Podcasts about European Parliament

The European Parliament elects a new president, COVID-19 case rates surge across the globe, and diplomacy continues over Russian security demands in Europe.   Articles Mentioned in the Podcast   Mary Beth Sheridan, “Mexico has refused to close its borders during the covid-19 pandemic. Does that make sense?” Washington Post, January 12, 2022   Stephen Sestanovich, “The Russia-Ukraine Crisis: A Scorecard on Biden's Response,” CFR.org, December 23, 2021   Adam Tooze, “Chartbook #68 Putin's Challenge to Western hegemony - the 2022 edition,” January 12, 2022

While the coming of December once evoked warm sentiments for the upcoming celebration of the birth of Christ, it had been overshadowed by the harsh weather that was only going to get colder. “One of the season's jokes was that Dante had been wrong, and that hell was not hot at all, it was, in fact, as cold as a Romanian apartment in winter.” (1) But, even if the apartments were warm, Christmas was not celebrated, and even though ninety percent of Romanians belonged to the Christian Orthodox faith, church bells did not ring. By the 1980's, the most celebrated day in Romania was no longer the birth of Jesus the Christ, but under compulsion, the birth of its  dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu - who was aptly nicknamed, the antichrist. (2) But as 1989 was coming to a close in mid December, as we all know now, the people of Romania were unknowingly on the brink of not only openly celebrating the birth of their Christ, but the death of their antichrist. But what many don't know, was that this Romanian Revolution all started by the humble but powerful convictions of a Hungarian pastor named Laszlo Tokes.Only Romanians forty-five years and older could remember the sweet sounds of church bells ringing! For under Nicolae Ceausescu's Romanian Communist Party, they were no more. Romania had been in the grips of Communism for some time, but by the 1980's it had become intolerable. Despite the country being very fertile, like most Communist countries food was scarce and people were starving. Most of the nation's raw materials were being exported to foreign creditors to pay off debts that Nicolae had accumulated. Because of this debt, Nicolae's aim was to strengthen the work force, causing Romania to reach a population of 100 million. To do so, he outlawed abortion and contraceptives.And in massive block apartments that housed the growing nation, hot water was only available one day of the week and the electricity only worked when the government wanted it to. Every winter, hundreds of people froze to death in their apartment or died from “asphyxiation as gas stoves were shut off, only to be then turned back on without warning, filling sleeping apartments with gas.” (3) Meanwhile, the secret police, the Securitate, had made Romania into a police state.  It is believed that one in four citizens would alert the Securitate of anyone suspected of being un loyal to the Government. Actions, speech, and even opinions that did not approve Nicolae were strictly forbidden. Because of the overwhelming numbers of the police state, organizing dissent was nearly impossible, and “Even by Soviet Bloc standards, the Securitate was exceptionally brutal.” (4)But on December 16th, in the western city of Timisoara a public protest was being held in response to the government's crackdown against the Reformed church pastor, Laszlo Tokes. He had been critical of Nicolae's government - mainly that the people of Romania not only, could not exercise their God-given rights, but did not even know what they were. The Romanian Communist Party charged the pastor with enticing ethnic hatred and sought to have him forcibly removed. But his parishioners, (who just two years before only numbered a few dozen had now grown to nearly five thousand), protected their pastor and his pregnant wife Edith by surrounding their church with a human shield. Tokes knew of the plan for his capture so he encouraged his church a few days beforehand stating, “I have been issued a summons of eviction. I will not accept it, so I will be taken from you by force…They want to do this in secret because they have no right to do it. Please, come… and be witnesses of what will happen. Come, be peaceful, but be witnesses.” (5)And the church came in numbers. So much that their collective resistance rendered the Securitate unable to remove the pastor. And as the hours past into nightfall, more and more people from other churches joined the protest into the next day. By now, many other supportive spectators had joined the cause and began to take the message further. Within a day the demonstration for the pastor sparked a protest in the city. And within a few more days the protest in the city would in turn spark a wild fire of dissent among a brutalized nation.Pro Romanian chants and songs that had long been outlawed, broke out among the people. The crowd grew so large and cantankerous around the church that a large portion decided to take their protest to the central square of Timisoara. This was when the Securitate made their move. In the pre-dawn hours of December 17th, the secret police burst through the crowd, broke the church door, and captured Tokes and his wife. Just as fast as they came, the secret police then disappeared into the darkness from where they emerged.But as the sun began to rise the public outcry was only beginning.By early morning the central square of Timisoara was filled with protestors confronting the Securitate with candles of unity and songs proclaiming freedom - but others objectors were not as peaceful. Having heard the uprising was becoming too much for the local police, the military was called in with armored carriers and tanks. At the command of Nicolae's wife, Elena, the military then opened fire into the protestors killing men, women, and children.By the next few days, the uprising in Timisoara was nearly squashed by military force. But the cries for freedom and justice from those who perished had been heard throughout the whole nation. Having been in Iran, Nicolae quickly returned to his palace in Bucharest on the evening of December 20th to publicly condemn the unrest in Timisoara the following morning. Nicolae addressed a gathering of approximately 100,000 people packed upon the door steps of his nearly 4 million square foot palace on December 21st. (6) But it was too late.In the middle of his speech which praised his communist country and condemned the protestors at Timisoara as being “Fascists”, panic broke out among the crowd.  It was the first time that Nicolae had ever been booed by a crowd - and it would be his last. There was 3.5 minutes of confusion that interrupted the speech as the cameras stopped visually recording. Whatever the mysterious disturbance was, it clearly signaled the end of Nicolae's reign. Confusion and violent protests continued throughout the night in Bucharest. The House of the Republic was being overrun.Around noon on December 22nd Nicolae, his wife, and four others were rushed into a helicopter and extracted from their stately home. As a revolution was evident and now unstoppable, the military soon defected. The Ceausescu's were forced to land and arrested only three and a half hours later. While all this was taking place a new Government Council was being formed and a military tribunal placed the couple in court martial. They were charged with the genocide of 60 thousand Romanians and other fiscal crimes.The trial, which was largely a spectacle was held on December 25th. It lasted for about two hours and delivered death sentences to the Dictator and his wife. Because the Ceausescu's didn't recognize the court's authority they declined to have any legal aid. Throughout the trial Nicolae kept looking at his wrist watch as if waiting to be rescued. It never came. From the make-shift courtroom, the couple was then handcuffed and shuffled outside. Nicolae was complacent, while Elena was quite bitter and kept commanding the guards to be gentle with her lest they break her wrists. While many military personal offered to execute them, only three paratroopers were selected. With their service rifles in hand, the three opened fire on the elderly couple just outside the courtroom. Nineteen bullets were fired in total. Although the trial and executed bodies were televised, the actually execution was not caught on camera since the paratroopers didn't wait for the command to shoot, causing the cameraman to miss the moment.By midday on December 25th, the antichrist and his wife were dead. And for the first time in 40 years, the streets of Romania were filled with people crying in sincere celebration! Make shift Christmas trees were being erected and throughout the country a familiar carol played, as the church bells were once again ringing. But now they pealed more loud and deep: as if to say, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, The right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.”___________________________________________________________________________Pastor Tokes and his wife were soon released from where they were taken. Laszlo would go on to serve in the Reformed Church and extend his influence within Romania's European Parliament. He received numerous awards and was even honored in Washington D.C. in 2009 being awarded the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom for his role in helping to overthrow Romanian communism. He is 69 year old and continues to live in Romania today.In the immediate wake of the Revolution, a large bronze statue of a Soviet soldier that domineered a public square, was taken down, melted, and recast into church bells. (7) And their continued sound has inspired more to be cast even today. In just 2017 Romania's Redemption Cathedral dedicated one of the biggest church bells in the world weighing in at 25 tons. Half of Bucharest's nearly 2 million free citizens can hear it when rung. (8)And hearing bells when they ring is much more than just something we sense with our ears but something we can sense and comprehend with our hearts. In was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1863, that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow heard the church bells ring on Christmas. Hearing them stirred his depressed heart and revived a belief in a promise that he had stopped believing. He put pen to paper and wrote the now famous poem, “Christmas Bells”. He authored it in an extremely painful time of his life and the nation's as it was in the very middle of a bloody Civil War. The war mixed with personal loss made the grace and love of God hard to see. Although it was written 126 years before the Romanian Revolution, it was and remains an appropriate message that even in the darkest hours, God is not dead nor is He asleep. For at the very heart of Longfellow's poem (and the reason I believe it endures) is the angelic promise - that with the arrival of Jesus, God in the flesh, true peace on earth and goodwill toward men can be had. (Luke 2:13-14) And this message was made for all mankind for all times!If we want peace on earth and goodwill extended to all people, Christ must no longer lay in a manger within our minds but sit upon the throne of our hearts. That's my prayer and hope for you and for myself! Merry Christmas!Verse: When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan. Psalm 29:2Cited Work:1. https://www.rferl.org/a/Finally_We_Called_It_Christmas_Again_My_Role_In_Romanias_Revolution__/1908965.html2. https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-revolution-then-and-now/29660285.html3.https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-revolution-then-and-now/29660285.html4. Smith, Craig S (12 December 2006), "Eastern Europe Struggles to purge Security Services", The New York Times5. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/how-a-reformed-church-overthrew-communism-in-romania/6. As of 2020, the Palace of the Parliament is valued at €4 billion, making it the most expensive administrative building in the world. The cost of heating, electricity, and lighting alone exceeds $6 million per year, comparable to the total cost of powering a medium-sized city. (Wikipedia)7. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/capitalism-take-its-toll-1.1094028. https://www.romania-insider.com/romanias-redemption-cathedral-will-have-25-ton-bell-with-the-patriarchs-portrait-on-it/Audio Clip:Death of a Dictator - ABC News - 1990, Feb 28, 2017 (YouTube)Nixon welcomes Romanian president, Ceausescu, to White House, Nov 16, 2016 (YouTube)Nicolae Ceausescu LAST SPEECH, Aug 28, 2011 (YouTube)Music:Cold Wind Bells by July Morning in Cinematic (Audiojungle) Documentary by Music_Beats in Cinematic (Audiojungle) Cold Cinematic Landscape by Aleksey Chistilin in Atmospheres Soundscapes (Audiojungle)  Cameron Hood and Carlie Alderink from the Tiny Winter Hymnal EP . Link Below: https://soundcloud.com/cameronhood/i-heard-the-bells-on-christmas?in=cameronhood/sets/tiny-winter-hymnal-ep&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcastIf you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends April 29th 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.ukhospitality.org.uk/https://twitter.com/UKHospKatehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-nicholls-093b0514/ Kate Nicholls is CEO of UKHospitality, the powerful voice representing the broad hospitality sector, having previously worked as CEO and Strategic Affairs Director of the ALMR.In July 2019, Kate was appointed Chair of the Tourism Alliance, the membership organisation for the tourism industry comprising of leading trade associations/trade bodies within the sector. Kate is also Chair of Mayor of London's Night Time Commission and is also a member of the Events Industry Board, London Food Board, Tourism Industry Council, Cultural Cities Enquiry, London & Partners Members Group and the Advisory Board for the Institute for Industrial Strategy.After gaining a degree in English and a post-graduate diploma in competition law, Kate worked as a researcher in the House of Commons and European Parliament before joining Whitbread as Government Relations Manager, starting her career in hospitality in 1993. Kate was Director at one of the largest independent public affairs companies, working with a number of hospitality, retail and leisure accounts before establishing her own strategic communications consultancy in 2000. She is a graduate of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and Kings College London.A highly motivated Board-level adviser with a proven track record in devising and delivering strategic public policy and communication campaigns. Over 25 years experience working in a variety of government, corporate, agency and freelance roles. Transcription:Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Kate Nicholls, CEO of UKHospitality and the Co-chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. Kate answers your burning questions on how to attract and maintain talent in the current challenging climate. If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I know how incredibly busy you are, so I'm very grateful.Kate Nicholls: Thank you. It's great to be with you. I don't think I've had any time in the last two years really where it hasn't been incredibly busy, so it's good to take some time out and have a chance to have a chat. So thank you for having me.Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. You are very welcome. I'm glad I could give you that time. Right, Kate, icebreaker questions, because this is where we start all of our podcast interviews. I want to know what is at the top of your bucket list?Kate Nicholls: Ooh, well, for the last two summers we'd been planning ... My eldest was just about to go to University when COVID hit, and for the last two summers we'd been planning to go to Costa Rica as a sort of last big family holiday. And of course that's been canceled for the last two years. So top of my bucket list at the moment is to go on holiday with my two daughters, ideally Costa Rica, but actually I'd settle for anywhere at the moment. I haven't really had a proper break. But yeah, Costa Rica.Kelly Molson: Costa Rica, definitely. Yeah. I hear you. I feel like anywhere with some sun right now would probably do you the world a good, Kate.Kate Nicholls: Exactly.Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?Kate Nicholls: Well, to be fair, they've never gone away from my wardrobe, but I would really like to bring back the wrap dress. They were such a good staple for anybody who worked in the '80s and '90s and the early '00s. Quite like to bring them back as a major fashion trend.Kelly Molson: Yeah, good. Can't go wrong with a wrap dress, can you? Boots, wrap dress, cardie, done.Kate Nicholls: You can't. Very forgiving, pair with boots or heels or flats or trainers, and you can just adjust it according to how you're feeling during the week.Kelly Molson: It's the perfect work-to-evening outfit. They're perfect.Kate Nicholls: Exactly.Kelly Molson: Okay, Kate, and this might be a little bit like asking you what your favourite child is, but I want to know what your favourite restaurant is?Kate Nicholls: Oh, that's the difficult one because it changes so much depending on how I'm feeling and the time of day and what I'm doing. But during the lockdown, my local Korean cafe has been my go-to place for getting a quick fix, some comfort food, and they've kept me going throughout lockdown. I'm a big fan of street food.Kelly Molson: Oh yeah, love street food. We have a really big street food community in Cambridge, actually, and it's just amazing, isn't it? Like being able to try all those different cuisines in one place? Fantastic.Kate Nicholls: It is. It is. And I think I've got kind of a butterfly brain, so being able to go try lots of little things, lots of little samples and eat that kind of stuff is great. But the other thing we did do over the summer, my daughter and I, we went and celebrated the new three Michelin star female chefs that we had in London that were awarded. So again, I go from street food to high-end.Kelly Molson: Love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, Kate, it's unpopular opinion time. I ask everybody that comes on the podcast to share an unpopular opinion with us. It can be humorous, can be serious, whatever it needs to have to be your unpopular opinion.Kate Nicholls: Well, I did think long and hard about this one because there are so many unpopular opinions I think I could have. But if I'm sort of talking about the biggest one that would sort of divide a lot of people, cats are better than dogs. I'm really not a dog person.Kelly Molson: Oh, okay.Kate Nicholls: That's going to be controversial and split.Kelly Molson: It's very controversial. And I'm not going to lie, I've got two dogs, so I am a dog person. But Kate, my dogs are a nightmare at the moment. We've had a flea situation this year. I've got a very noisy little dachshund who is absolutely filthy. The weather is disgusting. You have to go out with them all the time. Cats are sounding more and more appealing to me by the day.Kate Nicholls: Cats are sort of neat, clean, undemanding. They're not as problematic as dogs. I always think dogs, you feel as though you've got another kid in the house. I mean, my unpopular opinion is based on the fact that I did have a nasty encounter with a dog when I was little, so I am quite scared of them. But yeah, dogs are not as good as cats.Kelly Molson: All right. Well, let's see what our listeners think. I'm not going to lie because it's the time of year I'm swaying towards a swaying cat, Kate. Yeah. You might have changed my opinion there. Nice. Listen, thank you again for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate it. I mean, I'd be super gobsmacked if anybody that's listening to this podcast episode doesn't know who you are, but just give us a little brief overview of what your role is at the moment, just to explain how critical it has been over the past couple of years.