Ozempic and Wegovy have been hailed as wonder drugs when it comes to weight loss. But as the drug has become more widely used, a number of unintended side-effects have become apparent – with the weight loss drug affecting the appearance of everything from your butt to your feet.
“Ozempic face” is another commonly reported consequences of using these popular weight loss drugs. This is a sunken or hollowed out appearance the face can take on in people taking weight loss drugs. It can also increase signs of ageing – including lines, wrinkles and sagging skin.
This happens because the action of semaglutide (the active ingredient in both Ozempic and Wegovy) isn’t localised to act just on the fat in places we don’t want it. Instead, it acts on fat across the whole body – including in the face.
But it isn’t just the appearance of your face that semaglutide affects. These drugs may also affect the mouth and teeth, too. And these side-effects could potentially lead to lasting damage.
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Dry mouth
Semaglutide effects the salivary glands in the mouth. It does this by reducing saliva production (hyposalivation), which can in turn lead to dry mouth (xerostomia). This means there isn’t enough saliva to keep the mouth wet.
It isn’t exactly clear why semaglutide has this effect on the salivary glands. But in animal studies of the drug, it appears the drug makes saliva stickier. This means there’s less fluid to moisten the mouth, causing it to dry out.
Another species that has been shown to thrive in conditions where saliva is reduced is Porphyromonas gingivalis. This bacteria is a significant contributor to the production of volatile sulphur compounds, which cause the foul odours characteristic of halitosis.
Another factor that might explain why semaglutide causes bad breath is because less saliva being produced means the tongue isn’t cleaned. This is the same reason why your “morning breath” is so bad, because we naturally produce less saliva at night. This allows bacteria to grow and produce odours. Case report images show some people taking semaglutide have a “furry”-like or coated appearance to their tongue. This indicates a build up of bacteria that contribute to bad breath.
Some people taking the weight loss drug experience a bacterial buidl-up on their tongue. sruilk/ Shutterstock
Tooth damage
One of the major side-effects of Ozempic is vomiting. Semaglutide slows how quickly the stomach empties, delaying digestion which can lead to bloating, nausea and vomiting.
Repeated vomiting can damage the teeth. This is because stomach acid, composed primarily of hydrochloric acid, erodes the enamel of the teeth. Where vomiting occurs over a prolonged period of months and years the more damage will occur. The back surface of the teeth (palatal surface) closest to the tongue are more likely to see damage – and this damage may not be obvious to the sufferer.
Vomiting also reduces the amount of fluid in the body. When combined with reduced saliva production, this puts the teeth at even greater risk of damage. This is because saliva helps neutralise the acid that causes dental damage.
Saliva also contributes to the dental pellicle – a thin, protective layer that the saliva forms on the surface of the teeth. It’s thickest on the tongue-facing surface of the bottom row of teeth. In people who produce less saliva, the dental pellicle contains fewer mucins – a type of mucus which helps saliva stick to the teeth.
Reducing the risk of damage
If you’re taking semaglutide, there are many things you can do to keep your mouth healthy.
Drinking water regularly during the day can help to keep the oral surfaces from drying out. This helps maintain your natural oral microbiome, which can reduce the risk of an overgrowth of the bacteria that cause bad breath and tooth damage.
Drinking plenty of water also enables the body to produce the saliva needed to prevent dry mouth, ideally the recommended daily amount of six to eight glasses. Chewing sugar-free gum is also a sensible option as it helps to encourage saliva production. Swallowing this saliva keeps the valuable fluid within the body. Gums containing eucalyptus may help to prevent halitosis, too.
There’s some evidence that probiotics may help to alleviate bad breath, at least in the short term. Using a probiotic supplements or consuming probiotic-rich foods (such as yoghurt or kefir) may be a good idea.
Women are twice as likely to have side-effects when taking GLP-1 receptor agonists – including gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting. This may be due to the sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone, which can alter the gut’s sensitivity. To avoid vomiting, try eating smaller meals since the stomach stays fuller for longer while taking semaglutide.
If you are sick, don’t immediately brush your teeth as this will spread the stomach’s acid over the surface of the teeth and increase the risk of damage. Instead, rinse your mouth out with water or mouthwash to reduce the strength of the acid and wait at least 30 minutes before brushing.
It isn’t clear how long these side effects last, they’ll likely disappear when the medication is stopped, but any damage to the teeth is permanent. Gastrointestinal side-effects can last a few weeks but usually resolve on their own unless a higher dose is taken.
Adam Taylor 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marcel Plichta, PhD Candidate in the School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
Russia launched its largest single drone attack of the war against Ukraine’s cities on June 1. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that they faced 472 unmanned one-way attack (OWA) drones overnight.
The record may not stand for long. The prior record was on May 26, when Moscow launched some 355 drones. The day before Russia had set a record with 298 Shaheds, which itself surpassed the May 18 tally.
Russia’s enormous OWA drone attacks came as a surprise to politicians and the general public, but it’s the culmination of years of work by the Russia military. Initially purchased from Iran, Russia began building factories in 2023 to assemble and then manufacture Shaheds (Iranian-designed unmanned drones) in Russia. Greater control over production gave Russia the opportunity to expand the number of Shaheds quickly.
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It also helps them gradually upgrade their drones. Investigations into downed Shaheds show that Russia has been coating the drones in carbon, which resists detection by radar by absorbing incoming waves instead of reflecting them back. They have also been adding SIM cards to transmit data back to Russia through mobile networks.
Shaheds also had their warheads upgraded. On May 20 the Ukrainian media reported that Shaheds were using newer incendiary and fragmentation warheads which start fires and spread large volumes of shrapnel respectively to increase their effectiveness.
Russia hit Kyiv with its biggest ever drone strike a few days ago.
These upgrades were simple in order to keep the cost of the drone, its major advantage over a missile, under control. These drones are both inexpensive and long-range.
This means that an attacker such as Russia can launch hundreds every month at targets across Ukraine with little concern about how many are lost along the way. Meanwhile, the defender is stuck figuring out how to shoot all incoming drones down at a reasonable cost indefinitely.
The problem is made even more complicated by the fact that air defence systems are sorely needed at the front line to shoot down hostile aircraft, making it a difficult trade-off.
Adding to the problem is the recent production of decoy Shaheds. While they carry no warhead and pose little threat by themselves, Ukrainian air defence cannot always tell the decoy from the real thing and still need to shoot them down. In late May, Ukrainian officials told the media that up to 40% of incoming Shaheds were decoys.
Consequently, Russia’s 472-drone attack reflects all of Russia’s innovations so far. These have improved the number of drones that survive, increased lethality, while using decoys alongside armed drones to ensure as many as possible reach their target.
What are the challenges for Ukraine?
Ukraine shoots most incoming Shaheds down. Even the 472-drone attack still had 382 claimed interceptions, a rate of 81%. However, the relatively high interception rate disguises the Shahed’s benefits for Russia.
Shaheds are cheap by military standards, so launching constant attacks is a disproportionate burden for Ukrainian air defence units. Kyiv has mobilised an enormous amount of resources to protect its cities, from mobile units in trucks to counter-Shahed drones that function like a cheaper anti-aircraft missile.
That said, these systems often have short ranges, which means that the savings per interception are somewhat offset by the need to maintain many hundreds of systems across a country as large as Ukraine. Ukraine also has the option of trying to strike Russia’s Shahed factories, which they have attempted a few times.
