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Category: Australia

  • MIL-Evening Report: Decades on from the Royal Commission, why are Indigenous people still dying in custody?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney

    Rose Marinelli/Shutterstock

    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died.

    The recent deaths in custody of two Indigenous men in the Northern Territory have provoked a deeply confronting question – will it ever end?

    About 597 First Nations people have died in custody sine the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

    This year alone, 12 Indigenous people have died – 31% of total custodial deaths.

    The raw numbers are a tragic indictment of government failure to implement in full the Commission’s 339 recommendations.

    We are potentially further away from resolving this crisis than we were 34 years ago.

    Recent deaths

    Kumanjayi White was a vulnerable young Warlpiri man with a disability under a guardianship order. He stopped breathing while being restrained by police in an Alice Springs supermarket on May 27. His family is calling for all CCTV and body camera footage to be released.

    Days later a 68-year-old Aboriginal Elder from Wadeye was taken to the Palmerston Watchhouse after being detained for apparent intoxication at Darwin airport. He was later transferred to a hospital where he died.

    Alice Springs protest over the death of Kumanjayi White.

    Both were under the care and protection of the state when they died. The royal commission revealed “so many” deaths had occurred in similar circumstances and urged change. It found there was:

    little appreciation of, and less dedication to, the duty of care owed by custodial authorities and their officers to persons in care.

    Seemingly, care and protection were the last things Kumanjayi White and the Wadeye Elder were afforded by NT police.

    Preventable deaths

    The royal commission investigated 99 Aboriginal deaths in custody between 1980 and 1989. If all of its recommendations had been fully implemented, lives may have been saved.

    For instance, recommendation 127 called for “protocols for the care and management” of Aboriginal people in custody, especially those suffering from physical or mental illness. This may have informed a more appropriate and therapeutic response to White and prevented his death.

    Recommendation 80 provided for “non-custodial facilities for the care and treatment of intoxicated persons”. Such facilities may have staved off the trauma the Elder faced when he was detained, and the adverse impact it had on his health.

    More broadly, a lack of independent oversight has compromised accountability. Recommendations 29-31 would have given the coroner, and an assisting lawyer, “the power to direct police” in their investigations:

    It must never again be the case that a death in custody, of Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal persons, will not lead to rigorous and accountable investigations.

    Yet, the Northern Territory police has rejected pleas by White’s family for an independent investigation.

    Another audit?

    Northern Territory Labor MP Marion Scrymgour is calling on the Albanese government to order a full audit of the royal commission recommendations.

    She says Indigenous people are being completely ostracised and victimised:

    People are dying. The federal government, I think, needs to show leadership.

    It is unlikely another audit will cure the failures by the government to act on the recommendations.

    Instead, a new standing body should be established to ensure they are all fully implemented. It should be led by First Nations people and involve families whose loved ones have died in custody in recognition of their lived expertise.

    In 2023, independent Senator Lidia Thorpe moved a motion for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner to assume responsibility for the implementation of the recommendations. While the government expressed support for this motion, there has been no progress.

    Another mechanism for change would be for governments to report back on recommendations made by coroners in relation to deaths in custody. Almost 600 inquests have issued a large repository of recommendations, many of which have been shelved.

    Leadership lacking?

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently conceded no government has “done well enough” to reduce Aboriginal deaths in custody. But he has rejected calls for an intervention in the Northern Territory justice system:

    I need to be convinced that people in Canberra know better than people in the Northern Territory about how to deal with these issues.

    Albanese is ignoring the essence of what is driving deaths in custody.

    Reflecting on the 25-year anniversary of the royal commission in 2016, criminology professor Chris Cunneen wrote that Australia had become much less compassionate and more ready to blame individuals for their alleged failings:

    Nowhere is this more clear than in our desire for punishment. A harsh criminal justice system – in particular, more prisons and people behind bars – has apparently become a hallmark of good government.

    There are too many First Nations deaths in custody because there are too many First Nations people in custody in the first place.

    At the time of the royal commission, 14% of the prison population was First Nations. Today, it’s 36%, even though Indigenous people make up just 3.8% of Australia’s overall population.

    Governments across the country have expanded law and order practices, police forces and prisons in the name of community safety.

    This includes a recent $1.5 billion public order plan to expand policing in the Northern Territory. Such agendas impose a distinct lack of safety on First Nations people, who bear the brunt of such policies. It also instils a message that social issues can only be addressed by punitive and coercive responses.

    The royal commission showed us there is another way: self-determination and stamping out opportunities for racist and violent policing. First Nations families have campaigned for these issues for decades.

    How many more Indigenous deaths in custody does there have to be before we listen?

    Thalia Anthony receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Eddie is an Independent Representative on the Justice Policy Partnership under the Closing the Gap Agreement.

    – ref. Decades on from the Royal Commission, why are Indigenous people still dying in custody? – https://theconversation.com/decades-on-from-the-royal-commission-why-are-indigenous-people-still-dying-in-custody-258568

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: A 3-tonne, $1.5 billion satellite to watch Earth’s every move is set to launch this week

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Petrie, Earth Observation Researcher, Swinburne University of Technology

    Artist’s concept of the NISAR satellite in orbit over Earth. NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In a few days, a new satellite that can detect changes on Earth’s surface down to the centimetre, in almost real time and no matter the time of day or weather conditions, is set to launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai.

    Weighing almost 3 tonnes and boasting a 12-metre radar antenna, the US$1.5 billion NISAR satellite will track the ground under our feet and the water that flows over and through it in unprecedented detail, providing valuable information for farmers, climate scientists and natural disaster response teams.

    Only when the conditions are right

    Satellites that image the Earth have been an invaluable scientific tool for decades. They have provided crucial data across many applications, such as weather forecasting and emergency response planning. They have also helped scientists track long-term changes in Earth’s ecosystems and climate.

    Many of these Earth observation satellites require reflected sunlight to capture images of Earth’s surface. This means they can only capture images during daytime and when there is no cloud cover.

    As a result, these satellites face challenges wherever cloud cover is very common, such as in tropical regions, or when nighttime imagery is required.

    The NISAR satellite – a collaboration between the national space agencies of the United States (NASA) and India (ISRO) – overcomes these challenges by using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology to take images of the Earth. This technology also gives the satellite its name. NISAR stands for NASA-ISRO SAR.

    So what is SAR technology?

    SAR technology was invented in 1951 for military use. Rather than using reflected sunlight to passively image the Earth’s surface, SAR satellites work by actively beaming a radar signal toward the surface and detecting the reflected signal. Think of this as like using a flash to take a photo in a dark room.

    This means SAR satellites can take images of the Earth’s surface both during the day and night.

    Since radar signals pass through most cloud and smoke unhindered, SAR satellites can also image the Earth’s surface even when it is covered by clouds, smoke or ash. This is especially valuable during natural disasters such as floods, bushfires or volcanic eruptions.

    Radar signals can also penetrate through certain structures such as thick vegetation. They are useful for detecting the presence of water due to the way that water affects reflected radar signals.

    The European Space Agency used the vegetation-penetrating properties of SAR signals in its recent Biomass mission. This can image the 3D structure of forests. It can also produce highly accurate measurements of the amount of biomass and carbon stored in Earth’s forests.

    Sang-Ho Yun, Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore’s Remote Sensing Lab, is a key proponent of using SAR for disaster management. Yun has previously used SAR data to map disaster-affected areas across hundreds of natural disasters over the last 15 years, including earthquakes, floods and typhoons.

    NISAR, which is due to launch on June 18, will significantly build on this earlier work.

    NISAR data will be used to create images similar to this 2013 image of a flood-prone area of the Amazonian jungle in Peru that’s based on data from NASA’s UAVSAR satellite.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Monitoring Earth’s many ecosystems

    The NISAR satellite has been in development for over a decade and is one of the most expensive Earth-imaging satellites ever built.

    Data from the satellite will be supplied freely and openly worldwide. It will provide high-resolution images of almost all land and ice surfaces around the globe twice every 12 days.

    This is similar in scope to the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 SAR satellites. However, NISAR will be the first SAR satellite to use two complementary radar frequencies rather than one, and will be capable of producing higher resolution imagery compared with the Sentinel-1 satellites. It will also have greater coverage of Antarctica than Sentinel-1 and will use radar frequencies that penetrate further into vegetation.

    The NISAR satellite will be used to monitor forest biomass. Its ability to simultaneously penetrate vegetation and detect water will also allow it to accurately map flooded vegetation.

    This is important for gaining a deeper understanding of Earth’s wetlands, which are important ecosystems with high levels of biodiversity and massive carbon storage capacity.

    The satellite will also be able to detect changes in the height of Earth’s surface of a few centimetres or even millimetres, because changes in height create tiny shifts in the reflected radar signal.

    The NISAR satellite will use this technique to track subsidence of dams and map groundwater levels (since subsurface water affects the height of the Earth’s surface). It will also use the same technique to map land movement and damage from earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity.

    Such maps can help disaster response teams to better understand the damage that has occurred in disaster areas and to plan their response.

    Improving agriculture

    The NISAR satellite will also be useful for agricultural applications, with a unique capability to estimate moisture levels in soil with high resolution in all weather conditions.

    This is valuable for agricultural applications because such data can be used to determine when to irrigate to ensure healthy vegetation, and to potentially improve water use efficiency and crop yields.

    Further key applications of the NISAR mission will include tracking the flow of Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers, monitoring coastal erosion and tracking oil spills.

    We can expect to see many benefits for science and society to come from this highly ambitious satellite mission.

    Steve Petrie has previously received funding for satellite data analysis projects from XPrize Foundation, from Ernst & Young, and from the Cooperative Research Centre for Smart Satellite Technologies and Analytics (SmartSat CRC, which is funded by the Australian Government).

    – ref. A 3-tonne, $1.5 billion satellite to watch Earth’s every move is set to launch this week – https://theconversation.com/a-3-tonne-1-5-billion-satellite-to-watch-earths-every-move-is-set-to-launch-this-week-258283

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: SPC Severe Thunderstorm Watch 418

    Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

    Note:  The expiration time in the watch graphic is amended if the watch is replaced, cancelled or extended.Note: Click for Watch Status Reports.
    SEL8

    URGENT – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
    Severe Thunderstorm Watch Number 418
    NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
    215 PM MDT Sun Jun 15 2025

    The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a

    * Severe Thunderstorm Watch for portions of
    Central and eastern Montana
    North central Wyoming

    * Effective this Sunday afternoon and evening from 215 PM until
    1100 PM MDT.

    * Primary threats include…
    Scattered damaging winds and isolated significant gusts to 80
    mph likely
    Scattered large hail and isolated very large hail events to 3
    inches in diameter likely
    A tornado or two possible

    SUMMARY…Thunderstorms are expected to increase in coverage and
    intensity through the afternoon while spreading eastward from the
    higher terrain. The storm environment initially favors supercells
    with very large hail (2-3 inch diameter), while upscale growth into
    clusters is expected this evening with an increasing threat for
    60-80 mph outflow winds. Favorable storm interactions could also
    support an isolated tornado or two this evening.

    The severe thunderstorm watch area is approximately along and 100
    statute miles north and south of a line from 30 miles west of
    Harlowton MT to 10 miles east northeast of Baker MT. For a complete
    depiction of the watch see the associated watch outline update
    (WOUS64 KWNS WOU8).

    PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

    REMEMBER…A Severe Thunderstorm Watch means conditions are
    favorable for severe thunderstorms in and close to the watch area.
    Persons in these areas should be on the lookout for threatening
    weather conditions and listen for later statements and possible
    warnings. Severe thunderstorms can and occasionally do produce
    tornadoes.

    &&

    AVIATION…A few severe thunderstorms with hail surface and aloft to
    3 inches. Extreme turbulence and surface wind gusts to 70 knots. A
    few cumulonimbi with maximum tops to 550. Mean storm motion vector
    27020.

