NewzIntel.com

Category: AM-NC

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Kaspersky: Advanced Persistent Threat (APT41) targets Southern African organisation in espionage attack

    Source: APO

    Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response experts (www.Kaspersky.co.za) have observed a cyber espionage attack on an organisation in Southern African and have linked it to the Chinese-speaking  APT41 group. Although the threat actor has shown limited activity in Southern Africa, this incident reveals that the cyber attackers have targeted government IT services in one of the countries in the region, attempting to steal sensitive corporate data — including credentials, internal documents, source code, and communications.

    APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) is a category of threat actors known for carrying out concerted, stealthy, and ongoing attacks against specific organisations, as opposed to opportunistic, isolated incidents that account for most cybercriminal activity. The adversaries’ techniques observed during the attack in Southern Africa allowed Kaspersky to attribute it to the Chinese-speaking APT41 group with a high confidence. The primary goal of the attack was cyber espionage, which is typical for this threat actor. The attackers attempted to collect sensitive data from the machines they compromised within the organisation’s network.

    It is noteworthy that APT41 typically has been showing quite limited activity in the Southern African region. APT41 specialises in cyber espionage and targets organisations across various industries, including telecommunications providers, educational and healthcare institutions, IT, energy, and other sectors, with known activity in at least 42 countries.

    Based on Kaspersky experts’ analysis, the attackers may have gained access to the organisation’s network through a web server exposed to the Internet. Using a credential harvesting technique – known in professional terms as registry dumping – the attackers obtained two corporate domain accounts: one with local administrator rights on all workstations and another belonging to a backup solution, which had domain administrator privileges. These accounts allowed the attackers to compromise additional systems within the organisation.

    One of the stealers used for data collection was a modified Pillager utility, designed for exporting and decrypting data. The attackers compiled its code from an executable file into a Dynamic Link Library (DLL). With it, they aimed to gather saved credentials from browsers, databases, administrative tools, as well as project source code, screenshots, active chat sessions and their data, email correspondence, lists of installed software, operating system credentials, Wi-Fi credentials, and other information.

    The second stealer used during the attack was Checkout. In addition to saved credentials and browser history, it was also capable of collecting information on downloaded files and browser-stored credit card data. The attackers also used the RawCopy utility and a version of Mimikatz compiled as a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) to dump registry files and credentials, as well as Cobalt Strike for Command and Control (C2) communication on compromised hosts.

    “Interestingly, as one of their C2 communication channels besides Cobalt Strike, the attackers chose the SharePoint server within the victim’s infrastructure. They communicated with it using custom C2 agents connected with a web-shell. They may have chosen SharePoint because it was an internal service already present in the infrastructure and unlikely to raise suspicion. Moreover, in that case, it probably offered the most convenient way to exfiltrate data and control compromised hosts through a legitimate communication channel,” explains Denis Kulik, Lead SOC Analyst at Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response service.

    “In general, defending against such sophisticated attacks is impossible without comprehensive expertise and continuous monitoring of the entire infrastructure. It is essential to maintain full security coverage across all systems with solutions capable of automatically blocking malicious activity at an early stage — and to avoid granting user accounts excessive privileges,” comments Denis Kulik.

    To mitigate or prevent similar attacks, organisations are advised to follow these best practices:

    • Ensure that security agents are deployed on all workstations within the organisation without exception, to enable timely incident detection and minimise potential damage.
    • Review and control service and user account privileges, avoiding excessive rights assignments – especially for accounts used across multiple hosts within the infrastructure.
    • To protect the company against a wide range of threats, use solutions from the Kaspersky Next (https://apo-opa.co/44EI2e3) product line that provide real-time protection, threat visibility, investigation and the response capabilities of EDR and XDR for organisations of any size and industry. Depending on your current needs and available resources, you can choose the most relevant product tier and easily migrate to another one if your cybersecurity requirements are changing.
    • Adopt managed security services by Kaspersky such as Compromise Assessment (https://apo-opa.co/4m8aElL), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (https://apo-opa.co/4m6do37) and / or Incident Response (https://apo-opa.co/44VsAsP), covering the entire incident management cycle – from threat identification to continuous protection and remediation.  They help to protect against evasive cyberattacks, investigate incidents and get additional expertise even if a company lacks cybersecurity workers.
    • Provide your InfoSec professionals with an in-depth visibility into cyberthreats targeting your organisation. The latest Kaspersky Threat Intelligence (https://apo-opa.co/3TQbRlK) will provide them with rich and meaningful context across the entire incident management cycle and helps them identify cyber risks in a timely manner.

    A detailed analysis of the incident is available on Securelist (https://apo-opa.co/46mfGGS).

    Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response service monitors suspicious activity and helps organisations respond swiftly to minimise impact. This is a part of Kaspersky Security Services, a team delivering hundreds of information security projects every year for Fortune Global 500 organisations: incident response, managed detection, SOC consulting, red teaming, penetration testing, application security, digital risks protection. 

    Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Kaspersky.

    For further information please contact:
    Nicole Allman
    nicole@inkandco.co.za

    Social Media:
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    Blog: https://apo-opa.co/4l8kweB

    About Kaspersky:
    Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. With over a billion devices protected to date from emerging cyberthreats and targeted attacks, Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative solutions and services to protect individuals, businesses, critical infrastructure, and governments around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading digital life protection for personal devices, specialized security products and services for companies, as well as Cyber Immune solutions to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. We help millions of individuals and over 200,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.Kaspersky.co.za. 

    Media files

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    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Morocco: African Development Bank approves €100 Million to empower women and youth entrepreneurs in building inclusive and sustainable agriculture

    Source: APO

    The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) has approved a €100 million loan to support Morocco’s inclusive solidarity-based agriculture program, focused on empowering women and young people.

    The project aims to generate sustainable economic opportunities for women and youth, boost food security, and strengthen the resilience of small-scale farming against climate change. It will stimulate entrepreneurship through tailored financing and incentive mechanisms and by bolstering technical and financial support systems.

    The program will also facilitate the deployment of new agricultural production and service infrastructure, helping to anchor women in local value chains, strengthen their skills, and boost their productivity. These actions will encourage the emergence of women entrepreneurs across agriculture, agro-processing and digital technologies. It will support the new roadmap for employment by promoting rural entrepreneurship.

    “Women who have the ambition to undertake and succeed in agriculture are our priority,” said Achraf Tarsim, head of the African Development Bank country office in Morocco. “Through this new operation, we will support them step by step to build a modern, inclusive and resilient agriculture, capable of revealing the full potential of those who aspire to innovate and create value and employment in their territories.”

    Aligned with Morocco’s priorities, the program will support the implementation of the Green Generation 2020-2030 Strategy, Morocco’s plan for transforming agriculture into a more inclusive, sustainable and efficient sector; the National Solidarity Agriculture Program, and the National Youth Entrepreneurship Program.

    For more than 50 years, the African Development Bank Group has supported the Kingdom in a partnership based on a shared and integrated vision of development. Over the period, the Bank invested nearly €15 billion in more than 150 high-impact projects in strategic sectors such as transport, water, energy, agriculture, social protection, governance and finance.

    Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

    Media contact:
    Fahd Belbachir
    Principal Communication and External Relations Officer
    media@afdb.org

    About the African Development Bank Group:
    The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 41 African countries with an external office in Japan, the Bank contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. For more information: www.AfDB.org

    Media files

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    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Integrating youth in agrifood systems transformation in Zimbabwe

    Source: APO


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    The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Government of Zimbabwe launched a technical cooperation programme to enhance national capacity to support meaningful youth engagement in agrifood systems through policy support, leadership development and institutional strengthening.

    FAO provides technical support to the Government of Zimbabwe to ensure that youth are meaningfully integrated into agrifood systems as key actors in productivity, innovation, and food security. This project builds upon the experiences of the FAO in Zimbabwe including the Green Jobs for Rural Youth Employment. It represents a crucial step in addressing the youth-related knowledge and skills and policy gaps identified in previous initiatives.

    FAO highlights the urgency of creating 10–12 million new jobs annually in Africa and positions agrifood systems especially given their rapid growth and high potential for value addition as key to unlocking youth employment. Drawing on FAO Investment Guidelines for Youth in Agrifood Systems, the approach emphasizes integrating youth perspectives throughout the project cycle. The approach encourages recognizing youth as a diverse group with varied needs, capacities, and aspirations, and calls for collaboration among public, private, and civil society actors to create enabling environments.

    “This project is set to inform and shape future priorities for collaboration between the Government of Zimbabwe and FAO on youth-related matters. By fostering this collaboration, the project aims to create an enabling environment that supports more effective interventions for youth engagement in agrifood systems, ultimately empowering young people to take a leading role in transforming these systems for the better,” said Patrice Talla, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa and Representative to Zimbabwe.

    This milestone comes at an opportune time when the country is starting to operationalize the second phase of the Agriculture and Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy (AFSRTS 2.0) with a particular focus on mainstreaming and integrating youth in agrifood systems.

    “Mainstreaming youth is not an optional add-on; it is the fundamental strategy for achieving resilient, productive, and transformed agrifood systems and rural communities. The Government of Zimbabwe will provide visionary leadership, enact enabling policies, prioritize budget allocation for youth mainstreaming initiatives within Strategy 2.0, and ensure coordination across ministries,” said Mr. Jairos Mandizadza, Director – Gender Mainstreaming, Inclusivity and Wellness in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development in his keynote address.

    As part of its commitment to enhancing youth participation in Zimbabwe’s agrifood systems, the FAO-led project will initiate a consultative and participatory process to support the development of a comprehensive national strategy that integrate youth issues. The approach is designed to engage a wide spectrum of stakeholders, from primary producers to tertiary institutions and development partners while ensuring that the strategy is grounded in local realities and informed by diverse perspectives.

    As the project gains momentum, young people across Zimbabwe are expressing optimism and a renewed sense of purpose.

    “With this project we are energised, motivated, by being heard, valued, seen and more importantly included, we are no longer participants but change makers and this proves that there is nothing for us which can be done without us,” said Getrude Chambati, Secretary for the World Food Forum Zimbabwe Chapter.

