And today is the last day. So let's hope it's, like, this is my first EuroPython presentation. Let's hope I, you know, do good. So this talk is about scientific computing using Scython, so I'm gonna go around, like, some basic overview what Scython is, how can you use it, how can you specifically use it in the scientific computing world. So I am Simi Moria. I work at Credible Health. So it's a startup in India. So we work on, like, cancer reporting. So basically we work on, like, cancer detection and brain, liver, and lung. So the idea is to connect deep learning with cloud computing so you can actually get all the matrices and dashboard directly through your web browser. So. Okay, you can't hear me? Okay, I'll be just near to the mic. Am I audible now? Okay, perfect. So what this talk is about, so we'll just go through step by step, what is Scython, how, like, we'll unleash the Scython superpowers and we'll try to build our first Scython module and we'll see how Scython, how Scython provides, like, support for NumPy and we'll unleash more superpowers and there's a project demo at the end, CYVL Feet. So I worked on this project last summer for Portland State University. I actually wrote a wrapper for VL Feet. It's a library for computer vision. So it has, like, all the major vision algorithms, like SIFT and, yeah, similar to that. So, okay. So what is Scython? Like, it's actually a static compiler for both Python programming language and the extended Scython programming language. So it makes writing C extension for Python as easy as Python itself. So we'll unleash the superpowers now. So, okay, the first superpower is you can, the, when you use Scython, your Python code will actually be able to, like, call C, C++ code back and forth. It talks to it, like, natively. You can easily tune, like, Python code into, like, you can optimize the performance by adding static type declarations. Let's see how we do that. Yeah. So this is up your Python code. It's a simple integration function. So, yeah, it's pretty easy. So now you have to spot the differences here. So what do we have added? We have added a type to I, S and DX. So we have predeclared the types and we have done that by using CDEF and not simple DEF. So CDEF is basically, you use there, actually three, like, similar, you know? So there is a DEF, there is a CDEF, and there is a CPDEF. So I'll explain it to them, I'll explain them later. Let's look at just CDEF. So in a nutshell, CDEF is basically when you're dealing with C stuff and there is no, you don't have to deal with Python objects. So yeah, then that's when you use CDEF and you'll be able to actually harness the actual performance of C Python runtime when you use CDEF. So you have declared, no, so you have defined the type of I, S and DX and how does it help? So whenever there is a performance critical code, you have lots of loops and lots of computation. So you add static types, declarations. It actually allows to actually, Scython just bypasses the CPython API calls and it just runs everything in C. So the code that Scython generates now, it's more optimized and has better performance. So typically how Scython works is it's basically you write everything in Python, you write everything in .py file. In Scython, you write it in .py X. So you can just copy paste pure Python code into a Scython file that is .py X and it would run. So this won't give you really good speed up, but you can do that. If you want more optimization, you can actually include types just as we did here. So just copying this particular code in .py X gives like 35% speed improvement. So, and yeah, by adding some static types, it's actually like speed is like four times than the, as compared to the core Python. So yeah, I talked about DEF, CDEF and CPDEF. Let's look them in detail. DEF is basically, yeah, it's Python. So it is called directly from Python and it takes Python objects arguments and it returns a Python object. So there is no, you don't have to deal with C anywhere. So yeah, and CDEF, it's basically C. So where Scython functions, like you intend them to be like pure C functions, you want actual C performance, you use CDEF, but you have to be very careful. You cannot, like at that, when you are using CDEF, you should, like that particular patch should not deal with any Python object. So that you might run into a problem if you do that.  So in Linux, you, and then you can directly import that .so in the Python session by doing an import, simple import, we'll come to that too. So CPDef, it's basically both def and CDEF. So there is a trick here. It actually recognizes both Python and C code. So when there is a C code, it recognizes, okay, it's C code, it can actually do some early binding and when you're dealing with Python objects, so it uses dynamic binding and yeah, it kind of gets slow. So it's like Python, then too. So yeah, it can directly import CC++ libraries using C import. So you can just do C import, lib C something. You can directly import. We'll have, we'll show, I'll show you an example later. So yeah, you can actually integrate with existing CC++ code.  You can do that by using Scython. We'll look into that too and just, you know, unleashing all the superpowers. So yeah. Okay, so where is the magic? Like, how does Scython do what's so special about it? So the main feature in Scython is the, like, the optional static type declarations. You don't have to declare them every time. Yeah, they are optional. So the source code gets converted into, like, optimize CC++ code. And this allows, like, very fast program execution with, you know, programmer productivity since you are using a Python-like syntax. So what's the motivation behind using Scython? So this is a really cool diagram I borrowed from Advanced Python Summer School. It happened in 2012. So there's ease of views and y-axis and there's a speed on x-axis.  You want to find somewhere, like, a middle way out. So that's where Scython is, that Scython exists. So, okay, let's get to the code directly. So first one is Python core. Second one is CC++ or C, yeah, yeah. So third one is, yeah, Scython version. So there's just few differences when you compare the Python and Scython code. Just, there's one, Cdef. This gives, you know, 80% speed x and when you compare it to Python, like, native Python code. So this is, like, a really sloppy function that I wrote. You can add few more optimizations. We'll come to that slowly. So Scython, where is it used? So there are many big, big projects which use Scython. One is NumPy, you might have heard of NumPy. And there is an AstroPy as well. It's not an example, but yeah, it does. And yeah, it's, yeah, it's like coding and C and Python at the same time. Okay, we'll come to the use cases slowly. Am I going too fast? Just let me know if I am. Yeah, okay, thank you so much. So, library wrapping. I have, like, said enough, like, again and again that you can wrap libraries. So, for example, I'll give you an example. So in C, when you're writing something in C, you have, like, the structure is like, you have a dot C and dot H. In Scython, you have dot pyx and dot pxt, the Nologous files for those. And let's see how we can do that. Okay, so the second use cases when you have performance critical code, I have explained this already again and again. So the common procedure is when you really need speed, just, you know, you can use a compile language like C, C++, and then wrap the whole code in Scython. Instead of, like, directly doing it in Scython, like, it'll give you, like, really good speed. And yes, the third use case is okay. Let's use case one, I'm sorry. So who knows about the Jill? I think everybody does. Okay, that's great. So Jill is basically, it's a global interpreter lock. So it's, what it does, it's kind of like when the lock is acquired, it limits the threat performance. You won't be actually, even if you're running your program on like a multi-core CPU, it won't be able to, like, harness the par, the total par. So yeah, so there's a solution that Scython provides to break out of the Jill, wherever required. So let's see. So these are the unwritten rules of Python. You don't talk about Jill. You actually, you do not. And seriously, don't even mention the Jill. So, so let's get into an example. So this is a really, this is a small function which actually keeps our CPU busy. So it does a lot of computation again and again. So it takes 6.7 seconds to run on like my laptop. Now, see, this is a sequential one. There are no threads involved. This is a really simple function. Now, let's consider the threaded version. And yeah, there are two threads and it takes 11.1 seconds. And this should not, this is not what you expect, right? So what happened? What happened here? Okay, so it actually, what happens is when you, you run it on a multi-core CPU and multi-core processor, you actually expect to, like this script to run like nearly half time, but or at least in equal, at least in the equal time as of the sequential version, but it's not happening because the threaded version suffers from a very bad behavior where the OS tries, the operating system tries to desperately schedule the two threads on different cores, but because of the Jill, the lock, only one runs at a time and whereas the other is moved like across the cores endlessly, it keeps, you know, it tries to allocate it to any core, but it just can't. So that's how it takes so much time. So what's the solution? Scython provides a really good context manager. It's known as with no Jill. So the catch is like, you can use it when it does not touch any Python object. So let's see how we can use it. So this is a function, the implementation of the same function, like it has different computation. It's like a bit more time taking. So yeah, so we have this with no Jill and you can see in the busy underscore sleep, underscore no Jill. So we use this context manager with no Jill. So now this, you can see underscore the last function. It's implemented in like pure C because you're using Cdef everywhere. You're declaring all the types. So it's not Python, it's not, it's like, yeah, it's almost C. So the performance has actually increased so much, a lot. So let's see. Yeah, you can actually, you can use Jupyter Notebooks to get these yellow, this is actually, when you compile it using like a minus A flag, it creates like, this is like yellow yellow lines. The more yellow it is, the more Python interaction is happening. So you can see in line number 10, there is almost no Python interaction because yeah, you have