    …Thompson

    SEL8

    URGENT – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
    Severe Thunderstorm Watch Number 418
    NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
    215 PM MDT Sun Jun 15 2025

    The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a

    * Severe Thunderstorm Watch for portions of
    Central and eastern Montana
    North central Wyoming

    * Effective this Sunday afternoon and evening from 215 PM until
    1100 PM MDT.

    * Primary threats include…
    Scattered damaging winds and isolated significant gusts to 80
    mph likely
    Scattered large hail and isolated very large hail events to 3
    inches in diameter likely
    A tornado or two possible

    SUMMARY…Thunderstorms are expected to increase in coverage and
    intensity through the afternoon while spreading eastward from the
    higher terrain. The storm environment initially favors supercells
    with very large hail (2-3 inch diameter), while upscale growth into
    clusters is expected this evening with an increasing threat for
    60-80 mph outflow winds. Favorable storm interactions could also
    support an isolated tornado or two this evening.

    The severe thunderstorm watch area is approximately along and 100
    statute miles north and south of a line from 30 miles west of
    Harlowton MT to 10 miles east northeast of Baker MT. For a complete
    depiction of the watch see the associated watch outline update
    (WOUS64 KWNS WOU8).

    PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

    REMEMBER…A Severe Thunderstorm Watch means conditions are
    favorable for severe thunderstorms in and close to the watch area.
    Persons in these areas should be on the lookout for threatening
    weather conditions and listen for later statements and possible
    warnings. Severe thunderstorms can and occasionally do produce
    tornadoes.

    &&

    AVIATION…A few severe thunderstorms with hail surface and aloft to
    3 inches. Extreme turbulence and surface wind gusts to 70 knots. A
    few cumulonimbi with maximum tops to 550. Mean storm motion vector
    27020.

    …Thompson

    Note: The Aviation Watch (SAW) product is an approximation to the watch area. The actual watch is depicted by the shaded areas.
    SAW8
    WW 418 SEVERE TSTM MT WY 152015Z – 160500Z
    AXIS..100 STATUTE MILES NORTH AND SOUTH OF LINE..
    30W 3HT/HARLOWTON MT/ – 10ENE BHK/BAKER MT/
    ..AVIATION COORDS.. 85NM N/S /51SW LWT – 59WSW DIK/
    HAIL SURFACE AND ALOFT..3 INCHES. WIND GUSTS..70 KNOTS.
    MAX TOPS TO 550. MEAN STORM MOTION VECTOR 27020.

    LAT…LON 47881046 47860406 44970406 44981046

    THIS IS AN APPROXIMATION TO THE WATCH AREA. FOR A
    COMPLETE DEPICTION OF THE WATCH SEE WOUS64 KWNS
    FOR WOU8.

    Watch 418 Status Report Message has not been issued yet.

    Note:  Click for Complete Product Text.Tornadoes

    Probability of 2 or more tornadoes

    Low (20%)

    Probability of 1 or more strong (EF2-EF5) tornadoes

    Low (5%)

    Wind

    Probability of 10 or more severe wind events

    Mod (60%)

    Probability of 1 or more wind events > 65 knots

    Mod (60%)

    Hail

    Probability of 10 or more severe hail events

    Mod (60%)

    Probability of 1 or more hailstones > 2 inches

    Mod (60%)

    Combined Severe Hail/Wind

    Probability of 6 or more combined severe hail/wind events

    High (>95%)

    For each watch, probabilities for particular events inside the watch (listed above in each table) are determined by the issuing forecaster. The “Low” category contains probability values ranging from less than 2% to 20% (EF2-EF5 tornadoes), less than 5% to 20% (all other probabilities), “Moderate” from 30% to 60%, and “High” from 70% to greater than 95%. High values are bolded and lighter in color to provide awareness of an increased threat for a particular event.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: A solar panel recycling scheme would help reduce waste, but please repair and reuse first

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deepika Mathur, Senior Research Fellow, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University

    tolobalaguer.com, Shutterstock

    Australia’s rooftop solar industry has renewed calls for a mandatory recycling scheme to deal with the growing problem of solar panel waste. Only about 10% of panels are currently recycled. The rest are stockpiled, sent overseas or dumped in landfill.

    One in three Australian homes now have rooftop solar panels, and new systems are being installed at the rate of 300,000 a year. Meanwhile, older systems are being scrapped – often well before the end of their useful life.

    This has made solar panels Australia’s fastest-growing electronic waste stream. Yet federal government plans for a national scheme to manage this waste appear to have stalled.

    Clearly, solar panel waste is a major problem for Australia. Recycling is one part of the solution. But Australia also needs new rules so solar panels can be repaired and reused.

    Millions of solar panels dumped as upgrades surge (ABC News, June 12, 2025)

    What are product stewardship schemes?

    The Smart Energy Council, which represents the solar industry, is calling for a national product stewardship scheme.

    Product stewardship schemes share responsibility for reducing waste at the end of a product’s useful life. They can involve people all along the supply chain, from manufacturers to importers to retailers.

    Such schemes may be voluntary, and industry-led, or mandatory and legislated. Alternatively, they can be shared – approved by government but run by an organisation on behalf of industry.

    Existing schemes manage waste such as oil, tyres, paper and packaging, mobile phones, televisions and computers.

    Depending on the product, a levy is paid by the manufacturer, product importer, network service provider (in case of mobile muster), retailer or consumer – or a combination of these. The money raised is then invested in recycling, research or raising awareness and administering the scheme.

    Establishing a solar panel product stewardship scheme

    Solar panel systems were added to a national priority list for a product stewardship scheme in 2017.

    In December 2020, the federal government called for partners to help develop the scheme, but later stated that no partnership would be struck.

    The government released a discussion paper for comment in 2023. The scheme has not yet been established.

    This is particularly problematic given Australia’s commitment to renewable energy, which will entail a rapid expansion of solar technology.

    Recycling should be the last resort

    Product stewardship schemes assume recycling is the main solution to the waste problem.

    Australia’s National Waste Policy also focuses on on recycling, rather than reuse or repair. This is despite recycling being the last resort on the “waste hierarchy”, just slightly above disposal.

    Solar photovoltaic panels are built to last 30 years or more, and are “not made to be unmade”. They are not easy to dismantle for recycling because they are built to withstand harsh conditions.

    It’s difficult for Australia to influence the design of solar panels, given 99% are imported. Just one manufacturer, Tindo Solar in Adelaide, assembles solar panels on Australian soil, using imported silicon cells.

    Many solar panels are being removed well before their end of life, generating waste ahead of time. This is rarely because they have stopped producing power.

    In our previous research, we found many reasons why people chose to take solar panels down. Consumers are often advised to replace the whole system when just a few panels are faulty. Or they may simply be upgrading to a larger, more efficient system. Sometimes it’s because they want to access a new renewable energy subsidy.

    Renewable subsidies and other solar panel policies should be redesigned to keep panels on roofs for longer.

    Functioning solar panels removed before the end of their life should be reused. This would require new regulations including quality-control measures certifying second-hand solar panels, and second-hand markets. This is a much neglected field of research and development.

    What else should such a scheme include?

    Others have discussed what a solar panel product stewardship scheme could include and the possible regulatory environment.

    We think the scheme should also involve collecting and transporting panels around Australia, including remote areas.

    Unfortunately, existing product stewardship schemes do not differentiate between urban, regional and remote areas. The same is likely to be the case for a solar panel collection and recycling scheme.

    This leaves regional and remote areas with fewer recycling facilities and collection points. With a growing number of large solar projects in Northern Australia, reducing waste is imperative.

    Remote island communities in the Northern Territory bundle up their recyclables and ship it to Darwin. Removed solar panels are then transported to urban Victoria, New South Wales or South Australia for processing. Who should bear the cost of transporting this waste? Consumers, remote regional councils with small ratepayer bases, or manufacturers and retailers?

    A well-designed scheme would help recover valuable resources across Australia for reuse in new products.

    However, large volumes of solar panels would be required for recycling schemes to become commercially viable. That’s why the solar recycling industry is concerned about exporters and scrap dealers collecting panels rather then certified solar panel recyclers.

    Even if the technology for recycling solar panels is nascent in Australia, it’s worth stockpiling panels in Australia for later.

    Considering these issues in the design of a product stewardship scheme would help ensure we can maximise the benefits of renewable energy, while minimising waste.

    Deepika Mathur has received research funding from the Northern Territory and federal governments.

    Robin Gregory is affiliated with Regional Development Australia Northern Territory

    – ref. A solar panel recycling scheme would help reduce waste, but please repair and reuse first – https://theconversation.com/a-solar-panel-recycling-scheme-would-help-reduce-waste-but-please-repair-and-reuse-first-258806

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY and $HAREHOLDER ALERT: The M&A Class Action Firm Investigates the Merger: OPOF, PRA, SWTX and FLS

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    NEW YORK, June 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —

    Monteverde & Associates PC (the “M&A Class Action Firm”), has recovered millions of dollars for shareholders and is recognized as a Top 50 Firm in the 2024 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report. We are headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City and are investigating:

    • Old Point Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: OPOF), relating to the proposed merger with TowneBank. Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of Old Point will elect to receive $41.00 in cash or 1.1400 shares of TowneBank common stock for each share of Old Point outstanding common stock.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for July 2, 2025.
            
    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/old-point-financial-corporation-opof/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE: PRA), relating to the proposed merger with The Doctors Company. Under the terms of the agreement, ProAssurance stockholders will receive $25.00 per share in cash.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for June 24, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/proassurance-corporation-pra/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • SpringWorks Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SWTX), relating to the proposed merger with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Under the terms of the agreement, SpringWorks shareholders will have the right to receive $47.00 in cash per share of SpringWorks stock held.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for June 26, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/springworks-therapeutics-inc-swtx/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • Flowserve Corporation (NYSE: FLS) related to its merger with Chart Industries, Inc. Upon completion of the proposed transaction, Flowserve shareholders will own approximately 46.5% of the combined company.

    Click here for more info https://monteverdelaw.com/case/flowserve-corporation/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    NOT ALL LAW FIRMS ARE THE SAME. Before you hire a law firm, you should talk to a lawyer and ask:

    1. Do you file class actions and go to Court?
    2. When was the last time you recovered money for shareholders?
    3. What cases did you recover money in and how much?

    About Monteverde & Associates PC

    Our firm litigates and has recovered money for shareholders…and we do it from our offices in the Empire State Building. We are a national class action securities firm with a successful track record in trial and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. 

    No company, director or officer is above the law. If you own common stock in the above listed company and have concerns or wish to obtain additional information free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com or by telephone at (212) 971-1341.

    Contact:
    Juan Monteverde, Esq.
    MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC
    The Empire State Building
    350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4740
    New York, NY 10118
    United States of America
    jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com
    Tel: (212) 971-1341

    Attorney Advertising. (C) 2025 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC (www.monteverdelaw.com).  Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY and $HARHOLDER ALERT: The M&A Class Action Firm Continues to Investigate the Merger: SVT, SSBK, LNSR, iCAD

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    NEW YORK, June 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Monteverde & Associates PC (the “M&A Class Action Firm”), has recovered millions of dollars for shareholders and is recognized as a Top 50 Firm in the 2024 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report. We are headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City and are investigating:

    • Servotronics, Inc. (NYSE: SVT), relating to the proposed merger with TransDigm Group Incorporated. Under the terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of TransDigm will commence a tender offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of Servotronics for $38.50 per share in cash.

    ACT NOW. Tender Offer expires for June 30, 2025.
            
