NewzIntel.com

Category: Covid 19

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: ‘Stay home, save lives’: New research shows Covid restrictions had no effect on behaviour People did not alter their behaviour to follow enhanced local restrictions during the pandemic and they may have been more effective if based around factors other than just Covid-19 cases according to new research from the University of Aberdeen.

    Source: University of Aberdeen

    People did not alter their behaviour to follow enhanced local restrictions during the pandemic and they may have been more effective if based around factors other than just Covid-19 cases according to new research from the University of Aberdeen.
    People did not alter their behaviour to follow enhanced local restrictions during the pandemic and they may have been more effective if based around factors other than just Covid-19 cases according to new research from the University of Aberdeen.
    The study published in Translational Behavioral Medicine looked at people’s behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic in Scotland.  
    The team examined adherence to restrictions introduced during the pandemic including social distancing, mask-wearing, staying at home and hand washing.  
    They compared people’s behaviours before and after local restrictions were implemented. They also compared behaviours of those living in areas with increased restrictions to those living in areas without.  
    Results showed that people did not change their behaviour when restrictions were tightened and that applied to all behaviours including social distancing and mask wearing. 
    They also found people in high or low restriction areas behaved no differently to each other.   
    Led by Dr Chantal den Daas, Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology, in collaboration with the Covid Health and Adherence Research in Scotland (CHARIS) project, the team interviewed individuals across Scotland at random from March to November 2020, to get a representative sample of the Scottish population.  
    The respondents answered questions about their behaviours from the past week, including if they had left their home, if they had adhered to the two-metre social distancing rule, if they had worn a mask in a shop or on public transport and if they washed their hands as soon as they got home.  
    Dr den Daas said: “When local restrictions were introduced in 2020 due to an increase in Covid-19 case numbers, we thought we would see a change in behaviour after they were implemented. But this was not what we found. 
    “It is really important to build an understanding of what could have been done differently and how we can effectively influence public behaviour in the future should we be faced with another public health crisis.  
    “This research provided insight on the type of information we should aim to collect in future pandemics, to see if we can find better measures to predict cases, examine the need for restrictions and the effect of any restrictions put in place.  
    “Future research in acute outbreaks should assess behaviour and beliefs about the virus, risk on an ongoing basis and identify the need for intervention even before cases rates start to go up.” 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: GLSC Invasive Sea Lamprey, COVID-Pause Study Highlighted in Great Lakes Fishery Commission Press Release and Detroit Free Press Article

    Source: US Geological Survey

    A recent study led by GLSC’s Ben Marcy-Quay (Millersburg, MI), published on March 25, 2025, in Fisheries (https://doi.org/10.1093/fshmag/vuaf020), quantifies the effect of reduced sea lamprey control effort in 2020-2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The multi-agency team, which included Sean Lewandoski (GLSC, Millersburg, MI), Brian O’Malley (GLSC, Oswego, NY), and Nick Johnson, (GLSC, Millersburg, MI), as well as scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, analyzed a multi-decade suite of lamprey wounding and adult lamprey abundance index data. Results indicate that when sea lamprey control is relaxed, sea lamprey abundance and wounding rates increase substantially (more than 10-fold in some circumstances). The Great Lakes Fishery Commission highlighted the work in an April 10, 2025 press release: Noxious Sea Lampreys Took Advantage of Covid-19 Pandemic, New Study Finds and Ben was interviewed regarding the work by Keith Matheny from the Detroit Free Press for an article published the following day: Sea lamprey control efforts slowed during COVID-19: It let the Great Lakes invaders flourish.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Colorado Lt. Governor Primavera Urges Congress to Protect AmeriCorps and Critical Services Across the State

    Source: US State of Colorado

    DENVER — Today, Lt. Governor Dianne Primavera expressed deep concern over the Trump administration demobilizing AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) teams and placing 85% of the AmeriCorps federal agency staff on administrative leave — moves that would immediately impact thousands of Coloradans and undercut vital community services across the state.

    “Since its founding in 1993, AmeriCorps has empowered Coloradans across the state to serve their neighbors, solve real problems, and strengthen communities,” said Lt. Governor Primavera. “To dismantle these programs now, when so many Coloradans rely on them, would be devastating. These actions will impact service members and result in a loss of tax support for working families, wildfire response teams, those who build affordable housing, and behavioral health support in our schools. These are the people behind the numbers — and the work they do matters deeply.”

    In 2024 alone, more than 6,600 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors served at over 700 local sites across Colorado. Serve Colorado, housed in the Office of the Lt. Governor, supported nearly 1,400 AmeriCorps State and National members who contributed over one million hours of service across all 64 counties last year alone. This year, $19.6 million in federal funds and $10.3 million in community funds, which includes state grants, federal  match grants, philanthropy, and private donors, jointly support these AmeriCorps programs to provide critical social services across every Congressional District. A recent study estimated a return of up to $34.26 for every federal dollar invested in AmeriCorps — a testament to its value not just in service, but in economic impact.

    With over 2,000 NCCC members deployed nationally each year, including more than 300 from the Aurora campus alone, this decision threatens to unravel years of progress and partnerships built on trust, teamwork, and service.

    NCCC teams, based out of the Aurora campus, supported wildfire recovery, accessible trail repair, Habitat for Humanity affordable housing projects, and even tax preparation support for low-income families. Through a partnership with local Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites, NCCC members have helped return over $30 million in tax refunds to Coloradans since 2022. During COVID-19, 300 NCCC members staffed contact tracing and vaccine outreach across the state.

    Eliminating AmeriCorps would gut services for schools, senior centers, food banks, housing agencies, and public health providers across Colorado, especially in rural and underserved areas, and other vital programs. It would also cut off access to education awards that help thousands of AmeriCorps alumni pursue college degrees or pay off student loans.

    “The numbers tell a powerful story, but behind each one is a Coloradan who’s been lifted up — a student, a veteran, a wildfire survivor. Now is not the time to recklessly cut programs with a proven record of significant impact,” said Lt. Governor Primavera. “I urge Congress to stand with the thousands of Coloradans who serve with AmeriCorps and the communities that count on them every day.”

    Since 1994, AmeriCorps members in Colorado have gone on to careers in education, conservation, public health, and emergency response as well as other critical industries. Many NCCC alumni join FEMA or continue in public service, building a resilient national workforce rooted in experience.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Saving Lives Together: Donor Day Held at GUU

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

    The traditional Donor Day was held at the State University of Management.

    Dozens of children came to donate blood to give a chance for recovery to those who especially need it.

    The traditional voluntary action of the State University of Management to collect donor blood has been held at our university since 2013.

    Before the break due to safety measures during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the event was held twice a year and consistently attracted between 50 and 200 people at different times.

    Since the pandemic, the campaign has been held once a year, excluding extraordinary collections related to emergency situations.

    GUU thanks everyone who responded on this day. Together we helped people who vitally needed it!

    Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 04/18/2025

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: After Los Angeles Wildfires Destroyed 16,000 Homes, Reps. Chu, Sherman Introduce Legislation to Provide Needed Mortgage Relief

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Judy Chu (CA2-27)

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Reps. Judy Chu (CA-28) and Brad Sherman (CA-32) introduced the Mortgage Relief for Disaster Survivors Act, which would provide homeowners in presidentially declared disaster areas who have a federally backed mortgage with 180 days of mortgage forbearance, with the option of extending for an additional 180 days and without any interest, penalties, or fees accruing. 

    While present law allows for a significant amount of variance across federal mortgage providers to provide relief, this legislation would standardize a baseline of mortgage relief for survivors of any federally declared disaster all across the country. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bipartisan CARES Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in 2020 and which received near unanimous support in both the House and Senate, provided 180 days of mortgage forbearance, with the option of extending for an additional 180 days, for all homeowners with federally backed mortgages. The Mortgage Relief for Disaster Survivors Act is modeled after the mortgage forbearance provisions of that bipartisan law. 

    “Disaster survivors – like thousands of my constituents still reeling from the devastating Eaton Fire – should not have to worrying about missing a mortgage payment in the immediate aftermath of natural disasters,” said Rep. Chu. “Our legislation was drafted after countless conversations with constituents who reached out in the days after the fire worried about making their next mortgage payment. Congress has already worked with President Trump during the coronavirus crisis to provide bipartisan and near unanimous support for such relief for pandemic victims, and the Los Angeles wildfires have made clear to us that all natural disaster victims should receive that relief as well.” 

    “I’m proud to join Congresswoman Chu in working to ensure wildfire victims have the financial relief and stability they need to rebuild,” said Congressman Brad Sherman. “The devastating January wildfires in Los Angeles caused widespread economic harm, and just as we acted with urgency and compassion during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must now adapt the forbearance rules to meet the scale of this disaster.”

    Reps. Chu and Sherman are joined as cosponsors by: Reps. Linda Sánchez (CA-38), Laura Friedman (CA-30), Cleo Fields (LA-06), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Lou Correa (CA-46), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Jill Tokuda (HI-02), Shri Thanedar (MI-13), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Joe Neguse (CO-02), and Sylvia Garcia (TX-29).

    Click here for the bill text.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: International students infuse tens of millions of dollars into local economies across the US. What happens if they stay home?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Barnet Sherman, Professor, Multinational Finance and Trade, Boston University

    The Trump administration has recently revoked the visas of more than 1,300 foreign college students – detaining some – and launched immigration enforcement actions on college campuses across the country. This has raised concerns among the more than 1.1 million international students studying at U.S. universities.

    Headlines are filled with perspectives from immigration and civil rights experts, but one aspect of the story often goes overlooked: the tremendous economic impact international students have on local communities.

    Although the actual impact on enrollment won’t be known until the next academic year, interest from foreign students in pursuing graduate-level education in the U.S. fell sharply in the early days of the Trump administration, one analysis showed.

    If these global scholars stay home, that’s bad economic news for cities and towns across the United States.

    A $44 billion economic impact

    Higher education is America’s 10th-largest export, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Yes, even though students are coming into the U.S. for their education, economists consider it an export.)

    Last year, U.S. colleges and universities attracted international students from 217 nations and territories, including one student from the island nation of Niue in the South Pacific. Their economic contributions added up to more than the value of U.S. telecommunications, computer and information services exports combined.

    While the national impact is impressive, the effects at the local level are even more important. After all, nearly every city across the U.S. has at least one institution of higher learning.

    The average international student brings a wallet stuffed with about $29,000 to spend on everything from tuition to pizza. As these students rent apartments, buy books and order DoorDash delivery to fuel all-nighters, they’re pumping money into the local community.

    This money translates into American jobs. On average, a new job is created for every four international students enrolled in a U.S. college or university. In the 2023-24 academic year, about 378,175 jobs were created. And that’s just counting jobs that are directly supported by international students, such as local business hiring to staff retail shops and restaurants. If you count those jobs indirectly supported by international students, such as employees at a distribution center, the number is even higher.

    A boon to local economies

    In any of the 50 largest American cities, you’ll find at least one college or university with international students on campus. For these communities, global learners bring a most welcome financial aid package.

    Consider Boston. Greater Boston hosts more than 50 colleges and universities, including Boston University, where I teach multinational finance and trade. The city’s economic gains from the more than 63,000 international students attending these schools are huge: about $3 billion.

    Prestigious private schools are a draw, but hands down the biggest pull for international students are state universities and colleges. Of the nation’s top schools enrolling these students last year, 29 were state colleges and universities, attracting over 251,300 students.

    In the top three of those public institutions alone − Arizona State University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley − international students contributed nearly $1.7 billion, supporting over 16,800 jobs. Expand that to the top 10 − the University of California system takes four of those spots − and the numbers pop up to $4.68 billion and 47,136 jobs.

    Bringing the world to Mankato

    Yet international students aren’t just boosting the economies of major university towns. Consider Mankato, a small city of 45,000 about 80 miles from Minneapolis that hosts a Minnesota State University campus. In the 2023-24 academic year, about 1,716 international students called Mankato their home away from home.

    Those students brought an infusion of $45.9 million into that community, supporting around 190 jobs. There are dozens of similar campuses in cities and towns like Mankato across the country. It adds up quickly.

    In addition to private and public universities, community colleges attract thousands of global scholars. Although their international enrollment declined during Covid-19, community colleges are resurgent, attracting some 59,315 international students in 2024, with China, Vietnam and Nepal leading the countries-of-origin list.

    Generating about $2 billion and supporting 8,472 jobs, they have a major economic impact − particularly in Texas, California and Florida, where the majority of these students come to learn.

    Texas leads the nation with the three community colleges with the largest international enrollment: Houston Community College, Lone Star College and Dallas College. Of the $256.7 million and 1,096 jobs international students brought into those institutions, Lone Star led the pack with $102.3 million and 438 jobs, nearly one job created for every two international students − double the national average.

    Due to changing demographics, American colleges enroll 2.3 million fewer domestic students than they did a decade ago − a decline of 10.7%. Colleges and universities are increasingly looking to international students to fill the gap. What’s more, universities tend to see international students as subsidizing domestic students, particularly since international students are generally ineligible for need-blind admissions.

    Moreover, the vast majority of international students are funded by family or foreign sponsors. Few require student aid packages. In fact, less than 20% of all international students receive grant funding from a federal source, and most of that goes to postgraduates doing advanced research. If you look at undergraduate exchange students alone, just 0.1% receive any sort of public funding.

    One thing’s for sure: Whether they’re attending small-town community colleges or the Ivies in big cities, international students bring a “high degree” of economic impact with them.

    This is an updated version of a story originally published Aug. 13, 2024.

    Barnet Sherman 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. International students infuse tens of millions of dollars into local economies across the US. What happens if they stay home? – https://theconversation.com/international-students-infuse-tens-of-millions-of-dollars-into-local-economies-across-the-us-what-happens-if-they-stay-home-254539

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Former Councillor and Mayor David Borrow Installed as 42nd Honorary Alderman of the City of Preston

    Source: City of Preston

    In recognition of his long-standing service and commitment to the city as a past Councillor and Mayor, the title of Honorary Alderman of the City has been bestowed upon David Borrow at an extraordinary Council meeting earlier today.

    At a special ceremony in the city’s historic Council Chamber chaired by The Right Worshipful the Mayor of Preston, Councillor Phil Crowe, David was invited to sign the Honorary Alderman Roll and was presented with a commemorative scroll. David is the 42nd Honorary Alderman of the City.

    The Office of Alderman can be found within the ancient Charters of the Borough, as early as the Guild of 1397 where records show that the Guild was held before the Mayor, three stewards, 10 Aldermen and the Clerk.

    Traditionally Aldermen were appointed to the position as they had many years of experience serving as Councillors and they held the respect of the rest of the Council. The official role of Alderman was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974. Today, in recognition of the position Aldermen used to play in Council and civic life, the Local Government Act of 1972 enables councils to confer the title of Honorary Alderman on any person who, in the opinion of the Council, has rendered eminent services to the Council as a past member of the Council.

    David announced his retirement from politics in May 2024. David Borrow joined the Labour Party in 1970, aged 18, and was elected as a councillor to the Preston Borough Council in 1987. David was the Council Leader for Preston between 1992 and 1994, and again from 1995 until his election to Westminster. He stood down from the Council in 1998 and he served as a Member of Parliament for South Ribble during the Blair/Brown years from 1997 to 2010.

    David has served as a member of Preston City Council for a total of 24 years and was appointed the 692nd Mayor of Preston in 2019. Due to the Covid pandemic, David was one of only three Mayors in the past 100 years to serve more than a single year in the role.

    Adrian Phillips, Chief Executive at Preston City Council said:

    “It is most fitting that David Borrow is honoured in this way. We recognise and thank David for his long-standing contribution and dedication to public service to the people of Preston and the wider city region with the title of Honorary Alderman of the City.”

     

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Owner of North London tyre fitters banned for 10 years after inflating turnover to secure maximum-value Covid loan

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    Owner of North London tyre fitters banned for 10 years after inflating turnover to secure maximum-value Covid loan

    Decade-long ban for director who abused Bounce Back Loan Scheme

    • Shkelzen Gashi overstated his Smart Tyres Services Ltd company’s turnover by almost double to secure a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan, the most businesses were allowed under the scheme 

    • Smart Tyres was entitled to a loan of £33,600 but ended up with £50,000 because of Gashi’s false declaration 

    • Gashi has now been disqualified as a company director for a decade following Insolvency Service investigations 

    The owner of a North London tyre shop has been banned as a director for 10 years after overstating his company’s turnover to secure a maximum-value Covid loan. 

    Shkelzen Gashi ran Smart Tyres Services Ltd from his address on Harringay Road from 2015 to 2022. 