declared everything. So this is like super fast. And there are the number one and number two are equally yellow. So they're dealing with Python objects somewhere. Yeah, actually they are, that's why. So one tip that you can take is you can decrease the yellowness of these lines if you want to optimize your code. So that's one of your, like if you want to optimize, just use the minus A flag and get these results and see where you can actually use, actually there's a need for optimization. So yeah, we'll build or build like a really small program. So I have, yeah, there's a lot, I have told you like there's a pyx file and it gets converted to .c and then .c is converted to .so or .pyd on Windows. And if you can import it directly into a Python session, let's see, you can import it, you can build using different methods, you can use just tutorials, you can use pick simple and it's really cool tool but you don't want to use it on production, I don't know, we don't use it. Third is Jupyter Notebook. Yeah, it's the most common way, that's the way I use it. So yeah, this is a simple hello world script. So you have a simple, this is actually Python. You can, as I told you, you can copy paste into a Python file and you can, it will run. So there's a line from scython.bill import scythonize, it does all the work for you, it's like if you want to import it into the Python session, the scythonize does all the work for you. So you use like extension module is equal to scythonize and that's where you're using your scython file, .pyx. So yeah, and when you use this minus minus in place, what it does, it creates a .so file in your current directory so you can directly import it from there and it would work. So yeah, congratulations, you have built your first scython module. Yeah, next, yeah, you can use pximport as well if you don't want to go through all that procedure of like writing a distutils and everything, you can just have a .pyx file somewhere and you can just use pximport and import hello and it would work. So it's a really easy way to do that. Okay, so what are the conclusions that we drive? Naive scython means when you just paste the Python code into the scython file. So it does speed up things, but it's not, you probably don't opt for a scython to just get a like 1.8x increase and so you probably might want to tweak it more. So you can optimize scython is where you have type declarations where you are actually dealing with CDF and other modifications. So CP def gives a really good improvement over def but CDF is where actual power is. So it's really valuable, but you have to be very careful when you're using it. So scython CDF is almost, yeah, it's almost equal to the C version of that Python code. It's the best attempt to actually increase the performance but yeah, okay, now let's move slowly, slowly to the scientific computing world. So NumPy and scython, actually scython provides really fast access to NumPy arrays. So it has a C-level type, which is known as typed memory view. You might have how many of you know memory? What's memory view? Okay, just two, okay, anybody else? Okay, great. So memory view is just, it's like similar to a buffer protocol. You don't have to like, you can actually read and get the contents of particular say array without like, memory view is just like an interface. You don't need to copy it somewhere or you can just access it, you can read it. So the typed memory view is kind of similar to the NumPy array buffer support. And yeah, scython actually allows you to work with buffers without even knowing, like without even getting into the details of it. So yeah, that's pretty cool. And a typed, okay, so because a typed memory view is actually designed to work with a buffer protocol, it kind of supports every buffer producing object efficiently and yeah, so it allows sharing a buffer data without copying. So okay, so we will go, these are like, okay. So now when you have typed memory views, the cat gets a unicycle. Let's see how it's how we improve this unicycle, this motor transport. So okay, so let's suppose we want to work with like a one-dimensional buffer in scython. So we do not care like how data is created at the Python level, we just want to access it in an efficient way. So let's create a def function in scython that has a typed memory view argument. There we go. This double parentheses and a colon denotes a typed memory view. So you have, you're actually passing a memory view as an argument to a function. So okay, so yeah. And you might want to, so you can see there are a few optimizations like static type declarations. You are actually defining the types of i and total. Why do we do that? So i is actually the loop variable.  Okay, I have full explanation of that. So we are, so yeah. So yeah, here the memory view actually attempts to access the objects underlaying data buffer. So if the past object cannot provide a buffer, that is like, it's probably it might not, it doesn't support the protocol, then a value error would be raised. And if it does, then it means it supports the protocol. So this was, this is actually, the next one is actually the same code, but with a few more optimizations, you have to tweak more. So when you are iterating through a type memory view, Scython treats it as a general Python traitor. So it actually calls Python CAPI for every single access. So we can do better. So we were doing it here. We were actually, it's considered as a Python iterator. We are calling the API every time. So how can we do better here? So the type memory views are designed in such a way that you don't have Python overhead every time. So it's like, yeah, it's C style, it's C style way of accessing things. So this version has a much better performance. Probably if you make like one, an array with like a million numbers. And if you want to add them by doing iteration, and if you use this function for that, it's actually sums the argument. So if foo is an array of like a thousand objects, thousand numbers, and you, this wouldn't, this, if say it takes, say two milliseconds, this will take one less, I tried it. So I had, I didn't include the example, so I thought I would explain it like this. There's one more thing, the Scython, actually in this case, Scython generates a code that bypasses this Python C API, calls and like indexes into the underlying buffer directly. So this is the like source of our large speedup, but we can still do better always. So optimization never stops. It's a never ending process. I learned it from Andrew. I attended his workshop yesterday, so no, day before yesterday. So yeah. Okay, so now when you have this kind of speedup, our cat gets a good bicycle, and it can do gymnastics, so yeah. It's a bit better improvement now. You can do a lot. You can actually increase the performance by, but you have to trade the safety. Let's see how. So every time we access our memory view, Scython checks that like the index is in bounds. So if it's out of bounds, Scython raises an index error. Also like the Scython allows us to index into memory views with negative indices. So just like the Python list, the index wrap around. So in our foo function here, yeah, we trade through a memory view once and we do not do anything fancy. It's just a rather simple thing. So we know, here we know ahead of time that we never going to index, like we never index within out of bounds or negative index condition. So we can actually instruct Scython to turn off these bounds check for better performance. So to do so, we use the Scython special module with the bounds check and wrap around compiler detectives. So we have, I have modified the code here. Yeah, so it's the same foo function. And now we have like original, we have the original definition, but we have a new block or context manager here, which actually turns off the bounds and wrap around checking when we are accessing our memory view. The result is like really small performance improvement, but more better efficient code generation. It is up to us that we ensure that index doesn't go out of bounds if it does. If you are, you use like negative indexes. So you could lead into a segmentation fault. Yeah, so we can, okay, there are actually a lot of ways to turn off the bounds checking. So one way is this. You can use a context manager. If you just want to use it, see it's the width bounds check falls, wrap around falls. This is just above the loop. It means that you want to turn off the bounds check for the next loop. So if you want to do it for the whole function, so you can, okay, no, sorry. Okay, yeah, this was it. So if you want to do it for the whole function, you can use this another, actually you can use a decorator. So it's another form of directive that removes the context manager. So there's one more way if you want to like remove the bounds check like globally across the program. So you can use another compiler directive. You can actually add, it's a comment line where bounds check is equal to falls and same for the wrap around. So actually it's now the size one provides like different scope levels for these directives. One was context manager, second was decorator. This is like global module level. So you can actually have like really precise control over like where these directives are in effect. So they can be easily disabled and for debugging and yeah, and enable for the production runs. So yeah, now your cat can do this. Like it has on a like big rocket and it has laser beams in the eyes. And it can, okay, it can also do this. So it's up to you how much you want to optimize. Okay. So I promise that I'll show you a project demo. Okay, so let's just wrap up like what have we learned. So we saw how to declare like a simple type memory view. We saw how like indexing the type memory view within, you know, interval argument can efficiently access the memory views underlying buffer. We saw how to use a bounce check and the wrap around directives and we saw like three different ways. So when do we optimize? Like we just don't go and optimize everything. So I, yeah. So I borrowed this from Andrew's tutorial again. So you first see like you have to actually profile and you have to set benchmarks. Like, okay, where do you want to optimize?  