Malikatan exercise 39-24 have taken up and it will include many different exercises but more so it is to improve the mutual development of both militaries and armed forces in all aspects of military operations from tactical to strategic level. And it includes the cyber defense exercise, the FBX and the maritime strike exercise and the multinational maritime exercise to be held in the western middle of the month. So with that, thank you very much for coming up for today and good morning. Thank you very much sir. Now may we have the statement coming from the general journey sir. For an opening statement prior to the beginning. All right, great. Thank you very much again. Lieutenant Joe Bill Journey, I'm the commander for Marine Forces Pacific. And on behalf of Admiral Juan Polino, I represent all of our US forces who are participating here in the exercise along with my counterpart as the exercise director. So it is again great to be here with our long standing allies. It's an exciting time as we kick off the 39th Malikatan. And as many of you know we've been doing Malikatan now for almost four decades. This year we continue our duty, I would tell you. As we challenge ourselves, as I said previously, we've increased both the scope, scale and complexity and pace of Malikatan. And we've increased our combined combat readiness and interoperability and opportunities to improve upon those. I mean we're no longer focused on just sort of the small scale unit tactics, techniques and procedures. They are fundamental, foundational, but we are now focused at the operational level. I'm excited to talk more about this year's exercise during engagement here this morning. But I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to say thank you to the Armed Forces of the Philippines and more importantly the people of the Philippines for being just such a tremendous host. And thank you to the government of the Philippines and the local governments and the local communities for their support. Again, I would just say our combined efforts here as we advance our shared goal of protecting Peaceful and Prosperous Region for us all just a tremendous opportunity in this year's Malikatan and look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Now prior for our question and answer, some ground rules that you have to observe. You'll be entitled for one question and a follow up. Please state your name and your outfit and to whom your questions are being directed to. So first off, can we call the winner now of CNA Channel News Asia? The Philippines is stoking tensions through these exercises. Hey Jeremy, China is saying that the Philippines is stoking tensions through these exercises but the fact that there are ASEAN member states in the observership program do you think that that indicates that China is alone in its view? What do you make of the observership of ASEAN member states in Malikatan since the observership program started? We thank you for the question but I think the viewpoints goes for the DFA. Hours is only covered with the focus on Malikatan. Although both the Malikatan exercise has many implications, we emphasize that the Malikatan exercise between the US and the Philippines has been going on for the past 38 or 39 years now and it's almost four decades that we're having and for the past four decades no issues has been raised on that so I think it's just a matter of point of view on what the exercise really is but for both militaries the exercise have been in the improvement in capabilities in understanding each other in all aspects of military operations. Thank you. Thank you Verna. Do you have any follow up? Can you talk more about the observership program and what is the added value when states from ASEAN are involved in this program since it started leadership? Well I would just add, I think it creates an opportunity for all of us. It's inclusion rather than exclusion in most cases and the exercise Malikatan has continued to grow each and every year and that's sovereign nations choosing and requesting to join the team here as we share our collective understanding and try to improve our collective capabilities across the board. So I think it represents an opportunity and when people see an opportunity to get better and improve and create new relationships, they're interested and we've seen that continue to grow. So I think it's very positive. Thank you very much sir. Now we call Patrick Desus of PTV4. Please pass the mic. Good morning sir. Sir, I think for the AFP side can you confirm the report based on the tweet of military analyst Ray Powell that at least two Chinese maritime militia vessels were spotted just 30 nautical miles from the shores of Malawa and can you consider this that China is sending a message given the fact that we have opened the Balikatan exercises today and there will be a multilateral maritime exercise within the West Philippines? Frankly, I cannot confirm you that all depressions of the maritime militia, but the Chinese maritime militia has always been in the South China Sea ever since the misunderstanding of these areas have started. So they've been there. They have developed them, but as to that report I cannot confirm or deny it but surely they have developed it. So that report I cannot confirm or deny it but surely I would say that we would expect some presence of the Chinese side also because they have built their structures in these areas. Thank you. Are there any contingencies just in case the Chinese side become more aggressive during the exercises? Well as part of the multinational maritime exercise we always adhere to international law and the freedom of navigation in these seas. So I think we wouldn't see any problem so long as we follow international law and follow our agreed, mutually agreed for therapy mechanisms. Thank you. Yes sir, do you want to add up? If I could, I would just offer one of the key aspects of Balikatan I think if you recognize a group of like-minded individuals who have come together by treaty in some case and by request and others whether observing or participating it is like-minded partners, allies and friends who are here based on a fundamental value belief in an international order based on international law. So I think the exercise is operating well within those and those that aren't, I'll let you be the judge. Thank you very much sir. Again may we request and remind all our media partners to really focus on the Balikatan exercise itself so that we will have a good interaction with our talking heads. Remember that our talking heads are the exercise director of these two nations participating so they could better answer this. Other questions as outside Balikatan can be addressed by our AP spokesperson and the designated spokesperson for Balikatan. Thank you. So the next question sir will be coming from Joanna Balderan of GG Press. Good morning sir. I'm Joanna Balderan from GG Press. Sir can you elaborate on the island exercise? Tell us more about these and you know some details about the exercise and when will this exercise be held? Well the island taking exercise will take place in the areas of northern Luzon particularly in the Bataanis group of islands and I think that's it. The island taking exercise, just some exercise on SOF operations, special forces operations more or less. So is that in response to like the Taiwan issue? Nothing really. It's part of the exercise as a means that our both the special forces units from the US and the PDT side work together in some degree of special operations. Thank you very much sir. Now we have a question coming from Jim Gomez from Associated Press. Jim where are you? Sir the exercise is hebatim of territorial defense or in this year's version of the Balikatan and for the first time the activities are being held beyond the territorial waters of the Philippines especially the South China seaside. With this what message are you sending to potential aggressor in the region? Can I get the answer from both the good generals? Yes it's the first time that we are going beyond our 24 nautical miles but it's not really addressed to any aggressors but for the US as we have been speaking and the Philippine side it's more of the development of our interoperability our collective effort protection of international law and develop that make sure that the freedom of navigation in these areas goes freely and not be impeded by any other parties in the process. Thank you any follower? Yes sir can you add up? I didn't get the first part of his question. One of the themes of the exercises this year is territorial defense for the Philippines and for the first time. Yes sir. I think again exercises here and exercises in other locations operate based on international order and international law and I think well within your own sovereign rights and responsibilities we're conducting exercises that are normal. Yes you can have your follow up Jim. But we have increased scale and scope and complexity as I said so as you're describing something that appears to be different in an exercise freedom of navigation and movement and importance of international law goes on each and every day and the fact that you're doing those concurrent with an exercise is perfectly acceptable in my view. The US military brought a mid-range capability missile system to the northern Philippines but there's no plan to fire this system so what is the tactical significance of bringing it here and because it took several hours to bring it here from the US to the northern Philippines would you consider living in the Philippines? Sure we all collectively exercise participants are moving and deploying a variety of equipment planes, ships systems to support some new, some old and all of those are an opportunity to learn, practice, rehearse look at what the roads, the bridges partners and allies have a greater understanding of equipment and capability the Philippines themselves offer a great opportunity from a training standpoint whether it's working in the literals and the archipelag and islands for individuals to operate we go to Norway for cold weather training mountainous environments so you have some of the most waterways and islands for us to learn how to conduct operations across a full range of mission sets not only as an individual service not only with our bilateral partners but with also other partners and allies so like I said that's the complexity of how we continually and progressively increase what we're doing while command and controlling and coordinating across that force and supporting and sustaining it logistically just pretty tough government work alright? Thank you very much sir thank you Jim our next questions coming from Elehrimonio of Ike Good morning sirs so this year's valley catanyl hold the inaugural information warfare exercises can you expound on this what are the specific activities and targets are you hoping to achieve from the exercise and how does it differ from the cyber defense exercise that I believe the AFP has already been doing I think again that represents the continuing increase in complexity not only of this exercise but today's operating environment I mean right now as we sit here you are conducting information operations right? and so as a military force being able to synchronize our activities and coordinate so that we work together is important and as you know achieving clear understanding by different parties in order to achieve a singular desired effect it's challenging it's tough so synchronization I would say in the information space across different systems we have different systems that we need to be able to communicate across a combined and joint force so I'd say that's probably one of the key aspects of it and we're all learning and we're learning a whole lot from each other and that's the other great opportunity that just presents the information warfare exercise as