Despite Ukraine’s evolving air defence, Russia still sees military benefits to constant Shahed attacks. In a study I contributed to last year, we found that Russia’s initial OWA drone strategy in 2022 and 2023 did little to force Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war on terms favourable to Russia.
That may still be the case now, but the volume of drones and the high tempo of attacks means that Russian strategy could well be aimed at systematically exhausting Ukrainian air defence.
As Ukraine grapples with unpredictable US military support, Kyiv is more vulnerable to running out of ammunition for its more advanced air defence systems. This means that constant Shahed attacks make it more difficult for Ukraine to stop incoming missiles, which carry much larger warheads.
Ukraine’s drone strike this week.
Of course, Ukraine has its own versions of the Shahed, which it uses to routinely launch strikes against Russian military and oil facilities. Less is known about Ukraine’s OWA drones, but they often use many similar features to Shaheds such as satellite navigation.
For Russia’s Vladimir Putin, using Shaheds is not all about military benefit. Politically, he has increasingly used Shahed attacks to project a sense of power to his domestic audiences. On May 9, Russia paraded Shaheds through Moscow’s streets as part of its annual Victory Day celebrations, which had not been done in years past.
Ukraine has begun employing its own OWA drones as part of the “Spiderweb” operation to attack military and oil infrastructure across Russia.
Russia’s 472-drone attack is unlikely to remain its largest attack for long. Putin has shown a determination to expand the scale and tempo of its drone campaign and resist Ukaine’s calls for a permanent “ceasefire in the sky”, but this week Ukraine’s drone strategy has shown that prolonging the drone war can also have serious and unexpected effects for Moscow.
So long as the conflict continues, Ukraine’s defenders will find themselves facing more, and better, drones aimed at their cities. But increasingly it looks like Russia must worry about Ukraine’s drone capabilities too.
Marcel Plichta works for Grey Dynamics Ltd. as an intelligence instructor.
Children no longer play freely in driveways, on their streets or in urban parks and courtyards. In many places, children’s freedom to roam has been diminishing for generations, but the pandemic has hastened the decline of this free play.
Since the pandemic, children’s physical activity has become ever more structured. It now mostly happens in after-school or sports clubs, while informal, child-led play continues to decline.
In many cases, children don’t have easy access to purpose-built spaces like playgrounds. They need adults to get them there. Without the use of more informal spaces to spend time with other children, this means they often lack daily opportunities for play.
Unstructured play happens when children are given the opportunity to behave freely in spaces with other children. They will often need support from adults – such as through supervision – to help them play safely.
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Play – and especially unstructured opportunities for play – is essential for children. Beyond providing opportunities for physical activity, play is good for children’s development. It helps them to push boundaries, find ways of exploring friendships and resolving conflicts, and to stretch their imagination and creativity.
Schools are important for encouraging play. They can, for instance, combine play with potential benefits for physical activity levels, and with compassion for the environment and an interest in climate change and biodiversity.
But they are not the sole solution. Supporting play needs to reach beyond the school gates.
Urban play
The charity Playing Out has been working in Bristol, where we are based, and in many other cities across the UK to champion community-led “play streets”. Residents apply to their local council for temporary road closures, which allows them to let their children play on the street without fearing passing cars. Parents and carers supervise resident children to play outside their houses.
Finding ways to encourage children to play in places such as driveways, courtyards, and on their streets can also help with their independence in the outdoors. The three of us have worked on a variety of research projects on children’s interaction with the urban environment.
Lydia is involved with children and families living in an urban area of Bristol, exploring how to get children to play in these urban pockets of space. The “OK to play” project intends to create a toolkit to help families enhance these small threshold areas, such as driveways, into play spaces.
The experience of COVID lockdowns worldwide emphasised the importance of green spaces and nature for all of us in maintaining good levels of physical and mental health. This was often particularly challenging for children who lived in cities without easy access to gardens or green spaces.
Debbie has worked with artists and primary-aged children on the “What does nature mean to me” project. The children explored green spaces in Bristol, collecting natural materials for collages as well as painting, drawing and taking photographs.
The children were fascinated to see that nature resides even in the most urban places. Making art as well as spending time freely in natural spaces gave the children opportunities to explore big ideas: their hopes and fears for the future and what their role might be in the climate crisis.
Helping play happen
Adults have a crucial role in making being outside safer for children’s play. What the projects we’ve worked on have in common is willing adults who see the value of unstructured play, who can enthuse children, put in place structures to make being outside safer and support each other in enabling more children to engage in their right to play.
If you’re a parent or carer, you can take action. You could start by considering how you prioritise how your children spend their time. This might mean signing up to one less activity class, and instead using that regular time to supervise your children – and perhaps offering to supervise friends or neighbours’ children, too – as they play freely in your driveway, courtyard or other urban pocket.
Damien Hirst is never far from scandal. Perhaps best known for immersing animal corpses into formaldehyde and selling them as art, the “enfant terrible” of the 1990s Young British Artists (YBA) movement seems to court controversy for a living – and has made an extraordinary amount of money in the process. Reputedly worth around £700 million, this working-class lad “easily” topped a recent list of the world’s richest artists.
Money is at the root of a lot of the questions that hover around Hirst’s legacy to the art world as he reaches his 60th birthday. Few artists have stress-tested the question of artistic value (and price) more than him – not least in his 2007 work For The Love of God: a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with thousands of flawless diamonds.
Last year, Hirst’s money-related motives were called into question again in an investigation by the Guardian which revealed he had backdated three formaldehyde sculptures to the 1990s when they were, in fact, made in 2017. The report also found he had backdated some of the 10,000 original spot paintings from his NFT project The Currency to 2016, despite them being made between 2018 and 2019.
Hirst’s company, Science Ltd, defended the artist by reminding critics that his art is conceptual – and that he has always been clear that what matters is “not the physical making of the object or the renewal of its parts, but rather the intention and the idea behind the artwork”. His lawyers pointed out:
The dating of artworks, and particularly conceptual artworks, is not controlled by any industry standard. Artists are perfectly entitled to be (and often are) inconsistent in their dating of works.
But some of the art world did not respond kindly to this approach. Writing about Hirst’s “backdating scandal”, New York’s Rehs Galleries asked not only if Hirst could be sued by buyers and investors, but whether he was in creative decline. And Jones accused Hirst of being stuck in the past, calling the Guardian’s findings a “betrayal” for the artist’s admirers which could “threaten to poison Hirst’s whole artistic biography”.
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Ever since Hirst burst on the art scene in the 1990s with his macabre readymades (or “objets trouvé”) of dead animals in vitrines, he has divided art critics and the public alike. He has faced – and denied – multiple allegations of plagiarism and been censored by animal rights activists, while also being acclaimed as a “genius” and one of the leading global artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Amid all the eye-watering auction sales, he has donatedartworks to numerous charities throughout his career.
So, was the backdating incident another instance of Hirst mastering the art of the concept – and even offering a sly critique of consumerism and the art world machine, of which he is such a large cog? Or was it really just a big lie by a multi-millionaire artist seeking even more financial gain?
As philosophers of art, we think our discipline can shed light on these complex questions by exploring the nature of conceptual art, aesthetic deception and the ethics of the art market. As we contemplate the legacy of Hirst at 60, we ask: must artists always be truthful?
What only the best art can attain
Hirst had a humble upbringing. Born in the English port city of Bristol in 1959, he was raised in Leeds by his Irish mother, who encouraged him to draw. He never met his father and got in trouble with the police on a few occasions in his youth. His early artistic education was rocky too: he got a grade E in art A-Level and was rejected a handful of times by art schools.
