NewzIntel.com

Category: Canada

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Family Day: Minister Fir | Déclaration de la ministre Fir à l’occasion du jour de la Famille

    Source: Government of Canada regional news (2)

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Whitehorse — Whitehorse RCMP seek assistance to locate a missing man

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    The RCMP are seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing seventy-three-year-old male resident of Whitehorse. Police are concerned for the missing person’s wellbeing.

    Mr. Andy McLeod was last seen at 8:00pm on Sunday, February 16. He is approximately 5 foot 10 inches tall, has hazel eyes, grey hair and is of medium build. He may be wearing a long, light brown jacket and a fur hat. Mr. McLeod may appear disoriented.

    If anyone has information about Andy McLeod’s whereabouts, please contact Whitehorse RCMP immediately at 867-667-5555.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Placentia — Displaced seal safely escorted back to the ocean by Placentia RCMP and Department of Fisheries

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    Yesterday, Placentia RCMP received a call about a young seal who had made its way to the parking lot of the Placentia Mall on Blockhouse Drive in Placentia, most likely from the frozen inlet behind the mall.

    While police were responding, the seal continued to travel further from the water. It crossed over a roadway and entered the back yard of a nearby residence. With the little guy not knowing the rules of the road, police remained in the area to prevent him from entering back onto the roadway, while officers with Fisheries and Oceans Canada were called in to assist.

    The seal was safely escorted back to the ocean by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Premier’s statement on Family Day

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Premier David Eby has issued the following statement celebrating Family Day:

    “Family Day is an opportunity to spend time with the people you love, doing the things you love, whether that is exploring the outdoors, enjoying a cozy day at home or, like my family, heading to the playground with the best swing.

    “This day also invites us to reflect on the importance of family, especially in these times of extraordinary change and uncertainty. Our families – those we are born into and those we choose – provide us with unconditional love and support. They are our ties to our past, present and future. And they are always there for us when we need them.

    “Our government is there for families, too. We know B.C. families are facing big challenges and we are focused on addressing the issues that you are talking about at the kitchen table, during school dropoff and on the playground.

    “Tomorrow, Lt. Gov. Wendy Cocchia will deliver the speech from the throne, laying out our government’s plan to defend British Columbians in these uncertain times and secure a brighter future for everyone who calls this place home. 

    “We will continue reducing costs for families by expanding affordable child care and helping people buy their first family home. We will further strengthen health care by helping more families get a family doctor. We will make our communities safer by working with law enforcement and social agencies to crack down on organized crime and keep repeat offenders off our streets. And we will accelerate our work to build a sustainable, clean economy with good, family-supporting jobs so generations to come can keep the family tree firmly planted here in British Columbia.

    “This is a special Family Day for my crew as it is our first as a family of five. That means more fun, more laughs and more rides on the swing.

    “From my family to yours, happy Family Day!”

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Who are Ismaili Muslims and how do their beliefs relate to the Aga Khan’s work?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Shariq Siddiqui, Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Indiana University

    Prince Karim Aga Khan at an event on Oct. 2, 2019, in London. Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

    Prince Karim Aga Khan, who died on Feb. 4, 2025, served as the religious leader of Ismaili Muslims around the world since being appointed as the 49th hereditary imam in 1957. He came to be known around the world for his enormous work on global development issues and other philanthropic work.

    The Ismaili community considers the imam a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Ismaili Muslims are considered to be a branch of Shiite Islam. They constitute the second-largest community within the Shiite sect.

    An estimated 15 million Ismaili Muslims live in 35 countries, across all parts of the world. In the U.S., with around 40,000 Ismailis, Texas has the largest concentration of the community.

    As a scholar of Muslim philanthropy, I have long been impressed by the philanthropic and civic engagement of the Ismailis.

    Ismaili religious beliefs

    Following the death of the Prophet in A.D. 632, differences emerged over who should have both political and spiritual control over the Muslim community. A majority chose Abu Bakr, one of the Prophet’s closest companions, while a minority put their faith in his son-in-law and cousin, Ali. Those Muslims who put their faith in Abu Bakr came to be called Sunni, and those who believed in Ali came to be known as Shiite.

    Like other Shiite sects, Ismailis believe that Ali should have been selected as the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. They also believe that he should have been followed by Ali’s two sons – the grandsons of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.

    The key difference among other Shiites and Ismailis lies in their lineage of imams. While they agree with the first six imams, Ismailis believe that Imam Ismail ibn Jafar was the rightful person to be the seventh imam, while the majority of Shiites, known as Twelvers, believe that Imam Musa al-Kazim, Ismail’s younger brother, was the true successor. They both agree that Ali was the first imam and on the next five imams, who are direct descendant of Ali and Fatima.

    The Ismaili sect split into two branches in 1094. Aga Khan was the leader of the Nizari branch, which believes in a living imam or leader. The second branch – Musta’lian Tayyibi Ismailis – believes that its 21st imam went into “concealment”; in his physical absence, a vicegerent or “da’i mutlaq” acts as an authority on his behalf.

    Like all Muslims, Ismailis believe that God sent his revelation to the Prophet Muhammad through Archangel Gabriel. However, they differ on other interpretations of the faith. According to the Ismailis, for example, the Quran conveys allegorical messages from God, and it is not the literal word of God. They also believe Muhammad to be the living embodiment of the Quran. Ismailis are strongly encouraged to pray three times a day, but it is not required.

    Ismailis believe in metaphorical, rather than literal, fasting. Ismailis believe that the esoteric meaning of fasting involves a fasting of the soul, whereby they attempt to purify the soul simply by avoiding sinful acts and doing good deeds.

    In terms of “Zakat,” or charity – the third pillar of Islam, which Muslims are required to follow – Ismailis differ in two ways. They give it to the leader of their faith, Aga Khan, and believe that they have to give 12.5% of their income versus 2.5%.

    Pluralism and its embrace

    Ismaili history has a strong connection to pluralism – part of their philosophy of embracing difference. The Fatimid Empire that ruled over parts of North Africa and the Middle East from 909 to 1171 is said to have been a “golden age of Ismaili thought.”

    It was a pluralistic community, in which Shiite and Sunni Muslims, as well as Christian and Jewish communities, worked together for the success of the flourishing empire, under the rule of the Ismaili imams.

    In the modern period, Ismailis have sought to further pluralism within their own communities by arguing that pluralism goes beyond tolerance and requires people to actively engage across differences and actively embrace difference as a strength. For example, Eboo Patel, an Ismaili American, has established the nonprofit Interfaith America as a way to further pluralism among faith communities.

    The Aga Khan’s philanthropic work

    Prince Karim Aga Khan established the Aga Khan Development Network and Aga Khan Foundation in 1967.

    Some 53 nurses and 98 midwives from Ghazanfar Institute of Health Sciences, supported by The Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, and the United States Agency for International Development, attend a graduation ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 29, 2009.
    Massoud Hossaini AFP via Getty Images

    The network supports health care, housing, education and rural economic development in underprivileged areas. The foundation is one of nine agencies of the network that focuses on philanthropy. The Aga Khan Development Network has hospitals serving the poor in several parts of the world. The Aga Khan Medical University in Karachi, Pakistan, is considered to be a leading medical school globally.

    While previous imams or leaders also led charity and development projects, the Aga Khan was the first to create a formal, global philanthropic foundation.

    The Aga Khan Foundation operates in countries with Ismaili populations or historical connections to the Ismaili community, such as Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mozambique, Pakistan, Portugal, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania and Uganda. The foundation also has offices in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, focusing primarily on raising funds and advocating for the foundation.

    According to the foundation, in 2023 it served over 20 million people through 23,310 civil society partner organizations.

    The Ismaili community will now be led by the Aga Khan’s eldest son, Rahim Al-Hussaini, as the 50th imam. He has been actively involved with the Aga Khan Development Network and is expected to continue the important philanthropic and development work of his global community.

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

    – ref. Who are Ismaili Muslims and how do their beliefs relate to the Aga Khan’s work? – https://theconversation.com/who-are-ismaili-muslims-and-how-do-their-beliefs-relate-to-the-aga-khans-work-249318

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The biggest threat in the Ontario election isn’t Donald Trump, it’s voter disengagement

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mark Winfield, Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Canada

    Ontario Premier Doug Ford has justified his early election call on the need to respond to United States President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports.

    While the threat of tariffs on all Canadian imports has been paused — although Trump has since slapped levies on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. — Ontario voters need to reflect more than ever on the province’s circumstances and the performance of its government as they prepare to head to the polls next week.

    The Ford government’s approach to the environment and climate change, as well as its policies on a range of other issues like housing, health care and education, is best understood in the context of its overall “market populist” approach to governance.

    Several defining features of this model have emerged over the past six and a half years under Ford’s rule.

    Unaffordable proposals

    First, issues that require long-term perspectives on environmental, social and economic costs — like climate change — have tended to be disregarded. To the extent that the government has provided any sort of long-term vision, it has been focused on grandiose infrastructure projects.

    That includes a proposal to bury the Highway 401 highway in Toronto — an undertaking with a potential cost of anywhere between $60 and over $200 billion. But even that expense would pale in comparison to a recent proposal for a 10,000-megawatt nuclear power plant near Wesleyville, between Toronto and Kingston.

    The costs for the project based on recent experiences in the U.S., could easily top the $200 billion mark as well.

    The Ford government’s drive to “get it done” has also, at times, invoked a near-Trumpian disdain for democratic norms and limits on executive authority. This has been illustrated by, among other things, the first invocation of the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Ontario history.



    Read more:
    Doug Ford uses the notwithstanding clause for political benefit

    Power has been increasingly concentrated in the premier’s office. Provisions for public participation, transparency and accountability under the guise of eliminating red tape in decision-making processes have been systemically eliminated.

    Processes for the meaningful environmental and economic review of major projects have suffered the same fate.

    Another defining issue is the Ford government’s approach to managing the province’s finances, with even the consistently pro-business Fraser Institute raising concerns.

    The disregard of financial responsibility has perhaps been most powerfully demonstrated by issuing of $200 rebates to Ontario residents. These are expected to cost to the provincial treasury more than $3 billion.

    Fewer revenue streams

    The Ford government has also displayed a willingness to eliminate billions a year in stable, long-term revenue streams, like vehicle licencing fees and fuel taxes. Major long-term costs and liabilities have been embedded at the same time, especially in relation to questionable infrastructure projects.

    All of this has taken place amid ongoing crises, attributed to provincial underfunding in areas like schools and post-secondary institutions, affordable (especially rental) housing and health care.

    In the longer term, liabilities are accumulating from the government’s failure to deal with the impacts of a changing climate.

    A final feature of the government’s market populist governance model has been an approach to decision-making based on connections, access and political whim rather than evidence or analysis.

    This pattern was perhaps most evident during the $8.3 billion Greenbelt land removal scandal involving well-connected developers. But the same pattern extends to the energy, for-profit health and resource extraction sectors as well.

    The province’s major opposition parties ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 election on the basis of platforms emphasizing adherence to what had been thought to be core principles in Ontario politics — moderation, managerial competence, and basic democratic values.

    Opposition parties

    This time, all three have turned to more populist themes.

    Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie promises even more tax cuts than Ford. The NDP proposes to remove tolls from the 407 highway at an unknown cost to the provincial treasury and other programs.

    Even the Green Party, which has previously drawn praise for the content and imagination of its platforms, has picked up on populist themes, with an emphasis on affordability and a Ford-topping promise — and likely an even more ambitious — to build two million new homes.

    Vulnerabilities for the Ford government abound. Recent polling suggests that despite the apparently strong Conservative lead, Ford himself is deeply unpopular, particularly among women voters. Sixty per cent of Ontario residents think the province is on the “wrong track.”

    The early election call itself is widely seen as costly, unjustified and opportunistic. The distraction of the election may well have weakened the province’s immediate capacity to deal with the Trump administration.



    Read more:
    An unnecessary Ontario election won’t help Canada deal with Donald Trump

    Questions and investigations around the Greenbelt land removal scandal and the government’s relationship with the land-development industry continue to close in on the premier’s office amid an ongoing RCMP investigation.

    Crises around housing, education, health care and electricity continue to deepen.

    Ontario’s Bill 23 eliminated or weakened many housing development regulations, including site plan controls, which kept the natural environment safe from the negative effects of poorly controlled development.
    THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

    Still disengaged?

    In calling an early election, the Ford government has provided Ontario voters with an unexpected opportunity to reflect on its record, and the potential paths forward for the province.

    Hopefully Ontario voters will engage more deeply with these questions than they did in the 2022 election, which had the lowest voter turnout in the province’s history.

    Three years ago, the government emerged with an overwhelming majority in the legislature on the basis of the ballots of less than 18 per cent of the province’s eligible voters. The stakes are far too high in 2025 for a repeat of that level of disengagement.

    Mark Winfield receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This chapter summarizes the contents of the author’s contribution to three new volumes on Ontario politics (The Politics of Ontario, 2nd ed,( UTP 2024); Ontario Since Confederation: A Reader (UTP 2025); and Against the People (Fernwood 2025)

    – ref. The biggest threat in the Ontario election isn’t Donald Trump, it’s voter disengagement – https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-threat-in-the-ontario-election-isnt-donald-trump-its-voter-disengagement-249528

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What does the US public think about sending troops to foreign wars? Here’s what the evidence shows

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of Portsmouth

    The US public’s commitment to sending its sons and daughters to war has declined in recent years. Polls suggest that US involvement in modern conflicts is more likely to be viewed as mistaken than in the early and middle parts of the 20th century. Today, around 47% of Americans consider the Iraq war a mistake, and 43% feel the same about the war in Afghanistan.

    Recent announcements by the US president, Donald Trump, about the possibility of using US forces as part of his Gaza strategy is unlikely to improve those figures.

    On February 4, Trump proposed that the US effectively take control of the Gaza Strip and rebuild the area into what he has called the riviera of the Middle East.

    When he was asked at a press conference whether he would be willing to use US troops to secure the region, Trump answered that “as far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that piece that we’re going to develop it”.