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. So I'm currently Chief Executive at UKHospitality. That's the national trade body that represents hospitality operators and businesses and employers. And so we have 700 member companies. Between them, they operate just over 100,000 outlets across the UK, from a single-site pub, coffee shop, cafe, restaurant, park bar, hotel, holiday accommodation, right the way through to the national chains.Kate Nicholls: Our role as the trade body is to be the voice and face of the industry to promote the sector as a great place to grow, work, and invest, to engage with the government, to make sure we've got the most supportive regulatory and tax environment within which businesses can thrive and survive. And then to provide insight, advice, and guidance to our members on the way in which they can operate to be compliant and to help their businesses grow.Kate Nicholls: And so normally that's quite a broad-based role, but it was really front and centre as soon as COVID hit because clearly, we've got inbound tourism. We've got hotels that were hit first. City centre restaurants, pubs, and bars started to feel the effects of COVID back in February. And really since February ... I mean my first meeting on COVID with the government was the 28th of January last year.Kate Nicholls: And since then, it's been pretty full-on making sure that in real-time we can present the views, concerns, impact of COVID on our business sector and try and make sure that we get the support needed to sustain those businesses, to maintain the employment, to protect jobs within the industry when we've been so hard hit by COVID.Kate Nicholls: So really a big role with government, meeting government ministers and officials two, three, four times a week at the height of the crisis, and also being on the media to try and explain what the impact is of what appeared to be relatively small scale changes, what big impact that can have on business viability and really spelling it out to make sure that people understand what that means potentially longer term in terms of viable businesses, the economy, employment in the UK.Kelly Molson: And, as I said, you have been the spokesperson for the sector throughout the pandemic. And I have to say, Kate, you were in my top five Twitter accounts that I followed continuously throughout. So I had Kate's, I had Bernard Donoghue, I had ALVA, ASVA and Blooloop. And that was my top five to find out what the hell was going on in the sectors that we worked in. So thank you so much for sharing and for doing that role.Kelly Molson: So what I want to talk about today is about attracting and retaining talent within the attractions and hospitality sectors. But I guess, from a ... I don't run an attraction. I work with them. I'm an associate in that sector. So I guess I want to ask a couple of questions about the general public and what we can do right now.Kelly Molson: So we have a situation in our local town. I live in a town called Saffron Walden just outside Cambridge, a beautiful town, a market town, lots of lovely pubs. One of my favourite pubs, which is one of a chain, has had to close for a good couple of months now. And essentially, it closed because some of its other restaurants were so overwhelmed and so busy but so short-staffed that they had to redistribute staff from our pub to their pubs.Kelly Molson: And I guess that's happening in a lot of different places as well. So if we're unable to book a table because a venue is short-staffed, what can we, as the general public, do right now to support the sector?Kate Nicholls: Well, I think it does highlight a challenge that the industry has got. It's more acute in certain parts of the country, but up until Omicron hit and we were all going back eating and drinking out more regularly, the industry as a whole just did not have sufficient labour to be able to operate at full strength. So a quarter of our businesses in the same situation as the one you just describe saying that they were having to restrict hours, cut covers, not open for certain days of the week, turn away bookings simply because they didn't have the staff.Kate Nicholls: So I think as the general public, what we can do with those businesses is try and be a bit more creative in supporting them. Is there a different time that we can book? Because everybody tries to book dinner or lunch at the same time. Can we spread it out a little bit throughout the day? Can we look at going for early suppers or late suppers or brunches or afternoons? If we can't, then can we help them in other ways if they're still doing takeaway, if they're still doing delivery, we can support our businesses in that way. Or booking ahead in advance and making sure that we take out gift cards and those kinds of creative solutions some of our businesses have done where you can get cash through the tills and book two or three meals in advance.Kate Nicholls: So that's a main bit of support. The second thing is that if you do have a booking and your plans change and you can't make it, let them know, and let them know in sufficient time. Because we still are getting quite a lot of no-shows that people make these bookings, something changes. Plans always change, we do know that, but people aren't letting them know. And particularly at the moment when you've got larger scale bookings for Christmas, people will have bought that food in well in advance and will start cooking it well in advance, so you do need to let them know the day before or at least a good couple of hours before if you can't make your booking, and then they can pass it onto somebody on a waiting list.Kelly Molson: That actually leads to another question is how is the sector feeling right now? So with Omicron, with the Christmas rush, what's the general mood like in the hospitality sector at the moment? Are we seeing a lot of people booking, cancelling reservations that they have for large groups of people? Is it quieter than it should be?Kate Nicholls: Quieter than it would be at a normal Christmas. So even before we had Omicron, we knew that we weren't having the same level of bookings as we were seeing Christmas 2019 and previously, so trade is down. We have seen cancellations. They're running at about 10% at the moment, and we have seen a downturn in footfall over the last week. Not just for those bookings and corporate events, Christmas parties, Christmas socials, but just a more general decline in walk-in bookings and walk-in activity. So we are seeing revenues down over the course of the last week, 15, 20%, and that's as a result of the uncertainty.Kate Nicholls: There's a high degree of nervousness within the industry and a great degree of fear at the moment because we've all been in this situation before. Sadly, this time last year, people will have invested heavily to be able to open and operate at Christmas, and unless you get that Christmas trade-in, it can be very damaging to the businesses. They rely on having a good December in order to get them through the quieter months of January to March. And without that good December, there are many businesses that will undoubtedly go to the wall. What should be a very optimistic and hopeful time has, in the space of a week, turned to be very uncertain and very concerning.Kelly Molson: Okay. So look, some great advice there from Kate. If we can look at when you're booking, changing times, if you can look at supporting your local restaurants by booking gift vouchers, for example, or if they are doing takeaway, please do do that and let's try and get them through this really difficult period that we're seeing.Kelly Molson: Now Kate, as I said, I want to talk about attracting and retaining talent in the visitor attraction sector. I don't run an attraction. So what I did, and what I thought was a good idea, is to ask some of the past guests that have been on to ask me to ask you questions. And I've had some fantastic questions in from many of the different guests that we've had on. So let me just ask you a few of the things that have come in. Gordon Morrison, the CEO of ASVA, and Adam Goymour, park director at ROARR! Dinosaur Adventure, actually had really, really similar questions. So let me read out what Gordon wrote over because he puts it far more eloquently than I ever could.Kelly Molson: So Gordon said, "Staff are the beating heart of every tourism business and can undoubtedly make the visitor experience memorable both positively and negatively. As we face up to what is quite possibly the most difficult recruitment and retention environment in the tourism industry has ever seen, is it right that we should continue to rely on our people so heavily to deliver outstanding experiences? And if so, how do we ensure that our businesses are attractive, and how do we keep that top talent in the industry?"Kate Nicholls: I think this is the number one issue that all operators are grappling with at the moment as we come out and we've got a very tight labour market and we've got a real battle just to get staff in, nevermind the battle for talent that we had going into COVID. So we were already facing those challenges. I do think what we need to do is to use COVID as a reset moment and look again at our ways of working, style of working, what we're expecting of people. This gives us an opportunity to revise terms and conditions and to look again at hours of work in the sector to make sure that we are being as flexible as we possibly can and we are being as responsive as we possibly can to what new recruits are telling us.Kate Nicholls: Because we've got lots of new, younger people coming into the industry, many have had no experience before and are questioning, quite rightly, some of the ways that we do things. So particularly in food and beverages and things like that, less so in attractions, but you do get some antisocial hours. You do get double shifts. And people have different ways of paying people. And I think the labour scheduling and the flexibility that we can provide should be a positive rather than it being something that holds us back.Kate Nicholls: So I do think we can look again at making sure that we are as attractive as we possibly can be and that we've got our best foot forward. I think secondly, what we need to be doing as an industry is to look after the sector's employer brand. Individual business is very good at doing this, promoting themselves as a career of choice, but we want to get across the fact that we're a career and we have a great plethora of opportunities available to people if they come and work within our businesses.Kate Nicholls: Because we're an industry largely of small and independent businesses, we don't have the size and scale, but I think we can look again at the sector branding to be able to make sure we put the best foot forward, that we describe how important it is as a career, how meritocratic it is. Because there's no sector likes ours that provides young people with such opportunity where you can come in with limited experience, limited qualifications and skills. We will upskill you very rapidly and you can move into management within about two years. There's no other sector that will give you that level of responsibility and authority at such a young age and at such a low level within the business, and the pay and salary that goes alongside it.Kate Nicholls: So I think there's more we can do around that in terms of communicating career of choice. And also communicating that even if you only want to come with us for a short time, we will equip you with common transferrable skills that other employers will find valuable; business, finance, people management, leadership, conflict management. You get that by working in hospitality businesses and visitor economy businesses, again, at a very low entry-level, and these are soft skills, people skills that are valuable at all levels.Kate Nicholls: And then the final element is about making sure that we do invest in our people, that we do train them to provide continuing professional development and we invest in leadership and management as people go through. We're very good at taking people at entry-level and doing the immediate skills and training they need to be able to function. We need to look at how we can continue to invest in those people. That's what young people particularly are looking for from careers and employers now.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting what you said about the soft skills as well, because I think that one of the best starts that I ever had to my working career was working in hospitality and in retail because it gave me so much experience of understanding how to talk to people, how to communicate with people. And from that customer service perspective as well. I think it gave me such a good grounding in my career, and all of those skills I learnt then, I've taken through into what I do now in terms of sales and an account management role.Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. And if you think about some of the young people who've been most affected by COVID and had their schooling disrupted, their social lives disrupted for a couple of years, those are the skills that they are lacking. When teachers are talking about young people coming back into school, it's time management. It's personnel skills. It's social skills. It's communication. That's what they get from us.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Completely, completely agree. Mark Ellis, who's the interim lead at the National Memorial Arboretum, actually has asked a question that picks up on some of your earlier points there. He says that, "One of the outcomes of the industry-wide staffing shortage is that staff are able to negotiate a better work-life balance, which is a really good thing. Ultimately that is going to lead to better conditions throughout the industry, hopefully, more job satisfaction, higher standards and a better customer experience." Mark asks, "Do you think that we will see the appearance of some widely-accepted examples of best practice?" So things like how businesses will manage seasonal contracts or flexible hours or unsociable hours like you mentioned?Kate Nicholls: Yes. I think we will start to see that evolving as we go further forward and as we come out of this. I think that's what I mean by a COVID reset moment, that we can look again at the ways that we've done things to be able to offer that kind of attractive proposition to people. So moving away from some of the zero-hours contracts, moving away from some of the seasonal changes where people don't have that much certainty, and towards one that is focused on what the applicant is looking for and wanting and the flexibility that they're needing, and presenting it in a way which is appealing to them.Kate Nicholls: I think we will, if we work carefully at it, I think there's a great opportunity for us across the entire sector to pick up some of those really good case studies and examples and promote them and push them out around the sector so that we have a positive employability story to tell.Kelly Molson: That is great. Now, I'm going to pick up on that a little bit later on because we've had a really good question about that very topic. Let me ask you about the supply chain, though, and again, this is another question from Mark at the National Memorial Arboretum. So the supply chain at the moment is disrupted. Food costs are increasing. We all need to find a more sustainable way to feed humanity. What can we do as an industry, and this is the attractions industry, to help the public recognise that hospitality outlets that source locally, use seasonal ingredients, increase their plant-based options, that they are the best place to respond to these pressures? But at the same time, costs are going to rise through dual pressure of food and wage increases.Kate Nicholls: Well, I think this is going to be a collective challenge for all of us because it's inevitable that with the cost pressures that we've got that are building across the sector, and not just our sector but across the economy, prices are going to have to go up to consumers irrespective of what we're talking about in terms of local sourcing, et cetera, and the positive efforts we've got. So I think as an industry we're going to have to work to be able to communicate to consumers clearly why we are having to put prices up post-pandemic, and it is going to be a struggle and a challenge and there's going to be that juggling act which there always is around pricing decisions about how far you can push prices onto consumers before you turn off demand.Kate Nicholls: But with VAT alone going up, there is going to have to be a price increase that we are going to have to pass on. So I think that's one challenge that we need to look at separately. I think the advantage is it's going to be across the economy as a whole and we're not going to be doing it in isolation. So I think customers are going to get more used to hearing about prices and hearing about costs coming through.Kate Nicholls: And then I think, you're right, there is a real opportunity there for turning that conversation around and explaining about how local sourcing is more beneficial, meets the broader sustainability issues that consumers are increasingly concerned about. Not just consumers, potential employees. So sustainability and environmental and social governance issues are coming higher up the agenda when we're talking about recruitment and putting ourselves out as an attractive proposition.Kate Nicholls: People are looking for authentic stories about local sourcing, local supply chain, carbon net zero, limiting waste, all of those kind of positive issues that we can turn to our advantage. But I do think customers understand it doesn't come cost-free. So I think they are two sides of the same coin. I don't think we should be apologetic about the fact that we need to be able to invest in good quality produce in order to deliver a more sustainable food supply chain.Kelly Molson: Do you think those conversations are slightly easier to have now as well, since the pandemic? Because I think what we did see when attractions were able to open up and hospitality were able to open up is that we saw a huge increase in demand for things that were local. We wanted to understand more about our local environment. We wanted to be able to support our local independents. So do you think that's going to be an easier conversation to have now that we're in that mindset already?Kate Nicholls: I think so. I think COVID provides us with that opportunity. Certainly one of the strong trends, and it sees no sign of abating as we come out of COVID, localism and hyperlocalism was a trend we saw during lockdown when, inevitably if you can't travel, you explore in your neighborhood. But even as we reopened, people were exploring in their locality before they've got confident enough to go further across the country or into city centres. And clearly you're moving away from global travel for two years. Again, those are trends that become sticky with consumers and consumers are interested in hearing and exploring it more.Kate Nicholls: So I think neighbourhood is going to stick with us for a lot longer. Certainly as well in terms of the different ways in which we work, I don't think it's going to be as polarised as in the office or at home, but I do think you're going to be working remotely and people are going to be looking at neighbourhood and local options to be able to facilitate that. So I do think that that frees up the conversation to be had more generally about how we are making a more sustainable, more robust, more resilient supply chain by looking locally. But equally, that doesn't come cost-free.Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Let's talk about opening hours. So Mark had a really good question around that. So he says, "Over the last few months, as venues have reopened, we've seen many places change their opening hours, and that's to enable them to offer fair shifts for their staff in response to business needs." He actually says some are open fewer days each week, and some are closing earlier. The micropub and brewpub and taphouse that he tends to frequent, he does put in brackets here, "On an all too infrequent basis though. Nights out are a rare treat. But they're all offering a brilliant experience with great staff during their opening hours. Does Kate think that the public will learn to understand that not opening all hours is a new thing to be embraced, or do you think that pressure to increase the venues to go back to 11:00 to 11:00 will be the norm?"Kate Nicholls: I think it's probably too early to say yet with consumers and consumer habits and trends because I don't think people are going out in the same way that they were yet. What we have seen after this reopening, post the 19th of July, that there is an expectation from consumers to go back to normal and they're not very forgiving of those who aren't. So I think consumers during COVID have got used to having things when they want it, at the time that they want it, and rapidly, and they don't take kindly to things not being available for them.Kate Nicholls: So I suspect it will be more challenging to have that on a longer-term basis if that's a longer way of working. What we do know, however, is that what consumers really don't like is uncertainty. So if they can guarantee that you are always open for these particular days, these particular hours, they will understand that more readily than they turn up at your door and you're not open today because you can't get the staff. That's the bit that seems to create the disconnect.Kate Nicholls: And what we don't have yet is a loyal customer base back. So if they can't get it from you, they will go and find it somewhere else is what we're seeing very rapidly. So I don't think it means that everybody has to go back to 11:00 to 11:00, seven days a week and full service, but you do need to get back to some consistency and some standardisation for customers. And certainly what we're finding in the restaurant side, for example, are quite a lot of businesses in city centres are closing Monday and Tuesday, and that causes a degree of confusion for consumers when they're back out.Kate Nicholls: Now, having said that, our customer habits are going to change a little bit again over Christmas if we do have restrictions brought back in due to Omicron and therefore customers again will be adapting to changes and the ways that they're doing things and changes in the ways of working. But I do think that will depend on where you are located. If you are located in a city centre and people are not visiting the city centre as regularly, you need to have that certainty about when you are available and open that matches and meets with them. If you are in a local neighbourhood and a local area and you're part of the community, I think there will be increasing pressure back being available when the customers want you.Kelly Molson: Earlier in this question you mentioned that it's too early to tell because we're not seeing the demand, we're not seeing people going out as frequently as they were. It's a difficult question, but how long do you think that we need to leave it until we do start to see some data around that?Kate Nicholls: Again, I think that's difficult to be able to work out because of the uncertainties of new variants and changes in restrictions. We haven't had a clear consistent period where we've been able to trade normally. Had we not had Omicron coming along, I think we would have got a better feel for it. After Christmas, we would have been able to look back at five, six months where we could see what customers were doing, how confident they were, and could try and see trading was doing without the blips that were caused by supply chain shortages, delivery shortages, pingdemics, labour shortages across our industry. I suspect that it's going to be until the middle of next year before you can really start to plan with any certainty around what's stuck, what's a long-term trend and what's something that you're nudging consumer behaviour around.Kelly Molson: Thank you. You mentioned earlier about sharing best practices and we've had a great question from Hannah Monteverde who's the Park Manager at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. So Hannah says, "It's not always feasible to be able to offer an increased salary or market-leading benefits." She'd be really interested to know of any examples of curveball ideas that have attracted staff recently. Do you have any case studies or examples of attractions that you feel have really bucked the trend for recruitment particularly well?Kate Nicholls: I think the ones that are doing interesting stuff around flexible hours, hours when you want it, more frequent pay. One of the things that we found across our sector was that people were getting paid after four weeks, six weeks in some cases when they were a new starter, compared to some of the newer startup companies and labour scheduling companies and temporary recruitment from Amazon where they were getting paid within the week. So as soon as they did a shift, they were getting paid.Kate Nicholls: And actually that was something that people found was really attractive, that as soon as they'd done their job, they were getting their pay almost immediately, so a return almost back to weekly pay packets was quite an interesting one. It's not necessarily creative or curveball, but it's just listening to what people were saying that was a frustration for them that they wanted to be able to have.Kate Nicholls: Food, uniforms, selling those kinds of benefits, the walking to work for anybody who's in a local attraction or provision of transport for those people who were off the beaten track and people relying upon cars, et cetera. Those are things that have been used quite creatively. And then flexible labour scheduling, giving people the ability to tell the employer when they were available to work and how many hours they had rather than getting that rota coming down on a fixed basis saying, "This is when we rota-ed you and you have to go away and work out somebody else to swap with if it coincides with your yoga class or your student lesson or a GP's appointment."Kate Nicholls: So I think putting more power in the hands of the employees and giving them the ability to be able to ask for what they want, when they want, hours and pay, those are the two creative ones I've seen most frequently.Kelly Molson: That's fascinating. I mean, the crux of it is flexibility, ultimate flexibility as the employee. That is such a simple change to be paid weekly, so that instant gratification, "I've done a really good job. I've been paid for it." What a simple change to be able to make that could make such a big difference.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. And there's technology that enables you to do it now. So on the labour scheduling front in terms of, "I'm available for these hours and I'd like some work." Stint provides the opportunity and there's labour scheduling that provides the opportunity to do that, to just log on and say, "I can do four hours," rather than, "I can do a full day." And that sometimes is better. And equally, there's technology that allows you to drawdown. So if the business still wants to keep a monthly salary payroll, you can draw down earlier ahead of your salary, so you just get it a bit more when you've been doing your work. Particularly relevant for young people coming into the sector.Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully retaining them for a little bit longer, because that is the challenge with the sector is that it has always been seen as a bit of a stopgap, hasn't it? And ideally, we want to-Kate Nicholls: It has, and in some respects, we shouldn't be apologetic for that because it is a good first job. It's a good first base. Transferrable skills that we talked about before. We obviously want to keep and capture those people who want to use it as a career. But equally, given the labour shortages we're facing, if we can keep those people with us for longer who are just looking at it as a stopgap, that's all to the good as well. And that's about making sure we invest in them and make sure that they're supported as they come into the company.Kate Nicholls: Because at the moment, churn is so high across the sector as a whole. People come in, find that the work's too busy, too demanding, not for them, and they go away again. So let's just support them, nurture them and try and help to make sure that they have as good an experience as they can while they're with us.Kelly Molson: Definitely. Final question for you from our attractions audience. And again, this is from Hannah. So Hannah asks, "Do we have any realistic idea of timescales in terms of the forecast for recovery?" And this is specifically around the recruitment challenges that we're having at the moment. She asks, "Is this something that we have to adapt and change to live within the long term, or is it something that we could potentially predict will slowly improve and recover back to a pre-Brexit and pre-COVID-19 scenario?"Kate Nicholls: Gosh. There are two factors to that, particularly if we're talking about labour markets. So the government-commissioned independent research to look at when domestic tourism for fallen revenues would recover to pre-pandemic levels, and I suppose that's the best indicator of when do you think demand is going to get up there? When do you think your money is going to come back? And the independent forecast suggested that domestic tourism revenues would recover by the end of 2023 and international, that's not until 2024.Kate Nicholls: Now the government has said it will work with the industry to try and bring that forward a year, but that still looks as though you're going to have most of 2022 where you are operating suboptimally, that you're not operating at full demand. And I think in terms of labour shortages and challenges, again, likely to be temporary but let's not forget that pre-COVID, we had a 5% vacancy rate. Post-COVID, it's 10%. So it was a tight labour market before we went into the COVID crisis.Kate Nicholls: How temporary is temporary? I think you're going to be living with cost price inflation and the disruption to the supply chain for at least six months of 2022 and I think the labour issues are going to be with us probably for a year or two. If nothing else changes, our biggest challenge for getting people back into work is twofold. One is we've got a hiatus in the talent pipeline where we haven't been able to train our own. Our apprentices haven't been able to go through people and vocational training, haven't been able to go through catering colleges, et cetera. Haven't been able to go through because people have been disrupted in education.Kate Nicholls: And the same goes at the higher levels for hospitality degrees, but also curator jobs and those kinds of occupational training skilled jobs in the sector. So you've got a two-year talent hiatus, talent pipeline hiatus, and you've got COVID travel restrictions that are preventing people from moving globally. And you can only see what's happened with Omicron to see that that's going to be with us probably for at least another year. So you are going to have a global disrupted labour market and you're going to have global disrupted supply chains for at least another year.Kelly Molson: Gosh. Another year of this.Kate Nicholls: Sorry.Kelly Molson: Weren't we saying this last year? We were nearly-Kate Nicholls: I don't mean that we're going to be having another year of COVID restrictions or the challenges that we've got, but I think the global supply chain, the global economy is still going to be in quite an uncertain state for the whole of 2022. And people certainly won't be moving around the globe as freely as they have been pre-pandemic. We're not going to get back to that sort of free movement. It's nothing to do with Brexit, but just that movement of people isn't going to be happening to the same degree, hence you've got a delay in domestic and international recovery. You've got a delay in international recovery.Kate Nicholls: The people who've moved abroad during COVID or people who would normally be coming into the UK to look for work or those with settled status who might be returning, they're not moving around because of COVID and they're not moving around because of the problems of international travel.Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you. Thank you so much for answering the questions today. It's been incredible to have you on. I'd like to end the podcast the way that I always end the podcast which is to ask you about a book that you could recommend to our listeners. It might be something that you love. It might be something that's helped your career in some way or helped shape your career in some way. What would you recommend for us today?Kate Nicholls: I am a voracious reader, so I usually have three or four books on the go at any one time. But I'm definitely a fiction reader. I've got two books. One that was really ... is a business book that I found really quite useful when I first was made chief executive about six, seven years ago. And that was Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, which I would definitely recommend for any female leaders in the industry to look at. It talks about some of the different ways that people experience things at work and certainly helped me to think about how I wanted to support the next generation of women coming up and making sure that we had more female representation on boards.Kate Nicholls: And then my absolute favourite book, which is my go-to book at any time that I just want a little bit of escapism and a really good story is Wuthering Heights. However bad you're feeling, there's always something entertaining and enjoyable in getting lost in somebody else's story and that's my recommended read.Kelly Molson: Fantastic recommendations. I actually do remember on Twitter you tweeting photos of your book pile, your COVID book pile. They were huge.Kate Nicholls: Yeah. Because everybody knows I'm a reader and I read an awful lot, at Christmas I get big ... And that's what everybody buys me as a gift. So I always get quite a lot of books at Christmas, and last Christmas I got 20. And as we went into lockdown, of January, I thought, "Right, can I complete my reading pile before we come out of lockdown?" Actually, I had to go and buy another 30 books. By the time we came out of lockdown on the 19th of July, I had read 56 books.Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness, 56 ... Well, I guess books are a much better option than getting socks for Christmas, right?Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yes, I do have big piles. I still have piles of books all over the house that I'm still reading. But yeah, I usually have ... I finish three books a week.Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Well, listen, so if you want to win a copy of Kate's books, you know what to do. Go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter, retweet the announcement with the words I want Kate's books, and you might well be in with a chance of winning them. Kate, thank you once again for coming on the podcast today. Very, very grateful that you've been able to spare us some time to come on and chat, and I very much hope that you get that well-deserved rest and holiday to Costa Rica sometime very soon.Kate Nicholls: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.