    The process of project implementation will include a combination of face-to-face stakeholder consultations, strategic planning meetings, and a desk review of existing work by other partners in the sector. This blended methodology will ensure that the strategy builds on past efforts while introducing fresh, youth-centred insights. The project ultimately aims to support Zimbabwe in formulating a National Youth Investment Plan and a Youth-inclusive Agrifood Systems Strategy, laying the groundwork for sustainable and inclusive agricultural transformation.

    The inception meeting provided the platform to key stakeholders, including youths to review and provide input on how the draft AFSRTS 2 can integrate more youths issues. This was achieved through breakout sessions where participants were put into groups to review and update pillars of the AFSRTS 2. During the launch key stakeholders had the opportunity to appreciate the current youth in agrifood systems frameworks and policies at national, regional and international levels.

    Going forward, the project is poised to play a transformative role in shaping Zimbabwe’s agrifood landscape by supporting the development of a robust national strategy and targeted investment plans for youth. By enhancing the capacity and skills of both young people and agriculture ministry personnel, FAO is committed to strengthening governance and leadership frameworks that support youth inclusion. This marks a pivotal step toward building a more resilient, inclusive, and future-ready agrifood system, driven by the energy, innovation, and potential of Zimbabwe’s youth.

    Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Regional Office for Africa.

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: British Muslim Trust appointed as new partner to monitor and tackle anti-Muslim hatred

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    News story

    British Muslim Trust appointed as new partner to monitor and tackle anti-Muslim hatred

    The Combatting Hate Against Muslims Fund was established this year to tackle the record levels of anti-Muslim hate.

    • British Muslim Trust will receive funding as part of a new government drive against record levels of anti-Muslim hate.
    • Funding will boost victim support and strengthen hate crime reporting nationwide.
    • The Trust unites decades of expertise from Aziz Foundation and Randeree Charitable Trust.

    The British Muslim Trust (BMT) has been selected as the recipient of the government’s new Combatting Hate Against Muslims Fund, a key initiative to address the rise in anti-Muslim hatred across England.

    The fund was established this year to respond to the evolving nature of religious intolerance and targeted hate incidents faced by Muslim communities, which are at the highest level on record.

    BMT will use the funding to develop a robust reporting system that captures both online and offline incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, including those that may go unreported to the police.

    It will also enable the organisation to provide direct support to victims, raise awareness of what constitutes a hate crime, and encourage greater reporting from affected communities.

    Lord Khan, Minister for Faith, said:

    The rise of anti-Muslim hatred in this county is alarming and deeply concerning.

    That’s why we established this new fund: to ensure we’re doing everything we can to deeply understand the situation our Muslim communities are facing, provide them with the support they need and give us the tools needed to tackle this unacceptable hatred.

    I look forward to working with the British Muslim Trust on our shared ambition to create a safer, more tolerant society for everyone as part of our Plan for Change.

    By analysing the data collected, the BMT will help identify the trends and drivers behind these incidents, providing the government with the evidence needed to shape effective policy and inform action to tackle anti-Muslim hate moving forward, helping to deliver on our Safer Streets mission as part of our Plan for Change.

    The BMT brings together the Aziz Foundation and Randeree Charitable Trust to form a comprehensive organisation, combining their expertise and strong community foundations, gained from over twenty-years of work, to meet the demands of today’s landscape.

    Shabir Randeree, CBE, will serve as the Chair of the Board of Directors, bringing with him a wealth of cross-sector experience, knowledge and a firm commitment to championing the welfare of ethnic minorities in Britain.

    Shabir Randeree, Chair of the Board of Directors at the British Muslim Trust, said:

    Tackling anti-Muslim hatred is essential to building safer, more inclusive communities – and we are proud to have been appointed to deliver this important work.

    The British Muslim Trust will work closely with partners across the country to support victims, listen to communities, and help ensure that every person can live free from fear and hatred.

    Notes to Editors:

    • The British Muslim Trust will begin receiving reports and monitoring incidents from early autumn.
    • In establishing the BMT, The Aziz Foundation and Randeree Charitable Trust have also worked closely with Akeela Ahmed MBE, who they intend to appoint as CEO, drawing on her decades of experience in working with grassroots organisations and policy-level anti-hate work.
    • Incidents of hate crime directed towards Muslims is at a record high in England and Wales – as set out in recent government statistics: Hate crime, England and Wales, year ending March 2024 – GOV.UK
    • The window to bid for this funding under the Combatting Hate Against Muslims Fund ran from 7 April for six weeks. More information about the assessment criteria used to select the grant partner can be found in the fund’s prospectus, linked here: Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: prospectus – GOV.UK
    • The Randeree Charitable Trust has spent decades supporting and funding organisations which work to empower young people, support interfaith dialogue, religious understanding and community cohesion. Through this work, the Trust has built a deep and widespread network which will support in establishing the British Muslim Trust’s within communities across the country.

    • The Aziz Foundation supports individuals from British Muslim communities by empowering them to advance their careers and make valuable contributions to society through providing Master’s scholarships and other resources. The foundation has spent a decade nurturing confident leaders of Muslim background to address social challenges and promote positive change within their communities and beyond.

    • NPCC’s National Police Advisor for Hate Crime Paul Giannasi said:

    “The Crime Survey for England and Wales demonstrates that hate crime has a greater impact on victims when compared to non-targeted crime. It damages our society, creating fear and division in communities that are targeted. 

    “We also know that hate crime has traditionally been underreported and have seen evidence that this is a particular challenge with those affected by anti-Muslim hatred.

    “The police will not tolerate hate crime and would encourage all victims to report crimes, whether direct to the police or through third-party facilities provided by community groups. 

    “We welcome the funding that government has committed to address this issue and any initiative that helps victims to seek and receive the services they deserve.”

    • Imam Qasim, Exec. Chairman & Founder, Al-Khair Foundation, said:

    “Al Khair Foundation welcomes the establishment of the British Muslim Trust as a dedicated platform through which members of the public may report hate crimes. 

    “This timely and much-needed initiative constitutes a significant milestone in the advancement of community cohesion and the restoration of trust and confidence among affected communities.”

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: SPbPU representatives took part in the cross-university examination of the Priority-2030 program

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    The Sociocenter, with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, has completed the selection of experts to conduct a cross-university examination of the implementation of the Priority-2030 program. Among them are the head of the SPbPU Office of Technological Leadership Oleg Rozhdestvensky, Vice-Rector for Continuing and Pre-University Education Dmitry Tikhonov and Director of the Department of Economics and Finance Elena Vinogradova.

    In total, 156 representatives of universities participating in the Priority 2030 program and scientific organizations will be involved in the cross-university examination of the Priority 2030 program.

    The selection of experts was a multi-stage process. At the correspondence stage, the selection committee assessed the professional experience and motivation of candidates based on their resumes and essays. As a result, 225 people received an invitation to an educational intensive course at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. There, the candidates’ leadership qualities, teamwork skills, ability to analyze information and formulate constructive proposals were assessed. The final stage was an online meeting with the participation of expert candidates, representatives of the Sociocenter and the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, at which five strategically important areas of modern higher education were formulated:

    target model and strategic positioning; university development management; strategic technology projects and change projects; knowledge production, transfer and application system for technological leadership; leadership and development team.

    After the final list of experts was approved, the Sociocenter team began the final preparation of a large-scale expert work that will cover 113 universities participating in the Priority 2030 program. From September, experts will begin visiting universities across the country to assess their condition and develop recommendations for further development.

    Cross-university assessment is an innovative format for assessing the activities of universities, in which the assessment is carried out by representatives of the professional community of university specialists themselves. This mechanism allows combining the principles of objective assessment with the possibility of mutual learning and dissemination of best practices.

    “This is an excellent expert tool that has not only proven its effectiveness over the past couple of years, but has also ensured the formation of a community of qualified specialists in the field of university development,” commented Oleg Rozhdestvensky, Head of the SPbPU Office of Technological Leadership. “And the main difference this year is that such expert work is becoming systemic — more and more people and universities are getting involved. This is extremely important given the focus of most universities on the federal agenda of achieving technological leadership and the upcoming changes in the higher education system in the country.”

    The Russian Ministry of Education and Science has been implementing the Priority 2030 program since 2021. Since 2025, the program has become part of the federal project Universities for a Generation of Leaders of the national project Youth and Children.

    Based on materials from the Federal State Autonomous Institution “Sociocenter”

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: 2,139 freight trains passed through Manzhouli checkpoint in January-June this year

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) — A total of 2,139 freight trains passed through Manzhouli Port on China-Europe international freight routes in the first half of this year, the press service of the people’s government of the city of the same name in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region said Monday.

    These trains transported about 228 thousand standard containers /twenty-foot equivalent unit, TEU/. In particular, 1,360 similar trains passed through this border crossing in the opposite direction, delivering more than 141 thousand TEU to China. Compared to the same period last year, both indicators increased by 7.4 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

    As of last month, in terms of the volume of freight train transportation on return trips through the Manzhouli border crossing, this border crossing has been ranked first in the country for six months in a row.

    The Manzhouli checkpoint is located on the border of China with the Zabaikalsky Krai of Russia. Currently, China-Europe freight trains entering China connect Manzhouli with more than 60 cities in the country, including Harbin, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The range of products imported to China through this checkpoint includes essential goods, electronics, cars, edible oil, lumber, etc. -0-

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: CPC launches new round of disciplinary inspections

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) — China has launched the sixth round of routine disciplinary inspections by the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC Central Committee). As of Sunday, teams of inspectors had been dispatched to 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, according to an official statement released Monday.

    In addition, joint inspections will be carried out in 10 sub-provincial cities in cooperation with relevant inspection authorities at the provincial level.

    According to the statement, the work under the new round of disciplinary inspections will focus on violations of political and organizational discipline, as well as discipline in following the principles of honesty and integrity, discipline in relation to the masses, labor and everyday discipline.