    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/servotronics-inc-svt/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • Southern States Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: SSBK), relating to the proposed merger with FB Financial Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Southern States’ shareholders will receive 0.800 shares of FB Financial common stock for each share of Southern States stock.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for June 26, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/southern-states-bancshares-inc-ssbk/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • LENSAR, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNSR), relating to the proposed merger with Alcon. Under the terms of the agreement, LENSAR shareholders will receive $14.00 per share, with an additional non-tradeable contingent value right offering up to $2.75 per share in cash conditioned on the achievement of certain milestones.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for July 2, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/lensar-inc-lnsr/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • iCAD, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICAD), relating to the proposed merger with RadNet, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, iCAD stockholders will receive 0.0677 shares of RadNet common stock for each share of iCAD common stock held at the closing of the merger.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for July 14, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/icad-inc-icad/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    NOT ALL LAW FIRMS ARE THE SAME. Before you hire a law firm, you should talk to a lawyer and ask:

    1. Do you file class actions and go to Court?
    2. When was the last time you recovered money for shareholders?
    3. What cases did you recover money in and how much?

    About Monteverde & Associates PC

    Our firm litigates and has recovered money for shareholders…and we do it from our offices in the Empire State Building. We are a national class action securities firm with a successful track record in trial and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. 

    No company, director or officer is above the law. If you own common stock in any of the above listed companies and have concerns or wish to obtain additional information free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com or by telephone at (212) 971-1341.

    Contact:
    Juan Monteverde, Esq.
    MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC
    The Empire State Building
    350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4740
    New York, NY 10118
    United States of America
    jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com
    Tel: (212) 971-1341

    Attorney Advertising. (C) 2025 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC (www.monteverdelaw.com).  Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY and $HARHOLDER ALERT: The M&A Class Action Firm Continues to Investigate the Merger: SVT, SSBK, LNSR, iCAD

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    NEW YORK, June 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Monteverde & Associates PC (the “M&A Class Action Firm”), has recovered millions of dollars for shareholders and is recognized as a Top 50 Firm in the 2024 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report. We are headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City and are investigating:

    • Servotronics, Inc. (NYSE: SVT), relating to the proposed merger with TransDigm Group Incorporated. Under the terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of TransDigm will commence a tender offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of Servotronics for $38.50 per share in cash.

    ACT NOW. Tender Offer expires for June 30, 2025.
            
    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/servotronics-inc-svt/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • Southern States Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: SSBK), relating to the proposed merger with FB Financial Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Southern States’ shareholders will receive 0.800 shares of FB Financial common stock for each share of Southern States stock.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for June 26, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/southern-states-bancshares-inc-ssbk/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • LENSAR, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNSR), relating to the proposed merger with Alcon. Under the terms of the agreement, LENSAR shareholders will receive $14.00 per share, with an additional non-tradeable contingent value right offering up to $2.75 per share in cash conditioned on the achievement of certain milestones.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for July 2, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/lensar-inc-lnsr/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    • iCAD, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICAD), relating to the proposed merger with RadNet, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, iCAD stockholders will receive 0.0677 shares of RadNet common stock for each share of iCAD common stock held at the closing of the merger.

    ACT NOW. The Shareholder Vote is scheduled for July 14, 2025.

    Click here for more https://monteverdelaw.com/case/icad-inc-icad/. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

    NOT ALL LAW FIRMS ARE THE SAME. Before you hire a law firm, you should talk to a lawyer and ask:

    1. Do you file class actions and go to Court?
    2. When was the last time you recovered money for shareholders?
    3. What cases did you recover money in and how much?

    About Monteverde & Associates PC

    Our firm litigates and has recovered money for shareholders…and we do it from our offices in the Empire State Building. We are a national class action securities firm with a successful track record in trial and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. 

    No company, director or officer is above the law. If you own common stock in any of the above listed companies and have concerns or wish to obtain additional information free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com or by telephone at (212) 971-1341.

    Contact:
    Juan Monteverde, Esq.
    MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC
    The Empire State Building
    350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4740
    New York, NY 10118
    United States of America
    jmonteverde@monteverdelaw.com
    Tel: (212) 971-1341

    Attorney Advertising. (C) 2025 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC (www.monteverdelaw.com).  Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why we still need a women’s prize for fiction

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Binhammer, Katherine, Professor of Literary History, University of Alberta

    As we make summer reading lists, some of us will turn to lists of prize winners for recommendations.

    One influential prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, recently celebrated its 30th award winner, The Safekeep by Dutch writer Yael van der Wouden.

    The international prize honours the best novel by a woman written in English and published in the United Kingdom. The prize, first awarded in 1996, was founded after no women writers made the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist.

    Considering that fiction by women now regularly makes the shortlists of major prizes, it seems timely to ask: do we still need a prize dedicated to women?

    We explored this question by creating a new dataset containing information on 15 British literary prizes, with demographic information for 682 shortlisted and winning authors. Our analysis of the dataset shows how there is still a ways to go before women’s writing is valued — awarded, remunerated and read — equally to men’s.

    Who wins what prizes?

    We are four research collaborators affiliated with the University of Alberta’s Orlando Project, a project that harnesses the power of digital tools and methods to provide new knowledge about feminist literary scholarship. The Orlando Project has published a searchable digital archive with original coding that focuses of women’s relationship to literary production.

    We compiled a new dataset to explore how gender, ethnicity and educational achievement impacts who wins what prizes.

    When the Women’s Prize first came on the scene in 1996, the average percentage of women winning other U.K. literary prizes actually dropped. The average only began to rise around 2003 when it steadily increased until 2012.

    Women won just eight per cent of the prizes in our dataset in 2003, whereas they won 53 per cent in 2012. But that increase plateaued in 2012, and for the next decade it held steady at a running average of 45 per cent. As well, we note no steady linear progression upwards or downwards on average, but there were highs and lows (21 per cent in 2016 followed by 64 per cent in 2017).

    Booker winners

    Some fluctuation in the winners’ genders is, of course, to be expected. But as is apparent by looking at the percentage of women winners year to year, we should not assume things will always get better.

    Other insights from our dataset suggest caution is required in assuming women’s fiction is now equally valued by the literary establishment.

    Thirty-nine per cent of Booker shortlisted writers were women, but women have only won 32 per cent of the time. The claim that we don’t need a prize for women since many recent shortlists have been dominated by women needs to be tempered with the fact that while women have made up 57 per cent of the Booker’s shortlist since 2016, only 33 per cent of winners have been women.

    Gender and genre

    While we expected some differences between genres, we were surprised by just how gendered certain genres are. Seventy-one per cent of the winners of the (now defunct) Costa Children’s Book Award were women, whereas women only constituted 21 per cent for the British Science Fiction Award and 31 per cent for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award.

    Non-fiction writing — which includes history, political science, sport and current affairs — remains male-dominated: the Baillie Gifford award, which bills itself as “U.K.’s premier annual prize for non-fiction books,” has one of the higher percentages of winners who are men, at 67 per cent.

    Race and ethnicity

    Our dataset includes demographic information on race and ethnicity. It shows that amplifying women’s voices is not simultaneously connected with amplifying all women’s voices.

    The Women’s Prize may have succeeded in pushing the Booker to include more women’s fiction (from zero shortlisted when the Women’s Prize was announced in 1990, to 26 per cent when it made its first award in 1996, to 58 per cent in 2022). But the Booker marginally out-performed the Women’s Prize in relation to racialized writers over the period of our dataset (26 per cent for the former, 22 per cent for the latter).

    A recent book on white literary taste concentrates on the Women’s Prize to show how prizes in general are part of a literary eco-system that is racially biased.

    Fiction reading not as valued as used to be

    We also question what it means that women’s fiction has greater visibility at the same time when fewer and fewer people, and especially men, read fiction.

    Using Nielsen BookScan data, the Women’s Prize 2024 Impact Report points to statistics on fiction authorship and gendered readership: women published 57 per cent of the top 500 bestselling novels in 2023, but while women constitute 44 per cent of readers of the top men’s fiction, men only account for 19 per cent of readers of fiction by women.

    The fact that fewer people are reading fiction at the same time that women are winning more awards, could suggest we are witnessing a repeat of the familiar pattern in women’s history where, at the same historical moment when women achieve dominance, or increase, in a field, and it becomes “feminized,” the field as a whole loses its value or prestige. Examples are family medicine or humanities professors.

    Pattern around gender and genre

    The Orlando Project’s research on 800 years of women’s writing in Britain reveals a pattern around gender and genre when in comes to remuneration and literary prestige. Genres where women writers dominate, like children’s literature and romance, tend to be the least lucrative.

    Novels in the time of Jane Austen illustrate the point. Before Walter Scott and other male writers developed a highbrow “serious” Victorian novel over what they saw as trashy romances, women writers temporarily dominated fiction like they do today. As one of us has argued, when women writers published more novels than men did in the 1790s, novels were the literary genre that paid the least.

    There remains a gender pay equity gap in writing: British women earned 58.6 per cent of what men did in 2022, mostly because the genres they chose to write in do not garner the highest earnings.

    Rewarding women authors

    One way to answer our question of whether we still need a Women’s Prize is this: we will no longer need it when women begin to dominate prizes for prestige genres such as non-fiction; when men read as much writing by women as that by men; and when we pay authors as much as football players.

    So far, we’re not there. We therefore celebrate that in 2023, the Women’s Prize added a new award in non-fiction to address that genre’s gender disparity. The Story of a Heart by practising palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke won this year.

    We encourage readers to take all the Women’s Prize-winning and nominated books to the beach this summer.

    Binhammer, Katherine receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Kanika Batra receives funding from Fulbright Canada.

    Maryse Jayasuriya and Theo Gray do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Why we still need a women’s prize for fiction – https://theconversation.com/why-we-still-need-a-womens-prize-for-fiction-257494

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The politics of blame: Accusing immigrants won’t solve Germany’s antisemitism problem

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Oliver Schmidtke, Professor, Director of the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria

    In response to a report on the virulence of antisemitism in Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently cast the blame on attitudes held by immigrants.

    Merz stated in a Fox News interview that Germany has “imported antisemitism with the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years.”

    Merz is pointing to a real and pressing issue. Yet his emphasis on so-called “imported antisemitism” serves as a convenient diversion from Germany’s persistent failure to confront home-grown antisemitism.

    His remarks also risk emboldening those who weaponize antisemitism as a rhetorical tool to fuel anti-immigrant sentiments.

    Antisemitism in Germany

    Antisemitic incidents in Germany have been on the rise since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza.

    According to a survey by the Research and Information Centre on Antisemitism (RIAS), antisemitic occurrences rose by more than 80 per cent in 2023. That year, 4,782 occurrences were documented, the highest number since the organization began tracking such cases in 2017.

    However, RIAS’s most recent report found that the primary motive behind antisemitic crimes remained right-wing extremist ideology (48 per cent). It also noted that, since 2023, there has been a marked increase in incidents attributed to “foreign ideology.” These are understood as originating outside Germany and often linked to Islamist or anti-Israel sentiments, which accounted for 31 per cent of cases in 2024.

    It should be noted that RIAS’s approach to classifying antisemitism has been subject to controversy, especially with regard to its treatment of criticism of or protest against the Israeli government’s actions.

    The ‘imported antisemitism’ narrative

    A recent survey of antisemitic attitudes among immigrants in Germany found that such attitudes are more prevalent among Muslim respondents compared to their Christian or religiously unaffiliated counterparts. The study revealed particularly high levels of antisemitism among individuals from the Middle East and North Africa.

    Approximately 35 per cent of Muslim respondents — especially those with strong religious convictions and lower levels of formal education — “strongly agreed with classical antisemitic statements.” These statements reflect classical antisemitic tropes, such as attributing too much influence over politics or finance to Jews, accusing Jews of driving the world into disaster or relativizing the Holocaust.

    At the same time, there is evidence that immigrants successfully integrating into German society is associated with lower levels of antisemitism.