But as a teenager, he had fallen in love with Francis Bacon’s paintings, later explaining that he admired their visceral expressions of the horror of the fragile body, and that he “went into sculpture directly in reaction … to Bacon’s work”. Hirst would also use his work experience in a morgue to hone his anatomical drawing skills.
His love of conceptual art blossomed when he began studying fine art at London’s Goldsmiths University in 1986 – taught by art world legends such as Michael Craig-Martin and catching the attention of collector and businessman Charles Saatchi. Craig-Martin had risen to fame for his conceptual artwork An Oak tree (1973), consisting of a glass of water on a pristine shelf with a text asserting that the glass was, in fact, an oak tree. Hirst has described this artwork as “the greatest piece of conceptual sculpture – I still can’t get it out of my head”.
Hirst’s fascination with death culminated in his most notorious work of art, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) – a dead tiger shark, caught off the coast of Queensland in Australia, preserved in formaldehyde in a glass vitrine.
We encountered the work, separately and ten years apart, in London and New York. We both felt inclined to dislike and dismiss it. Instead, we were simply overwhelmed. By forcing us to stare death in the face, literally, the work put everything on its edge – awe-inspiring and horrifying, life-affirming and fatal, in your face yet somehow apart and absent.
Like it or not, Hirst’s shark achieved what only the best art can: jolting us out of our everyday registers – making us confront mortality, the value of life, and the human condition.
Video: Khan Academy.
Not everyone agreed, of course. After it was exhibited in the first YBA show at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992, there was a swarm of hate. According to the Stuckist Art Group (an anti-conceptual art movement), a dead shark isn’t art. Of Hirst’s entire oeuvre, the group’s co-founders have said: “They’re bright and they’re zany – but there’s fuck all there at the end of the day.”
After Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995 for Mother and Child, Divided (a bisected cow and calf in glass tanks) Conservative politician Norman Tebbit asked whether the art world had “gone stark raving mad”. Art critic Brian Sewell exclaimed that Hirst’s work is “no more interesting than a stuffed pike over a pub door”.
But Hirst never seemed to care about such criticism as he tackled controversial themes ranging from death, science and religion to the unrelenting power of capitalism. Along the way, he has used his power to criticise the very art world of which he forms such an important part, and from which he has gained such enormous riches.
You might say his art reached a logical endpoint with The Currency in 2021 – a conceptual experiment in which 10,000 unique, hand-painted spot paintings were reduced to money itself, as they corresponded to 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Buyers were given the choice of keeping either the physical or the digital version, while the other would be destroyed. Speaking to the actor and art enthusiast Stephen Fry, Hirst said of these paintings:
What if I made these and treated them like money? … I’ve never really understood money. All these things – art, money, commerce – they’re all ethereal. It relies not on notebooks or pieces of paper but belief, trust.
How Hirst makes his art
It’s not just what Hirst’s art supposedly means that sometimes rocks the boat, but how he makes it.
While he began his career by personally making and manipulating his chosen artistic materials – from paint and canvas to flies and maggots – he now unapologetically relies on a studio populated by numerous assistants to produce the works that bear his name. It is largely these studio workers who pour the paint on spinning canvases, handle the formaldehyde, construct the glass boxes, and source the dead animals.
Hirst has fully endorsed the conceptual artist’s mantra of “the art is the idea”. If the artwork is the idea rather than the material object, then it should suffice merely for the artist to think or conceptualise the objects for them to count as his works of art. According to this perspective, exactly who makes the objects which are exhibited, sold and debated in the media is entirely unimportant.
But to some, this adds to the ways in which they feel deceived or “had” by Hirst. After all, at least in the western artistic tradition, the connection between artist and artwork has for hundreds of years been considered unique, sacred even. If an artist doesn’t actually make the art any more, to what extent can they really be said to be an artist at all?
Except that, in this respect, Hirst is not particularly unusual. Outsourcing the physical act of making an artwork is almost standard among contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread and Jeff Koons – all of whom have long relied on trainee artists, engineers, architects, constructors and more to build their large structural works.
And while Andy Warhol was the trendsetter in this regard from the early 1960s – calling his studio The Factory for its assembly line-style of production – the practice predates even him by hundreds of years. The great masters of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, having acquired sufficient fame and fortune, were rarely the sole creators of their masterpieces.
The 17th-century Flemish artist Rubens, for example, would often leave the painting of less central or prominent features in his works to his studio assistants – many of whom, including Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens, went on to highly successful artistic careers of their own. Even 14-year-old Leonardo da Vinci started out as a studio apprentice in the workshop of the Italian sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio.
Unlike Rubens, however, Hirst now only rarely makes any kind of material contribution to his works, beyond adding his signature. The Currency series involved Hirst merely adding a watermark and signature to the thousands of handmade spot paintings.
Video: HENI.
Also, Hirst’s works make no formal recognition of this studio input, whereas for Rubens, the arrangement was fairly transparent. Indeed, the division of labour was sometimes even negotiated with the painting’s buyer – the more a buyer was willing to pay, the more Rubens would paint himself.
But Hirst makes no secret of his lack of physical involvement in the material process, explaining:
You have to look at it as if the artist is an architect – we don’t have a problem that great architects don’t actually build the houses … Every single spot painting contains my eye, my hand and my heart.
Hirst’s social media pages often show the artist arriving at his studio while his team are busy at work. And clearly, not all potential buyers care about his “hands-off approach” – a large part of what they value is, precisely, the signature. In 2020, Hirst told The Idler magazine’s editor Tom Hodgkinson:
If I couldn’t delegate, I wouldn’t make any work … If I want to paint a spot painting but don’t know how I want it to look, I can go to an assistant … When they ask how you want it to look, you can say: ‘I don’t know, just do it.’ It gives you something to kick against or work against.
In the past decade, though, Hirst says he has scaled back his studio, admitting his art life felt like it was out of control:
You start by thinking you’ll get one assistant and before you know it, you’ve got biographers, fire eaters, jugglers, fucking minstrels and lyre players all wandering around.
The product of a specific place and time
Hirst disrupts our beliefs about art to an extent matched by few of his contemporaries. Always in the business of fragmenting the already vague expectations of the art market – and wider general public – he continues the trajectory outlined by fellow experimental conceptual artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Adrian Piper, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth and Yoko Ono – now well over 50 years ago.
When the making of art moves into this level of abstraction, a historical fact like the precise inception date seems harder to pin down – and it becomes much less clear which aspects of the creative process should determine when the work was “made”.
Of course, the same question arises outside the confines of this artistic genre. How should we deal with performative arts such as theatre, jazz or opera? Is it all that important to date John Coltrane’s Blue Train to its first recording in 1957, rather than any of the other dates on which the American jazz legend performed it? Surely some aesthetic and artistic qualities are added on each occasion?
However, art in general, be it Blue Train or one of Hirst’s spot paintings, is always the product of a specific place and time. It is undoubtedly a significant fact about Hirst’s Cain and Abel (1994) – one of the artworks highlighted by the Guardian misdating investigation – that it was “made” in the YBA boom of the 1990s.
Can we engage with these pieces without bringing knowledge of this fact into our experience of them? Yes. Can we grasp at least some of their wider meaning? Almost certainly. But can we fully appreciate them as cultural objects – defining a precise moment in the evolution of art and society at large, perhaps foreseeing a certain shift in our larger value systems including what art means to us? Maybe not.
