hree years pass. That's clarification on this point. Is there a second? Mr. O'Connor, I don't think you've got a second. That's okay. That's okay. Yep. Okay. We move on. And I have one final motion. And if I don't get a second, then we, you know, at least it's disposed of. Right. But I believe that in accordance with section 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities will, would be provided for the proper operation of the proposed use. The applicant has said that he has at least for 20 years. It certainly appears as though the improvements that are being made are long range, long-term improvements, upgrades and so forth. Designs alas, quite frankly, the life of the leaks. And I think it's just impossible to ignore the fact that 20 years from now, all buildings should have, should be providing some measure of electrical augmentation, not just taking in stuff from outside, but generating stuff on site. My personal view is that the proper place for solar panels is on the roofs of buildings, commercial and residential buildings and commercial parking lots. And I don't think it's, in this day and age, I think to approve the building that's going to be in use at this level for 20 years without providing some requirement for the minimal solar installation, I think is an abandonment of our duties. And so I would so move that to be required to submit to the town inspectors a plan to install solar panels on the roof of the building not to meet the requirements of the building, but to generate as much electricity as can be done with the building at present. Is there a second for Mr. O'Connor's motion? I don't see a second for the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the courtesy of being able to make the motion. Absolutely. No, that's why you're a member, Mr. O'Connor. Yep. Yes, Mr. Rah. I just want to make a quick clarifying point that when we come up with these conditions that we instill in these applications, you have to keep in mind that it has to be for a provable benefit to the public overall resulting from this project. And you have to think if we're instilling a condition, how easily could it get challenged in court? Because the applicant could go to court for a condition that seems unreasonable and if it's something that is unreasonable, it doesn't have any public benefit to it. We could lose. So just keep that in mind for future meetings. Mr. Chair? Yes. Can I just say something about Mr. O'Connor's motion? I applaud the effort to pursue the solar, but this exact issue was come up in my church where we want to, some people want to put solar panels on the roof. It turns out it is not structurally capable of doing that. And the cost of doing it is not small. And since the applicant is not the owner of the building, I'm not sure that we could require the applicant to do this. I'm not sure the landlord would even permit it, no? And again, it might not be structurally possible. So I think it's a great idea. And in separate from the concerns that Mr. Wachiller raised, it's just not necessarily doable without a lot of investigation. But I think all, I can't speak for all of this, but I can speak for myself and I'd like to see more and more of it when it's critical and doable. I agree with Mr. O'Connor. I'm a proponent for solar panels too, but I don't know that it would work in this particular building at the moment. You could do a quick, you could get a couple of good companies right in the neighborhood to give you a feasibility study in pretty quick time. They would, as long as you might give them a little credit, solar panels by XYZ company, they would probably be happy to have a very visible project in downtown Amherst. Be spoke solar, not spoke live, spoke solar. There you go. All right, you might get it cheap. All right, if there are no other conditions, we have to make our findings under several sections of the bylaw. So we're moving on from conditions. I think we've gone through each one. We've approved those conditions, most of them in block and others individually. We don't have to make a finding under article seven for parking because they're located in the parking overlay district and they don't need, there's no parking requirements. For the sign regulations, I don't think we need to make a finding for the sign regulations because it should not exceed 10% of the area. And you clearly, your sign does not exceed 10% of the space. I don't think we have to make any findings under 5.04. Do we, Ms. Brestrup, we don't have to make any findings under section five, do we? I don't think so. Excuse me, I don't believe so, but you also have a condition that reflects condition five or article five. Article five, yeah, yeah, yes, we do, yeah. So then we come to article 10.38, article 10 findings. So I'm gonna run through these and I'd like to use the same procedure. I'm gonna run through each of these, assuming that they're approved, if not raise your objection and we will separate that finding from the rest of them. First, section 10.380 and 10.381, the proposal is suitably located in the neighborhood in which it is proposed and or the total town as deemed appropriate by the special grant, special permit granting authority. The proposal is compatible with existing uses and other uses permitted by right in the same district. There's similar businesses across the street and in this area. So I think that we're clearly confined to 10.380 and 10.381 are met. 10.382, 383, 385 and 387 generally deal with nuisance for the neighborhood and abutting properties. I won't read it all, but the proposal says would not, the proposal would not constitute a nuisance due to air, water, pollution, flood, noise, odor, dust, vibration, lights, or visually offensive structures or site features. The proposal would not be substantial inconvenience or hazard to a butters, vehicles or pedestrians. And it goes on and talks about other visually or other kinds of offensive uses or products coming from the use. I think that it doesn't produce a nuisance. I think that the noise limitations that the applicant has proposed along with the lighting restrictions, the ambient lighting restrictions that he's put in place and I think speak to the way in which he has mitigated the effect on neighboring properties. And so I think 10.382, 383, 385 and 387 can be our met. Ms. Bresla, you've got your hand. Sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't put my hand down from last time. Okay, and I didn't look up, so I didn't see it till now. All right, 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities would be provided for the proper operation and of the proposed use. So in this case, this oftentimes deals with the ability to get product in and out of commercial presence, commercial properties. The applicant is modifying the interior to include a bar, areas for staff, site management plans. There are also two sheds in the rear, which will provide for additional storage as well as ways for trucks to get in and deliver product to the establishment. So I think 10.384 can be met. I disagree, but. All right, do you want to take that out? Yeah, because I'm... Yeah, all right, 10.384 we'll remove and we'll come back to it. 10.386, the proposal ensures that it is in conformance with the parking and sign regulations. It is, I don't think there's a question about that. 10.387, it was also spoken to in earlier, but this deals with pedestrian movement within that site, relation to adjacent streets, properties of property, the special grant and authority, likely to have an adverse impact. We could order a traffic review, I think, is what this is about. Yeah, impact on traffic patterns. You know, I don't think we need to do that. In order to do, I think we need to have a traffic impact study, we spend a considerable time talking about the impact of this project on the traffic. And we've also looked at all the different ways in which public transit and right on called up traffic, right shares can meet the needs for motor vehicle drivers. Miss Marshall. I'm not sure we've closed the loop on queuing on that sidewalk. Okay. So. So the queuing on that sidewalk. Whether it can take up the whole width of the sidewalk. I know it's not in front of the doors. Okay. We were told it's a private sidewalk, but we could still, you know, and ensure that there's the people can walk by. I'm just saying, I don't think we've resolved it. I don't know. Well, we have, so that's, we have to resolve it if we're going to proceed. So we have to make a decision. So the, is my understanding that the three, they're going to limit it to 300 people in the, standing on the, on the sidewalk waiting to get in. That's only going to, that's, and that does not take up the whole width of the sidewalk. Is that the notion? Mr. O'Rourke, we have, we're going to, I'm seeking clarification on this. So I'm not trying to engage in an argument about it. Yeah. Right now we have 300 people that are going to be on that sidewalk. That sidewalk is how many square feet. And is that, one way to look at that is how many square feet is it and how many people can you put on one half of that sidewalk? Can you fit 300 people there? Or are you going to have people outside that are going to try to keep that sidewalk open? Are you going to have people who are monitoring the outside going to keep that sidewalk open for other people who may, the public who may wish to use it? I guess that's your question. Is it not? The discussion that was had before was that, that's a private sidewalk. The direct other side of the street is a public way. And that the architects who designed it, argument was that it doesn't need to be designed to be cut in half for people to access in both directions that it's not designed that way.  So I'm going to get to the board of that. I understand your argument. Okay. I didn't before. Marshal, is that consistent? And Mr. McLean, I'll get to you in just a second. Yep. I mean, is it acceptable? I understand. I think if it is the case that the spoke will ensure that the public sidewalk is open to two-way traffic the whole length, then I'm fine with this. Yeah, we wouldn't utilize any of the public way on the other side there, I'm pretty sure. No, but I mean for your other business. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we operate that way. Currently would continue to do so. We'd be in violation, I think, if we did it. So. Okay. You have parking, you have stanchions up where you have... Fencing. Fencing or whatever they are. Stanchions. The whole thing that you put up to across the street at the existing slope, right? Yes, those are stanchions, correct? Portable stanchions. And they're removed. We do not leave them, you know, in case any other topic that comes up there is not left there. The second we close our premises, they are removed and put behind the building. So we're taking... All right, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, so I think it would be not a good idea to try to mix the general public with the individuals who are trying to enter the establishment. I really think that the fact that there is a public sidewalk across the street is adequate for this street and I don't think, I don't see an issue here. All right. I'm fine, we can... All right, so we'll keep this in the end block findings. 10.388, the proposal ensures adequate space for off-street loading and unloading of vehicles. Deliveries are done Thursdays and Fridays, not during business times and you've provided for space for doing that. 10.389, adequate methods for disposal or storage of sewage, refuge, recyclables and other waste, resulting in you've got a waste dumpster and a recycling dumpster and you're connected to the Tom Sewer. So you've got sufficient waste and recycling capacity. 10.390, the proposal ensures protection from flood hazards. I don't think that's applicable. 10.391, unique or important, protection unique or important natural historic or scenic features. I don't think that is applicable to this application. The proposal provides adequate landscaping. I mean, you haven't increased the landscaping but you're proposing no additional landscaping but you're not proposing anything less so it doesn't change the existing conditions as much as we may want it to be more beautiful. It's not a change from current situation. So it's not a detriment to the neighborhood. 10.393, the proposal provides protection for adjacent properties by minimizing the intrusion of lighting. You aren't adding additional broadcast lights. You have the existing lights, you have some lights that are broadcast lights that are there now but you're not adding additional and you are having some ambient lighting and some downcast lighting on the sidewalk. Yep, and we always take into consideration downward lighting. Been in this town for 22 years. I understand that. The proposal of voice that sent feasible maximum impact on slopes, flood plains not applicable, 10.395 does not create this harmony with respect to the terrain and to the use scale and architecture. Generally, you're within the, you look like the other kinds of buildings in the area. You're not changing anything. So it's not an app, it's not an app. You're not, this really isn't applicable all that and you're dealing with and you're complying with the design review board recommendations. 10.396, proposal provides screening for storage areas. You put a four foot fence around the rear area of the dumpsters. So you screen the dumpsters in the back. 10.397, recreational facilities is not applicable. 10.398, proposal is harmony with the general purpose and intent of the bylaw and the goals of the master plan. Proposal abides by the standards that force the zoning bylaws of the master plan to bring in general with the goal is to bring more business and not state business in the downtown area. And that just does that. So with the, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, just the final 10.398 is the section under which I would vote not to approve given the noise, interior noise levels and so forth. But, and so I think that I have a couple of sections that I don't, we've already resolved if there's no interest in my concerns in that area. So I think that you should simply take a vote on the conditions that you've articulated. In all likelihood, I will vote no. I haven't heard anyone who is, who anybody else is going to vote no, but I've made my position clear and I think we, you can proceed to a final vote. Thank you, Mr. O'Connor.  I appreciate that. So the motion before us then is to improve, make the findings, including the findings of 10.398 and the earlier findings 10.384 that we set aside for separate votes, including them in all the conditions, all the findings from 10.38. Do I have a motion to make the findings that we can make findings required under 10.38 and 389? So, Mr. Maxfield, first hand up, do I have a second? Second. Ms. Marshall, second hand up, I've got a second. Is there any discussion? Mr. O'Connor has expressed his position. I'm gonna vote for the motion. Is there any other discussion? If not, the vote occurs on the findings in 10.38. It's a roll call vote, the chair votes aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye, no. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Oh, Mr. Slobiter, there you go. Yeah, here I am. I vote aye. The vote is four ayes and one may. The motion carries. Now we have a, the last vote is on the application, granting special application with conditions, which is before us. So we've approved the conditions, we've made our findings, then the final action would be to approve the special permit. The special permit, let me get this right. Where is it? Three face, ZBA what? ZBA 2023-14 to be approved with conditions. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All right, we've got a move and a second. Is there any discussion? This requires four votes. The motion before the body is to approve the application with conditions. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. No. The vote is four to one, four votes required to pass this and approve it. The motion passes. Mr. O'Rourke, congratulations. You've got your spoke live. I also wanna thank all the members of the zoning of the ZBA for their work on this project. I think we've covered a lot of ground over the last two meetings. And I appreciate all of your hard work. And Mr. Chairman. Yes. I'll submit a statement as to the reasons I voted no. I'll submit it to the staff so it can be included in the report of the zoning board. That's fine, Mr. O'Connor. That's good. All right. Next order. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you guys. Thank you for all six hours that we spent on this for everybody. Thank you very much for your help. Mr. Judge, do you wanna take a vote on closing the public hearing? Oh, I guess we, yes. Yes, I didn't make the full motion. So the motion, I should also have moved to close the public hearing on this application. Do I have a motion to do that? Close the public hearing. Mr. Slobiter. Moves, is there a second? Second. Mr. Maxfield seconds. Any discussion? If not, the motion occurs to close the public hearing on ZVA FY2023-14. Chair votes aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Motion carries five to nothing. The hearing on this application is closed. Thank you, Ms. Brespa, if I fail to include that in my closing moment. Next order of business is public comments on anything not before the board tonight. So if anybody has, any member of the public wishes to make a comment, they can do so by raising the hand or by pushing nine on their phone. And I see no raised hands or no phones. So there's no public comment. The other order of business is any business not anticipated within 48 hours. And this is normally where we talk a little bit about the schedule for the upcoming couple of meetings. And so we have a meeting coming up on the, what's the date? It's on the 25th we have our next meeting. That's correct, that's right. What do we have, Rob or Chris, what do we have coming up on the 25th? So on the 25th, we have 515 Thunderland Road, which is a battery and storage system proposed.  It's going to be, this is actually a continued hearing for a previous meeting, which I believe was April 27th. So basically the board has already done two site visits for this permit. And that's the only thing we have for the 25th. Then we also have two potential applications for June 8th. And then anything after that, I have not had any updates recently. Okay, and are those individual residences or are they some of the, these aren't the 40Bs, are they, for June 8th? Nope, so the June 8th's ones for a continuation of a special permit from two years ago for a flag lot. And the other one is for 485 Pine Street, which proposed, Chris, is it a duplex they're trying to put in there? Or is it a converted dwelling? Try to remember what it was. Anyway, we have, we have permits coming, let's just say that. All right, so we've got the 25th or 515. All right, good enough. Any questions from members of the board? Mr. Maxfield. What street is that flag lot on? Is it the one I'm thinking it is? Southeast Street. Got it, okay. Yep. It's gonna be a quick one, let's just say that. Yeah. All right. Well, if there's no other business, there's no other questions. I wanna thank the staff again for the hard work. I wanna thank all you guys, all the members of the ZVA for their hard work on this project. Mr. Maxfield, how many more of these are you gonna be with us? For how many more will you be with us? I've got three left so long as none of the three are gonna be something that looks like it's going to continue beyond June. So if 40B comes on our, what would be our third meeting then I would be stepping out for it. But yeah, it looks like the next three are what I've put in for to not be working. All right. I appreciate that. Thank you. Before that, I just wanna say for this meeting, Mr. Chair, thank you so much for that. I think you did a great job, Sharon, and I did this whole application. So thank you. You handle it well and I'm always impressed. You can only do it with good board members and make it easy. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And Dylan will be looking forward to the last three working with you. Thanks very much. Looking forward to it. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Goodnight. Goodnight.