    The 53-year-old claimed his company’s turnover was £250,000 when he applied to the bank for a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan in 2020. 

    In reality, Smart Tyres had a turnover of little more than half that figure. 

    Gashi was banned as a company director until April 2035 and ordered to pay costs of £5,333 at a hearing of the High Court in Birmingham on Wednesday 2 April. 

    His ban started on Thursday 17 April. 

    Gashi has also repaid £8,000 of the Bounce Back Loan. 

    Kevin Read, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: 

    Shkelzen Gashi blatantly overstated the turnover of his company, ensuring it received significantly more in Covid support than it was entitled to. 

    Gashi was given numerous opportunities by our investigators to explain his actions but failed to do so. 

    This was taxpayers’ money and Gashi will now no longer be able to be involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company for the next decade as a result of his dishonest conduct.

    Smart Tyres was incorporated in May 2015 with Gashi as the sole director and shareholder. 

    Gashi described the company as providing a full range of both mechanical and electrical repairs. 

    Insolvency Service analysis of the Smart Tyres’ accounts revealed it had a turnover of £134,401 for the 2019 calendar year. 

    However, Gashi falsely declared on the application form that its income was a quarter of a million pounds. 

    Gashi received the £50,000 Bounce Back Loan in October 2020. 

    Smart Tyres ceased trading in August 2022 with liabilities of more than £100,000. 

    A tyre shop operates from the same address Smart Tyres traded from. Gashi is not a director of this company. 

    The Bounce Back Loan Scheme helped small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000, at a low interest rate, guaranteed by the government. 

    The loans had to be repaid over six to 10 years, with payments starting one year after companies received the funds. 

    Further information 

    Updates to this page

    Published 17 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Global health – Conclusion of negotiations on an agreement to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (16 Apr. 2025)

    Source: Republic of France in English
    The Republic of France has issued the following statement:

    France applauds the conclusion of negotiations on an agreement to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

    These negotiations, which began three years ago under the leadership of France and the EU, were brought to a conclusion on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. France did its utmost to ensure their success and, since the summer of 2024, has co-chaired the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body of the World Health Organization (WHO) alongside South Africa.

    This new “pandemic accord” will better prepare countries for future health crises and will strengthen our collective security in the face of pandemics, in keeping with the EU’s commitments and the French Global Health Strategy for 2023-2027.

    Five years after the Covid-19 crisis, this accord reaffirms these countries’ determination to provide a coordinated, solidarity-based, equitable international response to crises that is based on cooperation, transparency, and science. This accord likewise reaffirms the international community’s trust in and support for the WHO, whose role at the center of the international health architecture is irreplaceable.

    This accord is the first legally binding international text to establish clear obligations for strengthening prevention in every country by taking into account the One Health approach. It reaffirms the dual principle of equity and solidarity in the fight against future pandemics and, to this end, provides for mechanisms to facilitate fast access to vaccines, medications and diagnostic tools. Lastly, it proposes major advances for the health industry, especially with regard to developing R&D, strengthening scientific cooperation on emerging pathogens, and supporting the local production of medical countermeasures.

    This accord will be proposed for adoption at the upcoming World Health Assembly in May 2025.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: South Africa’s domestic workers still battle with echoes of a racist past

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Amy Jo Murray, Social psychologist, University of Johannesburg

    There are 861,000 domestic workers employed in South Africa. They make up about 25% of the informal (non-agricultural) labour sector. By and large, it is still uneducated, black working-class females who clean and care for the country’s middle- to upper-class homes. It’s an eerily familiar scene.

    Paid domestic work provides a microcosm of South Africa’s continuing struggle with its apartheid past. While the slavery of the colonial era and the servitude of black people under apartheid’s white minority rule are now gone, paid domestic work has adapted to post-apartheid realities. A great deal has changed in the country’s legal landscape, but domestic labour preserves racial identities and inequalities.

    Read more: What is apartheid? New book for young readers explains South Africa’s racist system

    We have researched domestic labour in South Africa extensively for more than a decade, including the first author’s PhD. We have done in-depth interviews with over 70 employers and workers through a range of studies in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

    Our research shows that these racial identities and inequalities persist, particularly when domestic employers and workers avoid discussing the racial aspects of their relationships, feeling these are “too close for comfort” and liable to evoke explosive apartheid-era stereotypes.

    It’s clear that the injustices of paid domestic labour cannot be solved through legislation alone. The history, norms, and pain from the country’s past run too deep. They touch people personally, and affect the way they engage each other (or don’t).

    Social change requires innovative solutions to disrupt the status quo, while also facing the country’s haunting past.

    Changes on paper

    The end of apartheid in 1994 brought about a wave of changes, including equal rights for all citizens. Labour laws were extensively reformed. Rights and standards for domestic workers were introduced to address wages, working conditions, and other aspects of employment, theoretically ensuring fair treatment.

    These legal advancements led to some improvements in the minimum wage and the use of employment contracts of domestic workers. But they didn’t stop entrenched practices like payments-in-kind (for example giving groceries or housing instead of cash) and unpaid overtime.

    Read more: Why Nigerian women in Oyo state use child domestic workers

    The informal and private nature of domestic work makes it difficult to regulate. Progressive laws cannot reach here to eliminate cultural attitudes and behaviours that echo apartheid.

    In other words…

    In her 1980 book Maids and Madams, South African sociologist Jacklyn Cock was one of the first researchers to treat paid domestic labour as a reflection of broad structures of oppression in the country. She set out how apartheid racial hierarchies were overt, widely acknowledged, and crudely enacted. Domestic workers faced conditions close to slavery, with employers wielding unchecked power over their lives. Domestic work reinforced a rigid racial hierarchy, clearly demarcating the roles and status of the “madam” and the “maid”.

    Through a close analysis of extensive interviews, our research shows how language underpins this relationship today, both through what is said and what isn’t. Domestic workers and employers go to great lengths not to talk about themselves as the “maid” or the “madam”. They focus instead on intimacy, reciprocation, and mutual support, avoiding the need to negotiate their employment relationship or any other topic that might arouse issues relating to race or inequality.

    Read more: Household gardeners in South Africa: a survivalist life with little protection

    Middle- to upper-class employers are particularly sensitive to racial stereotypes and avoid language that hints at hierarchy or power. They sometimes say that domestic workers “feel like one of the family”, which obscures the underlying power dynamics.

    This matters because it allows potentially unfair or exploitative labour practices to be carried out under the guise of “familial” relations. For example, we might expect an aunt to go the extra mile for the family, staying late to help out and showing she cares about the household. Outside of these familial boundaries, an “employee” should not have these obligations.

    An employer supervises a domestic worker in the kitchen. David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

    Polite language can create a veneer of equality that hides ongoing exploitation. To avoid sounding like “the baas” (boss) or “the madam”, with racial overtones, many employers are reluctant to give direct feedback or set clear boundaries for their employees.

    Instead, we found that many give ambiguous instructions, or no instructions at all, avoiding the uncomfortable post-apartheid situation of being a middle-class white woman telling a working-class black woman what to do. This can lead to confusion, frustration, and potentially unfair treatment. As a result, employers may feel that their expectations go unfulfilled and workers don’t know what is required of them.

    Read more: Male domestic workers in South Africa – study sheds light on the experiences of Malawian and Zimbabwean migrants

    Calculations based on Quarterly Labour Force Statistics consistently demonstrate that only 20% of domestic workers are registered for the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund. Instead, work relationships are regulated by informal understandings between parties, a fact that became apparent when domestic workers could not access unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

    A contract requires negotiations that would make the employment-centred nature of the relationship, with its hierarchy and expectations, undeniable for all involved.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, these sensitivities and avoidances are apparent in conversations with domestic workers too. Workers prefer to focus on the value of their labour and justify, subvert, and evaluate their place in their employer’s household. Sometimes they talk about themselves as being “the boss” or “the owner” of the house, based on the responsibilities they have, the types of work they do – like caring for children or the elderly in the household – and the amount of time that they spend tending the home.

    However, these assertions have a hollow ring when workers are excluded from big decisions in the household, like their right to have visitors, or small decisions like where to place household furniture. Feeling like part of the family is ruptured by exclusion from intimate moments like family celebrations, creating an all too familiar reminder of race and hierarchy.

    Moving forward

    The very real progress that has been made over the past 30 years of democracy should be celebrated. Legal reforms have achieved basic rights for domestic workers. Nevertheless, the spectre of apartheid still haunts South Africa and it’s clear that much work remains to be done.

    It’s our view that disrupting the patterns that seem so ingrained in this relationship will take fresh thinking. Mutually negotiated employment contracts should be a norm. Professionalising paid domestic labour provides the opportunity to break the informality that has come to define domestic labour relations in South Africa.

    And, with increasing access to the internet in South Africa, the digitisation of domestic labour holds promise for instituting social change through technology.

    This has been successful in the developing world, including the African continent.

    Read more: 12% of working women in South Africa are domestic workers – yet they don’t receive proper maternity leave or pay

    Workers have greater agency to market themselves, choose where and who to work for, and to rate and regulate employers. Online platforms could also provide the opportunity for vetting each other and for negotiating compliance with regulations.

    – South Africa’s domestic workers still battle with echoes of a racist past
    – https://theconversation.com/south-africas-domestic-workers-still-battle-with-echoes-of-a-racist-past-250302

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The role of carbon dioxide in airborne disease transmission: a hidden key to safer indoor spaces

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Allen Haddrell, Senior Research Associate, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol

    Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

    We’ve long known that environmental factors – from humidity and temperature to trace chemical vapours – can influence how pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria and fungi, behave once released into the air. These tiny droplets of respiratory fluid, or aerosols, carry viruses and bacteria and can float for minutes or even hours. But while we’ve been busy focusing on physical distancing and surface cleaning, a quieter factor may have been playing a much bigger role in airborne disease transmission all along: carbon dioxide (CO₂).

    During the pandemic, we studied what happens to a virus when it travels through the air in tiny droplets from our breath – known as aerosols. In earlier research, we found that the droplet’s pH (how alkaline it is) can affect how quickly the virus loses its ability to infect people. Our more recent research, though, suggests that CO₂ levels in indoor air may significantly affect how long viruses survive once airborne – and the implications are profound.

    Airborne virus survival

    When someone coughs, sneezes, talks or sings, they release microscopic droplets into the air. These droplets start out in a warm, moist and CO₂-rich environment inside the lungs, where CO₂ levels reach a staggering 38,000 parts per million (ppm). Once expelled, they encounter the cooler, drier and typically much lower-CO₂ environment of indoor or outdoor air. This rapid change triggers a chain reaction inside the droplet.

    One key component inside these droplets is bicarbonate, which acts as a buffer and is formed when CO₂ dissolves in liquid. As CO₂ diffuses out of the droplet into the air, bicarbonate leaves with it. This causes the droplet’s pH to rise – becoming increasingly alkaline, sometimes reaching pH 10.

    Why does this matter? Viruses like COVID-19 don’t like alkaline environments. As the pH rises, their ability to infect decreases. In other words, the higher the pH, the quicker the virus becomes inactive. However, when the ambient CO₂ concentration is high, this pH shift is delayed or minimised, meaning the virus remains in a more hospitable environment – and stays infectious longer.

    Droplets suspended in Celebs technology, used to study airborne microbe behavior. Photo credit: Allen Haddrell

    What role does CO₂ play?

    While CO₂ doesn’t transmit viruses itself, it acts as a proxy for indoor crowding and poor ventilation. The more people in a space, the more CO₂ builds up from exhaled breath. When there isn’t enough ventilation, these levels stay high as do the chances that airborne viruses can linger longer and infect others.

    Outdoor CO₂ levels are around 421ppm, but in crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, indoor levels can easily exceed 800ppm. That’s the tipping point identified in the study, where the air starts allowing droplets to maintain a lower pH, increasing the survival time of viruses. In the 1940s, global CO₂ levels were much lower – around 310ppm – meaning indoor air offered less of a survival advantage to airborne pathogens.

    Looking ahead, climate projections estimate CO₂ levels could reach 685ppm by 2050, making this issue not only one of pandemic response but also of climate and public health policy. If we don’t address this now, we may be heading into a future where viruses survive longer in the air due to everyday indoor conditions.

    How exhaled aerosol pH increases to alkaline levels after exhalation. Bicarbonate evaporates as CO₂, leaving behind an inhospitable environment for viruses—unless there’s more CO₂ in the air. Illustration: Allen Haddrell

    Can we fix it?

    The good news? These findings suggest solutions we can implement right now.

    First, improve indoor ventilation. Increasing airflow and introducing outdoor air into enclosed spaces dilutes both CO₂ levels and any virus-containing aerosols. This simple change can significantly reduce the risk of airborne transmission – not just for COVID-19, but for future respiratory viruses as well.

    And, in the not-too-distant future, we might have indoor carbon capture technology. These devices, which are still being developed, could help remove excess CO₂ from the air, especially in hospitals, classrooms and public transport where the risk of spreading illness is higher.

    Also, monitoring indoor CO₂ levels using affordable sensors can empower individuals, schools and businesses to assess the indoor air quality and adjust the ventilation accordingly. If CO₂ levels rise above safe thresholds (often considered about 800ppm), it’s time to open windows, use air purifiers or ask some people to leave the room.

    This research reshapes the way we think about air quality. It’s no longer just about stuffiness or comfort – it’s about infection risk. As we face rising global CO₂ levels and continue to recover from the COVID pandemic, it’s clear that managing indoor air environments is essential to public health.

    By taking CO₂ seriously – not just as a climate metric but as a health indicator – we have a unique opportunity to reduce disease transmission in our everyday environments. Because when it comes to viruses in the air, the air itself might be our greatest ally – or our biggest threat.

    Allen Haddrell receives funding from the BBSRC and EPSRC.

    Henry Oswin previously received funding from the BBSRC and EPSRC, and currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    – ref. The role of carbon dioxide in airborne disease transmission: a hidden key to safer indoor spaces – https://theconversation.com/the-role-of-carbon-dioxide-in-airborne-disease-transmission-a-hidden-key-to-safer-indoor-spaces-229142

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: South Africa’s domestic workers still battle with echoes of a racist past

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Amy Jo Murray, Social psychologist, University of Johannesburg

    There are 861,000 domestic workers employed in South Africa. They make up about 25% of the informal (non-agricultural) labour sector. By and large, it is still uneducated, black working-class females who clean and care for the country’s middle- to upper-class homes. It’s an eerily familiar scene.

    Paid domestic work provides a microcosm of South Africa’s continuing struggle with its apartheid past. While the slavery of the colonial era and the servitude of black people under apartheid’s white minority rule are now gone, paid domestic work has adapted to post-apartheid realities. A great deal has changed in the country’s legal landscape, but domestic labour preserves racial identities and inequalities.



    Read more:
    What is apartheid? New book for young readers explains South Africa’s racist system

    We have researched domestic labour in South Africa extensively for more than a decade, including the first author’s PhD. We have done in-depth interviews with over 70 employers and workers through a range of studies in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

    Our research shows that these racial identities and inequalities persist, particularly when domestic employers and workers avoid discussing the racial aspects of their relationships, feeling these are “too close for comfort” and liable to evoke explosive apartheid-era stereotypes.

    It’s clear that the injustices of paid domestic labour cannot be solved through legislation alone. The history, norms, and pain from the country’s past run too deep. They touch people personally, and affect the way they engage each other (or don’t).

    Social change requires innovative solutions to disrupt the status quo, while also facing the country’s haunting past.

    Changes on paper

    The end of apartheid in 1994 brought about a wave of changes, including equal rights for all citizens. Labour laws were extensively reformed. Rights and standards for domestic workers were introduced to address wages, working conditions, and other aspects of employment, theoretically ensuring fair treatment.

    These legal advancements led to some improvements in the minimum wage and the use of employment contracts of domestic workers. But they didn’t stop entrenched practices like payments-in-kind (for example giving groceries or housing instead of cash) and unpaid overtime.



    Read more:
    Why Nigerian women in Oyo state use child domestic workers

    The informal and private nature of domestic work makes it difficult to regulate. Progressive laws cannot reach here to eliminate cultural attitudes and behaviours that echo apartheid.

    In other words…

    In her 1980 book Maids and Madams, South African sociologist Jacklyn Cock was one of the first researchers to treat paid domestic labour as a reflection of broad structures of oppression in the country. She set out how apartheid racial hierarchies were overt, widely acknowledged, and crudely enacted. Domestic workers faced conditions close to slavery, with employers wielding unchecked power over their lives. Domestic work reinforced a rigid racial hierarchy, clearly demarcating the roles and status of the “madam” and the “maid”.