    Trump walked back on that initial claim of the use of military personnel just days later, stating that the US military force would be unnecessary. “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” adding that “No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!” But others have suggested a US military presence would have to be involved.

    Putting US troops on the ground would fly in the face of current American public opinion. In a survey taken on February 12, only a quarter of those polled supported the prospect of US troops being sent to the region, and just over half (52%) of Republicans disapproved of the plan.

    Less than 25% of Americans supported the US taking ownership of the Gaza Strip, while 62% showed opposition to it. Less than half (46%) of Republican voters polled expressed support while only 10% of Democrats showed any kind of enthusiasm for the initiative, according to the poll.

    Of those polled, the majority said they opposed all of Trump’s plans to expand US-controlled territory, whether that was the Panama Canal, Greenland, Canada, or Gaza.

    The lack of support from the US public in deploying troops overseas has been constant since the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 – and the American public appears to be questioning US military involvement in world affairs more generally.

    In a poll taken by foreign policy thinktank Defense Priorities in February 2024, 56% of respondents were “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that the presence of US troops in Syria could escalate into a broader conflict in the region. Of those that opposed a US military presence in Syria, 66% felt that it was a waste of resources.

    And just last September, a Pew Research Center poll revealed that 75% of those polled were worried about the Israel-Hamas conflict expanding in the region and US troops becoming more directly involved.

    Recruitment ad for the US Marines.

    This lack of public support for US military involvement abroad, as well as the poor recent record of recruitment into the military, may be informing Trump’s negotiations in both Gaza, and over the Ukraine war.



    Read more:
    US kicks off debate on conscription as other Nato members introduce drafts

    While the US public shows high levels of respect for those who serve in the military, around 80% of American teenagers are not interested in military service, while 55% of adults and 67% of parents are not likely to recommend it as a career to teenagers.

    The US has tried numerous recent initiatives, including offering substantial bonuses to entice recruits to join up, but without much success. The army, navy and air force all failed to reach their target recruitment numbers in 2023.

    This week Trump opened early discussions with Vladimir Putin, and latterly Kyiv, over proposals for a Ukraine peace deal. In a meeting with European defense ministers in Brussels on February 12, the new US defense secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out the participation of US troops in any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, although in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on February 13 vice-president JD Vance did not rule out using the military.

    Hegseth also said that the US was planning to pull back from its role in European security, sparking high levels of concern from many European leaders.

    Some Republican senators have not been particularly supportive of Trump’s Ukraine proposals, especially those that have backed Ukraine over the last three years.

    In an interview, Senate armed services chair, Roger Wicker, said that “there are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys. They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.” Republican Senator Mike Rounds joined Wicker in demanding that: “Russia be recognised for the aggressor that they are.”

    There’s a similar level of concern on Trump’s Gaza plan – even from Trump’s close allies in the party. Rand Paul, the libertarian senator for Kentucky, suggested this idea flew in the face of Trump’s foreign policy proposals espoused during the campaign.

    “I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers’ blood,” he wrote on X.

    It is unlikely that the majority of Republican voters would be supportive of Trump’s Gaza initiative (or sending troops to Ukraine). This is partly because of the demands that it would make on the federal government – but also because of the necessity of using armed forces to implement it.

    Trump’s recent controversial executive orders have barely damaged his early job approval ratings. But the deployment of armed forces to Gaza or Ukraine runs counter to a long-term significant decline in public support for US overseas military intervention and that might be a step too far for many voters.

    Dafydd Townley 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. What does the US public think about sending troops to foreign wars? Here’s what the evidence shows – https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-us-public-think-about-sending-troops-to-foreign-wars-heres-what-the-evidence-shows-249419

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Too distracted to watch? Netflix has the perfect ‘second-screen’ show for you

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daphne Rena Idiz, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto

    Overly expository dialogue, repeating plot points and lots of voice-overs to narrate action help distracted viewers along. (Shutterstock)

    Netflix knows we’re on our phones while we watch TV. Recent articles discuss Netflix’s or streamers’ requests for creatives to produce content optimized for casual viewing, meaning intentionally scripted for distracted viewers.

    I’ve spent the last few years researching how Netflix shapes European screen production, a region where the streaming giant has invested billions in original content.

    I first encountered the concept of “second-screen shows” — created with distracted viewing in mind — in 2022.

    At the time, I was doing interviews with producers, showrunners, screenwriters and directors who had worked on European Netflix originals (due to confidentiality, they have been given pseudonyms here). Two of my interviewees described what they saw as very unusual feedback coming from Netflix executives: make a show that the audience can follow without looking at the screen.

    Recipe for a ‘second-screen show’

    So, how exactly do you make a second-screen show?

    One of my interviewees, Eleven, said that Netflix explicitly labels certain series “second-screen shows” and develops them as such. Another, Tokyo, shared their experience encountering similar directives:

    “[Netflix] basically said, ‘What you need to know about your audience here is that they will watch the show, perhaps on their mobile phone, or on a second or third screen while doing something else and talking to their friends, so you need to both show and tell, you need to say much more than you would normally say. […] You need your audience to understand what’s going on, even if they’re not looking at the screen.’”

    These series are designed around the viewing behaviours of their target audience, described by my interviewees as “younger” and “young adult” viewers.

    As Eleven explained, a Netflix executive would talk about how “in this show, we have to make sure that the points come through, even though kids are watching TikTok while they watch it.”

    Because Netflix knows a certain target audience will be “second-screening” these series, the streamer wants the show’s writing to facilitate this practice. Concretely, this means overly expository dialogue, repeating plot points and adding lots of voice-overs to narrate the action and help the distracted viewer follow along.

    Other sources cite examples where screenwriters were told to have characters announce what they’re doing and make the show less distracting from the viewer’s “primary screen” (their phone).

    Eleven joked about how if a character was sad, Netflix would ask to include a line of dialogue for the character saying, “I’m sad” with tears streaming down their face, while rain pours, and mournful violins play in the background.

    Here, the golden rule of screenwriting “show, don’t tell,” is cast aside for “show and tell” (and tell again). Joking aside, they reflected: “It saddens me, on behalf of great storytelling traditions.”

    The revival of casual viewing

    But are second-screen shows really the final nail in the coffin for prestige TV? The idea of casual or background viewing is not new.

    There is a long history of content targeting the distracted viewer.
    (Shutterstock)

    From soap operas to sitcoms to reality TV, there is a long history of content targeting the distracted viewer.

    Sometimes we’re just tired and need an easy watch. But these types of series are a far cry from the era of HBO-style Netflix, hyping itself as the home of quality TV, a place where showrunners could find unprecedented creative freedom.

    There is still a time and place for complex storytelling. But data suggests
    that over half of viewers in many national markets — including in India, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, the United States, Britain and Denmark — are periodically checking their phones while watching TV. And Netflix is creating shows that enable this ritual.

    ‘Cult’ of data

    Netflix’s strategy has always hinged on a granular understanding of its users. Netflix collects a huge amount of data on its subscribers and their viewing behaviors: what they’re watching, how, when, where and on what device. This information is used by teams of data scientists to not only improve Netflix’s personalization but also to help with decisions about what content to develop and how.

    Yet research suggests Netflix has really cultivated the “myth of big data,” flip-flopping over the years about how much data influences the creative process of Netflix productions.

    And while screen workers may resist what they sense about analytics as they participate in creative processes, ultimately, it is the executives greenlighting content who interpret data and choose how to use it.

    Geralt, another producer I interviewed, described how “whenever you talk to the algorithm people and the data people at Netflix, it feels like a cult. They talk about the algorithm like it’s a god, like ‘Well the algorithm tells us…’”

    One part of the content strategy

    With that said, it’s critical to take blanket statements about Netflix’s operations with a grain of salt.

    The behemoth operates in more than 190 countries, with offices in 30, housing different teams and producing content around the globe. It’s estimated that 589 new Netflix originals were added in 2024.

    Recent articles about “second screen” productions focused on the U.S. context, and my research did not seek to determine how many Netflix productions are made this way.

    Netflix’s goal these days, according to CEO Ted Sarandos, is to be “equal parts HBO and FX and AMC and Lifetime and Bravo and E! and Comedy Central.”

    Second-screen shows, it seems, are one part of this strategy.

    Outlook for storytellers

    It’s clear that viewing behaviours are driving changes in storytelling. But for screenwriters today, second-screen shows are only a symptom of bigger problems.

    Between a shrinking drama market and the competition for attention from platforms like YouTube and TikTok, streamers are investing a lot less in content than they used to. They’re also much more risk-averse with these investments.

    Even before now, producing for streamers brought its own set of challenges.

    Writer advocates with the 2023 TV writers strikes highlighted how streaming introduced new and exciting formats for TV writing, but also a new kind of precarity. And concerns continue to loom around how AI might impact creativity, career sustainability and IP rights.

    Last year, the Canadian Media Producers Association joined production organizations around the world in issuing a call for streaming regulation that underscores independence, IP rights and fair remuneration.



    Read more:
    Online Streaming Act: As we revisit Netflix support for Canadian content, it’s about more than money

    It’s no surprise the mantra across the media industries last year was “survive ‘til ’25.”

    As media creators become increasingly dependent on data-driven tech companies, they will continue producing content to the whims of executives following the holy algorithm.

    The next time you’re watching a Netflix show and feel the urge to scroll during another repetitive voice-over, the question is: Are some shows written like this because the audience is disengaged, or is the audience disengaged because shows are written like this?

    Daphne Rena Idiz 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. Too distracted to watch? Netflix has the perfect ‘second-screen’ show for you – https://theconversation.com/too-distracted-to-watch-netflix-has-the-perfect-second-screen-show-for-you-249012

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What Canada can learn from the European Union about dealing with chaos and crises

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jörg Broschek, Professor and Laurier Research Chair, Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University

    As United States President Donald Trump continues to threaten Canada’s economic and political sovereignty, some observers have floated the idea of Canada becoming a member of the European Union.

    Since there is no feasible pathway to EU membership in the short term, current efforts rightly focus on strengthening Canada’s existing trade relationships, most notably through the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

    But something else is often overlooked: Canada should also learn from the EU how to cope with the monumental challenges ahead. Europe is not only less vulnerable than Canada due to its geographic position and economic power, it’s also more resilient.

    Three goals

    Unlike “Team Canada,” “Europe United” has already crafted a multi-pronged policy framework to encounter the risks arising from a fundamentally changing geopolitical environment over the long term. The EU also has a more robust institutional framework for intergovernmental co-operation.

    Under the leadership of President Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission has launched a cascade of relatively coherent policies aimed at facilitating three broad goals: decarbonization, economic sovereignty and national security.

    Key pillars of this new policy framework are the European Green Deal of 2019, the European Industrial Strategy of 2020, the European Economic Security Strategy of 2023 and the 2024 European Defence Industrial Strategy.

    These policy initiatives have been continuously updated, fine-tuned and aligned with each other. They have created an umbrella that enables the EU and its member states to simultaneously promote the green transition, strengthen the internal market and domestic industries as well as reduce economic and security risks.

    The geopolitical and industrial changes in the EU resemble what used to exist in Canada as well: national policies — the conscious, nation-building initiatives of successive federal governments.

    But Canada has lost the ability to plan strategically for the long term and now responds to every crisis in a reactive, punctuated manner. In doing so, Canadian officials address symptoms without tackling root causes.

    EU architecture

    The institutional architecture of the EU also furnishes governments with more capacity to collaborate. In all federal systems, most policies are largely shared, which is why intergovernmental co-ordination is important to buttress and consolidate such innovations.



    Read more:
    Canada-U.S. history provides lessons on how Canada can deal with a hostile Donald Trump

    Notably, the Council of the European Union plays a key role for co-ordinating and negotiating policies, in addition to its function as the main decision-making body (together with the European Parliament).

    It is composed of ministers of the EU member states. Accordingly, it works in different configurations, depending on the portfolio. The head of governments themselves meet regularly through a separate institution, the European Council.

    In Canada, by contrast, federal intergovernmental institutions are fragile or don’t even exist, even though they’re comparatively strong on the municipal level.

    Municipalities co-ordinate through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), which was established in 1901. But it was not until 2004 that provinces and territories established the Council of the Federation. This body, however, has remained weak, with very little administrative support.

    What’s even more striking is that there is no formalized, institutionalized framework at all at the federal level. The First Ministers’ Conference meetings are held at the discretion of the prime minister. In their communique following a Council of the Federation meeting in November 2023, premiers complained that “the prime minister has not convened a full in-person First Ministers’ Meeting since December 2018 despite repeated requests from premiers.”

    Widespread tariffs against Canada may be on hold until March, but there is no way back. As Canadians experience their very own “Zeitenwende” — the end of an era — in the wake of Trump’s desire to absorb Canada into the U.S., the country’s leaders should draw two lessons from the EU.

    All-encompassing approach needed

    On the policy level, Canada does need a new “national policy,” as I have argued previously.

    More than 40 years ago, the Macdonald Commission paved the way for a major transformative shift in Canadian policy-making, including free trade with the U.S. But since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, it has become increasingly clear that this model of socioeconomic development is outdated.

    Yet the model has never been replaced. Unlike the EU, Canadians have comforted themselves with patchwork policies instead of crafting a new, all-encompassing approach.

    The challenges the EU and Canada face are similar, but Canada needs to find its own response. Forging a new model will require mobilizing and aligning key sectors like trade, infrastructure and industrial policy in a coherent manner.

    On the institutional level, Canada must — finally — institutionalize Team Canada. It’s a positive development that First Ministers’ Conference meetings have resumed, but an ad hoc approach to intergovernmental collaboration is no longer sufficient.

    Team Canada may work under pressure when facing a short-term threat. Without a stronger institutional foundation, however, Canada won’t be able to consolidate a new national policy over the long term.

    The EU has accomplished a remarkable resurgence, despite all remaining difficulties. Rather than chasing the idea of joining the EU, Canada should use the European example as a road map for enhancing its policy and governance capacities.