But there is another possibility we need to consider – one that touches on the worries of some of Hirst’s critics. What if Hirst intentionally misled the public for financial and commercial gain, and that the dating debacle has nothing to do with his cunning conceptual practice?
Jon Sharples, senior associate at London-based law firm Howard Kennedy – one of the first UK practices to advise on art and cultural property law – observed a few reasons why an artist might deliberately fudge or mislead on the origin of their art:
The potential for commercial pressure to do so is obvious. If works from a certain period achieve higher market prices than works from other periods, there is a clear incentive to increase the supply of such works to meet the demand for them.
Another reason Sharples offered is an art-historical one – to make the artist appear more radical: “In the linear, western conception of art history – in which ‘originality’ is often elevated above all other artistic virtues, and great store is placed in being the ‘first’ artist to arrive at a particular development – artists have sometimes been given to tampering with the historical record.”
Here, Sharples referenced the famous example of “the father of abstraction”, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, backdating the first version of his Black Square by two years.
So, has Hirst just told a big fib about the origins of some of his art?
Philosophers largely agree that lying involves asserting something you believe to be untrue; speaking seriously but not telling the truth. And most of the time, we all assume that people around us abide by the norm that everyone ought to speak truthfully to each other. If we didn’t believe this, we would barely be able to communicate with one another. Lying involves violating this “truth norm”.
Yet, the case of art seems to stand in stark contrast to this. When we ask whether an artist has lied as part of their artistic practice, it is often not clear that there is a straightforward truth norm in the art world to be violated: it’s not clear that the artist is speaking ‘seriously’ in the first place.
I (Daisy) have researched in depth the reasons why lying in the art world is such a tricky business. In many exhibitions, it is the aesthetic experience that is of primary value. If what matters is creating beauty, then straightforward truth is not the point.
Moreover, even in cases where the art is designed to convey a specific message, it’s tricky to say in what sense they ought to tell “the truth”. Many artworks represent fictional scenarios which needn’t be fully accurate.
For instance, it was quite acceptable in the 16th century for painters of religious paintings to give central biblical figures inaccurate clothing – and for portrait artists not to paint their sitter’s flaws and blemishes. And in the perplexing art world of the 21st century, many post-1960 artforms are designed to challenge and critique the very nature of truth itself.
All of which means straightforward “truth games” do not operate as smoothly in the art world as they do in the ordinary world. With its self-reflective and self-critical structure, the art world of today offers a space to think open-endedly and creatively. Do you expect everything you see in an art gallery, or even speeches by conceptual artists, to be straightforwardly “true”? We don’t think so.
The art world is hardly renowned for its straightforwardly communicated messages. To accuse Hirst of lying assumes he is playing the truth game that the rest of us are signed up to in the first place. And it’s not clear he is.
Hirst might be closer to a novelist or actor who plays with and explores the very nature of truth and falsehood. In this way, he’s maybe at most a “bullshitter” who doesn’t play – or care for – the truth game at all.
The real problem?
But this fascination with Hirst’s dating practices may overlook the more important – if equally complex – problem of how his art works were made, rather than when. Are the ethical concerns about the production of Hirst’s enormous oeuvre the real issue in assessing his legacy as an artist?
For instance, Hirst has been criticised for treating his staff as “disposable”. During the peak of the COVID pandemic, he laid off 63 of his studio assistants even though his company had reportedly received £15 million of emergency loans from the UK government.
And while Hirst’s lawyers insist his studios always adhere to health-and-safety regulations, some of the “factory line” workers producing artworks for The Currency were allegedly left with repetitive strain injuries. One artist described their year-long toil as “very, very tedious”. Another commented on the work tables being at a low level, forcing them to constantly bend down.
Hirst has publicly praised assistants such as the artist Rachel Howard, who he described as “the best person who ever painted spots for me”. Likewise, Howard described working with Hirst as “a very good symbiotic” relationship.
Hirst is famous for exhibiting slain animals … and for the use of thousands of butterflies whose wings are torn and glued on various objects. Death and the taste of the macabre serve to attract attention. Then wealthy collectors such as Saatchi and even the prestigious Sotheby’s artificially inflate the prices of Hirst’s junk. It’s a squalid commercial operation based on death and contempt for living and sentient beings.
Video: Channel 4 News.
Indeed, some of Hirst’s macabre formaldehyde pieces are known for rotting a little too much. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living originally deteriorated due to an improper preservation technique, and had to be replaced by another shark caught off the same Australian coast. It’s not clear how many sharks have now been killed – or will need to be killed in the future – to preserve this masterpiece.
Further concerns have been raised about the environmental ethics of Hirst’s art, including that The Currency project incurred a hefty carbon footprint because of its reliance on blockchain technology. While Hirst used a more environmentally-friendly sidechain to release his NFTs, he still received payment via bitcoin, which has a far higher energy consumption.
Traditionally, art historians, critics and investors have championed an artwork’s meaning over any of its moral flaws in its production. But the ethics of artmaking are now being questioned by philosophers such as ourselves, as well as by many influential figures in the art world. Artworks that incur large carbon footprints, cause damage to ecosystems, or use and kill animals, are now considered morally flawed in these ways.
Philosophers such as Ted Nannicelli argue that these ethical defects can actually diminish the artistic value of the work of art. Meanwhile, artists such as Angela Singer and Ben Rubin and Jen Thorp use their art for animal and eco-activism, while doing no harm to creatures or the ecosystem in the process.
As we both acknowledge, Hirst’s shark expressed a laudable meaning in an arresting way. But is this enough to excuse the (repeated) killing of this awesome animal? Do we become complicit in its death by praising it as art? It is a question anybody who was impressed by its sheer aesthetic presence all those years ago should ask themselves.
In this and many other ways, Hirst’s work continues to raise fundamental questions about art – long after it was created, or dated. If nothing else, surely this confirms his enduring position in the British art establishment.
Damien Hirst’s representatives were contacted about the criticisms of Hirst that are highlighted in this article, but they did not respond by the time of publication.
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Elisabeth Schellekens has received funding from Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Funding Council) as Principal Investigator for research into Aesthetic Perception and Aesthetic Cognition (2019-22), and an AHRC Innovation Award on Perception and Conceptual Art with Peter Goldie (2003).
Daisy Dixon 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.
Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
ACCRA, Ghana, June 4, 2025/APO Group/ —
Industry leaders at the Mining in Motion 2025 summit spotlighted Ghana’s ongoing efforts to formalize its artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector.
Participants on an India Gold Metaverse-sponsored session – titled Case Studies in ASGM Formalization: Learning from Successes and Addressing Challenges – emphasized that formalization has the potential to catalyze sustainability, build stronger communities and drive long-term economic growth.
“We need regulatory and legislative changes that support small-scale miners and ensure that revenue from their contributions translates into real economic, social and communal growth,” stated Martin Ayisi, CEO of the Minerals Commission of Ghana.
Ayisi called for bold regulatory and financial interventions in the sector, stressing the urgent need for investment in geological investigations and sustainable technologies to prevent encroachment on protected areas and improve sector-wide outcomes.
From an regional perspective, Cisse Vakaba, Advisor to the President on Mining, Ivory Coast, emphasized the foundational role of geology in building a viable ASGM sector. He stressed that state support must go beyond issuing permits to include geological surveys, professional training, community engagement and digital tools for traceability.
“I really think that the basis for small mines is the geological aspect. This is the aspect where we have to work, to see the areas where they can exploit,” Vakaba stated, adding, “The State must provide support. It’s not enough to issue a title, a permit. We need to support prospecting and geological research.”