    Teams of inspectors will be deployed to designated units for a period of approximately two and a half months. Access to duty telephone lines and mailboxes will be open to receive messages and complaints from the public until September 23 this year. -0-

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Rosneft held a corporate festival “Energy of Talents” in Moscow

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    The final of Rosneft’s corporate creative festival “Energy of Talents” was held in Moscow at the Mosproducer conference center, in which employees of 44 of the Company’s enterprises from all over the country took part.

    Rosneft has been holding annual creative festivals for its employees since 2011. In 2025, more than 7,000 people from 59 Group Companies applied to participate in the Energy of Talents selection round, which was held online. The jury members viewed hundreds of creative numbers in various nominations.

    Participants who qualified for the final competed over two days in dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, original genre, fine art and photography. Winners in six nominations were selected by a professional jury, with voting in two nominations taking place online.

    Between performances, participants and spectators had the opportunity to take master classes under the guidance of professional teachers in choreography, vocals, acting, public speaking and instrumental genres.

    The company supports significant projects in Russian cultural life that are aimed at reviving and preserving spiritual and national values. With the support of the Company, the State Hermitage Museum has been holding various exhibitions and expositions since 2018. Thus, in 2024, the museum opened an updated permanent exhibition “Culture and Art of China”.

    With the Company’s support, the Mariinsky Theatre artists under the direction of Valery Gergiev performed in Qatar with the production of “A Thousand and One Nights”; a concert dedicated to the 95th anniversary of Alexandra Pakhmutova was held in Volgograd; a number of exhibitions were organized at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow. In 2023-2024, Tatyana Navka’s ice shows “Evenings on a Farm” and “The Nutcracker” were held in Moscow, and the show “The Love Story of Scheherazade” toured in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

    Department of Information and AdvertisingPJSC NK RosneftJuly 21, 2025

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Rosneft sums up the results of the polar bear field research season

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Specialists from the Rosneft Arctic Research Center, together with scientists from the country’s leading research institutes, have summed up the results of the polar bear field season as part of the Tamura corporate biodiversity conservation program. Three expeditions were conducted in the spring to study the Arctic predator population.

    Representatives of the Company, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as specialists from the Biotechnology Campus (BTC) Center for Whole-Genome Sequencing, spoke about scientific work in the north of Krasnoyarsk Krai at a press breakfast.

    In 2025, scientists were faced with the task of conducting the first full-scale aerial survey of the Kara subpopulation of polar bears in Russian practice. Specialists made 25 flights, the total length of air routes was almost 24 thousand km. During the expeditions, about 170 thousand photographs were taken, as well as 540 thousand infrared photographs, which will be processed using artificial intelligence.

    According to the expedition participants, 8 flights of the laboratory aircraft were made from the village of Sabetta in Yamal for a comprehensive survey of the inner delta of the Gulf of Ob and the southeastern part of the Kara Sea. During the aerial visual observations, 22 polar bears, 23 walruses, 616 seals, 77 belugas, and rare bird species were recorded.

    Ten helicopter flights were made from the village of Dikson to survey the ice of a number of islands, as well as the ice in the Yenisei Gulf to Sever Bay and along the northern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula to the mouth of the Uboynaya River. During the work, 37 polar bears of various ages and both sexes were registered. 10 animals were tagged with satellite collars and ear tags for remote tracking of migration routes. Scientists also took samples of the polar bears’ fur and blood to study their health and genetic affiliation to a particular subpopulation – the samples are already being studied by BTK specialists. The location of two abandoned polar bear maternity dens and the habitat of the bears’ main food source – the ringed seal – were also determined.

    Also from the village of Dikson, scientists surveyed the central and south-eastern waters of the Kara Sea. Specialists carried out 7 flights and registered 12 polar bears, 16 belugas and 420 seals. Specialists noted that based on the results of the work, the number and distribution density of polar bears and their food sources in the Kara Sea will be determined.

    Rosneft pays special attention to environmental issues and biodiversity conservation and is implementing the largest comprehensive Arctic region study program since Soviet times. The goal of the new Tamura research program, which started in 2024, is to update information on the state of key animal species in the northern region. The Tamura program includes studying the Kara subpopulation of polar bears, wild reindeer populations in western Taimyr, and valuable bird and fish species in the Yenisei estuary. The data obtained will allow scientists to draw conclusions about the state of ecosystems and develop measures to preserve the region’s biodiversity. In 2024, scientists conducted five expeditions, and ten expeditions will be held in total over four years.

    Department of Information and AdvertisingPJSC NK RosneftJuly 21, 2025

    Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Smithfield man sentenced to over two years in prison for illegally possessing a firearm

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – A Smithfield man was sentenced yesterday to two years and four months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

    According to court documents, on May 25, 2024, law enforcement conducted a traffic stop on Ahmod Keshawn Finney, 24, and placed him in custody pursuant to outstanding state arrest warrants. While Finney was being detained, officers observed and recovered a loaded handgun from the vehicle. The handgun was stolen and was equipped with an extended magazine and a machinegun conversion device.

    As a previously convicted felon, Finney cannot legally possess firearms or ammunition.

    Erik S. Siebert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Anthony A. Spotswood, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Washington Field Division; Col. Matthew D. Hanley, Superintendent of Virginia State Police; and Steve R. Drew, Chief of Newport News Police, made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Jamar K. Walker.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter G. Osyf prosecuted the case.

    This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

    A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information are located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 4:24-cr-86.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: U.S. Attorney’s Office Filed 84 Border-Related Cases This Week

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of California filed 84 border-related cases this week, including charges of assault on a federal officer, bringing in aliens for financial gain, reentering the U.S. after deportation, and importation of controlled substances.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California is the fourth-busiest federal district, largely due to a high volume of border-related crimes. This district, encompassing San Diego and Imperial counties, shares a 140-mile border with Mexico. It includes the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the world’s busiest land border crossing, connecting San Diego (America’s eighth largest city) and Tijuana (Mexico’s second largest city).

    In addition to reactive border-related crimes, the Southern District of California also prosecutes a significant number of proactive cases related to terrorism, organized crime, drugs, white-collar fraud, violent crime, cybercrime, human trafficking and national security. Recent developments in those and other significant areas of prosecution can be found here.

    A sample of border-related arrests this week:

    • On July 11, Nicolas Duarte-Moreno, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain. According to a complaint, Duarte-Moreno was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers after he attempted to enter the U.S. in a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder through a Sentri lane at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry with an undocumented immigrant hiding in the vehicle. Officers found the immigrant from Guatemala concealed in the cargo area where the convertible top retracts. While CBP officials dismantled the cargo area by removing bolts and speakers to find and extricate the immigrant, he complained that he could not breathe. He was immediately taken to a hospital.
    • On July 15, Luis Angel Galvez Alvarez, Julio Cesar Oros Castro and Francisco Javier Castro Acosta, all Mexican citizens, were arrested and charged with Importation of a Controlled Substance. According to a complaint, the trio attempted to enter the U.S. about the same time, each driving a Freightliner tractor through the Otay Mesa Commercial Facility. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped each vehicle; they found about 29 pounds of cocaine concealed in the walls behind the beds of each tractor. The complaint said all three drivers admitted they were employed by the same trucking company.
    • On July 16, Jorge Ismael Valencia-Julian, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with Deported Alien Found in the United States. According to a complaint, Valencia-Julian was arrested by a Border Patrol agent who tracked his footprints for five hours as the defendant tried to escape in rough terrain. Valencia-Julian was previously deported in March 2024 at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

    Also recently, a number of defendants with criminal records were convicted by a jury or sentenced for border-related crimes such as illegally re-entering the U.S. after previous deportation. Here are a few of those cases:

    • On July 11, 2025, Ricardo Velez-Torres, a Mexican National who was previously convicted of Burglary in the First Degree in 2006 and Illegal Reentry in 2002, was sentenced in federal court to 21 months in custody for again entering the U.S. illegally.
    • On July 18, Julio Leyva-Solis, a Mexican national who was previously convicted of the felony facilitation of human smuggling, felony theft of property on three occasions, and felony possession of methamphetamine, was sentenced in federal court to 12 months plus one day in custody for again entering the U.S illegally.

    Pursuant to the Department’s Operation Take Back America priorities, federal law enforcement has focused immigration prosecutions on undocumented aliens who are engaged in criminal activity in the U.S., including those who commit drug and firearms crimes, who have serious criminal records, or who have active warrants for their arrest. Federal authorities have also been prioritizing investigations and prosecutions against drug, firearm, and human smugglers and those who endanger and threaten the safety of our communities and the law enforcement officers who protect the community.

    The immigration cases were referred or supported by federal law enforcement partners, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE ERO), Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), with the support and assistance of state and local law enforcement partners.

    Indictments and criminal complaints are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Pierre Man Sentenced to More Than 12 Years in Federal Prison for Distributing Methamphetamine in Central South Dakota

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    PIERRE – United States Attorney Alison J. Ramsdell announced today that U.S. District Judge Eric C. Schulte has sentenced a Pierre, South Dakota, man convicted of Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Substance and Possession of a Firearm by a Prohibited Person. The sentencing took place on July 14, 2025.

    Scott Reiners, age 37, was sentenced to 12 years and four months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $200 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Reiners was further ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

    Reiners was indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2024 . He pleaded guilty on April 3, 2025.

    The conviction stemmed from a drug conspiracy between September 2022 and April 2023 in which Reiners and several other individuals conspired to distribute methamphetamine in and around the central South Dakota area, including within the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Sioux Indian Reservations. As part of the conspiracy, Reiners was involved in distributing between 5 kilograms and 15 kilograms of methamphetamine. Reiners was also involved in a traffic stop where law enforcement seized 254 grams of 97% pure methamphetamine and a handgun. Reiners is prohibited from possessing firearms due to three prior felony convictions.

    This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

    This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan Dilges prosecuted the case.

    Reiners was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. 

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Idi Amin made himself out to be the ‘liberator’ of an oppressed majority – a demagogic trick that endures today

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Derek R. Peterson, Ali Mazrui Professor of History & African Studies, University of Michigan

    Idi Amin addresses the United Nations General Assembly in 1975. Bettmann/Getty Images

    Fifty years ago, Ugandan President Idi Amin wrote to the governments of the British Commonwealth with a bold suggestion: Allow him to take over as head of the organization, replacing Queen Elizabeth II.