mentioned by my counterpart we have included information warfare exercise to increase the complexity and the exchange of learning knowledge between the two military it also includes other parts of our government that are particularly from the foreign affairs the PCO and the defense department we have included so that we would be able to integrate our own efforts as a whole of government in the process of information while on cyber defense it's highly different because it talks on the cyber another domain of warfare that we have to develop but it readily focuses on defense within the internet systems within our communication systems and that's the difference between cyber and cyber defense just to follow up what kind of threats are you imagining or expecting in the information space or cyberspace that you hope to address with this exercise well the cyberspace or information space that you have mentioned is very complicated every day we have malware every day we have spywares complicated that every day and day to day now we are encountering it that we really need to have be able to protect our systems and information within that kind of system that we have developed I would say the other side of that would be opportunities so there are challenges or potential threats but there's also opportunities so you need to approach both with equal vigilance in any third country we provide and create over the course of a year we sit down and plan these and identify the objectives that we want to work together on and so you create fictional situations that would allow a training audience to try to solve a problem and learn something from it so that's the approach okay, thank you very much sir another question coming from Ken Sasaki of Kyoto News first time is first time that the PCG vessel actively participated into Barikatan and why civilian vessels needed to be a part of this exercise and is it related with the harassment or maybe water cannon or something by a Chinese side in West Bank I didn't quite understand the person can you please we're talking about including civilian vessels into exercise and was this related in any way for the in our resupply mission that we use civilian are we including civilian vessels like I think from the Philippine Coast Guard and our Coast Guard during the exercise I think that's the point of the question as mentioned earlier that includes the complexity of that increasing the complexity of the exercise because it's no longer the whole military itself but it already includes other agencies of government with the US and the Philippine side working together to be able to protect our own interests and our sovereignty in the process so it's just an integration between the different agencies of government to be able to protect our interests based on international law our freedom of navigation our interests in those areas as part of our sovereign territory so being able to better communicate coordinate with other agencies outside of a purely military organization again represents an evolving security environment that also represents an increase in complexity but one in which we need to get better at and improve so that we're able to share information with our Coast Guard with our police forces and we really reach out to them and include all those interagency organizations in the exercise that we can and once again the Philippines being a great host they have accommodated those types of training opportunities in this exercise Thank you very much Okay, follow up? Yes, so what kind of training particularly for these PCG vessels Navy vessels are going to be Well, it can be as simple as you've got to talk to them so you've got to communicate with them you have to be able to share locations and understanding in order to maintain maritime domain awareness of a situation so command control and coordination is challenging enough internal to the United States Marine Corps and now we need to do it across the Air Force and the Navy so those things are training opportunities that we are getting after so I think maybe they're taking for granted just a little bit like you're going to pick up your iPhone and be able to talk to everybody and it don't quite work that way and I don't think you think that but just an example Thank you very much sir Okay sir we have another question here Baya Good morning sirs sirs ang we have 14 countries participated as observers in this year's valley Katan is this the biggest number of countries that participated as observers may I know the total numbers of participants as observers I really don't know yet the exact number now but it includes our allies in Asia and of course that includes Australia, South Korea and Japan as mentioned during the opening ceremony so the real numbers of observers I I don't have the exact number of it but that includes our allies just to emphasize the exercise is to develop shared goals the shared commitment and that goal and commitment are shared with our friends, partners and allies within the region so that's just for the case of the observers it's how to develop the trust and confidence within our neighbors particularly the asian countries Thank you Okay Anipa la Baya I will tell you we did talk last year at the end of 23 we sit down at the end of this collectively and we talk about how it went and we talk about hey, what are our aspirations what are the things that we're going to consider for next year before we start doing detail planning and both of us sat down with our senior leaders and we ask ourselves are we going to measure success by simply having more people participate or are we going to measure success by actually doing more complex activities and so that's why in our opening comments we were highlighting there are plenty of individuals interested and I believe the numbers are actually higher this year than last year both in quantity and in observers but I will offer to you that the real measure of success here is the complexity and scope of that which we are undertaking to get better at and we've got a lot of work to do but I would offer to you to take a look at those as a real measure of success Thank you very much sir just to give an update for everybody about the number of participants this will be updated as time goes by during the entire conduct of the exercise some of the other participants are still coming over so we'll give you some updates on that and it will be course through our designated spokesperson so that will be it Thank you very much Bea with no further questions may we call on Cliff Venzon from Bloomberg Cliff are you? So ok na it's happen I think you have already answered your questions where our last two questions will be coming from Ms. Ellen Abin and Spencer so Ms. Ellen Abin from Arab News please Sir what makes this year's fund different from the previous iterations what sets it apart from the previous iterations and what sort of scenario are you looking at that you needed to conduct marathon exercises outside the Philippines territorial waters what kind of trends The difference between last years Balikatan and now Balikatan is actually increasing the complexity of the exercise and letting learn within each other it's the learning that it's the quality of learning that we have now in the 39th iteration and we have emphasized this particularly to our senior officers because the command and control exercise is a really complex planning and decision making process that we should do were in our well trained and those really how to do so that in the actual sense of activities we would be able to appropriately and efficiently perform it and that would better serve the people we are serving in the process of this execution and the complexities of this exercise that we have now the capability of our own personnel so that we can better serve you one historically there's been a command post exercise series of events there's a field training exercise series of events and then there's civic action series of events and those were all executed very well and delivered the results very complex and we've combined all these events underneath those for them to work after we've also identified within those command and control coordination challenges and opportunities there's information warfare exercise there's cyber exercise there are the combined joint all domain operations because again it is not only joint and combined but the complexity across all domains air land sea, information, cyber space and extending that into the interagency organizations to include the Coast Guard the police those would be examples that I would offer of how it has increased in scale, scope and complexity What sort of scenario are you looking at when you plan the conduct of maritime exercises outside the Philippines territory of waters? We create scenarios that enable the training that we're trying to achieve so you work backwards so if you're trying to achieve the following objectives then you simply create whatever scenario is most conducive to get the exercise force to do that so there's not some scenario it's based over the course of the year that's the work that all of our planners do to generate those types of activities that we're trying to achieve in an objective and that is just standard training 101 for all training in the exercises that we do those Would you like to add up? The counter part Okay, thank you very much Our last question will be coming from Spencer from AAP radio Morning sir, this question is for Sir Liquidini My name is Spencer from AAP What are the significance of Balikatan aside from equipping our national security but in terms of the in terms for our Tanabik development and can you give some information about teachers Balikatan's humanitarian civic assistance Well, this year's Balikatanda for programs for humanitarian civic action One is Kagayan Another one is La Union One is in Ilocos Pasukin Ilocos Norte and the other one is in Buksal Palawan and if the HHA varies from schools to to health centers that would help the communities Well, the significance of Balikatan as mentioned within the openings is not just an exercise between the AAP and the inter-Pacific command but it integrates all the collective learning the understanding the cooperation collaboration between the armies to achieve that level of efficiency and interoperability so that we can better work in the process of addressing issues and concerns within the region so that's the real sense but in the process of doing so we develop that cohesion that would deliberately support also our effectiveness in matters of operations Thank you And if I could, I would just add as an example and as you well know Super Typhoon Igay last August because of the opportunity of Balikatan and working together both understanding the different locations and geography and the ability to command, control and coordinate with our counterparts we were able to provide immediately both heavy lift helicopters and medium lift ospreys that quite frankly moved from Edcasites in Palawan to Subic all under the direction of the government of the Philippines working with all of our counterparts and pushing into the baton of silence from Laylo in Nebraska and that was thousands of pounds of life-saving support to folks who were suffering from that so those are examples of how these opportunities in Balikatan enable those types of things as likewise just in February with the torrential rains and the mudslides in the southern region now I was C-130s right out of 3 maps that immediately they moved the locations that we had already practiced and worked together at under the same challenging command, control and coordination across our governments to be able to make those things the need of the people to prevent suffering and save lives and so those were a result of our continued working together of designing an exercise that allowed us to better learn how to do those things in a more effective joint and combined way Thank you very much that's the last question before we end with our press conference may I request any parking can we start with none for me I think for the opportunity and I think our gracious host it's a tremendous opportunity it's allowed us all to increase and enhance our combined operational capabilities across all domains like no other that we have an opportunity to do and it's built on just the ironclad relationship we have here we will do before working together Yes sir, thank you sir Your parting remarks sir Well the exercise is well founded on the interoperability cooperation and collaboration between US and Philippine Armed Forces particularly so that we can better serve our people and protect our territory and so bring in the process Thank you very much and good morning That's all for our press conference Maraming maraming salamat to our talking heads General Journey and Major General Ligodini again to our media partners present Maraming maraming salamat sa yung participation Lunch producer at Public Affairs Office AFP so after this you can have that