    Yet blaming a rise in antisemitism on “imported” attitudes or “foreign ideologies” signals a crude simplification. Antisemitism has remained prevalent in German society even after the Second World War, and political movements or leaders can easily mobilize it.

    Although Holocaust education is mandatory in German schools, knowledge about the Shoah and the legacy of antisemitism remains limited among younger generations. A recent study by the Jewish Claims Conference found that among Germans aged 18 to 29, around 40 per cent were not aware that approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators.

    According to a 2023 MEMO survey, more than 50 per cent of 14- to 16-year-old students in Germany did not know what Auschwitz was.

    Blaming immigrants for challenges in Germany’s memory culture oversimplifies a deeper issue: the growing difficulty of making the country’s dominant remembrance — centred on the horrors of the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust — politically meaningful and emotionally resonant for younger generations.

    For many young Germans, the memory of the Holocaust feels increasingly remote, lacking the emotional immediacy that vanishing eyewitnesses once provided.

    This problem is further exacerbated by the absence of innovative, impactful teaching capable of conveying the continued relevance of Holocaust memory and its political message.

    In a 2023 article, American journalist Masha Gessen highlighted how Holocaust remembrance in Germany was becoming an elite-driven ritual, one that risks preventing a meaningful connection between its moral imperatives and today’s political realities.

    The threat from Alternative for Germany

    At the same time, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party poses a direct threat to Germany’s culture of remembrance.

    The AfD has made it a central objective to challenge the primacy of Holocaust memory, calling for a U-turn in Germany’s remembrance culture.

    Leading party members have labelled Holocaust memorials “monuments of shame,” reflecting the party’s broader effort to promote nationalist reinterpretations of history.

    Furthermore, the AfD’s staunchly anti-immigrant stance exposes a fundamental flaw in the imported antisemitism narrative. Across Europe, populist right-wing movements have increasingly mobilized anti-Muslim rhetoric under the banner of defending so-called “Judeo-Christian values,” even as they simultaneously draw on classic antisemitic tropes targeting “globalist elites” and conspiratorial power structures.

    This use of Jewish identity as a rhetorical weapon against Islam, while perpetuating antisemitism in other forms, reveals the deep contradictions and opportunism underlying imported antisemitism claims.

    Blaming Muslim immigrants for the rise of antisemitism offers German political leaders a convenient excuse for their own failure to confront entrenched antisemitic beliefs within German society.

    In addition, Holocaust remembrance can sometimes exclude immigrants. For example, Germany recently added questions about the Holocaust and Nazi crimes to its citizenship test, committing newcomers to its memory culture.

    Research shows this kind of policy can have unintended effects. It can make immigrants feel excluded if they are seen as not fully sharing in “our” nation and “our” history. Given the universalist values it is meant to embody, the commemoration of the Holocaust can also serve to alienate immigrants from full cultural citizenship.

    Framing antisemitism primarily as an imported problem risks strengthening those forces that actively seek to undermine and ignore Germany’s confrontation with its Nazi past.

    Instead, what is needed is a more nuanced approach, one that bridges the divide between antiracist and anti-antisemitism efforts, and aligns more faithfully with the moral and political commitments that this collective memory is meant to uphold.

    Oliver Schmidtke receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. The politics of blame: Accusing immigrants won’t solve Germany’s antisemitism problem – https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-blame-accusing-immigrants-wont-solve-germanys-antisemitism-problem-258705

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: UPDATE – Sunday, June 15, 2025

    Source: Government of Canada – Prime Minister

    Note: All times local

    National Capital Region, Canada

    11:00 a.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, and the Chief Executive Officer of Cohere, Aidan Gomez.

    Third Floor Foyer
    West Block
    Parliament Hill

    Note for media:

    • Pooled photo opportunity

    11:15 a.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer.

    Third Floor
    West Block
    Parliament Hill

    Note for media:

    1:00 p.m. The Prime Minister will depart for Calgary, Alberta.

    Note for media:

    • Open coverage

    Calgary, Alberta

    3:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will arrive in Calgary, Alberta.

    Note for media:

    4:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.

    Note for media:

    5:15 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.

    Note for media:

    Kananaskis, Alberta

    7:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with representatives of the Treaty 7 First Nations.

    Closed to media

    8:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz.

    Note for media:

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: President Ramaphosa hails Proteas historic ICC test championship victory

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Sunday, June 15, 2025

    President Cyril Ramaphosa has congratulated the Proteas on their historic victory in the International Cricket Council’s Test Championship, after five-wicket win over Australia at Lord’s, England, on Saturday.

    South Africa beat Australia on the fourth day, through a superb team effort at the home of cricket. 

    “Your win is a major boost for cricket in South Africa, and you have inspired a new generation of cricketers. I call on the nation to come and greet the Cricket World Champions when they arrive back in the country this week,” the President said in a statement on Saturday.

    The President described the win as being built around excellent performances by the batsmen in the second innings.

    There was the brilliant batting by Aiden Markram who scored 136 and the captain, Temba Bavuma with his 66 runs.

    Their match-winning partnership was pivotal in the team’s success.

    The bowlers, led by Kagiso Rabada, also kept the pressure on the Australian batsmen and never allowed them to dominate.

    “Coach Shukri Conrad, captain Bavuma and the team have done South Africa proud. They started the match as underdogs but that indomitable spirit, that is a characteristic of our nation, carried the team through. The Proteas underlined the importance of being focussed on the field and triumphed,” the President said. –SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Pacific Partnership 2025 Commences Mission Stop in Suva, Fiji

    Source: United States Navy (Logistics Group Western Pacific)

    SUVA, Fiji – Pacific Partnership has returned to Fiji to conduct the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster response preparedness mission in the Indo-Pacific region, June 8, 2025.

    Pacific Partnership fosters collaboration to enhance natural disaster response preparedness and builds lasting relationships between Fiji, the United States, and participating nations. Engagements for this year’s iteration will occur in the cities of Suva and Nadi.

    At Fiji’s invitation, Pacific Partnership’s mission is to collaborate in several humanitarian and civic readiness workshops in areas such as engineering, natural disaster response, public health, and Fijian community outreach projects. This year’s mission, featuring about 58 personnel, is primarily a collective effort between Fiji, New Zealand and the United States.

    “I am honored to oversee this year’s return of Pacific Partnership to the nation of Fiji,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Mark B. Stefanik, mission commander. “The continued opportunity to build upon our enduring relationship with the Fijian community further emphasizes a shared support of a free and resilient Indo-Pacific.”

    While in Fiji, the Pacific Partnership 2025 team will focus on subject-matter exchanges and community education in permaculture, spearhead emergency preparedness and disaster response training, and conduct the foundational construction of a local schoolhouse. Additionally, the U.S. Pacific Fleet Band, accompanied by members of the Scots Guard, Royal Australian and Royal Canadian navies, will perform during a variety of community outreach engagements.

    “We really appreciate Fiji welcoming us for Pacific Partnership 2025,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert Gibson, Officer in Charge for the Fiji mission. “It’s awesome to be working alongside our Fijian counterparts, building a stronger, healthier, and more resilient Indo-Pacific together.”

    Now in its 21st iteration, the Pacific Partnership series is the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster management preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific. Pacific Partnership works collaboratively with host and partner nations to enhance regional interoperability and disaster response capabilities, increase security and stability in the region, and foster new and enduring friendships in the Indo-Pacific.

    Date Taken: 06.08.2025
    Date Posted: 06.11.2025 18:07
    Story ID: 500378
    Location: SUVA, FJ
    Web Views: 128
    Downloads: 2

    PUBLIC DOMAIN  

    This work, Pacific Partnership 2025 Commences Mission Stop in Suva, Fiji, by PO2 Moises Sandoval, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why Israel’s shock and awe has proven its power but lost the war

    COMMENTARY: By Antony Loewenstein

    War is good for business and geopolitical posturing.

    Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington in early February for his first visit to the US following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, he issued a bold statement on the strategic position of Israel.

    “The decisions we made in the war [since 7 October 2023] have already changed the face of the Middle East,” he said.

    “Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further.”

    How should this redrawn map be assessed?

    Hamas is bloodied but undefeated in Gaza. The territory lies in ruins, leaving its remaining population with barely any resources to rebuild. Death and starvation stalk everyone.

    Hezbollah in Lebanon has suffered military defeats, been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, and now faces few viable options for projecting power in the near future. Political elites speak of disarming Hezbollah, though whether this is realistic is another question.

    Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE accounted for 12 percent of Israel’s record $14.8bn in arms sales in 2024 — up from just 3 percent the year before

    In Yemen, the Houthis continue to attack Israel, but pose no existential threat.

    Meanwhile, since the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, Israel has attacked and threatened Syria, while the new government in Damascus is flirting with Israel in a possible bid for “normalisation“.

    The Gulf states remain friendly with Israel, and little has changed in the last 20 months to alter this relationship.

    According to Israel’s newly released arms sales figures for 2024, which reached a record $14.8bn, Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates accounted for 12 percent of total weapons sales — up from just 3 percent in 2023.

    It is conceivable that Saudi Arabia will be coerced into signing a deal with Israel in the coming years, in exchange for arms and nuclear technology for the dictatorial kingdom.

    An Israeli and US-assisted war against Iran began on Friday.

    In the West Bank, Israel’s annexation plans are surging ahead with little more than weak European statements of concern. Israel’s plans for Greater Israel — vastly expanding its territorial reach — are well underway in Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

    Shifting alliances
     On paper, Israel appears to be riding high, boasting military victories and vanquished enemies. And yet, many Israelis and pro-war Jews in the diaspora do not feel confident or buoyed by success.

    Instead, there is an air of defeatism and insecurity, stemming from the belief that the war for Western public opinion has been lost — a sentiment reinforced by daily images of Israel’s campaign of deliberate mass destruction across the Gaza Strip.

    What Israel craves and desperately needs is not simply military prowess, but legitimacy in the public domain. And this is sorely lacking across virtually every demographic worldwide.

    It is why Israel is spending at least $150 million this year alone on “public diplomacy”.

    Get ready for an army of influencers, wined and dined in Tel Aviv’s restaurants and bars, to sell the virtues of Israeli democracy. Even pro-Israel journalists are beginning to question how this money is being spent, wishing Israeli PR were more responsive and effective.

    Today, Israeli Jews proudly back ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza in astoundingly high numbers. This reflects a Jewish supremacist mindset that is being fed a daily diet of extremist rhetoric in mainstream media.

    There is arguably no other Western country with such a high proportion of racist, genocidal mania permeating public discourse.

    According to a recent poll of Western European populations, Israel is viewed unfavourably in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy and Spain.

    Very few in these countries support Israeli actions. Only between 13 and 21 percent hold a positive view of Israel, compared to 63-70 percent who do not.

    The US-backed Pew Research Centre also released a global survey asking people in 24 countries about their views on Israel and Palestine. In 20 of the 24 nations, at least half of adults expressed a negative opinion of the Jewish state.

    A deeper reckoning
     Beyond Israel’s image problems lies a deeper question: can it ever expect full acceptance in the Middle East?

    Apart from kings, monarchs and elites from Dubai to Riyadh and Manama to Rabat, Israel’s vicious and genocidal actions since 7 October 2023 have rendered “normalisation” impossible with a state intent on building a Jewish theocracy that subjugates millions of Arabs indefinitely.

    While it is true that most states in the region are undemocratic, with gross human rights abuses a daily reality, Israel has long claimed to be different — “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

    But Israel’s entire political system, built with massive Western support and grounded in an unsustainable racial hierarchy, precludes it from ever being fully and formally integrated into the region.

    The American journalist Murtaza Hussain, writing for the US outlet Drop Site News, recently published a perceptive essay on this very subject.