    After all, Amin reasoned, a collapsing economy had made the U.K. unable to maintain its leadership. Moreover the “British empire does not now exist following the complete decolonization of Britain’s former overseas territories.”

    It wasn’t Amin’s only attempt to reshape the international order. Around the same time, he called for the United Nations headquarters to be moved to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, touting its location at “the heart of the world between the continents of America, Asia, Australia and the North and South Poles.”

    Amin’s diplomacy aimed to place Kampala at the center of a postcolonial world. In my new book, “A Popular History of Idi Amin’s Uganda,” I show that Amin’s government made Uganda – a remote, landlocked nation – look like a frontline state in the global war against racism, apartheid and imperialism.

    Doing so was, for the Amin regime, a way of claiming a morally essential role: liberator of Africa’s hitherto oppressed people. It helped inflate his image both at home and abroad, allowing him to maintain his rule for eight calamitous years, from 1971 to 1979.

    The phony liberator?

    Amin was the creator of a myth that was both manifestly untrue and extraordinarily compelling: that his violent, dysfunctional regime was actually engaged in freeing people from foreign oppressors.

    The question of Scottish independence was one of his enduring concerns. The “people of Scotland are tired of being exploited by the English,” wrote Amin in a 1974 telegram to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. “Scotland was once an independent country, happy, well governed and administered with peace and prosperity,” but under the British government, “England has thrived on the energies and brains of the Scottish people.”

    Even his cruelest policies were framed as if they were liberatory. In August 1972, Amin announced the summary expulsion of Uganda’s Asian community. Some 50,000 people, many of whom had lived in Uganda for generations, were given a bare three months to tie up their affairs and leave the country. Amin named this the “Economic War.”

    In the speech that announced the expulsions, Amin argued that “the Ugandan Africans have been enslaved economically since the time of the colonialists.” The Economic War was meant to “emancipate the Uganda Africans of this republic.”

    “This is the day of salvation for the Ugandan Africans,” he said. By the end of 1972, some 5,655 farms, ranches and estates had been vacated by the departed Asian community, and Black African proprietors were queuing up to take over Asian-run businesses.

    Ugandan Asian refugees arrive at an airport in the U.K. after being expelled from Uganda.
    P. Felix/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    A year later, when Amin attended the Organization of African Unity summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, his “achievements” were reported in a booklet published by the Uganda government. During his speech, Amin was “interrupted by thunderous applauses of acclamation and cheers, almost word for word, by Heads of State and Government and by everybody else who had a chance to hear it,” according to the the report.

    It was, wrote the government propagandist, “very clear that Uganda had emerged as the forefront of a True African State. It was clear that African nationalism had been born again. It was clear that the speech had brought new life to the freedom struggle in Africa.”

    Life at the front

    Amin’s policies were disastrous for all Ugandans, African and Asian alike. Yet his war of economic liberation was, for a time, a source of inspiration for activists around the world. Among the many people gripped by enthusiasm for Amin’s regime was Roy Innis, the Black American leader of the civil rights organization Congress of Racial Equality.

    In March 1973, Innis visited Uganda at Amin’s invitation. Innis and his colleagues had been pressing African governments to grant dual citizenship to Black Americans, just as Jewish Americans could earn citizenship from the state of Israel.

    Over the course of their 18 days in Uganda, the visiting Americans were shuttled around the country in Amin’s helicopter. Everywhere, Innis spoke with enthusiasm about Amin’s accomplishments. In a poem published in the pro-government Voice of Uganda around the time of his visit, Innis wrote:

    “Before, the life of your people was a complete bore,

    And they were poor, oppressed, exploited and economically sore.

    And you then came and opened new, dynamic economic pages.

    And showered progress on your people in realistic stages.

    In such expert moves that baffled even the great sages,

    your electric personality pronounced the imperialists’ doom.

    Your pragmatism has given Ugandans their economic boom.”

    In May 1973, Innis was back in Uganda, promising to recruit a contingent of 500 African American professors and technicians to serve in Uganda. Amin offered them free passage to Uganda, free housing and free hospital care for themselves and their families. The American weekly magazine Jet predicted that Uganda was soon to become an “African Israel,” a model nation upheld by the energies and knowledge of Black Americans.

    Roy Innis, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, in 1972.
    Bettmann/Getty Images

    As some have observed, Innis was surely naive. But his enthusiasm was shared by a great many people, not least a great many Ugandans. Inspired by Amin’s promises, their energy and commitment kept institutions functioning in a time of great disruption. They built roads and stadiums, constructed national monuments and underwrote the running costs of government ministries.

    Patriotism and demagoguery

    Their ambitions were soon foreclosed by a rising tide of political dysfunction. Amin’s regime came to a violent end in 1979, when he was ousted by the invading army of Tanzania and fled Uganda.

    But his brand of demagoguery lives on. Today a new generation of demagogues claim to be fighting to liberate aggrieved majorities from outsiders’ control.

    In the 1970s, Amin enlisted Black Ugandans to battle against racial minorities who were said to dominate the economy and public life. Today an ascendant right wing encourages aggrieved white Americans to regard themselves as a majority dispossessed of their inheritance by greedy immigrants.

    Amin encouraged Ugandans to regard themselves as frontline soldiers, engaged in a globally consequential war against foreigners. In today’s America, some people similarly feel themselves deputized to take matters of state into their own hands. In January 2021, for instance, a right-wing group called “Stop the Steal” organized a rally in Washington. Vowing to “take our country back,” they stormed the Capitol building.

    The racialized demagoguery that Idi Amin promoted inspired the imagination of a great many people. It also fed violent campaigns to repossess a stolen inheritance, to reclaim properties that ought, in the view of the aggrieved majority, to belong to native sons and daughters. His regime is for us today a warning about the compelling power of demagoguery to shape people’s sense of purpose.

    Derek R. Peterson receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

    – ref. Idi Amin made himself out to be the ‘liberator’ of an oppressed majority – a demagogic trick that endures today – https://theconversation.com/idi-amin-made-himself-out-to-be-the-liberator-of-an-oppressed-majority-a-demagogic-trick-that-endures-today-256969

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Occupied Palestinian Territories: joint statement, 21 July 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

    News story

    Occupied Palestinian Territories: joint statement, 21 July 2025

    The UK and 25 international partners gave a joint statement on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    Joint statement by:

    • foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
    • EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management

    We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.

    The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.

    The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release. A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.

    We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively.

    We call on all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law. Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a “humanitarian city” are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.

    We strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration, if implemented, would divide a Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution. Meanwhile, settlement building across the West Bank including East Jerusalem has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.

    We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose.  We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.

    We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.

    This statement has been signed by: 

    • The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK 

    • The EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management

    Media enquiries

    Email newsdesk@fcdo.gov.uk

    Telephone 020 7008 3100

    Email the FCDO Newsdesk (monitored 24 hours a day) in the first instance, and we will respond as soon as possible.

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Hostel scheme applications open

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    The Development Bureau and the Education Bureau announced that the Hostels in the City Scheme will start accepting applications today.

    Through the scheme, the Government has streamlined development control procedures to encourage and facilitate the market to convert commercial buildings into student hostels on a self-financing privately funded basis to increase the supply of hostel places, thereby strengthening Hong Kong’s position as an international hub for post-secondary education.

    Specifically, operators may make use of the facilitation measures under the scheme to apply for converting commercial buildings into eligible student hostels.

    In terms of planning procedures, the Town Planning Board has already expanded the definition of “Hotel” under the planning regime to cover eligible student hostels under the scheme. As a result, since “Hotel” is an always permitted use in most commercial sites, no planning procedures would be required for converting those commercial buildings into student hostels.

    Under the buildings regime, converted student hostels under the scheme will continue to be treated as non-domestic buildings for plot ratio and site coverage calculations, meaning that the existing gross floor area (GFA) of the commercial building can be retained.

    Moreover, facilities previously exempted from GFA calculations before conversion, such as car parking spaces and loading/unloading areas, can be retained and continue to be exempted from GFA calculation, so as to facilitate developers/operators to flexibly convert these facilities into facilities supporting hostel uses, such as gyms and study rooms, so that the hostel better suits the study and daily needs of the student tenants.

    In terms of land administration, most of the leases stated for non-industrial use allow student hostel use without the need for lease modification or payment of premiums. For the small number of cases where a lease modification is needed, the Lands Department will assess the amount of premium payment.

    The scheme welcomes wholesale conversion of an entire commercial building into a student hostel, while permitting partial conversion if specific conditions are fulfilled.

    Industrial buildings and buildings in industrial zonings are not eligible under the scheme. However, commercial buildings that have undergone wholesale conversions from industrial buildings located on non-industrial zonings would be eligible under the scheme, provided that the relevant land administration procedures have been completed.

    Interested developers/operators need to submit applications to the Education Bureau using a prescribed form, and fulfil eligibility criteria under the scheme.

    The Government has launched a dedicated website to announce the scheme’s details. The Education Bureau will also publish the list of student hostels with approvals secured on the website in the future.

    The Development Projects Facilitation Office under the Development Bureau will provide one-stop facilitation services to applicants, including handling enquiries related to facilitation measures and application progress.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Microbes in deep-sea volcanoes can help scientists learn about early life on Earth, or even life beyond our planet

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By James F. Holden, Professor of Microbiology, UMass Amherst

    A submersible, which travels to the seafloor to collect rock and microbe samples, is lifted by the arm of a research vessel. James F. Holden

    People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.

    Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.

    Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.

    To determine if life could exist beyond Earth in these ocean worlds, NASA sent the Cassini spacecraft to orbit Saturn in 1997. The agency has also sent three spacecraft to orbit Jupiter: Galileo in 1989, Juno in 2011 and most recently Europa Clipper in 2024. These spacecraft flew and will fly close to Enceladus and Europa to measure their habitability for life using a suite of instruments.

    A diagram of the interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which may have hot plumes beneath its ocean.
    Surface: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; interior: LPG-CNRS/U. Nantes/U. Angers. Graphic composition: ESA

    However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.

