locality he was working on people, gradually trying to convey his message and ask them to keep quiet during these three years. Until he received the orders, and entered Aqrabeen, won your close relatives. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi invited some 40 of his tribesmen of Bani Hashim. And among them were Abu Lahab, one of his uncles, and Abu Talib of course, and various others, all from Bani Hashim. And he asked Imam Ali alaihi salam to prepare food for them. Remember that Imam Ali was, if you like, 10 years old. He did that, it brings into question that what's going on. And they served food for the people. When they ate and finished, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said, I want to talk to you about something important. And in summary he said to them that I am, as you can see that I have religion of Islam, and I'm a messenger of Allah s.a.w. And I want you to believe in me. And Allah has instructed me to go public. Therefore I have called upon you to begin with. And I invite you to believe in Allah, in one Allah s.a.w. And I am his messenger. And whoever supports me in this matter, he will be my brother, my wasi, my executioner, the executioner of my will, and also my successor, my Khalifa. And the people just looked, looked on. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi was waiting for him to answer. When there was no response from the mass, from the people sitting in that meeting, Imam Ali alaihi wa sallam at that time barely a teenager, 13 years old, he got up and says, I will support you. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said to him, Okay, sit down. And he gave them time to reflect, and then he asked them again. He said, whoever supports me in this, in this matter, he will be my brother, my wasi, and my Khalifa, my successor for this nation. And no one responded. He gave them time, and then Imam Ali alaihi sallam said, I will support you. And for the third time, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said the same thing. And nobody responded and Imam Ali alaihi sallam stood up and said, I will support you.  And he asked, so you should, now that he is my successor, he will be my successor, you should listen to him and obey him. And of course they found it funny. Some of those who were, if you like, opposing the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi, they turned to, amongst them was Abu Lahab, the uncle of the Prophet. They turned to Abu Talib, ridiculing him and saying that from now on, you should obey, you should listen to and obey your 13-year-old son. Yeah, try to be smart, Abu Lahab. And so this was how it went public. In the beginning. In the beginning. So he waited for three years to see the instruction from Allah swt and he did that to begin with. He started with his tribe, Bani Hashem. What you mentioned and is quite astonishing is how early in the beginning of Islam, actually even Islam was known to the people, was declared from the get-go. You see, Amirul Mu'minin, a.s., proving firstly to his family that he is going to be the successor of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, where you mentioned that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, whoever will support me will be my successor. And Subhanallah, even though my mom, a.s., young in age, as you said 12-13 years old, he stood up not once, not twice, but thrice to emphasize it. And it's beautiful how we know that, I don't know if it was Arabian culture, but we see that if they wanted to emphasize or stress the importance of something, they would either repeat it three times or redo it three times.  And we see Abu Lahab's response to Abu Talib. Of course, what else can you expect from a man like Abu Lahab? And now, once the meeting was done, the family knew. Obviously, they would have started to spread the word amongst the Quraish, correct? For example, Abu Lahab, for example, he probably ran to his friends while Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said this last night. For example, what occurred next? What was the Holy Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's strategy? What was the game plan? So he's now informed the family, not very good, strong response from the family. What was the next step? Before going to the next step, I would like to, if you like, emphasize on this. You might want to see, people might say, why was it so important to mention right at the outset who my successors are going to be? Yes. Okay? Basically, it goes to show the significance, the two things, it goes to show the significance of the successorship, if you like, the Khilafa of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So we have the Prophet, and the importance, okay, as long as he stays alive, then he will steer this religion and the people. Okay, what happens after him? Right from the word go, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, an instruction from Allah swt is also talking about thinking and talking about that stage, what happens next. And he also talks, and therefore he talks about the fact that after me, from now, after me is going to be X, Y, Z. And of course the X, Y, Z, at that stage he mentioned alaihi alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Because succession or Khilafa is as important as the Prophet itself. It's nothing less because, yes, Prophethood receives revelation from Allah swt, but you need the rightful Khilafa, as appointed by Allah swt, so that they could continue this message. They will be of the same caliber, if you like, asma and so on, which you mentioned earlier. They will be of the same caliber as the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. They are not prophets, the Khilafa or the successors are not prophets, which the Prophet appointed 12 of them, mentioned them on numerous occasions throughout his life. They're not prophets, they don't receive revelation from Allah, new revelation from Allah swt, but they are the only people who can continue this message. They share the status of prophethood, but they don't have what comes with prophethood, if that's correct to say. For example, they attribute the etiquette of prophethood. Yes, they have the, if you like, attributes of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, but they are not prophetless. In fact, going back slightly, when Imam Ali sallam is saying this khutba, which I read, khutba number 192, says that at that time, there was only one house which had Islam, one household which had Islam, and that was Rasulullah, and Khadija, and the third of them. I am Rasulullah, Khadija, and I, Imam Ali sallam, I am the third. Mashallah. And now this went on for, obviously for, if you like, for three years. Imam Ali says, Imam Ali says, I see the light and the brightness of revelation and the message. I breathe the aroma of prophethood. Imam Ali sallam was with the prophet all along. On other occasions he says he used to go to the cave with him where I could see him and no one else could see him. In fact, in the same khutba, Imam Ali says that from young age the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi started taking care of me. He was obviously again very young. The food must have been hard or the bread was hard. It says that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi used to chew the food and then give it to me. The prophet was taking care of him. And of course, the angel was along with the prophet. As I said, it was day and night with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. And he used to teach the prophet, if you like, akhlaq. And Imam Ali says that every day the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi used to show me one of the teachings, set up one of the teachings for me and he used to command me to follow that, to practice that. And he was basically trained by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and all the teachings that he had he transferred to Imam Ali alaihi sallam which made him to have the qualification to succeed the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. These are the important things. That's why the prophet wanted to make sure to say that khilafah is important and it must succeed, it must continue and it isn't just anyone can continue the message of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and from day one he appointed Imam Ali alaihi sallam being the Khalifa. And also the second important is wanted to stress that Ali is the one. So over the