    Through a close analysis of extensive interviews, our research shows how language underpins this relationship today, both through what is said and what isn’t. Domestic workers and employers go to great lengths not to talk about themselves as the “maid” or the “madam”. They focus instead on intimacy, reciprocation, and mutual support, avoiding the need to negotiate their employment relationship or any other topic that might arouse issues relating to race or inequality.



    Read more:
    Household gardeners in South Africa: a survivalist life with little protection

    Middle- to upper-class employers are particularly sensitive to racial stereotypes and avoid language that hints at hierarchy or power. They sometimes say that domestic workers “feel like one of the family”, which obscures the underlying power dynamics.

    This matters because it allows potentially unfair or exploitative labour practices to be carried out under the guise of “familial” relations. For example, we might expect an aunt to go the extra mile for the family, staying late to help out and showing she cares about the household. Outside of these familial boundaries, an “employee” should not have these obligations.

    Polite language can create a veneer of equality that hides ongoing exploitation. To avoid sounding like “the baas” (boss) or “the madam”, with racial overtones, many employers are reluctant to give direct feedback or set clear boundaries for their employees.

    Instead, we found that many give ambiguous instructions, or no instructions at all, avoiding the uncomfortable post-apartheid situation of being a middle-class white woman telling a working-class black woman what to do. This can lead to confusion, frustration, and potentially unfair treatment. As a result, employers may feel that their expectations go unfulfilled and workers don’t know what is required of them.



    Read more:
    Male domestic workers in South Africa – study sheds light on the experiences of Malawian and Zimbabwean migrants

    Calculations based on Quarterly Labour Force Statistics consistently demonstrate that only 20% of domestic workers are registered for the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund. Instead, work relationships are regulated by informal understandings between parties, a fact that became apparent when domestic workers could not access unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

    A contract requires negotiations that would make the employment-centred nature of the relationship, with its hierarchy and expectations, undeniable for all involved.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, these sensitivities and avoidances are apparent in conversations with domestic workers too. Workers prefer to focus on the value of their labour and justify, subvert, and evaluate their place in their employer’s household. Sometimes they talk about themselves as being “the boss” or “the owner” of the house, based on the responsibilities they have, the types of work they do – like caring for children or the elderly in the household – and the amount of time that they spend tending the home.

    However, these assertions have a hollow ring when workers are excluded from big decisions in the household, like their right to have visitors, or small decisions like where to place household furniture. Feeling like part of the family is ruptured by exclusion from intimate moments like family celebrations, creating an all too familiar reminder of race and hierarchy.

    Moving forward

    The very real progress that has been made over the past 30 years of democracy should be celebrated. Legal reforms have achieved basic rights for domestic workers. Nevertheless, the spectre of apartheid still haunts South Africa and it’s clear that much work remains to be done.

    It’s our view that disrupting the patterns that seem so ingrained in this relationship will take fresh thinking. Mutually negotiated employment contracts should be a norm. Professionalising paid domestic labour provides the opportunity to break the informality that has come to define domestic labour relations in South Africa.

    And, with increasing access to the internet in South Africa, the digitisation of domestic labour holds promise for instituting social change through technology.

    This has been successful in the developing world, including the African continent.



    Read more:
    12% of working women in South Africa are domestic workers – yet they don’t receive proper maternity leave or pay

    Workers have greater agency to market themselves, choose where and who to work for, and to rate and regulate employers. Online platforms could also provide the opportunity for vetting each other and for negotiating compliance with regulations.

    Kevin Durrheim receives funding from the National Research Foundation.

    Amy Jo Murray 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. South Africa’s domestic workers still battle with echoes of a racist past – https://theconversation.com/south-africas-domestic-workers-still-battle-with-echoes-of-a-racist-past-250302

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Ernst, McClain Halt Tax Dollars to China

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)
    WASHINGTON – As Americans fork over their hard-earned money to the government on Tax Day, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) are introducing the Accountability in Foreign Animal Research Act (AFAR) Act to end the insane practice of funding sketchy animal experiments in China with American tax dollars.
    The bill would ban the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from funding experiments similar to the gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that many experts believe led to the COVID-19 pandemic.
    “We should have learned our lesson after COVID-19,” said Ernst. “Whether creating zombie cats in Russia, supporting risky research in Wuhan, or funding sketchy experiments on animals in foreign labs, I am cutting off the money for this madness and ensuring that taxpayers no longer foot the bill for crazy pseudoscience overseas.”
    “American taxpayer dollars should never fund dangerous, cruel experiments in animal research labs – much less in China or other adversarial countries,” said McClain. “This common-sense legislation ensures taxpayer dollars are not wasted on reckless research.”
    “White Coat Waste applauds Sen. Joni Ernst for reintroducing the AFAR Act just in time for Tax Day because Americans’ hard-earned money shouldn’t be wasted on funding foreign adversaries’ animal labs,” said Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President at government watchdog White Coat Waste. “As White Coat Waste first exposed in Wuhan five years ago, shipping taxpayer dollars to unaccountable animal testing labs in China and other adversarial nations is a recipe for disaster. Despite our progress since 2020 and in the first few months of the new Trump Administration, we’ve uncovered how twenty Chinese animal labs are still eligible to receive taxpayers’ money, including one that’s currently abusing 300 beagles a week in wasteful and cruel NIH-funded drug tests. Cutting cash for foreign enemies’ animal labs is common sense, consistent with Trump priorities, and backed by over 70 percent of taxpayers. Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
    Background:
    Ernst has long fought to stop tax dollars from being sent overseas for risky research.
    An Ernst-requested investigation exposed how EcoHealth sent over $1 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for risky experiments on bat coronaviruses. She also secured an audit by the Department of Defense’s Inspector General of risky research in China paid for by the Pentagon and hidden from the public. 
    She led the charge to permanently debar the Wuhan Institute of Virology and defund EcoHealth Alliance from receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars.
    Ernst efforts also led to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defunding EcoHealth and promising to cut off any taxpayer dollars used for research of pandemic potential.
    In her $2 trillion blueprint to slash waste in Washington, Ernst pointed to the millions being sent to China for secretive risky research.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Ernst, Stefanik Expose Tax Dollars to China

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)

    WASHINGTON – As hardworking Americans report and pay taxes on every dollar earned under the threat of an audit, this Tax Day, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) are forcing Washington to live by the same rules when sending tax dollars to China.
    After exposing that the Biden administration sent more than $18 million to China for everything from a bakery roadshow to DEI trainings, the lawmakers are introducing a new bill to require every penny sent to foreign adversaries be publicly disclosed.
    “Americans should never send a cent to China,” said Ernst. “But you cannot stop what you cannot see. I am exposing every single tax dollar sent overseas to scrutinize and halt all wasteful spending.”
    “My legislation will ensure hardworking taxpayer dollars are not funding our adversaries including Communist China as they work against American interests,” said Stefanik. “The days of poor stewardship over American dollars under the Biden Administration are long gone as House Republicans join President Trump in his efforts of rooting out government waste, fraud, and abuse.”
    While most of the $18 million sent to China was publicly disclosed, more than $4 million sent by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was not, and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit confirmed that not all money being sent to China is being publicly disclosed.
    To ensure that the American people know how their money is spent, Ernst and Stefanik are introducing the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act to require every penny sent to foreign adversaries or entities of particular concern, such as terrorist groups including the Taliban, to be accounted for and disclosed to the public for scrutiny.
    Background:
    Ernst has long fought to stop tax dollars from being sent overseas for risky research.
    An Ernst-requested investigation exposed how EcoHealth sent over $1 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for risky experiments on bat coronaviruses. She also secured an audit by the Department of Defense’s Inspector General of risky research in China paid for by the Pentagon and hidden from the public.  
    She led the charge to permanently debar the Wuhan Institute of Virology and defund EcoHealth Alliance from receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars.
    Ernst efforts also led to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defunding EcoHealth and promising to cut off any taxpayer dollars used for research of pandemic potential.
    In her $2 trillion blueprint to slash waste in Washington, Ernst pointed to the millions being sent to China for secretive risky research.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: CONSUMER PRICE INDEX NUMBERS ON BASE 2012=100 FOR RURAL,

    Source: Government of India

    Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation

    CONSUMER PRICE INDEX NUMBERS ON BASE 2012=100 FOR RURAL,

    URBAN AND COMBINED FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH, 2025

    Posted On: 15 APR 2025 4:00PM by PIB Delhi

    I. Key highlights:

    1. Year-on-year inflation rate based on All India Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of March, 2025 over March, 2024 is 3.34% (Provisional). There is a decline of 27 basis points in headline inflation of March, 2025 in comparison to February, 2025. It is the lowest year-on-year inflation after August, 2019.
    1. Food Inflation: Year-on-year inflation rate based on All India Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) for the month of March, 2025 over March, 2024 is 2.69% (Provisional). Corresponding inflation rate for rural and urban are 2.82% and 2.48%, respectively. All India inflation rates for CPI (General) and CFPI over the last 13 months are shown below. A sharp decline of 106 basis point is observed in food inflation in March, 2025 in comparison to February, 2025. The food inflation in March, 2025 is the lowest after November, 2021.
    1. The significant decline in headline inflation and food inflation during the month of March, 2025 is mainly attributed to decline in inflation of Vegetables, Eggs, Pulses & products, Meat & fish, Cereals & Products and Milk & products.
    2. Rural Inflation: Sharp decline in headline and food inflation in rural sector observed in March, 2025. The headline inflation is 3.25% (provisional) in March, 2025 while the same was 3.79% in February, 2025. The CFPI based food inflation in rural sector is observed as 2.82% in March, 2025 in comparison to 4.06% in February, 2025.
    3. Urban Inflation: Marginal increase from 3.32% in February, 2025 to 3.43% (Provisional) in March, 2025 is observed in headline inflation of urban sector. However, significant decline is observed in food inflation from 3.15% in February, 2025 to 2.48% in March, 2025.
    4. Housing Inflation: Year-on-year Housing inflation rate for the month of March, 2025 is 3.03%. Corresponding inflation rate for the month of February, 2025 was 2.91%. The housing index is compiled for urban sector only.
    5. Fuel & light: Year-on-year Fuel & light inflation rate for the month of March, 2025 is 1.48%. Corresponding inflation rate for the month of February, 2025 was -1.33%. It is the combined inflation rate for both rural and urban sector.
    6. Education Inflation: Year-on-year Education inflation rate for the month of March, 2025 is 3.98%.  The inflation rate observed in the month of February, 2025 was 3.83%. It is the combined education inflation for both rural and urban sector.
    7. Health Inflation: Year-on-year Health inflation rate for the month of March, 2025 is 4.26%. Corresponding inflation rate for the month of February, 2025 was 4.12%.  It is the combined health inflation for both rural and urban sector.
    8. Transport & Communication: Year-on-year Transport & communication inflation rate for the month of March, 2025 is 3.30%. Corresponding inflation rate for the month of February, 2025 was 2.93%. It is combined inflation rate for both rural and urban sector.
    9. Top five items with highest inflation: The top five items showing highest year on year Inflation at All India level in March, 2025 are coconut oil (56.81%), coconut (42.05%), gold (34.09%), silver (31.57%) and grapes (25.55%)
    10. Top five items with lowest inflation: The key items having lowest year on year inflation in March, 2025 are ginger (-38.11%), tomato (-34.96%), cauliflower (-25.99%), jeera (-25.86%) and garlic (-25.22%). For other data related to All India Item Index and Inflation, please visit the website www.cpi.mospi.gov.in.
    11. Top five major states with high Year on Year inflation for the month of March, 2025 are shown in the graph below.

     

    1. All India Inflation rates (on point to point basis i.e. current month March, 2025 viz-a-viz last Month, i.e. February, 2025 and over same month of last year i.e. March, 2024), based on General Indices and CFPIs are given as follows:

     

    All India year-on-year inflation rates (%) based on CPI (General) and CFPI: March, 2025 over

    March, 2024

     

    March, 2025 (Prov.)

    February, 2025 (Final)

    March, 2024

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    Inflation

    CPI (General)

    3.25

    3.43

    3.34

    3.79

    3.32

    3.61

    5.51

    4.14

    4.85

    CFPI

    2.82

    2.48

    2.69

    4.06

    3.15

    3.75

    8.55

    8.41

    8.52

    Index

    CPI (General)

    193.9

    189.9

    192.0

    194.5

    190.1

    192.5

    187.8

    183.6

    185.8

    CFPI

    193.1

    198.2

    194.9

    194.8

    199.8

    196.6

    187.8

    193.4

    189.8

                          Notes: Prov.  – Provisional, Combd. – Combined

     

    1.  Monthly changes in the General Indices and CFPIs are given below:

         Monthly changes (%) in All India CPI (General) and CFPI: March, 2025 over February, 2025

    Indices

    March 2025 (Prov.)

    February, 2025 (Final)

    Monthly change (%)

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    Rural

    Urban

    Combd.

    CPI (General)

    193.9

    189.9

    192.0

    194.5

    190.1

    192.5

    -0.31

    -0.11

    -0.26

    CFPI

    193.1

    198.2

    194.9

    194.8

    199.8

    196.6

    -0.87

    -0.80

    -0.86

                                  Notes: Prov.  – Provisional, Combd. – Combined

     

    1. Response rate: The price data are collected from selected 1114 urban Markets and 1181 villages covering all States/UTs through personal visits by field staff of Field Operations Division of NSO, MoSPI on a weekly roster. During the month of March, 2025, NSO collected prices from 100% villages and 98.6% urban markets while the market-wise prices reported therein were 89.8% for rural and 92.6% for urban.
    2. Next date of release for April, 2025 CPI is 12th May, 2025 (Monday). For more details, please visit the website www.cpi.mospi.gov.in or esankhyiki.mospi.gov.in

     

    List of Annex

    Annex

    Title

    I

    All-India General, Group and Sub-group level CPI and CFPI numbers for February, 2025 (Final) and March, 2025 (Provisional) for Rural, Urban and Combined (Annexure I)

    II

    All-India inflation rates (%) for General, Group and Sub-group level CPI and CFPI numbers for March, 2025 (Provisional) for Rural, Urban and Combined (Annexure II)

    III

    General CPI for States for Rural, Urban and Combined for February, 2025 (Final) and March, 2025 (Provisional) (Annexure III)

    IV

    Year-on-year inflation rates (%) of major States for Rural, Urban and Combined for March, 2025 (Provisional) (Annexure IV)

    V

     Time Series Data for All India General CPI (Base 2012 =100) Since January, 2013 (Annexure V)

    VI

                                                                                                     

    Annexure- I

    All-India General, Group and Sub-group level CPI and CFPI numbers for February, 2025 (Final) and March, 2025 (Provisional) for Rural, Urban and Combined (Base: 2012=100)

    Group Code

    Sub-group Code

    Description

    Rural

    Urban

    Combined

     

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

     

    (1)

    (2)

    (3)

    (4)

    (5)

    (6)

    (7)

    (8)

    (9)

    (10)

    (11)

    (12)

     

     

    1.1.01

    Cereals and products

    12.35

    200.6

    200.8

    6.59

    198.6

    198.9

    9.67

    200.0

    200.2

     

     

    1.1.02

    Meat and fish

    4.38

    219.1

    218.1

    2.73

    229.0

    228.3

    3.61

    222.6

    221.7

     

     

    1.1.03

    Egg

    0.49

    194.9

    185.3

    0.36

    200.0

    190.3

    0.43

    196.9

    187.2

     

     

    1.1.04

    Milk and products

    7.72

    187.6

    187.9

    5.33

    188.4

    188.3

    6.61

    187.9

    188.0

     

     

    1.1.05

    Oils and fats

    4.21

    188.9

    189.7

    2.81

    176.0

    177.4

    3.56

    184.2

    185.2

     

     

    1.1.06

    Fruits

    2.88

    195.1

    201.6

    2.90

    198.7

    204.7

    2.89

    196.8

    203.0

     

     

    1.1.07

    Vegetables

    7.46

    181.2

    171.0

    4.41

    216.8

    204.3

    6.04

    193.3

    182.3

     

     

    1.1.08

    Pulses and products

    2.95

    200.2

    194.3

    1.73

    205.1

    199.3

    2.38

    201.9

    196.0

     

     

    1.1.09

    Sugar and Confectionery

    1.70

    131.4

    133.1

    0.97

    133.8

    135.0

    1.36

    132.2

    133.7

     

     

    1.1.10

    Spices

    3.11

    224.8

    222.9

    1.79

    222.1

    220.5

    2.50

    223.9

    222.1

     

     

    1.2.11

    Non-alcoholic beverages

    1.37

    188.3

    188.9

    1.13

    177.3

    178.0

    1.26

    183.7

    184.3

     

     

    1.1.12

    Prepared meals, snacks, sweets etc.