    My microbiology laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studies thermophiles from hot springs at deep-sea volcanoes, also called hydrothermal vents.

    Diving deep for samples of life

    I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.

    Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.

    Crewed submarines travel deep underwater to collect samples from hydrothermal vents.
    Gavin Eppard, WHOI/Expedition to the Deep Slope/NOAA/OER, CC BY

    Submarine pilots collect the samples my team uses from hydrothermal vents using human-occupied submarines or remotely operated submersibles. These vehicles are lowered into the ocean from research ships where scientists conduct research 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time.

    The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.

    The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.

    Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.

    Plumes rising from hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic Ocean.
    P. Rona / OAR/National Undersea Research Program; NOAA

    When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.

    These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.

    Thermophiles in the lab

    Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.

    The thermophilic microbe Pyrodictium delaneyi isolated by the Holden lab from a hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. It grows at 194 degrees Fahrenheit (90 Celsius) on hydrogen, sulfur and iron.
    Lin et al., 2016/The Microbiology Society

    Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.

    From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.

    We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.

    We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.

    Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology

    In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.

    The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.

    DNA polymerase is an enzyme that plays an essential role in DNA replication. A heat-resistant form from thermophiles is useful in bioengineering.
    Christinelmiller/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.

    Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.

    James F. Holden receives funding from NASA.

    – ref. Microbes in deep-sea volcanoes can help scientists learn about early life on Earth, or even life beyond our planet – https://theconversation.com/microbes-in-deep-sea-volcanoes-can-help-scientists-learn-about-early-life-on-earth-or-even-life-beyond-our-planet-260977

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Microbes in deep-sea volcanoes can help scientists learn about early life on Earth, or even life beyond our planet

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By James F. Holden, Professor of Microbiology, UMass Amherst

    A submersible, which travels to the seafloor to collect rock and microbe samples, is lifted by the arm of a research vessel. James F. Holden

    People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.

    Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.

    Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.

    To determine if life could exist beyond Earth in these ocean worlds, NASA sent the Cassini spacecraft to orbit Saturn in 1997. The agency has also sent three spacecraft to orbit Jupiter: Galileo in 1989, Juno in 2011 and most recently Europa Clipper in 2024. These spacecraft flew and will fly close to Enceladus and Europa to measure their habitability for life using a suite of instruments.

    A diagram of the interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which may have hot plumes beneath its ocean.
    Surface: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; interior: LPG-CNRS/U. Nantes/U. Angers. Graphic composition: ESA

    However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.

    My microbiology laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studies thermophiles from hot springs at deep-sea volcanoes, also called hydrothermal vents.

    Diving deep for samples of life

    I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.

    Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.

    Crewed submarines travel deep underwater to collect samples from hydrothermal vents.
    Gavin Eppard, WHOI/Expedition to the Deep Slope/NOAA/OER, CC BY

    Submarine pilots collect the samples my team uses from hydrothermal vents using human-occupied submarines or remotely operated submersibles. These vehicles are lowered into the ocean from research ships where scientists conduct research 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time.

    The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.

    The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.

    Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.

    Plumes rising from hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic Ocean.
    P. Rona / OAR/National Undersea Research Program; NOAA

    When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.

    These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.

    Thermophiles in the lab

    Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.

    The thermophilic microbe Pyrodictium delaneyi isolated by the Holden lab from a hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. It grows at 194 degrees Fahrenheit (90 Celsius) on hydrogen, sulfur and iron.
    Lin et al., 2016/The Microbiology Society

    Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.

    From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.

    We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.

    We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.

    Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology

    In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.

    The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.

    DNA polymerase is an enzyme that plays an essential role in DNA replication. A heat-resistant form from thermophiles is useful in bioengineering.
    Christinelmiller/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.

    Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.

    James F. Holden receives funding from NASA.

    – ref. Microbes in deep-sea volcanoes can help scientists learn about early life on Earth, or even life beyond our planet – https://theconversation.com/microbes-in-deep-sea-volcanoes-can-help-scientists-learn-about-early-life-on-earth-or-even-life-beyond-our-planet-260977

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: ‘Democratizing space’ is more than just adding new players – it comes with questions around sustainability and sovereignty

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Timiebi Aganaba, Assistant Professor of Space and Society, Arizona State University

    A group of people gaze up at the Moon in Germany. AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

    “India is on the Moon,” S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, announced in August 2023. The announcement meant India had joined the short list of countries to have visited the Moon, and the applause and shouts of joy that followed signified that this achievement wasn’t just a scientific one, but a cultural one.

    India’s successful lunar landing prompted celebrations across the country, like this one in Mumbai.
    AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

    Over the past decade, many countries have established new space programs, including multiple African nations. India and Israel – nations that were not technical contributors to the space race in the 1960s and ‘70s – have attempted landings on the lunar surface.

    With more countries joining the evolving space economy, many of our colleagues in space strategy, policy ethics and law have celebrated the democratization of space: the hope that space is now more accessible for diverse participants.

    We are a team of researchers based across four countries with expertise in space policy and law, ethics, geography and anthropology who have written about the difficulties and importance of inclusion in space.

    Major players like the U.S., the European Union and China may once have dominated space and seen it as a place to try out new commercial and military ventures. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests and nongovernmental organizations, may have other goals and rationales. Unexpected new initiatives from these newcomers could shift perceptions of space from something to dominate and possess to something more inclusive, equitable and democratic.

    We address these emerging and historical tensions in a paper published in May 2025 in the journal Nature, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of including nontraditional actors and Indigenous peoples in the space industry.

    Continuing inequalities among space players

    Not all countries’ space agencies are equal. Newer agencies often don’t have the same resources behind them that large, established players do.

    The U.S. and Chinese programs receive much more funding than those of any other country. Because they are most frequently sending up satellites and proposing new ideas puts them in the position to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing sites and resource extraction that everyone else may have to follow.

    Sometimes, countries may have operated on the assumption that owning a satellite would give them the appearance of soft or hard geopolitical power as a space nation – and ultimately gain relevance.

    Small satellites, called CubeSats, are becoming relatively affordable and easy to develop, allowing more players, from countries and companies to universities and student groups, to have a satellite in space.
    NASA/Butch Wilmore, CC BY-NC

    In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites, called CubeSats, autonomously, and recent scholarship has concluded that even successful space missions may negatively affect the international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect a country expects to receive may not materialize, and the costs to keep up can outstrip gains in potential prestige.

    Environmental protection and Indigenous perspectives

    Usually, building the infrastructure necessary to test and launch rockets requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space agencies have placed these facilities on lands where Indigenous peoples have strong claims, which can lead to land disputes, like in western Australia.

    Many of these sites have already been subject to human-made changes, through mining and resource extraction in the past. Many sites have been ground zero for tensions with Indigenous peoples over land use. Within these contested spaces, disputes are rife.

    Because of these tensions around land use, it is important to include Indigenous claims and perspectives. Doing so can help make sure that the goal of protecting the environments of outer space and Earth are not cast aside while building space infrastructure here on Earth.

    Some efforts are driving this more inclusive approach to engagement in space, including initiatives like “Dark and Quiet Skies”, a movement that works to ensure that people can stargaze and engage with the stars without noise or sound pollution. This movement and other inclusive approaches operate on the principle of reciprocity: that more players getting involved with space can benefit all.

    Researchers have recognized similar dynamics within the larger space industry. Some scholars have come to the conclusion that even though the space industry is “pay to play,” commitments to reciprocity can help ensure that players in space exploration who may not have the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts can still access broader structures of support.

    The downside of more players entering space is that this expansion can make protecting the environment – both on Earth and beyond – even harder.

    The more players there are, at both private and international levels, the more difficult sustainable space exploration could become. Even with good will and the best of intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for the exploration and use of space resources that would protect the lunar surface, Mars and beyond.

    It may also grow harder to police the launch of satellites and dedicated constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent space junk, protect the satellites already in orbit and allow everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with efforts to expand internet access to all.

    The amount of space junk in orbit has increased dramatically since the 1960s.

    What is space exploration for?

    Before tackling these issues, we find it useful to think about the larger goal of space exploration, and what the different approaches are. One approach would be the fast and inclusive democratization of space – making it easier for more players to join in. Another would be a more conservative and slower “big player” approach, which would restrict who can go to space.

    The conservative approach is liable to leave developing nations and Indigenous peoples firmly on the outside of a key process shaping humanity’s shared future.

    But a faster and more inclusive approach to space would not be easy to run. More serious players means it would be harder to come to an agreement about regulations, as well as the larger goals for human expansion into space.

    Narratives around emerging technologies, such as those required for space exploration, can change over time, as people begin to see them in action.

    Technology that we take for granted today was once viewed as futuristic or fantastical, and sometimes with suspicion. For example, at the end of the 1940s, George Orwell imagined a world in which totalitarian systems used tele-screens and videoconferencing to control the masses.

    Earlier in the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then president of IBM, notoriously predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. We as humans often fear or mistrust future technologies.

    However, not all technological shifts are detrimental, and some technological changes can have clear benefits. In the future, robots may perform tasks too dangerous, too difficult or too dull and repetitive for humans. Biotechnology may make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can sift through vast amounts of data and turn it into reliable guesswork. Researchers can also see genuine downsides to each of these technologies.

    Space exploration is harder to squeeze into one streamlined narrative about the anticipated benefits. The process is just too big and too transformative.

    To return to the question if we should go to space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether or not we should go, but rather a question of why we do it, who benefits from space exploration and how we can democratize access to broader segments of society. Including a diversity of opinions and viewpoints can help find productive ways forward.

    Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to land on one single narrative about the value of space exploration. Even our team of four researchers doesn’t share a single set of beliefs about its value. But bringing more nations, tribes and companies into discussions around its potential value can help create collaborative and worthwhile goals at an international scale.

    Tony Milligan receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 856543).