course of 23 years the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi made it clear continuously throughout the time that Ali is my successor. And this is the second point. It made it clear to the people, to the masses. Not only he made it clear that khilafah is important but as far as the prophethood is concerned he also wanted to make it clear to the people who are going to be the people in charge. Who is going to be the individual who is going to be the Khalifa if you like. The leader after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi for mankind, to steer this religion and steer the people. From the word Imam, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi said it's Imam Ali alaihi sallam. This is something which is very important. Masha Allah. With regards to the prophet s mission what was his mission in the beginning? So in those three years what was he preparing before announcing it to the public? Were there any preparations that took place where ayahs of the Holy Quran being revealed throughout those three years? Did they start after the announcement to the public? Yes, as the verses of the Quran were being revealed he would recite these verses to the people, the handful of people who were around him. We have reported that the fourth person who became, if you like, on the surface of it became a believer in the message of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi after the fourth person as I said in that household of three the prophet, his wife Khadija and Imam Ali was Ja'far al-Tayyar, the brother of Imam Ali. It's reported that Abu Talib alaihi sallam said to his son Ja'far go and join them in prayers. So he did the evolution of the wudu and he joined them. So he became, if you like, the fourth one to follow. So we have such reports. So basically you, of course I want to say that as we mentioned some time ago it is reported that Abu Talib was Hujja and his wasi was Abu Talib, alaihim sallam. But Abu Talib in order to, because he was acting as a mediator as far as the prophet was concerned of course he had his status of the chief of Quraish after Abu Talib and he was highly respected. Bani Hashim, sorry, chief of Bani Hashim, I should have said, no Quraish. Bani Hashim themselves were respected and Abu Talib after the, after Abdul Muttalib Abu Talib was highly respected by all of Quraish. So he had his status, he had his social status if you like. And when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and he knew that his nephew Muhammad will be the prophet and when he announced his prophethood and he announced his message he wanted to play the role of mediator between Quraish and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. So it was important that he, if you like, he doesn't look like okay I'm a devout follower of Muhammad to begin with so that he can, they have a, if you like, communication channel he can have a communication channel with Quraish.  Prophet Muhammad was known for his manners he continued over like 20 years he continued the same manner he was, and now he's got this message so basically he was gathering more and more people until he received the order from Allah that he should go public which he went with his close relatives. Now as to regards to the tactics and the methods he deployed during that period can you please clarify to me? Yeah, so after he went public Quraish took notice they realized that this guy is not one of those many who came and claimed something and vanished you know, late after a while in fact, for example Waraqa Waraqa bin Naufal he used to preach Christianity in Mecca Was he Quraish or he came from? No, he's Quraish, he's the cousin of Seyda Khadija and in fact I read somewhere that before that others were preaching various religions whether Christianity or others and so on Quraish didn't now when it came to Prophet Muhammad to begin with he started saying these idol worshipping is false these are stones, you shouldn't be doing this you should worship Allah the One who created everything these idols they don't hear, they don't speak, they don't have any benefit for you, they can't do any harm to you so why are you doing this? This Quraish didn't like because basically he's undermining their base some people are joining him and going away from idol worshipping mostly they didn't like you because it hurt their pockets if you like and of course their status and they came to Abu Talib they have a lot of respect for Abu Talib Abu Talib was no ordinary person highly respected, the chief of clan of Bani Hashem but the clan of Bani Hashem was highly respected they came to him and said look, he's ridiculing our gods he's and ridiculing our ideas and beliefs you have to stop him he said, okay, I'll speak to him he spoke to him nothing happened he continued, they came back to him they said to him, look you either deal with him or you go away move aside stop protecting him so that we can deal with him and stop him he said, let me speak to him again and he spoke to the Prophet and of course the Prophet said the well-known statement that if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand in order to stop this mission I would not and I'll continue this until either Allah will make make this revelation widespread so that everyone accepts it and it becomes a prominent religion or I die I'm not going to give up no matter what and they realized that he's very serious about this they tried to bribe Abu Talib in order to so that he doesn't protect him so that they can deal with the Prophet Muhammad of course remember other than Abu Jahl sorry, Abu Lahab and two other individuals from Bani Hashem all of Bani Hashem with this young man Muhammad they are believed in him or out of respect out of respect and honor in the sense that he is a member of our tribe and it's our duty because of kinship we have to protect him they may be people who didn't believe in the religion of Prophet Muhammad but they believed in protecting him out of the fact that they are both in the same tribe in the same clan so he had Bani Hashem behind him he had Abu Talib who was the chief of Bani Hashem at the time highly respectful individual it didn't work then they came to the Prophet and they came to Abu Talib to say this they said look if he wants money we will gather money so that we will make him the richest in Mecca richer than ourselves and if he wants status they said something which is very surprising they said that we will make him our master the king of Quraish but they used the phrase which people say king of Quraish but I think if one is careful the meaning which is in Mursat they said numallikuhu alayna numallikuhu means we make him that he owns us basically that means that we become his slaves numallikuhu alayna so we submit we become his slaves just we want him to stop this they knew this this man he was a gentleman he was very kind he was very well mannered he was very truthful loyal he had all the attributes all the virtues and the Mursat they could think of he had them so they wouldn't be afraid as you said that if they for the sake of him stopping spreading the message to give him all the power they knew that he would not abuse it that's why they were so confident to govern them because they knew and were confident that he would never abuse the power and they would not be in trouble basically the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi he didn't want confrontation from with Quraish he continued with his message of non-violence and he absorbed all the violence that they showed him and he wanted to convey his message to the people