    5.56

    202.4

    202.9

    5.54

    214.0

    214.9

    5.55

    207.8

    208.5

     

    1

     

    Food and beverages

    54.18

    195.4

    194.0

    36.29

    201.3

    200.1

    45.86

    197.6

    196.2

     

    2

     

    Pan, tobacco and intoxicants

    3.26

    209.0

    209.7

    1.36

    213.4

    213.8

    2.38

    210.2

    210.8

     

     

    3.1.01

    Clothing

    6.32

    200.7

    201.0

    4.72

    190.8

    191.2

    5.58

    196.8

    197.1

     

     

    3.1.02

    Footwear

    1.04

    194.1

    194.3

    0.85

    176.2

    176.7

    0.95

    186.7

    187.0

     

    3

     

    Clothing and footwear

    7.36

    199.8

    200.0

    5.57

    188.6

    189.0

    6.53

    195.4

    195.6

     

    4

     

    Housing

    –

    –

    –

    21.67

    183.7

    183.6

    10.07

    183.7

    183.6

     

    5

     

    Fuel and light

    7.94

    182.8

    182.7

    5.58

    171.0

    171.3

    6.84

    178.3

    178.4

     

     

    6.1.01

    Household goods and services

    3.75

    187.7

    187.3

    3.87

    179.1

    179.6

    3.80

    183.6

    183.7

     

     

    6.1.02

    Health

    6.83

    201.6

    202.4

    4.81

    196.3

    197.4

    5.89

    199.6

    200.5

     

     

    6.1.03

    Transport and communication

    7.60

    177.7

    178.1

    9.73

    166.6

    166.9

    8.59

    171.9

    172.2

     

     

    6.1.04

    Recreation and amusement

    1.37

    181.9

    181.1

    2.04

    177.3

    177.7

    1.68

    179.3

    179.2

     

     

    6.1.05

    Education

    3.46

    192.6

    193.1

    5.62

    188.2

    188.6

    4.46

    190.0

    190.5

     

     

    6.1.06

    Personal care and effects

    4.25

    214.2

    216.8

    3.47

    216.3

    219.2

    3.89

    215.1

    217.8

     

    6

     

    Miscellaneous

    27.26

    192.9

    193.5

    29.53

    183.8

    184.6

    28.32

    188.5

    189.2

     

    General Index (All Groups)

    100.00

    194.5

    193.9

    100.00

    190.1

    189.9

    100.00

    192.5

    192.0

     

     

    Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI)

    47.25

    194.8

    193.1

    29.62

    199.8

    198.2

    39.06

    196.6

    194.9

     

     

     

    Notes:

    1. Prov.       : Provisional.
    2. CFPI        : Out of 12 sub-groups contained in ‘Food and Beverages’ group, CFPI is based on ten sub-groups, excluding ‘Non-alcoholic beverages’ and ‘Prepared meals, snacks, sweets etc.’.
    1. –   : CPI (Rural) for housing is not compiled.

    Annexure- II

     

    All-India year-on-year inflation rates (%) for General, Group and Sub-group level CPI and CFPI numbers for March, 2025 (Provisional) for Rural, Urban and Combined (Base: 2012=100)

     

    Group Code

    Sub-group Code

    Description

    Rural

    Urban

    Combined

     

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

     

    (1)

    (2)

    (3)

    (4)

    (5)

    (6)

    (7)

    (8)

    (9)

    (10)

    (11)

    (12)

     
     

    1.1.01

    Cereals and products

    189.3

    200.8

    6.08

    188.5

    198.9

    5.52

    189.0

    200.2

    5.93

     
     

    1.1.02

    Meat and fish

    217.9

    218.1

    0.09

    226.7

    228.3

    0.71

    221.0

    221.7

    0.32

     
     

    1.1.03

    Egg

    192.7

    185.3

    -3.84

    194.3

    190.3

    -2.06

    193.3

    187.2

    -3.16

     
     

    1.1.04

    Milk and products

    183.2

    187.9

    2.57

    183.6

    188.3

    2.56

    183.3

    188.0

    2.56

     
     

    1.1.05

    Oils and fats

    160.2

    189.7

    18.41

    154.7

    177.4

    14.67

    158.2

    185.2

    17.07

     
     

    1.1.06

    Fruits

    172.8

    201.6

    16.67

    176.7

    204.7

    15.85

    174.6

    203.0

    16.27

     
     

    1.1.07

    Vegetables

    182.5

    171.0

    -6.30

    222.6

    204.3

    -8.22

    196.1

    182.3

    -7.04

     
     

    1.1.08

    Pulses and products

    199.7

    194.3

    -2.70

    205.0

    199.3

    -2.78

    201.5

    196.0

    -2.73

     
     

    1.1.09

    Sugar and Confectionery

    128.0

    133.1

    3.98

    130.1

    135.0

    3.77

    128.7

    133.7

    3.89

     
     

    1.1.10

    Spices

    236.3

    222.9

    -5.67

    228.2

    220.5

    -3.37

    233.6

    222.1

    -4.92

     
     

    1.2.11

    Non-alcoholic beverages

    182.1

    188.9

    3.73

    170.3

    178.0

    4.52

    177.2

    184.3

    4.01

     
     

    1.1.12

    Prepared meals, snacks, sweets etc.

    195.9

    202.9

    3.57

    204.6

    214.9

    5.03

    199.9

    208.5

    4.30

     

    1

    		  

    Food and beverages

    188.5

    194.0

    2.92

    194.4

    200.1

    2.93

    190.7

    196.2

    2.88

     

    2

    		  

    Pan, tobacco and intoxicants

    204.0

    209.7

    2.79

    210.2

    213.8

    1.71

    205.7

    210.8

    2.48

     
     

    3.1.01

    Clothing

    195.8

    201.0

    2.66

    185.8

    191.2

    2.91

    191.9

    197.1

    2.71

     
     

    3.1.02

    Footwear

    191.1

    194.3

    1.67

    172.3

    176.7

    2.55

    183.3

    187.0

    2.02

     

    3

    		  

    Clothing and footwear

    195.1

    200.0

    2.51

    183.8

    189.0

    2.83

    190.6

    195.6

    2.62

     

    4

    		  

    Housing

    –

    –

    –

    178.2

    183.6

    3.03

    178.2

    183.6

    3.03

     

    5

    		  

    Fuel and light

    181.0

    182.7

    0.94

    167.4

    171.3

    2.33

    175.8

    178.4

    1.48

     
     

    6.1.01

    Household goods and services

    183.3

    187.3

    2.18

    174.0

    179.6

    3.22

    178.9

    183.7

    2.68

     
     

    6.1.02

    Health

    194.3

    202.4

    4.17

    189.1

    197.4

    4.39

    192.3

    200.5

    4.26

     
     

    6.1.03

    Transport and communication

    172.0

    178.1

    3.55

    161.9

    166.9

    3.09

    166.7

    172.2

    3.30

     
     

    6.1.04

    Recreation and amusement

    177.8

    181.1

    1.86

    172.8

    177.7

    2.84

    175.0

    179.2

    2.40

     
     

    6.1.05

    Education

    186.1

    193.1

    3.76

    181.2

    188.6

    4.08

    183.2

    190.5

    3.98

     
     

    6.1.06

    Personal care and effects

    191.3

    216.8

    13.33

    192.8

    219.2

    13.69

    191.9

    217.8

    13.50

     

    6

    		  

    Miscellaneous

    184.2

    193.5

    5.05

    176.0

    184.6

    4.89

    180.2

    189.2

    4.99

     

    General Index (All Groups)

    187.8

    193.9

    3.25

    183.6

    189.9

    3.43

    185.8

    192.0

    3.34

     

     

     

    Consumer Food Price Index

    187.8

    193.1

    2.82

    193.4

    198.2

    2.48

    189.8

    194.9

    2.69

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Notes:

    1. Prov.       : Provisional.
    2. –               : CPI (Rural) for housing is not compiled.

     

    Annexure- III

     

    General CPI for States for Rural, Urban and Combined for February, 2025 (Final) and March, 2025 (Provisional) (Base: 2012=100)

     

    Sl. No.

    Name of the State/UT

    Rural

    Urban

    Combined

     

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

    Weights

    Feb. 25 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25 Index
    (Prov.)

     

    (1)

    (2)

    (3)

    (4)

    (5)

    (6)

    (7)

    (8)

    (9)

    (10)

    (11)

     

    1

    Andhra Pradesh

    5.40

    196.3

    195.7

    3.64

    198.5

    197.9

    4.58

    197.1

    196.5

     

    2

    Arunachal Pradesh

    0.14

    196.9

    196.2

    0.06

    —

    —

    0.10

    196.9

    196.2

     

    3

    Assam

    2.63

    196.8

    195.8

    0.79

    194.4

    194.0

    1.77

    196.3

    195.4

     

    4

    Bihar

    8.21

    187.8

    187.4

    1.62

    197.8

    197.2

    5.14

    189.3

    188.8

     

    5

    Chhattisgarh

    1.68

    186.6

    185.7

    1.22

    181.4

    180.8

    1.46

    184.6

    183.8

     

    6

    Delhi

    0.28

    174.5

    174.2

    5.64

    171.6

    171.8

    2.77

    171.8

    171.9

     

    7

    Goa

    0.14

    184.0

    185.6

    0.25

    182.1

    182.8

    0.19

    182.8

    183.9

     

    8

    Gujarat

    4.54

    189.4

    188.7

    6.82

    178.6

    179.0

    5.60

    183.3

    183.2

     

    9

    Haryana

    3.30

    196.2

    196.1

    3.35

    184.0

    184.6

    3.32

    190.5

    190.7

     

    10

    Himachal Pradesh

    1.03

    180.0

    179.4

    0.26

    184.9

    184.7

    0.67

    180.9

    180.4

     

    11

    Jharkhand

    1.96

    186.2

    185.1

    1.39

    189.6

    189.8

    1.69

    187.5

    186.9

     

    12

    Karnataka

    5.09

    199.1

    198.3

    6.81

    201.0

    201.0

    5.89

    200.1

    199.8

     

    13

    Kerala

    5.50

    207.6

    207.5

    3.46

    201.6

    201.4

    4.55

    205.5

    205.3

     

    14

    Madhya Pradesh

    4.93

    191.5

    191.1

    3.97

    192.4

    192.4

    4.48

    191.9

    191.6

     

    15

    Maharashtra

    8.25

    192.4

    192.0

    18.86

    186.7

    186.6

    13.18

    188.6

    188.4

     

    16

    Manipur

    0.23

    229.5

    227.2

    0.12

    189.2

    188.7

    0.18

    216.7

    215.0

     

    17

    Meghalaya

    0.28

    178.6

    178.2

    0.15

    186.5

    186.0

    0.22

    181.1

    180.6

     

    18

    Mizoram

    0.07

    207.3

    207.1

    0.13

    181.5

    181.9

    0.10

    191.6

    191.7

     

    19

    Nagaland

    0.14

    202.4

    201.5

    0.12

    184.4

    184.3

    0.13

    194.7

    194.2

     

    20

    Odisha

    2.93

    196.4

    195.3

    1.31

    186.7

    186.1

    2.18

    193.7

    192.7

     

    21

    Punjab

    3.31

    188.6

    188.8

    3.09

    178.3

    179.3

    3.21

    184.0

    184.5

     

    22

    Rajasthan

    6.63

    190.5

    189.9

    4.23

    188.2

    188.1

    5.51

    189.7

    189.3

     

    23

    Sikkim

    0.06

    203.1

    201.4

    0.03

    188.1

    187.8

    0.05

    198.2

    197.0

     

    24

    Tamil Nadu

    5.55

    202.3

    200.3

    9.20

    199.2

    198.3

    7.25

    200.5

    199.1

     

    25

    Telangana

    3.16

    203.4

    202.2

    4.41

    199.9

    198.5

    3.74

    201.5

    200.2

     

    26

    Tripura

    0.35

    208.5

    209.8

    0.14

    200.0

    199.4

    0.25

    206.3

    207.1

     

    27

    Uttar Pradesh

    14.83

    193.1

    192.8

    9.54

    190.2

    190.2

    12.37

    192.1

    191.9

     

    28

    Uttarakhand

    1.06

    187.2

    187.4

    0.73

    192.3

    192.7

    0.91

    189.1

    189.4

     

    29

    West Bengal

    6.99

    196.8

    196.5

    7.20

    193.8

    193.4

    7.09

    195.4

    195.0

     

    30

    Andaman & Nicobar Islands

    0.05

    200.1

    200.1

    0.07

    188.2

    187.6

    0.06

    194.0

    193.7

     

    31

    Chandigarh

    0.02

    189.9

    190.0

    0.34

    177.5

    177.6

    0.17

    178.2

    178.3

     

    32

    Dadra & Nagar Haveli

    0.02

    178.5

    176.7

    0.04

    186.3

    185.2

    0.03

    183.7

    182.4

     

    33

    Daman & Diu

    0.02

    197.6

    196.9

    0.02

    186.8

    186.4

    0.02

    193.1

    192.5

     

    34

    Jammu & Kashmir*

    1.14

    204.7

    205.4

    0.72

    197.7

    197.7

    0.94

    202.2

    202.7

     

    35

    Lakshadweep

    0.01

    198.3

    197.9

    0.01

    188.1

    189.6

    0.01

    193.1

    193.7

     

    36

    Puducherry

    0.08

    206.6

    203.9

    0.27

    197.6

    196.5

    0.17

    199.9

    198.4

     

    All India

    100.00

    194.5

    193.9

    100.00

    190.1

    189.9

    100.00

    192.5

    192.0

     

    Notes:

    1. Prov.:  Provisional
    2. –:  indicates the receipt of price schedules is less than 80% of allocated schedules and therefore indices are not compiled.
    3. *: Figures of this row pertain to the prices and weights of the combined Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir

    and Ladakh (erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir).

     

    Annexure- IV

     

    Year-on-year inflation rates (%) of major@ States for Rural, Urban and Combined for March, 2025 (Provisional) (Base: 2012=100)

    Sl. No.

    Name of the State/UT

    Rural

    Urban

    Combined

     

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

    Mar. 24 Index
    (Final)

    Mar. 25

    Index
    (Prov.)

    Inflation Rate
    (%)

     

    (1)

    (2)

    (3)

    (4)

    (5)

    (6)

    (7)

    (8)

    (9)

    (10)

    (11)

     

    1

    Andhra Pradesh

    191.6

    195.7

    2.14

    191.9

    197.9

    3.13

    191.7

    196.5

    2.50

     

    2

    Assam

    189.4

    195.8

    3.38

    184.8

    194.0

    4.98

    188.5

    195.4

    3.66

     

    3

    Bihar

    182.2

    187.4

    2.85

    188.7

    197.2

    4.50

    183.1

    188.8

    3.11

     

    4

    Chhattisgarh

    177.4

    185.7

    4.68

    174.5

    180.8

    3.61

    176.3

    183.8

    4.25

     

    5

    Delhi

    169.6

    174.2

    2.71

    169.4

    171.8

    1.42

    169.4

    171.9

    1.48

     

    6

    Gujarat

    183.9

    188.7

    2.61

    174.3

    179.0

    2.70

    178.5

    183.2

    2.63

     

    7

    Haryana

    188.9

    196.1

    3.81

    177.8

    184.6

    3.82

    183.7

    190.7

    3.81

     

    8

    Himachal Pradesh

    173.9

    179.4

    3.16

    178.7

    184.7

    3.36

    174.8

    180.4

    3.20

     

    9

    Jharkhand

    182.5

    185.1

    1.42

    184.0

    189.8

    3.15

    183.1

    186.9

    2.08

     

    10

    Karnataka

    190.5

    198.3

    4.09

    191.9

    201.0

    4.74

    191.3

    199.8

    4.44

     

    11

    Kerala

    193.4

    207.5

    7.29

    191.1

    201.4

    5.39

    192.6

    205.3

    6.59

     

    12

    Madhya Pradesh

    184.7

    191.1

    3.47

    187.4

    192.4

    2.67

    185.8

    191.6

    3.12

     

    13

    Maharashtra

    186.3

    192.0

    3.06

    179.0

    186.6

    4.25

    181.4

    188.4

    3.86

     

    14

    Odisha

    188.8

    195.3

    3.44

    181.3

    186.1

    2.65

    186.7

    192.7

    3.21

     

    15

    Punjab

    181.4

    188.8

    4.08

    173.8

    179.3

    3.16

    178.0

    184.5

    3.65

     

    16

    Rajasthan

    184.9

    189.9

    2.70

    183.6

    188.1

    2.45

    184.4

    189.3

    2.66

     

    17

    Tamil Nadu

    193.3

    200.3

    3.62

    190.9

    198.3

    3.88

    191.9

    199.1

    3.75

     

    18

    Telangana

    201.8

    202.2

    0.20

    195.0

    198.5

    1.79

    198.1

    200.2

    1.06

     

    19

    Uttar Pradesh

    187.2

    192.8

    2.99

    184.8

    190.2

    2.92

    186.3

    191.9

    3.01

     

    20

    Uttarakhand

    181.9

    187.4

    3.02

    183.6

    192.7

    4.96

    182.5

    189.4

    3.78

     

    21

    West Bengal

    190.5

    196.5

    3.15

    187.3

    193.4

    3.26

    189.0

    195.0

    3.17

     

    22

    Jammu & Kashmir*

    196.8

    205.4

    4.37

    191.4

    197.7

    3.29

    194.9

    202.7

    4.00

     

    All India

    187.8

    193.9

    3.25

    183.6

    189.9

    3.43

    185.8

    192.0

    3.34

     

    Notes:

    1. Prov.     :  Provisional.
    2. *               : Figures of this row pertain to the prices and weights of the combined Union Territories of Jammu &                            Kashmir and Ladakh (erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir).
    3. @               : States having population more than 50 lakhs as per Population Census 2011.