Meanwhile, Melissa Correa Vélez, Program Manager, Swiss Better Gold, highlighted the human-centered approach necessary to make formalization efforts successful. Velez – through Swiss Better Gold’s Boots on the Ground initiative – advocates for programs, including technical support and community-oriented training, that extend beyond legal structures to genuinely improve livelihoods and environmental stewardship.
“If you want to work with artisanal miners, work with them. Keep the miners interested in being responsible. If the miners lose interest because of the challenges, they will become illegal,” Velez stated.
For his part, Kwaku Afrifa Nsiah-Asare, Lawyer and Entrepreneur, Typhoon Greenfield Development, emphasized that government support will be a requisite for ASGM formalization in Ghana, speaking candidly on social and financial challenges in the sector.
“By doing everything properly, the Minerals Commission of Ghana has been extremely supportive and made it worthwhile for us to do business. It’s about partnerships and leadership in government,” Nsiah-Asare stated.
Bringing a tech-forward perspective, Lamon Rutten, Managing Director and CEO of India Gold Metaverse, spoke to the transformative potential of digital innovation in the ASGM value chain.
“Blockchain technologies and AI can help improve artisanal and small-scale mining operations. Tools like geo-tracking, radio-frequency identification-equipped machinery and internet-of-things devices allow us to trace ore sources. If you really want to develop small-scale mining, work with local banks. Let them understand the sector and they will help drive sustainable growth,” Rutten said.
During the presentation, the panelists agreed that projects including the Ghana Land Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project – a joint initiative with the World Bank – are setting a precedent. By offering financial and technical support, simplifying license through District Mining Committees, and organizing miners into Community Mining Schemes, Ghana is building an ASGM sector that is increasingly legal, sustainable and community driven.
Organized by the Ashanti Green Initiative – led by Oheneba Kwaku Duah, Prince of Ghana’s Ashanti Kingdom – in collaboration with Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, World Bank, and the World Gold Council, with the support of Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the summit offers unparalleled opportunities to connect with industry leaders.
The Labour government is on the wrong side of history and it has Palestinian blood on its hands
More in External Affairs
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman joined protesters outside the UK Government offices in Edinburgh as part of the Red Line for Gaza demonstration, calling for an immediate end to arms sales to Israel and demanding accountability for the UK’s role in the ongoing violence against Palestinians.
The protest coincides with Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, with catastrophic impacts on civilians.
The UK Government is currently facing a judicial review in the High Court challenging their continued supply of F-35 parts in arms exports used by Israel. Despite mounting evidence the Government lawyer’s have argued no violation of the duty to prevent genocide “can occur unless and until there is actually a genocide”.
European countries such as Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy have suspended arms sales to Israel, however, the UK Government continues to fight the case as aircraft continue to bomb Gaza.
“Gaza has been turned into rubble – hospitals, schools, homes – all destroyed. Over 90% of housing has been wiped out. Families are being displaced and forced into camps with no food, water or shelter. This is not just a humanitarian crisis – it’s a moral catastrophe and the UK Government is helping it happen. The UK Government is complicit.
“It’s shameful that the UK refuses to act. Instead of standing up for peace, the Prime Minister came to Scotland to announce more money for war. Keir Starmer’s expects yet more UK tax money to feed the war machine and his government’s denial of genocide shows he’s more interested in retaining power than defending human rights. This Labour government is on the wrong side of history and it has Palestinian blood on its hands.
“The UK Government is currently defending its position in a high court case, claiming there’s “no evidence” of genocide or intentional targeting of civilians in Gaza. It doesn’t require much thought to reject that argument outright: this genocide is being live-streamed for all to see. We’ve all seen the videos. We’ve seen the bodies. The world knows what’s happening in Gaza – the destruction, the killing of women and children. For the UK Government to say there’s no evidence is not only dishonest – it’s dangerous.
“The Scottish Greens know that genuine security doesn’t come at the end of a gun or aftermath of a bomb. It comes from investing in healthcare, affordable housing and a green economy built on sustainability and compassion.
“We have consistently called for an immediate end to arms sales to Israel, full transparency over any UK or indeed Scottish Government funding linked to Israeli military production, an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, recognition of the State of Palestine, and Israel’s suspension from international bodies, including the United Nations, until compliance with international law is restored.
“Together, outside the UK Government offices, we gathered in protest but we also gathered in hope. Hope for the Palestinian people and hope for humanity.”
nited Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Major General Diodato Abagnara of Italy as Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Major General Abagnara succeeds Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz of Spain. The Secretary-General extends his sincere gratitude to Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz for his dedication and leadership of UNIFIL during one of the mission’s most challenging periods.
Major General Abagnara brings to the position over 36 years of military service, including extensive leadership roles within the Italian Armed Forces. Most recently, he served as Commander and Chair of the Military Technical Committee for Lebanon (MTC4L), where he oversaw multinational coordination efforts in support of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Prior to that, he held several key appointments, including Personnel Division Chief and Adviser to the Chief of Defence Staff in the Defence General Staff, Commander of an infantry brigade, and Chief of the Officers’ Employment Office. From 2018 to 2019, he was also UNIFIL Sector West Commander. In addition, he chaired the Joint Gender Perspective Council within the Defence General Staff, underscoring his commitment to inclusive leadership and institutional reform.
Major General Abagnara holds four Bachelor’s degrees: in Political Science from the University of Turin; in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Trieste; in Business Management and Communication from the University of Teramo; and in Strategic Sciences from the University of Turin, all in Italy. He also holds six Master’s degrees: in Law from the University of Rome; in Strategic Sciences from the University of Turin; in International Strategic-Military Studies, Advanced Studies in Intelligence and Security, and Cybersecurity and Information Security from the University of Rome; and in Strategic Leadership and Digital Transformation from the Luiss Business School, Rome, all in Italy. He is fluent in English and Italian, and speaks French and Spanish.
ALPINE, Texas — A Colorado man was sentenced in a federal court May 27 in Alpine to 240 months in prison for distributing fentanyl to a Texas resident as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Texas Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Investigations Division, the Alpine Police Department, Brewster County Sheriff’s Office, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service assisted with the case.
“Fentanyl dealers trade in death,” said Jason T. Stevens, special agent in charge of HSI El Paso. “This sentence reflects the seriousness of the crime and Homeland Security Investigations’ commitment to ensure they face severe consequences.”
According to court documents, Douglas Christopher Steele, 54, of Denver, engaged in a text message conversation with a man living in Alpine on Jan. 29, 2024. Steele agreed to mail 20 fentanyl pills to the man’s work address. Steele notified the man that he’d mailed the package of fentanyl on Feb. 2, 2024, and on Feb. 5, 2024, the man’s co-worker received the FedEx delivery. Through additional text message exchanges, Steele and the man discussed the strength of the fentanyl, and just after midnight on Feb. 6, 2024, the man messaged Steele telling him that he nearly overdosed. Later that morning, the man was found unresponsive in the restroom at his place of work. He was pronounced dead at an area hospital.
An HSI and DPS investigation revealed the envelopes at the man’s residence had been mailed from Steele’s Colorado residence, and eventually the cell phone messages between the man and Steele.
Steele was indicted on May 9, 2024, in Pecos, Texas, for two counts related to distributing fentanyl and was arrested May 11 in Denver. He pleaded guilty Nov. 18, 2024.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Greenbaum prosecuted the case.