Okay, it's not going to be just me talking today. I'll then hand over to Yanni, Marta and Jenny to tell you a bit more about specific projects in our group. I'll just give you a brief overview of what we're doing. So at the heart of our research are vaccines for vulnerable populations and overcoming the dysfunction. So basically, by vulnerable populations, we're specifically interested in those chronic diseases and the aging population. With chronic diseases, we're focusing mainly on metabolic disease like type 2 diabetes and obesity. And really what we're trying to do is understand immune responses in these populations, how it compares to healthy people and how we can understand mechanisms and use that to design better vaccines or design new vaccines specifically targeted at these populations who are at higher risk of severe outcome form infection and also more susceptible to becoming infected in the first place. And we're studying all of this in three different areas which are highlighted on this slide. One of them is mediadosis, it's a neglected tropical disease prevalent in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, caused by the crime negative intracellular bacteria buccalaurea sulimalae. The other one, also a big part of what we're doing is COVID-19, all of you know, caused by SARS-CoV-2. And we're part of two big consortia to investigate immune responses in the context of COVID-19. One of them is a national consortium called pitch, and the other one is international called sequel variants. And then finally, one of the new additions to our portfolio is identifying new vaccine candidates for AMR pathogens, including E. coli and Scythia lendemonia. So I'll start off with the COVID-19 work we're doing and just briefly introduce in the pitch consortium to you again. I've mentioned this last year, but just as a recap and for all of you who are new and introduction, the pitch consortium is a nationwide consortium led by Susie here in Oxford together with Paul Kleineman at the Peter Medeva building. And it consists of several sites across the UK, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham and Oxford, also with involvement of UK HSA. And basically the aim is to really understand T cell or immune responses in healthcare workers to COVID-19. And it commenced at the start of the pandemic in April 2020. And since then, we've recruited over 2000 healthcare workers into this study. And just so you understand a bit better what the workflow of this is and how this looks, not just here in Oxford, but also in other sites. Basically, what we do is we invite healthcare workers to attend our clinics whenever they have a break for infection, but also close vaccine or pre-vaccine. And we're collecting longitudinal samples from these people in order to better understand the immune responses, the waning and the boosting of immune responses. So people are invited to the clinic, they attend either the JR hospital clinic or clinic or the Churchill hospital clinic. And then our nurses collect blood from them. And they also collect a thumb strip, which is basically just inserted into a nostril and collects the fluid inside your nostril. So we can actually get some data on mucosal antibodies as well. And these people are also provided with PCR nasal swab kits, which they can send in for PCR testing if they think they have break for infection. And then once the blood is collected, it comes down to the lab and our research system to process the bloods. And the components we're really interested in are plasma on top, which contains antibodies and other proteins of interest. And then this little fraction here at the interface, which contains all the important immune cells that we are interested in. And those are stored at ultra low temperatures for future analysis, functional analysis. So where are we up to with pitch at the moment? So we're tracking immune responses since 2020. And where this little star, the red star is, this is the time that we're currently looking at. So we're just about to collect the pre-v5 samples from people who will go on to receive the fifth dose. And this will be offered this week. I think we're beginning of next week to help her workers. And we're also collecting samples whenever people get break for infection. And so since the start of the pandemic, and that's the figure on the bottom left, we've been tracking T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2. And we can see that these are very well maintained. So the first gray dots, these are the baseline samples. And then you can see this nice increase after the first dose and a little bit more increase after the second dose. And then it's quite well maintained. It goes up slightly up and down a little bit, but really not, not much. And then also those responses are maintained in response to variants of concern like Omicron, VA1, VA2, which is also important for us to understand in terms of protection whenever new variants are coming in. Hey, so I'll hand over to Yanni. So hi everyone. My name is Yanni. I'm a second year DFIA student in this group. So I'm going to present some results for my project. So despite the widespread of SARS-CoV-2 infection, there are some people who reported that they never got infections. So I'm looking at their antibody and T cell responses. And to do this, I collected, our group collected samples from participants. The unexposed is people who are recruited early pandemic and like detected infections are people who got their breakthrough infections within the last 30 days. And the no known infection, these are people who self reported as never had infections in the beginning of pandemic. So to do this, I'm going to measure the, well, I measure the immune responses to spike protein, which is the component that present in the vaccines that's been deployed in the UK. And also measure the immune responses to other non spike proteins, including membrane, nuclear capsid, non structural protein and open reading frames. So for antibody, I use MSD platform. And for to measure the T cells, I use Ali spot and also the proliferation assay. So as we can see in this figure, people who have been vaccinated, this is a DI is people who just they got that breakthrough in vaccinated and got breakthrough infections after vaccination. And NKI is people who have been vaccinated and reported as never been infected. So as I expected, people who have been vaccinated have responses to spike protein. And, and here is nuclear capsid. So people who have breakthrough infection, they have responses to non spike proteins, which not present in the vaccine that they receive. While people who reported as never got infections, about 30% of those actually got respond antibody to nuclear capsid. So how about their T cell responses for T cell responses? As we can see here, unexposed people who are recruited early on pandemic, they don't have responses to spike because they're not vaccinated. And as expected, people are fascinated, they actually have T cell responses to spike. And about the other responses to non spike protein, similar to antibody people who reported. There are some people who actually have responses to non spike protein, and the DI are people who actually got breakthrough infection. So they have responses to other non spike proteins. So in this graph here, I just want to show like the proportion of responders. So the black one is people who are the unexposed people, as I expected, most of the time they not responded to spike or non spike, while people who got their breakthrough infection, they actually higher proportions in people who have spike and non spike. And next is people who started reported as never got infections. You can see like some of them actually have responses to non spike, which indicate that they may actually have like asymptomatic infections. So for at least what we can only measure like the interferon gamma secreting cells, and we cannot differentiate whether it is coming from CD4 or CD8. So using the proliferation, I say this is to differentiate whether the responses coming from CD4 or CD8. And again, as you can see, people are unexposed, they don't really respond that much. And the result here, we kind of see that people who started reported as never been infected seem to have like more responses, but also noted like the number of people, the sample that I have is actually much higher than a breakthrough infection. So this is still working in progress and I still need to add more data just to confirm this finding. So yeah, that is the result that I got so far. People who have been vaccinated, they have antibody antiseptic responses to spike proteins, and people who got breakthrough infections, they do have responses to non spike protein, which is very different from people who are unexposed. They don't have responses to non spike. So before I go, I also want to say just thank you to participants who actually volunteer for my study. I know some of you are actually here in this room. So thank you so much. Or even that people who actually express their interest to volunteer. So yeah, thank you. Hi. So my name is Marta. I am a postdoc in Susie's lab and I will be going through very briefly two projects that I've been involved in. The first one that has been mentioned a few times is the Seco variants project, which is a Southeast Asia initiative to