     

    Annexure-V

    Time Series Data for All India General CPI (Base 2012 =100) Since January, 2013

     

    Year

    Jan

    Feb

    Mar

    Apr

    May

    Jun

    Jul

    Aug

    Sep

    Oct

    Nov

    Dec

    2013

    104.6

    105.3

    105.5

    106.1

    106.9

    109.3

    111.0

    112.4

    113.7

    114.8

    116.3

    114.5

    2014

    113.6

    113.6

    114.2

    115.1

    115.8

    116.7

    119.2

    120.3

    120.1

    120.1

    120.1

    119.4

    2015

    119.5

    119.7

    120.2

    120.7

    121.6

    123.0

    123.6

    124.8

    125.4

    126.1

    126.6

    126.1

    2016

    126.3

    126.0

    126.0

    127.3

    128.6

    130.1

    131.1

    131.1

    130.9

    131.4

    131.2

    130.4

    2017

    130.3

    130.6

    130.9

    131.1

    131.4

    132.0

    134.2

    135.4

    135.2

    136.1

    137.6

    137.2

    2018

    136.9

    136.4

    136.5

    137.1

    137.8

    138.5

    139.8

    140.4

    140.2

    140.7

    140.8

    140.1

    2019

    139.6

    139.9

    140.4

    141.2

    142.0

    142.9

    144.2

    145.0

    145.8

    147.2

    148.6

    150.4

    2020

    150.2

    149.1

    148.6

    151.4

    150.9

    151.8

    153.9

    154.7

    156.4

    158.4

    158.9

    157.3

    2021

    156.3

    156.6

    156.8

    157.8

    160.4

    161.3

    162.5

    162.9

    163.2

    165.5

    166.7

    166.2

    2022

    165.7

    166.1

    167.7

    170.1

    171.7

    172.6

    173.4

    174.3

    175.3

    176.7

    176.5

    175.7

    2023

    176.5

    176.8

    177.2

    178.1

    179.1

    181.0

    186.3

    186.2

    184.1

    185.3

    186.3

    185.7

    2024

    185.5

    185.8

    185.8

    186.7

    187.7

    190.2

    193.0

    193.0

    194.2

    196.8

    196.5

    195.4

    2025

    193.4

    192.5

    192.0*

    		                  

     

    Notes:

    1. * : Index Value for March 2025  is  Provisional.

     

    Annexure-VI

    Year

    Jan

    Feb

    Mar

    Apr

    May

    Jun

    Jul

    Aug

    Sep

    Oct

    Nov

    Dec

    2014

    8.60

    7.88

    8.25

    8.48

    8.33

    6.77

    7.39

    7.03

    5.63

    4.62

    3.27

    4.28

    2015

    5.19

    5.37

    5.25

    4.87

    5.01

    5.40

    3.69

    3.74

    4.41

    5.00

    5.41

    5.61

    2016

    5.69

    5.26

    4.83

    5.47

    5.76

    5.77

    6.07

    5.05

    4.39

    4.20

    3.63

    3.41

    2017

    3.17

    3.65

    3.89

    2.99

    2.18

    1.46

    2.36

    3.28

    3.28

    3.58

    4.88

    5.21

    2018

    5.07

    4.44

    4.28

    4.58

    4.87

    4.92

    4.17

    3.69

    3.70

    3.38

    2.33

    2.11

    2019

    1.97

    2.57

    2.86

    2.99

    3.05

    3.18

    3.15

    3.28

    3.99

    4.62

    5.54

    7.35

    2020

    7.59

    6.58

    5.84

    –

    –

    6.23

    6.73

    6.69

    7.27

    7.61

    6.93

    4.59

    2021

    4.06

    5.03

    5.52

    4.23

    6.30

    6.26

    5.59

    5.30

    4.35

    4.48

    4.91

    5.66

    2022

    6.01

    6.07

    6.95

    7.79

    7.04

    7.01

    6.71

    7.00

    7.41

    6.77

    5.88

    5.72

    2023

    6.52

    6.44

    5.66

    4.70

    4.31

    4.87

    7.44

    6.83

    5.02

    4.87

    5.55

    5.69

    2024

    5.10

    5.09

    4.85

    4.83

    4.80

    5.08

    3.60

    3.65

    5.49

    6.21

    5.48

    5.22

    2025

    4.26

    3.61

    3.34*

    		                  

     

    Notes:

    1. * : Inflation Value for March  2025  is Provisional.
    2. – : Inflation was not compiled and released due to Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. 

    Click here to see PDF.

    ****

    Samrat

    (Release ID: 2121843)

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI: Malaga Financial Corporation Reports Strong First Quarter Earnings

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    PALOS VERDES ESTATES, Calif., April 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Malaga Financial Corporation “Company” (OTCPink:MLGF), the parent company of Malaga Bank FSB, today reported that net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 was $5,404,000 ($0.57 basic and fully diluted earnings per share), a decrease of $608,000 or 10% from net income of $6,012,000 ($0.64 basic and fully diluted earnings per share, as adjusted for the stock dividend declared on November 15, 2024) for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. For the first quarter of 2025, the Company’s annualized return on average equity was 10.16% and the annualized return on average assets was 1.55%, as compared to 12.06% and 1.64%, respectively, for the same period in 2024.

    The Company did not have any delinquent loans or foreclosed real estate owned at March 31, 2025. The Company’s allowance for credit losses was $3,730,000, or 0.30% of total loans, at March 31, 2025.

    Net interest income totaled $11,129,000 in the first quarter of 2025, a decrease of $44,000 or 0.39% from the first quarter of 2024. This decrease is due to an overall decrease in average-interest earning assets of $76.4 million offset by an increase of 0.12% in the interest spread to 2.98%. The increase in interest spread is primarily attributable to a 0.12% increase in yield on average interest-earning assets as the average cost of funds was unchanged.

    In the first quarter of 2025, the Company recorded $13,000 in expenses (net of tax) related to the Employment Retention Credit (ERC) versus $494,000 in income (net of tax) in the first quarter of 2024. The ERC is a credit against certain employment taxes for eligible employers based on certain wages paid after March 12, 2020, through September 30, 2021. The Company qualified for the ERC based on the partial suspension of our business due to government orders related to Covid-19 pandemic.

    In the first quarter of 2025, operating expenses increased 3% to $3,692,000 from $3,581,000 in the first quarter of 2024. The increase is primarily attributed to increases in compensation of $55,000, and general and administrative expenses of $53,000.

    Randy C. Bowers, Chairman, President and CEO, commented, “First quarter 2025 presented continued volatility with increasing uncertainty in both economic markets and the political environment. We are generally pleased with our results for the period and note the year-over-year impact of the 2024 ERC credit. Credit quality remains excellent, net interest spread has improved and expenses are well controlled. We anticipate the rest of the year to be challenging and are preparing to address changes as they become apparent. We appreciate the efforts of our colleagues and loyalty of our shareholders as we continue to adapt in this difficult environment.”

    Malaga’s total assets decreased to $1.381 billion at March 31, 2025, compared to $1.456 billion at March 31, 2024. The loan portfolio at March 31, 2025, was $1.226 billion, a decrease of $37 million or 3% from March 31, 2024. Malaga originates loans principally for its own portfolio and not for sale.

    Malaga funds its assets with a mix of retail deposits, wholesale deposits and FHLB borrowings. Retail deposits totaled $714 million as of March 31, 2025, a $36 million decrease from $750 million at March 31, 2024. Much of this outflow was a result of depositors seeking higher returns in alternative investments. Wholesale deposits, comprised mainly of State of California certificates of deposit and longer-term brokered deposits, totaled $226 million as of March 31, 2025, a $57 million increase from $169 million at March 31, 2024. FHLB borrowings decreased $110 million or 35% from $310 million at March 31, 2024, to $200 million at March 31, 2025. Malaga Bank utilizes FHLB borrowings and longer-term wholesale deposits as a tool to manage interest rate risk associated with growth of the loan portfolio.

    As of March 31, 2025, Malaga Bank was in compliance with all applicable regulatory capital requirements and was deemed “well-capitalized” under applicable regulations. Core capital and risk-based capital ratios were 16.21% and 28.63%, respectively, at March 31, 2025, significantly exceeding the minimum “well-capitalized” requirements of 5% and 10%, respectively.

    Malaga Bank, a subsidiary of Malaga Financial Corporation, is a full-service community bank headquartered on the Palos Verdes Peninsula with six offices located in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. For over fifteen years Malaga Bank has been consistently recommended by one of the nation’s leading independent bank rating and research firms, Bauer Financial Inc. Malaga Bank was awarded Bauer’s premier Top 5-Star rating for the 69th consecutive quarter as of December 2024. Since 1985, Malaga Bank has been delivering competitive banking services to residents and businesses of the South Bay, including real estate loan products custom-tailored to consumers and investors. As the largest community bank in the South Bay, Malaga is proud of its continuing tradition of relationship-based banking and legendary customer service. The Bank’s web site is located at www.malagabank.com.

    Contact: Randy Bowers
      Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer               
      Malaga Financial Corporation
      310-375-9000
      rbowers@malagabank.com 

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Des Moines food pantries face spiking demand as the Iowa region’s SNAP enrollment declines

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lendie R. Follett, Associate Professor of Business Analytics, Drake University

    A volunteer loads food into a bag at the Des Moines Area Religious Council food pantry in 2020. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

    As part of its drive to cut federal spending, the Trump administration has paused over US$500 million of funds that had previously flowed annually to food banks across the U.S. It’s not the only policy change that could make it harder than it already is for many Americans to get enough to eat.

    I’m a professor of statistics who finds hidden patterns in data related to food insecurity in Iowa. I also serve on the board of directors of Iowa’s largest network of food pantries.

    Food pantries in Iowa have seen demand for their assistance soar in recent years. At the same time, fewer Iowans have been enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, through which low-income Americans get money from the government to buy groceries.

    Hunger in the breadbasket of the world

    It may seem illogical that anyone in Iowa would need help obtaining food.

    Known as the “breadbasket of the world,” my state plays a crucial role in food production as a top supplier of grain, meats and eggs to both domestic and international markets.

    For example, in 2023, Iowa led the nation in corn production, harvesting over 2.5 billion bushels. It’s also the top producer of eggs, supplying more than 13 billion eggs per year.

    Despite this agricultural abundance, food insecurity – not being able to maintain an adequate diet – is a pressing issue. In 2022, an estimated 1 in 9 Iowans were hungry. This rate was even higher among children: 1 in 6.

    Des Moines Area Religious Council Food Pantry worker Patrick Minor looks over a cooler full of ground pork packages during a pantry stop in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2020.
    AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

    Food pantries struggle to keep up

    Many food-insecure families turn to food pantries to fill their refrigerators and cupboards.

    The Des Moines Area Religious Council operates 14 food pantries in the Polk County area. This network of food pantries has been seeing record-breaking demand. It provided food to more than 70,000 people in 2024, up from 59,000 a year earlier.

    About 35% of the people it supports are children. This rate has been increasing since government phased out COVID-19 pandemic-era programs, such as the Child Tax Credit expansion and summer EBT, a federal nutrition program that helped low-income families feed their kids when schools were closed.

    Some 19% of food pantry clients in the Des Moines region are unemployed adults, only 8% are people who are 65 and up, and 38% are adults who are either working or have disabilities.

    Scaling back benefits in 2022

    Early in the pandemic, Congress temporarily expanded SNAP by providing everyone enrolled in the program with the maximum amount of benefits for which they were eligible based on the number of people in their family, regardless of their income. Normally, only 37% of the people who get SNAP benefits get the maximum amount. For 2025, for example, a family of three can get up to $768 a month through the program.

    In March 2022, Iowa became one of the first states to end this policy, creating a natural experiment of sorts at a time when food prices were rising quickly.

    As you might expect, the number of clients visiting food pantries surged once that policy changed. This trend continued throughout 2024, with many months of record-breaking demand at the state’s food pantries.

    Hunger is up, SNAP enrollment is down

    While most food pantry visitors in Polk County qualify for at least some SNAP benefits, only around 1 in 3 are enrolled in the program today, down from 44% in 2020.

    This decline in SNAP enrollment is placing more pressure on the food pantries trying to make up the difference.

    Low SNAP enrollment rates can be partly explained by low benefit amounts, which is all that some eligible individuals and families qualify for.

    Recent laws have made it more difficult for families to be eligible to receive benefits. In 2023, Iowa introduced a state-specific asset test, which limits the total assets of all members of a family to $15,000 in order to maintain eligibility. This test includes the value of boats, vacation homes and savings accounts. It also includes a second vehicle used for household transportation purposes, but not a family’s primary residence.

    Another consideration is time management, especially in light of the additional administrative hurdles.

    “The time it is taking these working households to get and maintain their SNAP benefits is significantly more time and effort than simply visiting a local food pantry,” said Matt Unger, Des Moines Area Religious Council’s CEO. “Here in Iowa, we are facing nearly a 17-year low in SNAP enrollment while food banks and food pantries across the state are breaking records every month. Something just doesn’t add up.”

    Congress is currently deciding whether to cut SNAP spending. If lawmakers do that, benefits will decline, increasing the strain on food pantries in Iowa and everywhere else across the country.

    Lendie R. Follett is affiliated with the Des Moines Area Religious Council. She currently serves on the board of directors.

    – ref. Des Moines food pantries face spiking demand as the Iowa region’s SNAP enrollment declines – https://theconversation.com/des-moines-food-pantries-face-spiking-demand-as-the-iowa-regions-snap-enrollment-declines-252351

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Building contractor sentenced for £50,000 Covid loan fraud

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Building contractor sentenced for £50,000 Covid loan fraud

    Florin-Petrica Bodale, who was a sole trader operating as a building contractor, exaggerated his turnover to obtain the maximum Bounce Back Loan.

    • Florin-Petrica Bodale was a building contractor and sole trader, operating in Harrow.  

    • He claimed his business had a turnover of more than £200,000 to claim the maximum Covid Bounce Back loan.  

    • He was sentenced to 13-months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, following a hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court.  

    A building contractor who fraudulently claimed a £50,000 Covid Bounce Back loan has received a 13-month suspended sentence.  

    Florin-Petrica Bodale operated as a building contractor offering plumbing, heating and air-conditioning installation and was based in Harrow, London.  

    In November 2020, the 34-year-old successfully applied to a bank for a Covid Bounce Back loan of £50,000.  

    But an Insolvency Service investigation found that he had falsely claimed the company’s turnover was £240,000 to receive the maximum loan available.  

    In reality, the turnover of the company was around £22,000 – meaning he was only entitled to £5,500. 

    On 10 April 2025, at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Bodale was sentenced to 13-months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, for one count of fraud by false representation.   

    He was also ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work.  

    Insolvency Service Chief Investigator David Snasdell said: 

    Florin-Petrica Bodale falsely claimed a much higher turnover for his business and the reality of this is a notable sentence on top of his earlier disqualification as a director.  

    These loans were intended to help keep small businesses afloat, not to take money from the public purse that businesses were not entitled to. 

    We will continue in our efforts to bring those who abuse this scheme to justice.

    In 2022, before the criminal investigation, Bodale signed a ten-year bankruptcy restriction undertaking which also included a ten-year director disqualification following a civil investigation by the Insolvency Service. 