How can nuclear science help keep plastic waste out of the ocean and our daily lives?
Nuclear science offers innovative solutions to address plastic pollution across its entire lifecycle. To combat this challenge, we need to understand its root causes. Research indicates that approximately 80 per cent of marine plastic pollution originates on land (with the rest coming from ocean sources such as fishing nets etc.) making land-based interventions critical.
The IAEA is working on two fronts using cutting-edge technologies: firstly, we are using radiation to create bio-based plastics, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional petroleum-based plastics. Simply put, we are working on new materials that are both biodegradable and easily recyclable. This approach not only reduces reliance on fossil fuels but also supports circular economies by turning organic waste into valuable resources.
Secondly, we are using radiation technology to transform plastic waste into more durable, stronger and higher value products. For example, radiation can enhance the performance of concrete by partially replacing cement with recycled plastics. Nuclear techniques are improving the sorting and separation of polymers in mixed plastic waste streams. We’re also exploring how radiation-assisted pyrolysis can convert plastics into waxes, fuels and other valuable chemical additives.
If we treat plastics using radiation, won’t the new products be dangerous?
Not at all — in fact, quite the opposite. Radiation is considered a form of ‘green chemistry’ because it allows us to process materials without using toxic chemicals or extreme conditions like high temperature or pressure. When we use radiation to create new bio-based plastics or upcycle plastic waste, the process is clean, efficient and environmentally friendly.
And the radiation itself does not remain in the material. Just like when you get a dental X ray, the radiation passes through but doesn’t stay with you. The same principle applies here: the materials are not radioactive after treatment and are completely safe to use.
You mentioned using nuclear technology to improve plastic recycling. Is this already happening?
We have 52 countries collaborating with the IAEA on novel upcycling efforts under the NUTEC Plastics initiative. Nine of them are pilot countries, marking a major step forward in turning innovation into reality. These countries are advancing rapidly along the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale — a globally recognized nine-stage framework that tracks the maturity of technologies from concept to commercial deployment.
We’re already seeing exciting, tangible results.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, wood-plastic composites are being developed for sustainable construction. In Malaysia, plastic waste is being converted into fuel. In Argentina, durable railroad sleepers made from recycled plastics are showing strong performance in early trials.
These pilot projects are not just proof of concept — they are proof of progress. We anticipate several of these technologies reaching the final TRL stages and moving toward full-scale implementation as early as next year.
Why, as a scientist, did you choose to go into this field?
I’ve always believed that science should serve as a catalyst for meaningful, lasting change. That belief led me to focus on plastic upcycling and the search for alternatives to petroleum-based materials — areas where innovation can directly address the environmental crises we face today.
With over 30 years of experience working with ionizing radiation, I’ve seen firsthand its untapped potential to transform waste into valuable resources. This work is more than research — it’s a commitment to building a circular economy that safeguards our ecosystems, reduces human carbon footprint, and leaves a healthier, more resilient planet for future generations.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) boasts one of the most secure and stable electricity supply systems in the region. Leveraging its substantial natural gas and oil reserves, among the largest globally, the UAE generates sufficient electricity to satisfy domestic consumption. The nation primarily utilizes its gas for power generation and for re-injection into oil fields to enhance production, while designating a significant portion of its oil for export. Backed by an increase in electricity demand, power capacity in the country is expected to reach 79.1GW in 2035, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4% during 2024-35, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Attaurrahman Ojindaram Saibasan, Power Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The power sector in the UAE offers abundant opportunities for investors, with the government poised to make significant investments in the expansion and modernization of its generation and supply infrastructure. The anticipated increase in capacity is projected to occur predominantly in gas-based thermal power, as opposed to oil, where capacity is expected to remain stable. Manufacturers of gas turbines stand to benefit from this surge in gas-fired power capacity.”
The UAE’s conditions are exceptionally conducive to solar power generation, prompting the government to allocate extensive tracts of undeveloped land for solar parks, including both photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations. These developments will not only meet local demand but also cater to export needs.
Saibasan adds: “Over the past decade, the UAE has experienced a marked increase in electricity demand, necessitating the importation of natural gas from Qatar. In response to this growing demand and to diversify its energy portfolio, the UAE has strategically shifted away from exclusive dependence on natural gas, expanding into renewable and nuclear energy sectors.”
The UAE is experiencing a notable surge in electricity demand, driven by its expanding population and urban development. As of 2024, the current population stands at approximately 11 million and is projected to rise to 11.9 million by the year 2030. A significant factor in this increased energy consumption is the high expatriate population, which constitutes around 88% of the total and contributes to the growth in residential and commercial energy needs.
Saibasan concludes: “Additionally, the development of mega urban projects, such as Masdar City and Expo City Dubai, underscores the necessity for sustainable energy solutions. These smart cities are at the forefront of innovation, yet they also contribute to higher electricity consumption. Consequently, this trend necessitates the expansion of the electrical grid and investment in smart infrastructure to meet the evolving demands.”
The diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis among women ages 12–54 years in the seven major markets (7MM*) are set to register an annual growth rate (AGR) of 0.09% from 2.77 million in 2024 to 2.8 million in 2034, forecasts GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s latest report, “Endometriosis – Epidemiology Forecast to 2034,” reveals that the US will have the highest number of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis among the 7MM at 1.51 million cases, whereas Japan will have the lowest number at 0.09 million cases in 2034.
Antara Bhattacharya, Associate Project Manager, Epidemiology team at GlobalData, comments: “In 2024, women in ages 30–54 years accounted for almost 92% of the diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis in the 7MM, while younger women in ages 12–29 years accounted for approximately 8% of the cases.”
GlobalData estimates that in 2024, approximately 64% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis in the 7MM were laparoscopy confirmed, whereas 36% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis suspected cases. In 2024, approximately 28% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis were in stage IV, whereas 22% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis were in stage I.
In the 7MM, approximately 44% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis were superficial peritoneal endometriosis, whereas 19% of diagnosed prevalent cases were deep infiltrating endometriosis in 2024. Approximately 44% of diagnosed prevalent cases of endometriosis were with dysmenorrhea.
Bhattacharya concludes: “Endometriosis significantly impacts quality of life among women of reproductive age due to pain, fatigue, and other symptoms that can affect daily activities, work productivity, and relationships. This may further lead to psychological consequences. Diagnostic delay, limited capacity of health systems, and sub-optimal access to specialized surgery such as laparoscopy further exacerbate the condition, since prompt access to available treatment methods, including non-steroidal analgesics, progestin-based contraceptives, is often not achieved.
“Addressing endometriosis through various treatments and supportive care can help improve the quality of life for those affected. Additionally, capacity development of primary healthcare providers is essential to initiate treatment for patients who could benefit from medical symptomatic management.”
*7MM: The US, 5EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK), and Japan.
In 2024, the global payment ecosystem witnessed structural changes with digital acceleration, consumer behavior shifts, and macroeconomic pressures reshaping the industry landscape. The top 20 publicly listed payment companies by revenue have navigated this landscape with varying degrees of agility, innovation, and strategic execution. The top 20 public payment companies saw their revenues rise by 9% to $262.8 billion in 2024, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
The US payment companies dominated the list, with the top four – American Express, Visa, PayPal, and Mastercard – accounting for 63.7% of the aggregate revenue of the top 20. Driven by an increase in global payment volume, the top four witnessed a rise in revenue by an average of 10%.
Other companies in the top 20 list that recorded impressive top-line growth include Shift4 Payments, Adyen, and Green Dot, which reported more than 15% growth.