You have to like know beforehand whether you need it or not. Now you know it. You can use the minus A tool that I told you earlier. So now you know where the optimization is needed. So you can go ahead and like add static type declarations or any of the other, the previous method that I told. Yeah. Next. Okay. So this is the project demo. Last year I worked for Portland State University for a Google summer of code program. So the project is C by VL feed. It's actually a wrapper for library named VL feed. So VL feed is actually, so what is VL feed? So VL feed is actually popular computer vision algorithms library. It actually specialize in image understanding and local feature extraction and matching. So we have like couple of algorithms. You might know the SIFT scale invariant feature transform. K-means, hierarchical K-means and slick super pixels and quick shift super pixels. These are like very famous image algorithms. So yeah, these are the algorithm that it has. So I worked for a company in like India. So they needed to, they were working on a video platform.   So if that pixel belongs to a car, that clicks got saved somewhere and you can see it when the video finishes or probably in the middle. So it saves, actually each and every pixel was labeled and it was mapped to the advertisement info. So if that car was like Ford Figo, you can actually see it and that you can directly go to the advertisement, advertiser website or something. So there was a lot of object detection involved in that project. So I had to use real feet. So it was like written in MATLAB and so like, you know, companies don't prefer MATLAB so they asked me to like, whether you can write few functions, like you can wrap few functions for iPhone. So I proposed this project for Google Summer of Code last year and it got accepted and I, so project was already in, I didn't realize this but the project was already in progress by like five researchers of Imperial College of London. They were already working on it so I contributed along with them. So we worked on like 14, 15 features and they got completed, so yeah, yay. So you can find it here. It's CYVLfeet is a part of Menpo project and Menpo was actually in the demo section of last year's CVPR, the Computer Vision Pattern Recognition Workshop last year so you can check it. It's a small part of the Menpo project. So yeah, contributions are welcome for CYVLfeet. You can actually fork it and create a new feature branch. So I'll also tell you a few limitations of Syson that I faced when I was working on the project. So yeah, by the way, yeah, these are the two modules that need more work and these branches are like still really active. You can go through, have a look or something. So I was actually working when I was wrapping this particular library VLfeet. So there's actually the bin sum module that you can see. It has, so it has like, we were actually taking reference from the corresponding MATLAB interface. They had a MATLAB interface. So there was like, so in MATLAB, the structure is quite simple. So there's when you have a .h file and a mechs which actually provides, there's a mechs file which actually provides the interface between MATLAB or Octave and the functions in MATLAB and C, the mechs files do that. And so the, so yeah, so the corresponding Syson implementation would have been .h translate to .pxd and the Cmechs translates to .pyx. So that's the analogous. So there were no deviations until we finished like 12, 13 features. But when we came to bin sum, there was a file .def which is the module definition file. So like, so I'll give you a brief introduction what def is. Does anybody know here what .def is? Okay, it's okay. So in Windows, .def describes what functions are going to be exported from the DLL. So unlike like in GCC Linux where every symbol gets exported by default. So you have to tell, in Windows, you have to like tell the compiler what functions to export. So the standard way of doing it is to write .def files. So at that time, I didn't know how to like wrap this def file in Syson, how to watch the analogous. It wasn't documented anywhere. So yeah, I asked, it's on Stack Overflow. That's the normal way of doing. So yeah, I still can't figure it out if somebody knows. They can just talk to me later. So this is the one limitation that I faced with Syson. And the reason, there's one more limitation in Python 3, like they have removed the nested tuple argument unpacking. So yeah, Syson also doesn't support that. So it's a recent removal. The slides are here if you want to like download it or something. Thank you. Yeah, I finished it really early. Okay. So any questions or something? We have time for a lot of questions. Okay. Thank you so much. It's a great token. Well, personally, I'm gonna rate it highly. Okay. I have a question. Do you have any examples of importing or referencing external libraries from Syson? Yes. Here we have. So you see this one. Can you see it? See import libc.mass. So you can directly import the library and see, okay, there's an example of minus a as well. So here it generates, okay, you can actually click on it. Yeah. So this is the C code that it generates. So yeah, you should be able to read it if you want to optimize it. So yeah, it takes some time. So it's number four is a bit less yellow since it deals with the library that is imported directly from C. So yeah, it's just really small. Yeah. And that number three, it deals with Python. So here it's a bit longer. Yeah. Is it clear? Okay. Any more questions? Anything else? Okay. Thank you so much. Here we have. Here we have. Here we have. Here we have.


2020, I think there's gonna be a lot of consolidation. I think that a lot of these bigger companies that weren't built right and had a solid foundation are gonna start consolidating with some of the bigger companies because when it rains, you don't wanna get wet. So I think getting under the umbrella of some of these bigger companies, I think that this will be the year of brands. I think that brands are really gonna start to emerge. You see a lot of entertainers and athletes, like you said, starting to join the industry. So obviously, you wanna use their influence in a positive way. So I think that brands are really gonna start trying to separate themselves. That's one of the plays for us is really trying to increase our visibility. Our motive is being, we are a lifestyle brand with purpose and our purpose is about empowering uplifting the black and minority communities that was most affected by the war on drugs and trying to create true opportunities for ownership and obviously job creation. For 2020, we see actually a lot of hemp on the horizon. There seem to be a lot more of those licenses coming on board.  You know, in this industry, it's crazy. We're trying to figure out what's gonna happen next week. But I guess in a couple of weeks it will be 2020. And we have been looking forward to think about how the industry will look next year. And I think that you're gonna see the bigger, more serious players that are focusing on the science that are not focusing on the hype per se but more on the science are gonna flourish. And you're gonna see a lot of operators, the smaller growers, unfortunately, that maybe got into the business without really knowing what they were doing 100%. And I spoke with a few yesterday and it's very, very unfortunate, but it's just the way it is. And we're gonna be seeing, I think, a little bit more of that next year. Predictions, I think it's gonna continue to shake out. I think that there are players who are based on compliance and those that have the most serious approach to compliance and product quality will be the winners. It takes a lot of capital to manage that in the most profound way possible. And I think that's gonna shake out a lot of industry newcomers who weren't quite prepared to have to operate at a much more dietary supplement, food and beverage type compliance level. So all of the folks making product we're gonna have to make it a way at such a level of quality and compliance that others in the industry, not in cannabis, but in food and beverages and dietary supplements in general, acknowledge that we are now a part of that industry, not just something that gets to play outside of it.


Can we talk about your contact with Julian through his childhood? It's part of the story, I think. It isn't part of the story. The story is that, you know, I'm attempting, in my own modest way, to get Julian out of the ship. Tumen Afanj is the hero of our time. He was the dawdling of the lap. All of a sudden, he's a puppet of Russia. My name is John Shipton. I'm Julian Afanj's father. WikiLeaks founder Julian Afanj has been arrested. One of the most notorious and controversial figures in custody. We'll remain behind bars until that extradition hearing, which has been set down for the end of February. We urge the Department of Justice to drop the charges. The maximum jail sentence of 175 years. Because he published the truth. How does it feel to be the father of such a controversial figure, somebody who's not known around the world? Was that him on the phone before? Yeah. Yeah. What are you talking about on a kind of regular basis? If Julian is extradited to the United States to face these charges, he will be the first, but not the last. What are your worst bits? That it just collapses under the strain. It looks as though what jail is due for living is seen to be a criminal act. Shipton, keep it up, man. Thank you. I wish I had your energy. I really do. I've done it. I've done it. I've done it.  Why do you think there's not a great public love and support? This is really a trillial, good question. What's at stake? If he goes down, so will journalism. But if people walked away from this film, understanding you, how would you feel about that? We're here, and this has only come about because we have a child in the ship, and I want to get him out. Get out your notebook. There's more. Welcome to CN Live, Season 4, Episode 9, The Assange Family Struggle. I'm Joe Laurier, Editor-in-Chief of Consorting News. Later today in London, Westminster Magistrates Court will send an extradition order from prison to be given to Republican Julian Assange to British Home Secretary Prateep Patel. This comes after the UK Supreme Court declined to hear Assange's appeal of a high court decision to allow the extradition to the United States to go ahead.  