So we hear the KVM here in Taipei and who are you? My name is Hoshino. I'm in charge of server planning in Gigabyte. So right here we have the latest Thunder X2 solution from Gigabyte. So how soon is this ready? Yeah, that's a very good solution and I think it's the best solution, ARM solution in this year. And we are now put a lot of engineering resource on that. And I think we will launch this amazing solution with KVM together in the end of this year. Because you've been working on previous generations Thunder X also. You have products out there. What are the customers that use Thunder X, the first generation? Yeah, that's a history story. In Gigabyte we have an experience of server developing around 17 years. And just four years ago we started to focus on ARM servers and we are the pioneer of our market. And the first solution we developed the ARM 64 solution with APM, a Pramico. And they are more focused on the entry servers use the one socket solution. And the second solution we developed is the Thunder X and almost more than three years ago. And we do the CRB developing with KVM and launch the mass production version and product in last year. And we are targeting the mainstream, something like cloud and data center and storage market and use a Thunder X solution. So this one for example has a whole bunch of hardware slots. Can you describe what is this? This is a prototype development. What is this? Yeah, for the Thunder X 2 solution that's the new solution, not mass production yet. And we start to develop this solution in last years. And that's a total different solution from the Thunder X 1. Because the CPU performance will be much higher. And in the Thunder X 1 generation we just used the standard form factor in generally purpose server chases. But for Thunder X 2 it's different. You can see this motherboard, it's not a standard form factor. It's an optimized form factor. Optimized? Optimized, yeah. You can see with this optimized design we can support much more higher performance and the spake in this 2U form factor. Like the rear IO side you can see we can support two OCP. Two OCP? Two OCP add-on card here. One and two. So what did those do? It can support OCP add-on card. Like if you want to increase some land spake, even the race spake, we have the OCP card to support the function. And also we developed this kind of riser with the optimized design. Riser card. Here's the riser card. Insert to the proprietary slot on the motherboard. And can transfer the PCIe signal upside to the riser card slot. And thanks to this kind of design we can support total eight add-on card in the rear IO. Eight? It's very high. Eight. Two OCP and eight add-on cards. And this is something you've never been able to do before? Yeah, this is the first generation to do this kind of very high spake rear IO spake. And thanks for Cavian's new solution. They provide more PCIe lens. Yeah. Yeah, PCIe lens. Yeah, sorry. Just you can sit and come closer. Yeah. Yeah, come closer so I can hear you. Okay. So thanks for the new spake for SoundX2. They will provide more PCIe lens. So, you know, that's a trend of server market. More and more PCIe device will be used for server. And for this design we must have the many PCIe lens to support riser. Then we can make this kind of optimized design. And the trick, without saying too much about all the details about the chip, is that they put more and more and more on the SOC, right? Yeah. So that allows you to do more innovation out here, right? To do something else. Yeah. The SOC is a very good design for us. As a very great man, the Song Sun from SoftBank, their story said when Song Sun said the first SOC, he cried because it's amazing design. And we also think so because if the traditional Xeon 86 architecture, you need a CPU, you need a PCH, and you need a LAN chipset to do all the functions. But the SOC will integrate a lot of functions inside one CPU. And even the TDP is good and the performance is good. And for the SoundX2, they also use this SOC architecture. But this time the performance is really good. And now we are focused on, they will have two types. One is the, like this one is the socket type. And also they maybe have the mounting type SOC chipset for SoundX2. And so thanks for this design, we can have a lot of spake on the motherboard because you just have to put the CPU and the CPU can make all the functions work. With the KVM, they have dual socket. That's imperative, the industry need this, right? So why do they need dual socket? Yeah, that's a very good point because the dual socket will be the biggest market share in the server market. And as you know, until currently today, most servers use Intel solutions, the O86 solution. And inside the Intel solution, the biggest market or around more than 17% share is from the dual socket solution. So that means dual socket solution is the biggest market share in the server market. And many cloud customers, enterprise customers, they need a performance from dual socket because one socket just have the one performance, but dual socket will double. So dual socket will be the mainstream server solution. And for ARM 64 solution like AMD, APM and other companies, they just developing the single socket. It's for the entry server. But for the mainstream, the biggest share of the market, it must use the dual socket. This is the standard size for the mainstream server and you always fit two in here. Yeah. You cannot fit three, four or five or something. Some special case maybe use three, four, five, but three, four, five will not change the market. And also three, four, five usually use some for some special case. It's not for mainstream because it's too much performance for enterprise and cloud use. And there's a lot of RAM in here. That's important, right? Yeah. You want to have lots of RAM very close to the SoC? Yeah. That's very important spake for servers because as you know, current servers need more and more memory caching. And in Thunder X2, they also provide more memory deems and more memory channels, more than the Intel grant generation and also more than their current generation Thunder X. So that's a very good point for the Thunder X2. I think it's also the sales point of Thunder X2. So hopefully the performance will be huge and they will announce more and more later about performance. But if it's the right performance, that means this is just one of the first prototypes you have. But maybe you'll have one customer contact you say, we want this, this, this. And you make special for them, make another one for somebody else. There's many possibilities, right? Yeah. So first, the socket of the CPU of Thunder X2, it's very good performance. It's really powerful. But you see there's the socket type. So Thunder X2 provides not only one CPU, they have a lot of different SKU for different needs. And this is a very good point. And one more thing is in our server design, because we are the main player of server market, so we have experience for different needs for the server design. So if customer, currently you just see an engineer sample of just one SKU, if customer want to have different spake and different use for the server, we can change like backplane design, we can change motherboard design, even we can change some accessory to support different customer needs. And also it's very flexible design. We use common design from 1U to U, like this servers. So customer, if use 1U to U, they will have the same motherboard. And we just change the thermal solution and we also provide different storage spake for customers. How many, has a whole bunch there? Yeah. But it can be different. So it will be the mainstream like 2U storage because it have 24 2.5 hard disk here. And some more over there? Yep. And also in the rear side, we provide additional 2 hard disk, 2.5 hard disk. So it's very good solution for the storage. And we also provide 3.5, 12 3.5 hard disk into U. And for 1U, we provide 10 2.5 and 4 3.5 hard disk. And what is that over there? Can you bring this over? That's fan air duct. We call it air duct because you see that's the very special one. Usually 2U, you just use the 2U high heatsink, it's enough for thermal. But why we choose it's very cool design for the air duct because this air duct is specially for GPU, GPU-GPU solution. You know, in this servers, you can use it as a traditional enterprise or cloud server. But it's also can target HPC market. As SoundX2 also this CPU target HPC market. And with this, but many customer in server, they also use AMD solution, GPU-GPU car or NVIDIA solution use the GPU-GPU car. It's the special design, but for the standard server, we also provide this availability. Because like these 2 riser car, 2 slots can support 1 GPU car. That means if you want to use 2 GPU car in this place, then this server can support 2 GPU car. And we can got another modified design, not with the storage. Here will be the 2 slot of the form factor for high, half length. Then this server totally can support max 3 GPU cards. So the GPU works well with the ThunderX? ThunderX1, the GPU solution just under developing. For the SoundX2, we are now co-working with AMD and NVIDIA side to think about their new generation GPU-GPU card. And this air duct is specially for GPU-GPU car. Because you know, 1 GPU-GPU car of today's market, it's around 300W. So it's very high TDP in server. So we need special air duct to make the thermal solution smooth. So maybe you can sit down again. Just to have some idea, this can be optimized for storage. And if you optimize for storage, you can have more hard disk. It's still going to be in this area. Yeah, for storage, this is the massive SKU. So total 26 hard disk will be the maximum storage availability of the 2U servers. So you know, we have different chassis and different SKU for current Intel solution. So 2U, the maximum will be 26. But also if you want to, many customers want to, more storage hard disk. Then in that case, we also can provide like 4U or other solution to meet the needs. So we need to change it. Cold storage, for more cold storage is possible. Is ARM not perfect for cold, super cold storage? I think SoundX2 is not for cold storage solution. It's much powerful, much more powerful than cold storage. Because cold storage customers usually want low-coast and not very powerful performance and stable function only. And then there's all these other solutions. If there's no GPU, what other things can go in there in the back? Is more networking, security, some acceleration of something? Yeah, it depends on customer's needs. Because you know, today more and more customers like Telecom company and Cloud company, they want to have more LAN function. And some customers, because today 10Ghz SAP Press and 10Ghz