    Jörg Broschek receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

    – ref. What Canada can learn from the European Union about dealing with chaos and crises – https://theconversation.com/what-canada-can-learn-from-the-european-union-about-dealing-with-chaos-and-crises-249462

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canadian immigrants are overqualified and underemployed — reforms must address this

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Marshia Akbar, Director of the BMO Newcomer Workforce Integration Lab and Research Lead on Labour Migration at the CERC Migration and Integration Program at TMU, Toronto Metropolitan University

    Canada’s labour market struggles are not caused by the number of newcomers, but by systemic issues such as underemployment and skills-job mismatches. (Shutterstock)

    Recent immigration reforms in Canada have cut international student and temporary resident numbers, restricted work permits for them and their spouses and aim to reduce permanent resident admissions by 21 per cent in 2025, with further cuts ahead.

    Such changes are aimed to avoid competition with local unemployed Canadians at a time of rising unemployment. However, these changes may eventually intensify dysfunctions in the Canadian labour market.

    With an overall unemployment rate of 6.6 per cent and a youth unemployment rate of 13.6 per cent alongside a worsening housing crisis, these policies reflect growing pressures.

    However, blaming newcomers — particularly international students and their spouses — for job shortages overlooks deeper structural issues in the labour market. Canada’s labour market struggles are not caused by the number of newcomers, but by systemic issues such as underemployment and skills-job mismatches.

    Unemployment and underemployment

    While rising unemployment is affecting everyone, newcomers have been hit especially hard. In 2024, the unemployment rate for immigrants hit 11 per cent — more than double the 5.6 per cent rate for Canadian-born workers.

    Underemployment is also a persistent issue for immigrants. In 2021, only 44 per cent of immigrants who had arrived in Canada within the previous decade were employed in jobs matching their education level, compared to 64 per cent of Canadian-born workers aged 25 to 34.

    The over-education rate — the proportion of university graduates working in jobs for which they are over-qualified despite holding a bachelor’s degree or higher — was 26.7 per cent for immigrants, more than double the 10.9 per cent rate for Canadian-born workers in 2021.

    Immigrants, particularly those with foreign credentials, are significantly more likely to experience these job-education mismatches compared to Canadian-born workers.

    Approximately two thirds of recent immigrants held a degree from a foreign institution. The over-education rate for these immigrants was 24 per cent higher than that of younger Canadian-born workers.

    Under-employment experienced by many newcomers is largely driven by employers favouring Canadian experience — despite such preferences being illegal in Ontario — and relying on referral networks, which often disadvantage newcomers.

    Hiring managers frequently undervalue international credentials, even when assessed by organizations like World Education Services. Many employers struggle to assess foreign work experience. Some also perceive a lack of familiarity with Canadian workplace norms as a hiring risk.

    Ultimately, hiring managers tend to choose the less risky option, as a bad hire can reflect poorly on them. An exceptional hire, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily bring them equivalent rewards.

    International experience is undervalued

    International graduates with Canadian degrees generally achieve better labour market outcomes than those educated entirely overseas, experiencing higher earnings and improved job matches.

    However, many still face significant barriers, primarily due to employers’ preference for specific Canadian experience and biases in assessing their skills.

    Although many international students (277,400 in 2018) gain Canadian work experience during their studies and develop soft skills — often in low-paying, customer-facing roles such as accommodation and food services, retail, hospitality or tourism — this experience is often dismissed as irrelevant to professional roles.

    This creates a paradox: employers require Canadian experience for entry-level positions in their field, yet without prior experience, graduates struggle to get hired in the first place.

    In addition, employers often lack clarity about international graduates’ visa statuses, work permit durations and future stays in Canada. Constantly changing policies exacerbate this confusion, deterring employers from hiring.

    A path forward

    Canada’s long-term competitiveness is hindered not by immigration, but by systemic labour market discrimination and inefficiencies that prevent skilled newcomers from fully contributing to the economy.

    Eliminating biases related to Canadian work experience and soft skills is key to ensuring newcomers can find fair work. The lack of recognition of foreign talent has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy by under-utilizing valuable human capital.

    To build a more inclusive labour market, a credential recognition system should support employers in assessing transferable skills and experience to mitigate perceived hiring risks related to immigrants.

    For international students, enhanced career services at educational institutions are critical. Strengthening partnerships between universities, colleges and employers can expand internships, co-op placements and mentorship programs, providing students with relevant Canadian work experience before graduation.

    Such collaboration is also key to implementing employer education initiatives that address misconceptions about hiring international graduates and highlight their contributions to the workforce.

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also play a role in reducing hiring biases and improving job matching for new immigrants and international graduates. Our recent report, which gathered insight from civil society, the private sector and academia, highlights the following AI-driven solutions:

    • Tools like Toronto Metropolitan University’s AI resume builder, Mogul AI, and Knockri can help match skills to roles, neutralize hiring bias and promote equity.

    • Wage subsidies and AI tools can encourage equitable hiring, while AI-powered programs can help human resources recognize and reduce biases.

    • Tools like the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council Mentoring Partnership, can connect newcomers with mentors, track their skills and match them to employer needs.

    Harnessing AI-driven solutions, alongside policy reforms and stronger employer engagement, can help break down hiring barriers so Canada can fully benefit from the skills and expertise of its immigrant workforce.

    Marshia Akbar receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

    Anna Triandafyllidou receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Tri-Agency of Research Councils, Canada and Horizon Europe framework program of the European Commission.

    – ref. Canadian immigrants are overqualified and underemployed — reforms must address this – https://theconversation.com/canadian-immigrants-are-overqualified-and-underemployed-reforms-must-address-this-247974

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Namibia’s Shark Island: Europe’s push for green hydrogen risks compromising sites of colonial genocide

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rosanna Carver, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Victoria

    An aerial view of Shark Island and the town of Lüderitz in Namibia. (Black Court Studios)

    In September 2025, Namibia will host the Global African Hydrogen Summit. The Namibian government has ambitions to turn the country into a leading producer of green hydrogen for export to markets in Europe and elsewhere. However, the lands and waters now regarded as being essential to Europe’s energy transition are tied to traumatic memories of colonial violence; especially the ocean, which is the final resting place for thousands of Namibians.

    As countries around the world transition to renewable energy, an inconspicuous peninsula in Namibia known as Shark Island is positioned to play a key role in the production of so-called “green” hydrogen, which is a proposed alternative to fossil fuels.

    However, the peninsula and its waters are at risk of being compromised by proposed port expansions to support the transportation of green hydrogen. Shark Island, near the town of Lüderitz, is now a campsite for tourists.

    But Shark Island is also called Death Island, and it was a concentration camp and a site of genocide during German colonial rule from 1884 to 1915. The concentration camp has since been destroyed, leaving little evidence of the violence that occurred there. However, recent international investigations highlight what many Namibians have known and worked on for generations.

    Germany’s colonization and genocide

    In 1884, German colonizer Adolf Lüderitz annexed Namibia, intending to finance colonial rule through minerals. Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial forces killed approximately 100,000 people (80 per cent of the Herero and half of the Nama population). The genocide also affected the ǂNukhoen and the ǂAonin communities.

    During the genocide, those who were not immediately killed were sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to perform manual labour, such as working on railways and harbours. This occurred across Namibia, including on the coast: in Swakopmund and Lüderitz alone, more than 1,550 Nama died.

    The research agency Forensic Architecture has digitally reconstructed the camps and identified evidence of burial places. On Shark Island, they demonstrate that the port expansion “poses further imminent risk to the site.”

    Attention has been given to the land-based component of green hydrogen projects including the multinational joint venture, Hyphen Energy. But the ocean, which Namibia’s development projects also interact with, is often overlooked as a space of memory, justice and relations. This is in part due to colonial and apartheid histories that erased or excluded people from the coasts and oceans.

    During colonial rule, German colonizers incarcerated Namibians offshore aboard ships. They also threw the bodies of those who had died in the concentration camp into the ocean. The local saying “the sea will take you” highlights how the ocean is involuntarily tied to memories of death and trauma.

    Namibians have not forgotten the violence that occurred on the land and at sea. Local groups are restoring grave sites and establishing memorials. The discussion of recognition, justice and equitable rights and access to the coast and ocean are important for Namibia’s communities and the decedents of those killed during the genocide.

    Waves of energy colonialism

    Green hydrogen has a central role in global decarbonization ambitions. Namibia is considered an “export production site” for Europe’s future hydrogen economy. This is due to its solar and wind potential, and access to the ocean.

    Hydrogen can only be produced in Namibia if the infrastructure exists to enable it. For example, hydrogen requires the industrial and transportation infrastructure to get it to international markets. To meet these demands, the Namibian Ports Authroity is proposing port expansions in the city of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, where expansion could have implications for Shark Island and its waters.

    Campaigners in Namibia are demanding the government and industry halt the expansion plans on Shark Island, and meaningfully engage with reconciliation. Among them is the Windhoek-based Black Court Studio, where Natache Iilonga, co-author of this article, is the creative director.

    These proposed developments signal the continued European dominance in Namibia’s blue and green economy projects. They enable energy colonialism, where the push for green energy continues colonial injustices. European countries and industry perpetuate ecological, social and cultural harm to satisfy their own climate change agendas.

    Projects and partnerships between Namibia and European countries like Germany are emblematic of (neo)colonial power relations. While these projects propose to foster co-operation, they also continue to dispossess communities from their lands and waters, and erase environmental and cultural relations.

    Through “development assistance,” the German government and non-governmental organizations continue to influence economic projects in Namibia, while avoiding discussion of meaningful reparations for colonial crimes.



    Read more:
    Germany’s genocide in Namibia: deal between the two governments falls short of delivering justice

    The land and ocean are not merely passive witnesses to colonial violence. Black Court Studio incorporates the ocean as a dynamic participant in the conversation about these violent histories, and justice and healing. Through community exercises and counter-mapping, the studio explores people’s socio-cultural relations with the ocean.

    Together, the studio’s interventions are beginning to resituate previously erased and forgotten connections with Shark Island. This work also highlights cultural and spiritual relations with the ocean that persist despite this dispossession.

    Namibia’s ocean and coasts are not empty spaces to be exploited for the benefit of Europe’s energy future. A deeper understanding of histories, and present day connections, provide lessons for meaningful reconciliation.

    Natache Iilonga is a practicing architect with Iilonga Architects Inc and the co-founder of Black Court Studios Namibia.

    Rosanna Carver 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. Namibia’s Shark Island: Europe’s push for green hydrogen risks compromising sites of colonial genocide – https://theconversation.com/namibias-shark-island-europes-push-for-green-hydrogen-risks-compromising-sites-of-colonial-genocide-239549

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: New Permanent Representative of Haiti Presents Credentials to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

    Source: United Nations – Geneva

    Ann-Kathryne Lassegue, the new Permanent Representative of Haiti to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

    Prior to her appointment, Ms. Lassegue had been serving as Head of Mission a.i. at the Permanent Mission of Haiti to the United Nations Office in Geneva since June 2024, and prior to that, as Minister Counsellor at the Mission since 2021.  She served as Head of Mission a.i. at the Embassy of Haiti in Canada from 2020 to 2021, and as Minister Counsellor from 2014 to 2021.  She served as Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Haiti in Benin from 2012 to 2014.

    Ms. Lassegue holds a master’s degree in international development and globalization from the University of Ottowa (2021) and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of New York (2010), as well as a bachelor’s degree in political science from Queens College of New York (2008) and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Bordeaux (2005).  She is married with two children.

    ____

    CR.25.052E

    Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the information media; not an official record.
     

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: What We Heard report released on child naming and parentage laws

    What We Heard report released on child naming and parentage laws
    jlutz

    The Government of Yukon has released the Inclusive Yukon Families: What We Heard report, summarizing feedback on child naming and parentage laws. The public-engagement, which took place from February to April 2024, aimed to understand barriers, burdens and inequities within the current legislative framework and explore how the Yukon’s laws can be modernized to better reflect the diversity of Yukon families.

    The report identifies key challenges in the Yukon’s current naming and parentage laws. It highlights barriers faced by Indigenous communities seeking to reclaim traditional names, 2SLGBTQIA+ families striving for legal recognition and individuals using assisted reproduction or surrogacy to grow their families.

    Key findings in this report include the following.

    • 44 per cent of respondents agreed that parents should be able to include letters and characters that are not part of the Roman alphabet in their child’s name.
    • Many Indigenous respondents emphasized the importance of name reclamation as a step toward reconciliation and cultural preservation.
    • Feedback on parentage laws indicated a need for more inclusive definitions that recognize diverse family compositions, including families formed through surrogacy, egg and sperm donation and polyamorous relationships.
    • There is broad support for ensuring children’s rights and best interests remain central in determining legal parentage.

    This report will inform the Government of Yukon’s next steps in potential legislative changes to the Children’s Law Act, Vital Statistics Act and Change of Name Act.

    Related information:

    Read the Inclusive Yukon Families: What We Heard report

    Read the Children’s Law Act

    Read the Vital Statistics Act

    Read the Change of Name Act

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Munich Security Conference: G7 foreign ministers’ statement, February 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    G7 foreign ministers and the EU gave a joint statement on the margins of the Munich Security Conference on 15 February 2025.

    Foreign Secretary David Lammy with G7 foreign ministers and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas at the Munich Security Conference.

    Joint statement:

    The G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, met on the margins of the Munich Security Conference for the first time under Canada’s 2025 Presidency.

    The G7 members discussed Russia’s devastating war in Ukraine.  They underscored their commitment to work together to help to achieve a durable peace and a strong and prosperous Ukraine and reaffirmed the need to develop robust security guarantees to ensure the war will not begin again.  

    The G7 members welcomed their discussion today with Andrii Sybiha, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.  They recalled the G7’s important contribution towards ending the war in Ukraine, including through measures pursuant to the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine, by supporting Ukraine financially through the use of extraordinary revenues stemming from Russian Sovereign Assets, by imposing further cost on Russia, if they do not negotiate in good faith, through caps on oil and gas prices, and by making sanctions against Russia more effective. Any new, additional sanctions after February should be linked to whether the Russian Federation enters into real, good-faith efforts to bring an enduring end to the war against Ukraine that provides Ukraine with long-term security and stability as a sovereign, independent country.  The G7 members reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

    The G7 members discussed the provision to Russia of dual-use assistance by China and of military assistance by DPRK and Iran.  They condemned all such support.