    The court noted that he had repaid some money as part of the bankruptcy process. 

    Measures were introduced during 2020 to support businesses affected by COVID-19 such as loans, grants and tax allowances. The Bounce Back loan scheme helped small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000, at a low interest rate, guaranteed by the Government. 

    The Bounce Back loans were made on the condition that they were not to be used for personal purposes, but could be used, for example, to purchase a company asset such as a vehicle, if it would provide an economic benefit to the business. 

    Further information:  

    Updates to this page

    Published 15 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Preventive care may no longer be free in 2026 because of HIV stigma − unless the Trump administration successfully defends the ACA

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristefer Stojanovski, Assistant Professor of Social, Behavioral and Population Sciences, Tulane University

    Americans may lose free coverage for cancer and blood pressure screenings, HIV prevention medication and other essential services. Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty Images

    Many Americans were relieved when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act in place following the law’s third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision permitted widely supported policies to continue, such as ensuring health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, allowing coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan, and removing annual and lifetime benefit limits.

    But millions are still at risk of losing access to lifesaving medicine and preventive services, following the Supreme Court’s decision to hear another case – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. v. Braidwood – that has been working its way through lower courts for several years.

    Interestingly, the Trump administration has chosen to build upon the same argument the Biden administration used to defend the law.

    HIV stigma and preventive care

    The case the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in April 2025 was filed by Braidwood Management, a Christian for-profit corporation owned by Steven Hotze, a Texas physician and Republican activist who has previously filed multiple lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act.

    Braidwood and its co-plaintiffs, a group of conservative Christian employers, objected to providing their 70 employees free access to preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a medicine that prevents HIV infection. Hotze claimed that PrEP “facilitates and encourages homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman,” without citing scientific evidence to support this. He and his plaintiffs argue that religious beliefs prevent them from providing PrEP under their insurance plans.

    The AIDS epidemic has been claiming lives for decades.

    Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, the disease has been politicized and stigmatized. Because it had predominantly affected men who had sex with men, AIDS was initially called gay-related immune deficiency, making people reluctant to be associated with the disease. It was only after a teenage boy from Indiana named Ryan White contracted HIV from a blood transfusion to treat his hemophilia, along with public statements from high-profile celebrities such as Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson about their HIV status, that social attitudes began to shift with more education about AIDS.

    Yet, the same stigma is still at play in the Braidwood case and other recent policy decisions. In 2023, for example, Tennessee officials declined US$9 million in federal funding for HIV prevention. Those federal funds focused on groups most affected by HIV, including men who have sex with men, heterosexual Black women and people who inject drugs.

    Tennessee has since transitioned to using state dollars for HIV prevention, with a focus on first responders, pregnant women and sex trafficking survivors, groups that aren’t major at-risk populations. Researchers have found that this pivot will be a less efficient use of funds, costing $1 million per life-year saved versus $68,600 when focusing on the most at-risk populations.

    Preventive care and the Affordable Care Act

    The ongoing stigma and politicization of HIV/AIDS may not only hamper the national goal of ending the HIV epidemic but also lead to less or no preventive care for many people.

    Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to offer full coverage of preventive services endorsed by one of three federal groups: the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or the Health Resources and Services Administration. For example, the CARES Act, which allocated emergency funding in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, used this provision to ensure COVID-19 vaccines would be free for many Americans.

    For a preventive service to be covered by this provision, it requires an A or B rating from the Preventive Services Task Force, an independent body of experts trained in research methods, statistics and medicine that evaluates the rigor and quality of available scientific evidence, with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Vaccinations require a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while women’s health services require approval from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

    PrEP received an A rating in June 2019, given its near 100% effectiveness. This paved the way for it to be covered at no cost for millions of people.

    PrEP is a key tool to helping the U.S. reach its goal of substantially reducing new HIV infections by 2030.
    AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

    Over 150 million Americans with private health insurance are able to benefit from free preventive care through the Affordable Care Act, with around 60% using at least one free preventive service each year.

    The consequences of losing these benefits would likely be an increase in the number of people getting and dying from preventable diseases. Raising the cost barrier for PrEP, for example, would disproportionately harm younger patients, people of color and those with lower incomes. It will also increase the cost of HIV prevention.

    As public health researchers who study sexual health and health insurance, we believe that prevention and health equity in the U.S. stand to take a big step backward, depending on the outcome of the Braidwood case.

    Future of preventive care lies with Supreme Court

    The most recent ruling in Braidwood – made by a lower court in 2023 – focuses on the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that certain governmental positions require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, while other positions have a lower bar.

    District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that because the Preventive Services Task Force is an independent volunteer panel and not made up of officers of the U.S. government, it does not have appropriate authority to make decisions about what preventive care should be free, unlike the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or Health Resources and Services Administration. O’Connor also ruled that being forced to cover PrEP violated the religious freedom of the plaintiffs.

    O’Connor invalidated all of the task force’s recommendations since the Affordable Care Act was passed in March 2010, returning the power to insurers and employers to decide which, if any, preventive care would remain free to their patients. A few of the recommendations affected by his ruling besides PrEP include blood pressure, diabetes, lung and skin cancer screenings, along with medications to lower cholesterol and reduce breast cancer risk.

    The Trump administration filed a brief continuing the argument from the Biden administration that because the Preventive Services Task Force is overseen by the secretary of Health and Human Services, there is appropriate oversight of the task force and its decision-making by a Senate-confirmed officer. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for April 21, 2025.

    The Affordable Care Act has faced many legal challenges over the years.
    AP Photo/Alex Brandon

    Insurance contracts are typically defined by calendar year, so if the Supreme Court rules against the government, people would likely see changes starting in 2026. Importantly, these services will likely still need to be covered by health insurance plans as essential health benefits through a separate provision of the ACA − they just won’t be free anymore.

    There were concerns that the Supreme Court could take the ruling even further, endangering the free coverage of contraception and other preventive care that wasn’t covered by the lower court ruling. The Trump administration’s support for the case may make this less likely by leaning into the authority of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary to support or override recommendations made by the Preventive Services Task Force and the other bodies.

    However, this could also mean the secretary of HHS can more directly control the task force’s recommendations, potentially determining whether PrEP, contraception and other services are available at no cost to patients. Building more political authority into the process − as well as partisan differences in support for LGBTQ+ health − belies the original intent of having nonpartisan medical experts make decisions about preventive care coverage. Legal experts we have spoken to caution that this approach may be more about preserving powers for the executive branch rather than actually protecting preventive care.

    All of this is happening in the context of massive layoffs at HHS. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which supports the Preventive Services Task Force, was not spared from the recent cuts. It is unclear how all of this will affect the task force’s ability to continue its work, separate from the outcome of Braidwood.

    One way or another, the end to this yearslong case is nearing, with important implications for America’s ability to reach its goals in fighting cancer, diabetes and the HIV epidemic.

    Portions of this article originally appeared in previous articles published on Sept. 7, 2021, Dec. 1, 2021, Sept. 13, 2022, and April 7, 2023.

    Paul Shafer receives research funding from the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of these agencies or the United States government.

    Kristefer Stojanovski 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. Preventive care may no longer be free in 2026 because of HIV stigma − unless the Trump administration successfully defends the ACA – https://theconversation.com/preventive-care-may-no-longer-be-free-in-2026-because-of-hiv-stigma-unless-the-trump-administration-successfully-defends-the-aca-250011

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Sussex cafe owner took £150,000 in Covid funds for dormant companies

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Sussex cafe owner took £150,000 in Covid funds for dormant companies

    He also attempted to strike-off one of the companies to avoid repaying the loan

    • Mehmet Akyuz fraudulently applied for three Bounce Back Loans for his organic food shop and cafe and leather import business 

    • Akyuz secured £150,000 in funds when both companies were dormant and not trading 

    • He was sentenced for fraud by false representation following Insolvency Service investigations

    A Sussex cafe owner who took £150,000 in Covid support funds for two companies which were not trading at the start of the pandemic has been sentenced. 

    Mehmet Akyuz, 36, fraudulently obtained three maximum-value Bounce Back Loans worth £50,000 each in 2020 for his Green and Hove Limited and Leathers Wear Limited companies. 

    Both Green and Hove, trading as Organic Earth Cafe, and Leathers Wear, were dormant at the time of Akyuz’s applications. 

    Akyuz, of Conway Street, Brighton and Hove, was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, when he appeared at Hove Crown Court on Monday 14 April. 

    He was also disqualified as a company director for five years and ordered to complete 300 hours of unpaid work.

    David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:

    Mehmet Akyuz’s actions in fraudulently applying for three Bounce Back Loans he was not entitled to were completely unacceptable. 

    This was taxpayers’ money designed to support small businesses through the pandemic and should not have been exploited in such a cynical manner. 

    The Insolvency Service remains committed to investigating these cases and bringing fraudsters such as Akyuz to justice.

    Green and Hove and Leathers Wear were incorporated in February and March 2019 with Akyuz as the sole director. The former was a retail food and grocery store with a cafe attached while the latter was described by Akyuz as an importer of leather goods such as bags and belts. 

    However, neither was trading at the time Akyuz made the fraudulent applications to the banks in the summer and autumn of 2020. 

    Akyuz fraudulently applied for the £50,000 loan on behalf of Green and Hove in August 2020, claiming the company’s turnover was £270,000. 

    This declaration was untrue, as Insolvency Service investigations found that the company filed dormant accounts in 2020, 2021 and 2022. 

    Between September 2020 and January 2021, more than £36,000 of the loan was transferred directly to Akyuz. The remainder of the money was paid out in miscellaneous, one-off payments. 

    Akyuz committed further fraudulent offences in October 2020, when he applied to two separate banks for £50,000 Bounce Back Loans on behalf of Leathers Wear. 

    In the applications, Akyuz falsely declared that the company had a turnover of £215,000 and £225,000. 

    However, Leathers Wear also filed dormant accounts in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and was not trading when the application was made. 

    The funds were again transferred into Akyuz’s personal account and not used for business purposes. 

    Akyuz unsuccessfully applied to have Leathers Wear struck-off the Companies House register in June 2022 in an attempt to avoid repaying the loan. 

    The Insolvency Service is seeking to recover the fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

    Further information

    Updates to this page

    Published 15 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Five Outstanding Business Leaders Inducted into the Hall of Fame

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    The School of Business inducted five extraordinary business leaders into its Alumni Hall of Fame on Friday night, at a joyful ceremony that included a sold-out crowd of 400 at the Hartford Marriott Downtown.

    The new inductees included:

    • Trisha M. Bailey, Ph.D. ’99, ’23 H, a serial entrepreneur and owner and CEO of Bailey’s Pharmacy & Medical Equipment & Supplies;
    • Laurie A. Havanec ’82, ’94 JD, the retired Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at CVS Health;
    • John Hodson ’85 President of True Benefit;
    • Gregory P. Lewis ’92 retired Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Honeywell International; and
    • Robert J. Skinner ’93, Founding Partner & Co-CEO of IEQ Capital.

    Each of the inductees, all alumni who have had remarkable careers and made significant contributions to society, shared their personal stories about their journeys, their passion for helping others and their love of UConn.

    Bailey: UConn Saw the Light in Her When Others Didn’t

    Bailey is a serial entrepreneur who, in addition to running her flagship company, oversees 15 other businesses. She has been named the JP Morgan Chase Woman of the Year. She made the largest single donation in history to UConn Athletics, and is involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors in the U.S. and Jamaica. Bailey, a mother of five, is also the author of the book “UNBROKEN’’ about her life’s journey and her unwavering values of compassion, excellence, and empowerment.

    She told the audience that in 1990 she left behind a life of poverty of Jamaica to relocate to Hartford. A high school counselor had once told her she wasn’t “college material,’’ she recalled. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!’’ Bailey remembered thinking that day. The UConn audience cheered at her response. UConn, she said, saw the light in her when others didn’t, and gave her a full scholarship.

    She hopes that her success inspires many other girls and women.

    “Make sure your excellence is so profound it cannot be denied,’’ she said. “I want young girls across the globe to see that this honor is for you. Keep striving. You are amazing!’’

    Havanec Astonished by Today’s UConn Students

    Havanec, who recently retired from CVS Health, oversaw 300,000 employees in her role in talent development and acquisition, compensation and benefits, and diversity, equity and inclusion. She earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing from UConn, and six weeks after the birth of her second child, she returned to earn her JD degree from UConn Law. In 2019, she endowed a need-based scholarship to help other women attend law school. She is a two-time cancer survivor who advocates for early detection and prevention.

    She returned to Storrs last week, for the first time in 20 years, and said the experience was exhilarating. She was impressed by the sophistication, real-life decision-making, and leadership she found in the students. She said the student investors at the School of Business’ Hillside Ventures are exceptional.

    “When they leave UConn, they’ll be amazing sponsors for the university,’’ she said. “I know it is scary leaving college. Be courageous. Go out there and show the world what you have!’’

    Havanec, a passionate UConn basketball fan, also gave a shout-out to the UConn women’s basketball team, just days after they won the national championship. “They overcame so much adversity,’’ she said. “They are role models for all of us!’’

    Hodson Spoke About The Deeper Meaning of Dreams

    Hodson, founded his employee benefits company, True Benefit, to foster inclusivity, ethics, and community engagement. He has worked tirelessly to improve insurance policies for the transgender community. In addition, he has created scholarships for transgender students and has supported UConn’s ‘Name, Image and Likeness’ initiatives.

    In his award acceptance speech, he spoke about a recurring dream that he was on the golf course and something—a tree branch, an octogenarian, or a storm—prevents him from completing his round.

    “I know it was a metaphor for ‘Am I good enough?,’” he said. As his company grew, so did his stress and the pressure to not disappoint his stakeholders. He was in his early 50s when he met his wife, who believed in him and pushed him to the next level. Now he dreams of standing on the fairway and “smoking’’ the shot. He said he wouldn’t be where he is today without help from great friends.

    His message to students is one of compassion. “I think it is a lot harder to be a student today than it was when I was growing up,’’ he said. “Just be yourself, be kind to yourself, and don’t do it alone. Lean on others and you’ll be OK.’’

    Lewis: Push Past Fear; Don’t Lose Your Humanity

    Lewis has worked for Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company, since 2006. Most recently he was the Senior Vice President and CFO, providing leadership through corporate headquarter relocation, COVID-19, and economic and geo-political shifts. In February, he stepped down as CFO and became a special advisor to the CEO as the company separates into three.

    He praised his parents for showing him the pathway to success, teaching him care and compassion, and to strive to be the best every day. He told students and young alumni that he owes his success to doing hard things and doing them well; demonstrating leadership; and always caring about others.

    “Push past fear and uncertainty, say yes a lot, and don’t lose your humanity,’’ he said. “No one succeeds alone. Don’t live with regret. Struggle and failure is a step toward growth.’’

    Lewis, who met his wife Barbara (Reynolds ’89) at UConn, and raised two daughters together, spoke of his love for his family and the 40 people there to support him. He is active in community organizations including serving as the Chair of the Charlotte (NC) Small Business Innovation Fund, as a member of an organization fighting homelessness, and on the Board of Medtronic.

    Skinner: Play for the Name on the Front of the Jersey

    Skinner’s company, IEQ Capital, merges intellectual and emotional factors in investing. He has been named one of America’s top wealth advisors by Forbes. He is active in the board of several golf charities including PGA REACH, the foundation associated with PGA of America.

    Planning to become a lawyer, Skinner instead found himself in the business world and wanted to build a company.

    “UConn is my family. I have great memories and great friendships from those years,’’ he said. “At UConn I found myself. I developed the grit, excellence, and the belief that I can do something really big.’’

    In accepting his award, he told the audience to “play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back.’’

    He praised former UConn men’s basketball head coach Jim Calhoun, who was in attendance with current coach Dan Hurley and assistant coach Luke Murray, whom he met his freshman year. “He got my fire burning, got me to believe in winning and doing things that others don’t think you can,’’ he said. “I’m beyond grateful for the recognition. Every day I think about being a Husky!’’

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congressman Goldman, Congresswoman Meng, Assemblymember Lee Host Press Conference Condemning Trump’s Disastrous Tariff War, Highlighting Devastating Impact on AAPI New Yorkers and Small Businesses

    Source: US Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10)

    China Imposes 125% Tariffs on U.S. Goods in Response to 145% U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Imports 

    Trump Trade War Disproportionately Impacting Asian American Communities and Families  

     

    NYC, Home of Many Historic Asian American Communities, Pays Price For Trump’s Recklessness 

      

    View Pictures and Video of Press Conference Here 

     

    New York, NY – Today, Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10), Congresswoman Grace Meng (NY-06), Chair of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Assembly Member Grace Lee, Chair of the New York State Assembly Asian Pacific American Task Force (APA Task Force), Council Member Susan Zhuang, and other elected officials and local advocates, hosted a press conference to demand President Trump stop his ongoing trade war which will harm Asian American families and businesses in New York. 