While the issues of press freedom and democracy itself are front and centre, there is a human side to Assange's story that is rarely seen. That side is revealed in a new film called Ithaca by Australian director Ben Lawrence. It tells the story of a father and a wife struggle to save his son and her husband. The film follows Assange's father, John Shipton, and his wife Stella Assange during the days of Assange's extradition hearing in February and September 2020, and Shipton's journeys throughout the United States and Europe to gain support for his son with governments and the public. Ben Lawrence sent his apologies that he cannot be here with us today, but John Shipton and Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton are with us now on CN Live to discuss the film and their struggle to free Assange. Thank you John and Gabriel for being with us. Thank you. You're welcome. I'd like to start before we talk about the case, what's happening right now in London. I wanted to talk a little bit about the film. The origins of the film, you were instrumental in how it started and how you hooked up with Ben Lawrence. Can you tell the audience briefly where this idea of the film comes from? Yeah, so I guess over the years I've never really been too involved with WikiLeaks or anything like that. Recording in progress. But I did go and visit Julian many times over the years, you know, whether it was Ellingham Hall or in the Ecuadorian Embassy. And in 2019, after he was taken from the Embassy to Belmush Prison, I went to visit him there with John Shipton and John Pilger. And it was during that time that he was being kept in the health wing of the prison. He was under solitary confinement 23 hours a day, you know, pretty intense conditions. And that day I'd never seen him like that. Over all the years, you know, no matter how bad it got in the Embassy, you know, after 2017 or anything like that, I'd never seen him in a state like that.  I'm a filmmaker, I'm a film producer, so we started thinking, well, how can we sort of make a film that is more, you know, an emotional journey, sort of a film that has an emotional hook for audiences, something that is a humanistic telling of this portion of this Julian's persecution. And that's when we started following John, you know, he was travelling around, travelling around Europe and the UK and Australia and we started following him with a camera and the sort of essence of the story developed, which was a father's fight to free his son, you know, something that was the sort of big door, I guess, that we decided that we wanted to go with, you know, which father wouldn't do anything to save their son. We wanted to try and connect with people on that very basic level, as well as, you know, include information about Julian's persecution and, you know, what's happened to him, how he's been treated by the CIA. So we shot, I think for about six or seven months before the hearing started and it was just before the hearing that Ben Lawrence as our director came on board. And gave the film some structure. There's over 13 hours of interview with John that sort of forms the backbone of the film. And if you've seen the trailer, you can see some of the interviewing style in the trailer, which makes it really unique, I think, and something really special that Ben the director was able to bring to the movie. And then we sort of went into, you know, after the extradition hearing, we continued to film, but we went deep into the editing process and edited for about 30 or 40 weeks of intense editing. Karen Johnson, our editor, had to make her way through, I think it was 180 or two, about 180 and 200 days of observational footage to sort of weave together these two stories.  So we started, you know, when when Stella was exposed in some court documents and she decided to, you know, take control of her public image and start to be a more public and a more public voice to Julian. That's when we started to follow her as well. So it became a sort of dual protagonist story, which, which is what it is today. What was the target audience for this film? Well, I think it's people who have sort of have an interest but may have to have an interest in the cause and an interest in Julian's plight but, you know, may have turned off over the years. You know, may have been sort of propagandised, I guess, by the constant, constant media barrage, but still have an interest in the case, still have an interest, you know, in, you know, what's happening to Julian. So, you know, it's a way for to come to bring those people in and show them a different side to this story that they usually are reading through the media headlines. So I think it's people who are really still interested, still active, but have sort of left it behind. And this is a way to sort of reconnect in a different way, other than say, you know, through the news and the Guardian or any of those sort of corporate media. What about hardcore supporters of Julian who know the story very well? What will they get out of this film? I think they'll get a lot. It's probably, you know, I think for them it's more a behind the scenes look at things, something that, you know, they sort of see the very public work that John and Stella do, but they don't know, you know, what's happening behind the scenes. So John and Stella had very, very intimate access with John and Stella and that was able to, you know, we're able to show aside a very personal side, the personal toll that this takes on very real people. And I think, yeah, the support supporters out there, you know, we'll be able to have it like a behind the scenes look at this at this sort of campaign that's been going on for years and years. So John Shipton is indeed the star of the film, one could say, and it focuses on his journeys around Europe, Australia and the US. We get a pretty unvarnished view of you, John.  Oh, that's a powerful question. You know, I just sort of more or less a private individual and I find it very awkward to watch myself. So I've only done so once and also when I'm sitting outside the theater and hear my voice coming through the doors, I think to myself, oh my God, there he is again, pontificating away.  But as for watching myself being a flawed human being all the time.  There's the most poignant moment for the film is not to give anything away as when Stella's giving a BBC interview and has to be paused and you're in the background grumbling about one thing or another. What do you, what do you think, John, what do you think the audience learns about Julian in this movie? Sorry, what does the audience learn about Julian? Well, the integrity and determination of a loyal family, they learned that. The closeness and passion with which Stella engages with Julian and his battle for freedom. The two beautiful children that are the blessings from a relationship, a development of love, amidst the most depraved circumstances. There's the blessing of two beautiful children and the engagement of Julian and Stella. So that's what they can learn. As for, as for Julian himself, you can see that he has his, in the film he has his profound moments of depression and equally warmth, care and curiosity about how his children are growing up in the world. Well, thank you, John. You can see John is still on the road advocating for his son. He's sitting in the back of a van on his way to Canberra. Elizabeth, you had some questions about the film, I think, and then we'll move on to the court case and what's happening in London today. Absolutely.  How difficult was it to go from a private citizen, as you mentioned, to front and centre of Julian's sort of public support system? Oh, well, you know, you used to read books about entertainers that one favoured or liked very much and how they would sometimes vomit before going on to the stage and all that sort of thing.  Well, you know, I was wrong. You don't get used to it and it becomes quite unbearable to watch yourself. And also, for some reason or other, it's really exhausting. I just don't, you know, get it.  But the wind down period is like four or five. Very strange. Do you have any comment on the case going forward in terms of filming again? Is there any chance of, you know, given the fact that so much has changed since a lot of the film was, you know, taped? Is there any chance you all will do some sort of part two or are you continuing to film or anything like that? We're doing a little bit of filming here and there and, you know, maybe down the track there will be an update. I think Ben, Ben sort of, we sort of crafted the film that we would sort of only really need an update if, you know, Julian was released. The sort of ongoing persecution is that that's the sort of feeling that I think the audience is left with this sort of never ending persecution. So we still are doing little bits and pieces of filming, but this is just, you know, this is one film of so many, there are so many, so much, so many films out there about Julian and this is a point of time, a personal look. And so I think, you know, if we look at all the other, you know, all the books that are written, all the films that are made and everything about this, about Julian's circumstances, I think, you know, it's nice to have it as a sort of one small personal piece that fits within all these great works that have been made. And speaking of that persecution, Gabriel, has Belmarsh reacted in any way to Julian being shown or heard on camera in the way that he was in this film? No, they haven't. I don't expect they will. But, you know, we'd like to keep that sort of for audiences to see in the cinema.  So, no, they haven't. And that, at least my next question, which is when will this film or will this film be available outside Australia for audiences to take a look at? So that's what we're working on at the moment. We're hoping, you know, sometime after June we'll start working on an international release. We hope to do the same style of release that we're doing here in Australia, you know, sort of grassroots screenings around the country where we get to talk to people directly with Q&A or different kinds of events around the film. So I've been getting heaps of demand, you know, messages every day from people over in the US and the UK saying, when can we have it? When would they? So there's lots of demand. And I think it's going to be, you know, it'll have a long life in that sense, which I'm very sort of happy to keep working on that. Yeah, definitely a huge demand, I imagine. Just one last broader question before I turn it back over to Joe. Can you, I thought one really good point in the film was in general the fact that this case doesn't just decide journalism, it also has a huge impact on the success of activism in, you know, a myriad of different forms, like whatever type of activism you're into, this case is really going to have a huge implication for that. So can you comment on that on the fact that the media does not address Julian's story to the degree it addresses a lot of, you know, activist type issues, whether it's, you know, animal rights, the climate, police brutality on and on and on. Just your thoughts on that issue.   