So thank you very much. It's a great pleasure for me to be here today, and I thank the organizers for inviting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. This gathering and presentation focuses on a topic which is of significant interest to the OSCE, and in particular to the Transnational Threats Department, which I represent today. I would start off with saying for maybe those that you don't know, what is the OSCE? For those not familiar with the OSCE, let me briefly note that it is the world's largest regional security arrangement in terms of membership under Chapter 8 of the United Nations Charter. Chapter 8 is maintaining international peace and security. It brings together 57 countries stretching from North America to Central Asia, including all member states of the European Union, NATO, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. It also works with 11 countries from the Southern Mediterranean region and Asia, including Afghanistan, which have the status of OSCE partners for cooperation. The OSCE is based on a trademark concept of comprehensive and cooperative security. This concept recognizes that security is multi-dimensional and that it's political military, we call this the three dimensions in the OSCE. It's political military, economic and environmental, as well as human dimensions are closely interlinked, and probably no soar more greater than in the field of countering terrorism. And this concept also recognizes that to achieve comprehensive security, cooperation is indispensable on multiple levels between countries, within countries, and among international organizations. Most of the OSCE staff and resources are deployed in its 17 field missions in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and in the South Caucasus, which are a distinctive operational asset and comparative advantage of the organization. All told, we have about a little over 3,000 people in the OSCE. Our mandate in counterterrorism, so what does counterterrorism mean for the collective response of a regional organization like the OSCE, for which addressing transnational threats to security ranks among the top priorities? Looking firstly at our mandate, it's worthwhile noting that this is determined through agreement by consensus of all 57 participating states. Something that is not easy to achieve but carries significant weight once reached. Back in 2003, OSCE participating states adopted a common strategy to address threats to security and stability in the 21st century. Tellingly, the strategy highlighted, and I quote, that threats of terrorism and organized crime are often interlinked. And that the cross-border movement of persons, resources, and weapons, as well as trafficking for the purpose of financing and providing logistic support, play, and increasing role for terrorist activities. So this was somewhat prescient if you look back to 2003. Following broad discussions on future European security, which were initiated by the organization in 2009, the OSCE sharpened its focus on transnational threats and, I would say, is sort of a point of note for the OSCE. We're one of the few bodies now that have adopted this term of transnational threats. We also have this in NATO. They have an emerging security challenges division. I think it recognizes the shifts from sort of a Cold War posture to the posture we're in today, which is facing many hybrid types of threats. Most significantly, OSCE participating states adopted several decisions by consensus in the last few years. In particular, I note, during the 2012 Irish OSCE chairmanship, and I am quite happy to be back in Dublin. I was here in 2012 at the ministerial for the chairmanship. These decisions on police-related activities, on the fight against terrorism, on combating the threat of illicit drugs, and on cybersecurity confidence building measures, gave the political impetus for the establishment of the OSCE transnational threats department, which brings together our expertise on anti-terrorism, policing, border security, and cyber security, and where I now have the honor to be working. Now, in light of the unrest across the Middle East, in particular the Civil War in Syria, as well as North Africa and the Sahal, the phenomena of foreign terrorist fighters has come to fore internationally, and the UN Security Council adopted a number of resolutions in this respect. Most notably, and I was discussing at lunch, it's not a quiz on knowing the numbers of UN resolutions, but the one that most of the international community is focused on right now is 2178-2178, which addresses the issue of foreign terrorist fighters coming after the rise of ISIL and Daesh. Regionally, the OSCE subsequently endorsed this resolution through a ministerial council declaration, mandating the organization to counter this phenomena using all the tools at our disposal. Our mandate was further strengthened in December last year at the ministerial council in Belgrade through our collective commitment to prevent and counter violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism, or as we say in the OSCE VERLT, I think the common term that is most used within the international academic and civil society world is CVE, countering violent extremism, but we draw a distinction with VERLT, and I'll talk about this more because we recognize because of our strong human rights approach in the OSCE, not all violent extremists are terrorists, so it's a very important distinction that we try to make. Now I'd like to talk about our activities on foreign terrorist fighters in CVE VERLT, and at the conclusion I also brought some handouts that you can take away with you if you'd like to sort of see how we put our arms around a very difficult issue. Common violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism was one of our primary focus areas for 2015, in part as a regional response to the attacks in January against the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Our first major event of 2015 to build consensus in this regard was the OSCE wide counter-terrorism expert conference which gathered over 350 experts and practitioners from OSCE participating states and partners for cooperation from international and regional organizations and I would also say from a healthy number of civil society participants. The focus of this conference was on countering the excitement and recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters and resulted in recommendations that ultimately in September contributed to the UN summit on countering violent extremism and then to the OSCE's Belgrade ministerial. Further drawing on our comprehensive tools and in response to the Charlie Hebdo attack, the Transnational Threats Department jointly with the OSCE representative on freedom of the media organized an expert workshop on media freedom and responsibilities in the context of counter-terrorism policies. We intend to follow up this event which took place in Bucharest with a set of general media guidelines, standards, or best practices and recommendations in reporting on counter-terrorism policies and terrorism related incidents. In addition, we are developing an e-learning module to provide training on countering the use of the internet for terrorist purposes because we believe it would be useful for the OSCE's 57 participating states to have some common way to look at this very difficult issue of counter-narratives and the issue of media and such as that. Throughout last year, the OSCE secretary general in Serbia's 2015 OSCE German ship, I would note that this year's chairman ship is Germany, launched an organization wide campaign with the slogan OSCE United Encountering Violent Extremism Pound United CVE. The communication campaign underscored that the OSCE stands together as one encountering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism. We saw this as an integral approach to rally the comprehensive approach of the OSCE and to support the CVE process that culminated in a UN summit in September of 2015. Our campaign culminated with the adoption of two declarations at the Ministry of Council in Belgrade on reinforcing OSCE efforts to counter terrorism in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks, as Margaret noted in the beginning. It was a very tough year last year with a lot of terrorist attacks and a second declaration, which was very comprehensive, on countering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism. Now looking ahead, there are ambitious plans to further our efforts. We are, for example, developing a capacity building project for civil society called Leaders Against Intolerance and Violent Extremism. The aim is to develop training modules to build the capacity of interested youth leaders, women leaders, and religious leaders to mobilize others and speak out against violent extremism and radicalization, or CVE. This is probably the most ambitious project I've seen within the Transnational Threats Department and our Action Against Terrorism Unit. We recognize this is an issue which isn't a one-time workshop, but it's going to take a very long comprehensive approach. I'm happy to talk about that project a little later in the Q&A session. Similarly, we launched a guidebook on preventing terrorism, encountering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism. A Community Policing Approach. This provides practical guidance for policymakers and senior police professionals on the key issues that can impact the successor failure of community policing approaches in fighting terrorism. It can also serve as a useful resource for members of civil society with an interest in these issues, in particular community leaders. As I understand, it's also been used by your national police, the Angarda Siakana. Did I get that right? We now plan to organize a training program based on this guidebook. We believe very strongly in the issue of community policing. As a further follow-up, this year's Counterterrorism Conference will be held in Berlin on 31 May and 1 June. The conference intends to make use of the comprehensive OEC approach to security to discuss current issues of young people and violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism, including