This episode is the last instalment of the European tour we've been on for the past few months and what better way to end it with an MEP: Kim van Sparrentak. The European Parliament is a wonderfully complex bureaucratic mess. Although it's fun for someone who likes political puzzles, it's horrible to break them away from their capitalist and queerphobic ways. It'll be no surprise that this one is a very political episode. We talk about political dog whistles as well as being exposed to politics at a young age, and how sometimes you have to accept that the lesser of two evils sometimes is your best option, instead of always wanting to solve it yourself. Consider Supporting through https://Patreon.com/Queersounds Flashback Track: Big Brother & The Holding Company – Piece of My Heart Queer Artist Spotlight: Lady Gaga – Marry The Night Best Live Experience: Janelle Monáe – Screwed Most Recent Discovery: Ashnikko – Slumber Party (feat. Princess Nokia) Shownotes: Kim European Parliament: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197870/KIM_VAN+SPARRENTAK/home European Greens: https://europeangreens.eu/ Monitor Mechanism Against Backsliding: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200918IPR87418/european-values-towards-a-permanent-monitoring-mechanism-against-backsliding Songs Covered By Glee Cast: https://www.songfacts.com/category/songs-covered-by-the-glee-cast Get in touch through http://Queersounds.com/Contact!

Enduring legacy of Czech Republic's first president Václav Havel commemorated on his 10 year death anniversary on Saturday as Czechia's new foreign minister promises to revive the era of values-driven policy seen during Havel's years. Meanwhile, Lithuania's principled foreign policy approach is met with Chinese resistance consisting of diplomatic intimidation as well as pressure on EU companies to ditch Lithuanian suppliers. Polish President backtracks on promise to reject the controversial lexTVN legislation, says he will review the bill more carefully. MEP Miriam Lexmann, Brussels Program Director at the International Republican Institute Joanna Rohozińska and Visegrad Insight Editor-in-Chief Wojciech Przybylski take stock of Biden's Summit for Democracy and draw conclusions on future expectations for Central Europe in a discussion moderated by Andrea Pipino, Europe editor at Internazionale. This podcast is part of a project co-funded by the European Parliament aimed at encouraging debate on democratic security in the Visegrad region.

Within the framework of the conference "Global Crisis. Time for the Truth," there was an interview with a politician from the Netherlands, an independent member of the European Parliament, a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, Dorien Rookmaker. She expressed her opinion regarding the impact of human activity on the planet, as well as our consumerist attitudes towards its resources. "At the moment the discussion about the climate is narrowed down to the reduction of CO2 and global warming gases. And I think the problem is much broader than that." - says Dorien. She noted that the population continues to grow, and the demands that people reveal to the environment and to their lives are also growing. But natural resources are not increasing, they are becoming less and less. Therefore, many aspects need to be taken into account in order to solve global climate and environmental problems. At the same time, if we leave everything to the discretion of politicians who negotiate and make agreements like the Paris agreement, then there is a danger that everything will be done for show, in absolute isolation from reality. Therefore, if we want changes, the initiative should come from the people themselves, not from governments or official organizations. Dorien Rookmaker also expressed her opinion on the 8 Foundations of the Creative Society: "I think that's something we really need in today's society because there's a lot of polarization. People live in bubbles, and a real exchange of views hardly ever happens anymore. People denounce each other and if the other person's point of view is not acceptable, does not fit the bill, then it is simply ignored. And with that, you get more and more groups that are diametrically opposed. I am convinced that if you engage in conversation with each other, it will lead to better solutions." Dear friends, now active actions of each of us are very important. The Creative Society Project is a chance to change our world and save the planet. Join us! creativesociety.com ➡️ International Online Conference "Global Crisis. Time for the Truth" with a choice of language: https://creativesociety.com/global-cr... ➡️ YouTube broadcast of the online conference “Global Crisis. Time of Truth "in English: https://youtu.be/hRVCDgRTuHY E-mail: info@creativesociety.com #CreativeSociety #GlobalCrisis #Time4Truth #DorienRookmaker

In the last episode before the Parliament closes for Christmas, we discuss the EU's refusal to share the vaccine technology with the Global South; Navalny winning the EU Sakharov prize for “freedom of thought”; tensions in Ukraine; yet another European Parliament resolution condemning Cuba; and proposed new powers for the Gardaí. We also discuss the country of the week- Spain.