    The G7 members discussed political, security and humanitarian issues in the Middle East, including in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and their commitment to advancing regional peace and stability.  They underscored the importance of a durable, Israeli-Palestinian peace.  They reaffirmed their support for the full implementation of the ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas, including for the release of all hostages and the expansion of humanitarian aid in Gaza.  The G7 members stand behind the ongoing efforts of Egypt, Qatar and the United States in continuing to work towards a permanent ceasefire.  They reiterated their unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the need to ensure that Hamas neither reconstitutes militarily nor participates in governance.  They recognized Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, consistent with international law. 

    The G7 members welcomed the outcomes of the International Conference on Syria, hosted by France on February 13, 2025.  They reiterated their shared commitment to the people of Syria and their support for an inclusive political transition process, in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.  They welcomed, as well, positive developments in Lebanon, including the recent election of President Joseph Aoun, the designation of Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister, and the formation of a new government.  The G7 members reaffirmed their commitment to both countries’ stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

    The G7 members unequivocally condemned Iran’s destabilizing actions, including its rapid advancement of uranium enrichment without credible civil justification, its facilitation of terrorism organizations and armed groups across the Middle East and Red Sea, its proliferation of ballistic missiles and drones, and its transnational repression and violation of fundamental human rights.

    The G7 members reiterated their commitment to a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific region, grounded in respect for the rule of law and sovereignty.  They strongly opposed any attempts to change unilaterally the status quo using force and underscored the importance of resolving disputes peacefully.  They strongly opposed China’s attempts to restrict freedom of navigation through militarization and coercive activities in the East and South China Sea. 

    The G7 members expressed serious concern over the DPRK’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. They demanded that the DPRK abandon all its nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs, and any other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner in accordance with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs). They underscored that direct DPRK support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine marks a dangerous expansion of the conflict, with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security. They urged the DPRK to cease immediately all assistance for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops. The called upon DPRK to resolve the abductions issue immediately.

    The G7 members also discussed urgent situations of conflict and instability elsewhere in the world, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, and in Haiti and Venezuela.

    The G7 Foreign Ministers looked forward to their meeting in Canada in Charlevoix, Quebec on March 12-14.

    Updates to this page

    Published 15 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The threat of 3D-printed ‘ghost guns’ is growing, but NZ is yet to act on these 3 big legal gaps

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

    It’s an unfortunate fact that bad people sometimes want guns. And while laws are designed to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, the determined criminal can be highly resourceful.

    There are three main ways to source an illegal weapon: find a lawful owner willing to provide one unlawfully, buy one from another criminal, or make your own.

    The first two options aren’t as easy as they sound. The buyer might “know a guy” willing to sell, but the seller generally has good reason to be cautious about who they sell to.

    The price of the right firearm can be high, too, as is how “clean” its history is. No criminal wants to be connected to someone else’s crimes by their weapon’s history.

    Which leads us to the third option. Privately made firearms, manufactured to avoid detection by the authorities, are nothing new. What has grown is the computer-aided manufacture, of which 3D-printing technology is the best known form, enabling manufacture without traditional gunsmithing skills.

    The resulting “ghost guns” will potentially become more prevalent in New Zealand, and are already posing a significant challenge in overseas jurisdictions. With public submissions on the planned rewriting of the Arms Act closing at the end of February, it’s an issue we can’t ignore.

    No room for complacency

    Although blueprints of fully 3D-printed firearms are most common, hybrid designs, conversion kits, and firearms components sold as a kit or as separate pieces, are all gaining ground.

    These are all far more advanced and deadly than the homemade wood and metal weapon used in 2022 to kill former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

    Their ease of manufacture, improved reliability and performance, non-traceability and lower cost all appear to be driving demand. There is also the ideological attraction of avoiding state scrutiny that makes 3D-printing popular with far-right extremist groups.

    New Zealand authorities seized their first 3D-printed firearm in the middle of 2018. As of the end of last year, 58 3D-printed guns and between 200 and 300 firearms parts had been seized.

    This growth mirrors overseas trends. But it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective. Of the 9,662 firearms (including airguns) the New Zealand Police seized between August 2016 and July 2022, the most common were conventional rifles and shotguns.

    However, that is no cause for complacency. If proposed firearms law reforms – such as a new registry – help shrink the black market, we can expect the ghost gun market to grow.

    3D printed guns and gun conversion devices held by the US National Firearm Reference Vault.
    Getty Images

    Gaps in the law

    Legislation passed in 2020 makes the crime of illegal manufacturing (by unlicensed people) punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment.

    Additional penalties can be added for making certain prohibited items, such as large-capacity magazines. In October last year, an Otago man became the first to be imprisoned in New Zealand for 3D-printing firearms.

    Despite this, and the foreseeable risk, there are several significant gaps in New Zealand law.

    1. Making guns detectable

    Unlike the US and some other countries, New Zealand does not mandate that every gun be detectable by containing enough metal to set off X-ray machines and metal detectors.

    The US also prohibits any firearms with major components that do not show up accurately in standard airport imaging technology.

    2. Penalties for obtaining blueprints

    While the manufacture of 3D-printed firearms is illegal, there is nothing specific in New Zealand law about downloading blueprints.

    There may be scope within existing censorship laws around downloading objectionable material. But this may be limited by the need to classify each plan or blueprint as objectionable. And artificial intelligence means these plans can change and evolve rapidly.

    More wholesale laws covering the computer-aided manufacture of firearms or their individual parts would be preferable.

    Canada, for example, introduced recent changes to firearms law making it a crime to access or download plans or graphics. Knowingly sharing or selling such data online for manufacturing or trafficking is also a crime, with penalties of up to ten years in prison.

    New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia are all making new laws in this area. In the case of South Australia, offenders face up to 15 years in prison for the possession of 3D-printer firearms blueprints.

    3. Preventing ‘ghost ammunition’

    Privately manufactured firearms still require ammunition to be effective, and the Arms Act is only partly effective in this area.

    Only firearms licence holders can lawfully possess non-prohibited ammunition, and all firearms dealers and ammunition sellers must keep a record of those transactions.

    But that obligation does not apply when firearms licence holders give, share or otherwise supply ammunition among themselves. Furthermore, there are only limited regulations around obtaining the precursors or tools for making ammunition, with only a few key ingredients, like gunpowder, restricted to licence holders.

    This is similar to the Australian approach. But Australia also requires licensed owners to purchase only the type of ammunition required for their specific firearms type.

    Trying to the correct balance here is tricky: the law must be practical to work but also ensure a potential ghost gun market does not create a “ghost ammunition” market, too.

    The ability to privately manufacture firearms, by computer-aided methods in particular, is a foreseeable and potentially hard-to-police problem. But by learning from other jurisdictions and making a few simple law changes, New Zealand can move now to make communities safer.

    The author thanks Clementine Annabell for assisting with the research for this article.

    Alexander Gillespie is a recipient of a Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship to research comparative best practice in the regulation of firearms. He is also a member of the Ministerial Arms Advisory Group. The views expressed here are his own and not to be attributed to either of these organisations.

    – ref. The threat of 3D-printed ‘ghost guns’ is growing, but NZ is yet to act on these 3 big legal gaps – https://theconversation.com/the-threat-of-3d-printed-ghost-guns-is-growing-but-nz-is-yet-to-act-on-these-3-big-legal-gaps-248541

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese military effectively deals with Canadian warship’s transit through Taiwan Strait: spokesperson

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    The Chinese military monitored the passage of a Canadian frigate through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday and has effectively dealt with it, said a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army. 
    Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.ChinaNews App Download

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Summary of the 10th DSCOVR EPIC and NISTAR Science Team Meeting

    Source: NASA

    Introduction
    The 10th Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) Earth Polychromatic Camera (EPIC) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Radiometer [NISTAR] Science Team Meeting (STM) was held October 16–18, 2024. Over 50 scientists attended, most of whom were from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), with several participating from other NASA centers, U.S. universities, and U.S. Department of Energy laboratories. There was one international participant – from Estonia. A full overview of DSCOVR’s Earth-observing instruments was published in a previous article in The Earth Observer and will not be repeated here. This article provides the highlights of the 2024 meeting. The meeting agenda and full presentations can be downloaded from GSFC’s Aura Validation Data Center.
    Opening Presentations
    The opening session of the 10th DSCOVR STM was special. Former U.S., Vice President Al Gore attended the opening session and gave a presentation at the panel discussion “Remote Sensing and the Future of Earth Observations” – see Photo. Gore was involved in the early days of planning the DSCOVR mission, which at that time was known as Triana. He reminisced about his involvement and praised the team for the work they’ve done over the past decade to launch and maintain the DSCOVR mission. Following the STM Opening Session, Gore spoke at a GSFC Engage session in Building 3 later that afternoon on the same topic, but before a wider audience. [Link forthcoming.]
    Following Gore’s remarks, the remainder of the opening session consisted of a series of presentations from DSCOVR mission leaders and representatives from GSFC and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Thomas Neumann [GSFC, Earth Sciences Division (ESD)—Deputy Director] opened the meeting and welcomed Vice President Gore and the STM participants on behalf of the ESD. Adam Szabo [GSFC—DSCOVR Project Scientist] briefly reported that the spacecraft was still in “good health.” The EPIC and NISTAR instruments on DSCOVR continue to return their full science observations. He also gave an update on DSCOVR Space Weather research. Alexander Marshak [GSFC—DSCOVR Deputy Project Scientist] briefly described DSCOVR mission history and the science results based on DSCOVR observations from the first Sun–Earth Lagrange point (hereinafter, the L1 point). He also summarized the major EPIC and NISTAR results to date. At this time, more than 125 papers related to DSCOVR are listed on the EPIC website. Elsayed Talaat [NOAA, Office of Space Weather observations—Director] discussed the future of Earth and space science studies from the L1 point.

    Updates on DSCOVR Operations
    The DSCOVR mission components continue to function nominally. The meeting was an opportunity to update participants on progress over the past year on several fronts, including data acquisition, processing, and archiving, and release of new versions of several data products. The number of people using DSCOVR data continues to increase, with a new Science Outreach Team having been put in place to aid users in several aspects of data discovery, access, and user friendliness.
    Amanda Raab [NOAA, DSCOVR Mission Operations and Systems] reported on the current status of the DSCOVR mission. She also discussed spacecraft risks and issues such as memory fragmentation and data storage task anomalies but indicated that both these issues have been resolved.
    Hazem Mahmoud [NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC)] discussed the work of the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC), which is based at LaRC. He showed DSCOVR mission metrics since 2015, focusing on data downloads and the global outreach of the mission. He noted that there has been a significant rise in the number of downloads and an increasing diversity of countries accessing ozone (O3), aerosol, and cloud data products. Mahmoud also announced that the ASDC is transitioning to the Amazon Web Services cloud, which will further enhance global access and streamline DSCOVR data processing.
    Karin Blank [GSFC] covered the discovery of a new type of mirage that can only be seen in deep space from EPIC. The discussion included the use of a ray tracer in determining the origin of the phenomenon, and under what conditions it can be seen.
    Alexander Cede [SciGlob] and Ragi Rajagopalan [LiftBlick OG] gave an overview of the stability of the EPIC Level-1A (L1A) data over the first decade of operation. They explained that the only observable changes in the EPIC calibration are to the dark count and flat field can – and that these changes can be entirely attributed to the temperature change of the system in orbit compared to prelaunch conditions. No additional hot or warm pixels have emerged since launch and no significant sensitivity drifts have been observed. The results that Cede and Rajagopalan showed that EPIC continues to be a remarkably stable instrument, which is attributed to a large extent to its orbit around the L1 point, which is located outside the Earth’s radiation belts and thus an extremely stable temperature environment. Consequently, in terms of stability, the L1 point is far superior to other Earth observation points, e.g., ground-based, low-Earth orbit (LEO), polar orbit, or geostationary Earth orbit (GEO).
    Marshall Sutton [GSFC] discussed the state of the DSCOVR Science Operation Center (DSOC). He also talked about processing EPIC Level-1 (L1) data into L2 science products, daily images available on the EPIC website, and special imaging opportunities, e.g., volcanic eruptions.
    EPIC Calibration
    After 10 years of operation in space, the EPIC instrument on DSCOVR continues to be a remarkably stable instrument. The three presentations describe different ways that are used to verify the EPIC measurements remain reliable.
    Conor Haney [LaRC] reported on anomalous outliers during February and March 2023 from the broadband shortwave (SW) flux using EPIC L1B channel radiances. To ensure that these outliers were not a result of fluctuations in the EPIC L1B channel radiances, both the EPIC radiance measurements and coincident, ray-matched radiance measurements from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) platform, were processed using the same deep convective cloud invariant target (DCC-IT) algorithm. This analysis confirmed that the anomalous behavior was due to the DCC-IT algorithm – and not because of fluctuations in the EPIC L1B channel radiances. The improved DCC-IT methodology was also applied to the EPIC L1B radiances. The results indicate that the EPIC record is quite stable with a lower uncertainty than when processed using the previous DCC-IT methodology.
    Igor Geogdzhaev [NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)/Columbia University] reported that EPIC Visible–Near Infrared (VIS-NIR) calibration based on VIIRS (on Suomi NPP) data has showed excellent stability, while VIIRS (on NOAA-20 and -21) derived gains agree to within 1–2%. Preliminary analysis showed continuity in the gains derived from Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) data. (ABI flies on NOAA’s two operational Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite–Series R satellites – GOES-17 and GOES-18.
    Liang–Kang Huang [Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI)] reported on updates to the EPIC ultraviolet (UV) channel sensitivity time dependences using Sun-normalized radiance comparisons between EPIC and measurements from the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) Nadir Mapper (NM) on Suomi NPP, with coinciding footprints and solar/satellite angles. Huang’s team determined vignetting factors in the sensitivity calibration between 2021–2024, as a function of charge coupled device (CCD) pixel radius and pixel polar angles, using special lunar measurement sequences.
    NISTAR Status and Science with Its Observations
    The NISTAR instrument remains fully functional and continues its uninterrupted data record. The NISTAR-related presentations during this meeting included more details on specific topics related to NISTAR as well as on efforts to combine information from both EPIC and NISTAR.
    Steven Lorentz [L-1 Standards and Technology, Inc.] reported that the NISTAR on DSCOVR has been measuring the irradiance from the sunlit Earth in three bands for more than nine years. The three bands measure the outgoing total and reflected-solar radiation from Earth at a limited range of solar angles. To compare the long-term stability of EPIC and NISTAR responses, researchers developed a narrowband to wideband conversion model to allow the direct comparison of the EPIC multiband imagery and NISTAR SW – see Figure 1 – and silicon photodiode channels. Lorentz presented daily results spanning several years. The comparison employed different detectors from the same spacecraft – but with the same vantage point – thereby avoiding any model dependent orbital artifacts.