base P maybe not enough. So from next year, 25Ghz SAP Press, even the 15GBhz SAP Press and 100GBhz by will be the trend of the market. And that will just be added with one of those? Yeah, you can add an add-on card to support that. And one more thing is, Cavian have their own solution. It's called Qlogic. Cavian buy Qlogic last year. So Cavian have their own new solution. It's called Qlogic Arrowhand. It can support 25GBhz SAP Press and 50GBhz SAP Press and 100GBhz SAP Press. So it's very powerful. And also, if you use Avago's area side add-on card, you can use our system to provide the Ray function for the storage. Like Software Ray, Smart HBA and Highway Ray also can be provided with this add-on card from area side side chipset. So how about the high performance scientific computing like the CERN and stuff like that? Is this good for them? Yeah, for HPC as I talked. So first, their CPUs is very powerful. Currently, one more people talk about AI and machine learning, deep learning. So machine learning and deep learning also have two different categories. Only use CPU, they can use some HPC and basic AI function. But if you want to have deep learning, you must have a GPU in servers. So these servers can support both. And for some HPC storage, now they also use the function on end of spec. It's called NVMe. And you know more and more guys use NVMe and use SSD. The performance were much higher than currently assessed 12GB solution. So like this kind of all high performance function we have already considered and planned into the same chassis in the same architecture. Customer can choose this kind of function in our servers. So I can imagine that your job must be quite exciting to work on the ARM solutions because it gives new creativity, new... This must be fun, right? You can say, hey, let's do something different and you can just do it. Yeah, we are very exciting this year because Caviar make amazing solution for Sundex too. And the real market is coming this year because not only the hardware side, we also co-work with some ecosystem partners like Redhead, Suisse, and Nero and to make the ecosystem enough for the server solution. Because you know currently customer will not just choose a hard way. It's just only a hard way. You cannot do your application on just a hard way. You need software and OS, all things ready. And for Sundex 1, the ecosystem is due some bottleneck of the ARM solution. But for these years, we just talk with our ecosystem partners. They tell us the time is coming because the ecosystem of OS and BIOS and hard way and the component will be completed in this year. So it's not only a hard way, not only a chipset ready in this year. All the ecosystem will be ready. So we will make a new solution for customers. We can provide the second alternative of server solution. It's not only a Zeon 86 solution. So ARM 64 solution will be much powerful in this year. And we are very hope we will be the pioneer of this market. We can win more needs. And the real solution will be completed in this year. And the samples shipping very, very soon. And then the mass production is before the end of the year. Yeah. So for the timing, I cannot tell the detail. But the first thing, we do both Cavian Sundex to CRB and our own version servers. And for CRB 1, it will be early developing. And it will be ready, maybe just in Q2 or Q3. And for the Sundex 2, we also want to make all our own production before the end of this year. And I think Cavian, if Cavian decide to make all the things ready, they will launch the CPU before the end of this year also. So we want to launch this amazing solution in this year. And there's a lot of cloud companies, but many, many potential customers all over the world. So hopefully you're going to get very busy. Yeah. We are very busy now because from big customers and from small car company and the users, we have a lot of different needs. And they all want to got the sample to testing and to make sure the Sundex 2 is an amazing solution. And if they tested this system and found that competitive compared to Intel solution, I think it's a very big business chance for us to make our solution into the mainstream market.


Hello, my name is Fabio Gigi. I am a lecturer in anthropology with reference to Japan here at SOAS. Today we'll give you a taste of what it is like to study anthropology at SOAS. I'm teaching the first year course that it's called Social Theory. This is one of the courses that you will have to take, one of the courses that has a reputation as being very difficult, but it is also very rewarding. It will allow you to understand what anthropology and theory is all about. Why is it called Social Theory? Now, of course, before anthropology was established as a scientific discipline around the tone of the century, people have been thinking about society and what makes individuals and societies hang together for a very long time. So there's sort of a prehistory of the social and because we are still dealing with the same problem. What makes a human being human? What creates society? What holds society together? How is the individual connected to society? And of course, what kind of science is anthropology? Is it more like a natural science that has models based on the real, the natural world, like physics or chemistry? Or is it part of the humanities, merely interpreting human action and expression? And many anthropologists over the years have given different answers to these problems. And these problems, of course, are still around today, especially now that we deal with neurology, with the brain sciences that give us a whole new way of looking at human beings. And again, of course, the idea whether brain sciences, of course, being a natural science, whether that is compatible with what we do in the humanities, still remains relevant. Anthropology, therefore, is known as the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the social sciences. The particular text we will look at today was written in 1953 by Theodor Wiesnkondadono, who was a member of the Frankfurt School. One of the particular contributions that the text that we discuss today has made to anthropological theory is the connection that it seeks between the everyday, very minute details of everyday life and the larger social context, the larger social forces that impinge on the individuals. So this connection, which is always part of how anthropology thinks of the link between individuals and society, here is exemplified by a text about astrology. Well, I will start to give you some kind of background in order to understand where Adorno is coming from. Adorno is a member of the Frankfurt School. They're a group of German philosophers who take up the ideas of the founder of communism, Karl Marx, and combine them or try to find a synthesis between Marxism and psychoanalysis, invented by Siegmund Freud in Vienna. In short, what you need to know about psychoanalysis can be summed up in three elements. One, the idea that people are shaped by their history, by the way that they have been socialized into becoming a member of society. Secondly, that the psyche has a deep structure, which means there are parts of it that are conscious and other parts that are unconscious, which means you cannot access them. So this deep structure is the second important point. And probably the third sort of linking those up is the idea that unconscious processes are involved when we make decisions, when we act. They are involved in our attitudes towards other people, towards social problems, for example. It's not everything is conscious. A large part of what shapes our attitudes towards others in terms of racism, for example, in terms of attitudes towards religious minorities is unconscious. So these are the three things to remember about psychoanalysis. So the Frankfurt School tried to create a philosophy, a critical theory, as they call it, out of these two broad streams of Western thought. It's very important to remember the context. Of course, we're talking about the rise of fascism in Europe that was witnessed by all these philosophers, especially in Germany and in Italy. And especially already during the war and after the war when the atrocities, the monstrosities that have been committed all across Europe against the Jews, against the political dissidents, against communists, also against homosexuals. When this became known, any science who claimed to say something about the human condition would have to answer to that. They would have to be able to say, why did this happen? In Germany, especially in the country that was perceived as being a country of poets and thinkers, how could this descent into barbarity happen? So this is sort of the wider context. Every philosophy that had any kind of worth in those times would have to address this problem. What can philosophy contribute to make us understand what happened? And so this is sort of one of the premises of critical theory. Critical theory by the collaborator of Adorno-Max Horchheimer. He formulated this as any kind of theory is critical if it helps to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them. So critical theory is not a particular kind of theory. It's a much more broader category. That has the potential to help us understand the forces that oppress us is critical theory. So how can philosophy contribute to an understanding of fascism? And this is where the Frankfurt School very famously goes back to the question of the Enlightenment. What is enlightenment? Which is basically the idea that we can use our own reason to understand the world. And we do not have to rely on blind faith. We do not have to rely on what authority figures tell us is true. We have the ability to find out what's true, to perceive, to reason about truth in our own way. And everybody, every human being has this capacity. So this is the idea of the Enlightenment. And it's usually sort of formulated as the emancipation of humankind from the shackles of tradition and superstition as a progress towards freedom. This is the standard narrative. I'm sure you're familiar with that from history lessons at school. But Adorno and Hochheimer in a co-authored work, they try to understand the Enlightenment as a dialectical process. It is a process that leads to more freedom for some, but it also unleashes powers of destruction. You only have to think of nuclear energy as an example. It has the potential to free us from reliance on fossil fuels on one side, but of course on the other side it has an enormous destructive potential. Not only nuclear weapons, but of course if anything goes wrong. So technology has both these faces. And this is exactly how Adorno and Hochheimer try to understand the Enlightenment. There is the progress towards freedom, but at the same time destructive forces are unleashed as well. And the important thing is that they don't think of that as evil forces that come from the outside to threaten the order. It is inherent in the system. It is part of the dynamics of the system. It is part of modernity. It is part of emancipation, this darker sign to it as well. And they coined the phrase or the term instrumental rationality to try to understand what that is. Which leads Adorno to formulate this contradiction as the Enlightenment that turns against itself. In other words rationality run amok. And this is also something that he comes back to in the text. So I'll give you just a quick glimpse into the life of Theodor Wiesengund Adorno. He was born in Frankfurt into an assimilated Jewish family. His mother was Catholic. His father converted to Protestantism. He had musical ambitions early on. He studied with Alban Berg, but he also wanted to be a philosopher. He was very much disillusioned with the attitude public intellectuals in Germany took during the First World War. This outpour of patriotism was to him distasteful. And he eventually