in relation to the phenomena of foreign terrorist fighters. Perspectives for their reintegration into society and the specific issues of radicalization and de-radicalization of young women. And of course, we try very hard that it's designed to follow up to all the work that we did last year. And I would say very openly, the IEA is welcome to attend the meeting, and I hope to see some of you there. The other area you asked me to look at is preventing the movement of foreign terrorist fighters. So turning now to the other primary work areas of the organization, enhancing border security in order to prevent the movement of foreign terrorist fighters is on the global agenda as increasingly a focus for the OSCE, a very strong focus. Regionally, we support initiatives of the Global Counterterrorism Forum. The Global Counterterrorism Forum, if you're not familiar with it, and again, I can also expand upon this a little bit. It's 30 like-minded states that have come together to launch several initiatives over the last several years to propel faster action on the international community in countering terrorism, as well as we work with the Security Council in the UN. And our focus is on three main streams in this issue of borders. The need to prevent the misuse of travel documents for foreign terrorist fighter travel. The requirement to increase the sharing of information, and the necessity of appropriate screening measures at the borders. Firstly, on travel documents, we are working with national authorities to upgrade the technological security features of travel documents, such as joining the international civil aviation authority, IKO, public key directory. In simple terms, it's when you pass your passport through that reader, it records your data, which is a much more efficient way than having the old style passports were just printed on a piece of paper, and you didn't have it tied to any electrical system, which gives added security through e-passports. I should note that one of our experts visited the passport making facility in Ireland last year to get familiar with some of the security features the Irish passports contains. We're also in the process of developing a compending of best practices regarding civil registry systems and passports so that individuals cannot use so-called breeder documents to acquire a genuine travel document on a false basis. In the most simplest of terms, breeder documents addresses if you can come with a valid looking birth certificate. Once you get over that hurdle, you then have all the gates open to get all your identity papers in line. And if the breeder document itself is not true, you have true challenge in your own internal borders and passport system. Secondly, it's clear that frontline officers require regularly updated information to conduct effective evidence-based travel risk assessment and screenings. There are existing international information exchange mechanisms that can be deployed. The challenge is to use them more effectively. That is why the OSC is working with Interpol to increase access at border control points of our participating states to Interpol databases. We are also partnering with the UN and other international organizations to enhance the use of advanced passenger information so that all officers can receive information about travelers before they begin journey. I take it everybody in here has flown at least once in their life. Advanced passenger information, as you see it on your airline ticket, when you get that information, hopefully goes to somebody else that can verify the identity of the traveler. Our third work stream in this area is increasing the capacity of border control officers to actually detect foreign terrorist fighters. For this reason, we organized national trainings on the latest passport forgery techniques, and there are also plans to develop a mobile training team to help border agencies improve their capabilities to identify and interview foreign terrorist fighters. We also have a dedicated border management staff college in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, which holds both monthly and annual staff courses and trainings for border guards, border police and customs drug control and transnational crime agencies. I would note that many of these trainings take place because of our 17 field missions, which give us a very strong comparative advantage to follow up on this. The final work area I will mention is our efforts to reinforce law enforcement capacities and to promote implementation of the international legal framework against terrorism. We encourage the implementation of key international legal conventions. With that in mind, I should point out that Ireland is a party to 13 of the 19 universal anti-terrorism convention protocols. This is roughly the average among our OEC participating states. The Transnational Threats Department through its Strategic Police Matters Unit, which is a sister team with me, contributes to support policing in all OEC participating states in line with the rule of law. Fundamental democratic principles. In that vein, we are developing a training module on counterterrorism investigations and human rights. Closely with our Human Rights Office in Warsaw, Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights are commonly referred to as ODIR. I would also point out that in this area of training, we also support the previously mentioned GCTF Global Counterterrorism Forum. And the GCTF has adopted a robot memorandum on good practices for effective counterterrorism practices in the criminal justice sector. The GCTF has adopted a lot of memorandum on best practices that we're now working to sort of share with people sort of what the baseline could be in your country based on your own national legislation and needs. Terrorism as well as organized crime investigations will often have a significant transnational and legal component. This makes the pursuit of terrorists and their criminal assets around the globe an ever more necessary requirement to integrate our efforts in the OSCE. To adequately respond, we support the OSCE field operations participating states and specialized partner organizations that are engaging in anti-terrorist and crime activities. This support includes regional training courses to provide technical assistance and help build capacity of law enforcement agencies to cooperate on combating terrorism as a crime. In closing, I'd like to highlight that security is no longer exclusively a responsibility of governments. Governments need to partner not only with other governments, but also with international regional organizations like the OSCE, civil society and quite a bit recently the private sector. I think you can see that in the news topically today, such as your well recognized think tank as well. As outlined at the beginning, the OSCE transnational threat department brings together all our expertise on anti-terrorism policing, border security and cyber security. A largely unique approach among regional organizations. The department places the OSCE in position to be a close partner with governments and other international and regional organizations to effectively develop strategies and implement projects aimed at countering such serious transnational threats as terrorism, which is clearly at the top of the international agenda among a few very other select issues. In this regard, I'm pleased to note that we are collaborating closely with all the international partners Ireland as an OSCE participating state would expect us to do, such as but not limited to the UN, NATO and the European Union. For example, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, who has a terrorism prevention branch, is our ally when addressing the legal basis to prosecute and adopt laws consistent with these threats and challenges. Both OSCE and UNODCR base in Vienna, so our cooperation is quite easy, and we collaborate closely along the lines of a joint action plan, which most recently was extended to 2017 in the areas of fighting illicit drugs, countering terrorism and international organized crime. We also maintain close contacts with our colleagues at NATO, at primarily the NATO School and the NATO Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism. In fact, last year, we actively contributed to a tabletop exercise examining challenges to departing and returning foreign terrorist fighters in cooperation with the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes, which is linked to NATO. Emerging security challenges, as I mentioned, NATO has a very similar department as the transnational threats are an area that we meet at least twice a year to discuss and joint OSCE NATO staff talks. The next tabletop exercise is actually next month in March in cooperation. Again, as I mentioned, the importance of our field missions with the OSCE field mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Similarly, we are working hand in hand with the European Union and its different structures. I've already mentioned that all member states of the European Union are also OSCE participating states and close interaction with our colleagues in Brussels is self-understood. With other structures, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States anti-terrorist structure, I can particularly report on very good collaboration and active exchange of information in the area of countering terrorism between the Secretary's Action Against Terrorism Unit. And I would say as I get ready to close my formal remarks, I see this as an almost unique manner. The OSCE is one of the main bridges between the sometimes still too apparent east-west lines drawn during and after the Cold War. I hope this brief overview of the horizontal efforts of the Transnational Threats Department and the team I'm in are highly relevant for your discourse on events which have regrettably made too many headlines in 2015. Ultimately, these broad horizontal areas are the foundation for our work on violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism and foreign terrorist fighters. I thank you all for listening and I look forward to answering all of your questions and comment.