    Clark Weaver [University of Maryland, College Park (UMD)] used spectral information from the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY (SCIAMACHY), which flew on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Envisat satellite from 2002–2012, to fill EPIC spectral gaps. He reported on construction of a composite height resolution spectrum that was spectrally integrated to produce SW energy. Weaver explained that he compared the EPIC reflected SW with four-hour averages from Band 4 on NISTAR. He used spectral information from SCIAMACHY to fill in gaps. Weaver also discussed results of a comparison of area integrated EPIC SW energy with observations from NISTAR . 
    Andrew Lacis [GISS] reported on results of analysis of seven years of EPIC-derived planetary albedo for Earth, which reveal global-scale longitudinal variability occurring over a wide range of frequencies – with strong correlation between nearby longitudes and strong anticorrelation between diametrically opposed longitudes. This behavior in the Earth’s global-scale energy budget variability is fully corroborated by seven years of NISTAR silicon photodiode measurements, which view the Earth with 1º longitudinal resolution. This analysis establishes the DSCOVR mission EPIC/NISTAR measurements as a new and unmatched observational data source for evaluating global climate model performance– e.g., see Figure 2.

    Wenying Su [LaRC] discussed global daytime mean SW fluxes within the EPIC field of view produced from January 2016–June 2024. These quasi-hourly SW fluxes agree very well with the Synoptic data product from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments (currently flying on the Terra and Aqua, Suomi NPP, and NOAA-20 platforms) with the root mean square errors (rmse) less than 3 W/m2. This SW flux processing framework will be used to calculate NISTAR SW flux when Version 4 (V4) of the NISTAR radiance becomes available. Su noted that SW fluxes from EPIC are not suitable to study interannual variability as the magnitude of EPIC flux is sensitive to the percentage of daytime area visible to EPIC.
    Update on EPIC Products and Science Results
    EPIC has a suite of data products available. The following subsections summarize content during the DSCOVR STM related to these products. The updates focus on several data products and the related algorithm improvements. 
    Total Column Ozone
    Jerry Ziemke [Morgan State University (MSU), Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research–II (GESTAR II)] and Natalya Kramarova [GSFC] reported that tropospheric O3 from DSCOVR EPIC shows anomalous reductions of ~10% throughout the Northern Hemisphere (NH) starting in Spring 2020 that continues to the present. The EPIC data, along with other satellite-based (e.g., Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura platform) and ground-based (e.g., Pandora) data, indicate that the observed NH reductions in O3 are due to combined effects from meteorology and reduced pollution, including reduced shipping pollution in early 2020 (during COVID) – see Figure 3. EPIC 1–2 hourly data are also used to evaluate hourly total O3 and derived tropospheric O3 from NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) geostationary instrument. Ziemke explained that comparison of TEMPO data with EPIC data has helped the researchers characterize a persistent latitude-dependent offset in TEMPO total O3 data of ~10–15% from south to north over the North American continent.

    Algorithm Improvement for Ozone and Sulfur Dioxide Products
    Kai Yang [UMD] presented a comprehensive evaluation of total and tropospheric O3 retrievals, highlighting the long-term stability and high accuracy of EPIC measurements. He also validated EPIC’s volcanic sulfur dioxide (SO2) retrievals by comparing them with ground-based Brewer spectrophotometer measurements and summarized EPIC’s observations of SO2 from recent volcanic eruptions.
    Simon Carn [University of Michigan] showed the first comparisons between the EPIC L2 volcanic SO2 product and SO2 retrievals from the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) on the Korean GEO-Kompsat-2B satellite. GEMS observes East Asia as part of the new geostationary UV air quality (GEO-AQ) satellite constellation (which also includes TEMPO that observes North America and will include the Ultraviolet–Visible–Near Infrared (UVN) instrument on the European Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission, that will be launched in 2025 to observe Europe and surrounding areas) – but is not optimized for measurements of high SO2 columns during volcanic eruptions. EPIC SO2 data for the 2024 eruption of Ruang volcano in Indonesia are being used to validate a new GEMS volcanic SO2 product. Initial comparisons show good agreement between EPIC and GEMS before volcanic cloud dispersal and confirm the greater sensitivity of the hyperspectral GEMS instrument to low SO2 column amounts.
    Aerosols
    Alexei Lyapustin [GSFC] reported that the latest EPIC aerosols algorithm (V3) simultaneously retrieves aerosol optical depth, aerosol spectral absorption, and aerosol layer height (ALH) – achieving high accuracy. He showed that global validation of the single scattering albedo in the blue and red shows 66% and 81–95% agreement respectively, with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) observations – which is within the expected error of 0.03 for smoke and dust aerosols. Lyapustin also reported on a comparison of EPIC aerosol data collected from 2015–2023 by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), which flew on the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission. The results show that ALH is retrieved with rmse ~1.1 km (0.7 mi). ALH is unbiased over the ocean and is underestimated by 450 m (1470 ft) for the smoke and by 750 m (2460 ft) for the dust aerosols over land. 
    Myungje Choi and Sujung Go [both from University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s (UMBC), GESTAR II] presented results from a global smoke and dust characterization using Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm. This study characterized smoke and dust aerosol properties derived from MAIAC EPIC processing, examining spectral absorption, ALH, and chemical composition (e.g., black and brown carbon). Regions with smoldering wildfires, e.g., North America and Siberia, exhibited high ALH and a significant fraction of brown carbon, while Central Africa showed lower ALH with higher black carbon emissions.
    Omar Torres [GSFC] discussed how L1 DSCOVR-EPIC observations are being used to study air quality (i.e., tropospheric O3 and aerosols) globally. Torres noted that this application of EPIC-L1 observations is of particular interest in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) where, unlike over the NH, there are currently no space GEO-based air quality measurements – and no plans for them in the foreseeable future.
    Hiren Jethva [MSU, GESTAR II] presented the new results of the aerosol optical centroid height retrieved from the EPIC Oxygen-B band observations. He described the algorithm details, showed retrieval maps, and reviewed the comparative analysis against CALIOP backscatter-weighted measurements. The analysis showed a good level of agreement with more than 70% of matchup data within 1–1.5 km (0.6–0.9 mi) difference.
    Jun Wang [University of Iowa] presented his team’s work on advancing the second generation of the aerosol optical centroid height (AOCH) algorithm for EPIC. Key advancements included: constraining surface reflectance in aerosol retrieval using an EPIC-based climatology of surface reflectance ratios between 442–680 nm; incorporating a dynamic aerosol model to characterize aged smoke particles; and employing a spectral slope technique to distinguish thick smoke plumes from clouds. Results show that both atmospheric optical depth (AOD) and AOCH retrievals are improved in the second generation of AOCH algorithm.
    Olga Kalashnikova [NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)] reported on improving brown carbon evolution processes in the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model with EPIC products. She indicated that DSCOVR product evaluation, using lidar aerosol height measurements from CALIOP, led to an improved operational brown carbon product. To better resolve the temporal evolution of brown carbon, chemical transport models need to include more information about near-source fires.
    Mike Garay [NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)] discussed constraining near-source brown carbon emissions from 2024 Canadian ‘zombie’ fires with EPIC products. He reported that fires in British Columbia, Canada showed differences in brown carbon emission near the sources.  Garay explained that their investigation has revealed that these differences were related to fire intensity and variations in vegetation/soil content.
    Yuekui Yang [GSFC] presented work that examined the impact of Earth’s curvature consideration on EPIC cloud height retrievals. Biases under the Plane Parallel (PPL) assumption is studied by comparing results using the improved pseudo-spherical shell approximation. PPL retrievals in general bias high and for a cloud with height of 5 km (3 mi), the bias is about 6%.
    Alfonso Delgado Bonal [UMBC] stated that the EPIC vantage point offers a unique opportunity to observe not only the current state of the Earth but also its temporal evolution. By capturing multiple observations of the planet throughout the day, EPIC enables statistical reconstruction of diurnal patterns in clouds and other atmospheric parameters. Bonal’s team focused their research on O3 (primarily tropospheric) over the U.S. to demonstrate the presence of a diurnal cycle in the western regions of the continental U.S. However, ground-based data from PANDORA for specific locations do not support these diurnal variations – underscoring the critical role of space-based O3 retrievals. The proposed methodology is not limited to clouds or O3 but is broadly applicable to other EPIC measurements for the dynamic nature of our planet.
    Elizabeth Berry [Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER)] presented results from a coincident DSCOVR–CloudSat dataset [covering 2015–2020]. Cloud properties (e.g., cloud height and optical depth) from DSCOVR and CloudSat are moderately correlated and show quite good agreement given differences in the instruments sensitivities and footprints. Berry explained that a machine-learning model trained on the coincident data demonstrates high accuracy at predicting the presence of vertical cloud layers. However, precision and recall metrics highlight the challenge of predicting the precise location of cloud boundaries.
    Anthony Davis [JPL] presented a pathway toward accurate estimation of the cloud optical thickness (COT) of opaque clouds and cloud systems, e.g., supercells, mesoscale convective complexes, and tropical cyclones (TCs). He described the approach, which uses differential oxygen absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) that has resolving power greater than 104 – which is comparable to that of the high-resolution spectrometers on NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory–2 (OCO-2) – but is based upon the cloud information content of EPIC’s O2 A- and B-band radiances. Unlike the current operational retrieval of COT – which uses data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua – the DOAS-based technique does not saturate at COT exceeding ~60. According to a popular TC model with two-moment microphysics, COT in a tropical storm or hurricane can reach well into the hundreds, sometimes exceeding 1000. Davis said that once the new COT estimates become available, they will provide new observational constraints on process and forecast models for TCs.
    Ocean
    Robert Frouin [Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California] discussed ocean surface radiation products derived from EPIC data. He explained that significant advancements have been achieved in processing and evaluating ocean biology and biogeochemistry products derived from EPIC imagery. V1 updates enhanced accuracy by integrating Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications V2 (MERRA-2) ancillary data and refining calculations for atmospheric and surface parameters. Frouin introduced several diurnal products, including hourly photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) fluxes, spectral water reflectance, and chlorophyll-a concentrations. He said that these new MODIS-derived products have been validated through comparisons with data from the Advanced Himawari Imager on the Japanese Himawar–8 and –9 satellites. In order to address the gaps in these diurnal products, Frouin explained that the team developed a convolutional neural network that has been used effectively to reconstruct missing PAR values with high accuracy.
    Vegetation
    Yuri Knyazikhin [Boston University] reported on the status of the Vegetation Earth System Data Record (VESDR) that provides a variety of parameters including: Leaf Area Index (LAI), diurnal courses of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Sunlit LAI (SLAI), Fraction of incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR) absorbed by the vegetation, Directional Area Scattering Function (DASF), Earth Reflector Type Index (ERTI), and Canopy Scattering Coefficient (CSC). Knyazikhin discussed analysis of the diurnal and seasonal variations of these quantities. EPIC LAI and FPAR are consistent with MODIS-derived measurements of the same parameters.
    Jan Pisek [University of Tartu/Tartu Observatory, Estonia] discussed efforts to derive leaf inclination information from EPIC data. The very first evaluation over Tumbarumba site (in New South Wales, Australia) showed that the angular variation in parameters obtained from EPIC reflects the expected variations due to the erectophile vegetation present at the site.
    Sun Glint
    Tamás Várnai [UMBC, JCET] discussed EPIC observations of Sun glint from ice clouds. The cloud glints come mostly from horizontally oriented ice crystals and have strong impact in EPIC cloud retrievals. Várnai reported that the EPIC glint product is available from the ASDC – see Figure 4. Glint data can help reduce the uncertainties related to horizontally oriented ice crystals and yield additional new insights about the microphysical and radiative properties of ice clouds.

    Alexander Kostinski [Michigan Technology University] explained that because they detected climatic signals (i.e., longer-term changes and semi-permanent features, e.g., ocean glitter), they developed a technique to suppress geographic “noise” in EPIC images that involves introducing temporally (monthly) and conditionally (classifying by surface/cover type, e.g., land, ocean, clouds) averaged reflectance images – see Figure 5. The resulting images display seasonal dependence in a striking manner. Additionally, cloud-free, ocean-only images highlight prominent regions of ocean glitter.