     

    The President’s tariffs are pushing many Asian American-owned small businesses in New York City toward financial ruin, especially those dependent on foreign imports. The trade war, driven by the White House, threatens to devastate historic Asian American neighborhoods. These reckless policies are creating economic volatility and disproportionately affecting businesses reliant on international trade. As a result, many small businesses are uncertain about their future, placing a significant financial strain on Asian American families and entrepreneurs across the city.

     

    “From Manhattan’s Chinatown to Sunset Park and beyond, Donald Trump’s reckless and destructive trade war is crippling New York’s AAPI small businesses and pushing entire communities to the brink of financial ruin,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “Mom-and-pop shops are struggling to make ends meet. Livelihoods are on the line. If Trump doesn’t reverse these tariffs immediately, his dangerous brinkmanship will shutter AAPI small businesses not only in New York City but across the country.” 

     

    Congresswoman Meng said, “As the new Chair of CAPAC, I’m proud to partner with New York State APA Task Force Chair Grace Lee, and my colleague Congressman Goldman to shine a light on the harm that this trade war will have on the Asian American community, in particular Asian-owned small businesses. These tariffs will deliver devastating blows to everybody from our local entrepreneurs to owners of mom-and-pop establishments, with many being forced to pass higher costs onto their customers or suffer financial hits to their livelihoods. Those working to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic will be hit especially hard. It will also impact jobs and investments in our neighborhoods. We will continue pushing for these tariffs to be rescinded.”

     

    Assemblymember Grace Lee said, “Trump’s reckless tariff policies are driving up costs for small businesses and raising prices for everyday people. In Chinatown, family-run shops that have been part of the community for generations are struggling to survive. And when hostility toward China drives policy, it too often leads to racism against the Asian American community. These policies aren’t just bad economics — they’re bad for Asian Americans.”

     

    NY State Senator John Liu said, “Trump’s punitive tariff charade is causing irreparable harm to immigrant communities and small businesses throughout the country, and especially here in New York City. In their pursuit of the American Dream, Asian American small businesses have revitalized our economy and strengthened our communities, but now their livelihoods are on the line as they’re forced to either absorb skyrocketing costs or pass them onto their customers, who are already struggling. It’s time to end this zero sum trade war that is threatening to stall so many economic engines for our city, state and country.” 

     

    Council Member Susan Zhuang said, “As the Councilmember for Brooklyn’s District 43, a majority Asian-American district, I see the direct impact of all federal changes on my constituents.I regularly say immigrant business owners provide essential services for New Yorkers. These tariffs hinder these business owners from doing their work which will put a burden on every single working class New Yorker.” 

     

    Council Member Sandra Ung said, “Just recently hit hard by COVID-19, a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, inflation, and rising rents, the economic recovery remains fragile. Many immigrant-owned small businesses that rely heavily on international trade are still struggling to get back on their feet. Moreover, many budget grocery stores provide a vital lifeline for working-class families. The potential shocks to the market these tariffs will cause follow on the heels of recent cuts by Washington Republicans to the SNAP program that prevent stolen funds from being replaced. We need clear and compassionate federal guidance and targeted local support to protect these businesses from further setbacks and to ensure the economic recovery in our Asian American communities stays on track.”

     

    Council Member Julie Won said, “Federal tariffs threaten the livelihoods of Asian-owned small businesses in District 26. High import fees will force Bangladeshi, Filipino, and Chinese business owners to pay more to purchase goods. Tariffs also hurt working-class New Yorkers who already struggle to pay for rent, groceries, and other necessities. I join my colleagues in Congress and the Assembly to urge Trump to reverse these harmful tariffs.”

     

    Karen Liu, second generation owner of Grand Tea and Imports said, “Almost every business in Chinatown is an import business in some way. These tariffs threaten our ability to restock—and for many of our neighbors, their ability to stay open. As we move through this uncertain time, I hope policymakers remember Chinatown. We shouldn’t have to face this alone.”

     

    All have made protecting and supporting small businesses, as well as the Asian American community, a priority of their time in office.

     

    In March, Congressman Goldman and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand secured $50 million in IRS Employee Retention Tax Credits for 585 small businesses. This release was fought for by Congressman Goldman, Senator Chuck Schumer, and nine of their New York congressional colleagues in the winter of 2024, urging the agency to expedite the processing and resolution of legitimate Employee Retention Credit (ERC) claims.

     

    In February, Congressman Goldman joined Senator Smith, and Congresswoman Underwood in introducing the ‘Job Protection Act,’ which would expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to millions of workers who are currently unable to take time off to care for themselves or their families. Nearly 2.6 million workers every year decline to take family or medical leave out of fear that they will lose their jobs due to gaps in FMLA coverage.  

     

    In Spring of 2023,  Congressman Goldman joined Congresswoman Meng in introducing the ‘Teaching Asian Pacific American History Act’ which would require Presidential and Congressional Academies’ grant applicants and recipients to include Asian Pacific American history in American history and civics curricula. 

     

    Congressman Goldman is an Executive Board Member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service protects public health at home and abroad

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mark Dworkin, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Illinois Chicago

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service has produced a cadre of highly trained public health experts over its 74-year history. peterhowell/iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

    When the Trump administration announced in February 2025 that it was cutting 10% of staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it seemed that a small but storied program within it called the Epidemic Intelligence Service – also known as the CDC’s disease detectives – would also be cut. A few days later, the program was reinstated. And in March, Epidemic Intelligence Service officers traveled to Texas to support the state’s public health officials in fighting the ongoing measles epidemic.

    But after another massive upheaval at the CDC in April, the unit’s future is uncertain. As of now, applications for the program’s next round of fellows has been postponed.

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service is a dynamic crisis response team. Just as firefighters rush into burning buildings to save lives, this team’s specialists mobilize both domestically and internationally to help curb disease outbreaks. But first and foremost, it is a training program that has produced some of the most highly trained and regarded public health experts in the country who have gone on to work at local and state public health offices, academic departments and international health organizations.

    We are public health experts – one an experienced professor who served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service from 1994-1996, and the other an early career trainee who was accepted to its incoming class of 2025-2027. Although it’s not clear how the administration will enact its new vision for the CDC, we hope a continued urgency to identify and fight infectious disease threats – the essence of the Epidemic Intelligence Service – remains a national priority.

    A program rooted in national security

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service is a two-year fellowship open to physicians, scientists and other health professionals. The program accepts 50 to 80 people each year.

    Students participate in an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer training course in July 1955.
    Dr. Alex Langmuir, CDC

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service was founded in 1951, just five years after the launch of the CDC, in response to Cold War-era concerns about biological warfare. Alexander Langmuir, its founder, was the CDC’s chief epidemiologist and has often been called the father of shoe-leather epidemiology – on-the-ground, out-of-the-office disease investigation through extensive field work and engagement with affected populations.

    In a report announcing the unit’s establishment, Langmuir and a colleague wrote that one of the “problems that would emerge in the event of biological warfare attacks” was “the dearth of trained epidemiologists.” They recognized the urgent need for a specialized team capable of rapidly identifying and responding to potential bioterrorism threats.

    Newspaper headlines on April 13, 1955, announce the effectiveness of the polio vaccine.
    March of Dimes via Wikimedia Commons

    The new division soon evolved to address a wide range of civilian public health threats. In 1955, as one of its first major actions, the program’s officers were tasked with investigating an outbreak of polio in children that started just as the first mass vaccination campaign against the disease launched. Within weeks, Epidemic Intelligence Service officers helped trace the outbreak to a few batches of a vaccine manufactured by a California company called Cutter Laboratories in which the virus had not been properly killed. The incident led to increased safety regulations in vaccine production and boosted public confidence, paving the way to eliminating polio from the U.S. in the ensuing decades.

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service has led the way in tackling many of the most historically significant outbreaks of the past 75 years. Starting in 1966, the unit’s officers were deployed to West Africa to assist in a worldwide smallpox eradication campaign that laid the groundwork for eliminating the disease 13 years later. In 1976, the disease detectives were sent to investigate an outbreak in Philadelphia of a mysterious deadly illness. They helped to characterize what would eventually be known as Legionnaires’ disease, a previously unknown bacterial cause of pneumonia.

    And in 1981, a tip from an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer serving in the Los Angeles County Health Department led to the first description of a new disease that would become the global epidemic of HIV-AIDS. The program’s officers went on to help lead foundational studies on prevalence, prevention and treatment of AIDS around the world.

    Beyond vaccines and immunization

    Even from its earliest days, vaccine-preventable and infectious diseases were far from the Epidemic Intelligence Service’s only focus. During the program’s first 15 years, its officers were involved in a wide swath of epidemiological investigations in areas including lead paint exposure, a cancer cluster’s connection to birth defects, family planning practices and famine relief.

    These activities established the group’s priorities of addressing chronic diseases and population health – goals that have also driven its involvement in disaster response efforts, including hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Katrina, as well as the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

    The Epidemic Intelligence Service has also played a key role in keeping the nation’s food supply safe. It investigates major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, helping to identify which foods are implicated so that contaminated products are removed from shelves and disseminating investigation findings that inform food safety policy. For example, officers investigated a 1993 outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 linked to undercooked hamburgers at several Jack in the Box restaurants. The outbreak sickened more than 700 people and resulted in the deaths of four children. It also led to major food safety reforms including expanded meat and poultry inspection nationwide.

    The CDC’s “disease detectives” train at sites across the U.S. and abroad.

    A legacy of impact

    The importance of an expert, nimble team of disease detectives has only increased. Over the past few years, Epidemic Intelligence Service officers have responded to countless public health threats.

    The program’s officers were involved at every stage of the COVID-19 pandemic response, conducting outbreak investigations on cruise ships, in prisons and in many other settings. They investigated the outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S. in 2022. Most recently they have investigated cases of avian influenza and are working to help describe and control the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.

    Perhaps the Epidemic Intelligence Service’s most significant legacy has been in building a worldwide network of deep epidemiological expertise. To date, the program has trained more than 4,000 disease detectives, and its officers have collectively conducted thousands of outbreak investigations.

    The unit’s impact has been global. It has been called in to investigate outbreaks on six continents and has served as a model for epidemiology programs developed in dozens of countries.

    All of these activities, at home and abroad, have shaped health policy in crucial ways that in turn protect people’s health. It is increasingly clear that disease outbreaks will continue to occur in the U.S. and abroad. In our view, the Epidemic Intelligence Service’s history provides rich evidence of its value.

    I am currently a member of the EIS Alumni Association Executive Committee.

    Casey Luc 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. How the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service protects public health at home and abroad – https://theconversation.com/how-the-cdcs-epidemic-intelligence-service-protects-public-health-at-home-and-abroad-251042

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Insolvency Service disqualified more than 1,000 directors in 2024-25

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Insolvency Service disqualified more than 1,000 directors in 2024-25

    The latest statistics for Insolvency Service enforcement outcomes also outline Covid loan abuse and bankruptcy restriction orders.

    • More than 1,000 directors disqualified following Insolvency Service investigations.  

    • Of these, 736 were banned for Covid loan abuse. 

    • The report also highlights the average length of a ban was eight years.  

    Latest figures from the Insolvency Service show the agency banned more than 1,000 directors in 2024-25, of which 736 were for Covid loan abuse.  

    The Insolvency Service enforcement outcomes report for 2024-25 was published on 14 April 2025.  

    The report shows that of the 1,036 directors who were disqualified, 736 were for Covid loan abuse and the average length of a ban was eight years.  

    The report also shows that there have been 131 bankruptcy restriction orders put in place, 87 of which were related to the abuse of Covid loans. 

    Dave Magrath, Director of Investigation and Enforcement Services at the Insolvency Service, said:  

    Disqualifications for more than one thousand directors demonstrates the impact our investigative work is having.  

    Whether it be Covid loan abuse or directors breaching disqualification restrictions, we are consistently tackling misconduct and bringing those responsible to account.  

    The end result is a reminder to all businesses to operate appropriately, within the law, and helping to protect the public from rogue business and their directors.

    Directors can be banned from being the director of a company for actions including:  

    • failing to maintain adequate accounting records. 

    • not paying tax or VAT that is owed to HMRC 

    • securing a Covid Bounce Back loan they were not entitled to 

    A director can be disqualified for up to 15 years. During this time, they cannot be a director of a company in the UK, or an overseas company which has connections with the UK and they cannot be involved in forming, promoting or running a company. 

    Breaking the terms of a disqualification can result in a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years.  

    Bounce Back loans were introduced in 2020 to help support businesses affected by Covid-19, on the condition that they were used for the economic benefit of the business and not for personal purposes. 

    A bankruptcy already places restrictions on what a person can do for a set period. If a person is dishonest or is to blame for their debts, the court can make a bankruptcy restrictions order (BRO) which extends this period of restrictions for between two and 15 years, and subject to further restrictions. 

    Insolvency Service enforcement outcomes 2024-25 can be found here: Insolvency Service enforcement outcomes management information – GOV.UK 

    Further information:

    Updates to this page

    Published 14 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Preparing Scotland for the future

    Source: Scottish Government

    FM: Government fighting Scotland’s corner.

    First Minister John Swinney has announced he will bring forward the Scottish Government’s legislative programme to ensure the country is as prepared as possible to secure its future in the face of the uncertainty facing the global economy.

    Speaking during a press conference at Bute House, the First Minister announced the Programme for Government will be presented to the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 6 May 2025.

    It will set out the actions the Scottish Government will take to ensure resilience and deliver on the four core priorities to eradicate child poverty, grow the economy, tackle the climate emergency and ensure high quality and sustainable public services.

    The First Minister also set out plans to immediately begin work with key partners in the business community and trade unions to map out the actions required in Scotland, and the UK as a whole, to respond to emerging economic challenges and ensure the needs of the devolved nations are at the heart of UK decision-making.

    First Minister John Swinney said:

    “I know that this is a time of great uncertainty for people, that many families and businesses are worried about what global events will mean for them.

    “We face yet another storm, after almost two decades of knocks and challenges – the financial crisis, austerity, Brexit, Covid, the energy price spike following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the subsequent inflation spike. Each has weakened us in some way, but none has defeated us.

    “The Programme for Government will be laser-focused on delivery. It will set out what I believe my government can and will deliver for the people of Scotland over the coming year.

    “The economic headwinds are blowing strong across the Atlantic and they demand a response that is both immediate and measured. My Programme for Government will set out what practical steps we will take to strengthen our response to those headwinds and ensure Scottish business and our economy is positioned well to create jobs and grow the economy.

    “I want to make sure the UK Government understands where we need them to do much more to protect Scotland’s economic interests. As a result, I will be bringing together our key partners in the business community and the trades union movement on Wednesday to map out the actions we can take, here in Scotland, and which can be complemented across the UK, to respond to the emerging economic realities. That work will influence my government’s approach, and I want it to shape the response at a UK level into the bargain.

    “A Scotland that is wealthier, fairer, more resilient – that is my ambition. I want people feeling more confident about the future and more secure in the midst of the uncertainties, because they have a government that is fighting Scotland’s corner.

    “A government that is bringing people together, so that our response to the challenges we face is rooted in a Scotland that is united, prepared and determined, a Scotland confident in its ability to, once again, weather the storm and come out of that storm a great deal stronger.”

    Background

    The first roundtable with the business community and trade unions to determine the actions required to ensure the resilience of Scotland’s economy will be held on Wednesday 16 April 2025.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI China: Japan holds opening ceremony for Osaka Expo

    Source: China State Council Information Office

    The opening ceremony for the 2025 World Exposition is held in Osaka, Japan, April 12, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

    An opening ceremony was held on Saturday for the 2025 World Exposition in the western Japanese city of Osaka, a day before the global event opens its doors to the public.

    Dignitaries, including Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, attended the ceremony at the expo venue on Yumeshima, an artificial island in Osaka Bay.

    Under the theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” the expo will run for six months, with more than 160 countries, regions and international organizations taking part.

    Addressing the ceremony, Ishiba said the expo “offers a platform for the people of the world to come together and exchange dialogue,” noting “the world, having overcome the coronavirus pandemic, now faces a crisis over many different divisions.”

    In his speech during the ceremony, Dimitri Kerkentzes, secretary-general of the Bureau International des Expositions, regarded Expo 2025 as a unique opportunity to reimagine a future society where lives are protected through advancements in public health and disaster readiness.