A massive leak of financial documents, dubbed the “Pandora Papers,” was published by several major news organizations Oct. 3, allegedly tying secret stores of wealth to world leaders including King Abdullah of Jordan, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The dump of more than 11.9 million records, amounting to about 2.94 terabytes of data, came five years after the leak known as the “Panama Papers” exposed how money was hidden by the wealthy in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a network of reporters and media organizations, said the files are linked to about 35 current and former national leaders, and more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories. “The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.” This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.

Nikos Androulakis, a European Parliament deputy, defeated former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou by a wide margin in a runoff election on Sunday to become the new leader of Greece's third largest party, the centre-left Movement of Change (KINAL). The election of a new leader for KINAL, the former Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), has been a subject of interest not only to supporters of the center-left party, but also to those observing the political landscape in Greece, who view the party as a moderate and pro-European voice in parliament. Tom Ellis, the editor in chief of Kathimerini English Edition, joins The Greek Current to explain why this election was so important, who Nikos Androulakis is, and what his vision for the future of the party is. Read Tom Ellis's analysis in Kathimerini here: The Movement for Change electionsPapandreou isn't doing himself any favorsYou can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:Mitsotakis, Tsipras and KINALEU lawmaker Androulakis elected Greek socialist leaderAndroulakis beats Papandreou to lead Greece's centre-left KINAL partyFirst six Rafale jets to arrive in JanuaryDimitar Kovachevski on course to become North Macedonia's new prime ministerNorth Macedonia: Finance official tapped to become next PM

Glossary for DiQ ep 7 series 3 – Jan Werner MüllerWho was Alexis de Tocqueville?(pg. 1 tocquevillian question of the transcript or 00:1:08)French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its prisons and returned with a wealth of broader observations that he codified in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influential books of the 19th century. With its trenchant observations on equality and individualism, Tocqueville's work remains a valuable explanation of America to Europeans and of Americans to themselves. What is nativism?(pg. 1 of the transcript or 00:4:42)Nativism represents the political idea that people who were born in a country are more important than immigrants. Source. Who is Marine Le Pen?(pg. 3 of the transcript or 00:10:03)Marine Le Pen, French politician who succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as leader of the National Front (later National Rally) party in 2011. She was that party's candidate in the 2017 French presidential election. In 1998 she joined the administrative apparatus of the National Front, which had been founded by her father in 1972 and was the main right-wing opposition to France's mainstream conservative parties. She served as the director of the party's legal affairs until 2003, when she became the National Front's vice president. The following year she made a successful run for a seat in the European Parliament where she joined her father in that body's nonaligned bloc. As Le Pen emerged from her father's shadow to become a national figure in her own right, she distanced herself from some of his and the party's more extreme views. While she embraced the National Front's established anti-immigration stance, she rebranded the party's traditional Euroscepticism as French nationalism and she was a vocal critic of the anti- Semitism that has marginalized the party in the past.In June 2018 Le Pen announced that the National Front would change its name to Rassemblement National (National Rally), in an apparent effort to distance the party from its overtly neofascist and anti-Semitic past. The National Rally topped the field in EU parliamentary elections in 2019, and opinion polling indicated that they were likely to carry that momentum into French regional elections in 2021. The party performed far below expectations in the first round of balloting, however, in an election that was characterized by extremely low voter turnout. Source What was the Fairness Doctrine?(Page 6 of the transcript or 00:25:14)U.S. communications policy (1949–87) formulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Required licensed radio and television broadcasters to present fair and balanced coverage of controversial issues of interest to their communities, including by granting equal airtime to opposing candidates for public office. The fairness doctrine was never without its opponents, however, many of whom perceived the equal airtime requirement as an infringement of the right to freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.In 1987 the FCC formally repealed the fairness doctrine but maintained both the editorial and personal-attack provisions, which remained in effect until 2000. In addition, until they were finally repealed by the commission in 2011, more than 80 media rules maintained language that implemented the doctrine. Source Who was John Dewey?(page 7 of the transcript or 00:28:02)John Dewey (1859–1952) was one of American pragmatism's early founders, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, and arguably the most prominent American intellectual for the first half of the twentieth century. Dewey's educational theories and experiments had a global reach, his psychological theories had a sizeable influence in that growing science, and his writings about democratic theory and practice deeply influenced debates in academic and practical quarters for decades. Dewey also developed extensive and often systematic views in ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion. In addition to academic life, Dewey comfortably wore the mantle of public intellectual, infusing public issues with lessons found through philosophy. He spoke on topics of broad moral significance, such as human freedom, economic alienation, race relations, women's suffrage, war and peace, human freedom, and educational goals and methods. Typically, discoveries made via public inquiries were integrated back into his academic theories, and aided their revision. This practice-theory-practice rhythm powered every area of Dewey's intellectual enterprise, and perhaps explains why his philosophical theories are still discussed, criticized, adapted, and deployed in many academic and practical arenas.  Source Who is Elizabeth Anderson?(page 7 of the transcript or 00:30:40)American Philosopher specializing in moral, social and political philosophy, feminist theory, social epistemology, and the philosophy of economics and the social sciences. She is particularly interested in exploring the interactions of social science with moral and political theory, how we learn to improve our value judgments, the epistemic functions of emotions and democratic deliberation, and issues of race, gender, and equality. Source

Welcome to Ask Stago, The Podcast dedicated to provide expert answers to your expert questions in coagulation. In today's episode, our co-host Audrey Carlo will share her understanding on what is HTA and why Value of Diagnostic Information should be further recognized. Literature sources: Wurcel V, Cicchetti A, Garrison L, Kip MMA, Koffijberg H, Kolbe A, Leeflang MMG, Merlin T, Mestre-Ferrandiz J, Oortwijn W, Oosterwijk C, Tunis S, Zamora B. The Value of Diagnostic Information in Personalised Healthcare: A Comprehensive Concept to Facilitate Bringing This Technology into Healthcare Systems. Public Health Genomics. 2019;22(1-2):8-15. doi: 10.1159/000501832. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on health technology assessment and amending Directive 2011/24/EU.  Porter ME, Teisberg EO, Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-based Competition on Results, Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business School Press, ©2006.   Content is scientific and technical in nature. It is intended as an educational tool for laboratory professionals and topics discussed are not intended as recommendations or as commentary on appropriate clinical practice.

Europe's right-wing populist leaders convened in Warsaw ahead of Biden's Summit for Democracy, vowing to pursue closer cooperation in the European Parliament but ultimately falling short of establishing a new, coherent political party. Russia's military activities on border with Ukraine heightens threat perception in the West as Biden and Putin schedule a videoconference for Tuesday. Péter Márki-Zay, prime ministerial candidate nominated by Hungary's united opposition for the April 2022 elections stops by to talk with Visegrad Insight as part of a working trip to Warsaw, outlining what a victory of the opposition would entail compared to the continuation of Viktor Orbán's ‘one-party state' system. As a summary of that visit Wojciech Przybylski chats with Zoltan Kesz, Central European Affairs podcaster and political adviser to Márki-Zay, on the future of Hungarian politics and strategic direction of the campaign. More about the meeting with Péter Márki-Zay here.

It's been a busy week at the parliament. We discuss Covid and the world going mad over the new variant, the European Parliament's foreign interference committee and their report on social media disinformation by the EU's so-called enemies- Russia, China and Iran, an anti-money laundering proposal to limit the use of cash which could have problematic implications for EU citizens, the EU “green” taxonomy for sustainable economic investments which is considering labelling gas and nuclear as sustainable- so not so green after all, finally, Julian Assange's father visits Brussels, we hear some updates from that

In this episode of .think Atlantic, IRI's Thibault Muzergues is joined, live from Rome where IRI was holding a Parliamentary Roundtable on relations between Europe and China, by an all-star cast of guests - namely Nusrat Ghani, Paweł Kowal, and Antoine Bondaz. Nusrat Ghani is a British Member of Parliament, representing the constituency of Wealden in Essex; she is a Member of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Member and Rapporteur of its Science and Technology committee. Paweł Kowal, is a Polish politician, political scientist, and historian. Currently a professor at the Polish Academy of Science and member of the Polish Parliament, he was a secretary of state in Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006-2007), a member of the National Security Council and he served as a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2014. Last but not least, Antoine Bondaz is Research Fellow and the Director of both the Korea Program and the Taiwan Program at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) in Paris, France. He is also Associate Professor at Sciences Po Paris. How the relations between Europe and China have evolved in the past decade? How successful has the Chinese Communist Party been in buying itself influence in Europe? Have we managed to build any resilience against this? Can the West get its act together, co-ordinate to contain China? Find Nusrat Ghani on Twitter: @Nus_Ghani Find Paweł Kowal on Twitter: @pawelkowalp Find Antoine Bondaz on Twitter: @antoinebondaz Find Thibault on Twitter: @tmuzergues Visit IRI's website at www.iri.org

Radek Sikorski, the former Foreign Minister and Defence Minister of Poland, and Chairman of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with the United States, talks to Paul Adamson about Poland's regime, transatlantic relations and how the EU should deal with China.

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It seems like there's bipartisan compromise for once in Washington, and it's over one commitment: it's time to reel in Big Tech. But Marietje Schaake has been sounding that alarm for years. Once one of the youngest members of the European Parliament, Schaake now helps lead the academic discussion around how to regulate some of the biggest companies in the world, like Facebook and Apple, as a policy fellow at Stanford University. She tells POLITICO's Ryan Heath how she aims to reform Silicon Valley from within, and what it's like when some of her students take jobs at tech giants.  Marietje Schaake is the international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center. Ryan Heath is the host of the "Global Insider" podcast and authors the newsletter.  Olivia Reingold produces “Global Insider.”  Irene Noguchi  edits “Global Insider” and is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

In this episode, our hosts bring us news from all around Europe, a quick roundup of our latest polling trends and they briefly discuss EE's latest monthly European Parliament projection! Later in the episode, Euan Healey (@euanspeaks) is joined by our Bulgaria correspondent, Teodora Yovcheva, in a discussion all about the latest Bulgarian parliamentary election and what the results mean for the Balkan country's party system. Produced by Europe Elects. You can support this podcast and Europe Elects on our Patreon or via PayPal. All proceeds go to the betterment of our services. https://www.patreon.com/EuropeElects https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8bYExemIM1

In 2016, as a response to the shortcomings revealed in the EU's migration management, the Commission presented a proposal to amend and expand the mandate of The European Asylum Support Office (EASO), also changing its name to the European Union agency for asylum to reflect its stronger powers. As part of the asylum reform package, the proposal was put on hold, but was then relaunched as part of the new pact on asylum and migration in September 2020. On 29 June 2021, the European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on the agency. In this podcast, we'll look at its changing role and extended powers to improve asylum management in Europe. - Original publication on the EP Think Tank website - Subscription to our RSS feed in case your have your own RSS reader - Podcast available on Deezer, iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, YouTube Source: © European Union - EP

In this episode of Policy, Guns and Money's ‘Bigger Picture' series, Fergus Hanson speaks to Sir Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications for Meta on technology policy. They discuss the greatest tech challenges currently facing the international community and how governments and the private sector can better collaborate on these issues going forward, something that Sir Nick will discuss in a panel session at ASPI's inaugural Sydney Dialogue on 19 November. Nick Clegg is the vice president of global affairs and communications for Meta. Previously, he served as deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015. In 2018, he received a knighthood in recognition of his political and public service. He also established the think tank Open Reason, which examines issues pertaining to drugs policy and the fourth industrial revolution. From 1994 to 2004, he worked as a senior adviser in the European Commission, and between 1999 and 2004 he was a member of the European Parliament. Sir Nick is the best-selling author of Politics: between the extremes and How to stop Brexit (and make Britain great again). Mentioned in this episode: https://tsd.aspi.org.au/ Guests (in order of appearance): Fergus Hanson: https://www.aspi.org.au/bio/fergus-hanson Sir Nick Clegg: https://nickclegg.medium.com/

Romania puts a finer point on what it means to be a "large company" in their jurisdiction, the EU falls in line behind a new directive supporting adoption of the OECD's proposed global tax plan (even Ireland!), and the European Parliament gives a thumbs-up to public country-by-country reports.