    Jiani Yang [Caltech] reported that spatially resolving light curves from DSCOVR is crucial for evaluating time-varying surface features and the presence of an atmosphere. Both of these features are essential for sustaining life on Earth – and thus can be used to assess the potential habitability of exoplanets. Using epsilon machine reconstruction, the statistical complexity from the time series data of these light curves can be calculated. The results show that statistical complexity serves as a reliable metric for quantifying the intricacy of planetary features. Higher levels of planetary complexity qualitatively correspond to increased statistical complexity and Shannon entropy, illustrating the effectiveness of this approach in identifying planets with the most dynamic characteristics.
    Other EPIC Science Results
    Guoyong Wen [MSU, GESTAR II] analyzed the variability of global spectral reflectance from EPIC and the integrated broadband reflectance on different timescales. He reported that on a diurnal timescale, the global reflectance variations in UV and blue bands are statistically similar – and drastically different from those observed in longer wavelength bands (i.e., green to NIR). The researchers also did an analysis of monthly average results and found that temporal averaging of the global reflectance reduces the variability across the wavelength and that the variability of broadband reflectance is similar to that for the red band on both timescales. These results are mainly due to the rotation of the Earth on diurnal timescale and the change of the Earth’s tilt angle. 
    Nick Gorkavyi [Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI)] reported that EPIC – located at the L1 point, 1.5 million km (0.9 million mi) away from Earth – can capture images of the far side of the Moon in multiple wavelengths. These images, taken under full solar illumination, can be used to calibrate photographs obtained by lunar artificial satellites. Additionally, he discussed the impact of lunar libration – the changing view of the Moon from Earth, or it’s apparent “wobble” – on Earth observations from the Moon. 
    Jay Herman [UMBC] discussed a comparison of EPIC O3 with TEMPO satellite and Pandora ground-based measurement. The results show that total column O3 does not have a significant photochemical diurnal variation. Instead, the daily observed diurnal variation is caused by weather changes in atmospheric pressure. This measurement result agrees with model calculations.
    Conclusion
    Alexander Marshak, Jay Herman, and Adam Szabo led a closing discussion with ST participants on how to make the EPIC and NISTAR instruments more visible in the community. It was noted that the EPIC website now allows visitors to observe daily fluctuations of aerosol index, cloud fraction, cloud height, and the ocean surface – as observed from the L1 point. More daily products, (e.g., aerosol height and sunlit leaf area index) will be added soon, which should attract more users to the website.
    Overall, the 2023 DSCOVR EPIC and NISTAR STM was successful. It provided an opportunity for participants to learn the status of DSCOVR’s Earth-observing instruments, EPIC and NISTAR, the status of recently released L2 data products, and the science results being achieved from the L1 point. As more people use DSCOVR data worldwide, the ST hopes to hear from users and team members at its next meeting. The latest updates from the mission can be found on the EPIC website. 
    Alexander MarshakNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centeralexander.marshak@nasa.gov
    Adam SzaboNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centeradam.szabo@nasa.gov

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Coalition leading narrowly in four polls and would likely win an election held now

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

    A national Newspoll, conducted February 10–14 from a sample of 1,244, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, unchanged from the previous Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (down one), 31% Labor (steady), 12% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (steady) and 12% for all Others (up one).

    Newspoll previously used 2022 election preference flows, but they have adjusted for stronger One Nation preferences to the Coalition at the Queensland state election. The one-point drop in the Coalition’s primary vote suggests Labor gained, but preference flow changes affected the unchanged two-party estimate.

    The graph below shows Labor’s two-party vote for each pollster’s headline voting intentions. As the pollsters are making adjustments to the 2022 election preference flows, I don’t think it’s useful anymore to use the 2022 flows as a baseline.

    I’ve revised some of the previous iterations of Morgan and Essential so they use their headline respondent preferences. The four new polls included since the last federal update are Newspoll, the YouGov MRP below and last week’s Morgan and Redbridge polls.

    All polls have the Coalition leading by about 51–49. Labor had a better result (a 50–50 tie) from Morgan two weeks ago, but last week it reverted to a Coalition lead. Labor can recover this lead by the election that is due by May, but they’re currently losing.

    In Newspoll, Anthony Albanese’s net approval slid one point to a new low of -21, with 58% dissatisfied and 37% satisfied. Peter Dutton’s net approval was up one point to -10. Albanese led Dutton by 45–40 as better PM (44–41 previously).

    The graph below shows Albanese’s deteriorating ratings in Newspoll. The plus signs mark the data and a smoothed line has been fitted.

    In more bad news for Labor, just 34% said they deserved to be re-elected, while 53% said it’s time to give someone else a go.

    YouGov has Coalition winning the most seats

    YouGov conducted a national MRP poll (multi-level modelling with post-stratification) from January 22 to February 12 from an overall sample of over 40,000. MRP polls are used to estimate the outcome in each House of Representatives electorate using huge samples and modelling.

    YouGov’s central forecast if the election were held now is the Coalition winning 73 of the 150 lower house seats, three short of a majority. Labor would win 66 seats, independents eight, the Greens one and others two. At lower limits, the Coalition could win 65 seats and Labor 59, while at higher limits the Coalition could win 80 and Labor 72.

    The overall vote share in this MRP poll was 51.1–48.0 to the Coalition, a 3.2% swing to the Coalition since the 2022 election. Primary votes were 37.4% Coalition, 29.1% Labor, 12.7% Greens, 9.1% One Nation, 8.9% independents and 2.8% others.

    YouGov is using respondent preferences for its MRP polls, and it has a weakening of flows to Labor from both Green and One Nation voters compared with 2022. By 2022 election preference flows, this poll would be 50.2–49.8 to Labor.

    Labor’s primary vote is down most in its once safe working-class seats. But the Coalition is not likely to regain any of the seats taken by teal independents at the last election.

    Redbridge and Morgan polls

    The Poll Bludger reported last Tuesday that a national Redbridge poll, conducted February 3–7 from a sample of 1,013, gave the Coalition a 51.5–48.5 lead, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since early November. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (up two), 31% Labor (down three), 11% Greens (steady) and 18% for all Others (up one).

    Coalition supporters were more firm in their voting intentions (61% solid, 34% soft) than Labor supporters (51% solid, 39% soft). The poll suggested a 9% two-party swing against Labor in the outer suburbs, but this would have been based on a small subsample. Other swings were 5% against Labor in inner and middle suburbs, no change in provincial cities and a 3% swing to Labor in rural areas.

    The Poll Bludger reported Sunday that a Redbridge and Accent Research poll of 20 marginal seats, conducted February 4–11 from a total sample of 1,002, gave the Coalition a 52–48 lead (51–49 to Labor across these seats in 2022). Primary votes were 43% Coalition, 33% Labor, 12% Greens and 12% for all Others.

    A national Morgan poll, conducted February 3–9 from a sample of 1,688, gave the Coalition a 51.5–48.5 lead by headline respondent preferences, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since the January 27 to February 2 poll.

    Primary votes were 40.5% Coalition (up two), 29% Labor (down one), 11% Greens (down 0.5), 4% One Nation (down 1.5), 9.5% independents (down one) and 6% others (up two). This is the lowest support for the Greens in this poll since November 2022. By 2022 election preference flows, the Coalition led by 51.5–48.5, a two-point gain for the Coalition.

    UAP can’t register for election

    Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) voluntarily deregistered during this term, and were unable to re-register under this name. Palmer and the UAP’s only federal parliamentarian, Victorian Senator Ralph Babet, challenged this law, but the High Court last Wednesday denied the challenge.

    Babet was elected in 2022 and won’t be up for election as his six-year term expires in June 2028. The coming election will be a normal one for the full House and half the Senate, not a double dissolution where all senators are up for election.

    The UAP could still register under a different name, but their registration would need to be completed before writs are issued for the election. If the election is on May 17, the latest possible date, writs would need to be issued by April 14.

    Victorian Labor retains Werribee at byelection

    I previously covered the February 8 Victorian state byelections for Werribee and Prahran. On the election night count, Prahran was a Liberal gain from the Greens, with Labor ahead in Werribee but not certain to hold.

    Over 2,000 additional postals have been counted in Werribee, and Labor increased its lead, and now leads by 50.8–49.2 against the Liberals, a 10.2% swing to the Liberals since the November 2022 state election.

    Left-wing parties will do badly in Germany

    I covered next Sunday’s German election for The Poll Bludger on Saturday. The conservative CDU/CSU and far-right AfD are the top two parties in the polls, with the governing centre-left SPD and the Greens trailing.

    In Canada, Mark Carney is almost certain to be elected Liberal leader, replacing Justin Trudeau. In recent weeks, the Liberals have closed the gap on the Conservatives, but still trail by a large margin. US and UK polls were also covered.

    Adrian Beaumont 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. Coalition leading narrowly in four polls and would likely win an election held now – https://theconversation.com/coalition-leading-narrowly-in-four-polls-and-would-likely-win-an-election-held-now-249694

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese superconducting quantum computer receives over 20M global visits

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    A visitor takes photos of an Origin Wukong superconducting quantum computer model at the 2024 World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei, east China’s Anhui Province, Sept. 20, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
    China’s independently developed third-generation superconducting quantum computer, Origin Wukong, has received more than 20 million remote visits globally, passing an important milestone in the country’s quantum computing development, China Science and Technology Daily has reported.
    According to the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center, users from 139 countries or regions have accessed Origin Wukong remotely, with the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada showing the highest levels of user activity. Among these countries, the United States is leading in foreign user visits.
    Origin Wukong has completed more than 339,000 quantum computing tasks since it went into operation on Jan. 6, 2024, covering a wide range of industries, such as finance and biomedicine.
    The quantum computer is powered by Wukong, a 72-qubit indigenous superconducting quantum chip. It is one of the country’s most advanced programmable and deliverable superconducting quantum computers.
    Wukong’s name was inspired by the mythological Sun Wukong, the legendary Monkey King, who had the ability to transform into 72 different forms, symbolizing the computer’s powerful and versatile capabilities.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Hochul Speaks at the 2025 Caucus Reception

    Source: US State of New York

    Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at the 2025 Caucus Reception.

    VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

    AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.

    PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

    A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

    Alright. Looks like a party — something you haven’t done all weekend yet, right? Yeah, I can see the bags under your eyes. And the day is still young. So, I just cherish this event. I truly do. In fact, the entire weekend is so energizing for me. I think I’ll have gone to maybe 10 events; you’ve gone to many more. But it gives us a chance to reconnect with who we are. To think about the people who came before us and the journey that got us to where we are today. But also ask the question, “Where are we going now?”

    And where we are going now depends on the leadership we have in our state. And I want to give a special shout out, and I think she’s still here, to our Attorney General, Tish James, who has taken on the fight. There she is. We are so damn lucky at this particular moment in time, to have her courage, her defiance and her willingness to go into court and take on whatever comes our way out of Washington. So I want to give her a round of applause again. She’s an extraordinary leader.

    And who else is leading the State? Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins is here! She’s an unbelievable leader and represents the entire state with such heart and passion and a belief in lifting people up. I want to thank her for being such a great friend. We also have the Majority Leader of the Assembly, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who I’ll be introducing in a few minutes. There she is. We’re going to talk about her a lot in a couple minutes. But, we also have a guy named Carl Heastie, too. I love our speaker, I don’t know if he could be here today, but there’s a common denominator. You know, Carl’s a good guy. He’s great. We love him.

    But there’s a lot of strong women out here, aren’t there? Okay, a lot of strong women who, to get up in this place and be elected in a statewide position or a major role like the Majority Leader, it takes guts. But I want to say right now is: if there was ever a moment in our state history that required guts, it is right now. And I’m proud to lead this state with incredible partners. And Latrice Walker, unbelievable weekend. Congratulations to all you’ve done here. I know Assemblymember Solages, I’ve seen her a whole lot. I know she’s coming in and out, but I want to thank my administration. I know we heard from our DOT Commissioner Dominguez. You heard from our district attorney. I mean, what a rock star Eric Gonzalez is. Also, Steven Raga, our assemblymember. Thank them. But also give it up for people like Stacey Lynch and my entire team who are here.

    Well, let’s get down to business. Hell of a week, friends. Hell of a week. Started out with the Attorney General in Washington on national television telling everybody she’s bringing charges against me because I’m standing up to uphold the laws of our state that are duly enacted by our Legislature and I’m sworn to uphold. But you’re coming after me for saying that I think that people who are here, living here, working here, contributing to our economy, should not be able to drive to work or get their kids to a doctor’s appointment? No, I am not I’m not opening up our DMV database to you, because I don’t know—

    Now, we know why they would want it. But here’s how I’m going to broaden the issue: There are a lot of good people in law enforcement. I’m not going to say there are not. But what we have right now in Washington — people from Elon Musk and DOGE getting access to our IRS records now and all this information — do you really want them to have access to the DMV so they can find out something about your 16 year old daughter who has a permit in my database? I mean, this is broader than just the immigrant community. This is a scary thought. These are state records about state people, and I have to protect them.

    And then, right around the same time, I’m getting papers from the great state of Louisiana, telling me I’m supposed to turn over an abortion provider, a courageous woman who lives right in the Hudson Valley, and turn her over to face prosecution — facing 15 years in jail. Over my dead body will you get her from me.

    And yes, I will say this: There’s a storm in Washington. It’s complicated. New York City is very complicated. But I want to tell you this: I’ve been in the elective office for 31 years, and maybe the toughest thing I had to do in that was also to raise a couple of teenagers, okay? You know what I’m saying, parents? I’m used to being the eye of the hurricane. That’s my place where I live. So we’re going to calm it all down, okay? We’re going to be okay, because you have strong leaders who know how to take it to the mat. And I’m ready to say, “Let’s get ready to rumble.” I will fight for New Yorkers with every breath of my body. So when you’re feeling under siege and you have communities that are anxious and worried, say, “Don’t worry. Our governor’s got this. She’s got this. She’s been there. She’s experienced, and she has great people around her.”

    So I just need to let everybody know we’re going to be okay. And all we have to do after a weekend like this, is call on those who came before us under tougher times. I mean, think about tiny little Harriet Tubman who, with such courage, she didn’t just come back and save her neck, she went back to Maryland countless times, freeing slaves, being hounded by bloodhounds, going through the swamps at night, trying to find her way north in the dark — touching the side of the tree, you could feel the moss grows on the north side, so she touched it, she knew where she was going.

    I read that book when I was eight years old. That’s part of who I am. Her story — I believe in people like that, and Sojourner Truth. Her voice was so critical back then. We need the Sojourner Truths of today. Where’s the Harriet Tubman of today to lead us out of darkness into light and into freedom? That’s what we have to do, everyone. And those people are in this room.

    Because someday, history is going to look at us. How do we measure up to these courageous people — the people who started the Underground Railroad and brought people through Crystal Peoples-Stokes hometown and mine, freeing people over to Canada, because otherwise they’re going to be killed or returned to slavery — that’s where we come from, right Crystal? The Underground Railroad, Mary Talbert was there. Great hero. The NAACP, guess where it started? Yes, in Buffalo, New York. The Niagara Movement. And I’m not going to brag more about Buffalo just because — but it’s also got the best football team in America. But, deal with it Eddie. Eddie, I’ve had enough crap from you. Deal with that. Alright, there you go.