    He argues that Israeli actions have been so vile and historically grave — comparable to other modern holocausts — that they cannot be forgotten or excused, especially as they are publicly carried out with the explicit goal of ethnically cleansing Palestine:

    “This genocide has been a political and cultural turning point beyond which we cannot continue as before. I express that with resignation rather than satisfaction, as it means that many generations of suffering are ahead on all sides.

    “Ultimately, the goal of Israel’s opponents must not be to replicate its crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, nor to indulge in nihilistic hatred for its own sake.

    “People in the region and beyond should work to build connections with those Israelis who are committed opponents of their regime, and who are ready to cooperate in the generational task of building a new political architecture.”

    The issue is not just Netanyahu and his government. All his likely successors hold similarly hardline views on Palestinian rights and self-determination.

    The monumental task ahead lies in crafting an alternative to today’s toxic Jewish theocracy.

    But this rebuilding must also take place in the West. Far too many Jews, conservatives and evangelical Christians continue to cling to the fantasy of eradicating, silencing or expelling Arabs from their land entirely.

    Pushing back against this fascism is one of the most urgent generational tasks of our time.

    Antony Loewenstein is an Australian/German independent, freelance, award-winning, investigative journalist, best-selling author and film-maker. In 2025, he released an award-winning documentary series on Al Jazeera English, The Palestine Laboratory, adapted from his global best-selling book of the same name. It won a major prize at the prestigious Telly Awards. This article is republished from Middle East Eye with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why Israel’s shock and awe has proven its power but lost the war

    COMMENTARY: By Antony Loewenstein

    War is good for business and geopolitical posturing.

    Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington in early February for his first visit to the US following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, he issued a bold statement on the strategic position of Israel.

    “The decisions we made in the war [since 7 October 2023] have already changed the face of the Middle East,” he said.

    “Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further.”

    How should this redrawn map be assessed?

    Hamas is bloodied but undefeated in Gaza. The territory lies in ruins, leaving its remaining population with barely any resources to rebuild. Death and starvation stalk everyone.

    Hezbollah in Lebanon has suffered military defeats, been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, and now faces few viable options for projecting power in the near future. Political elites speak of disarming Hezbollah, though whether this is realistic is another question.

    Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE accounted for 12 percent of Israel’s record $14.8bn in arms sales in 2024 — up from just 3 percent the year before

    In Yemen, the Houthis continue to attack Israel, but pose no existential threat.

    Meanwhile, since the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, Israel has attacked and threatened Syria, while the new government in Damascus is flirting with Israel in a possible bid for “normalisation“.

    The Gulf states remain friendly with Israel, and little has changed in the last 20 months to alter this relationship.

    According to Israel’s newly released arms sales figures for 2024, which reached a record $14.8bn, Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates accounted for 12 percent of total weapons sales — up from just 3 percent in 2023.

    It is conceivable that Saudi Arabia will be coerced into signing a deal with Israel in the coming years, in exchange for arms and nuclear technology for the dictatorial kingdom.

    An Israeli and US-assisted war against Iran began on Friday.

    In the West Bank, Israel’s annexation plans are surging ahead with little more than weak European statements of concern. Israel’s plans for Greater Israel — vastly expanding its territorial reach — are well underway in Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

    Shifting alliances
     On paper, Israel appears to be riding high, boasting military victories and vanquished enemies. And yet, many Israelis and pro-war Jews in the diaspora do not feel confident or buoyed by success.

    Instead, there is an air of defeatism and insecurity, stemming from the belief that the war for Western public opinion has been lost — a sentiment reinforced by daily images of Israel’s campaign of deliberate mass destruction across the Gaza Strip.

    What Israel craves and desperately needs is not simply military prowess, but legitimacy in the public domain. And this is sorely lacking across virtually every demographic worldwide.

    It is why Israel is spending at least $150 million this year alone on “public diplomacy”.

    Get ready for an army of influencers, wined and dined in Tel Aviv’s restaurants and bars, to sell the virtues of Israeli democracy. Even pro-Israel journalists are beginning to question how this money is being spent, wishing Israeli PR were more responsive and effective.

    Today, Israeli Jews proudly back ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza in astoundingly high numbers. This reflects a Jewish supremacist mindset that is being fed a daily diet of extremist rhetoric in mainstream media.

    There is arguably no other Western country with such a high proportion of racist, genocidal mania permeating public discourse.

    According to a recent poll of Western European populations, Israel is viewed unfavourably in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy and Spain.

    Very few in these countries support Israeli actions. Only between 13 and 21 percent hold a positive view of Israel, compared to 63-70 percent who do not.

    The US-backed Pew Research Centre also released a global survey asking people in 24 countries about their views on Israel and Palestine. In 20 of the 24 nations, at least half of adults expressed a negative opinion of the Jewish state.

    A deeper reckoning
     Beyond Israel’s image problems lies a deeper question: can it ever expect full acceptance in the Middle East?

    Apart from kings, monarchs and elites from Dubai to Riyadh and Manama to Rabat, Israel’s vicious and genocidal actions since 7 October 2023 have rendered “normalisation” impossible with a state intent on building a Jewish theocracy that subjugates millions of Arabs indefinitely.

    While it is true that most states in the region are undemocratic, with gross human rights abuses a daily reality, Israel has long claimed to be different — “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

    But Israel’s entire political system, built with massive Western support and grounded in an unsustainable racial hierarchy, precludes it from ever being fully and formally integrated into the region.

    The American journalist Murtaza Hussain, writing for the US outlet Drop Site News, recently published a perceptive essay on this very subject.

    He argues that Israeli actions have been so vile and historically grave — comparable to other modern holocausts — that they cannot be forgotten or excused, especially as they are publicly carried out with the explicit goal of ethnically cleansing Palestine:

    “This genocide has been a political and cultural turning point beyond which we cannot continue as before. I express that with resignation rather than satisfaction, as it means that many generations of suffering are ahead on all sides.

    “Ultimately, the goal of Israel’s opponents must not be to replicate its crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, nor to indulge in nihilistic hatred for its own sake.

    “People in the region and beyond should work to build connections with those Israelis who are committed opponents of their regime, and who are ready to cooperate in the generational task of building a new political architecture.”

    The issue is not just Netanyahu and his government. All his likely successors hold similarly hardline views on Palestinian rights and self-determination.

    The monumental task ahead lies in crafting an alternative to today’s toxic Jewish theocracy.

    But this rebuilding must also take place in the West. Far too many Jews, conservatives and evangelical Christians continue to cling to the fantasy of eradicating, silencing or expelling Arabs from their land entirely.

    Pushing back against this fascism is one of the most urgent generational tasks of our time.

    Antony Loewenstein is an Australian/German independent, freelance, award-winning, investigative journalist, best-selling author and film-maker. In 2025, he released an award-winning documentary series on Al Jazeera English, The Palestine Laboratory, adapted from his global best-selling book of the same name. It won a major prize at the prestigious Telly Awards. This article is republished from Middle East Eye with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Netanyahu has two war aims: destroying Iran’s nuclear program and regime change. Are either achievable?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Middle East Studies, Australian National University

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could last for at least two weeks.

    His timing seems precise for a reason. The Israel Defence Forces and the country’s intelligence agencies have clearly devised a methodical, step-by-step campaign.

    Israeli forces initially focused on decapitating the Iranian military and scientific leadership and, just as importantly, destroying virtually all of Iran’s air defences.

    Israeli aircraft can not only operate freely over Iranian air space now, they can refuel and deposit more special forces at key sites to enable precision bombing of targets and attacks on hidden or well-protected nuclear facilities.

    In public statements since the start of the campaign, Netanyahu has highlighted two key aims: to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and to encourage the Iranian people to overthrow the clerical regime.

    With those two objectives in mind, how might the conflict end? Several broad scenarios are possible.

    A return to negotiations

    US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was to have attended a sixth round of talks with his Iranian counterparts on Sunday aimed at a deal to replace the Iran nuclear agreement negotiated under the Obama administration in 2015. Trump withdrew from that agreement during his first term in 2018, despite Iran’s apparent compliance to that point.

    Netanyahu was opposed to the 2015 agreement and has indicated he does not believe Iran is serious about a replacement.

    So, accepting negotiations as an outcome of the Israeli bombing campaign would be a massive climbdown by Netanyahu. He wants to use the defanging of Iran to reestablish his security credentials after the Hamas attacks of October 2023.

    Even though Trump continues to press Iran to accept a deal, negotiations are off the table for now. Trump won’t be able to persuade Netanyahu to stop the bombing campaign to restart negotiations.

    Complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program

    Destruction of Iran’s nuclear program would involve destroying all known sites, including the Fordow uranium enrichment facility, about 100 kilometres south of Tehran.

    According to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, the facility is located about half a mile underground, beneath a mountain. It is probably beyond the reach of even the US’ 2,000-pound deep penetration bombs.

    The entrances and ventilation shafts of the facility could be closed by causing landslides. But that would be a temporary solution.

    Taking out Fordow entirely would require an Israeli special forces attack. This is certainly possible, given Israel’s success in getting operatives into Iran to date. But questions would remain about how extensively the facility could be damaged and then how quickly it could be rebuilt.

    And destruction of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges – used to enrich uranium to create a bomb – would be only one step in dismantling its program.

    Israel would also have to secure or eliminate Iran’s stock of uranium already enriched to 60% purity. This is sufficient for up to ten nuclear bombs if enriched to the weapons-grade 90% purity.

    But does Israeli intelligence know where that stock is?

    Collapse of the Iranian regime

    Collapse of the Iranian regime is certainly possible, particularly given Israel’s removal of Iran’s most senior military leaders since its attacks began on Friday, including the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian armed forces.

    And anti-regime demonstrations over the years, most recently the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests after the death in police custody of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, in 2022, have shown how unpopular the regime is.

    That said, the regime has survived many challenges since coming to power in 1979, including war with Iraq in the 1980s and massive sanctions. It has developed remarkably efficient security systems that have enabled it to remain in place.

    Another uncertainty at this stage is whether Israeli attacks on civilian targets might engender a “rally round the flag” movement among Iranians.

    Netanyahu said in recent days that Israel had indications the remaining senior regime figures were packing their bags in preparation for fleeing the country. But he gave no evidence.

    A major party joins the fight

    Could the US become involved in the fighting?

    This can’t be ruled out. Iran’s UN ambassador directly accused the US of assisting Israel with its strikes.

    That is almost certainly true, given the close intelligence sharing between the US and Israel. Moreover, senior Republicans, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, have called on Trump to order US forces to help Israel “finish the job”.

    Trump would probably be loath to do this, particularly given his criticism of the “forever wars” of previous US administrations. But if Iran or pro-Iranian forces were to strike a US base or military asset in the region, pressure would mount on Trump to retaliate.

    Another factor is that Trump probably wants the war to end as quickly as possible. His administration will be aware the longer a conflict drags on, the more likely unforeseen factors will arise.

    Could Russia become involved on Iran’s side? At this stage that’s probably unlikely. Russia did not intervene in Syria late last year to try to protect the collapsing Assad regime. And Russia has plenty on its plate with the war in Ukraine.

    Russia criticised the Israeli attack when it started, but appears not to have taken any action to help Iran defend itself.

    And could regional powers such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates become involved?

    Though they have a substantial arsenal of US military equipment, the two countries have no interest in becoming caught up in the conflict. The Gulf Arab monarchies have engaged in a rapprochement with Iran in recent years after decades of outright hostility. Nobody would want to put this at risk.

    Uncertainties predominate

    We don’t know the extent of Iran’s arsenal of missiles and rockets. In its initial retaliation to Israel’s strikes, Iran has been able to partially overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, causing civilian casualties.

    If it can continue to do this, causing more civilian casualties, Israelis already unhappy with Netanyahu over the Gaza war might start to question his wisdom in starting another conflict.