combat SARS-CoV-2 variants. It's a collaborative study between three countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, and experts at the University of Oxford, which are listed here. And it's led by Professor Ton in Vietnam. So as we know that viruses do mutate, and SARS-CoV-2 has shown a number of mutations since the beginning, starting with Wuhan, going to, for example, Delta and then Omicron, and Omicron leading to the rise of XBB 1.5 and XBB 1.16, which are shown here. And since then, there has been also other developments and variants that have come about. And we're interested in these because mutations can often lead to affect viral fitness, making the virus more transmissible, causing more severe disease or giving it the ability to evade our immunity. However, this is in the case with all variants, and we know that some of them have faded away, but in an ideal situation, we want to know as soon as a new variant arises, how fit is it, and will it affect or will it have a significant impact in the public? So the aim of this study is to develop and apply a multidisciplinary research platform in Southeast Asia for rapid assessment of the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants, thereby informing a coordinated local and regional, as well as global response to COVID-19 pandemic, and to use this platform for future outbreaks and to use it for other pathogens as well. This is quite a busy slide, so I will just mention it briefly to show you the study design, which involves the use of already stored serum and cells, which have been stored pre-pandemic as well as the initial phase of the pandemic and which currently is also ongoing with the newer variants. The use of the genome of the virus that have been sequenced, still again, we continue to sequence the new variants and use that information. And from that, we will develop or design peptide libraries, which we could use for laboratory tests to look at T-cell responses, look at neutralizing antibodies from the plasma, and based on the laboratory findings and together with the clinical situation of these viruses, we hope to define the variants which have biological significance, and then this will be communicated to experts in health policy to have the appropriate impact. So the project has a significant component of capacity building, which has been taking place. So you have already seen the slide where Priyanka is giving training in Vietnam. We have had a student, a PhD student who visits us from Thailand who spent about six months in our lab working on T-cell responses. And we now have also two PhD students with whom we have met already today doing their PhDs in Oxford from Indonesia. And the project continues apparently. So that's it for this one. And then the second project that I would briefly mention is on antimicrobial resistance. It focuses on identification of new vaccine candidates for two of the pathogens that cause AMR. It is at the stage of the pump priming stage supported by these agencies. And the PI in this project is Vicky, who has an addition to the first two fundings who has recently received funding from VAC, the VAC to continue this project. The aim of this project is to identify new vaccine and therapeutic candidates for E.coli and Canemonia, which are two amongst the highest prevalent bacteria causing AMR. These are two of them. By screening patient cohorts for antibody and T-cell responses to key virulent factors. So the participants will include cohorts from UK as well as Vietnam. And these are patients who have bloodstream infection caused by E.coli and Canemonia as well as healthy controls from both countries. And the design for this project involves selecting target proteins through the literature search and available database, which Vicky has already done. And then manufacturing the proteins, which for some extent has already been done. And then after that we will screen for immunogenicity in our lab by looking at interfering gamma, early spot T-cell responses and ELISA to look for antibody responses. And finally, the analysis will include comparing the immune responses between bacterium with patients and healthy controls in the two countries, as well as the difference between the UK and Vietnam and explore if the disease severity survival are associated with the immune responses they have for these selected proteins. And I'm just going to give you a really brief update on two projects that I think Barbara talked about last year. So I'm Susie's project manager for her Meliodosis work. And this is Melvac One, which is going to be our phase one clinical trial and the first ever clinical trial of a Meliodosis vaccine. And it's definitely been a bumpy road getting to the point of starting and we're really hoping to kick off next year. And I think COVID of course has been a challenge and a lot of resources were directed to that, not internally in the group, but globally in terms of components for vaccines. But also another challenge is there's quite a lot of components going together to be mixed and delivered to the participants. So the vials in the top corner there, there's going to be a Hapsular Polysaccharide Protein Conjugate and then another antigen from the Bercalderia Bacterium, a protein HTP1 and then also mixed together with two adjuvants. So getting all those different parts together is taking its time, but we're making good progress. And then we're straight on to the second project, which is something we've been working on a lot in the meantime, with partners in Moru that carrying out a lot of the work and been really busy with this, surveying attitudes. Well, several parts to it were coming up on the next slide, talking to people about their awareness of Meliodosis as a problem, their attitudes towards vaccinations in general, and also taking part in vaccine trials because in Ubon Ratatani, the site where we're carrying out this project is not an area where vaccine trials are typically carried out, perhaps most people won't be exposed to that at all. And like in Oxford where I know a lot of you will have been bombarded with adverts to take part in clinical trials all the time. So yeah, asking people about their perceptions and willingness to take part in a future trial, because obviously after the phase one of the Meliodosis vaccine in Oxford, the next stage is to go to endemic areas. So just with through, we've got some, quite a lot of interviews have taken place, still some more to go, but we've got some early themes that have started to arise about how different age groups receive their information about disease outbreaks and vaccination, some more outward looking and some more passively received information. And we've had some really positive responses about a mixture of responses, but some really positive responses about taking part in trials and quite nice to see some, yeah, a good mixture of responses to that.


Coming to you from RGIS Studios, I am Anicia Antoine and this is your Midday News Brief. The All-Important Healthcare Sector is a prime focus for the Government of St. Lucia as it enters into a new financial year. That declaration was made by the Governor-General, Sir Emmanuel Neville Snark, as he delivered the Thurand Speech Tuesday, April 9th, 2019, opening a new session of Parliament. The Governor-General stated that Government intends to continue strengthening primary healthcare and public health, advance work on national health insurance, and implement measures for quality assurance. Plans for the opening of the Owen King EU Hospital and the St. Jude's Hospital are also advancing. On Saturday 6th April 2019, the Forrest or Plain Field in Barbano was officially opened. The field was recently upgraded with the Plain Surface benefiting from a complete rehabilitation and the installation of Plain Lights to allow for evening matches and extended hours of training. Upgrades have also been carried out on the Balata Plain Field, the Cots in Balata and Timon along with the rehabilitation of the Lager Plain Field which will soon be completed. Dr Michael O'Brien, an orthopedic surgeon from Frederickson, Virginia, USA and a volunteer at St. Jude's Hospital, gave a lecture to the students of UFOT Comprehensive Secondary School, educating them on the learning path to become a doctor. He provided them with valuable information on what to expect in the medical field and the mindset needed to be successful in it. This has been your midday news brief. Thank you for watching.