    Kerkentzes said human potential is empowered through education and technology, where connections between people and ideas foster a more inclusive and more prosperous world.

    The expo will open to the public at 9 a.m. local time on Sunday and run for 184 days until Oct. 13. The organizer is expecting a total of 28.2 million visitors, including more than 140,000 on the first day.

    The China Pavilion is also set to officially open on Sunday. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Japan holds opening ceremony for Osaka Expo ahead of full public start

    Source: China State Council Information Office 3

    An opening ceremony was held on Saturday for the 2025 World Exposition in the western Japanese city of Osaka, a day before the global event opens its doors to the public.

    Dignitaries, including Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, attended the ceremony at the expo venue on Yumeshima, an artificial island in Osaka Bay.

    Under the theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” the expo will run for six months, with more than 160 countries, regions and international organizations taking part.

    Addressing the ceremony, Ishiba said the expo “offers a platform for the people of the world to come together and exchange dialogue,” noting “the world, having overcome the coronavirus pandemic, now faces a crisis over many different divisions.”

    In his speech during the ceremony, Dimitri Kerkentzes, secretary-general of the Bureau International des Expositions, regarded Expo 2025 as a unique opportunity to reimagine a future society where lives are protected through advancements in public health and disaster readiness.

    Kerkentzes said human potential is empowered through education and technology, where connections between people and ideas foster a more inclusive and more prosperous world.

    The expo will open to the public at 9 a.m. local time on Sunday and run for 184 days until Oct. 13. The organizer is expecting a total of 28.2 million visitors, including more than 140,000 on the first day.

    The China Pavilion is also set to officially open on Sunday. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Secretary of State for Transport’s vision for transport

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Speech

    Secretary of State for Transport’s vision for transport

    The Secretary of State for Transport talks about her vision for a transport system that works for everyone.

    Thank you, David, for that introduction.  

    Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the National Railway Museum in York. 

    I’m tempted to say we’re in the country’s finest transport museum, but as a Swindon MP and a former Deputy Mayor for Transport in London, I feel I should tread carefully.

    So welcome to ONE of the VERY BEST transport museums in the country!

    It feels fitting for me to do my first big transport speech here.

    The history of our transport network — the stories of the men and women who designed it, built it, operated and used it — are woven into the fabric of our communities in 21st century Britain.

    And it’s you — the people in THIS room — who are adding to that rich tapestry every day.

    You keep life moving.  

    You get children to school, commuters to work, and families to their holidays.  

    You move the goods that stock our shelves, fuel our industries, and keep businesses thriving.  

    You don’t just connect places — you connect people with the things that they need to get on in life.  

    And it’s in the spirit of connection that I’d like to tell you a story.   

    I hope you won’t be disappointed to learn that I haven’t invited you here for a big policy announcement or news headline, but rather to share a little bit about who I am and what I believe.

    I want to tell you a story about the people and places who have shaped my thinking.

    I grew up in Swindon.

    A proud railway town on the M4 corridor – a place with much to be proud of. 

    It’s also a humble football town – and I can tell you, that as a Swindon Town supporter, I have learnt the lessons of humility all too well.

    By fate and circumstance, that’s where my journey began.  

    Outside our semi detached house, I remember my dad’s first van parked up — ‘Malcolm Alexander Electrical Services’.

    I remember the first bike I was given – blue with a basket on the front — a bit like the blue crate I’ve got on my bike now.

    And I remember learning to drive around the town’s infamous Magic Roundabout. 

    And the car factories that punctuate the town’s history – Rover, Honda and now, BMW.

    It’s fair to say that in 1980s Swindon, the car was king.  

    It still is.

    The proliferation of out of town shopping centres, urban expansions and a minimal public transport network shaped the transport destiny of my town.

    Now, I won’t pretend that urban planning preoccupied my teenage mind too much. 

    Back then, I was much more concerned about whether Wham! were going to make it to Number 1. 

    But when I moved away and got my first job, I began to see the bigger picture… 

    … that a poor transport network will limit choices.  

    … that it can block the aspirations of young people.   

    And, most important of all, a good transport network can do precisely the opposite. 

    I was the first person in my family to go to university. 

    And like so many, I found work and opportunities in the capital.  

    And so it was, at the age of 29, I walked into Lewisham Town Hall as a newly elected councillor – becoming the cabinet member for regeneration just two years later.

    I loved that job, and I fell in love with transport.  

    Now, I’ll admit …

    It wasn’t the language of highways management that enthralled me: “There’s no such thing as a speed hump Cllr Alexander, only speed tables and speed cushions.” 

    But it was the extension of the East London Line, the creation of new brownfield sites around major railway stations, the improvements to walking and cycling links that really got me hooked.

    I learnt quickly that transport shapes a lot more than roads and railways. 

    And equally important, I learnt that it takes a lot of people to shape transport itself.  

    At Lewisham, I saw first-hand how transport investment could make a dramatic difference to people’s lives.  

    Take Brockley Railway Station.

    For years, it was an uninspiring, inaccessible place. 

    Uninviting, a bit run down.   

    Not somewhere you’d instinctively love as you rocked up for your morning commute.  

    But working with local campaigners, we delivered step-free access, a stunning landscaped ramp and better connectivity along the London Overground. 

    Today, Brockley is thriving. 

    It’s a place where the old and the new coexist. 

    The Wetherspoons on the corner and fried chicken shops sit side-by-side with bakeries, breweries and a pedestrianised square.  

    It was a transport scheme that built a stronger, more connected community. 

    And, it was transport that made the difference down the road in Lewisham too.  

    We transformed it — relocating and improving a bus station, moving a roundabout, redesigning the roads, creating land for new homes, new public spaces and new opportunity. 

    And when I say “we”, I mean the hundreds of people from different organisations who made it happen — people like you. 

    When a few years later I became the Member of Parliament for Lewisham East, transport was always right at the top of the list of my constituents’ concerns.  

    The longer train station platforms that were worse than useless without the longer trains to stop at them.

    The toxic air being pumped into homes around the South Circular.

    And when I later became Deputy Mayor for Transport in London, I had the privilege of working on those concerns more closely than I had ever done before.  

    Look, London is big. 

    So yes, naturally, I’m proud of the big stuff: 

    Straining to keep the capital moving through Covid. 

    Working on the Elizabeth line to deliver the jewel in the crown of the UK’s rail network. 

    Sticking to my guns on the Silvertown Tunnel, a new river crossing that enables London’s red double-deckers to go under the Thames to the east of Tower Bridge for the first time.

    But honestly, big doesn’t always mean beautiful. 

    Transport isn’t just about the price tag on the project. 

    It’s about delivering a better everyday experience – buses that come on time, accessible stations, well managed road works. 

    I’m just as proud of the smaller projects that made a big difference — many delivered in London by my good friend and then colleague Will Norman — segregated cycle lanes on Jamaica Road and Evelyn St, more secure cycle parking, slower speeds on roads with high KSIs, a direct vision scheme to improve visibility from the cabs of HGVs.

    These were transport interventions which ultimately delivered better public health, as well as better public realm.

    So when I moved back to Swindon a couple of years ago, I wasn’t just carrying a dream about becoming the MP for my home town.

    I arrived with baggage — determined to deliver for Swindon in a similar way to London. 

    Not the same solutions — as every place is different, but to give people options and opportunity.

    There isn’t something in the water that makes Swindonians love their cars more than Londoners.  

    Just a reality that public transport is better in London.  

    And I think it’s a failure of imagination, as much as a failure of policy, that young people in Swindon don’t have better options than I had decades ago. 

    Because change is possible.  

    Across the country — from Swindon to Shrewsbury,  Rotherham to Peterborough — we have underused transport assets. 

    Unloved railway buildings — land surplus to requirements or land that could be made so. 

    Neglected stations, like Brockley.  

    Potential that shouldn’t go to waste, but we know that, too often, it does.  

    And with vision, funding and collaboration, these could become hubs of regeneration, places that don’t just usher people through — but bring people together. 

    We talk about delivering “London style” transport to other places.   

    But I think we should talk more about “Swindon style” transport for Swindon, or “York style” transport for York. 

    And I want to support the capability and capacity within councils and combined authorities to deliver regeneration, investment and tangible improvements.  

    We have great mayors.  

    We have great local leaders.  

    We have great organisations working nationally and regionally.  

    We have a lot of talent in this room and beyond.  

    So, the question for me, is how do we best harness that?  

    Obviously, this is a question that has vexed me particularly since I took a call from the Prime Minister at the tail end of November, asking me to serve as his Transport Secretary.  

    And as someone who has skin in the game as a local MP and a passion to build on the work started by the force of nature, Lou Haigh, I naturally said yes.  

    And here I am.  

    Full-circle in some ways, and trying to shape a new path in another.   

    And the task is to build a better decade for transport. 

    Towards a better railway… 

    Laying the foundations for reform — establishing Shadow Great British Railways and launching a consultation on the upcoming Railways Bill to unify track and train. 

    Towards public ownership… 

    Passing the Passenger Railway Services Act, with the first operators — Southwestern and c2c — moving into public hands in the coming months. 

    Towards better buses…  

    Introducing the Bus Services Bill, giving local authorities greater control over routes, timetables, and fares — backed by over £1 billion in investment to improve reliability and frequency. 

    Towards better roads… 

    Investing £1.6 billion in local highways, an uplift of £500 million on last year — enough to fill an extra 7 million potholes. 

    Towards fairer work… 

    Enshrining greater protections for seafarers in law. 

    Towards cleaner skies… 

    Introducing the Sustainable Aviation Fuel mandate and launching a consultation on the revenue certainty mechanism. 

    Towards a fossil-free future… 

    Supporting the installation of thousands of new EV charge points—helping to drive record electric car sales, with 31% of new cars sold in December last year being electric. 

    And towards a transport system that supports the aspirations of everyone in this country… 

    It’s why I am so proud to work with the ministerial team at the Department for Transport.

    Like me — and like all of us — they’ve seen the difference that good services make… 

    …Whether it’s the tap-and-go trams and buses in Mike Kane’s patch, with fares capped at £2 on Greater Manchester’s Bee Network. 

    …Or in Simon Lightwood’s patch, where the mass transit system will improve integrated travel options in West Yorkshire, improving access to opportunities for people in Leeds and Bradford.

    …Or, in Nottingham, where one of the local bus operators, Nottingham City Transport, has been voted UK operator of the year a record six times, with passenger satisfaction amongst the highest in the country. I hear Lilian Greenwood is a pretty good local MP too …

    And as for Peter Hendy, who is his own walking museum of transport knowledge, he has a phrase that I would like to steal.  

    He talks about transport needing to be “boringly reliable”.

    And he’s right.  

    If public transport options are boringly reliable, then it means day-to-day life is easier for everyone. 

    So, by 2035, I want public transport to play a greater role in national life, becoming the easiest, most attractive choice… brilliantly and boringly reliable.  

    Enrique Peñalosa, a former mayor of Bogotá, once said:

    “An advanced city is not one where the poor have to own a car, but one where the rich choose to use public transport.” 

    That’s a vision I believe in.  

    But I can picture the headlines now — so let me counter the column inches before they emerge: there is no such thing as a war on motorists.  

    I drive. I own a car and I love it — a racing green Mini Cooper convertible.

    I walk. I cycle.  

    I take buses, trains, and taxis.  

    And I’ll bet most of you do too.  

    No serious person is proposing to ask people like my dad, a self employed electrician, to swap their van for a bus, forcing them to lug all their kit around — I certainly am not.   

    Through his career, my dad was a professional problem solver, and I hope I’ll carry the torch for that family tradition.   

    But I’ll be focussing on solving the real problems, not wasting time on the invented ones.   

    Because I’m sure everybody in this room would agree that where you live shouldn’t determine what you can achieve…  

    …that your hometown, no matter how big or how small, should provide the transport options to meet your aspirations… 

    … and that — if transport doesn’t nurture young people with the opportunities they deserve, then our entire economy misses out on the talent it needs to grow. 

    That’s why we’re here today. 

    To have the conversations that bring us closer together.  

    I want to harness your talents, your expertise and your drive to solve real problems.  

    Because, no matter where people are travelling to, they should be proud of where they’re coming from. 

    Thank you, and have a lovely evening.

    Updates to this page

    Published 12 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Two Men Sentenced for Misbranding and Conspiring to Price Gouge N95 Masks in Early Months of COVID-19 Pandemic

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    BOSTON – Two brothers, who co-owned a now-defunct Florida-based company, have been sentenced in federal court in Boston for charges associated with shipping facemasks that were misbranded as N95 respirators, and price gouging hospitals, during the earliest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

    Daniel Motha, 40, of Miami, Fla. and Jeffrey Motha, 36, of Norfolk, Mass. were each sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Myong J. Joun to one year of probation and ordered to pay a $9,500 fine. In October 2025, the defendants pleaded guilty to one count of introduction of misbranded devices into interstate commerce and one count of conspiracy to commit price gouging in violation of the Defense Production Act. Daniel Motha and Jeffrey Motha were charged in October 2024, along with JDM Supply LLC (JDM). In August 2023, a third individual, Jason Colantuoni of Norfolk, Mass, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit price gouging in connection with this investigation. Colantuoni is scheduled to be sentenced on June 23, 2025.

    The defendants co-owned JDM, with Daniel Motha serving as the company’s chief executive officer and Jeffrey Motha serving as head of sales. In the spring of 2020, during the earliest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, JDM conspired with another company, Advoque Safeguard LLC – a PPE manufacturer –  to distribute facemasks that were misbranded as National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)-approved, N95 respirators. JDM misled one hospital into believing that the masks were NIOSH-approved N95s, when in fact they were not. As a result, the hospital accepted and paid for approximately 850,000 purported N95 masks that were manufactured by Advoque and sold by JDM, at a total price of approximately $2.6 million. To accompany the masks, JDM sent the hospital NIOSH-passing test results and approval documents for a different mask. Ultimately, the hospital did not use the masks, which were eventually returned to Advoque.

    In August 2020, a NIOSH lab tested a sample of the masks that had been shipped to the hospital. The masks tested between 83.94% and 93.24% filtration efficiency, thus falling below the 95% minimum level of filtration efficiency required for N95 respirators.  

    Daniel Motha and Jeff Motha conspired to use JDM to exploit and profit off of the critical need of hospitals and healthcare workers for scarce N95 masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. They accumulated N95 masks from various sources and then sold the N95 masks through JDM to hospitals in Massachusetts, and elsewhere, at prices that exceeded the prevailing market price.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division; Fernando McMillan, Special Agent in Charge of the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations; Christopher Algieri, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, Northeast Field Office; Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; and Michael J. Krol, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Locker of the Health Care Fraud Unit prosecuted the case.

    On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus and https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/combatingfraud. 
        
    Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline via the NCDF Web Complaint Form.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Attorney General Bonta Sues Trump Administration for Blocking California’s Access to Over $200 Million in Previously Awarded Education Funding

    Source: US State of California

    OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) abrupt and unlawful rescission of prior agency actions that preserved states’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding currently being used by school districts to support the academic recovery of students following the COVID-19 pandemic. Attorney General Bonta joined 15 other attorneys general in filing the lawsuit, arguing that ED’s decision to rescind access to this funding is arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, exceeds ED’s statutory and regulatory authority under the law, and will cause immediate and devastating harm to school districts in California and across the nation. In California alone, over $200 million in previously awarded and obligated funding is at stake – funding that school districts are already putting to use for programs such as afterschool and summer learning initiatives, the purchase of educational technology, and the provision of mental health services and support. 

    “The Trump Administration’s blatant disregard for the education of our children is on full display with this latest round of funding cuts,” said Attorney General Bonta. “With each step President Trump takes to dismantle the Education Department, he is throwing our schools into turmoil and jeopardizing the academic success of a generation of American children. As a father, I can’t stand by and let this happen. I’m taking the President to court for the 13th time to help ensure our kids get the educational opportunities they deserve.”

    On March 28, 2025, Education Secretary Linda McMahon notified state departments of education that ED had unilaterally rescinded its previous actions preserving states’ access to awarded and obligated education funding that is currently supporting ongoing programs and services in local school districts across the country. These programs and services address, among other things, the impact of lost instructional time; students’ academic, social, and emotional needs; and the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on economically disadvantaged students, including homeless children and children in foster care.  

    In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta and the multistate coalition assert that the Department’s actions are arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. The coalition seeks a court order vacating the termination and reinstating ED’s prior approvals allowing states to access this funding through March 2026. 

    Joining Attorney General Bonta in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and the District of Columbia, along with the Governor of Pennsylvania.

    A copy of the lawsuit is available here.

    MIL OSI USA News –