    But we are nowhere near that point. Though it’s too early for reliable opinion polling, most Israelis almost certainly applaud Netanyahu’s action so far to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, Netanyahu has threatened to make Tehran “burn” if Iran deliberately targets Israeli civilians.

    We can be confident that Iran does not have any surprises in store. Israel has severely weakened its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. They are clearly in no position to assist Iran through diversionary attacks.

    The big question will be what comes after the war. Iran will almost certainly withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and forbid more inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

    Israel will probably be able to destroy Iran’s existing nuclear facilities, but it’s only a question of when – not if – Iran will reconstitute them.

    This means the likelihood of Iran trying to secure a nuclear bomb in order to deter future Israeli attacks will be much higher. And the region will remain in a precarious place.

    Ian Parmeter 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. Netanyahu has two war aims: destroying Iran’s nuclear program and regime change. Are either achievable? – https://theconversation.com/netanyahu-has-two-war-aims-destroying-irans-nuclear-program-and-regime-change-are-either-achievable-259014

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Israel’s attacks on Iran are already hurting global oil prices, and the impact is set to worsen

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joaquin Vespignani, Associate Professor of Economics and Finance, University of Tasmania

    The weekend attacks on Iran’s oil facilities – widely seen as part of escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran – represent a dangerous moment for global energy security.

    While the physical damage to Iran’s production facilities is still being assessed, the broader strategic implications are already rippling through global oil markets. There is widespread concern about supply security and the inflationary consequences for both advanced and emerging economies.

    The global impact

    Iran, which holds about 9% of the world’s proven oil reserves, currently exports between 1.5 and 2 million barrels per day, primarily to China, despite long-standing United States sanctions.

    While its oil output is not as globally integrated as that of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, any disruption to Iranian production or export routes – especially the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply flows – poses a systemic risk.

    Markets have already reacted. Brent crude prices rose more than US 6%, while West Texas Intermediate price increased by over US 5% immediately after the attacks.

    These price movements reflect not only short-term supply concerns but also the addition of a geopolitical risk premium due to fears of broader regional conflict.

    International oil prices may increase further as the conflict continues. Analysts expect that Australian petrol prices will increase in the next few weeks, as domestic fuel costs respond to international benchmarks with a lag.

    Escalation and strategic intentions

    There is growing concern this conflict could escalate further. In particular, Israel may intensify its targeting of Iranian oil facilities, as part of a broader strategy to weaken Iran’s economic capacity and deter further proxy activities.

    Should this occur, it would put even more upward pressure on global oil prices. Unlike isolated sabotage events, a sustained campaign against Iranian energy infrastructure would likely lead to tighter global supply conditions. This would be a near certainty if Iranian retaliatory actions disrupt shipping routes or neighbouring producers.

    Countries most affected

    Countries reliant on oil imports – especially in Asia – are the most exposed to such shocks in the short term.

    India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh rely heavily on Middle Eastern oil and are particularly vulnerable to both supply interruptions and price increases. These economies typically have limited strategic petroleum reserves and face external balance pressures when oil prices rise.

    China, despite being Iran’s largest oil customer, has greater insulation due to its diversified suppliers and substantial reserves.

    However, sustained instability in the Persian Gulf would raise freight and insurance costs even for Chinese refiners, especially if the Strait of Hormuz becomes a contested zone. The strait, between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, provides the only sea access from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.

    Australia’s exposure

    Australia does not import oil directly from Iran. Most of its crude and refined products are sourced from countries including South Korea, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

    However, because Australian fuel prices are pegged to international benchmarks such as Brent and Singapore Mogas, domestic prices will rise in response to the global increase in oil prices, regardless of whether Australian refineries process Iranian oil.

    These price increases will have flow-on effects, raising transport and freight costs across the economy. Industries such as agriculture, logistics, aviation and construction will feel the pinch, and higher operating costs are likely to be passed on to consumers.

    Broader economic impacts

    The conflict could also disrupt global shipping routes, particularly if Iran retaliates through its proxies by targeting vessels in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, or Hormuz Strait.

    Any such disruption could drive up shipping insurance, delay delivery times, and compound existing global supply chain vulnerabilities. More broadly, this supply shock could rekindle inflationary pressures in many countries.

    For Australia, it could delay monetary easing by the Reserve Bank of Australia and reduce consumer confidence if household fuel costs rise significantly. Globally, central banks may adopt a more cautious approach to rate cuts if oil-driven inflation proves persistent.

    The attacks on Iran’s oil fields, and the likelihood of further escalation, present a renewed threat to global energy stability. Even though Australia does not import Iranian oil, it remains exposed through price transmission, supply chain effects and inflationary pressures.

    A sustained campaign targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure by Israel could amplify these risks, leading to a broader energy shock that would affect oil-importing economies worldwide.

    Strategic reserve management and diplomatic engagement will be essential to contain the fallout.

    Joaquin Vespignani is affiliated with the Centre for Australian Macroeconomic Analysis, Australian National University.

    – ref. Israel’s attacks on Iran are already hurting global oil prices, and the impact is set to worsen – https://theconversation.com/israels-attacks-on-iran-are-already-hurting-global-oil-prices-and-the-impact-is-set-to-worsen-259013

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: Olympic champion Zheng defeated in semifinals at Queen’s club

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

    China’s Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen ended her journey at the Queen’s Club Championships as the world No. 5 lost to American Amanda Anisimova 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the women’s singles semifinals here on Saturday.

    The 22-year-old Zheng was obviously not in her best form as she not only struggled in her first serves but also made many unforced errors. Although she managed to level the match while world No. 15 Anisimova also struggled in her own serving games in the second set, the top seed of the WTA 500 grass-court event was not good enough to outplay Anisimova.

    “I have to say that I could not concentrate on playing but worried about my shoes,” revealed Zheng, who changed her shoes in the sixth game of the deciding set. “I noticed there was something wrong with my shoes, but I didn’t realize that the sole has been unglued until the third set.”

    “They were unused until yesterday, but they have been kept for years as they were from the period I was still playing in juniors,” explained Zheng.

    As she didn’t receive any new pair of grass-court shoes from her sponsor in time, Zheng had to wear the pair which she felt too slippery during the last match again.

    In Friday’s quarterfinal against home sensation Emma Raducanu, Zheng asked for a timeout in the first set to change for a pair of new shoes before breaking Raducanu for the first time.

    “I couldn’t keep going as I have slipped a few times,” Zheng explained after Friday’s match. “Since I arrived here, I was wearing the shoes from last year’s Wimbledon. I know exactly when I should change shoes either on the hard court or the clay court, but I’m not sure while playing on grass. I did ask for opinion from my coach ahead of my first match. He said maybe later and I felt all right yesterday.”

    Zheng admitted that all details mattered and she has learned a lesson. She just hoped that next time she could prepare well and wouldn’t be affected by the same kind of issue.

    Anisimova will face German qualifier Tatjana Maria in Sunday’s final as the 37-year-old mom of two beat Australian Open champion Madison Keys on Saturday.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • NEP 2020 key to making India a global education hub: Dharmendra Pradhan

    Source: Government of India

    Source: Government of India (4)

    Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday that National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisions India as a global study destination, offering premium education at an affordable cost.

    He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of positioning India as a global knowledge hub the country is encouraging top international universities to establish campuses here, while empowering Indian higher education institutions to expand globally.

    He was speaking at an event titled ‘Mumbai Rising: Creating an International Education City’ held in Mumbai to issue Letters of Intent (LoIs) to five globally reputed universities from the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States of America and Italy.

    The Minister said the establishment of the branch campuses of University of York, University of Aberdeen, University of Western Australia, Illinois Institute of Technology and Instituto Europeo Di Design (IED), Italy, reflects a deep and growing trust in India’s education ecosystem and is a major milestone as we mark five transformative years of the NEP 2020.

    The handing of the LOIs took place in the presence of Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis, Minister of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra, Chandrakant Patil, Principal Secretary, Government of Maharashtra, Aseem Gupta and Secretary, Department of Higher Education and Chairman, UGC, Dr Vineet Joshi.

    Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the swift issuance of LoIs reflects the speed and commitment of the government.

    He thanked the Prime Minister for NEP 2020 which has a provision for foreign universities to be a part of Indian education sector.

    The five universities, he noted, have added immense value to the State and NEP 2020 has truly opened doors for top global institutions to establish campuses in India.

    He stated that talented Indian students who faced accessibility and affordability issues in pursuing foreign education can now do so while remaining in the country at reduced costs.

    (IANS)

  • NEP 2020 key to making India a global education hub: Dharmendra Pradhan

    Source: Government of India

    Source: Government of India (4)

    Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday that National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisions India as a global study destination, offering premium education at an affordable cost.

    He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of positioning India as a global knowledge hub the country is encouraging top international universities to establish campuses here, while empowering Indian higher education institutions to expand globally.

    He was speaking at an event titled ‘Mumbai Rising: Creating an International Education City’ held in Mumbai to issue Letters of Intent (LoIs) to five globally reputed universities from the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States of America and Italy.

    The Minister said the establishment of the branch campuses of University of York, University of Aberdeen, University of Western Australia, Illinois Institute of Technology and Instituto Europeo Di Design (IED), Italy, reflects a deep and growing trust in India’s education ecosystem and is a major milestone as we mark five transformative years of the NEP 2020.

    The handing of the LOIs took place in the presence of Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis, Minister of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra, Chandrakant Patil, Principal Secretary, Government of Maharashtra, Aseem Gupta and Secretary, Department of Higher Education and Chairman, UGC, Dr Vineet Joshi.

    Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the swift issuance of LoIs reflects the speed and commitment of the government.

    He thanked the Prime Minister for NEP 2020 which has a provision for foreign universities to be a part of Indian education sector.

    The five universities, he noted, have added immense value to the State and NEP 2020 has truly opened doors for top global institutions to establish campuses in India.

    He stated that talented Indian students who faced accessibility and affordability issues in pursuing foreign education can now do so while remaining in the country at reduced costs.

    (IANS)

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Fatal crash – Katherine region

    Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

    The Northern Territory Police Force is investigating a fatal crash that occurred in the Katherine region yesterday afternoon.

    Around 3:40pm, police received reports of a single vehicle collision on the Buntine Highway, approximately 45 kilometres south of the Victoria Highway intersection.

    The 46-year-old male driver and sole vehicle occupant was pronounced deceased at the scene.

    A report will be prepared for the NT Coroner. 

    Police urge anyone with information to make contact on 131 444. Please quote reference number P25160362.

    The number of lives lost on Territory roads now stands at 19.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Caitlin Johnstone: We are, of course, being lied to about Iran

    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

    COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

    Iran and Israel are at war, with the US already intimately involved and likely to become more so. Which of course means we’ll be spending the foreseeable future getting bashed in the face with lies from the most powerful people in the world.

    The most immediately obvious of these is the Netanyahu-promoted narrative that Israel initiated this conflict because Iran was on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon.

    With absolutely no self-consciousness or sense of irony, the Israeli prime minister followed the attacks with a statement accusing Iran of “genocidal rhetoric” which it has backed up “with a programme to develop nuclear weapons.”


    We are, of course, being lied to about Iran           Video: Caitlin Johnstone

    Israel, as we all know, has an unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, and its leaders are presently committing genocide in Gaza while spouting genocidal rhetoric.

    “And if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed. “It could be a year. It could be within a few months  —  less than a year. This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.”

    The Western political/media class have been dutifully promoting this line and uncritically parroting Israel’s claim that its unprovoked attack on Iran was “pre-emptive”, but there is absolutely no evidence that any of this is true.

    Benjamin Netanyahu has spent literally decades falsely claiming that Iran was a year or two away from developing a nuke, only to have the calendar prove him wrong with the passage of time over and over again.