Thank you. Good afternoon. I appreciate you all skipping your lunch to hear me talk about reigniting growth so We shall get into it Slides not having So the reason I want to talk about reigniting growth is purely because I think we all need to do it in some way As we know 2021 was the best of times if you had a startup in 2021 everything was amazing, right you? In 2021 we saw VC investment double We saw more unicorns believe it or not done ever before in 2021 We saw more mega rounds these like 100 million dollar rounds done ever before and We saw more like more basically everything than every ever before in the tech industry in short I would say 2021 was a hell of a drug and We saw some mad shit happen in our industry.   All right the deals as we can see are disappearing As you can see there's been a precipitous drop here the unicorns are fading away Maybe they were mythical creatures after all the mega rounds are disappearing We're not seeing them anymore and IPOs are disappearing. We're not seeing them anymore. So in short, this is fine Right, it's a tough time to be in tech. No a phrase I often come back to is the stockdale paradox You should not confuse the fate that you will prevail which you can never afford to lose with the discipline of Confronting the brutal reality that we're in in tech, right? It is not a great time So founders everywhere are worried about all of these key metrics whether it's your burn rate your LTV Cat your gross revenue retention your runway your churn. We're worried about all of these things and What I hope to present to you today is five points on how we're gonna get out get the hell out of this, right? The first thing we have to do when we're facing this horrible reality is work out What bit of my company actually is working? So what does this mean? Well during the good times you tend to be quite Explorative you tend to try a lot of new shit, right? You you're very am you're interested in like New projects new ambitions new teams new expenses and during the harder times You need to peel all that shit away and the big question you have to ask yourself is What revenue that I have is healthy and what revenue is not healthy? And I think for a lot of startups I've invested in for a lot of startups.  It's there's no way to avoid that unfortunately So you need to find out who your best customers are and base and you need to optimize the business for them Your best customers are ones that you can sustainably acquire ones who use your product deeply and ones who get Differentiated value so you have to be able to afford to get them They have to use your product a lot and they have to use it for something that they just can't get anywhere else, okay? and To get there you have to analyze your revenue by first of all what we call cac cost of acquisition Secondly the depth of the channel so you might have a great way to acquire our customer But if you can't acquire thousands to that channel, it's not a good channel Next is usage. Are we a critical product or are we a nice to have and lastly is differentiation? Are we a commodity or are we something unique to this person? You need four yeses for each of these questions to actually know do you have a healthy business? That's the first piece you have to do Secondly we need to cut a lot of junk out of businesses a lot of complexity, right? The single biggest thing that hurts a healthy business is adding complexity Getting this idea that you're a bigger company than you were trying to transform too quickly into being enterprise when you're not even 100 people or something like that and this shows up everywhere Complex ads where you're trying to say too many things complex landing pages pitches sign-up flows Complex UI a complex org chart your complex processes.  How about we make this business really really complex? Right, that's not what happens. What they say is there's a second use case. We could consider there's a second buyer Or how about users don't do this? How can we persuade them or how about we take this simple thing and make it slightly hard, right? So what happens is you get lured into complexity and what it looks like if you take a really simple process Let's say this is your sign-up follow, right? Hey people go to the home page and they click a link somebody eventually says I think we could catch an extra bit of options here and Or an extra bit of usage or revenue and what they usually face you it is a question like this Should we attract more customers or? Not and of course you like yeah, of course we should attract more customers, right? So you you can see the point. Oh and to make it worse the These people would usually bring along evidence like this right these people have all the charts and you know Spreadsheets and forecasts that say this is gonna be brilliant and over here.  Let's do another use case. Let's do another buyer Let's do another route to market and then you say, okay Let's do a few more and let's do a few more and a few more and before you know it You actually have this complexity right you get lured into it You raised a big round at a big valuation you need to justify it So you have this big wide-eyed ambition and you get end up with this and what it looks like is shit like this Like this is honestly a lot of silent startups have this as their road mapping process or have this as their sign-up flows and People massively underestimate the cost of complexity friction Putting nonsense into your business Aaron Levy is the founder of box and he had a series of tree tweets that I thought were brilliant on this exact topic The first point he says is every single thing that creates friction costs you adoption costs you customers The second point is complexity kills productivity It just kills its down dead always and the third one is like if you can just simplify things Everything will always get better and what was more interesting out of this conversation was really influential smart people like Steve Sinovsky Like Mark pink is from Zynga had other ideas that the fell out of this one was my rule of tomb is that for every choice You put on a user you lose half your audience and if you act on that rule You'll actually make good decisions a second point is usability goes down and the last point from Spencer here I love which is that friction is not linear with adoption. It is actually exponential right what we think we're doing often Sorry for the arrows Well, we think we're doing often when we say hey Well, we get out a bit of friction by adding some choices and we think we're doing this in a Sort of simple every extra choice is a little bit more complicated, right? And that's okay because the ROI justifies it, but in practice it actually looks more like this every extra choice makes your business Horrendously more difficult to do right every little bit of knit or grit will slow things down in a way That you don't realize and you can't forecast So the next time you're faced with a decision of should we attract more customers or not? The actual better question to ask yourself is should we attract more customers or? Should we improve our funnel the way it is should we perfect our current business? Should we get a market dominant position for who we are today? And that is actually a better question to ask and you you also have to win the argument You have to price in this downside. We're going to make our UX really really sucky if we continue to add complexity here So I really implore you all to consider Simplifying the hell out of your healthy business when you've done that you can then optimize a healthy business So to optimize healthy business recall a healthy business. You have to know certain things about your customers You know things like what vertical are they in what team are they? How do they use your product? What types of customers you name it right? There's a lot of stuff you need to know about your customers to know if they are healthy so Generally speaking I encourage every startup what I invested them advised them or even intercom ourselves We always ask these questions to understand where is our healthy usage? Where's the strong part of the business and from there we can build a lot out right and Sorry one more here's a real-world example, right? So this is a product management startup project management startup that I invested in where I got them to ask the answer These questions and once you actually get to these answers you start to realize okay This is something we can actually work with right. We now know a lot about our businesses We now know a lot about where we can invest we know what we need to get right and what we can perfect, etc And from this we were able to say if this is exactly who we need to perfect their business for Let us that's have everyone delete all their roadmaps and their plans And let's only do shit that maximizes the quality of the product for this exact customer And that means asking hard questions like what are the most important things that we have to do To maximize throughput if you like to make this so easy to adopt and It's really important to say not what's important or by what means is the work you're doing important But it's you forget all that you say what is the most important thing and then you have to then ensure that you're doing all Of the most important things and you're doing nothing else Nothing comes for free in business right and the worst the thing that every startup does is this bottom line They post rationalize they say given that I was gonna run that campaign. Anyway, we may as well finish it right wrong Everything you do has to be the most important thing The phrase people often say is you have the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, right? It's so important to obsess about the actual thing you're doing So what does that look like well the things you must do is one Ensure every function basically has blank sheeted everything so they're not inheriting any complexity that they added two years ago change your funnel around the business customers you're trying to win and Ensure that like all your metrics and dashboards track Dissuccessful business and they ignore the unhealthy piece that didn't work Unless they kill all the activities that don't support the strategy and the things you definitely don't do one Don't post rationalize anything make it illegal to justify activities based on what came before Secondly don't keep giving away exceptions for this or exceptions for that You're just gonna end up getting dragged right back to where you were and lastly don't celebrate success that had nothing to do with the plan You might have won a great customer last week for the old use case. It's not good news today We're only caring about what we're doing today And don't continue with any decisions or meetings or anything that supports the old business now What's interesting is when you do this is you might see going back to our earlier example Here's the healthy revenue and what we're our job is to grow the healthy revenue We have to be tolerant of the fact