    Adam Fish, Deondre Smiles, and Timiebi Aganaba do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. ‘Democratizing space’ is more than just adding new players – it comes with questions around sustainability and sovereignty – https://theconversation.com/democratizing-space-is-more-than-just-adding-new-players-it-comes-with-questions-around-sustainability-and-sovereignty-257306

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: ‘Democratizing space’ is more than just adding new players – it comes with questions around sustainability and sovereignty

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Timiebi Aganaba, Assistant Professor of Space and Society, Arizona State University

    A group of people gaze up at the Moon in Germany. AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

    “India is on the Moon,” S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, announced in August 2023. The announcement meant India had joined the short list of countries to have visited the Moon, and the applause and shouts of joy that followed signified that this achievement wasn’t just a scientific one, but a cultural one.

    India’s successful lunar landing prompted celebrations across the country, like this one in Mumbai.
    AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

    Over the past decade, many countries have established new space programs, including multiple African nations. India and Israel – nations that were not technical contributors to the space race in the 1960s and ‘70s – have attempted landings on the lunar surface.

    With more countries joining the evolving space economy, many of our colleagues in space strategy, policy ethics and law have celebrated the democratization of space: the hope that space is now more accessible for diverse participants.

    We are a team of researchers based across four countries with expertise in space policy and law, ethics, geography and anthropology who have written about the difficulties and importance of inclusion in space.

    Major players like the U.S., the European Union and China may once have dominated space and seen it as a place to try out new commercial and military ventures. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests and nongovernmental organizations, may have other goals and rationales. Unexpected new initiatives from these newcomers could shift perceptions of space from something to dominate and possess to something more inclusive, equitable and democratic.

    We address these emerging and historical tensions in a paper published in May 2025 in the journal Nature, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of including nontraditional actors and Indigenous peoples in the space industry.

    Continuing inequalities among space players

    Not all countries’ space agencies are equal. Newer agencies often don’t have the same resources behind them that large, established players do.

    The U.S. and Chinese programs receive much more funding than those of any other country. Because they are most frequently sending up satellites and proposing new ideas puts them in the position to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing sites and resource extraction that everyone else may have to follow.

    Sometimes, countries may have operated on the assumption that owning a satellite would give them the appearance of soft or hard geopolitical power as a space nation – and ultimately gain relevance.

    Small satellites, called CubeSats, are becoming relatively affordable and easy to develop, allowing more players, from countries and companies to universities and student groups, to have a satellite in space.
    NASA/Butch Wilmore, CC BY-NC

    In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites, called CubeSats, autonomously, and recent scholarship has concluded that even successful space missions may negatively affect the international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect a country expects to receive may not materialize, and the costs to keep up can outstrip gains in potential prestige.

    Environmental protection and Indigenous perspectives

    Usually, building the infrastructure necessary to test and launch rockets requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space agencies have placed these facilities on lands where Indigenous peoples have strong claims, which can lead to land disputes, like in western Australia.

    Many of these sites have already been subject to human-made changes, through mining and resource extraction in the past. Many sites have been ground zero for tensions with Indigenous peoples over land use. Within these contested spaces, disputes are rife.

    Because of these tensions around land use, it is important to include Indigenous claims and perspectives. Doing so can help make sure that the goal of protecting the environments of outer space and Earth are not cast aside while building space infrastructure here on Earth.

    Some efforts are driving this more inclusive approach to engagement in space, including initiatives like “Dark and Quiet Skies”, a movement that works to ensure that people can stargaze and engage with the stars without noise or sound pollution. This movement and other inclusive approaches operate on the principle of reciprocity: that more players getting involved with space can benefit all.

    Researchers have recognized similar dynamics within the larger space industry. Some scholars have come to the conclusion that even though the space industry is “pay to play,” commitments to reciprocity can help ensure that players in space exploration who may not have the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts can still access broader structures of support.

    The downside of more players entering space is that this expansion can make protecting the environment – both on Earth and beyond – even harder.

    The more players there are, at both private and international levels, the more difficult sustainable space exploration could become. Even with good will and the best of intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for the exploration and use of space resources that would protect the lunar surface, Mars and beyond.

    It may also grow harder to police the launch of satellites and dedicated constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent space junk, protect the satellites already in orbit and allow everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with efforts to expand internet access to all.

    The amount of space junk in orbit has increased dramatically since the 1960s.

    What is space exploration for?

    Before tackling these issues, we find it useful to think about the larger goal of space exploration, and what the different approaches are. One approach would be the fast and inclusive democratization of space – making it easier for more players to join in. Another would be a more conservative and slower “big player” approach, which would restrict who can go to space.

    The conservative approach is liable to leave developing nations and Indigenous peoples firmly on the outside of a key process shaping humanity’s shared future.

    But a faster and more inclusive approach to space would not be easy to run. More serious players means it would be harder to come to an agreement about regulations, as well as the larger goals for human expansion into space.

    Narratives around emerging technologies, such as those required for space exploration, can change over time, as people begin to see them in action.

    Technology that we take for granted today was once viewed as futuristic or fantastical, and sometimes with suspicion. For example, at the end of the 1940s, George Orwell imagined a world in which totalitarian systems used tele-screens and videoconferencing to control the masses.

    Earlier in the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then president of IBM, notoriously predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. We as humans often fear or mistrust future technologies.

    However, not all technological shifts are detrimental, and some technological changes can have clear benefits. In the future, robots may perform tasks too dangerous, too difficult or too dull and repetitive for humans. Biotechnology may make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can sift through vast amounts of data and turn it into reliable guesswork. Researchers can also see genuine downsides to each of these technologies.

    Space exploration is harder to squeeze into one streamlined narrative about the anticipated benefits. The process is just too big and too transformative.

    To return to the question if we should go to space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether or not we should go, but rather a question of why we do it, who benefits from space exploration and how we can democratize access to broader segments of society. Including a diversity of opinions and viewpoints can help find productive ways forward.

    Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to land on one single narrative about the value of space exploration. Even our team of four researchers doesn’t share a single set of beliefs about its value. But bringing more nations, tribes and companies into discussions around its potential value can help create collaborative and worthwhile goals at an international scale.

    Tony Milligan receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 856543).

    Adam Fish, Deondre Smiles, and Timiebi Aganaba do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. ‘Democratizing space’ is more than just adding new players – it comes with questions around sustainability and sovereignty – https://theconversation.com/democratizing-space-is-more-than-just-adding-new-players-it-comes-with-questions-around-sustainability-and-sovereignty-257306

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Why is heart cancer so rare? A biologist explains

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Julie Phillippi, Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh

    When heart cancer does happen, it can be particularly serious. Olga Pankova/Moment via Getty Images

    Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

    Why is heart cancer so rare? – Jackson, age 12, Davis, California

    You probably know someone who is affected by cancer. This disease results when cells divide uncontrollably and can make a person sick, sometimes very seriously.

    Cancer can occur anywhere in the body because every tissue and organ is made up of billions or even trillions of cells. But there are some parts of the body where cancer doesn’t happen as often, such as the heart. Studies show 3 in 10,000 people develop heart cancer. In comparison, 1 in 20 women are expected to develop breast cancer. Why is that?

    I’m a biologist who specializes in the blood vessels of the cardiovascular system. A big part of my work focuses on how cells interact with their environment to regulate the function of tissues and organs. Disease can develop when things go wrong.

    Turns out, heart cells have unique features that make them super resistant to cancer.

    How cancer starts

    Cells produce more cells to grow, replace older or worn-out cells or to repair damaged tissues. This process is called cell division. Each type of cell in the body divides at different rates based on multiple factors, including what their function is and a person’s age.

    For example, the cells of a growing human embryo divide extremely fast, undergoing four divisions in three days. The cells that make up the skin, nails and hair regularly replenish across your lifespan. Bone cells divide at a rate that will give you an entirely new skeleton approximately every 10 years.

    Whether and how often a cell divides is tightly regulated by a series of molecular checkpoints. During cell division, genes within DNA are duplicated and evenly distributed into two daughter cells. Damage to these genes caused by exposure to harmful chemicals, ultraviolet light or radiation can result in mutations that cause disease. Mutations can just happen randomly, too. When there are mutations on the genes regulating cell division, cancer can develop.

    Cells move through a series of checkpoints before division.
    OpenStax, CC BY-SA

    What protects heart cells from cancer?

    Even though the heart is the first organ to form and start working during early development, cells in the adult heart divide very few times after birth, with division dramatically declining after age 20. In fact, less than 50% of heart cells are replaced over the course of an average human life. That means half of the heart cells you’re born with will be helping pump blood for your entire life.

    This low rate of cell division in the adult heart likely serves as its primary defense against cancer. The less often a cell divides, the fewer opportunities there are for mistakes during DNA replication.

    The heart’s location in the body gives it more protection from certain cancer-causing factors.
    OpenStax, CC BY-SA

    The heart is also less directly exposed to cancer-causing factors, such as UV light on the skin or inhaled substances in the lung, due to its protected location in the chest.

    Unfortunately, the heart’s low rate of cell division has some downsides, such as a reduced ability to repair and replace cells damaged by disease, injury or aging.

    Why heart cancer still happens

    Even with the heart’s resistance to cancer, tumors may still form.

    When cancer is found in the heart, it’s often the result of cancer cells migrating from another part of the body to the heart. This process is called metastasis. Certain types of skin cancers or cancers in the chest are more likely to spread to the heart, though this is still rare.

    When they do happen, heart tumors can be quite serious and more aggressive than other cancers. A study analyzing more than 100,000 heart cancer cases in the United States found that patients who underwent surgery and chemotherapy to treat their heart cancer survived longer than those who did not.

    Successful cancer care spans multiple areas of medicine. These include palliative care, which focuses on relieving pain and addressing symptoms, and integrative medicine, which considers the mind-body-spirit connection.

    Heart cancer holds clues to heart regeneration

    Understanding how heart cells divide and what causes that process to change offers clues about disease and shapes ideas for new treatments.

    For example, research into how heart cells divide helps scientists better understand why the heart doesn’t heal well after a heart attack. Researchers found that although failing hearts have more dividing cells than healthy hearts, they need help to recover fully.

    New technologies, such as the ability to reprogram blood cells into heart cells, have allowed researchers to develop new heart disease models to study and one day achieve heart regeneration. This opens doors for new treatments for heart diseases, including cancer.