So it's all these things that are put up before everyone so that they're allowed to sort of switch off and say, well, this is okay.  Show like really shine a light. Look what's actually happening to real people here. It's not, you know, this isn't okay.  So I think that, you know, by attaching that sort of emotion to the story, I'm hoping we can cut through all that, all the maligning that's been happening over the years. Thank you. I gave her last question about the film. Have you submitted it to film festivals for awards, for example. Yeah, we certainly have. We've submitted to a few overseas and we're campaigning, you know, with those festivals to get them in. We'll be showing in New Zealand in June.   And you're allowed to win awards for those sorts of films. You know, this sort of film, you know, we really have to, you know, really take it on the road and get and build a build an audience for it.  We're not we're not expecting that. In fact, we did we did approach Netflix with it and they said this isn't an issue that we want to get in the middle of.   So I don't think we can expect, you know, awards and accolades from the establishment for something like this. But the people want to see it, you know, and there's demand for it. So we're just going to take it to them. And that's what I think will build the audience and the audience will demand the awards rather than these established film centers and things. You have to admire Netflix's frankness there and telling you. I don't think that that stopped him from doing Alex Gibney film, but that's another matter. You're watching CN Live. We're discussing the film Ithaca about son family struggle to free their son and their husband and their brother. We've been speaking with Gabriel Shipton and John Shipton. John, I want to move on to the case right now in a few hours time, like exactly four hours, I think from now. Although most of the viewers, many of the viewers who are watching this, it will have already happened. But right now live, it's four hours away from the Westminster magistrates court sending the extradition order to Preeti Patel, the Home Secretary. This came after the Supreme Court declined to review the appeal from the Assange side to the High Court decision to allow the extradition to go ahead. And that High Court decision was based purely on these assurances that the United States has given that Assange will not be put into special administrative measures to harshest isolation conditions in the West. And then he'll receive adequate medical and health care. The High Court never challenged the fact that the lower court said that he was too sick to be sent to a prison like that.  So now it goes to Preeti Patel's desk. John, I want to ask you about this. What can you expect from, I mean, I think I know the answer, what do you expect from Preeti Patel? You know, expectations of the virtues of Preeti Patel and not how I run with this thing. Preeti Patel will respond to the politics of the circumstance. This means that an opportunity for Australia to make forceful, firm depositions to Preeti Patel to bring Assange back to Australia, to bring Julian back to Australia, to end this fast. Now, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, while in Washington as Deputy Prime Minister, made the statement that if he's done something wrong in the UK, charge him. Otherwise, send him home. This has within it, this statement has within it the understanding that the Espionage Act cannot be applied to Julian, who is a Australian citizen and who at the time of the leaks from Chelsea Manning was in London. I mean, France and Sweden. So it points out that the absurdity and the judicial kidnapping of Julian. Now, the legal part is finished for the moment. Okay, it's four weeks. It'll be on Preeti Patel's desk. It's purely political. So there is no excuse whatsoever for the Australian government to trot out that endless mantra that they do when they don't want to do anything at all, that there's a matter before the court. It's not before the court. It's entirely political at the moment. We expect, we them will make representations to the Australian government to the effect that they bring up Boris Johnson and Preeti Patel and get Julian sent back to Australia. Unfortunately enough, there's an Australian election. I think the day after this four week period ends right around the time when Patel has to make her decision. So wouldn't give enough time for the Australian government probably to do anything about it, at least in this phase. Well, they say, you know, it's a caretaker government. But these are simply excuses. With Kylie Moore Gilbert, the organisation to have her return to Australia from jail in Iran, a 10 year sentence for espionage, by the way, was held at the highest level of ASIS, Australian secret intelligence services. Exchange required three prisoners that were locked up in Thailand, Iranian prisoners, to be picked up by an aeroplane, an Australian aeroplane, a chartered Australian aeroplane. Just for them, picked them up in Bangkok and flew them to Tehran for the exchange. It's a matter of organisation, we're and will, you know, it's not a matter of, oh, we're a caretaker. Oh, it's before the court. Oh, he's had consul assistance. Oh, we can't do anything because the judge is going to make their decision tomorrow. These are simply excuses to acquiesce and thus become complicit over time acquiesce to the persecution of Julian Assange. I can expand upon the deluge of malice that the courts and that the Crown Prosecuting Service and the Swedish Prosecuting Authority have committed themselves to. That I best recommend Nils Melz, Professor Nils Melz, a book, The Pryol of Julian Assange, written when he was the United States, United Nations rapporteur for torture and unusual punishment. It's a wonderful book. Why is Australia so afraid of the United States on this case, John? Well, the thing is, since Whitlam government some years ago in the 70s, Whitlam was moving towards independent. And I think Kevin Rudd had a similar sort of problem in the United States. He has insisted that those people who run our government and those bureaucrats in powerful positions, accede to becoming a sartrappy or a vassal state without any independence. And thus we have become. But the circumstances now have changed considerably. Two things. First of all, there's a commodity supercycle and Australia only produces commodity. Consequently, we are vital. We're strategically vital continent. This gives us power that we didn't weren't able to use before. Secondly, although we are politically feeble, this opportunity can be taken up to develop some political muscle. So that Australia can again begin to negotiate more or less independent on the outside of the United States, but a more or less independent contributor to the United States rather than a vassal state. The government is in a strong position to make representation and to utilize the new circumstances that have unfolded over the last 12 months. Who are the interesting leverage that Australia suddenly has, particularly in this crisis of commodities that are brought about by the sanctions on Russia, which has created enormous shortages. We move on to the issue of Julian's health. There was a substantial change in that in his condition. His condition went on the first day of the hearing in October. He suffered a mini stroke. Now, Vanessa Berets of the magistrates court, based solely on depression, a few other mental conditions and some physical ailments denied his extradition. His condition, health condition, of course, unfortunately is much worse than when Berets ruled. How could this change the case, John, in any way? Well, I can't see, you know, there's no monster colder than the state. I cannot see compassion as one of the elements of state formation and state administration, but I can see political circumstances becoming more and more intense as Julian's health declines further. Well, compassion does exist within Australia and within the United States and within the United Kingdom. The people contain a compassionate outlook and sympathetic and they don't want to see anybody tortured to their death over a period of 14 or 15 years. We don't like that. So that will force and can force the government to act in, sorry, can force, can politically force the government to act in a compassionate manner. No, you may know or may not or may not want to say, but do you know if there will be a request for bail at this hearing today? Well, I don't know. The legal circumstances today, I don't know. They keep us private until the last minute, naturally, because your opponents become aware of things and can prepare for them. Elizabeth, if you have questions about the case today, you are muted now. So sorry. I was wanting to ask you all, you know, should Julian be extradited eventually at the end of this very long process? You know, what can you all do as a family? What can supporters do? What would be the reaction of you all to that? Would you go to the United States? Any thoughts on that? Yes, immediately. You know, the next day I'd be in New York, arraigning people, I mean, sort of bringing. Yeah, so we had very, very good reception in New York. We had 15 cities across the United States. We spoke in the first Press Gallery, that's down in Denver, and then we spoke in the Washington Press Gallery. Interestingly, in Washington Press Gallery is where the collateral murder video was released all those years ago by Julian. You know, the circumstances in the United States are buoyant and strong from the very highest levels of American society, right to the activists and grassroots people like me. So we would be there and we would sort of begin again to build a structure like we'd build in Australia. I can go on, Elizabeth, because the structure that we've built, as I think I mentioned last night, the structure we've built over three years just includes Mexico, the President of Obrador makes statements, very strong statements to have Julian free. In Brazil, 100 members of the parliament in the Assange Group, the same in Chile, the same in Argentina going over to Europe. There's a French National Assembly just last month, debated for an hour in their assembly officially, whether to give asylum to Julian Assange in France. We have a group of 12 in the Norwegian parliament, 25 in the UK parliament, 90 in the Greek parliament. Trying to indicate by this, that this is the tip of an iceberg and the actual power that descends below that tip is the support of people, people all over the world. In France and Germany, in France in particular, in the first place they is 20,000 people who are active supporters on Facebook and Discord and otherwise. In Germany 50,000. So it indicates to you that this is a global concern and a global problem to have global ramifications for ordinary people to be able to access news and for specialists be able to analyze knowledge and make opinions that can guide us. We've sort of begun the campaign in the US already. John and I were there twice last year. I went back for a third time at the end of the year. We're getting congressional support. People speaking, congress members are speaking out against what's going on, the indictment now. We're planning to go back again this year. And also we've raised a significant amount of funds that have been able to resource the campaign. So we've done fundraising through the sale of an NFT, Julian's NFT, which raised around 54 million US dollars. So now, you know, we have the funds to be able to fight on multiple fronts, you know, in the UK against the extradition and also in the US, the legal battle can be intensified there as well. So it sounds like from what you are saying that despite all the propaganda that has surrounded the Assange case for years and years, that there is an upswell now of support.  