quieter place maybe oh that's that's okay we're going to be talking about gaza about the village in the west bank that's facing imminent demolition and a lot more about Palestine so Mazen could you begin by just telling us of where you are right now and just a little bit about yourself first so my name is Mazen from Palestinian American who lives in the west bank and I teach at Bethlehem University and now I am at the boat called Al Aouda which is a boat that is intended to go to Gaza God willing and we have come from Napoli yesterday after 24-hour ride from Napoli and this is the last leg of this tour before Gaza wow and could you tell us a little bit about yourself as well I know you're based in Bethlehem so just a little bit of background so I am a you know professor in biology and I am also director of a new museum that we founded at Bethlehem University of Palestine Museum of Natural History and Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability and they are institutes intended to strengthen Palestinian resilience resistance or as we call it Samud on the land great so speaking of resilience and resistance and Samud on the land as well as sustainability we at Code Pink we've been following the impending demolition of the Bedouin village and I know that there is an ecological or ecologically built school there I'm wondering and I know also that you have been to this village recently so I'm wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about what's going on there so Khan al-Ahmar is the name of the town there is a community about 200 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from the negative area and moved to that area in 1950s after also being denied access to the Jordan Valley so they went up the hills and they live in the hills that are to the east of Jerusalem or between Jerusalem and Jericho and Israel has been building settlements throughout the area of the West Bank as you know over 230 colonies that are built in the West Bank now that house nearly 800,000 Jewish Israelis and they are expanding every day and so the idea is this is part of the same process colonization removal of the native people from their land so they want to remove these communities and this community is very resilient as you pointed out they also are ecologically sensitive they built a school for example from rubber tires and mud and in the 174 children go to the school not only from that community but from around the community surrounding Bedouin communities I saw that you were there recently and I know that there have been a lot of protests there by the community and by activists from both from the area and from around the world could you talk a little bit about what it was like to be there and what you experienced? Yes I was there last week and it is really heartbreaking to see the beautiful community that was you know there for you know 60 years 65 years plus and how you know the potentiality of it being removed Israel just actually bulldozed their street and they erected a barricade just a couple of days ago in preparation for ethnically cleansing the village under pressure from international community and others the Israeli court delayed the eviction by a few weeks I think till 16 August pending getting all the information so to speak from the government the government is moving forward with plans for the demolition and plans for the relocation of the community and they want to put them in basically garbage dump site which is not suitable for living let alone making a living basically these are Bedouins who rely on herding sheep and goats goats and they will not be able to live without access to land that their sheep and goats can live off of. Do you have any hope that the Israeli courts and that the pressure will be successful or yeah what are your thoughts on going forward? I think the only hope for saving Khan Lahmar as any other Palestinian community is if the international community moves and what we are saying now from the international community is very disappointing I mean of course the resistance is very important and the refusal to move is very important but after all we are talking about the fifth strongest army in the world against unarmed civilians so obviously when they choose to move and evict them they will be able to remove them then mean that the locals would accept this and many times they will rebuild we remember the village of Al-Araqib in the Nagav which was demolished 132 times and each time the villagers rebuilt that village so there is an element of local resistance and rebuilding there's the element of the international community international community unfortunately under the current geopolitical structures with the world with the Trump in office Netanyahu in office and also I am sorry to say Abu Mazen in office a Palestinian president whose term has expired and who was not doing a whole lot to protect his people I think we are in for some rough waters as we say here in the Mediterranean So speaking of water you are right now with the cause of freedom flotilla and we're waiting to see if Anne Wright who is I think most of our watchers know at Code Bank she's part of Code Bank and part of the freedom flotilla we're waiting to see if she can join us as well and she's there as well but off somewhere at the moment could you tell us a bit about the freedom flotilla and what you're doing there specifically So the freedom flotilla is this particular freedom flotilla made up of four ships this ship that I'm on is that's called a lauda is this is a engine ship but the other three ships are sailing boat ships and they they intend to sail to Gaza as part of the repeated attempts to highlight the blockade on Gaza and break it now to break this blockade is not easy we know that there were dozens of attempts literally to break the siege in Gaza the blockade and five ships did manage to get through in 2008 and 2009 but since then in the past nine years Israel has basically acted in its pirate capacity hijacking the ships in international water against international norms and standards and international law and and so doing Israel is committing a crime basically crime against humanity by hijacking ships in international water ships that pose no threat to Israeli security ships that are heading to Gaza which Israel claims that they have left Gaza but of course Israel continues to control Gaza from every entry and apply a blockade that is basically a genocidal blockade people are literally dying in Gaza Israel is actually applying poisoning the children of Gaza because the Gaza strip has entitlement to water according to international law but Israel let let snow water into Gaza and so Gaza is relying on the aquifer and the aquifer is being overdrawn and underneath Gaza basically and 97 percent of the aquifer water is not suitable for drinking yet people drink it and it's basically poisoning one million Gaza children today as we speak are being poisoned by drinking unsuitable water thanks to the Israeli blockade and Israeli deprivation of Gaza from of its water of its rightful ownership of water and and of of any means of livelihood it's basically a genocide I had to use this term but it is a slow genocide of the people of Gaza so it's a slow genocide every day from water that isn't fit for drinking sewage and all of the devastation from the blockade and then this past week we are watching massacres and actually we've been watching massacres since March 30th this this past week we are watching massacres by bombs prior to this we're and we're still also watching massacres by sniper could you talk a little bit about this and what it's like for you as a Palestinian living in Bethlehem what the feeling is in Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank for the people of Gaza and yeah what what your how you think anybody might be able to help yes I mean if we step back and think about it it's logical that colonial powers do this colonization is not unusual in human history and the Israeli colonization is no different than the colonization by Europeans of Australia or North America US Canada other places the colonizers want to create a new reality and they want the land but they don't want the people who come with the land and this is so they choose various methods of containing the people and of squeezing them ethically cleansing them killing them etc and