Slow Food Europe is back with a second episode on the EU Farm to Fork Strategy, which was proposed by the EU Commission last year to accelerate the transition towards sustainable food systems in Europe. Last month, the EU Parliament voted in favor of this strategy despite repeated lobbying attacks from the agrifood industry. Slow Food warmly welcomed this vote, and took the opportunity to gather three panelists who have worked hard on the Farm to Fork Strategy since the start: Nina Holland, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory (@nina_holland) Martin Dermine, policy officer at PAN Europe Tilly Metz, Member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance at the European Parliament (@MetzTilly) In this episode, our guests talk about the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and what has happened since its publication in May 2020. They shed light on the intense lobbying that the agro-chemical industry has been doing to try to weaken the Strategy, and on how you, as European citizens can influence food policy, for example through the recent successful European Citizens Initative “Save bees and farmers”. For more details on the EU Parliament's vote of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy, read our recap article: https://www.slowfood.com/eu-parliament-gives-the-green-light-to-the-farm-to-fork-strategy/ Also, do not hesitate to follow @SlowFoodEurope on Twitter, as well as our guests: @MetzTilly, @corporateeurope and @EuropePAN!   Do you wanna give your feedback to the SFYN Podcast? Fill in this quick form: https://forms.gle/8dh6bViGAh3GKJsb8 Music: Leonardo Prieto Dorantes Production: Valentina Gritti  Financed by the European Union. The contents of this podcast are the sole responsibility of the author and the EASME is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. A project by the Slow Food Youth Network

Dr Hussam Hussein investigates the construction of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan, and the political economy of the water sector. This is a recording of a live webinar held on 22nd October 2021 for the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. Dr Hussam Hussein (Lecturer in International Relations at DPIR, Oxford Martin School Fellow in Water Diplomacy, and Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College) presents the politics of water scarcity in the case of Jordan. Dr Neil Ketchley (St Antony's College, Oxford) chairs this webinar and Dr Michael Willis (St Antony's College, Oxford) moderates the Q&A. This talk investigates the construction of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan, and the political economy of the water sector. It identifies the actors constructing the discourse and the elements comprising the discourse. The research finds that there is a single dominant discourse of water scarcity, which is composed of two narratives: water insufficiency and water mismanagement. The water insufficiency narrative is constructed to emphasise factors external to the responsibility of the Jordanian government as reasons for water scarcity, like nature, refugees, and neighbouring countries. It is mainly constructed by governmental aligned actors and deployed to open solutions on the supply and conservation sides and ultimately to maintain the status quo of the current water uses. The water mismanagement narrative is constructed to emphasise as reasons for water scarcity factors of mismanagement of water resources and deployed to increase economic efficiency in the water sector, challenging existing uses, allocations, and benefits. Dr Hussam Hussein's research focuses on the role of discourses in shaping water policies in the Middle East, on transboundary water governance, and on issues related to the political economy of water resources in arid and semi-arid regions. Hussam has also worked on issues of sustainable development and environmental governance for the Italian Embassy in Jordan, the European Parliament, the World Bank and UNICEF. He obtained his PhD from the University of East Anglia with a thesis on hydropolitics and discourses of water scarcity in the case of Jordan. Dr Neil Ketchley is Associate Professor in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). His research focuses on the dynamics of protest and activism in the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa. His most recent book, Egypt in a Time of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won the Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association. His work has appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and Mobilization. Neil's current research interests include episodes of historic mass protest in the MENA, the rise of political Islam in Egypt, and the changing profiles of regional political elites. Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). If you would like to join the live audience during this term's webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC. Accessibility features of this video playlist are available through the University of Oxford Middle East Centre podcast series: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre

Mark Johnson is Co-Founder of SEED Strategies, a communications and public relations consultancy for startups and companies that are scaling. Founded in 2019, since its inception, SEED Strategies has worked with a range of companies seeking to deliver a positive impact across a multitude of industries and geographies. Prior to establishing SEED Strategies, Mark worked as Head of Customer Experience at INSEAD, where he helped drive digital transformation in the degree programmes and implemented structures that helped embed the need to focus on the customer in all levels of decision-making. From 2011 to 2017, Mark worked across Asia within the public affairs and communications space. He helped drive the global communications strategy for Masdar and the Zayed Sustainability Prize whilst working in the UAE, formulate strategy and advise clients such as Mars and RB in Indonesia on the opportunities and challenges of the forthcoming government, and led the communications for clients such as Audi during his time working in China. Mark started his career as a communication adviser and political strategist in the United Kingdom and European Parliament. During his 6 year's in politics he helped devise and implement comprehensive grassroots communications strategies to ensure electoral success for the Labour Party. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/mark-johnson You can find the community discussion for this episode at: https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/mark-johnson This episode is produced by Kyle Ong.

Join America's Roundtable co-hosts Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy with special guest Roger Helmer who served in the political arena as a member of the European Parliament representing the United Kingdom, and serving in the Conservative and the UKIP parties, respectively. We review the policies proposed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (also known as COP26) held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Roger Helmer shares his concerns about the current energy crisis in Europe - and how the transition to renewable sources of energy may adversely impact Americans. Moreover, these policies are examined in light of concerns that they will hurt poor nations in Africa and lead to massive migration movements in the future. Further reading: The Wind Turbine Failures Behind Europe's Energy Crisis Are a Warning for America (https://www.newsweek.com/wind-turbine-failures-europe-energy-crisis-warning-america-fossil-fuels-1643011) "The ongoing energy crisis in Europe has shown how nations will experience "growing pains" from a switch to renewable sources of energy including wind power, according to experts who spoke to Newsweek. The situation across the Atlantic may provide a warning for the U.S., with President Joe Biden having set a goal to decarbonize the nation's power grid by 2035 and the whole U.S. economy by 2050. Decarbonizing the power grid will involve a transition to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, which can be less reliable than traditional fossil fuels. Europe's recent experience with wind turbines could be instructive for the United States. Energy and transport ministers from 27 European Union (EU) countries gathered for an emergency meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday amid rising fuel costs on the continent. The crisis has come amid a 20 percent reduction in output in the wind power sector and and rising costs of oil and gas, as reported by Forbes." Roger Helmer served in the political arena as a member of the European Parliament representing the United Kingdom and serving in the Conservative and the UKIP parties, respectively. He started his business career in 1965 with Procter & Gamble, going on to hold senior marketing and general management appointments in a range of companies, including Readers Digest and National Semiconductor. Mr. Helmer has published two books on European issues, "Straight Talking on Europe" in 2000, and "A Declaration of Independence" in 2002. He also served as Chairman of The Freedom Association in the United Kingdom. He was a leading figure in the Better Off Out campaign - the Brexit Movement, that called for the UK to leave the European Union. Mr. Helmer is one of the founding members of Jerusalem Leaders Summit in Israel and has spoken at numerous events organized by the International Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, Brussels, and Eastern Europe. https://ileaderssummit.org/services/americas-roundtable-radio/ https://ileaderssummit.org/ | https://jerusalemleaderssummit.com/ America's Roundtable on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-roundtable/id1518878472 Twitter: @ileaderssummit @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA America's Roundtable is co-hosted by Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy, co-founders of International Leaders Summit and the Jerusalem Leaders Summit. America's Roundtable radio program - a strategic initiative of International Leaders Summit, focuses on America's economy, healthcare reform, rule of law, security and trade, and its strategic partnership with rule of law nations around the world. The radio program features high-ranking US administration officials, cabinet members, members of Congress, state government officials, distinguished diplomats, business and media leaders and influential thinkers from around the world. America's Roundtable is aired by Lanser Broadcasting Corporation on 96.5 FM and 98.9 FM, covering Michigan's major market, SuperTalk Mississippi Media's 12 radio stations and 50 affiliates reaching every county in Mississippi and parts of the neighboring states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, and through podcast on Apple Podcasts and other key online platforms.

Liberal lawmaker Sophie in 't Veld says the European Union's survival depends on overcoming creeping sclerosis, ending acquiescence to autocrats, and embracing the kind of political spectacle that captures the public imagination. In her new book, The Scent of Wild Animals, Sophie writes that too much EU politics takes place behind closed doors, with no sensory experience for citizens. Her remedies include recasting the European Parliament's deference to the European Council and emboldening the Parliament to dismiss the European Commission when it fails to enforce EU law. "I see my colleagues looking at me as if I'm Che Guevara, you know, some very dangerous revolutionary or something," says Sophie, a four-term member of the European Parliament from the Dutch D66 party who recently withdrew from the race to lead Renew Europe. "But I wonder why?"Visit EU Scream for more episodes.  Support the show (https://euscream.com/donate/)

We discuss the problems with the trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and we speak with someone from the European Parliament.  Our guests are: Christine Anderson, Ben Bergquam, Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Peter Navarro, Naomi Wolf Stay ahead of the censors - Join us warroom.org/join Aired On: 11/04/2021 Watch: On the Web: http://www.warroom.org On Podcast: http://warroom.ctcin.bio On TV: PlutoTV Channel 240, Dish Channel 219, Roku, Apple TV, FireTV or on https://AmericasVoice.news. #news #politics #realnews

Bruegel Director Guntram Wolff and Senior fellow Alicia García-Herrero welcome Bernd Lange MEP, Chair of the European Parliament's committee on International Trade to talk big issues in EU trade policy: EU-US trade relation, how to deal with China, strategy on the WTO as well as what trade can achieve in the area of climate change and human rights.

①China's top epidemiologist says zero-Covid strategy is still less costly than living with the virus. Does he have a point? ②What does Virginia governor's race tell us about US political climate? ③With Ethiopia declaring a state of emergency, how will the military conflict in the country develop? ④Is it appropriate for the European Parliament to send an official delegation to Taiwan? ⑤Is “challenging business and legal environment” the real reason of Yahoo's pullout from China?