So like I said, despite this propaganda, you're all making headway, sounds like. Yeah, so when you talk about the Mexican president and the parliamentarians in various countries, clearly they get it. They understand what we kill each revealed, particularly about the United States and they are showing that there is even within allied countries of the US enough awareness. That the US is a country that should not have the impunity that it does. John, is that that's a direct result of the releases of the week, isn't it? That awareness. Yes, that awareness. Interestingly, I bumped into a retired Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official and he said, you know, how's it going, Johnny? You're getting when you went and then he revealed to me that in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, they use D plus on WikiLeaks. They look up stuff. They look up the cables. That's their resource. And if you look another good example is Raphael Correa, when he moved into government. The cables revealed to him that the United States Embassy paid the elite police force. And this, of course, immediately he became aware that this was a real problem. So, and so that's the benefit of the cables. What he immediately did was raise the wages of all other policemen to the level of the elite police. He solved the problem of a coup, you know, very clever. But that's one. There's 95,000 cables. Do you want another example? There's a good example there. Well, here's another example. One of the most important cables out of those 95,000 cables described a circumstance where in outside Baghdad and a group of Americans sold the United States soldiers broke into a house and murdered all the occupants and mother, father, the children and everything. Contemplating this crime, they called in an airstrike and obliterated all the remains of that family from the earth forever. That was in a report, a cable from the United States Ambassador in Baghdad to the State Department. It was read by the parliamentarians and the bureaucrats in Iraq and somehow or other, God knows how, but somehow or other, they gathered up their courage and said, we're not signing the status of forces agreement. So consequently, the United States and its allies had to remove their forces from Iraq. That history didn't, of course, didn't stop there. The United States continued on its journey and fostered ISIS and several other things. But a leak can stop a war, stopped that war, really important to understand the power. If you wish to become as familiar with state means and state diplomacy and state policy, you can become as knowledgeable by reading WikiLeaks D plus as any State Department operative. This is a real gift to people so that we can evaluate how our nations go about their business and where they fit in the hierarchy of power and how they utilise their influence within the hierarchy of power to bring about policies. And whether we agree with those policies or not, we're enabled to take actions to change the policy by knowing that how a policy is administered and who generates it really important. John, no matter what happens going forward in legal case, you've just described a victory, a great victory for the kind of journalism that corporate media has long ceased to do. And the information, the knowledge which you have just laid out there is what WikiLeaks has achieved with Julian Assange has achieved. I want to thank you, John and Gabriel, for joining this interview. I know you're both on the road and you're extremely busy, so I do appreciate your time with us tonight. I'm going to say goodbye now and as we're leaving, we're going to watch. The viewers will see a new, just released video from Doctors for Assange, an update from them. So for Elizabeth Voss, for Kathy Rogan, our producer, this is Joel Oria from CN Live saying goodbye and please stay tuned for the Doctors for Assange update. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, Gabriel. Julian Assange's fiancee Stella Morris announced recently that Mr. Assange had had a mini stroke on October 27, the first day of the latest extradition hearing, according to the Daily Mail. He was reportedly left with a drooping right eyelid memory problems and signs of neurological damage. This dangerous deterioration of Mr. Assange's health underscores urgent concerns raised by Doctors for Assange over the past two years. Therefore, once again, Doctors for Assange calls for Mr. Assange to be released from prison so he can access consistent, high quality, independent medical care, something which is impossible for him to obtain in Belmarsh prison. We reiterate that Mr. Assange is in no condition to undergo an extradition trial. Further, extraditing him to the harsh conditions of the inhumane US prison system should be out of the question. He should therefore be immediately and permanently released from prison. This latest medical emergency adds to the already dire state of Mr. Assange's health owing to his prolonged psychological torture. This includes 11 years of arbitrary detention, medical neglect, solitary confinement, obstruction of access to his lawyers, and an Orwellian legal prosecution that has violated the rule of law and due process, including that key accusations in the US indictment against Mr. Assange are marred by outright lies and a paucity of fact that he and his legal team have been surveilled by the CIA and that Mr. Assange has been targeted by that agency in a plan to kidnap and assassinate him. Throughout Mr. Assange has been subjected to concerted character assassination through propaganda campaigns in mainstream media across the globe. Assurances that Mr. Assange will not be subjected to harsh prison conditions by the very agency that has been plotting to kidnap and assassinate him are farcical. For the high court to accept such a ludicrous proposition, describing the assurances as solemn undertakings offered by one government to another calls into serious question the independence impartiality and integrity of the UK judiciary. The health of Mr. Assange and the health of our democracy, which depends on a free press and judicial integrity are both in serious jeopardy. This shameful and deeply damaging case should be dropped now and Julian Assange granted his long overdue freedom. If you are a consumer of independent news in the first place you should be going to is Consortium News and please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall. It's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of Consortium News it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much.


There are three areas for research and education for the future in developing countries. The first one is schools produce a large diversity of skills, what we call cognitive skills that basically are measured by test scores and exams. There is another variety of skills like discipline, like capacity to solve problems, other type of skills that we call socio-emotional skills that are important. And one area for research in developing countries is how institutions, schools, are producing these other type of skills. The second focus is there is this idea that developing countries are increasing enrollment but quality is flat or very bad. The system is receiving new individuals that usually come from low income households that because of this correlation have lower endowment of cognitive and socio-emotional skills. And we need to teach teachers on how to deal with this difference in skills of individuals. The third idea that I think is going to be very important in the policy debate in education is this tension between the incentive system and the outcomes of individuals. There are several programs that try to attach the incentives and payment to teachers to the final outcome of production of cognitive skills of students. We have evidence coming from developing countries that actually these programs work in some cases, in others not, but for sure the incentive triggers certain behaviors in teachers. Sometimes the behavior that triggers are not the ones that we want. For instance, teaching to the test. The second point is that a lot of the data that developing countries have is data that is not suitable to the problem at hand. And that makes these programs very challenging. We need to put special attention in the flow of new teachers, in the teachers that are entering the education system. When you change the type of people who are applying to programs and when you change the type of training that the future teachers are going to receive, you will have a very large impact in the future of the system. So in conclusion, we know that there are some policies from the demand side affecting families and students that can trigger important change in the supply side, meaning the school and education system. If we can start acting in these policies, for instance, early childhood education and changes in the family in the way they care about kids that are in the first stage of their life, that can have a huge impact in the future of the education system.