decided to write his dissertation in philosophy about theory of aesthetics. In an ironic turn of faith, Adorno's thesis is published the very day Hitler sees his dictatorial powers. And this would also end his career very shortly. He starts teaching, but in 1933 he receives this letter that revokes his teaching license. And I show you the letter here because it is really relevant to the point that the Frankfurt school is trying to make about rationality, about rationalization, about bureaucracy. You can see the letter here, of course, written in German dated 7th of April, 1933. It basically says, because of the changes to the law regulating professional bureaucracy, we have to revoke your teaching license with immediate effect signed by the Minister for Science, Art and Education, with a stamp from the University of Frankfurt and Science. So this is something that appears very rational, right? There's a change in the law. You don't no longer fulfill the criteria given in the law that would allow you to teach. Therefore, we will have to let you go a very rational argument. Behind it, of course, is the whole irrational belief system, the creed of antisemitism, because this is what the law was really about. It was no longer allowing Jewish professionals and Jewish bureaucrats to hold on to their posts. Adorno then emigrates to the US. This is his immigration card. You can see the name. He's using his middle name, Riesenkond. He emigrates to the US with the Institute of Social Research, which he was part of in Frankfurt. The whole institute moves to New York and becomes the new school of social research. While he was certainly glad to have escaped Nazi Germany, America proved to be a kind of a culture shock to him as well. He saw entertainment, mass culture, mass consumption as it hadn't really existed in Germany for the same time. Of course, he analyses this as a form of capitalism that is a kind of mass deception. He looks at popular culture very critically. He looks at mass consumption very critically. He thinks that the human beings are turned into consumers just for consumption's sake. There's nothing human left anymore, and popular culture, popular entertainment just helps to anesthetize the sense of alienation that people feel. He sees many of the rationalizations in production, both in popular culture but also in consumer culture, as just a further step to the human enslavement, making human beings slaves of the machine really. He sees glimpses of this in everyday life, in soap operas for example, but also in astrology column. He sees many of these steps towards a more rational mode of production, towards a more rational mode of consumption, as a further step in the enslavement of humanity. He sees glimpses of this everywhere he goes, in popular culture, in popular entertainment such as soap operas, in the worship of celebrities, but also in the popularity of astrology columns. And this is what the text today deals with. You're all familiar with astrology columns, right? This is the London Evening Standard from yesterday evening. Shelly Funstrunkel, a wonderful black queen named her, here predicts what will happen to you over the next few days. I'm just going to read you one. This is an image of the column. I'm sure you've seen this before. I'm going to read you the one for me. I don't believe in astrology, but then that's very typical of Pisces apparently. So I'm Pisces, and it says here yesterday evening, while logic would suggest it's best to diffuse potentially explosive issues before they become serious, it's unwise. These are far more complex than you think. You won't fully understand them until they blow up into something big, as they will next week. So yes, you see, it's quite interesting. Slightly threatening, and this is exactly part of Adornos analysis. There is a kind of threat veiled in these columns that comes to the fore, but is then alleviated. If you do exactly as the stars suggest you do, you will be fine. So there's a strange relationship there between threat and relief of anxiety. This is another one. I just thought we'll do Sagittarius as well. When you began discussing one contentious issue, the only thing that was clear was how much you use different from others. Now that you've talked things through, you realize they were better informed than you and therefore, rationality, decisions should be up to them. So this is from a week ago, and it's quite interesting to see how similar this material is to the material that Adorno analyzed from 1951 to 1953 in the LA Times. He's looking at the LA Times astrology column by Carol Reiter. This is an example for Scorpio, December 14, 1952. Be careful that in haste to do chore and get to church or off on trip, you do not damage articles of clothing. In PM, confer with associate about new big venture. So again, very interesting setup, right? The stars, the universe is set up around you as an individual and the stars send you warnings not to damage your clothes or items of clothing while doing them, but it's also very interesting because of other elements as well. The assumption, of course, that people go to church, right? Something that probably, especially in England, you wouldn't automatically make. So how does an astrology column work? Now the first thing that Adorno comments upon is that the pronouncements that are made must be so general that the readers make sense of them themselves. And this is a technique that is called reading and it's used widely by spiritists and medium and everybody who does tarot cards and so on. It's simply the process by which you make any kind of broad statement that your client or the readers of the column will then appropriate and make it meaningful for themselves. But in order to do that, of course, it needs to be targeted to a certain audience and Adorno in a chapter called Image of the Addressee sort of reads out of the text who the column itself is addressing and this is the most interesting part, I think. So you can already see here church is an element, no denomination given, of course, is as open as possible. So even if you do any kind of worship on a Sunday, you'd be included in that category. But of course not everybody goes to church, so you have an alternative or off-on-trip. So that sort of alleviates this and that sort of creates an alternative possible reading, right? So even if you read this and say, oh, I'm an atheist, I never go to church.  Yes, I may be going on a trip. So it's still valid for me. Do not damage articles of clothing. This strange combination between the supernatural and the very mundane, the very everyday also exemplified here in chores. If you read the column by Carol Wright, there's an enormous amount of chores that people have to do. And this, of course, for Adorno is symptomatic for modern bureaucratic society where most of the people, especially those in white-collar work, those who are addressed by the column, work in jobs that are not necessarily meaningful for them. They are just a cog in the machine. They do routine work. They do routine paperwork that doesn't have any meaning apart from the larger embeddedness in a corporation or a company. So people are really just a cox in a machine. And this perception is reflected in astrology columns, especially in this kind of a column in the Los Angeles Times. Then if you go further, very interesting also in PM, there's a strong distinction between AM and PM. Of course, we all know that life is complicated and complex. There's all kinds of different things happening at the same time. But the column sorts them out very neatly into the morning, the AM, where you should do work, where you should fulfill your duties, where you should concentrate on success, on business, and PM where you are a bit more relaxed, where you reward yourself for the work that you have done. But here, interestingly, I'm also a point that Adorno emphasizes in PM confer with associate about new big venture. There's no leisure as leisure left over. Even leisure is turned into part of business. Even relaxing with friends is turned into networking. This is something that is very visible. Also when you analyze what kind of people appear in the column. You can see family is another category that appears always in a sort of friendly light. Family always comes to help. It's always there to support you. Friends, similar. Friends can sometimes be a bit ambivalent. But there are associates and business partners and very importantly, higher ups. And this is something that maybe in the modern day, maybe Shelley from Strunkle doesn't really refer to the higher ups all that much. But it's precisely this idea that you are embedded in a social hierarchy. And this is a social hierarchy that is condoned by the universe. It is condoned by the stars. The stars sort of form the perimeter of this particular setting. There are higher ups.  And there are people that are under you. You're underlings. And you can basically trample on them. And this is, of course, what the Dornal analyzes as a part of the fascistic, the authoritarian character.  So this is something that actually, if you read the column, is subliminally always present. There's a strong emphasis on social hierarchy. So to sort of end this lecture with, I will give you sort of an idea of how the writing itself works. Adorno is very famous for particularly convoluted philosophical style. But there is a reason for it. It's not just whimsical. He writes this way because he feels that this style of writing reproduces the phenomenon that he tries to describe. So it's not the complexity that he creates out of whim or fancy. It's a complexity that mirrors the complexity of the real situation. I'll give you an example of this. And I'll read it out. The semi-eridite vaguely wants to understand and is also driven by the narcissistic wish to prove superior to the plain people. But he is not in a position to carry through complicated and detached intellectual operations. The semi-eridite, of course, the half-learned person is the one Adorno thinks is addressed in these astrology columns. To him, to the reader, and it is a him because although probably many readers are in fact women, Adorno makes the point that who is addressed? It's always men that are addressed. It's always men, owners of cars, men that are business associates, men that go home to their families. And that's again, it's of course an interesting point when you think about gender and astrology. So to him, astrology just as other irrational creeds like racism provides a shortcut by bringing the complex to a handy formula and offering at the same time the pleasant gratification that he who feels to be excluded from educational privileges nevertheless belongs to the minority of those who are in the know. So the appeal of astrology really is that you have some kind of inside knowledge. And very interesting, he of course equates this with racism. The idea that racism is based on a similar shortcut in thinking. It's also always the fault of the minorities. And that in a sense is similar here. You can reduce complexity into a very handy instruction that's handed down to you by the stars. And yet at the same time, of course, astrology is sort of esoteric knowledge. It is a complicated system, which by the way is never alluded to in the columns. The columns always go straight forward towards the instruction. This is what you have to do. And therefore they foster an authoritarian, sort of a follow up instinct. Adorno calls this dependency. An appeal for the readers to depend on the advice that is given.  