Topics Discussed: Biden admin to pay $450,000 per person to immigrants separated by Trump La Palma Volcano eruptions could send MASSIVE tsunami to U.S. East Coast Dave's Neighbor Nancy steals a car Big C little v cases in Indonesia, India, and Namibia plummet after Ivermectin treatment German politician of the European Parliament, Christine Margarete Anderson, speaks up for freedom against vax mandates   Support the Show!   Merchandise► https://www.pardonmyamerican.com/store Patreon►  https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34413934 PayPal► https://www.paypal.me/pardonmyamerican   Follow the Show!   Instagram►  https://www.instagram.com/pardonmyamericanpodcast/ Telegram► https://t.me/pardonmyamericanpodcast Website►  https://www.pardonmyamerican.com/ Rumble►  https://rumble.com/c/c-296311 YouTube►  https://www.youtube.com/c/PardonMyAmerican

* Buried toward the end of a spending bill, just BEFORE the outbreak, was a change in the definition of “vaccine” to include mRNA injections* Mandates causing mass firings & closings of fire stations as Biden continues his efforts to burn down society; his Press Sec Psaki (doubled jabbed, double masked) gets COVID. * Resistance Builds: giant Australian protest and cops don't get violent. Former cop tells them the world is watching whether they will be the “private army of a madman”* European Parliament members expose Pfizer's REDACTED, SECRET contracts.  Why is NO ONE allowed to see it?* Biden flagrant “climate” hypocrisy — 85 car entourage, jets, etc — to climate summit COP26 as Prince Charles pushes what he acknowledges is a “radical” restructuring of society* Biden loses in court, IGNORES the decision; Trump's SCOTUS picks are 1 out of 3 on throwing away religious exemption* Virginia fake Tiki protest backfires on Dems but county Mon 1Nov21TOPICS by TIMECODE2:30 US Definition of “Vaccine” Secretly Changed BEFORE “Outbreak”. Members of European Parliament are outraged at the BigPharma contracts being REDACTED as TOP SECRET.  And in Dec 2019, hidden in a 700 page funding bill, definition was changed to allow mRNA jab to be called a “vaccine”. US govt partnership with Moderna predated pandemic35:26 Biden Loses in One Court, REFUSES to Obey Ruling. As 2 of Trump's 3 appointments trash religious exemptions in Supreme Court,  Biden ignores a loss in another court, a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) against his mandates.55:08 Resistance, layoffs, closings as both government and We The People refuse to budge.  Here's what's happening with the military58:16 Listener writes that the letter another listener sent in helped him to state his religious exemption.  Mark of the Beast aspect.  And, Air Force says even if the commander believes the religious exemption is sincere, they will likely deny it1:30:26   Australia Massive Resistance: Former Cop Asks “Will You Be Private Army of a Madman”? No violence by cops for a change.  UNMASKED crowd is bigger than ever as order prohibits outdoor gathering of more than 30 people1:48:24 Public service employees, cops/firefighters, fight the arbitrary unilateral change in their contracts that mandate experimental injections 2:00:11 Now American Airlines claims weather is affecting ONLY their airline as they cancel 1,500 flights. Maybe the climate for tyranny is changing2:03:15 Listeners' letters: Propaganda is losing in small country due to “coconut radio”;  pastor stands his ground and wins when nursing home tries to keep him from visiting2:10:05 Lancet & Psaki Show Jab Mandate is Political, NOT Medical (NO Difference in Transmission). UK's premier medical journal, Lancet, joins the establishment consensus that “vaccination has NO impact on transmission”.  Jen Psaki, double-masked & double-jabbed, gets it from family member to underscore that there is NO medical reason to mandate jabs since it has NOTHING to do with reducing transmission2:19:42 Gov Kristi Noem congratulates herself for standing against Biden mandates – but SHE IS DOING NOTHING.  It's a total fraud, empty virtue signaling2:26:13 False flag Tiki protest.  McAuliffe will likely lose but ballots are already being stuffed 2:37:24 Joe Rides the BEAST: Lies & Loathing at “Climate” Global Confab. No one does elitism better than Biden and Prince Charles.  Meanwhile, damage to our supplies lines has been done and coal is sold out through 2022 and China can't enough of it or diesel fuel.2:53:15 How did Biden & Trump masquerade for Halloween?  Is there any truth to #PoopyPantsBiden?Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughZelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at:  $davidknightshowBTC to:  bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Mail: David Knight POB 1323 Elgin, TX 78621

Buried toward the end of a spending bill, just BEFORE the outbreak, was a change in the definition of “vaccine” to include mRNA injections Mandates causing mass firings & closings of fire stations as Biden continues his efforts to burn down society; his Press Sec Psaki (doubled jabbed, double masked) gets COVID.  Resistance Builds: giant Australian protest and cops don't get violent.  Former cop tells them the world is watching whether they will be the “private army of a madman” European Parliament members expose Pfizer's REDACTED, SECRET contracts.  Why is NO ONE allowed to see it? Biden flagrant “climate” hypocrisy — 85 car entourage, jets, etc — to climate summit COP26 as Prince Charles pushes what he acknowledges is a “radical” restructuring of society Biden loses in court, IGNORES the decision; Trump's SCOTUS picks are 1 out of 3 on throwing away religious exemption Virginia fake Tiki protest backfires on Dems but county Mon 1Nov21 TOPICS by TIMECODE 2:30 US Definition of “Vaccine” Secretly Changed BEFORE “Outbreak”. Members of European Parliament are outraged at the BigPharma contracts being REDACTED as TOP SECRET.  And in Dec 2019, hidden in a 700 page funding bill, definition was changed to allow mRNA jab to be called a “vaccine”. US govt partnership with Moderna predated pandemic 35:26 Biden Loses in One Court, REFUSES to Obey Ruling. As 2 of Trump's 3 appointments trash religious exemptions in Supreme Court,  Biden ignores a loss in another court, a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) against his mandates. 55:08 Resistance, layoffs, closings as both government and We The People refuse to budge.  Here's what's happening with the military 58:16 Listener writes that the letter another listener sent in helped him to state his religious exemption.  Mark of the Beast aspect.  And, Air Force says even if the commander believes the religious exemption is sincere, they will likely deny it 1:30:26   Australia Massive Resistance: Former Cop Asks “Will You Be Private Army of a Madman”? No violence by cops for a change.  UNMASKED crowd is bigger than ever as order prohibits outdoor gathering of more than 30 people 1:48:24 Public service employees, cops/firefighters, fight the arbitrary unilateral change in their contracts that mandate experimental injections  2:00:11 Now American Airlines claims weather is affecting ONLY their airline as they cancel 1,500 flights. Maybe the climate for tyranny is changing 2:03:15 Listeners' letters: Propaganda is losing in small country due to “coconut radio”;  pastor stands his ground and wins when nursing home tries to keep him from visiting 2:10:05 Lancet & Psaki Show Jab Mandate is Political, NOT Medical (NO Difference in Transmission). UK's premier medical journal, Lancet, joins the establishment consensus that “vaccination has NO impact on transmission”.  Jen Psaki, double-masked & double-jabbed, gets it from family member to underscore that there is NO medical reason to mandate jabs since it has NOTHING to do with reducing transmission 2:19:42 Gov Kristi Noem congratulates herself for standing against Biden mandates – but SHE IS DOING NOTHING.  It's a total fraud, empty virtue signaling 2:26:13 False flag Tiki protest.  McAuliffe will likely lose but ballots are already being stuffed  2:37:24 Joe Rides the BEAST: Lies & Loathing at “Climate” Global Confab. No one does elitism better than Biden and Prince Charles.  Meanwhile, damage to our supplies lines has been done and coal is sold out through 2022 and China can't enough of it or diesel fuel. 2:53:15 How did Biden & Trump masquerade for Halloween?  Is there any truth to #PoopyPantsBiden?   Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation through Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.com Cash App at:  $davidknightshow BTC to:  bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7 Mail:          David Knight          POB 1323          Elgin, TX 78621

In this special report: Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes speaks out at the European Parliament about Vax Passport. "No medical treatment should be imposed on you unless you decide about it freely and under informed consent." "To have the green certificate (Vaccine passport) is violating this freedom". "The difference between tyranny and democracy is very simple...When the government knows everything about you, it's tyranny. When you know everything about your government, it's democracy"Don't miss this speech.  MEP Terhes nails it!Share this far and wide!For breaking news from one of the most over the target and censored names in the world join our 100% Free newsletter at www.NemosNewsNetwork.com/newsAlso follow us at Gabhttps://gab.com/nemosnewsnetworkNemos News is 100% listener funded. Thank you for your support in our mission to Break the Cycle of Fake News.If you value our work please consider supporting us with our vetted patriot sponsors!www.NemosNewsNetwork.com/sponsorsShop Patriot & Detox the Deep State with www.RedPillLiving.com, Home of Sleepy Joe - the world's most powerful all natural sleep formula & The Great Awakening Gourmet Coffee for Patriots."Our Specialty, is Waking People Up."Other LinksJoin our Telegram chat: www.NemosNewsNetwork.com/chat

Chad Bray speaks with SCMP US bureau chief Rob Delaney and European correspondent Finbarr Bermingham about the increasing prominence of Taiwan on the agenda of the White House and the European Parliament. Hear about the upcoming G20 meeting in Rome and how Xi Jinping's absence is being seen as a missed opportunity for face to face diplomacy - and what will replace it.

Today's speakers, who are human rights activists as well as being business-oriented, will discuss why Bitcoin matters, especially in the Middle East region. Alex Gladstein, vice president of strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum, has connected many dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, philanthropists, policymakers and artists, to promote free and open societies. He has shared his views at MIT, Stanford, BBC, the European Parliament, the U.S. State Department, and other venues. He is the singularity expert at Singularity University and advises Blockchain Capital. Fadi Elsalameen, who was born in Hebron, is a critic of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and has received death threats for his pro-democracy and anti-corruption work. He is a graduate of Seeds of Peace, a successful businessperson, and has also shared his views at many leading institutions, including The Commonwealth Club of California. SPEAKERS Fadi Elsalameen M.S., International Relations and Economics; Adjunct Senior Fellow, American Security Project Alex Gladstein Chief Strategy Officer, Human Rights Foundation; Co-Author, The Little Bitcoin Book Jonathan Curiel Author—Moderator In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on October 18th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has accused the EU of blackmail in a heated debate with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen over the rule of law. The clash in the European Parliament follows a top Polish court ruling that rejected key parts of EU law. Also in the programme; Eric Zemmour, the outspoken former journalist who is causing a stir in France's presidential race before it's even begun; and a Portuguese diplomat who was punished by his government for helping Jewish refugees during World War two has now been given the highest honour by his government. (Picture shows Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki delivering a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Credit: Ronald Wittek/Pool via Reuters)

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has accused Poland of threatening the fundamental legal order of the EU. Today the European Parliament is debating threats to the rule of law in Poland, where the Constitutional Court recently rejected the primacy of EU law. Also in the programme: the Ethiopian federal government has admitted carrying out air strikes on the Tigrayan regional capital Mekelle – but is a peace process possible? And new research on the genetic bases of drug resistance in tuberculosis could be a game-changer in the fight to eliminate the disease that killed 1.4 million people last year. (Image: Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki delivers a speech during a debate on Poland's challenge to the supremacy of EU laws at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France October 19, 2021 / Credit: Ronald Wittek/Pool via Reuters)