All right, wait a minute. No, wait a minute. Let's see. He's great. Harry Hamburg, Martin Burr, he's got something to do with it. President, this is our daily news center for on Saturday. Yes, we saw it. We're going to have some coffee. We want to pay you. We'll be telling you quickly. Hey, wait a minute. Yes. Very good, very good. Thank you. We're going to talk about Ferdinand Marcos, and I wonder whether you feel, in the light of the events of the past months, whether he's abused the hospitality that you offered to him? No, I don't think so. And I can't put out of my mind the fact that North should any of us, I think, that his leaving of the islands was preceded by his denial of permission to the military in that time of turbulence and street fighting and so forth, to take action, because the one thing he did not want was bloodshed or civil strife of that kind. And so he left rather than permit that. And so it still holds that he's welcome here as long as he wants to stay and can move on if he prefers. So is he welcome here if we see that he's continuing to involve himself in the politics back in the Philippines? Well, now we've faced that, but so far no evidence has been shown to me that he has done anything of that kind. Well, as I recall, at about the time that you met him in Hawaii and you spoke to him by phone that very same weekend, he had placed a phone call back to a rally in the Philippines and said, but some people considered to be inflammatory statements, but you don't feel what he's... At that time, and when I talked to him, he feels that he was elected president under their constitution. The election was then certified by the legislature as I say, as their law called for. And he was talking in terms of hoping that there could be another, under the test of this, another election in which he felt that he would be reestablished then as having been elected president. You don't believe that in view of contributing to the stability of the Philippines that he should absent himself from involvement there or a long distance? Well, as I say, I don't know to what extent. I haven't seen evidence to any extent that he's doing anything that has brought forth the little abortive coup that took place the other day. Well, one final question on that, the statement that was officially issued by the White House yesterday seemed to be critical of him, that he was, that what he had been doing in the past was inconsistent with the way he should be comporting himself in the country. Well, I think the State Department made a statement that was more to that effect. And as I say, we ourselves, we don't want, that was one of the reasons why we were forced, why we tried to be helpful at the time when he left, was we don't want the Philippines to descend into civil strife. Let me switch to developments with the Soviet Union and the arms talks. In the last few weeks, ever since your solitude decision, you and other White House officials have been fairly upbeat about what you consider to be the Soviets' attitude that they were being more serious and so forth. And yet it doesn't seem to be any instances where you or officials have cited specifics. Can you share any specifics either from Gorbachev's letter or from some of the specific proposals that we've seen from them recently that gives some basis to this optimism? Well, yes, the very fact that here is the first, to my knowledge, the first Russian leader who has actually proposed reducing the number of weapons and who has also voiced the opinion that our goal should be the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Well, that's been our goal for years. In fact, I was campaigning on that in 1980 that I supported and would support and hope that we could see the end of nuclear weapons total elimination. So obviously, there's more reason for optimism in this. Now as to specifics, let me point something out. The mix of weapons and all this such, that you could have an agreement on an ultimate goal, like for example, the proposal to cut the weapons by 50 percent. But then you can have disagreement on how do you best keep both sides equal while you're arriving at this with regard to the different mix. It isn't as if you're just talking about one specific kind of weapon. And let me point out that when we in November proposed an arms plan in response to some of his statements about the overall decrease in weapons, it took them until May to come back with their specific answer. Well, now it's May and now it's only July yet. And we are working very hard on our response to his latest arms proposal. And we're very hopeful that we're coming closer to eliminating some of the differences and to which we can say it's time now to come together on this. Well, you've been making the point about Gorbachev being the first leader to express his desire for some time, even prior to May when you announced the assault decision. Is there anything in the last few weeks in the offers that they reportedly tabled? Is there anything that really stood out to you in the letter that you received from Gorbachev that gives a more concrete basis to this whole, rather than a general... Well, yes, in that they are actually talking specific percentages and so forth of weapons. And this is unusual, this has not taken place before. And certainly we're going to give them the benefit of any doubt that they wouldn't be saying these things if they were not expecting us to come back with meeting that as to whether we saw eye-to-eye with them on the numbers and so forth. And as I say, we're in the spirit of negotiation. That's what we're doing is framing our answer now. Well, for instance, one of the reported offers in what some people seem to think as a fundamental change would permit research on SDI. Was that one of the things that we find promising or is there a feeling here that that really isn't offering us a great deal? Well, we know that there are probably several years to go and the research that's carried on and that is within the framework of present-day treaties to conduct that kind of research. They have been doing that for much longer than we have. And we're aware of that. So you don't consider that much of a concession? Well, it is a concession to the extent that it is a step forward from just their one-time flat declaration that we must give up that research. What about the other proposal that to some people stood out as far as the Soviet's latest offer was their proposal concerning forward-based systems and forward-based weapons, the bombers and fighters on carriers within range of the Soviet Union, and not counting them? Is that something that you consider an important departure for them? Well, yes, but this is what I mean about that mix of weapons that we all have. And we have felt, now maybe we'll have to change our mind on this, we had felt for a time that the most destabilizing weapons were the intercontinental ballistic missiles, that this is the one thing that when we say destabilizing, that when people think of nuclear war, they think of a button being pushed and 30 minutes later their world blows up. And so we had thought if the approach could be to try and get at those weapons and arrive at some agreements and then take up the others, because they have the other kind too, just as we do. It's true they have placed greater reliance on the ballistic missile and we have placed more of ours on a triad of having the submarine launch airborne and the ballistic missile. One of the reasons why the others are not as destabilizing is we are accustomed in recent wars of weapons carrying or I mean submarines, ships, airplanes, carrying weapons that they can then launch or drop the enemy place. And we know that there are defenses against those craft that anti-aircraft can shoot down an airplane or fighter planes can, interceptors can bring them down and so forth. Anti-submarine warfare. I am very happy to be able to talk about that for this few seconds here because for several years now, every once in a while I am hung out to dry by some critic who still says that the first time I ever talked about that particular subject, some of you in the media misinterpreted and have declared that I claimed that you could call back a bomb or a submarine missile once it had been fired and never did I ever think that's an old story. But oh, just recently somebody voiced this in a criticism of the whole thing and talking and no, it never was. I was saying that the same destabilizing fear that people have of the, as I say, push the button and something blows up does not apply to weapons carried by conventional craft. That's, in effect, what I was saying. Well, I was curious whether in the letter you got from Chairman Gorbachev, whether it was pretty much a formal document outlining their latest offers or whether there was anything of a personal nature that spoke to you? Well, all I can say is it was a very extensive letter and went into great detail and we're treating it in that way. One of the things I was curious about with the timing of the summit, if one happens, is that if it slips into 1987 as there has been some speculation, whether you would still be committed to going to Moscow in the same year? If it timed out that way, I am hoping still that this will, that the meeting will be held in 1986. That was what we agreed to, that an 86 meeting here and an 87 meeting in Moscow, if there are things that come up that make it impossible to have the meeting earlier than 1987, well, then I think that the third meeting for Moscow would sort of have to be based on whatever the time spread was necessary to prepare for a third meeting. How does the second meeting have to differ from the first meeting in terms of expectations, in terms of the necessity to arrive at some agreement by that point that's a little bit more concrete in the past? Well, I think first of all now we know each other. We have met. There have been discussions on these subjects. Remember that in that first meeting, for example, arms control or arms reductions, this was just a subject in which there had been no real communication on details. At least now we would be sitting down facing each other with quite an experience between us of concrete offers and counter offers. Does there have to be, do you think that the next summit there has to be some concrete arms control agreement? Well, I'm worried if you could have one before that, it's all right with me. But I would hope that we could perhaps agree upon something that then from maybe details we would turn over to our negotiators in Geneva that we both have there. One final question on subject to the Soviets, there's some talk that your response to the chairman is already drafted. Is there any way you could give some idea of how you're responding to him? No, you've got to remember this is a part of negotiations and I've never believed in 25 years of labor management negotiations. I have never believed that you negotiate beforehand in public because that's part of the business negotiating deal with the other individual. On turning to South Africa, there are a lot of people, including Republicans, who have been saying that we have not done enough to open ties with leaders of the black opposition there and if the Bota government should not be able to hang on that we would be faced with another hostile state in a strategic location, do you think that there's any substance to that concern and if so what are we going to do about that? Well, no it isn't so and we do feel that there's a great need for communication with responsible black leaders there and try to bring it about as a matter of fact both of Bouddhalaisi, the chief of the Zulus, the largest black group in South Africa and Bishop Souto, they've both been here and I've met with them. What about leaders of the ANC? Would you favor open dealings between U.S. diplomats and leaders of the ANC? This is all right with me on the recognition that the ANC there is no question has a communist influence but at the same time I realize that there must be many of that organization that are not communist and so it would have to be with the recognition that there is a radical element there that by its own statement and declaration wants only a violent settlement and as long as they're aware they know that we're aware of that yes we could talk and express ourselves to them about how wrong we think that is and perhaps the other elements of the ANC don't support such radicalism would take a position themselves. President Bota was pretty blunt when he rejected your appeal to allow public commemoration of the anniversary of the Soweto riots. What was your reaction to that? He did not really mince his words when he said that they would not exceed to that. Well there's some times when you give advice and the advice isn't taken and from our vantage point over here it seemed to us we were in inviting more bloodshed and violence or to do that was inviting more bloodshed and violence. Does the fact that there's a tone of his response support a contention that we're not having the influence there that your administration says we're staying to our policy to continue having? Well at least we want to stay to our policy so that we can continue contact. Yes there are going to be times when and there are times when there is disagreement. We've made suggestions that we thought might be profitable