that the own healthy revenue might shrink because it is not the priority Which means you might see this right? This is a growing business that looks like a shrinking business and that's okay Because you'll invest in this business people will work for this business and you need to talk about this business Whereas this if that's your narrative, it doesn't sound good and it's just important that people know the difference and Then when you've done these things, this is when we actually get to have the conversation of okay We found our customers. We've simplified. We now have a healthy business. How do we grow that business and? That it for me is like there are four choices you have Right, so if you start off with a current healthy business The obvious one the most people do is you can go up market, right? That means you're selling to larger companies selling to larger companies the same product But you have to adapt it for larger customers Another option is you can sell more stuff to the current buyer So hey, I know I'm currently selling you like social media software Would you also like to have a listening or brand management software or we're selling your customer support? Would you like a phone solution? We just launched a phone solution yesterday Another option is to sell to a different buyer in the same company Which is means ultimately launching a new product line But you you have to believe that the fact that you have the customer already will help you get there And then lastly you can tailor your business for a new vertical So in this world will be like we're gonna do intercom but for airlines or intercom but for hotels or whatever, right? It'd be like tailoring it that way To go through them quickly Firstly take your current product of market.  They They'll sign longer contracts. What's hard is you have to build a lot of new stuff That's just the reality going off mark You have to build a lot of OAuth permissions security all that sort of shit marketing changes Self-serve sign up is no longer the thing now. You're into like outbound and you're into bigger sales teams, etc And your sales cycles are longer You know just because somebody is expressed his interest today you might land them in a year But like that's just tricky, right? And support gets more complicated. They're more demanding Or you can do more product for your current buyers What's good here again is more money to increase your share of wallet as they say you can improve your product posture So you can basically be a more complete platform And you've been existing trusting buyer what the hard part is you need to build a whole new product And that's a whole new team and that's new expense and that's spending more money, etc You have to market a now a more abstract concept because you're now two different tools together And you have to have a brand that covers both of that Sales is more complicated to enable your sales team to sell more than one thing and then supports more complicated Because you've a larger product footprint If you're trying to sell to new buyers within the current customers, you'll get more money out of your current customers They can help you go wall to wall so you can be like the dominant tool You get compound benefits. So like if you're selling like let's say a sales tool on the support tool They have the same customer record. That's usually useful What's hard here is that it's a brand new buyer on potentially you might have to deal with like more How to say more people in every single purchase. It's just more complicated Again, you have the brand challenge of now selling more things you have to sales challenge, etc and Ultimately now you have two different support orcs because you have to support two different products entirely and Verticalization is usually a good route because you just you often just get new lines of revenue for a little additional product work Maybe a reskin of your product to make it look perfect and there's often lower competition when you go into niche areas There are less people doing like, you know, project management for coal mines They're under our doing project management. So you can usually do pretty well at a going vertical vertical What's hard is oftentimes you might have to like reskin your product a little bit You definitely have a new marketing challenge, right? Which is like how do I reach dentists or how do I reach like hotels or hospitals? Sales has needs new domain expertise all of their existing contacts and their Rolodex won't work here Now as you weigh up these choices, it's worth Remind, it's worth me reminding you the mistakes we made in 2021 to 2021 friction is exponential It is not linear every time you add something something suffers Secondly, everything for somebody is more important than being something for everybody, right? That is the only way you build a healthy business is by being everything to somebody so that that buyer loves you as opposed to having a foot in the door forever and but no one really cares And ultimately you want as much cash as possible for as little code as possible and The last point I'd say in this is just beware the asymmetry of mediocrity, right?  People taught you to be great great software company. You add one bad product to it Everyone's like oh, I thought those guys were good, right? And that is a real challenge. You see a lot of people suffer from I often liken this to the idea that if you put say a Cockroach in a bowl of strawberries. That's disgusting if you put a strawberry in a bowl of cockroaches That's also disgusting, right? There isn't asymmetry at play here, right?  It's just we're remembering now There's one other way we can grow our businesses going forward and it's a very important one.  Let me just start with that, right? I'll say more on this but generally speaking tools can be Disruptive if it's just to defend a new way to sell or they can be technology breakthroughs like the segue or Google Glass Whatever we're like.  But a game changer is when the market wants it and the tech is there as well and the tech is breakthrough We are looking at a game changer This is the least as big as the first circuit board the first PC the first good PC the first operating system the internet phones To me and to the folks in intercom. We believe that AI is basically a meteor strike coming for the software industry, right? There is not a single business that will not be affected AI will have will change Everything in some ways and it will change some things in every way and if you're not on board with that you're really gonna struggle over the next few years and Just to explain this a little bit better once my meteor graphic has finished playing so Oftentimes VCs like to do these landscape maps where they try and explain what businesses are where and I've spent the majority of my entire life on that little logo there that is the sum total of deaths his entire career right and That actually sits in an even bigger world, right, which is all of this shit, right now AI is going to destroy all of those businesses unless they survive and then thrive and I really do mean survive So how do you survive well Darwin's origin of the species tells us this It is not the species that's biggest or strongest It is the one who is most able to adapt and that is the thing. I'll encourage you to do most adapt We have seen how tech does this before this is the famous evolution of the desk video You've probably seen it right We have seen how this whole world plays out before the entire office changed around us One by one and that's where we ended up right and it's curious to see this three devices left glasses and a laptop and a phone That's where I think we are going to be over the next year when vision pro launches now What will AI do to software well? Well, I think could do the software something like this Here's all the icons we know and love But I think I can replace so many of these things and they could all get absorbed into some central intelligence Right where you just say hey Siri order me a taxi and Siri doesn't give a shit If it's bolt or uber or free now or anything that it's just orders you right easy And similarly you could say order me a pizza and all of the complexity of the software is hidden away You know take a reminder remind me to do this set an appointment all of the calendaring shit Don't bother me with that everything gets hidden behind this so It's worth asking what has actually what is AI done so far. We are really good at text We are really good at conversation We are really good at generating imagery and generate generating voice and video and we are really good at deductive logic, right? and we've seen all these cute demos before and Like for example, you've seen dolly and all that sort of shit where it is Oh, do go give me a children's storybook or something like that and it's pretty impressive stuff. I Think I often get pushed back from folks saying well, what's the business application of any of this shit and I'll show you right. There's like just some real obvious business application I have a friend who works in an email startup and he said AI's got nothing to do with him And I said really most your users aren't good designers already.  So you have you know, can this do it kind of also writes you the email It'll actually help you write the email and a little structure at all And what you get is actually far better than most of us could possibly do now There are probably 50 designers in the crowd in front of me here who are going to say does I could do way better And that's not my point my point is there are 950 people in front of me who definitely can't do better And that's what's changed here Similarly In the intercom we built a product that does customer support called Finn and Finn literally sits in front of your support team and answers all of the Undifferentiated heavy lifting that support teams get how do I reset my password? How do I get a new API key? How do I get a refund? How do I do this? How do I do that?  It's views by a thousand customers Some people see resolution rates in 50 60 70 percent of their total support volume gone And that's just crazy like the whole world is changing here And this is that meteor strike that I'm telling you if you're selling seats in traditional helpdesk software right now things are changing so Just a simple example This is not a Finn pitch But like you can ask Finn a question and it will answer because it goes and it reads the docs and a links up the Docs and it gives you the exact answer in this case I asked it how do I disable this setting it tell me exactly to do it, but people think right That's an easy question a symbol question. Sorry single question single answer There's also stuff like this where okay. Here's a five-part question. Bam. Here's a five-part answer This shit is freaking huge right our entire industry is changing in front of us So you should ask yourself what types of core workflows in your software is changing Given that AI can do all of these things easily right it can write summarize it can create success criteria It can optimize criteria can take actions It can it can find you the next thing to do etc everything changes I have a friend who runs an advertising startup where they take they let you find your best ads to run and he asked me Will AI affect his product? I said well, what's your product do people log in and do all this stuff, right? That's the typical workflow.  