So we are reading this and we are held to believe that the stars tell us to do this or that. So what happens to freedom in that particular setting? What happens to the idea of American freedom, of liberation and so on and so forth? And this is what he sort of very succinctly sums it up to as freedom consists of the individuals taking upon himself voluntarily what is inevitable anyway. So the astrology columns create a very particular image. Freedom, you have the freedom to do what you want. But if you don't do it as the stars indicate you should, of course, you are at peril. The idea that you're only free to do what you would have to do anyway is of course no freedom at all. And this is precisely the illusion of freedom that Adorno attacks in capitalist society. There is not really a choice. Even if you follow your self interest, you have to follow the way things already are. And this is another exact sort of summing up the idea of dependency. They, the readers, are reassured that all their problems will solve themselves even if they themselves are unable to solve them. They are made to understand and in a way rightly that the very same powers by which they are threatened, the anonymous totality of the social process are also those which will somehow take care of them. So again, he makes this parallel between the idea that the course of the stars directly influences what we do. It's quite similar to the idea that there is a total social process going on that we don't have any insight into. We don't really know what's going on. We don't really know how the institutions that surround us actually work. But we can only hope for the best. There's always a threat, a veiled threat, that is then alleviated by a reference to everything will end up well. Everything will be okay in the end. And this leads us to sort of the last slide here, social conformity. This is, of course, the result of the astrology column. This is the social effect that it has. It creates, the column, if you read it, if you believe in it, creates this strange doubling. On one hand you're all powerful, not all powerful maybe, but all important. The whole universe is arranged around you. The stars directly influence what you actually do. On the other hand, you're completely impotent. You can't actually do anything because it's already premeditated. It's already decided in the stars. So there's this strange almost schizophrenic setup if you read the column. So he formulates this in the following way. On the one hand, the objective forces beyond the range of individual psychology and individual behavior are exempt from critique by being endowed with metaphysical dignity. So whatever happens to you is either your fault because you didn't follow the advice of the stars or it is something that you couldn't do anything about it anyway. This, of course, is a very conservative way of thinking about society because social change, of course, is impossible in such a system. So that's one side. On the other hand, one has nothing to fear from them if one only follows objective configurations through a process of adaptation. It's a complicated way of saying if you simply follow the advice, you have nothing to fear for. The universe will take care of you, but only if you keep quiet, only if you conform to what everybody else is also doing, only if you stick to what you already know. So that's, of course, a quite dangerous ideological way of thinking. You may think, well, people don't actually believe what is written in those columns. And, of course, a doorknob doesn't assume that they do. But he says something very interesting. He says the particular danger of these astrology columns is precisely their unseriousness. It is something that people laugh about. They read it, they think, okay, all right. But in a crisis, suddenly when push comes to shove, when you have to make a difficult decision, suddenly this may become much more relevant. And again, he creates a parallel here to fascist propaganda and he sort of recounts how in the early days of Hitler, people thought he was phony. People thought he was a comedian almost. But yet, they listen to what he had to say. And although throughout his career, he kept this double-sidedness. Adorno formulates this, a settler being both the Babenek store and King Kong. So a monstrous combination of something very ordinary and something quite monstrous. So there's two sides to him. And astrology, in a sense, reproduces this two-sidedness. So the fact that it's not taken entirely seriously is actually part of the appeal and also part of the danger. So to sum up, in Adorno's view, astrology columns provide insight without actually providing insight. They give you the illusion that you understand more than you do about your own situation, about your own life. And of course, by relying on the counsel of the stars, you also think that somebody else, some great manipulator, knows much more about what you do in your own life. So according to Adorno, what astrology does, what its social function is, is to provide insight without actual insight. It gives you the illusion that you understand what's happening. It gives you a certain illusion of control that if you follow the advice of the stars, everything will be fine. But of course, it also conditions you to listen to authority, to listen to an authority that, in this case, is completely depersonalized and abstract. What do you think?


dystopian time. Mitch McConnell was uh very offended here uh actually let me share my screen give me one sec uh because he claims that Democrats and I don't even necessarily agree with him here I don't think that most Democrats believe this is the case but he says that Democrats um don't think that corporations are people like who would say of course corporations are people in fact they're more people than people are but uh let's let's listen to this turtle speak our friends on the other side like corporations are not people well what about all the people that work there and all the people who have stopped and they're retirement accounts it's not like this is surprising because this is the republican party this is both parties for the most part but to be outraged and brag about the fact that you are the party that believes corporations are in fact people as some sort of a gotcha to me I feel like that really is like truly dystopian um Tiffany I'll go to you because I know that you said that you were uh looking to talk about this go ahead yeah I he's not licking the boot it's firmly up his rectum he's just uh it's comfy there he loves it um every time Mitch McConnell opens his mar I can't help but roll my eyes uh corporations are run by people but the company itself is not a sentient being worthy of uh personhood and honestly I think Mitch McConnell knows this otherwise he wouldn't he would be more concerned about corporations and billionaires not paying their taxes but here's the thing Mitch McConnell has been subservient to corporate America throughout the entire political his entire political career as of many other corporate establishment politicians so even if corporations were considered people they would only be considered as such until it was inconvenient to be so for example if a law passed limiting the amount of money a person can donate to a politician I guarantee you politicians would walk back the whole but corporations are people narrative I hate to sound like a broken record but as long as we have money in politics and legalized bribery aka campaign contributions these kinds of talking points are going to be persistent and yeah um Jeff did you want to jump in here uh you know our friends on the on the other side they say the corporations aren't people what about the people libs equals owned I mean no seriously they'll never recover I well we're we're never gonna recover I'm so thoroughly owned my brain is now again back in recovery mode weirdly enough and never left for me right no I love how this is to them it's a gotcha but understand that the people that are a lot of the people that work at these corporations they don't see the benefits of their labor and so yeah the corporation which is by the way an amoral machine which is run by a CEO a board of directors uh and all these top level executives they're the ones that see pretty much all the profit and it does not go down to the workers doesn't trickle down to the workers uh and it's actually a very authoritarian type of thing I mean when you when you look at you know the American workplace in general it's it's not democratic whatsoever okay and so no uh the whole argument of saying that well I mean you should care about the profits of a corporation because that's what this is and not tax them which is really important uh that means you're somehow looking out for the people no you're looking out for your donors you're looking out for the very richest people uh there who are doing diddly shit for for for the actual workers no you want to help the workers you raise their wages you want to help the workers you you know you make sure that you and by the way this would help the corporations too health care medicare for all take the burden off of employers and do something cheaper like medicare for all and everybody gets health care uh and then again that's that's so these corporations can actually then pay a living wage and and by the way we shouldn't even be asking for for just a living wage we should be asking for $25 an hour minimum and four-day work weeks and four days yes there was that study from Finland that absolutely pointed out how guess what four-day work weeks oh Iceland sorry yeah thanks for correcting me I didn't want to put out fake news or misinformation I would get I would Facebook would come after me you know how it would be cancelled extreme no I would be pointed out for for spreading extremist content but no the four-day work week six-hour days because of course studies have shown how you know the brain kind of shuts down and productivity drops after six hours that's what we should be doing that's how to actually look out for the workers in these corporations not whatever kind of tax cut bullshit mumbo jumbo trickle down crap that Mitch McConnell is trying to push yeah yeah Isaiah did you want to jump in here because I know that you're probably chopping at the bit because Mitch McConnell I mean he's such an easy target because look at him but at the same time I mean it's not it's not super surprising coming from Mitch McConnell so what Mitch McConnell did was very very insidious but it was actually very genius pay attention to the word that he said there's a big difference about people who work for a corporation and people who work at a corporation so let's let's not he was making a difference without a distinction so allow me to do so people who work for a corporation are those who care about the shareholders and getting the bottom line up and and profits over profit over loss and margin and revenue and all that stuff those type of people are the people Mitch McConnell was signaling to the people who line his coffers every campaign cycle people who work at a corporation are just like everyday people like you and me who just got a job to put food on the table and to try to survive but when he lumps all of them in together without making that distinction anybody who was against them is now against the little man is now against the little woman they want to they want to get rid of your 401k they want to take away your pension which he fails to mention doesn't mean a damn thing in 2021 because whatever pension you have is not enough to survive off of this isn't 30 40 years ago when they give you a pen you can on a regular union job you could buy a house a car and put two kids through college that's that's let me again disabuse you of that notion so that's not anything he's talking to the people who wear suits and ties to work and I don't mean you know a $10 tie from from walmart I mean a briyani tie that's $250 I'm not talking about a suit jacket from men's warehouse I'm talking about a suit jacket from Armani those are the people he's talking to but he lumped them all together so anybody who's against that is against you know working people