he's there dealing with the problem and he has factions behind him on both sides support for what he's trying to do because I believe he honestly is trying to take steps that will bring them closer to the end of apartheid but he then has political elements in his government that don't want an end of apartheid and so he's got some tough judgments to make. We know you ruled out economic sanctions and dealing with South Africa There's a lot of speculation about lesser steps. Are those a distinct possibility if we feel that the both of us... Well we have taken lesser steps. There are certain sanctions but the things that are being proposed by too many people we think would only be hurtful of the people we're trying to help that they would cause great economic hardship not only to the blacks and the black workers in South Africa but you have to remember that the front line states many of those solidly black governments surrounding them their economies are actually dependent on the economy of South Africa and we could wind up doing things that would be very hurtful to these other African states. One last question on South Africa what do you think the role when we were talking about black leaders in the country and the necessity of dealing with them what do you think the role of Nelson Mandela should be? Well he's a sort of an enigma right now he undoubtedly is a leader in ANC and he was incarcerated because he openly advocated violence now there seems to be some word that he has indicated that he he may be stepping back from that position so I think it's a I think it'd be worth talking to him that well do you think he should be freed immediately? Well I don't know that that's a decision for us to make I would it seems from our point view point over here that this could if it is true that he is advocating negotiations rather than than just outright violence that then this this could be most helpful. I'd like to ask you a quick quick question on Qaddafi who we haven't heard from for some while do you do believe to use the phrase that Secretary Schultz once used that all the actions we've taken have put in it put him back in his box? Well I don't know but he has stepped back and sort of disappeared from you might say public life and you have to depend on just some observations in trying to get intelligence on that it also there is a an impression that there are that the government is is more of a collective now that that there are other leaders of prominence surrounding him and having more of a voice in government than they previously had although there's no evidence that he's been removed from the top spot in government but there is no question he has not been active. What is our what evidence have you seen about his state of mind? There's been a lot of speculation about that. Well I don't think we have anything more than the things that have been visible in his appearances where he has seemed to be somewhat changed from his previous bravado. What is your feeling about the extent to which this threat seems to have subsided is it? Well we can't help but recognize that it has and that the original fears that there would be an immediate outbreak of widespread terrorism has not taken place but at the same time we don't we're not going to sit back and get overconfident terrorism is still present terrorism is still there and must be dealt with. I do think that we made some progress in Tokyo at the economic summit where all of us agreed that we were going to work closer together on this matter. There's I wanted to turn to a domestic politics for a minute. This year more than in previous years the religious right is making its presence felt in the Republican Party and there's even a possibility that a television evangelist might be a presidential candidate. That's a practice politician. Do you have any fears that other voters who do not share fundamentalist tastes might be turned off by this if this wing becomes a dominant element of the party? Well I would I would hope not and I don't think I haven't seen any efforts that have been trying to dominate our our party in any way but I just have to go back to a time when there were people that felt that there was something wrong with an actor seeking public office and my answer then and my answer now is that I don't think that any legitimate trades or professions should be barred from participation in public life. That's the meaning of democracy. You shouldn't judge someone by how they make their living. Well just as a practical vote getting matter though wouldn't wouldn't it be a concern that that mainstream voters for lack of a better word who you know who who's for whom religion is not the prime motivation would be a little would be uncomfortable with an act for instance an act of candidacy if Robertson should win the Republican nomination. Well let's go back to another time when religion was an issue. There was a man running for president nominated by his party no member of his religion had ever served as the office of the presidency and he took his case directly to the other religions and spoke to them in their meetings and their gatherings and opened himself up to their questions and all and he was elected president. Do you think that's comparable somebody for whom it just became an issue as opposed to somebody who's no but I think it's indicative of the American people and their broad-mindedness when when they're faced with the problem and suddenly a religious prejudice disappeared as an issue in that campaign and I think the same thing true today but the I have confidence and trust in the people they're the ones who will make the decision. Well speaking of 1988 I was curious as to whether you've ever you've done much thinking whether you do much thinking about how you're going to spend your time or two years away from that date have you what decided what it is you're going to do with yourself when you're out of this office? Oh there are well the usual things but no I don't think that I'll have any problem of having nothing to do. Well I mean do you see yourself in the model of in the model of former president Nixon who has become very active in speaking out on political matters or or sort of Eisenhower who retired and and wasn't heard from all that much? No but I can't I can't have a health problem the I would think that once having done this you'd be active to the extent that you can be legitimately helpful and I think you have an obligation to the things you believe in and to the the party to not just withdraw and say I'm not going to lift a finger I expect I will remain neutral in primaries I think as titular head of the party that's required but I'm going to be very active and do everything I can for candidates that I believe in and causes that I believe in as long as I'm able. Well I noticed that the first lady has a contract to write a book I noticed that Mike Dever has a contract to write a book about you and the first lady and the presidency are you going to write a book? There are people talking to me about that. Are you holding now for a big advance? No no I haven't even discussed that. Having done a book once I know something of what a chore it is so I can't say that I'm bubbling over the delight at the prospect but at the same time I suppose there is a responsibility to seriously consider such a thing as there'll be so many others that are writing about that and always are writing about their view maybe it is proper that the person they're writing about has a say. What kind of book were you thinking of a more of a personal reminiscing or would it I haven't I haven't let my mind dwell on that. But you have you have talked to publishers about that? No I haven't talked to publishers. No? You've talked to someone? No I mean that people people who surround me here other people of that kind that have thought that it was an obligation for me to write a book and have talked to me about it. Let me turn to some some matters of interest in New York you when you were in New York on Saturday you told Andrew O'Rourke the man who's running against Governor Cuomo at least according to him that you were gonna make a point of coming up the campaign for him. Do you think considering what Governor Cuomo represents as in your mind a high priority in beating him in 88 excuse me this year? Well having been a governor myself I have very strong feelings about the importance of the governorship. We are a federation of sovereign states. We have been through a half a century or so in which there was prevalent a widespread movement in Washington to try and minimize the states and reduce them to administrative districts of the federal government. I think that that movement has been halted at least for a while and no so I as I say I feel I feel the State House is a very important part of our democratic process and well does the fact yes I would like to be helpful if I can. Well does the fact that the resident is Mario Cuomo make any extra difference? Well I think that in our basically two party system there is a difference in the philosophy of of the two candidates and I support the philosophy of it's carried by Mr. O'Rourke which is one of as I say the the sovereignty of the states the reduction of government and its impact on the people its intrusiveness and all these are the things I believe in so I guess I can't make you rise to the bait. I can't make you rise to the bait of Governor Cuomo. His philosophy is a conservative and last week Senator Damato who is basically one of your own said that he too thought that that Manion did not have the highest legal qualifications and that he would hope that you would not press it.  Well I'll have to have a talk with him because maybe he's heard some of the things that are being noised around about my nominee. I will never send a name up there that I do not believe is fully qualified for the position and I will send names up there of people that I believe look upon the judicial process as one of interpreting the law not writing it and not trying to impose their social views on the people. We've had too much of that on the part of too many judges over recent years and I think the attack against Manion is unfounded as a matter of fact it's been based on a number of outright falsehoods. That's all right well and and what this this making something of the fact that the bar association only rated him as qualified there have been a couple of presidents in not in fairly recent years who actually nominated people who were reported as unqualified by that bar association and their judges were were approved or their nominations approved they say that it was because it was only qualified one of the last two presidents before me between them there were a total of 282 judges that were appointed who were rated qualified by the bar association. I believe that the attack on Manion is nothing other than a disagreement with his political philosophy and one of the most outspoken opponents in the Senate told him that to his face now he's seeking to back away from that but said that he had no quarrel with his qualifications or his character integrity or anything of that kind he just disagreed with him politically. Let me wrap up with a pair of questions on Central America and one is that now that you have won the aid that you wanted to send to the conjures and it's not only our prestige behind them but our money what happens now if they get beaten or defeated by the Sandinistas what's the what what is the next step? Well that next step would be based on what the follow-up would be and if the Sandinistas are unchecked that would be another Cuba that would be a totalitarian communist state intent on spreading its revolution across other borders to other countries and I think whoever was in this chair here would have to take appropriate action and whatever that might be you can't predict but I happen I just believe that by giving the freedom fighters the tools they need to become a force this will provide the leverage that hopefully can bring the Sandinistas to the negotiating table to then discuss the democratization of their country and the goals which they themselves pledged to support in the revolution against Samosa that they were supportive of the idea of a pluralistic democratic society with freedom of speech and press and all those other things and there can be no doubt no question at all but that the Sandinista government once in power as the strongest faction of the revolutionaries through the other revolutionaries out and created a totalitarian communist government which totally was contravened the the promise that they had made during the Samosa revolution. One last point and that I'm curious about in retrospect do you think it didn't matter because you won the contravote but retrospect do you think that you should have called Tip O'Neill to ask him for that opportunity to go to the house rather than rather than having Chief of Staff do it? No I think it was pure routine for it to be done that way and very frankly I think that was unprecedented for the response that we got. Other presidents have made the same request and have been granted permission to appear before one House of the Legislature and several of those were Democrats. Well thank you Mr. President I appreciate your having me in today. Well pleased to be here. I'm glad there were no Rose Garden events this week.