And you just approve the suggestions like let's pretend that we need we're needed to approve the suggestions We know where it's going with the AI is just going to do it all anyway So here's a point I really want to make slowly the algorithm You should apply to your software when you think about AI is for every step in your users workflows If it's irrelevant in the world of AI get rid of it if the AI can do it get the AI to do it If the AI can massively simplify it do that instead if the AI can make it a bit easier sure and otherwise don't worry about it yet Maybe The only good say is chat UI is coming as well. So chat UI being here's a big clunky tool called workday I Regularly have to log into workday and what I really really want to do is just say book me October 14th off Please I don't want to learn the UI at all Unfortunately, I have to right because they don't have this tool, but this is coming right It is we all know for example Microsoft Excel Okay, a typical thing people like to do an Excel is make some cells read if they're negative. It's really hard to do It's called conditional formatting right? Literally, it's changing now. Here's the instructions of how you do it in Microsoft Excel today You go through all these steps and I guarantee you we are like months away from a better world Where you're going to log in and you're just gonna say instead. Hey there I would like to make the negative cells read please return and that's going to happen right because that's the way the world's gonna Work, we're just gonna tell the software what we want and get what we want What that does is it means the people who know what they want to do are? Equal to the people who can use your product right? Before chat you have to have any friend who knew Excel After chat UI you everyone knows Excel right? We all just say the things we want to do So the questions to ask yourself is how can AI be used to apply new features that kill workflows is chat UI relevant How can it be applied to let people do things they couldn't do before whether it's design or creativity of any sort And the other thing you should ask yourself is are my customers ready for this? There's an adoption thing here if you're too early like say Google Glass or segue You're wrong and ten years later vision pro or like scooters come along and turns out they had the right timing So what does this mean for your strategy? Well, here's the way I think about it.  That is how you will thrive in AI you will not try it by shutting it out You'll try it by asking these questions. This is a massive Tectonic shift in tech right we've been through loads of these We've this AI is just one of these it's of similar size in my opinion the nature of what's gonna happen to our industry in the next Well Even when in tech we've gone from the PC to the cloud era to the mobile era to the view or an a or era AI is the next era It's it will leave nothing unturned when it lands so I Said I try to explain how we really re-accelerate through this time of change. I believe all of this is valid find your healthy core Kill all your complexity optimize your business then you expand it and think very seriously potentially going all in on AI Now there's a quote I love that I reside all the time internally and folks are sick of hearing it which is in times of change Learners inherit the earth well the people who are perfectly learned it find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists a Lot of the tech that we look at when we look at AI used to be shit We talk about is one day it'll be possible for the machines to blah blah blah And what I say to you here is this is actually day one, so I wish you the best This is an awesome time to building tech. I hope this presentation has been useful. I'm death trader from intercom. Thanks very much


The difference between a boundary and a request is the difference between a short conversation and perhaps a marathon argument and debate. A request is when you ask someone to do something for you and so by definition you give them the power to say yes or no. A boundary is when you make a decision based on someone's behaviour and their response and their compliance is irrelevant to what you do next and I think some of us are confused between a request and a boundary. Some of you are making requests you are not setting a boundary. A request would sound like I'd really appreciate it if you'd let me know that you're going to be home late because it's so inconvenient when I don't know. A boundary would sound like if you don't let me know that you're going to be home late I will not make you dinner. Some variation of that and so some of you are frustrated because you think it's a boundary violation no it's a request that gives them the power not you. So set boundaries when you're doing boundary work set a boundary and don't get confused between that and a request. One gives them the power and one gives you the power. Cheers.


The Senator of the Julyer, the more emergent chairman of the National Working Committee after a unity list. As some still feel disgruntled as the party out of troubled waters was seek answers this morning. Ahead of the 2023 general elections were seeking answers. Should zoning be sacrificed for character, competence and quality of leadership? What are your thoughts? And like always we will review all the major stories on the front page of the days. Good morning, this is the breakfast in class TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. I am messy a book for. It's a beautiful Monday morning if I'm very correct and it feels really good to be back in your screen again. Yes, messy. How was your weekend? How did you spend it? I trust you had them. So why just feel like you're just doing this for, you know, formalities, you already know. Yeah, yes. You know how it is on Friday I was dancing that time. Thank God it's fine. I was looking forward to the weekend. I had just saturday. I was like happy and all of that. Then today again, when you reminded that you had to work on Sunday. No. So which do I prefer? Do I want to work on Saturday or do I want to work on Sunday? I don't want to work Saturday or Sunday. Okay, so I feel like the HR should be paying attention to this now. And every other person should be paying attention. Justin doesn't want to work on Saturday or Sunday. But for me, it was just a bit of, you know, Friday getting off and usually the feeling for Friday is like you're out of the world singing. You're in party. No. Can I afford to party? Yes, look at you alone. No, that's not the point. That's not the point of making. I'm just saying, you know, you're so tired that you just want to sleep.  So that's it. And then we're back here again. Yeah. So let's talk about some of the things that are trending or that trended them over the weekend. Kaduna wasn't an easter. I'm over the weekend and I felt it was really very alarming.  If the bandits, you know, had all the leeway to just enter the airport with all of the security, I don't know, went to the tarmac and how possible, you know, is that really how could they just enter the airport and attack an airport as secure, supposedly secure as an airport should be. And when I read about that, I was like, why are we really headed in this country? Although Kaduna has been in the news for a long time when it comes to integrity, bandit attacks on them, highway robberies and all of that. But for an airport to be attacked by so-called bandits, I think you should just call them what it is. I would say the airport was actually attacked by terrorists. So which is actually a valid point that you have raised because it's called a lot of Nigerians. First of all, I mean, it's made a lot of people react in that direction. I would say that with this situation or with this attack that happened, it just really called security, you know, status as a country and that's what really played out. And the fact that, you know, bandits can breach the perimeter. Some people are asking that, do we have a perimeter fencing, you know, at the airport?  And so that's it. Some people are saying at this point we shouldn't be calling this category of peasants bandits. This is a terrorist attack. And what happened when this information was put out? Because I was falling, you know, I was on top of the situation. When I saw the news at first, there were a lot of disclaimers. Some people said it was fake news up until on the 26th, today is the 28th. So you have, I quickly just run through, you know, this update that was put out by the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria fan saying that it was a press release that was put out and he says, update on bandit attack Kaduna airport. The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria fan regrets to state that a group of bandits attacked the runway axis of Kaduna airport earlier this day. And you have, however, a combined team. I don't know if that's a continuation, but I'll just read it. However, a combined team of anti-banditry military personnel and criminal investigation unit of fan aviation security departments swiftly intervened for rescue operation with one casualty reported in the incident. I mean, so it therefore means that someone was actually killed. Very sad. I mean, it's not something that we should smile about, but this is not good at all for us. This normalcy has since been restored at the airport and the team has also recovered motorbikes abandoned by the bandit's additional heavy reinforcement team from the Nigerian Defense Academy is on ground to ensure safety and security of the airport workers and users as well. Now, this is actually an update that was put out by, you know, fan on the 26th of March. And so 27, 28, so, you know, you know what we're talking about now. But it constantly brings us to everything that we keep talking about. And so we feel is a joke. Security is very important. We have seen how, you know, it's not just a one-month business is affecting everybody. And it's the audacity that so much goes right here. Like I said before, this is ridiculing our security status as a country. And we need to step up the game. The president, the governors, everybody, all hands must be on deck.  And that means that you understand the means of transportation that these persons actually use. I think that we've been very careless about the issue of security. We actually have been very careless. We are not putting, you know, our money where our mouth is. Because the truth is that if we actually took security very seriously, when you hear things like there's like an airport being attacked by so-called local marauders as it's where it is really mind boggling because I don't understand. But it should be one of the most secure places of all because that's like an entry and exit point, you know.  