so that's number one number two we again we know what they think about republicans actually aren't that hard to figure out they actually they make it very easy you know I mean they care about money nothing else nothing else it may look like different forms in the form of war military industrial prison you know the tough on crime the prison industrial complex keeping government out of your healthcare the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry all of it stems back to they just like money so that's very easy to figure out how to be we need to get enough people in office that can tip the scales in the balance for everyday people it's that simple I know it's it's a monumental task I know it's a hard task I ran for office before I'm running for office right now I'm I'm fully aware of the perils that lie performing but it's a very simple thing we need to do because if you had a hundred Ilhan Omar's and 47 Jamal Bowmans and 35 Corey Bushes and 12 ALCs then the democrats couldn't get anything passed that didn't that didn't actually help the people let's not forget Rashida to leave and all of them all the people who actually fight and you may not agree with you know all the democrats all the the progressives in there I get that but at least we're talking to each other and I can move you further to the left when I show you that you know this piecemeal stuff just isn't enough republicans I'm a thought a big word are intransigent they are they are camped out they are not moving we have seen this since the southern strategy in the 70s when all these racist as democrats left the democratic party and went and went to the republican party and they have been ensconced for generations so we know that there is no getting to them I get that it is 2021 I have neither the time nor the inclination to get you to believe the problems that we have you're either with me or you're in my way those are the only two options that you have one or the two don't try to dissuade me from fighting for people of color don't try to dissuade me from fighting for for women don't try to dissuade me from fighting for any marginalized group because we have seen time and time again that you do not give a damn so I say that to say this it is incumbent upon all of us everybody out there to get behind somebody that you know that is going to fight for people like you and like me that's as simple as I can make it I mean it sounds very complicated let's let's remove all of it as simple as I can make it as we have to be the change we wish to see leaving it up to others is not going to get it done our problems are not going to go away just because we're tired just because we're hurt just because we think these are dystopian times listen the sun is still going to rise in the east and set in the west and if it doesn't we got a whole bigger set of problems but as long as that still continues to happen as long as there's blood pumping in your chest and your brain is working you need to get off of your ass me and myself included you need to get out there and you need to fight yeah well said and I'm glad that you you pointed out the insidious nature of his comment because that is really clever like republicans do this since they they don't like they don't want to be working class but they want to larp as working class you know representatives uh and and to me um that got me to think that uh mitch mcconnor here he has big care and energy by saying that because to lump in like the uh the executives with the workers it reminds me of the people who would come into the store when I worked at wal-mart and they'd like threaten me if I didn't have something or I couldn't find what they were looking for they said well I'm just not going to come here I'll give my money to someone else it's like I still make minimal money regardless if you leave or not so that's that's such a caring thing to say and you know that's a big care and energy from uh mitch mcconnell so


The next item of business is topical questions, and we start with question number one from Alasdair Allen. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Prime Minister's reported position that the proposed Brexit deal ensures that the UK will be an independent coastal state with full control over its waters. The withdrawal agreement reached by the UK Government risks being very damaging to Scotland's seafood interests, with an explicit linkage of trade and access to UK waters in direct contradiction to what was promised by the UK Government in its very own white paper on fisheries. Because of the UK Government's actions, we will have no ability to take part in fisheries negotiations during the transition period and risk having access to Scottish waters and quota traded away by the UK Government on a permanent basis to secure a trade deal with the EU in the long term. Under the deal, Scottish seafood exporters to the EU also face the risk of significant and devastating new trade barriers. In relation to the salmon industry alone, it is estimated that an extra—I will say that again, because of the interruptions from my left—an extra 45,000 export health certificates will need to be issued per annum as a significant cost to both businesses and public authorities. Based on that, I cannot share the Prime Minister's reported view that the UK will be an independent coastal state with full control over its waters. However, I can conclude that, in the Prime Minister's eyes, Scottish seafood interests appear to be expendable. Alasdair Allan, I thank the minister for his reply. Given the concerning information in it, will he comment further that, given that Scotland is a net exporter of seafood, unlike the rest of the UK, and with the vast majority of the UK fisheries and aquaculture sector being Scottish, can the Scottish Government confirm what role it has had in negotiations when it comes to those vitally important sectors? The UK Government has not involved us in any way whatsoever in response to Dr Allan's point. That is despite the fact, Presiding Officer, that I have myself, the Scottish Government, has taken part in the negotiations in Brussels for the last two years. I can tell you that we have kept, unlike some of the members of the Conservative Party in their own cabinet, we have respected confidentiality in those negotiations. Despite that, we have, despite asking for being fully involved in the negotiations, we have played no part, we have not been able to provide a part, we have been prevented from taking part in those negotiations, which appear to have such a disappointing and, frankly, potentially damaging outcome. Alasdair Allan I thank the minister. Given what he has indicated about the actual withdrawal agreement and what we know now about the links to access to waters with access to trade of fish and seafood exports, will he also be aware of the value of fresh seafood such as langoustines, scallops and other species, some of which are caught and landed in and around the waters of my constituency? Can I ask the cabinet secretary to explain, in more detail, the sorts of issues that this industry faces if it loses tariff and barrier-free trade with the EU and how we might take steps to prevent disruption to this lucrative export trade? Michael Matheson In answer to the questions, the shellfish sector faces particular concerns. It faces the possible imposition of tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Shellfish, priced in Europe and throughout the world, because shellfish are perishable, a delay, even of a few hours, can be fatal and can render valueless fresh produce such as shellfish. The imposition of new export certification requirements in a market that Hither 2 has been a frictionless market is also of grave concern. What can we do to ameliorate it? Of course, our own preference is to remain in the EU, to remain in the single market and to remain in the customs union. That is what we can do to solve that threat of that particular problem. We have also, because we are always constructive, proposed an alternative scenario in Scotland's Our Place in Europe, which would see us continue to seek frictionless trade while coming out of the CFP. Peter Chapman Thank you, Presiding Officer. Quite frankly, everybody needs to calm down a bit here. Nothing has been traded away on fishing. No red lines have been crossed on fishing. The Prime Minister has been very clear that nothing will be traded away. Iain Macron would like French fisherman to continue fishing in our waters. Shock horror! He was always going to say that. We have never said that no EU boats will ever be able to fish in our waters again, but if they fish, it will be under our control and under our rules. Will the minister confirm that my understanding is correct that the SNP position on fishing is to rejoin the CFP at the earliest opportunity? John Swinney It is not correct, and I disagree with everything that Mr Chapman has just said. That is an answer to his question. I have never seen the Conservative Party so divided, as it is now, with the MP for Murray castigating the plan that Mr Chapman thinks is the bee's knees. However, Mr Chapman seems to be unaware of what has happened over the past couple of weeks, in which, to the UK Government said that fisheries and trade must not be linked. Now they are umbilically linked. If the EU does not get the deal that it wants, fish and aquaculture will find themselves out of the customs union and facing tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Moreover, following the agreement of the political declaration 25 November, the European Council released a statement in which it signalled its intention, and I quote from that statement, to demonstrate particular vigilance to protecting fishing enterprises and to seek to build on inter alia existing reciprocal assets and quota shares. That implies that the position taken by the European Council is to seek even more access to our waters than they do currently at the time. The fact that Mr Chapman refuses to recognise the existence of all that over the past couple of weeks is further proof positive of the total disarray that his party is in on this matter. Can I take the cabinet secretary back to the transition agreement, where UK access and quota to UK waters will be set by the EU in consultation, but they are not bound by any obligation to get consent from the UK? Given that he has relationships with colleagues in the EU, whether he has spoken to them or had any discussions with them about how they will exercise those powers in the interim period during transition and what safeguards he could offer to our fishing communities? My officials have regular negotiations and discussions with colleagues in order precisely to get the best possible deal year on year at the fisheries negotiations, which culminate in December. Most of the work is done prior to December with EU countries and Norway and the Faroes, as the member well knows. It is abundantly clear, however, that EU countries that have a fishing interest are determined to seek to protect their interests. That is abundantly clear to everybody except, apparently, the Tories. My job is to champion the interests of the fishing sector, including the farm fish sector and the aquaculture sector, which has been dragged into that at the last moment, with no discussion with the Scottish Government or, indeed, with the aquaculture sector. Of course, there is really only a Scottish aquaculture sector. As far as I am aware, there is no significant interest south of the border in aquaculture, so aquaculture has been thrown to the lions by the UK Government without so much as a buy-your-leave. However, we will seek to get the best possible outcome for Scottish fishermen, despite the complete shambles of the Brexit borough that is being perpetrated by the Conservatives. Patrick Harvie It should have been perfectly obvious all the way along