    Understanding why cancer doesn’t happen is just as important for developing new and better treatments as knowing why it does. The answers to both questions lie truly at the heart.

    Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

    And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

    Julie Phillippi receives funding from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

    – ref. Why is heart cancer so rare? A biologist explains – https://theconversation.com/why-is-heart-cancer-so-rare-a-biologist-explains-256055

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Inquiry to uncover truth of Orgreave

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Inquiry to uncover truth of Orgreave

    Inquiry into violent confrontation at Orgreave to be established this year, with the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, appointed as chair.

    The Home Secretary visiting the site alongside campaigners and the National Union of Mineworkers

    An inquiry into the violent confrontation between police, picketers and subsequent protesters at Orgreave 41 years ago will be established as the government delivers its manifesto commitment to uncover the truth.

    The inquiry, expected to launch in the autumn, will investigate the events surrounding clashes at the Orgreave Coking Plant in 1984, causing 120 injuries. In total, 95 picketers were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence was discredited.

    The inquiry will be statutory, with the appropriate powers to compel people to provide information where necessary.

    The Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, has agreed to chair the inquiry, which is intended to aid the public’s understanding of how the events on the day, and immediately after, came to pass.

    The event has left a lasting impact on those present that day and their families, as well as undermining the wider mining community’s confidence in policing for decades.

    That is why, as the government looks to rebuild public confidence in policing as part of its Plan for Change, it is delivering on this manifesto commitment to bring to light what happened at Orgreave, with the Home Secretary visiting the site alongside the campaigners and the National Union of Mineworkers who have fought for years for answers.

    Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: 

    Every community should have confidence in their police, but we know what happened at Orgreave cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas.

    The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened.

    I pay tribute to the campaigners who never stopped in their search for truth and justice, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we build an inquiry that gets the answers they and their communities deserve.

    The Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox said:

    I am extremely grateful to the Home Secretary for the opportunity to chair this inquiry and for the support I shall be given in doing so. I do not underestimate the weight of expectation or the significance of the task. 

    I look forward to engaging with stakeholders in the coming weeks over the draft terms of reference, and to working with the government to identify experts to support me on the independent panel.

    I expect the panel to begin its work in the autumn, and we will endeavour to deliver an inquiry which is thorough and fair, and which will uncover what happened at Orgreave as swiftly as possible.

    The government has engaged with campaign groups throughout the process of designing the inquiry to ensure their concerns and experiences are considered.

    Formal consultation between the Home Secretary and the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox on the inquiry’s terms of reference has already begun, and further engagement with key stakeholders will be an important part of that process. The inquiry will aim to deliver swiftly to ensure the wellbeing of those searching for answers is not unduly impacted.

    A final copy of the terms of reference will then be published at the earliest opportunity.

    Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign Secretary, Kate Flannery, said: 

    We have waited a long time for this day and this is really positive news. All these years of hard work by the OTJC and our many supporters has helped to influence this constructive announcement. We appreciate the Home Secretary’s commitment to holding some kind of Orgreave inquiry. 

    We now need to be satisfied that the inquiry is given the necessary powers to fully investigate all the aspects of the orchestrated policing at Orgreave, and have unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films.

    The National Union of Mineworkers General Secretary, Chris Kitchen, said:

    The NUM welcome the announcement the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has made to hold a statutory inquiry into the policing at Orgreave and subsequent court case abandoned after police evidence was discredited.

    It is hugely welcome to see this government fulfil its pledge made in the Labour Party Manifesto to the mining community. The events at Orgreave, and throughout the strike, destroyed the trust between the police and mining communities even now, 41 years later. It is vital that this trust is won back and the NUM believe this inquiry will go some way to rebuilding that trust.

    The NUM will offer the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, any assistance that he requires to ensure that the inquiry uncovers the truth about who orchestrated the events at Orgreave and the failed court case so that precautions can be put in place, so it never happens again.

    South Yorkshire’s Mayor, Oliver Coppard, said:

    What happened at Orgreave remains one of the most controversial episodes in policing history. The violent clashes, the arrest of 95 miners, the collapse of the subsequent trial after revelations about police conduct, and the absence of any investigation or accountability scarred those involved, and people across our entire community.

    So, the announcement of a public inquiry into the events at Orgreave is a landmark moment for justice and accountability. We wouldn’t have got this without the sheer determination of the campaigners and a government and Home Secretary who have listened to the long-held concerns.

    The inquiry represents an opportunity to examine not only the actions of South Yorkshire Police and other forces on that day, but also the broader role of government at the time. It’s a step towards setting the historical record straight, ensuring lessons are learned, and restoring public trust.

    We owe it to the miners, their families, and our communities to ensure that the events of Orgreave are finally understood. My hope is that the public inquiry is completed at pace and that at the end of the process it brings closure and a sense of justice for those involved and their families in particular, and that we are finally able to turn the page on the events of that moment in our history.

    Updates to this page

    Published 21 July 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Rouge National Urban Park Celebrates 10 Years

    Source: Government of Canada News (2)

    Milestone anniversary for Canada’s first national urban park

    July 21, 2025                                  Markham, Ontario                                       Parks Canada

    Rouge National Urban Park, Canada’s first national urban park and one of the largest protected urban parks in the world, offers easy access to residents of Canada’s largest urban centre to explore a rich assembly of forests, creeks, farms and trails as well as marshland, a beach on Lake Ontario and human history spanning 10,000 years.

    Today, the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety and Member of Parliament for Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages, celebrated this important milestone at an event honouring Indigenous partners, volunteers, farmers, advocates, and local stakeholders who have helped shape the vision of the park. The ceremony highlighted key achievements from the past decade, including major land assembly and legislation, the completion of the park’s first management plan, the development of a multi-species action plan, the completion of 137 restoration projects with partners and collaborators, the addition of 23 km of new trails and a $21 million investment in the future visitor, learning and community centre.

    Since its establishment in 2015, Rouge National Urban Park has become a globally recognized model for conservation in an urban setting. Spanning over 79 square kilometres, an area 1.3 times larger than the city of Manhattan, the park protects a remarkable diversity of natural, cultural, and agricultural landscapes and continues to evolve through Indigenous leadership, community stewardship, restoration efforts, and collaboration across all levels of government.

    Parks Canada will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Rouge National Urban Park throughout 2025. Weekly features on the park’s Facebook page will highlight key moments of its history, while on-site anniversary programming will offer visitors opportunities to reflect on the park’s past, share their own stories, and contribute to a collective vision for the future of Canada’s first national urban park. 

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China’s State Council appoints officials

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    BEIJING, July 21 — China’s State Council announced the appointment of several new officials on Monday.

    Xie Yuansheng was appointed vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Ling Zhifeng was named vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security.

    Liu Jianqiao was appointed deputy head of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Zhao Jianheng was named vice president of the China Academy of Engineering Physics.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Farmers across China busy with agricultural production in farming season around Dashu

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    Farmers across China busy with agricultural production in farming season around Dashu

    Updated: July 21, 2025 20:58 Xinhua
    An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers driving transplanters to plant rice seedlings in Yuyao, east China’s Zhejiang Province. Farmers across the country are busy with agricultural production in the farming season around Dashu, or the Great Heat, the 12th of traditional Chinese 24 solar terms falling on July 22 this year. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Farmers harvest marigold flowers in Tengchong, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, July 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    Farmers transplant rice seedlings in Loudi, central China’s Hunan Province, July 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows a farmer carrying rice seedlings in Loudi, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]
    A drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers transplanting rice seedlings in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]
    An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers transplanting rice seedlings in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China launches first national standard on school meal services

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    BEIJING, July 21 — China has released its first national standard specifically targeting school meal services, scheduled to take effect on Dec. 1 this year, the country’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced Monday.

    The Guidelines for the Management of School Meal Service Enterprises will apply to enterprises that provide meal preparation and delivery services to primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.

    China now has more than 460,000 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, involving over 237 million students.

    The guidelines stated that enterprises must designate full-time staff responsible for food safety management and inspection.

    Enterprises are required to purchase major ingredients such as rice, flour and oil from designated suppliers, and retain testing reports for each batch of raw materials.

    Meal preparation should be integrated into the internet-enabled transparent kitchen monitoring system, with key operational procedures publicly accessible to schools, parents and students, according to the guidelines.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Russia makes group raids on Ukraine

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    Russian forces launched an overnight group strike on Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and the infrastructure of military airfields, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.

    The raid involved long-range high-precision weapons launched from air, land and sea-based platforms, including “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic ballistic missiles and combat drones, the ministry said in a statement.

    Meanwhile, Russia’s air defense intercepted 74 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 23 in the Moscow Region, it added.

    Airports in Moscow introduced air restrictions in the early hours of Monday for flight safety reasons, which were subsequently lifted, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.

    Downed drone debris caused a fire on the roof of the railway station in the village of Kamenolomni in the Rostov Region, and more than 50 trains were delayed, said Russian Railways.

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  • MIL-OSI China: At least 19 killed as Bangladeshi military plane crashes

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    At least 19 people, mostly students, were killed as a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed on the campus of a college on Monday.

    A government statement said that over 100 people were injured in the accident. Many of the injured are in critical condition.

    The Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) of the Bangladesh Army said the training aircraft crashed at around 13:30 local time.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Tennessee Man Sentenced to Prison for Operating Investment Scheme

    Source: US FBI

    KANSAS CITY, KAN. – A Tennessee man was sentenced to 71 months in prison after being convicted of running a $1.9 million Ponzi scheme.

    According to court documents, Alcides Roman, 66, of Lebanon, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
    Roman defrauded victims in Kansas, New York, Texas, and in Canada by soliciting their participation in purportedly high-yield investment programs. In truth, these investment opportunities were fraudulent. Roman did not invest the funds and failed to redeem the investments upon the victims’ requests. Rather, he left the funds in bank accounts he controlled and used the money for his own and others’ benefit. Roman induced victims to make additional or larger investments by making payments to them, ostensibly as returns on investment. Those payments, however, were from the same victim’s prior principal investments or another victim’s investments.