Murthy Grandhi, Company Profiles Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Shift4 Payments reported a 30% year-over-year revenue growth, driven by a significant increase in end-to-end payment volume, which reached $55.8 billion. This performance was supported by the continued onboarding of larger merchants, who generally operate under lower unit pricing compared to the existing customer base. Additionally, growth in subscription and other revenues was primarily attributed to the positive impact of recent acquisitions and increased SaaS revenue associated with the company’s SkyTab solutions.”
Adyen’s growth was driven by the deepening of relationships with existing customers, alongside contributions of €8.3 million from payment settlement and processing activities. Additional revenue was generated through the sale of goods, including point-of-sale (POS) terminals, as well as other payment-specific services.
Green Dot’s revenue growth was primarily driven by a 22.2% increase in card revenue, supported by a rise in gross dollar volume within its B2B Services segment. This growth led to higher program management service fees generated from its Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) partnerships.
Grandhi concludes: “In 2025, the payments industry is expected to undergo accelerated transformation, driven by the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), real-time payment infrastructure, and embedded finance. Market leaders will likely be those that effectively integrate innovation with operational stability, expand globally while navigating evolving regulatory landscapes, and deliver broad, customer-focused product offerings. As the global economy stabilizes, the sector is positioned not only for sustained growth but also for a fundamental reshaping of how value is exchanged across digital ecosystems.”
The need for reshoring and friend-shoring supply chains has been a long time coming. Companies that adapted early to these shifts are now better positioned to weather the challenges posed by the US trade war, as demonstrated by Ferrero‘s proactive approach, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Hannah Cleland, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “As part of a decade-long strategy to grow its sales in the US, Ferrero has invested in North American production facilities and acquired US businesses such as Fannie May, Nestle’s US confectionery arm (including Nerds and Butterfingers), and Wells Enterprises (Halo Top owner). Additionally, it has introduced several of its global and European brands, including Kinder. However, its most recent US range deliberately Americanizes the flavors of some of its most iconic products, including Nutella Peanut and Dr Pepper Tic Tacs.”
Ferrero’s localized tactics not only mitigate the impact of tariffs but also align with growing consumer demand for domestic products. GlobalData’s Q1 2025 global consumer survey reveals that 55% of US consumers claim political events have heightened their awareness of the country of origin of the products they purchase, underscoring the importance of country-of-origin marketing in products.* By incorporating distinctly American flavors such as peanuts and Dr Pepper into its offerings, Ferrero effectively encourages consumers to perceive its products as locally made.
This strategy resonates with consumers who are increasingly motivated by both financial considerations and a desire to support local businesses, especially during a persistent cost-of-living crisis. 61% of US consumers strongly or somewhat agree that they prefer local products due to their affordability compared to imports. *
Cleland concludes: “A reactive approach to supply chain shocks is no longer sufficient. Brands must invest in long-term strategies that ensure stability and resilience in the face of unpredictable market dynamics. Ferrero’s successful localization strategy serves as a valuable lesson for global companies navigating the complexities of trade wars and economic uncertainty.”
*GlobalData Q1 2025 global consumer surveys, 22,000 respondents across 42 countries
Headline: Microsoft launches new European security initiative
As AI and digital technologies advance, the European cyber threat landscape continues to evolve, presenting new challenges that require stronger partnerships and enhanced solutions. Ransomware groups and state-sponsored actors from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea continue to grow in scope and sophistication, and European cyber protection cannot afford to stand still.
That is why, today, in Berlin, we are announcing a new Microsoft initiative to expand our longstanding work to help defend Europe’s cybersecurity. Implementing one of the five European Digital Commitments I shared in Brussels five weeks ago, we are launching a new European Security Program that adds to the company’s longstanding global Government Security Program.
This new program expands the geographic reach of our existing work and adds new elements that will become critical to Europe’s protection. It puts AI at the center of our work as a tool to protect traditional cybersecurity needs and strengthens our protection of digital and AI infrastructure.
We are launching the European Security Program with three new elements:
Increasing AI-based threat intelligence sharing with European governments;
Making additional investments to strengthen cybersecurity capacity and resilience; and
Expanding our partnerships to disrupt cyberattacks and dismantle the networks cybercriminals use.
We are making this program available to European governments, free of charge, including all 27 European Union (EU) member states, as well as EU accession countries, members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the UK, Monaco, and the Vatican.
Together, these efforts reflect Microsoft’s long-term commitment to defending Europe’s digital ecosystem—ensuring that, no matter how the threat landscape evolves, we will remain a trusted and steadfast partner to Europe in securing its digital future.
The need for new steps – the current threat environment
Microsoft continues to observe persistent threat activity targeting European networks from nation state actors, with Russian and Chinese activity being particularly prolific in Europe. Unsurprisingly, Russia continues to be especially focused on targets in Ukraine and European nations providing support to Ukraine. Nation-state actors, including those engaging in malicious activity from Iran and North Korea, are predominantly pursuing espionage objectives in Europe through credential theft or the exploitation of vulnerabilities to gain access to corporate and government networks. Several campaigns, including those from China, have also targeted academic institutions, compromising accounts to access sensitive research data or conduct geopolitical espionage against think tanks. Cybercriminals continue to develop Ransomware-as-a-Service beyond nation-state threats. We have seen the emergence of illicit websites rapidly gaining followings by leaking ransomware insights to be used by criminal groups to conduct attacks across Europe.
The rise of AI is also augmenting and evolving threat actor behavior. Microsoft has observed AI use by threat actors for reconnaissance, vulnerability research, translation, LLM-refined operational command techniques, resource development, scripting techniques, detection evasion, social engineering, and brute force attacks. This is why Microsoft now tracks any malicious use of new AI models we release and proactively prevents known threat actors from using our AI products. This also underscores the importance of secure development and rigorous testing of AI models, leveraging AI to benefit cyber defenders, and close public-private partnerships to share the latest insights about AI and cybersecurity.
Increasing AI-based threat intelligence sharing with governments
Microsoft’s Government Security Program (GSP) has long provided governments with confidential security information and resources to help them better understand our products and the evolving threat landscape, particularly threats from nation-state actors. Building on existing efforts, our new European Security Program will increase the flow and expand access to actionable threat intelligence to European governments. Tailored to discrete national threat environments using AI insights, and delivered, when possible, in real time, this program is designed to help governments stay ahead of advancing cyber threats through:
Leveraging threat intelligence insights – Microsoft tracks the most sophisticated nation-state cyber activity, offering timely insights into evolving global threats. We use AI to support our analysis, which has improved our visibility and accelerated our ability to share the latest intelligence on the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by advanced persistent threat actors, including the malicious use of AI. By providing more information and faster, Microsoft will help European governments strengthen their cyber resilience and enable proactive defense.
Expanding cybercrime reporting – The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) plays a critical role in detecting and disrupting global cybercriminal infrastructure, generating invaluable real-time intelligence in the process. As part of this new effort, we are expanding the availability of this intelligence to trusted European partners to support rapid response and coordinated enforcement action through the Cybercrime Threat Intelligence Program (CTIP).
Providing foreign influence operations updates – The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) continues to monitor influence operations in Europe, which are increasingly using AI to mislead and deceive with deepfake synthetic media. MTAC also uses AI to look for commonalities across operations and will provide regular intelligence briefings on foreign influence, offering timely insights into the tactics, narratives, and digital platforms leveraged by state-affiliated actors. These briefings help policymakers and security stakeholders stay ahead of evolving disinformation campaigns and hybrid threats targeting democratic institutions and public trust.