that a link would be made between access to waters and access to markets. It is also equally clear that, if we want a sustainable approach to fisheries, a healthy marine environment, it cannot be done without international co-operation, so some form of common policy on fisheries is inevitable. Isn't it the case that this is simply one more example of the fundamental dishonesty of the leaf campaigners who try to pretend that we could return to some sort of isolationist approach on this issue and that neither Scottish nor British jingoism changes any of that? Patrick Harvie I do agree with very much of what Mr Harvie has said, not something that is necessarily daily occurrence, but he is right to say that the problems that have arisen are problems that are perfectly foreseeable. Indeed, I have asked, over the past two years, Mrs Leadsom, Mr Gove and Mr Eustace, to give an unequivocal assurance that they would not trade away permanent access to our waters in any part of a Brexit deal. They never provided that assurance, and it is now abundantly clear why. In reaching an agreement to agree on fishing, they have postponed that decision for purely political reasons, because they know fine well that they are not going to be able to deliver on the promises that were made in the leaf campaign. In short, the Brexit here is over-promised, and now they are ready to under-deliver. Alex Cole-Hamilton To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome. Cabinet Secretary, Jeane Freeman A new combined alcohol and drug strategy will focus on how services can adapt to meet the needs of those who are most in need, recognising that high-risk factors such as alcohol and drug use impact on health outcomes at birth, infancy and across the whole life course. In addition, our maternity services are being reshaped under the best start to ensure that all vulnerable women, including those with substance use issues, receive continuity of midwifery care from specialist midwives who will co-ordinate the team care for the women and her baby. Liberal Democrat freedom of information requests revealed the very sad statistic that 200 babies a year are born with that condition. That is a baby born every other day addicted to substances. It is the worst possible start in life, yet the draft strategy had nothing around neonatal abstinence syndrome. Will she confirm that the new strategy, which I believe will be published this week, will address that? Does she also accept that her Government's 23 per cent cut to alcohol and drug partnership services actually made this situation far worse? I am sure that Mr Cole-Hamilton knows that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on what is in the detail of what is in that drug strategy in advance of its publication. Tomorrow, what I can say is that it is a strategy that has quite rightly put that as a core health matter and a public health matter that is focused on the individual and not on any other issues. As I know from his meeting with Mr FitzPatrick in August, he took what I understand to be reassurance in terms of what would be included in that strategy, so I am sure that the points that he has made will have been taken account of. What I can say is clearly that the twin approach of that new combined alcohol and drug strategy and our work in reshaping maternity services recognise the importance of dealing with those issues in the manner that I have outlined. I should also make the point in terms of the mental health work that my colleague Ms Hockey is taking forward and was in our programme for government. The recognition of perinatal mental health, which is really important and connected to those matters, is central to that work as well. Alex Corthamoulton, I am grateful for that answer also. It is clear that being born addicted to drugs is one of the worst possible starts in life that one can experience. Yet still we do not routinely capture adverse childhood experiences as prescribed by Sir Harry Burns in his review of NHS targets. Can the cabinet secretary confirm when she will act on this recommendation, routinely capture ACEs so that we can direct support to those vulnerable children from the very beginning? I am grateful to Mr Cole-Hamilton for that further question. He is, of course, absolutely right that being born with this syndrome is indeed one of the worst starts in life. I should have said at the outset that I am grateful to him for raising this whole question at all in the manner in which he has done. He is right in terms of that recommendation from Sir Harry Burns. I am working with my colleagues now to identify exactly how we can take that forward and in what way. I am happy to commit to ensuring that Mr Cole-Hamilton is advised of that as soon as possible. Tom Arthur, to be followed by Brian Whittle. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the cabinet secretary set out how much the Scottish Government has invested over the past decade to tackle drug and alcohol issues on top of the financial commitments that were already made this year? Scottish Government has invested over £746 million to tackle problem alcohol and drug use since 2008. That includes £53.8 million allocated in this financial year. The majority of that funding has gone towards supporting local prevention, treatment and recovery services. In addition, we allocated a further £20 million this year and for each of the remaining years of this Parliament in order to improve the provision and quality of the services. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to ensure that adequate numbers of trained staff are available to help expectant mothers who recognise the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy. I am grateful to Mr Whittle for that answer, because it gives me the opportunity to remind him that, for the eighth year in a row, I recently announced a further increase in the number of student nurse and midwifery places in Scotland in order to ensure that we have the right staffing numbers in that regard. I am sure that he will recall our commitment to increase the number of health visitors and the training work that is under way in that regard. Health visitors are a very important resource in working with families and small children immediately after birth and on into those early years.


Well, that's good. Let's really bring it out tonight on video and audio. Let's start with something from the Bible. The wages of sin is death. Let's talk about that. The wages of sin is death. Because wages fits in a little bit with cost, you know. Wages getting paid and then cost is almost like the flip side. That's how people can afford to buy things. Wages is more like the filling the wallet up and cost is what takes it out.  In Christian theology, and I'm not talking the Course in Miracles, but in traditional Christian theology, the atonement was paying a ransom. A ransom is a big cost. The ransom, like human kind had done something terrible to God. Take a bite out of that apple. Here's a tree. Here's a tree. And it has fruit, but there's rules. There's rules with this tree. It's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I put it here in Paradise. And it tells me how duality was placed by God into Paradise. It doesn't make any sense why God would put a dualistic tree in the pure oneness. It's ridiculous right away, but there's a tree of knowledge of good and evil and there's a rule. Just like telling a kid, don't do this. What happens when you tell kids, don't eat from the candy jar. You don't even do it. So here's God, don't eat from that tree. And then they eat the apple. And then there's a fall from grace. And the fall from grace, you don't think God's just gonna sit around and let you fall, be a disobedient, you know, break the rule, break the one rule, and then I can't let you get away from that. It's gonna cost you. You have to pay back. You broke the rule. So now you have to be punished. And there's a ransom.  It's the worst thing. You're disobedient, you broke the rule, now you have to pay the cost, and the wages of sin is death.   Even if you have a bunch of begats, don't create any of them. Begat, begat, begat, begat, begat.  Well, you think it's so good. Have sex, have fun. Begat, begat, begat, begat.   And in this world it's a world of scarcity and it's a lack where everything costs money. You pay for many things in this world because it's a world of lack and it's a world of reciprocity, it's a world of cost, and so on and so forth. But all of these, you boil it down, the big cost is the belief that you separated from God. That's the big no-no is separating from the source. So in Christian theology, then it's like, well, there has to be a ransom.  You have to pay me something for me to get it back. There's kind of like the ego's Christian version of it playing, is that you did something wrong to God. You know God's very loving. He's not really happy about separation.  He's loving, he's loving, he's loving. Don't cross him. He'll be firm. He definitely needs a ransom now to get back there. And then Jesus is going to be sending his son on a suicide mission, come and say, no, no, no, this is the way that it should be. And then, boom, he's gonna get crucified. And by Jesus Christ, the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the innocent one and so on and so forth, that will pay the ransom for all humankind and all will be free as soon as this innocent one is slaughtered and it's solved. Makes no sense at all to me. But that ransom is the biggest cost. That's a cost. It's saying something cost things. Now, I would say that to believe in the ego, cost you the awareness of heaven. Cost you the awareness of God. Cost you the awareness of Christ. Love, oneness, joy, happiness. And using that word in that way, it's like, wow, that's a pretty severe cost. In awareness, not in reality, people say it's really impossible in reality. But in awareness, in consciousness, it's a big cost. And so, it doesn't surprise me that the Course uses that word cost. Because I think if you went through, unless Jesus is speaking kind of tongue-in-cheek, which he does sometimes, and humorously, when people read it, they go, what's he saying? He's speaking a little tongue-in-cheek. Give him, he wants to joke. Let him joke. But sometimes, I believe he said it. But actually, I think that's the cost that is talked about in the Course. You're talking about, you've found so many times. And then people don't like that saying from the Bible, the wages of sin is death. But sin is missing the mark. If you go back to the original Hermes, you know, sin is not hitting the bullseye of love and forgiveness. It's missing the mark. But what would you expect from missing the mark? If the mark is God and love and Christ, joy and happiness and peace, and you miss the mark, what do you think? You're often to death land. I mean, the bullseye is love and the rest of the rings are all death. If you miss the target, oh, God doesn't go, that's all right. That's close enough. It's more, it's like you're often to error. Sin is really error. So the wages of sin is death. The wages of error is the experience of separation, which is what death is. People don't like that saying. I think that's just good divine metaphysics. The wages of sin is death. It should be joy. Say, well, that's it. I'm going to really learn not to sin. If that's the case, I don't want to keep missing the mark. I want to hit the mark. I want to know thyself. If the Greek talks about, I want to realize, I want self-realization, or may as well call it self-actualization. I would rather have that than missing the mark. And yeah, I think there is a cost to seeming to miss the mark. Not in reality, but in awareness when we're not tuned in, when we're not aligned with the source, then there's the illusion of suffering. And I would say when people ask me about suffering, it's just not fun.