    Roman used funds from the scheme to pay for his personal living expenses, to buy vehicles and land, and to send money to numerous foreign and domestic companies. The total known loss to victims was $1,977,857.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated the case.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan J. Huschka prosecuted the case.

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people’s fears for the US – a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers gather for a briefing before an enforcement operation on Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently sparked controversy by comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Nazi Germany’s notorious secret police, the Gestapo.

    “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz said during a May 2025 speech at the University of Minnesota Law School’s commencement ceremony.

    “They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared,” Walz added.

    ICE, tasked with enforcing immigration policies, has dramatically increased the number of nationwide arrests of immigrants since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. ICE’s arrests of immigrants have more than doubled in 38 states since then.

    In recent months, other Democratic politicians, including U.S Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, have also compared ICE to the Gestapo, or Adolf Hitler’s “secret police,” as Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said in April.

    But do ICE’s tactics actually resemble those of the Gestapo?

    Because I am a scholar of modern Germany and the Holocaust, people regularly ask me if this analogy is accurate. The answer is complicated.

    The Gestapo arrests a group of Jewish men hiding in a cellar in Poland in 1939, in what was possibly a staged German propaganda photo.
    Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    Understanding the Gestapo

    The Nazi regime established the Gestapo, short for the German phrase Geheime Staatspolizei, meaning secret state police, soon after Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Among other responsibilities, the Gestapo was tasked with investigating political crimes and monitoring opposition activity. It later enforced racial laws in Germany and across occupied Europe.

    As part of its daily work, the Gestapo identified and monitored the regime’s political enemies. It arrested, interrogated, detained and tortured suspects and sent others to concentration camps. To identify suspects, it often relied on anonymous denunciations that came not only from zealous Nazis, but also from disgruntled neighbors or business competitors who tipped off the Gestapo to Jews and other people.

    While the Gestapo was relatively small in terms of personnel, it projected an image of being, as one scholar wrote, “omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.”

    It enforced the regime’s will and suppressed dissent not through sheer manpower but by creating a pervasive sense of fear. This aura of menace and terror has long outlived the Nazi regime itself.

    ICE’s operations

    ICE, with around 21,000 officers and staff operating in a country of more than 340 million, is smaller both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. At its height between 1943 and 1945, the Gestapo had between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel in a country of 79 million.

    ICE is set to expand its work in the next few years with an additional US$75 billion in funding that Congress appropriated in July as part of Trump’s tax and spending bill.

    And while ICE focuses on immigration, the Gestapo had a more expansive role. It was responsible for suppressing all forms of political dissent, not just violations of immigration law.

    ICE operates with vastly more advanced technologies that did not exist in the 1940s, including facial recognition and social media monitoring.

    There is technically more transparency around ICE’s work than the Gestapo’s, since ICE is a federal agency that is subject to its work and information being reviewed by politicians and the public alike. But in June 2020, the first Trump administration reclassified ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, as a “security/sensitive agency.” This designation makes it harder for people to request and receive information about ICE’s work through Freedom of Information Act records requests.

    Like the Gestapo, ICE can seem performative in its work, like when it carried out a dramatic July raid of a cannabis farm in California in which balaclava-wearing officers used tear gas against protesters.

    The Gestapo in today’s world

    Since World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the term Gestapo has become shorthand in the United States to describe police repression.

    Using the word Gestapo to describe the worst possible authoritarian oppression has been popularized in popular movies in everything from the 1943 film “Casablanca” and “The Black Gestapo” in 1975 to “Inglourious Basterds” in 2009 and “Jojo Rabbit” in 2019.

    Walz’s remarks in May, though provocative, were also far from isolated in politics. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as political observers, regularly use Gestapo and Nazi metaphors to attack their opponents.

    In 2022, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia famously confused the term Gestapo with gazpacho soup in a gaffe that went viral. “Now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress,” she said.

    In 2024, Trump accused President Joe Biden of running a “Gestapo administration” as the Justice Department prosecuted Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

    Overall, mentions of the word Gestapo in social media increased by 184% between 2017 and 2024, according to the nonprofit group Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

    The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is among the organizations that have condemned making comparisons to the Holocaust and the Nazis for many reasons, including their historical inaccuracy and because they are insulting to people whose families remain scarred by the Holocaust.

    A Paraguayan woman whose relative was detained by ICE agents scuffles with officers in the halls of an immigration court in New York City on July 16, 2025.
    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    What historical comparisons really say

    Analogies can be useful for clarifying complex ideas. But especially when they stretch across decades and vastly different political contexts, they risk oversimplifying and trivializing history.

    I believe that comparing ICE to the Gestapo is less a historical judgment than a reflection of modern anxiety – a fear that the U.S. is veering toward authoritarianism reminiscent of 1930s Germany.

    If politicians and other public figures are looking for historical comparisons to modern law enforcement agencies that use severe tactics, there is, unfortunately, no shortage of options: the Soviet Union’s secret police agencies NKVD and KGB, Iran’s former secret police and intelligence agency SAVAK or East Germany’s Stasi, to name just a few.
    All of those organizations denied suspects due process and grossly violated human rights in order to protect political regimes – but they don’t necessarily easily compare to ICE, either.

    Still, politicians and political observers alike most often turn to the Gestapo and other Nazi references instead.

    Ultimately, the Gestapo, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust serve as a powerful, shared cultural reference point. The catastrophes of World War II epitomize the worst possible outcomes of evil left unchecked.

    They have become the master moral paradigm and an ethical compass for the world today. In an age of polarization, World War II and the Holocaust remain the mirror in which Americans examine their present.

    Daniel H. Magilow received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (although DOGE cancelled the grant in April 2025).

    He serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the journal of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

    – ref. Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people’s fears for the US – a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky – https://theconversation.com/comparing-ice-to-the-gestapo-reveals-peoples-fears-for-the-us-a-holocaust-scholar-explains-why-nazi-analogies-remain-common-yet-risky-260767

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: BBC Verify largely factchecks international stories – what about UK politics?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Cushion, Professor, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University

    In a world of fake news and disinformation, factchecking claims and the veracity of images has become an important part of impartial journalism. People invest their trust in information sources they believe are accurate.

    With this in mind, the BBC launched its Verify service in May 2023. Its more than 60 journalists routinely factcheck, verify videos, counter disinformation, analyse data and explain complex stories.

    Then in June 2025, the BBC launched Verify Live, a blog that tells audiences in real time what claims they are investigating and how they are being checked.

    At the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University we have been monitoring BBC Verify since its launch. And we have systematically tracked the first month of BBC Verify Live from June 3-27 this year, examining all 244 blog posts as well as the hundreds of claims and sources that featured.

    We’ve found that the service places a heavy emphasis on foreign affairs. We argue that it could (and should) be used more to factcheck UK politics, enhancing the quality of the BBC’s impartiality journalism and serving the public service broadcaster’s domestic audiences.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    Our analysis found international stories made up 71% of all BBC Verify Live coverage. The coverage largely focused on verifying international conflicts and humanitarian crises, from the Middle East and Ukraine to the recent plane crash in India.

    This might reflect the large number of major international stories that occurred over the first month of BBC Verify Live’s launch. But the emphasis on foreign news was also evident in our analysis of the main BBC Verify service over the last 18 months. We monitored how much the factchecking service appeared on the BBC’s News at Ten, and found it was used more often in coverage of foreign affairs.

    One exception was during the 2024 general election campaign, when BBC Verify was used to challenge politicians’ claims, and scrutinise policies around migration and the economy. BBC Verify has also covered recent major political developments, like the budget and announcements of flagship government policy.

    The emphasis on covering international conflicts is consistent with its editorial mission to “analyse satellite imagery, investigate AI-generated content, factcheck claims and verify videos when news breaks”. BBC Verify regularly uses satellite mapping and geolocation data, which most newsrooms do not have at their disposal, to factcheck images and social media posts.

    However, the resources and expertise Verify has could also be used to more regularly factcheck false or misleading claims in domestic political issues. This could be important to building audience trust at a time when the BBC’s impartiality is regularly questioned, while helping people better understand political debates in the UK.

    Our past research with media users suggests they want journalists to be bolder and more transparent when assessing the credibility of politicians’ competing claims. BBC Verify is a logical tool to do this.

    Two years after it launched, Verify is considered one of the most trusted factchecking sources in the UK by the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the most used by media regulator Ofcom.

    BBC Verify has proved it can effectively use its resources and expertise to unpack and challenge domestic political claims – covering the spending review and party manifestos ahead of the 2024 general election. We have previously analysed how BBC Verify robustly challenged a misleading Conservative party claim about a future Labour government raising taxes during the election campaign.

    Interrogating real-time claims

    BBC Verify Live takes a variety of approaches to its analysis of real-time claims. We assessed all claims appearing in blogs throughout most of June 2025 and discovered that 22% were challenged to some extent (found to be inaccurate), while 23% were upheld (considered accurate) and 13% partially upheld.

    Meanwhile, 10% were still being verified at the time the blog was posted (but may have been upheld or challenged in subsequent coverage), and 12% had additional context added to them. One fifth of all claims were not subject to any clear judgement about their accuracy.

    BBC Verify Live most often used the UK or official foreign governments, and their militaries or agencies, as the main corroborating sources to factcheck claims, or the focus of the claim being investigated in some stories. These made up well over three quarters of sources in factchecking coverage. There was, comparatively, limited use of think tanks, policy institutes, nongovernmental organisations, experts, academics or eyewitnesses.

    Just over one in ten claims had additional context added to them (as opposed to verifying or challenging a claim). This was most often the case in blogs about domestic affairs and rival political claims.

    Given the recent cuts to the BBC’s World Service, Verify’s international news agenda will bolster the public service broadcaster’s worldwide profile and credibility. Yet, for BBC Verify to enhance impartiality and trust with domestic audiences, we would argue it should play a more prominent role in routine political reporting, not just during elections or high-profile stories.

    Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.

    Nathan Ritchie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. BBC Verify largely factchecks international stories – what about UK politics? – https://theconversation.com/bbc-verify-largely-factchecks-international-stories-what-about-uk-politics-260615

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