    So, I say this: This is a time of celebration to get reenergized, to get fired up, to believe in our purpose here today, because that’s why God put us on earth. No other reason, no other reason we’re taking up space on this earth than to lift up the lives of others. To make this place better. And New York State will always lead the nation as we have throughout history. Don’t worry about us, or as Crystal is fond of saying, “Lift as you climb.” That’s her saying. Lift as you climb. That’s not just, “Climb for your sake of getting the power and the glory yourselves.” It’s making sure God’s power and glory is there to lift up others.

    And that’s one of the reasons I love this woman so much. She comes from the streets of Buffalo. She’s tough. I was an elected official throughout most of her career. I saw what you had to endure. The discrimination and the hatred she had to endure, even just being a woman in a position of power in Erie County when there were very few women who could step up and do this.

    She ran for Congress back in ‘96. I campaigned with her. She’s been through the trials and tribulations, but when she sets her mind to something, do not get in her way. She fought to make sure we had a legal cannabis system that dealt with social equity to give everybody a chance to overcome what they had been through.

    She fought to make sure our streets are safer, that we could heal communities that have been severed by infrastructure. Robert Moses divided the black and white community in Buffalo, and in the 1950s nobody stood up to it and they let it happen. Crystal says, “We’re bringing back our cities, we’re healing them once again, so we can reunite our black and brown communities.” So, I need to say this, as she often says, this is her motto: “God be the glory.” And I thank God. I thank God every day that he put Crystal Peoples-Stokes on our earth, in my city, in our State Legislature.

    Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Crystal Peoples-Stokes!

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China remains constructive force in changing world

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    The 61st Munich Security Conference (MSC) concluded on Sunday. In interviews with Xinhua, Chinese experts attending the MSC said the event addressed numerous emerging global uncertainties, while China reaffirmed its commitment to being a constructive force in a changing world.

    A security report was released ahead of the conference with a focus on multipolarization and its U.S. section noted that the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump “promises more selective, often unilateral, international engagement, only when narrowly construed US interests are at stake.”

    And it also stated that the administration’s “toying with the idea of coercively absorbing Greenland, Panama, and Canada” suggests it will not feel bound by key international norms.

    Wang Junsheng, a researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the key focus of the conference was the uncertainties stemming from the Trump administration. He said the administration’s past statements and acts have indicated a disrespect for international order and a disruption of the existing international system.

    The report stated that the Trump administration’s indifference toward United Nations’ agencies and climate change will negatively impact the Global South countries.

    Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, said the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization not only undermined the authority and effectiveness of the global governance system but also dampened the momentum for multilateral cooperation. This, he argued, has deepened the fragmentation of the international order and hastened the world’s shift toward a more disordered state.

    During his speech at the MSC, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance criticized European countries, including Germany, on issues concerning democracy and immigration. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday criticized Vance for interfering in German politics. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Saturday emphasized that Europe would not accept external imposition.

    Wang Junsheng said Vance’s speech was condescending, undermining the principle of equal exchanges between nations. He added that Vance’s blatant interference in Germany’s internal affairs violates other’s sovereignty and reflects unilateralism, which could provoke diplomatic tensions.

    Xiao Qian, deputy head of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, said Vance’s speech failed to address issues such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tariffs, disregarding the concerns of countries in Europe and beyond. European officials and scholars have expressed deep disappointment.

    Wang Junsheng said the Russia-Ukraine conflict remained a key issue at this year’s MSC. While the Trump administration has been pursuing a negotiated resolution, widespread concerns persist in Europe regarding the fairness and justice of the U.S. proposal, its potential to achieve lasting peace, and whether it primarily serves American interests.

    With regard to U.S. wielding the big stick of tariffs, Wang Yiwei said this move has undermined the global free trade regime and World Trade Organization rules, fueled trade protectionism and economic nationalism, disrupted global supply chains, and heightened uncertainties in the development of world economy.

    Addressing the “China in the World” session of the MSC, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged that China will remain a global stabilizing factor and a constructive force in the transformation of the world. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, elaborated on China’s four key views regarding multipolarity, including advocating equality among nations, respecting the rule of international law, practicing multilateralism, and upholding openness and win-win cooperation.

    The Chinese experts said Wang’s speech addressed concerns of all parties and provided the greatest certainty in this uncertain world. China’s proposal to promote an equal and orderly multipolar world was widely discussed and received high praise from attendees.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Generative AI is already being used in journalism – here’s how people feel about it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

    Indonesia’s TVOne launched an AI news presenter in 2023. T.J. Thomson

    Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at lightning speed in the past couple of years, creating disruption in many industries. Newsrooms are no exception.

    A new report published today finds that news audiences and journalists alike are concerned about how news organisations are – and could be – using generative AI such as chatbots, image, audio and video generators, and similar tools.

    The report draws on three years of interviews and focus group research into generative AI and journalism in Australia and six other countries (United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and France).

    Only 25% of our news audience participants were confident they had encountered generative AI in journalism. About 50% were unsure or suspected they had.

    This suggests a potential lack of transparency from news organisations when they use generative AI. It could also reflect a lack of trust between news outlets and audiences.

    Who or what makes your news – and how – matters for a host of reasons.

    Some outlets tend to use more or fewer sources, for example. Or use certain kinds of sources – such as politicians or experts – more than others.

    Some outlets under-represent or misrepresent parts of the community. This is sometimes because the news outlet’s staff themselves aren’t representative of their audience.

    Carelessly using AI to produce or edit journalism can reproduce some of these inequalities.

    Our report identifies dozens of ways journalists and news organisations can use generative AI. It also summarises how comfortable news audiences are with each.

    The news audiences we spoke to overall felt most comfortable with journalists using AI for behind-the-scenes tasks rather than for editing and creating. These include using AI to transcribe an interview or to provide ideas on how to cover a topic.

    But comfort is highly dependent on context. Audiences were quite comfortable with some editing and creating tasks when the perceived risks were lower.

    The problem – and opportunity

    Generative AI can be used in just about every part of journalism.

    For example, a photographer could cover an event. Then, a generative AI tool could select what it “thinks” are the best images, edit the images to optimise them, and add keywords to each.

    Computer software can try to recognise objects in images and add keywords, leading to potentially more efficient image processing workflows.
    Elise Racine/Better Images of AI/Moon over Fields, CC BY

    These might seem like relatively harmless applications. But what if the AI identifies something or someone incorrectly, and these keywords lead to mis-identifications in the photo captions? What if the criteria humans think make “good” images are different to what a computer might think? These criteria may also change over time or in different contexts.

    Even something as simple as lightening or darkening an image can cause a furore when politics are involved.

    AI can also make things up completely. Images can appear photorealistic but show things that never happened. Videos can be entirely generated with AI, or edited with AI to change their context.

    Generative AI is also frequently used for writing headlines or summarising articles. These sound like helpful applications for time-poor individuals, but some news outlets are using AI to rip off others’ content.

    AI-generated news alerts have also gotten the facts wrong. As an example, Apple recently suspended its automatically generated news notification feature. It did this after the feature falsely claimed US murder suspect Luigi Mangione had killed himself, with the source attributed as the BBC.

    What do people think about journalists using AI?

    Our research found news audiences seem to be more comfortable with journalists using AI for certain tasks when they themselves have used it for similar purposes.

    For example, the people interviewed were largely comfortable with journalists using AI to blur parts of an image. Our participants said they used similar tools on video conferencing apps or when using the “portrait” mode on smartphones.

    Likewise, when you insert an image into popular word processing or presentation software, it might automatically create a written description of the image for people with vision impairments. Those who’d previously encountered such AI descriptions of images felt more comfortable with journalists using AI to add keywords to media.

    Popular word processing and presentation software can automatically generate alt-text descriptions for images that are inserted into documents or presentations.
    T.J. Thomson

    The most frequent way our participants encountered generative AI in journalism was when journalists reported on AI content that had gone viral.

    For example, when an AI-generated image purported to show Princes William and Harry embracing at King Charles’s coronation, news outlets reported on this false image.

    Our news audience participants also saw notices that AI had been used to write, edit or translate news articles. They saw AI-generated images accompanying some of these. This is a popular approach at The Daily Telegraph, which uses AI-generated images to illustrate many of its opinion columns.

    The Daily Telegraph frequently turns to generative AI to illustrate its opinion columns, sometimes generating more photorealistic illustrations and sometimes less photorealistic ones.
    T.J. Thomson

    Overall, our participants felt most comfortable with journalists using AI for brainstorming or for enriching already created media. This was followed by using AI for editing and creating. But comfort depends heavily on the specific use.

    Most of our participants were comfortable with turning to AI to create icons for an infographic. But they were quite uncomfortable with the idea of an AI avatar presenting the news, for example.

    On the editing front, a majority of our participants were comfortable with using AI to animate historical images, like this one. AI can be used to “enliven” an otherwise static image in the hopes of attracting viewer interest and engagement.

    A historical photograph from the State Library of Western Australia’s collection has been animated with AI (a tool called Runway) to introduce motion to the still image.
    T.J. Thomson

    Your role as an audience member

    If you’re unsure if or how journalists are using AI, look for a policy or explainer from the news outlet on the topic. If you can’t find one, consider asking the outlet to develop and publish a policy.

    Consider supporting media outlets that use AI to complement and support – rather than replace – human labour.

    Before making decisions, consider the past trustworthiness of the journalist or outlet in question, and what the evidence says.

    T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

    Michelle Riedlinger receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Global Journalism Innovation Lab. She is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

    Phoebe Matich receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a post-doctoral research fellow within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society.

    Ryan J. Thomas 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. Generative AI is already being used in journalism – here’s how people feel about it – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-already-being-used-in-journalism-heres-how-people-feel-about-it-247232

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Côte d’Ivoire: Canada Strengthens Partnership with the African Development Bank During High-Level Meeting

    Source: African Development Bank Group
    The African Development Bank welcomed Andrew Smith, Director General for the Pan-African Bureau at Global Affairs Canada, to Côte d’Ivoire on Friday, 7 February. This marked a significant step forward in the partnership between Canada and the African Development Bank Group.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Joint statement on the first anniversary of Alexei Navalny’s death

    Source: Government of Iceland

    On the anniversary of Alexei Navalny’s death, which followed years of persecution by the Kremlin, we again extend our condolences to his family. We reiterate that the ultimate responsibility for his death lies with the Russian authorities. One year on, Russia’s dire human rights record continues to deteriorate. The Kremlin crushes peaceful dissent, maintains a climate of fear and undermines the rule of law. All to serve its own interests. As we reflect on Navalny’s enduring legacy, we continue to stand with civil society and human rights defenders working tirelessly to build a better future for Russia in the face of immense personal risk. 

    There are over 800 political prisoners in Russia, including many imprisoned for speaking out against the Kremlin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the brutality shown towards the Ukrainian people. The UN Special Rapporteur’s reports illustrate how many political prisoners are tortured, denied adequate medical treatment and placed in forced psychiatric detention. We are clear: the Russian authorities must uphold their international obligations and release all political prisoners. 

    Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Iceland, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Paul Buchanan: Trump 2.0 and the limits of over-reach

    COMMENTARY: By Paul G Buchanan

    Here is a scenario, but first a broad brush-painted historical parallel.

    Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the Nazi pogroms unfolded in the late 1930s.

    But Hitler never intended to confine himself to Germany and decided to attack his neighbours simultaneously, on multiple fronts East, West, North and South.

    This came against the advice of his generals, who believed that his imperialistic war-mongering should happen sequentially and that Germany should not fight the USSR until it had conquered Europe first, replenished with pillaged resources, and then reorganised its forces for the move East. They also advised that Germany should also avoid tangling with the US, which had pro-Nazi sympathisers in high places (like Charles Lindbergh) and was leaning towards neutrality in spite of FDR’s support for the UK.

    Hitler ignored the advice and attacked in every direction, got bogged down in the Soviet winter, drew in the US in by attacking US shipping ferrying supplies to the UK, and wound up stretching his forces in North Africa, the entire Eastern front into Ukraine and the North Mediterranean states, the Scandinavian Peninsula and the UK itself.

    In other words, he bit off too much in one chew and wound up paying the price for his over-reach.

    Hitler did what he did because he could, thanks in part to the 1933 Enabling Law that superseded all other German laws and allowed him carte blanche to pursue his delusions. That proved to be his undoing because his ambition was not matched by his strategic acumen and resources when confronted by an armed alliance of adversaries.

    A version of this in US?
    A version of this may be what is unfolding in the US. Using the cover of broad Executive Powers, Musk, Trump and their minions are throwing everything at the kitchen wall in order to see what sticks.

    They are breaking domestic and international norms and conventions pursuant to the neo-reactionary “disruptor” and “chaos” theories propelling the US techno-authoritarian Right. They want to dismantle the US federal State, including the systems of checks and balances embodied in the three branches of government, subordinating all policy to the dictates of an uber-powerful Executive Branch.

    In this view the Legislature and Judiciary serve as rubber stamp legitimating devices for Executive rule. Many of those in the Musk-lead DOGE teams are subscribers to this ideology.

    At the same time the new oligarchs want to re-make the International order as well as interfere in the domestic politics of other liberal democracies. Musk openly campaigns for the German far-Right AfD in this year’s elections, he and Trump both celebrate neo-fascists like Viktor Urban in Hungry and Javier Milei in Argentina.

    Trump utters delusional desires to “make” Canada the 51st State, forcibly regain control of the Panama Canal, annex Greenland, turn Gaza into a breach resort complex and eliminate international institutions like the World Trade Organisation and even NATO if it does not do what he says.

    He imposes sanctions on the International Criminal Court, slaps sanctions on South Africa for land take-overs and because it took a case of genocide against Israel in the ICC, doubles down on his support for Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians and is poised to sell-out Ukraine by using the threat of an aid cut-off to force the Ukrainians to cede sovereignty to Russia over all of their territory east of the Donbas River (and Crimea).

    He even unilaterally renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in a teenaged display of symbolic posturing that ignores the fact that renaming the Gulf has no standing in international law and “America” is a term that refers to the North, Central and South land masses of the Western Hemisphere — i.e., it is not exclusive to or propriety of the United States.