in the case of the Palestinians there are 13 million of us seven and a half million of refugees or displaced people and the others are living in increasingly shrinking ghettos uh bantustans I like to call them people warehouses because they store unwanted people in these warehouses Gaza is for example a large open-air prison or bantustan or a ghetto or a warehouse and so is by the way Bethlehem and the other places increasingly becoming like that although Gaza is an advanced stage of ban bantustanization if you want uh but it's coming to Bethlehem Israel is building walls around Bethlehem and eventually Bethlehem and Ramallah and all these other islands if you want will become like Gaza where unwanted Palestinians are stored um with limited access except for occasional humanitarian aid which uh comes from the Europeans etc goes through Israeli hands and Israel deducts from it whatever they want to so basically pirating uh humanitarian aid that is coming for uh maintaining the uh prisoners if you want so you know the only difference between a prison and let's say Gaza is that in a prison you're forced you're obligated to actually feed the prisoners in this case the prisoners are not being fed by the prison guards they are basically being fed by occasional humanitarian aid that comes from abroad with the permission of the Israeli authorities if you want and I hear that uh as you said before that Israel is now blocking uh more and more of that humanitarian aid I saw on sunday that two teenagers were uh killed by by a bomb in Gaza dropped by Israel and I have been reading from Netanyahu that this is in response to flaming kites could you give your thoughts on the disproportionality well uh Israel uh since I came back from the United States in 2008 Israel has continued to attack Gaza with three main peaks that happened in 2008 2012 2014 were and now of course so that's a fourth you know wave of the Israeli attack on Gaza Israel uses these attacks as basically weapons testing facility feed you know laboratory basically they test Israeli new weapons every two to four years on Gaza like shooting ducks in a barrel basically it's very simple um and Israel I mean there are plenty of videos that demonstrate that these people in Gaza are not posing any threat to Israeli soldiers or anybody that Israel is shooting them in the back sometimes shooting paramedics like 21 year old Roseanne Najjar who was tending to injured people was shot uh even killing you know press people journalists uh children as young as 11 and 12 years old shot in the back so clearly that's what they do with people demonstrating near the borders but then occasionally also Israel drops bombs on Gaza as they did this past Saturday and they continued started this past Saturday and I continued in the last few days and Saturday for example they dropped the bombs on the uh on basically an open park killing two children 15 and 16 years old who were just playing there they were just simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and so and then it's heartbreaking to watch see the picture of these two lifelong buddies who their last post on Facebook was a picture of themselves selfie basically with the heart between them saying you know friends for life and they were just butchered for obviously just simply as I said it's uh Israel wants a land they don't want the people who come with the land so the Palestinians are dehumanized and of course Israel can use any excuse that they want to kill Palestinians just like the European colonizers in the United States used many excuses to kill natives and even hunt them and give rewards for people who killed them so uh as you're there on the Gaza freedom flotilla and if folks are wondering why Mazan's image has been moving back and forth a little bit it's because he's on the boat on the water what would you advise us all of us who care so much about what's happening in Gaza and in the West Bank and throughout Palestine do you have any suggestions for what we can do well uh we this movement for free Palestine is a global movement the Palestinian struggle is not the local struggle it impacts everybody after all especially in the US where our tax money and I say our because I'm also a US citizen our tax money is going to fund this killing this massacre of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing Palestinians from their land it is our responsibility as human beings first of all to each other because we should not be thinking as Palestinians we should be thinking as or as Americans for that matter we should be thinking as people as human beings there is one race which is a human race and I think we need to think like that just like we affected change in South Africa via boycott the vestment sanctions via working on the media working on our politicians there are many things that people can do locally as the old saying goes think globally and act locally so we encourage people to act locally in every sphere of their life because this is ultimately a joint struggle for human rights for dignity and it it basically is a choice that we have as human beings between going down the path of endless wars which designers want us to continue down and that's why they pushed for a war in Iraq and on Syria and other places between wars basically and between having peace and human rights that serves everybody whether they are Jewish Christian Muslim or whoever we Palestinians have lived together by the way my own family is Palestinian Christian family but my grandfather's best friend in school was Jewish and so we have lived together in peace and harmony we welcomed also refugees to Palestine before for example Armenians Circassians Druze people from various countries Ethiopian Christians and also Jews from Russia after Russian pogroms came to Palestine we have no problem with immigrants we do have a problem with colonization and so we call for diversity my background is biology as I told you I believe that but diversity is strength whether in nature in a forest you know different species living together or in human societies diversity of beliefs and and religions and concepts and politics and ethnicities this diversity is a form of strength not a form weakness Zionism wants to eliminate diversity and create a Jewish state in the same way in my humble opinion as the Nazis try to make an Aryan white Christian German speaking state they will fail in this as all other movements to be monolithic will fail I am encouraged by this and encouraged by the fact we have diversity even on this boat we have people from Sweden Norway Palestine Israeli even we have a unit and Shapiro and we have Zohar reggae you know Israelis so we have people of diverse backgrounds on this boat and we and we believe this is the strength this is not a weakness well we at Code Pink are with you in spirit and solidarity and our work as you are on the freedom flotilla the Gaza freedom flotilla to break the blockade and as you travel back to Bethlehem and continue struggling for basic human rights and freedom and equality and I thank you so much for talking with us and we look forward to so again soon from beautiful Palermo with the dock and the ships you can see as a beautiful country we were welcomed by the mayor and we are welcomed by the people of this beautiful city and we hope that all cities welcome us in the same kind of spirit thank you thank you