It's like the first part of Korto, either a country or a state. So it should really be secure and heavily armed and all of that. But when a bandit's invade... Katenai Airport is not just a local airport. It is an international airport, I want to believe. But when things like this happen, you just wonder if we don't know what we are doing, as if we are bereft of knowledge or we don't want to do the right thing you get. Justin, so you talked about the fact that we're not putting our money where our mouth should be. So you're saying that money might probably be an issue. Maybe we're not spending enough in terms of... That necessarily is a point, you know, to some extent. But the issue here is the people who have been carrying this attack will have called them bandits. That's the time. But if you begin to see the activities of this group of peasants, how do you describe them? The fact that you have a group of peasants going to the airport and, you know, what was the intention? That's number one. Where they're going to hijack the airplane. Where they're going to kidnap peasants. Kidnap passengers or steal. What's the rationale behind all of that? And this has gone beyond calling this peasants bandit. This is a pure terror attack. It's a pure terror attack. And how have we acted as a government towards this group of peasants? And not just to tell us that the situation has been brought under control by a plan. What are you going to do to make sure that things like this don't happen again to ensure that Nigerians actually embark on planes and they actually get to the destination point and not worry about if they're going to be attacked by a show called bandits? So, I mean, it's from the foundation. It's the fact that I feel like we have been very careless. I don't feel like it shows in our action. We as a government have been very careless. You see the carelessness in it. First of all, the fact that we constantly call this group of peasants bandits. If you look at the oppression, who do you call a terrorist? I mean, it's really sad, but we have to wake up to the fact and understand that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 14, would stipulate that security and protection of the lives and welfare of the cities and paraphrasing not necessarily verbatim is the concern of government. And there's no excuse whatsoever. This is not the point where we begin to hear, oh, I'm not in charge of the security architecture of the states. I'm not in charge of whatever, you know, all of the excuses that we make. But we need to, you know, put our foot down. It's gradually unbecoming. And, you know, we're just joking with it. And one day it becomes a menace for us. Now we're talking about bandits having the gods, you know, to step into an international. But we need to move away because we have other trending topics. Because if we just keep on talking about it, you'll just keep on sounding like a broken record because it's the same issues that we keep on having and talking about all the time. But also in the news, something I'll put a bit of smile to my face, at least. Well, I don't have to bother about security. Patrice Evera, you know, he was at Osho de Isale, right? But did you know Osho de Isale? Maybe. Where's Osho de Isale? Where's Yoli, not the island? Let me never start with you. No, you won't. Just don't come up with this one. Osho de Isale is where Osho de Isale is. Excuse me. He was in Lagos, and he was at Osho de Underbridge, the popular Osho de Underbridge, or Osho de Isale, in the local parlance. And then he played chess with children. It was all smiles. Merci. He was at Osho de Isale. So what can you play? You know, we just had it. No, it's fantastic. But calm down now. I understand. I understand Patrice Evera. He was in Nigeria. It's a great one. But let's not forget that it's associated with the chess to slime. Yes, yes. And that's a good innovation. That's a good one that's been ongoing for us in Nigeria and in Lagos. I think it's been putting up. But most importantly is what happens to the children. The kids, the children in this particular region and the essence of it. I think it's a good one. It's a very good one that it helps strengthen their morale, encourage them, motivates them, and gives them all of that, you know, what's it called, strength, give them all of that motivation that they need. So yes, it's a fantastic one. I think that these kids are having a great time. Yes. And I like the fact that, you know, when I saw the video is actually popping up and I saw the pictures, you know, there was a little bit of a blend. You could blend into the system. You could see him. I mean, he could pass for Nigerian. You never can tell until you've been told that that's Patris. And so yes, that's a beautiful one. It is, like you said, it is very, very inspiring.  We're having great peasants coming to inspire these children to ensure that, I mean, let them know that there can be anything that they want to become. Yes, and their life is not just about the slums. Exactly. You know, move beyond the slums and become anything they want to be in life, really. But because usually, you know, that when you talk about having some of the stars, it's usually when you have music, you know, the music industry, and then you're going to be having artists performing or usually spots. So it's just a good one to see that this is happening and it doesn't happen at a time where there's a special occasion. So yes, it's great. It looked like it. It's a good one. Good one, Patris, and I'm glad that the children are actually channeling, you know, positive energies into something very productive, you know, chess and all of that. Because if you know what Oshiti or Oshiti Underwood is associated with, it's always about, you know, the negative stories, the hoodlums attacks, and of course all of them, the vices that come out of there. But over time, we've been getting to hear and see, you know, wonderful, bright, inspiring stories coming out from Oshiti. And indeed, the slums, and it is something very, very, very, very chairing. Yeah. Yeah, so good luck to all of that, to all of them at Oshiti. We'll move away from that. Another story that is trending. The governor of Riva State is still in the news yesterday. He was in a video where he supposedly, you know, made his intention to run.  But then again, he says something, and I quote, give me your vote, give me your vote. Merci. A lot of people are actually indicating inches. A lot of people say they want to salvage the soul of Nigeria, and they feel that they need to deliver Nigeria out of the doldrums. They said the APC has placed Nigerian into it. So with the issue of anyone, anyone, when I mean anyone, including Governor Yassam Weke of Riva State declaring his intention, whether that's an argument, whether he really declared his intention, there's the fact that everybody has a right.   That's how the constitution puts it. So yes, if Governor Yassam Weke decides to, you know, declare his intention to become president, he's acting within his constitutional right, and that he calls, you know, it doesn't really call for any kind of boss, because you can also say, hey, I want to become president.  You said you're not partisan. Okay, so moving away from that, I practically listened to that. So I think it was within, because listening to that conversation that transpired, he was in Ben West state, marketing to be precise for what about the event was, and he was asked a question, what would you do differently to change, you know, the narrative in the country? This is paraphrasing, because you have been challenging and being very critical on the things that are going, and that's when he mentioned the fact that, you know, this is what it says, but he's going to, he's declaring to become a president of Nigeria, and he's doing this in this state because he has a relationship, you know, with Ben, with people, or with the state, and that's when he stated that. So in a bid to actually answer a question, is when he said it, and he said it's the first time he's making, you know, this statement, or making such intention. It's something that he has been nursing in his mind, and he's been hearing a lot of, you know, rumors and all of that, but he was saying it, you know, for the very first time in Ben, with the state. So I'm hoping if that's something to go by, I know that it's not doctored. I listened to that voice a couple of times, and I can really tell that, I mean, you must be a fantastic mimiker to want to mimic. Yes, I'm Mike, you know, he has a unique voice, and so you can hear him say that again and again. But also, like I said, fingers across, we see how all of this, you know, pans out, and prior to this time, let's not forget that we have a lot of people, there's so many other persons that we have said, you know, are making intentions or have plans of coming in as president. Some people say, oh, they have really not declared, but gradually, we're saying that things are unfolding. But we're here to watch the space, and of course bring you up to speed with what's making the rounds across the board. Who else is going to be declaring his or her intention? It might be Justin, it might be me. Fingers crossed. All right, that's as much as we can take on top trends, and so, all right, we need to see more of the direction, but we just need to see a competent people, the people who have a pedigree, people who have the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians, you know, at heart, not just someone who just wants to pay lip service at the end of the day, nothing to show after he is, you know, declared and president. Well, let's just leave it at that for now. We'll take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll go straight to the dailies and see what the papers are saying this morning in a moment, so we'll head back without the press. Stay with us.


It seems like I include a surprise treat in every painting and it's a very common thing happens to a lot of artists. You might have found this a dog hair in every one of your paintings anybody else am I alone here?


Morning traders, Patrick Muller here with another tickmail chart, looking at the developing opportunity here in the sterling dollar. Great British pound versus US dollar. We've been consolidating in an interim bullish channel here. I've got a couple of green closes above the monthly weekly and now the daily volume rate average prices, holding the weekly pivot as support. Look now for a breach of the monthly pivot, so through 1.3035 to put on bullish exposure, looking for an equality objective and to retest the underside of the major trend line support from below at 1.3275, also 17.6% of the price decline and a protective stop just below today's low 1.2920. As always, traders, plan the trade, trade the plan, most importantly, manage your risk. Until next time, thanks very much.