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS -&- SIMONA MANGIANTE PAPADOPOULOS join @TootsSweet & @JewelsJones1 on the Patriots In Tune Show - Patriots In Tune Show - Ep. # 471 -

It looks like the European Union's competition czar Margrethe Vestager has finally found her right hand partner in Lina Khan. She tells host Ryan Heath the Biden administration, with its commitment to regulating Big Tech, is a “dream come true.” But what will that EU-U.S. cooperation really look like? Also: Vestager's game plan to protect whistleblowers, plus her own rules for tech at home.  Ryan Heath is the host of the "Global Insider" podcast and authors the newsletter.  Olivia Reingold produces “Global Insider.”  Irene Noguchi edits “Global Insider” and is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman discuss the many ongoing labor struggles in various industries, how the social, political, and economic conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated the already-existing issues that have contributed to this strike wave, the next steps in building a broader movement, and the need to join questions of race, labor, and class in organizing that broad labor movement.In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Gnaka Lagoke, Assistant Professor of History and Pan-Africana Studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a founding member of the Convention for Pan-Africanism and Progress to discuss the long past-due trial into the murder of Burkina Faso revolutionary Thomas Sankara, Sankara's significant contributions to Burkina Faso during his short time in power, and the counter-reovultion which placed Burkina Faso back in the hands of France, led by Blaise Compaoré, former president and defendant in absentia.In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by technologist Chris Garaffa, the editor of TechforthePeople.org to discuss Facebook's smear and minimization campaign against whistleblower Frances Haugen, the European Parliament's call for a ban on facial recognition technology and how it signals public opposition to weaponizing AI against people, the impact of the US targeting of Huawei and how it fits into the cold war drive against China.Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Gabriel Rockhill, an organizer, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University to discuss the financial backing of the far-right disinformation One America News Network by AT&T and the dark money behind the rise of far right politics in the United States, the ties between the media and the national security state, the similarities between the fascist 1934 “Business Plot” to overthrow the US government and the Capitol insurrection, and how movement and alternative media can connect the dots between the stories that dominate the headlines and the broader system of capitalism.

In this segment of By Any Means Necessary, Sean and Jacquie are joined by technologist Chris Garaffa, the editor of TechforthePeople.org to discuss Facebook's smear and minimization campaign against whistleblower Frances Haugen, the European Parliament's call for a ban on facial recognition technology and how it signals public opposition to weaponizing AI against people, the impact of the US targeting of Huawei and how it fits into the cold war drive against China.

This year's Nobel prize for economics has been shared by three recipients. David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens were awarded the prize for their use of "natural experiments" to understand how economic policy and other events connect. Professor Card, of UC Berkeley, tells us about his work. Also in the programme, with high energy prices leading to the suspension of steel production in parts of Europe, we ask Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, Pedro Marques, what governments can do to help deal with the situation. The BBC's Vivienne Nunis reports on the economic importance of donkeys to sub-Saharan Africa. Plus, we hear from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, about whether business is doing enough to tackle climate change. Today's edition is presented by Rob Young, and produced by Nisha Patel and Benjie Guy. (Picture: The Nobel economics prize is announced. Picture credit: Reuters.)

Canary Cry News Talk #399 - 10.08.2021 RESET, RUMORS OF WARS: Battle of Sci, Tech, Social, Pol, Econ, Militia, Edu, Spiritual - CCNT 399 WEBSITE/SHOW NOTES: CanaryCryNewsTalk.com EVERYTHING ELSE: CanaryCry.Party SUPPORT: CanaryCryRadio.com/Support MEET UPS: CanaryCryMeetUps.com ravel: Ravel Podcast Facelikethesun Resurrection YouTube channel Truther Dating experiment INTRO 1:15 Episode 400 prep Candace Owens says we are in WW3 [New Arms Race] Clip: Another Biden speech went really well FLIPPY 9:34 Robot arm that finds lost items, fuses data from cameras and antennae (MIT Edu)   CHINA 19:30 11 injured, US Nuke Submarine collides with “unknown object” South China Sea (DailyMail)   SPACE POPE REPTILIAN 25:37 Quotes: The world needs more waccine, less war (American Mag) [New Arms Race]   MONEY 35:01 NatWest, a bank in Britain, pleads guilty for money laundering (Reuters) Leak reveals Twitch Streamer earnings, millions (Fortune) Amazon secured $670 million in tax breaks, says watchdog (CBS NEWS) Note: Official, George Soros is trading Bitcoin (Yahoo) Note: Senator Cynthia Lummis reveals $100K purchase of Bitcoin (NBC) Moderna founders debut on Forbes' top 400 richest Americans (NY Post) Clip: Implications of “Little Guy” who front ran Institutions, Alex Machinsky Celsius Network CEO   I AM WACCINE 55:08 WHO backs first malaria waccine for children (CNN) Not mention on CNN: Gavi, leading the way (Global Fund) Sanofi says positive results from first high dose flu + C19 booster shot (Sanofi Press)   BREAK 1: Executive Producers, Paypal, Patrons 1:06:28 Clip: How surveillance advertising is tracking you   COVID 19/PANDEMIC SPECIAL 1:43:52 Clip: Dr. Leanna Wen, US should be more like Canada Clip: Trudeau introduces mandate, no more testing? Clip: Newfoundland presser for mandate…squirt squirt Clips: Alex Jones exposes video from 2019, Fauci planning pandemic marketing (New Rescue) Clip: Fauci, 1 and 2 Clip: LA passes mandate, people push back BREAK 2: Art, Reviews, Jingles, Meet Ups 2:22:24   POLITICS 2:54:05 Abortion law on hold, Basil was right (CNN) Biden to sign bill to raise debt ceiling (The Hill) Kamala Harris to “Stop the Steal” (The Atlantic)   ADDITIONAL STORIES San Fransisco to list mask mandates on Oct. 15 (SF Chron) Elon Musk to move Tesla HQ to Texas (AP) 18 former NBA players arrested for defrauding health care system (NBC) Chimeric injections in CRISPR reduces tumors (BioRxiv) Facebook renews ambitions to connect world (Wired) What Biden needs to say about Surveillance Tech and Foreign Policy (Just Security) Clip: Ethics professor pushes back on mandates, get's fired Note: Study finds waccinated people more susceptible to variant than unwaxxed (MedRxiv) Clip: Klaus says Henry Kissinger influence, Rockefeller admits recruiting Kissinger Priest absolved abuse, hours after addressing French Church abuse cases (DailyMail) Quotes: The world needs more waccine, less war (American Mag) [New Arms Race] Priest absolved abuse, hours after addressing French Church abuse cases (DailyMail) Fact Check: Sweden “bans”…halts all Moderna SpikeVax (Newsweek) Man who killed pharmacist brother was enraged about waccine (USA Today) European Parliament opposes AI mass surveillance (PC Mag)   PRODUCERS ep. 399: Derek R**, Rachelle, Aaron J, Arnold W, Liz D, Veronica D, Juan A, Ethan N, Sean D, HeatheRuss, Morv, Sir Casey the Shield Knight, Mark D, Dominick R, JC, Child of God, Sir Sammons the Knight of the Fishes, Malik, Scott K, Gail M, DrWhoDunDat, Brandt W, Runksmash, Ciara, Douglas P   TIMESTAMPS: Rachel C JINGLES: LearBag3000 ART: Dame Allie of the Skillet Nation Sir Dove, Knight of Rustbeltia Ryan N LivingTeaBill

This summer's hasty and poorly executed withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan caused shock and profound unease among Washington's allies, just as they hoped the unilateralism of the Trump era had been left behind. But anxiety about America's position on defence only intensified with the unveiling in September of AUKUS - a trilateral security pact involving Australia, the US and UK covering the Indo-Pacific region. The exclusion of France from that deal not only enraged Paris but also further alarmed European allies about American intentions. So what next? Can the Biden administration be trusted to uphold the security guarantee which underpins NATO? Or, as France's President Emmanuel Macron argues, do these and other actions by the United States show that the 70 year-old Alliance is effectively "brain dead" and that Europe has to set about achieving "strategic autonomy" without depending on Washington's whims? In a lively forum with key players and thinkers about European security from both sides of the Atlantic, Edward Stourton considers what should happen now on European defence and whether seemingly divergent views about it can be reconciled. Those taking part: Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director of the Royal United Services Institute in London; Nathalie Loiseau, MEP, former French Minister of European Affairs and Chair of the European Parliament's Sub-committee on Security and Defence; Dr Constanze Stelzenmüller, expert on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.; and Linas Linkevicius, former Foreign and Defence Minister of Lithuania. Producer: Simon Coates Editor: Jasper Corbett Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Australian barrister Neville Rochow QC has offered the LDS Church legal advice over the years and has appeared for the church at parliamentary committees on the question of religious freedom.   For two years, he also represented the church at the European Parliament in Brussels. He has been intimately involved in the church's legal concerns and is well versed in how its legal machinery works, particularly internationally. In part two of this series, Neville joins me to discuss the LDS Church and its financial activities. 

Health workers who don't get paid if they contract Covid-19. Over 6,000 migrant workers dead after helping with World Cup construction in the Middle East. As the head of the world's largest union confederation, it's Sharan Burrow's priority to protect workers against abuses like these and hold offending governments accountable. But as she tells host Ryan Heath, she's walking a tightrope between convincing governments to change and keeping her seat at the table. Sharan Burrow is the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.  Ryan Heath is the host of the "Global Insider" podcast and newsletter.  Olivia Reingold produces “Global Insider.”  Irene Noguchi edits “Global Insider” and is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow #NewWorldReport:  Europe rejects the Ortegas of Managua. Senadora Maria Fernanda Cabal. @MariaFdaCabal (on leave) Joseph Humire @JMHumire @SecureFreeSoc https://www.securefreesociety.org Parliamentarian Hermann Tertsch, European Parliament, Brussels, representing Vox Party of Spain. @hermanntertsch GLXXG https://www.confidencial.com.ni/english/nicaragua-faces-worst-historical-context-to-exercise-journalism/

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow #NewWorldReport:   What is the risk to Colombia?  Senadora Maria Fernanda Cabal. @MariaFdaCabal (on leave) Joseph Humire @JMHumire @SecureFreeSoc https://www.securefreesociety.org Parliamentarian Hermann Tertsch, European Parliament, Brussels, representing Vox Party of Spain. @hermanntertsch GLXXG https://www.laprensalatina.com/colombias-duque-says-skeptical-about-venezuela-talks/

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow #NewWorldReport:   The ghost of Chavez in Spain.  Senadora Maria Fernanda Cabal. @MariaFdaCabal (on leave) Joseph Humire @JMHumire @SecureFreeSoc https://www.securefreesociety.org Parliamentarian Hermann Tertsch, European Parliament, Brussels, representing Vox Party of Spain. @hermanntertsch GLXXG https://news.yahoo.com/spain-venezuelan-spymaster-loses-court-145520316.html

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow #NewWorldReport:  AMLO welcomes CELAC to Mexico City  Senadora Maria Fernanda Cabal. @MariaFdaCabal (on leave) Joseph Humire @JMHumire @SecureFreeSoc https://www.securefreesociety.org Parliamentarian Hermann Tertsch, European Parliament, Brussels, representing Vox Party of Spain. @hermanntertsch GLXXG https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/latam-leaders-express-ire-over-presence-of-cuba-venezuela-at-celac-conference/