    Iran and Israel (and the US) at war.         Video: Anti-war News

    US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard testified just weeks ago that “The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003.”

    As journalist Séamus Malekafzali recently noted on Twitter, one of the strongest arguments that Iran had not reversed its decision to refrain from obtaining nuclear weapons is that Iranian nuclear scientists have been publicly expressing frustration about the fact that their government won’t allow them to construct a nuke.

    They want to do it, but Tehran won’t let them.

    US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth helped pave the way for Netanyahu’s claims this past Wednesday when he told the Senate that “there have been plenty of indications” Iran has been “moving their way toward something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon.”

    This claim by Hegseth was swiftly scooped up and promoted by warmongers like Tom Cotton who said that Hegseth had “confirmed that Iran’s terrorist regime is actively working towards a nuclear weapon”.

    Cotton’s claim was then picked up by war pundit Mark Levin, who has been personally lobbying Trump to green light an attack on Iran, sarcastically quipping on Twitter, “So, SecDef Hegseth must by lying, too. Everyone’s lying except the isolationists, Koch-heads, Islamists, Chatsworth Qatarlson and their media propagandists.”

    But let’s back up and look at what Hegseth actually said. He did not say “Iran is building a nuclear weapon.” He said “there have been plenty of indications” Iran has been “moving their way toward something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon”.

    If the US had intelligence that Iran was building a nuke, Hegseth would have just said so. But instead he performed this freakish verbal gymnastics stunt muttering about indications of something that might kinda sorta look like a nuclear weapon, which his fellow Iran hawks then falsely took and ran with as a positive assertion that Iran was building a nuke.

    There are other lies being circulated to help market this war as well. As Moon of Alabama notes, the Washington Post’s odious war propagandist David Ignatius is pushing the narrative that Iran has been cultivating a relationship with de-facto al-Qaeda leader Saif al-Adel. The lie that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda was used two decades ago to sell the invasion of Iraq.

    At the same time, Trumpian pundits are currently circulating the narrative that the United States is full of Iranian “sleeper cells” who could activate at any moment and begin attacking Americans.

    The most egregious of these is Laura Loomer’s repeated claims that there are “millions” of such cells awaiting Iran’s orders to strike  — possibly the single most bat shit insane claim I have ever seen anyone with any major platform make, since it would mean a very sizable percentage of the US population is actually a secret Iranian proxy army.

    The fountain of lies is just getting started. There will be more. Believe nothing unless it is substantiated by mountains of evidence. These freaks have been caught lying to sell wars to the public far too many times for any of their claims to be taken on faith.

    Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

    This article was first published on Café Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Caitlin Johnstone: We are, of course, being lied to about Iran

    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

    COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

    Iran and Israel are at war, with the US already intimately involved and likely to become more so. Which of course means we’ll be spending the foreseeable future getting bashed in the face with lies from the most powerful people in the world.

    The most immediately obvious of these is the Netanyahu-promoted narrative that Israel initiated this conflict because Iran was on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon.

    With absolutely no self-consciousness or sense of irony, the Israeli prime minister followed the attacks with a statement accusing Iran of “genocidal rhetoric” which it has backed up “with a programme to develop nuclear weapons.”


    We are, of course, being lied to about Iran           Video: Caitlin Johnstone

    Israel, as we all know, has an unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, and its leaders are presently committing genocide in Gaza while spouting genocidal rhetoric.

    “And if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed. “It could be a year. It could be within a few months  —  less than a year. This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.”

    The Western political/media class have been dutifully promoting this line and uncritically parroting Israel’s claim that its unprovoked attack on Iran was “pre-emptive”, but there is absolutely no evidence that any of this is true.

    Benjamin Netanyahu has spent literally decades falsely claiming that Iran was a year or two away from developing a nuke, only to have the calendar prove him wrong with the passage of time over and over again.

    Iran and Israel (and the US) at war.         Video: Anti-war News

    US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard testified just weeks ago that “The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003.”

    As journalist Séamus Malekafzali recently noted on Twitter, one of the strongest arguments that Iran had not reversed its decision to refrain from obtaining nuclear weapons is that Iranian nuclear scientists have been publicly expressing frustration about the fact that their government won’t allow them to construct a nuke.

    They want to do it, but Tehran won’t let them.

    US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth helped pave the way for Netanyahu’s claims this past Wednesday when he told the Senate that “there have been plenty of indications” Iran has been “moving their way toward something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon.”

    This claim by Hegseth was swiftly scooped up and promoted by warmongers like Tom Cotton who said that Hegseth had “confirmed that Iran’s terrorist regime is actively working towards a nuclear weapon”.

    Cotton’s claim was then picked up by war pundit Mark Levin, who has been personally lobbying Trump to green light an attack on Iran, sarcastically quipping on Twitter, “So, SecDef Hegseth must by lying, too. Everyone’s lying except the isolationists, Koch-heads, Islamists, Chatsworth Qatarlson and their media propagandists.”

    But let’s back up and look at what Hegseth actually said. He did not say “Iran is building a nuclear weapon.” He said “there have been plenty of indications” Iran has been “moving their way toward something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon”.

    If the US had intelligence that Iran was building a nuke, Hegseth would have just said so. But instead he performed this freakish verbal gymnastics stunt muttering about indications of something that might kinda sorta look like a nuclear weapon, which his fellow Iran hawks then falsely took and ran with as a positive assertion that Iran was building a nuke.

    There are other lies being circulated to help market this war as well. As Moon of Alabama notes, the Washington Post’s odious war propagandist David Ignatius is pushing the narrative that Iran has been cultivating a relationship with de-facto al-Qaeda leader Saif al-Adel. The lie that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda was used two decades ago to sell the invasion of Iraq.

    At the same time, Trumpian pundits are currently circulating the narrative that the United States is full of Iranian “sleeper cells” who could activate at any moment and begin attacking Americans.

    The most egregious of these is Laura Loomer’s repeated claims that there are “millions” of such cells awaiting Iran’s orders to strike  — possibly the single most bat shit insane claim I have ever seen anyone with any major platform make, since it would mean a very sizable percentage of the US population is actually a secret Iranian proxy army.

    The fountain of lies is just getting started. There will be more. Believe nothing unless it is substantiated by mountains of evidence. These freaks have been caught lying to sell wars to the public far too many times for any of their claims to be taken on faith.

    Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

    This article was first published on Café Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: China criticizes US tariff narrative as ‘one-sided, misleading’

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

    China has criticized the U.S. “reciprocal tariffs” policy for its “one-sided, misleading” narrative and erroneous logic, urging the United States to faithfully abide by rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and maintain stability of the global trading system.

    At a meeting of the Council for Trade in Services on Friday at WTO headquarters here, the Chinese delegation pointed out that focusing only on goods trade while overlooking services trade, the U.S. narrative on “reciprocal tariffs” is one-sided and misleading.

    The delegation said the United States has sustained long-term services trade surpluses with its major trading partners, which approached 300 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 alone.

    By deeply participating in the highest value-added activities, such as research and development, design, branding, and sales, the United States gains much higher returns in international trade and globalization than surface trade data reflects, it added.

    The delegation urged the United States not to employ a double standard regarding WTO rules. The United States cannot only allow itself to benefit while not letting others, especially developing members, benefit from the WTO, said the delegation.

    Meanwhile, it said that China and the United States have reached consensus through equal consultation, which helps to ease tensions.

    While bilateral negotiations may serve as a channel to ease and resolve trade frictions, such arrangements must be based on WTO rules, must not violate the basic principle of non-discrimination, and must not harm the interests of third parties, the delegation stressed.

    China calls on all members to address their trade concerns within the WTO framework, and to handle trade disputes through multilateral cooperation rather than unilateral measures.

    Moreover, China highlights the importance of accelerating WTO reform to strengthen an open, stable, and predictable multilateral trading system.

    The Chinese delegation’s statement resonated widely among WTO members. Both developed members, including the EU, Australia and Canada, and developing members, such as Brazil and Pakistan, made positive responses.

    The members emphasized that services represent the future of global trade. Services trade stands as a vital force in countering economic crises and in ensuring the resilience of global supply chains

    They also called for joint efforts to uphold consultation and cooperation and promote healthy and stable growth of global trade.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Banking: Connected by Gaming: Samsung Unites Global Fans To Celebrate New Era in Gaming Monitors With Odyssey

    Source: Samsung

    Odyssey Unveiled 2025 made history for both the gaming community and Samsung, as fans, creators and tech enthusiasts gathered in-person and online for the first-ever global hybrid gathering dedicated to the Odyssey monitor lineup.
     
    Held at Samsung KX in London on June 13 and streamed to audiences worldwide on the Odyssey Twitch channel, the event combined hands-on experiences with interactive digital content. Offering participants everywhere an exclusive look at the latest Odyssey innovations and a chance to connect with gaming’s most passionate voices, the stream peaked at over 40 thousand viewers — ranking top 10 worldwide in views on Twitch during its time slot, with the highest viewership in the history of the Odyssey channel.
     
    ▲ Odyssey fans, gamers and streamers gathered for the Odyssey’s first global hybrid event at Samsung KX, London. U.K.
     
    As the doors opened, onsite attendees were greeted by a vibrant showcase featuring hands-on experiences with the latest gaming monitors — including the recently launched 27-inch Odyssey 3D (G90XF) and the 4K 240Hz Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF).
     
    ▲ Odyssey Unveiled 2025 brought the latest in gaming to viewers around the world
     
    High-profile figures such as Caedrel — one of the most recognized personalities in the League of Legends scene — and popular content creator George Clarkey joined the event to compete and be connected with fans on site and via the Odyssey Twitch stream.
     
    ▲ (From left) George Clarkey and Caedrel faced off at the Odyssey Unveiled 2025 event, which showcased the latest in the Samsung Odyssey range.
     
    The highlight of the event was the 1:1 game showdowns with the celebrated streamers. Tension mounted as they first squared off in The First Berserker: Khazan on the Odyssey 3D (G90XF).
     
    “Something about the Khazan game, when I was fighting the monsters — the immersion level was different to normal, it was levelled up,” said Caedrel about the showdown. “Especially as a creator, when you’re deep in a game for hours on end, you become so focused on your character and what’s happening around it, so you really appreciate the quality upgrades.”
     

     
    ▲ Caedrel and George Clarkey experienced the Odyssey 3D (G90XF), which breaks down barriers between imagination and reality with innovative technologies.
     
    Excitement continued to build with a tightly fought Rocket League face-off on the new Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF), in which the both the live and online audience were on their toes as the competition peaked.
     

     
    ▲ Attendees participated in Rocket League matches with the streamers, Caedrel and George Clarkey, on Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF).
     
    George Clarkey said: “Streaming Rocket League was definitely a highlight — I don’t think I’ve been that animated and happy playing a game in a long time. When it got to the winner takes all stage during the final match, it was competitive, silly and really good fun.”
     
    ▲ Broadcast to a global audience via the Odyssey Twitch channel, the event blended immersive, hands-on experiences with engaging interactive digital content.
     
    The energy was palpable throughout the event as the professional gamers demonstrated the power of Odyssey monitors in the series of competitive matches and creator challenges. Fans, whether on-site or remote, engaged in gaming competitions, social media activities, and giveaways, ensuring that enthusiasm remained high throughout the day.
     
    Community panels offered insights into trends shaping the future of gaming, with creators sharing firsthand how Odyssey monitors elevate their content and gameplay. At the same time, online participants joined real-time Q&As, polls and virtual tours, experiencing the event from every angle.
     

     
    ▲ Odyssey Unveiled 2025 saw creators engage with audiences throughout the day.
     