    Dismantling the globalised trade system
    Trump wants to dismantle the globalised system of trade by using tariffs as a weapon as well as leverage, “punishing” nations for non-trade as well as trade issues because of their perceived dependence on the US market. This is evident in the tariffs (briefly) imposed on Canada, Mexico and Colombia over issues of immigration and re-patriation of US deportees.

    In other words, Trump 2.0 is about redoing the World Order in his preferred image, doing everything more or less at once. It is as if Trump, Musk and their Project 2025 foot soldiers believe in a reinterpreted version of “shock and awe:” the audacity and speed of the multipronged attack on everything will cause opponents to be paralysed by the move and therefore will be unable to resist it.

    That includes extending cultural wars by taking over the Kennedy Center for the Arts (a global institution) because he does not like the type of “culture” (read: African American) that is presented there and he wants to replace the Center’s repertoire with more “appropriate” (read: Anglo-Saxon) offerings. The assault on the liberal institutional order (at home and abroad), in other words, is holistic and universal in nature.

    Trump’s advisers are even talking about ignoring court orders barring some of their actions, setting up a constitutional crisis scenario that they believe they will win in the current Supreme Court.

    I am sure that Musk/Trump can get away with a fair few of these disruptions, but I am not certain that they can get away with all of them. They may have more success on the domestic rather than the international front given the power dynamics in each arena. In any event they do not seem to have thought much about the ripple effect responses to their moves, specifically the blowback that might ensue.

    This is where the Nazi analogy applies. It could be that Musk and Trump have also bitten more than they can chew. They may have Project 2025 as their road map, but even maps do not always get the weather right, or accurately predict the mood of locals encountered along the way to wherever one proposes to go. That could well be–and it is my hope that it is–the cause of their undoing.

    Overreach, egos, hubris and the unexpected detours around and obstacles presented by foreign and domestic actors just might upset their best laid plans.

    Dotage is on daily public display
    That brings up another possibility. Trump’s remarks in recent weeks are descending into senescence and caducity. His dotage is on daily public display. Only his medications have changed. He is more subdued than during the campaign but no less mad. He leaves the ranting and raving to Musk, who only truly listens to the fairies in his ear.

    But it is possible that there are ghost whisperers in Trump’s ear as well (Stephen Miller, perhaps), who deliberately plant preposterous ideas in his feeble head and egg him on to pursue them. In the measure that he does so and begins to approach the red-line of obvious derangement, then perhaps the stage is being set from within by Musk and other oligarchs for a 25th Amendment move to unseat him in favour of JD Vance, a far more dangerous member of the techbro puppet masters’ cabal.

    Remember that most of Trump’s cabinet are billionaires and millionaires and only Cabinet can invoke the 25th Amendment.

    Vance has incentive to support this play because Trump (foolishly, IMO) has publicly stated that he does not see Vance as his successor and may even run for a third term. That is not want the techbro overlords wanted to hear, so they may have to move against Trump sooner rather than later if they want to impose their oligarchical vision on the US and world.

    An impeachment would be futile given Congress’s make-up and Trump’s two-time wins over his Congressional opponents. A third try is a non-starter and would take too long anyway. Short of death (that has been suggested) the 25th Amendment is the only way to remove him.

    It is at that point that I hope that things will start to unravel for them. It is hard to say what the MAGA-dominated Congress will do if laws are flouted on a wholesale basis and constituents begin to complain about the negative impact of DOGE cost-cutting on federal programmes. But one thing is certain, chaos begets chaos (because chaos is not synonymous with techbro libertarians’ dreams of anarchy) and disruption for disruption’s sake may not result in an improved socio-economic and political order.

    Those are some of the “unknown unknowns” that the neo-con Donald Rumsfeld used to talk about.

    In other words, vamos a ver–we shall see.

    Dr Paul G Buchanan is the director of 36th-Parallel Assessments, a geopolitical and strategic analysis consultancy. This article is republished from Kiwipolitico with the permission of the author.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: Chinese superconducting quantum computer receives over 20 million global visits

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

    HEFEI, Feb. 16 — China’s independently developed third-generation superconducting quantum computer, Origin Wukong, has received more than 20 million remote visits globally, passing an important milestone in the country’s quantum computing development, China Science and Technology Daily has reported.

    According to the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center, users from 139 countries or regions have accessed Origin Wukong remotely, with the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada showing the highest levels of user activity. Among these countries, the United States is leading in foreign user visits.

    Origin Wukong has completed more than 339,000 quantum computing tasks since it went into operation on Jan. 6, 2024, covering a wide range of industries, such as finance and biomedicine.

    The quantum computer is powered by Wukong, a 72-qubit indigenous superconducting quantum chip. It is one of the country’s most advanced programmable and deliverable superconducting quantum computers.

    Wukong’s name was inspired by the mythological Sun Wukong, the legendary Monkey King, who had the ability to transform into 72 different forms, symbolizing the computer’s powerful and versatile capabilities.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Joint statement on the first anniversary of Alexei Navalny’s death

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    The UK and partners pay tribute to Alexei Navalny

    On the anniversary of Alexei Navalny’s death, which followed years of persecution by the Kremlin, we again extend our condolences to his family. We reiterate that the ultimate responsibility for his death lies with the Russian authorities. One year on, Russia’s dire human rights record continues to deteriorate. The Kremlin crushes peaceful dissent, maintains a climate of fear and undermines the rule of law. All to serve its own interests. As we reflect on Navalny’s enduring legacy, we continue to stand with civil society and human rights defenders working tirelessly to build a better future for Russia in the face of immense personal risk. 

    There are over 800 political prisoners in Russia, including many imprisoned for speaking out against the Kremlin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the brutality shown towards the Ukrainian people. The UN Special Rapporteur’s reports illustrate how many political prisoners are tortured, denied adequate medical treatment and placed in forced psychiatric detention. We are clear: the Russian authorities must uphold their international obligations and release all political prisoners. 

    Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom

    Updates to this page

    Published 16 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Whitehorse — Whitehorse RCMP seek public assistance in locating a missing man

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    RCMP is seeking public assistance in locating Gordon Chambers who was last seen on February 13 at 2:50 pm when he left Whitehorse General Hospital on a city bus. Police are concerned for Mr. Chamber’s well being.

    Gordon Chambers is a First Nations male, 65-year-old, approximately 6 feet tall, 140 lbs, and has grey hair and brown eyes. He is known to walk with a shuffle.

    Mr. Chambers was last seen wearing a black leather jacket, black pants, and a black baseball hat.

    Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Gordon Chambers is urged to contact their local police immediately or Whitehorse RCMP at 867-667-5555.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Joint G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement: February 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Meeting of G7 Foreign Ministers on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, 15 February 2025.

    The G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, met on the margins of the Munich Security Conference for the first time under Canada’s 2025 Presidency.

    The G7 members discussed Russia’s devasting war in Ukraine.  They underscored their commitment to work together to help to achieve a durable peace and a strong and prosperous Ukraine and reaffirmed the need to develop robust security guarantees to ensure the war will not begin again.  

    The G7 members welcomed their discussion today with Andrii Sybiha, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.  They recalled the G7’s important contribution towards ending the war in Ukraine, including through measures pursuant to the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine, by supporting Ukraine financially through the use of extraordinary revenues stemming from Russian Sovereign Assets, by imposing further cost on Russia, if they do not negotiate in good faith, through caps on oil and gas prices, and by making sanctions against Russia more effective. Any new, additional sanctions after February should be linked to whether the Russian Federation enters into real, good-faith efforts to bring an enduring end to the war against Ukraine that provides Ukraine with long-term security and stability as a sovereign, independent country.  The G7 members reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

    The G7 members discussed the provision to Russia of dual-use assistance by China and of military assistance by DPRK and Iran.  They condemned all such support.

    The G7 members discussed political, security and humanitarian issues in the Middle East, including in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and their commitment to advancing regional peace and stability.  They underscored the importance of a durable, Israeli-Palestinian peace.  They reaffirmed their support for the full implementation of the ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas, including for the release of all hostages and the expansion of humanitarian aid in Gaza.  The G7 members stand behind the ongoing efforts of Egypt, Qatar and the United States in continuing to work towards a permanent ceasefire.  They reiterated their unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the need to ensure that Hamas neither reconstitutes militarily nor participates in governance.  They recognized Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, consistent with international law. 

    The G7 members welcomed the outcomes of the International Conference on Syria, hosted by France on February 13, 2025.  They reiterated their shared commitment to the people of Syria and their support for an inclusive political transition process, in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.  They welcomed, as well, positive developments in Lebanon, including the recent election of President Joseph Aoun, the designation of Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister, and the formation of a new government.  The G7 members reaffirmed their commitment to both countries’ stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

    The G7 members unequivocally condemned Iran’s destabilizing actions, including its rapid advancement of uranium enrichment without credible civil justification, its facilitation of terrorism organizations and armed groups across the Middle East and Red Sea, its proliferation of ballistic missiles and drones, and its transnational repression and violation of fundamental human rights.

    The G7 members reiterated their commitment to a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific region, grounded in respect for the rule of law and sovereignty.  They strongly opposed any attempts to change unilaterally the status quo using force and underscored the importance of resolving disputes peacefully.  They strongly opposed China’s attempts to restrict freedom of navigation through militarization and coercive activities in the East and South China Sea. 

    The G7 members expressed serious concern over the DPRK’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. They demanded that the DPRK abandon all its nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs, and any other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner in accordance with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs). They underscored that direct DPRK support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine marks a dangerous expansion of the conflict, with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security. They urged the DPRK to cease immediately all assistance for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops. The called upon DPRK to resolve the abductions issue immediately.

    The G7 members also discussed urgent situations of conflict and instability elsewhere in the world, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, and in Haiti and Venezuela.

    The G7 Foreign Ministers looked forward to their meeting in Canada in Charlevoix, Quebec on March 12-14.

    Updates to this page

    Published 15 February 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: School construction reaches warp speed

    [. To keep pace with fast-rising enrolment, the province announced $8.6 billion to accelerate school construction and introduced a new approach to funding school projects, so they can advance to the next stage of construction as soon as they are ready.

    As a result of this new funding approach, Alberta’s government has sped up 11 previously announced school projects in the Calgary Metropolitan Region and Edmonton from the design stage to full construction funding. This means that these projects are now closer to having shovels in the ground building new schools for Alberta’s students. These projects will create more than 12,000 new student spaces between Airdrie, Calgary, Chestermere, Edmonton, and Okotoks.   

    “There is no two ways about it, Alberta is growing and growing fast, so we need to build schools now. That’s why we are making a generational investment of $8.6 billion, and fast-tracking school construction process. Our commitment to building schools will help us build and open 200,000 spaces for students in communities that need them the most all within the next seven years.”

    Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Education

    It is anticipated that these 11 school projects will be delivered through two public-private partnership bundles, with next steps being contractor selection and project design. Additional details such as total project costs and timelines will be available once contractors have been selected.

    “Regardless of what stage of construction we are in, our priority is to get students into desks as quickly as possible, while ensuring their classrooms are well-built for years of learning. As Alberta communities continue to grow, this announcement allows us to meet demands for spaces faster and more efficiently. I’m excited to continue working with my ministry and industry partners on school builds, modernizations and renovations, supporting tens of thousands of jobs across the province and boosting our local and provincial economies.”

    Pete Guthrie, Minister of Infrastructure

    “We are grateful to the provincial government for this new high school in Cornerstone and new elementary school in Redstone. These urgently needed new schools will benefit students in the northeast corner of Calgary, which is experiencing strong growth. Across Calgary, the CBE has over 11,000 CBE students who are waiting for new schools to be announced this year, so they can attend school closer to home, and these two school announcements today are great news for over 3,000 of our students and their families.”

    Patricia Bolger, board chair, Calgary Board of Education

    “Rocky View Schools looks forward to opening a new high school in Airdrie and a new K-9 school in Chestermere to help relieve space pressures in some of our most over-utilized schools. These projects are critical for two of our fastest-growing communities; we are very grateful for the government’s support in moving them forward from the design phase to full construction funding.”

    Fiona Gilbert, board chair, Rocky View Schools

    Funded as part of a $2.1 billion school capital investment by Alberta’s government last year, these 11 school projects are part of the government’s overall commitment to build and modernize more than 200,000 student spaces within the next seven years. The province will invest an additional $8.6 billion over the next three budget cycles to kick-start up to 90 new schools and as many as 24 renovations or replacements and roll out more modular classrooms.

    Quick facts

    • Since the introduction of the accelerated school construction process, a total of 22 previously announced school projects have been approved to move forward to the next stage of the construction process.
    • The 11 projects advancing to construction funding were initially approved for design funding in March 2024. The projects are as follows:

    Community

    School division

    Project type/Name

    Airdrie

    Rocky View Schools

    new 9-12 school

    Calgary

    Calgary Board of Education

    new 10-12 school in Cornerstone

    Calgary

    Calgary Board of Education

    new K-4 school in Redstone

    Calgary

    Calgary Catholic School District

    new K-6 school in Redstone

    Chestermere

    Rocky View Schools

    new K-9 school

    Edmonton

    Edmonton Catholic Schools

    new K-9 school in Laurel

    Edmonton

    Edmonton Catholic Schools 

    new K-9 school in River’s Edge

    Edmonton

    Edmonton Public Schools

    new K-6 school in Glenridding Heights

    Edmonton

    Edmonton Public Schools 

    new K-6 school in Rosenthal

    Edmonton

    Edmonton Public Schools

    new 7-9 school in McConachie 

    Okotoks

    Foothills School Division

    new 10-12 school

    Related news

    • Fast-tracking new schools for Alberta students | La province accélère la construction de nouvelles écoles pour les élèves de l’Alberta (September 18, 2024)
    • **UPDATED New schools in Alberta’s growing communities | **MIS À JOUR De nouvelles écoles dans les communautés albertaines en pleine croissance (March 11, 2024)

    Multimedia

    • Watch the news conference

    MIL OSI Canada News –