Hey coach, how's it going in today's video? I'm gonna break down a social media secret, and I wouldn't even call this a secret But a social media strategy That you can use to start making more money with your soccer business now This is all comes down to you being confident and you putting yourself out there because a lot of times Coaches are just so focused on the training. They're not thinking about the marketing. This is where I come into play I help coaches with their business and show them how to not only make more money But how to grow their company how to train better players how to train more committed families this way you have a much more Sustainable business and so I want to see this week if you can implement this strategy So number one, I want you to set up a Facebook I would say fan page You don't want to just use your personal profile on this because that's going to be limited to what you can do And so what you're gonna do is you're gonna set up a Facebook fan page And what I want you to do is create one video every single week for the rest of this month All right, that's gonna be four videos total and in your videos All right, they don't need to be 20 minute videos You could have a video that's between 60 seconds and three minutes and these videos are Simply to show the parents in your community that you are the authority in your town And here's the deal. I know because I've researched every city out there every state Most coaches out there are never going to do this. They're going to be too wrapped up and training all day They're not going to be looking to add additional value to the clients that they serve and this is the thing There's going to be so many new people who have never trained with you before that see your videos and they recognize That you're different that you're different than everybody else out there who offers just private training So in these videos, all right, you want to be very clear and show Who you are? All right, what you do who you're looking to help and Maybe show some examples of players that you have helped and show the results and these videos don't need to be perfect either All right, the clients that I'm working with right now. They literally just open up their computer All right, they look at their computer. They they film themselves from the video camera It's on their computer and they create the videos. These don't need to be perfect videos And it doesn't matter if you're a perfect speaker or not This is something you have to be willing to do and I know if you are the the trainer That's in your city that is Able to do that over and over again All right for the next month and then you turn that into a habit You do it once a week for the rest of the year This is going to be something that's going to help you not only grow more self-confidence in yourself But it's going to show everybody in your community that you are the authority Which is the most important thing if you've ever watched any of our other videos or listen to our podcast or you've read my emails That's all I care about. I don't want you to just mix in with all the other transgender in town You have to do things that really separate yourself and this is one strategy that you can implement today That's going to help you grow your company So that's it guys if you need personal if you need my personal help with setting up that strategy Feel free don't hesitate reach out to me. All you need to do is go to soccer entrepreneur comm slash call We can set up a 10 to 15 minute phone call where I can walk you through that strategy and see how else I can help you Grow your soccer academy. So that's it for today's video. I'll see you soon


One Clash Royale is so unfair. Clash Royale has been one of the most successful mobile games to ever exist, made by one of the most successful mobile gaming companies ever, Supercell. But unfortunately, like most mobile games, it has one major flaw, pay to win. And this is why Clash Royale is so unfair. First, let's talk about how unfair Clash Royale is. To get better at the game, one has to level up their cards. Leveling up cards would basically make your cards have more damage or get more health. Even the best player with cards, two levels below an average player, would have trouble winning.  Eventually, the elixir you wasted throughout the match would make you shoot yourself in the foot later on, when the enemy has about eight or nine elixirs stored up and you can't defend yourself. Now, let's talk about how this is paid to win. To level up cards, it takes a long while to gather the cards from chests, since you don't know what you're going to get out of the hundreds of cards out there. Then, you would have to gather the gold to complete the card level up. This is even harder with legendary and champion cards, as they're really rare and you need a certain arena to unlock them. And to upgrade them, takes forever as they're never found in chests. What's the solution? And game purchases of course. First of all, the battle pass. The battle pass is basically a way to pay to win in this game. For only five dollars a month, you can level up your cards like five times faster because of all the chests and tokens you get, considering you complete it by the end of the season. Not only that, but the purchases of gems allows you to upgrade anything or to get the chests instantly, although that is a more expensive route. So in conclusion, I believe that class layout is just really unfair because of its paid to win nature. Even if you're like really good at the game and you know what you're doing, let's say someone like is a beginner, but they have like a level 14 card and you have like a level 10 or level 11 card, then they're still probably going to win, even though like no matter how much strategy you get, no matter how much strategy you have. So unfortunately, that is why class layout is so unfair. Thanks guys for watching and have a good day.


I want to do another example of finding and computing an integral using integration by parts, but this time let's do a definite integral as opposed to an indefinite integral. So we're trying to find the area under a curve, the function y equals the natural log of x over x squared as x ranges from one to e here. How does that change things if you want to take a definite integral as opposed to an indefinite integral? Well, the indefinite integral is just the family of anti-derivatives. The definite integral is the area under the curve, but because of the fundamental thing of calculus, we could use the indefinite integral to compute these definite integrals. So really a definite integral just kind of adds one extra step to the process, having a definite integral that is. We want to first find the anti-derivative and then use that in our calculation. And I claim we want to use integration by parts on this one right here. U equals, we have to find something we're going to integrate, dv equals, we have to find something we're going to integrate. Now, how do we take the derivative here? Well, you have these two parts, right? This thing factors as x to the negative two times the natural log of x. And then of course the dx will always just go with the dv. So who do we want to take the derivative of? Who do we want to integrate? Well, x to the negative two. Notice if you take its derivative, right? If we take its derivative, its derivative by the power rule being negative two x and negative three dx.  So it's like, okay, that's an interesting choice. But if we did that, we'd have to set the natural log as dv, in which case then we'd have to find the anti-derivative of the natural log. In which case we had 30 seconds for the Jeopardy music. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, right? We don't know the anti-derivative of the natural log or at least we haven't seen it yet in this course. Some of you might have seen it from some other course, what have you. But we don't know the anti-derivative of natural log yet. We will actually see what the anti-derivative of the natural log is shortly. We'll actually use integration by parts to get it. But if we don't know it, we can't use it. Also, I should mention that the anti-derivative of the natural log is actually gonna be more complicated than natural log is. It's rarely a good choice to put the natural log in for DV. Instead, let's go back in time again. That was rewinding the cassette tape in case you didn't know. Some of us might be too young for such things. But anyways, if we want to, in this situation, it's nearly always the best choice to put the natural log of X in for U. Because what's the derivative of the natural log? It's one over X, DX. The natural log is a transcendental function. The one over X is an algebraic function. Transcendental just means it's not algebraic. It kind of transcends the usual rules of algebra. We like algebraic functions over transcendental functions because we can use algebra to help simplify things. So if given the choice between an algebraic, a transcendental algebraic function, we want something that's algebraic. Taking the derivative of the natural log makes it become algebraic. That's always a smart move. And then on the other hand, if the natural log of X is U, then DV has gotta be X and negative 2 DX. For which then the anti-derivative, by the anti-derivative power rule, we're going to get X to negative one, divide by negative one, which is the same thing as multiplying by negative one. We actually see it's like, hey, wait a second. By taking the derivative of the natural log, I get an algebraic function and I'll actually have a smaller power of X there. If you write it as a positive power, right? What I'm saying is that this is sort of like a win-win situation. We give rid of the natural log and we reduce the power of X in the denominator. By integration by parts, we're gonna get negative the natural log of X over X. This is our UV part. We didn't have to subtract and do the VDU. And doing that, we're gonna subtract integral. We're gonna get a negative one over X. That's my V. And then DU is a one over X DX, which if we simplify that last part, I'll just have to copy the negative natural log of X over X. We're gonna get plus the integral of one over X squared DX. Which that's a power function. We could treat the one over X squared instead as X and negative two. And for which it's anti-derivative would follow by the power rule. I mean, maybe I've already done this on this screen, right? That's kind of convenient. We end up with negative the natural log of X over X.  