    Attendees, including Odyssey fans and gaming influencers, also enjoyed the immersive 3D gaming experience. Quadrant streamer Ria Bish (@riabish) commented on the Odyssey 3D gameplay in The First Berserker: Khazan, saying: “It feels as though I’m literally part of the game! Particularly the way everything comes to life around me — the trees and their branches passing by. It’s the best 3D experience I’ve had.”
     
    ▲ Ria Bish played The First Berserker: Khazan on Odyssey 3D (G90XF), a monitor with the industry’s leading 3D picture quality.
     
    Gamer Victoria Clay (@victoria_clay) was another of the gaming personalities who experienced the new monitors. “I feel much more immersed in the gameplay. It feels like the depth of perception you would have in the real world! Even simple things like the physics of when I’m walking — the character definitely feels more alive. And finer details like the footprints in the snow, it’s amazing.”
     
    ▲ Victoria Clay playing on Odyssey 3D (G90XF) with eye-tracking technology and view mapping algorithms.
     
    Visitors could also play the Rocket League on the 27-inch Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF), which has 166 pixels-per-inch — the industry’s highest pixel density for a screen of that size — and is the industry’s first 27-inch 4K monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate.
     
    “Everything feels so smooth and dynamic,” said Mohammed Ataya, an Odyssey fan. “The graphics are so crisp. All the details, the signs, and the lighting! It seems sharper and more real than anything I’ve experienced.”
     
    ▲ Gaming fans playing Rocket League on Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF), testing its 240Hz refresh rate & 0.03ms response time.
     
    The presence of streamers went beyond just competition; it became an opportunity to engage with the gaming community. After the event, Caedrel and George Clarkey discussed their impressions of the new Odyssey monitors, the importance of in-person gaming events, and what excites them most about the future of immersive gameplay. Their insights gave fans a closer look at how Samsung’s latest technology is redefining the gaming experience for both players and creators.
     
    Commenting on the Odyssey monitors, George Clarkey remarked: “With Odyssey 3D, it doesn’t feel like you’re just looking at a monitor, it feels as though you’re looking into one. A lot of gaming developments recently seem to focus on how to make gaming more efficient, so this is a nice alternative branch which is more about having fun and being immersed. It allows me to feel inside of the game, and I think that shows.”
     
    Caedrel said: “The best way to describe this is taking the next tech leap in gaming. Everything felt very seamless and natural — it makes me excited for where immersive gaming could go in the future.”
     

     
    ▲ The Odyssey Unveiled 2025 event offered viewers the opportunity to engage with some of gaming’s biggest personalities.
     
    Gaming continues to evolve in exciting and innovative ways. Samsung’s Odyssey event brought fans together to celebrate the future of gaming through its immersive monitors and groundbreaking features, showcasing Samsung’s commitment to reshaping how games are experienced by fans globally.
     
    Odyssey Unveiled 2025 created memorable experiences for participants both onsite and for those watching on the Odyssey Twitch channel. Fans will have a chance to relive the event with highlight reels and behind-the-scenes footage available on Samsung’s social media accounts, bringing the global community closer to Odyssey than ever before.
     
    To catch up on the action or see the best moments, visit the official Samsung Odyssey Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/samsungodyssey.
     
    ▲ Held at Samsung KX in London, the Odyssey Unveiled 2025 event was streamed to viewers worldwide.

    MIL OSI Global Banks –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: 2025–26 ACT Budget: what’s in it for Gungahlin

    Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

    There will be new cricket nets installed at Bonner oval.

    In brief

    • The 2025–26 ACT Budget includes investment in community facilities in Gungahlin.
    • These include shop upgrades, a playground and new cricket nets.
    • This article overviews some of the facilities receiving support.

    Gungahlin residents will see improvements to a range of community facilities across the region.

    The 2025–26 ACT Budget will invest in:

    • upgraded sport and recreation facilities
    • a new playground
    • new path and footpath improvements
    • local shops revitalisation
    • early work to prepare for future infrastructure in Casey.

    These improvements will support the region’s growing population.

    A new playground

    A new playground will be built in Amaroo. It will be located at the local shops on Katherine Avenue.

    Revitalised local shops

    The Palmerston shops will receive upgrades. These will make the space safer and more accessible for the community.

    Investing in sport and recreation

    There will be new cricket nets installed at Bonner oval.

    The Gungahlin Enclosed Oval (Crinigan Circle) and Harrison oval will benefit from female-friendly changeroom upgrades. These are part of ACT-wide investment in inclusive sports facilities.

    Better paths and safer streets

    There will be a new walking and cycling path built along Victoria Street in Hall.

    Footpaths will be improved and better connected as part of an ACT-wide program.

    Lighting upgrades around the region will improve safety and visibility.

    Supporting Gungahlin’s future

    Long-term planning is underway to meet the needs of a growing Gungahlin.

    New critical infrastructure is a step closer and will ensure residents can access the things they need, close to home.

    The Budget includes investment in early work in Casey.

    This will prepare the precinct for the development of a new health centre and future infrastructure, such as potential community facilities and a new emergency services station.

    Read more like this:

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    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Sunday, June 15, 2025

    Source: Government of Canada – Prime Minister

    Note: All times local

    National Capital Region, Canada

    11:00 a.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, and the Chief Executive Officer of Cohere, Aidan Gomez.

    Third Floor Foyer
    West Block
    Parliament Hill

    Note for media:

    • Pooled photo opportunity

    11:15 a.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer.

    Third Floor
    West Block
    Parliament Hill

    Note for media:

    Calgary, Alberta

    3:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will arrive in Calgary, Alberta.

    Note for media:

    4:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.

    Note for media:

    5:15 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.

    Note for media:

    Kananaskis, Alberta

    7:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with representatives of the Treaty 7 First Nations.

    8:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will meet with the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz.

    Note for media:

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Welcoming more visitors from China

    Source: New Zealand Government

    The Government is boosting New Zealand’s attractiveness as a destination for Chinese tourists by improving visa settings and processes.

    From November, New Zealand will trial visa waiver status for Chinese passport holders travelling from Australia with a valid Australian visitor, work, student or family visa, allowing them to visit for up to 3 months. 

    “Our immigration settings play an important role in brightening our country’s economic future. More than 240,000 Chinese visitor visas were granted in 2024, and we want those numbers to grow,” Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says.

    “This will make it easier, cheaper and faster for them to cross the Tasman and visit our shores. The trial will last for 12 months and will be supplemented by further improvements to our immigration processes, making it easier for people applying for a visa.”

    Other changes include: 

    • Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is establishing a dedicated contact centre number and support in China for Chinese ‘Approved Destination Status’ travel agents.
    • New Simplified Chinese web content on the INZ website
    • Visitor Visa applicants will no longer need to have their document translations certified.  This will remove additional translation fees for all Visitor Visa applicants who need to provide translated documents, not only those from China. 

    These complement the five-year multiple entry Visitor Visa already in place and NZ’s current average processing time of five working days visitor visa applications from China

    “China is one of New Zealand’s most important tourism markets, and more international visitors means more bookings in our restaurants, more people visiting our regions and attractions, more jobs being created across the country, and an overall stronger economy,” Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston says.

    “In the year ended March 2025, visitors from China contributed $1.24 billion to New Zealand’s economy, but there’s still more work to do to grow these numbers and drive further economic growth throughout the country.”

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: 2025–26 ACT Budget: what’s in it for Central Canberra

    Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

    Griffith shops will receive upgrades.

    In brief

    • The 2025–26 ACT Budget includes investment in community facilities in the inner north, inner south and the city.
    • These include shop and footpath upgrades.
    • This article overviews some of the facilities receiving support.

    The 2025–26 ACT Budget will support improvements to community facilities across the inner north, inner south and city.

    The investment will deliver practical improvements in the areas residents use most.

    Shop and amenity improvements

    Griffith shops will receive upgrades.

    New toilet facilities will be installed at both Red Hill and Downer shops.

    Sport and recreation upgrades

    There will be female-friendly changeroom upgrades at playing fields in Griffith, Ainslie and Reid.

    These are part of ACT-wide investment in inclusive sports facilities.

    Upgrades to community infrastructure and public spaces

    Footpaths across the region will be improved and better connected. This is part of an ACT-wide program.

    Lighting upgrades, including on City Walk, will improve safety and visibility.

    There will be stormwater upgrades at Dickson Shops.

    The Budget will also invest in concept design masterplanning to renew the City Hill park.

    More local healthcare options

    The ACT Government is investing in planning and feasibility work for the new Inner South Health Centre in Griffith.

    The facility will help meet the growing health needs of Inner South residents.

    Its delivery is part of ACT-wide investment in local community health.

    Read more like this:

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    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Fire at Scott Street, Perth

    Source: Scotland – City of Perth

    “I would like to send sincere condolences to the family and friends of the man who has tragically lost his life in this incident. My thoughts are also with all the other people who have been affected by this very serious fire. 

    “I wish to praise the significant immediate response from all the First Responders and especially our brave firefighters who hurried towards this major fire and put their lives at risk to rescue occupants from the building and tackle the blaze. National resources have been deployed including a dedicated height appliance which has been central to our brave firefighters’ efforts.  

    “Following the evacuation of all flats in the affected building and neighbouring properties in the early hours of Saturday, a rest centre was set up at the Salutation Hotel. Staff from our Housing Service, Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership and our social work teams have been in attendance at the hotel since the incident to give any support and practical help that we can. 

    “Importantly, we are working to make sure that everyone who has been displaced has suitable alternative accommodation in place. People have also been given food, hot drinks, clothes, replacement medication, nappies, baby milk, pay-as-you-go phones, toiletries, toys and help with their pets. 

    “A large-scale Red Cross team also attended this afternoon to provide further support for anyone that needed it, backing up the Council and HSCP effort through the night and day. 

    “I would like to thank everyone who has helped in the effort to support the householders, including our staff, volunteers and staff at the Salutation Hotel, and we will continue to do all we can to support people affected by the fire. What has been heartening to see at this sad time was the immediate practical support donated by local businesses and charities, from clothing to food and toiletries, and even a brand-new pram for one of the youngest children affected by this incident. 

    “Finally, I would also like to thank the people of Perth and local businesses for their patience and understanding as some unavoidable disruption continues in the city centre.”  

    Following the fire at Scott Street, Perth city centre roads will continue to be affected on Sunday 15th June.  

    Emergency services will remain on scene, and Scott Street and South Street will stay closed to traffic and pedestrians. 

    Detours and signage have been put in place around Perth city centre to provide guidance for drivers. Motorists and pedestrians should continue to avoid the area if possible.  

    Perth and Kinross Council will also continue to provide a range of support for people affected by the fire. 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: International peacekeeping exercises “In Search of Khaan-2025” have begun in Mongolia

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian –

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

    ULAN BATOR, June 14 (Xinhua) — The international peacekeeping exercise “Searching for Khaan-2025” kicked off in Mongolia on Saturday at the training center of the Mongolian Armed Forces, 60 km from the capital Ulan Bator.

    At the opening ceremony, Deputy Chairman of the State Great Khural (parliament) of Mongolia Bukhchuluuny Purevdorj noted that the exercises serve as an important bridge for deepening international cooperation in peacekeeping operations and strengthening mutual trust and understanding between countries.

    “The scale, inclusiveness, content and programme of these multinational peacekeeping exercises continue to expand year on year, reflecting a commitment to tangible actions that contribute to global peace and security,” he added.

    A total of 1,200 peacekeepers from 24 countries, including Mongolia, China, Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Japan and the United States, are taking part in 22 peacekeeping exercises organized by the Mongolian Armed Forces.

    The exercise, which will last until June 28, will cover command and staff and field activities.

    The exercises “In Search of Khaan” have been conducted since 2003 by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Mongolia jointly with the US Pacific Fleet Command and the UN Peace Support Fund. Since 2006, the peacekeeping maneuvers have evolved into large-scale international peacekeeping exercises. –0–

    MIL OSI Russia News –