Now, wait a second. JK, what we're after is actually not an anti-derivative. I mean, we're using it to help us compute, but we're looking for a definite integral. Remember, this is a definite integral. We have to evaluate this thing from one to E. Now, what's school of thought here is just to evaluate the whole thing. Once you just find the anti-derivative separately and then evaluate it one and E. Which is perfectly fine. But another school of thought is to actually do it along the journey, right? Because the integral that shows up in the integration by parts formula, it'll have those same limits, one and E. But then the function, UV, which is part of the anti-derivative, you have to also evaluate it at one and E. So some people like to do the evaluation of the first part while they're also doing the anti-derivative of the second part. So you can evaluate the one and E at the very end, or you can do part of it along the way. Again, this is just two different schools of thought. They're both correct. Do whatever can make sense to you. In this situation, I kind of procrastinate everything to the end. And so if we plug in the one and the E, we're gonna end up with, let's plug in E first. We get negative the natural log of E over E minus one over E. And then we subtract from that negative the natural log of one over one minus one, one over one, which is just a one there. Simplifying this as we can, the natural log of E is a zero. Sorry, the natural log of one is zero. The natural log of E is itself one. I got a little bit mixed up there. And so we end up with a negative one over E due page into the signs. We get a negative one over E and then we're subtracting, actually adding to that a one. And so putting that together, we get one minus two over E. This is the exact answer. Or if you prefer an approximation, the area of the curve would be approximately 0.2642, et cetera. It's an irrational number. So we'll just, we'll take as many decimal places as we want for accuracy there. This is our answer. In the homework nearly always, you're gonna wanna put the exact answer unless specified otherwise to round it to such and such decimal places. So doing a definite integral using integration by parts is not fundamentally different than doing it for indefinite goals. There's just this extra arithmetic that follows the end of the problem because of the fundamental theorem calculus.


Right from my childhood, many places, wild and wonderful places, I have to say that Kailash, in terms of its possibility and the immensity of what it is, I have never seen anything like that till now. If there is some physical form in this existence that could be nearest to what we lever towards Shiva. This is it. When people set off on pilgrims, pilgrimages in the past in India, a pilgrimage means the entire village or the town worship that man who is living because he is taking a step from which there may be no turning back. When they go on a pilgrimage, there was no… there was not even an intention of coming back. If they come back, it was considered a miracle because without any kind of modern amenities, I want you to imagine yourself going through these mountains, without your down jackets, your high-five boots and so many, so many things. Barefoot, walking maybe with a woolen rug, it would be a different game altogether, completely different game, nobody believed that they will come back, but still people went, not one or two, thousands of them. For Kailash, in the last twelve thousand year history, there is a twelve thousand year history that every year without a single year's break, pilgrims from India have been going to Kailash walking, twelve thousand years. Even in the most severe weather, some… some years, in spite of that there has not been a break. The stream of pilgrims have been coming. This year there was a threat, but it's kind of cleared up now. So, for these pilgrims, I wanted to imagine from Chennai or Coimbatore you set off walking to Kailash. You don't have a map, you don't have a GPS, nobody to tell you exactly where it is, but you're going.  What kind of fire should be burning in a man's heart to leave everything that he knows, all the comforts, everything that matters to him and go away somewhere, not knowing whether he will come back or not. It doesn't matter. Today we have conveniences, we have comforts, but don't miss the significance.  With what kind of fire they must have walked, putting their life at stake, putting everything that they valued in their life at stake, okay? Not knowing what will happen to them, just going. When people went about chanting Shiva and walked from the southern tip of India to somewhere here, they were not trying to follow a religion. There was no religion for them. There were religionless people, they had no distinction between, oh, this is my kind of belief versus your kind of belief. They just saw the sound as a tool to hang on to. If you use the tool effectively, it'll make… it'll do wonders to you. They never saw it as a religion, it's only later on, when competition came, the entire thing got projected as your source's mind. There was no such thing. India is a religionless land. There never was a religion, okay? Spiritual process means this. It's not about how you look for somebody, how you are within yourself, because this is the quality of your life.  Nobody can see this. Nobody need to clap their hands for this. Nobody need to give you a prize for this. Nobody need to give you a job for this. Nobody is going to even pay attention to this.   This is the most worthwhile thing. If this doesn't happen, how will you ever taste life? All that's happening is just psychological drama your own thoughts and emotions endlessly. To make this happen for yourself, you must walk with the same spirit and fire as the pilgrims right from ancient times have done. Then you will know something, which is not just the colors of life, but that which is the basis of life. When you take to Kailash from the place where you walk, it's literally like walking on the body of Shiva and being of his proportions in many ways has laid himself down to be walked upon. Why Kailash is held as the abode of Shiva is not because he is sitting on top of the mountain, because everything that he knew, he is told in this mountain what that mountain represents and what it is capable of is so immense your ability to make use of it I don't believe you can it takes a lot of knowledge and capability but you cannot miss the immensity of it nobody can miss the immensity of it if they go with the right sense of openness in them you don't have to believe anything belief will only disturb things belief will lead to imagination but staying open what it means is unprejudiced mind unprejudiced mind means from here on you should not identify with anything simply you must go


in the center, right? So it doesn't turn sideways. It's on sideways. I can't get it in the other way. That's what I was saying to you. I had to get it in the chopper. Oh wait, this one's already done. Which one else looks to be done? Is there another one? I think that elbow one, maybe. It was a perfect opportunity to just make a lot of money. That was a very bad chance for me.