Identifying vulnerabilities and prioritizing security communications – Microsoft is committed to proactive and transparent security communications, particularly in the face of emerging threats and evolving vulnerabilities. We provide customers with timely, actionable intelligence through structured programs such as the Threat Microsoft Security Update Guide, Vulnerability Reporting process, and Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management. As part of this expanded commitment, we will offer prioritized notice of security communications, including vulnerability remediation guidance to our European Security Program partners, helping to enhance situational awareness and enabling faster responses.
Participating governments will have a dedicated Microsoft point of contact to coordinate responses and escalate concerns. These efforts are designed to improve situational awareness and to support faster, more coordinated action across borders.
Making additional investments to strengthen cybersecurity capacity and resilience
Digital resilience—the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to cyber threats and disruptions—requires more than technology. It requires investment in people, institutions, and partnerships. As part of the European Security Program, we are investing additional resources to further our work with European governments, civil society, and innovators to strengthen local capabilities and build long-term resilience. Highlights include:
Strengthening public-private collaboration – Microsoft has launched a new pilot program with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), embedding Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) investigators at EC3 headquarters in The Hague to enhance intelligence sharing and operational coordination. Through this enhanced collaboration, we will enable joint investigations, identify faster threat identification, and be better positioned to disrupt cybercriminal activity targeting European institutions and citizens more effectively.
Supporting civil society and defending against ransomware – Microsoft has renewed our three-year partnership with the CyberPeace Institute to support NGOs and to promote accountability for bad actors, including nearly 100 Microsoft employees volunteering their time and expertise to help defend the most vulnerable in cyberspace. We will continue to support the Institute’s efforts to trace ransomware origins, identify safe havens, and uncover potential links to nation-state actors.
Expanding cybersecurity support to the Western Balkans – Through a new collaboration with the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C), Microsoft will scale cybersecurity in a region where malicious actors have long sought to destabilize countries bordering the EU. Microsoft stands firmly in defense of Ukraine and is now extending that commitment with WB3C to help scale cybersecurity capabilities in a geopolitically sensitive and digitally under-resourced region, aligning with broader European cybersecurity priorities.
Advancing AI security and innovation – Microsoft is investing additional resources to support research, expand the cybersecurity talent pipeline, and test advanced AI-assisted security tools in real-world environments using Microsoft’s security stack and Azure and Copilot capabilities. We’re working with the UK’s Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR), a public-private partnership established to advance AI security in support of UK’s national security and economic prosperity. Together, we’re launching a joint research program focused on AI-cybersecurity challenges with a focus on critical infrastructure and agentic AI security, with an initial investment from Microsoft and research-collaboration between LASR and Microsoft Security Research Center.
Securing open-source innovation– Through the recently launched GitHub Secure Open Source Fund, we will support open-source projects that underpin the digital supply chain, catalyze innovation, and are critical to the AI stack. By raising the security posture for European projects such as Log4J and Scancode, which are critical to the IT systems of governments and companies across the continent, the program aims to reduce future security vulnerabilities. Ensuring these tools can continuously withstand and sustainably defend against sophisticated cyber threats is essential to strengthening cyber resilience.
These new and enhanced initiatives reflect our belief that cybersecurity is a collective endeavor—and that Europe’s digital resilience must be built from the ground up.
Expanding partnerships to disrupt cyberattacks and dismantle cybercriminal networks
Finally, as part of our European Security Program we are expanding our partnerships with law enforcement and regional actors to proactively identify new and innovative ways to disrupt malicious and criminal activity.
For instance, last month, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) worked with Europol and others to take down Lumma, a prolific infostealer malware used to steal passwords, financial data, and crypto wallets. In just two months, Lumma infected nearly 400,000 devices globally, many of them in Europe. The operation seized or blocked over 2,300 command-and-control domains. Off the back of this action, we are working with Europol to identify new opportunities to continue to meaningfully disrupt and deter cybercrime.
Lumma-infected devices by country in Europe
To accelerate future takedowns, we also launched the Statutory Automated Disruption (SAD) Program in April 2025. This initiative automates legal abuse notifications to hosting providers, enabling faster removal of malicious domains and IP addresses. Focused initially on Europe and the U.S., SAD raises the cost of doing business for cybercriminals and makes it harder for them to operate at scale.
In addition, we’re working with local internet service providers to help remediate affected users and ensure governments have greater visibility into emerging threats.
The DCU has long played a leading role in proactively combating cyber threats, including those originating from nation-state actors. Since 2016, Microsoft has filed seven legal actions to spotlight and disrupt nation-state threat actors from countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, which we refer to internally by the weather-themed names Blizzard, Typhoon, Sandstorm, and Sleet, respectively. Most recently, in September 2024, Microsoft initiated a disruption action against the Russian actor Star Blizzard, mentioned above, known for hacking political targets surrounding UK’s 2022 elections and targeting NATO countries to advance its geopolitical interests involving Ukraine. Microsoft exposed the Russian actors and directly seized over 140 malicious domains in total, substantially blunting ongoing campaigns and forcing Star Blizzard to significantly alter its attack methods to other platforms, which Microsoft Threat Intelligence thereafter publicly exposed in a security blog. We will continue to act against those seeking to harm customers, governments, and individual users. These efforts are part of our broader strategy to partner with law enforcement across Europe. We are already working on coordinated disruptions to protect the digital ecosystem, and we stand ready to provide robust incident response services during crises, ensuring our partners and customers are never alone in the face of cyber adversity.
We also believe that deterrence is a critical pillar of modern cybersecurity. The EU’s Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox plays a vital role in this effort, helping to coordinate crisis response and send a clear message that malicious activity will not go unanswered—legally, operationally, or reputationally.
Taken together, operations like the Lumma disruption, the launch of SAD, and future coordinated disruptions are helping to prevent cybercriminals and state actors from establishing malicious infrastructure in Europe.
* * *
At Microsoft, our commitment to Europe is deep, enduring, and unwavering. We believe that Europe’s digital future is one of the most important opportunities of our time—and protecting that future is a responsibility we share. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with European governments, institutions, and communities to defend against threats, build capacity, and strengthen resilience. We are proud to be a trusted partner to Europe, and we will continue to work every day to earn trust through transparency, collaboration, and a steadfast commitment to protecting what matters most.
Tags: Brad Smith, cybersecurity, Digital commitments, Europe
Headline: How AI can support better customer experiences
CRM systems have come a long way since their inception in the 1990s. What began as digital rolodexes evolved over the decades to accommodate cloud hosting, mobile access, and integrations across an organization’s tech stack. But for many businesses, the core experience of using a CRM system hasn’t kept pace with the evolving expectations of modern customers, or the realities of the people managing those relationships.
Legacy CRM systems often rely heavily on manual data entry. They’re difficult to adapt as businesses grow and are frequently designed more for reporting than for allowing sellers, marketers, and service teams to succeed in real time. While this might have sufficed when field reps had hours between customer visits or when service agents had time to type up detailed call notes, those conditions no longer exist.
Discover a new AI-powered CRM solution with Dynamics 365 Sales
Today’s customers do their homework. They research independently, engage across multiple digital channels, and expect seamless, personalized experiences. Meanwhile, customer-facing teams need tools that work in the flow of their day, not ones that add friction. Companies trying to meet these demands with yesterday’s systems are feeling the strain.
With Microsoft Dynamics 365, organizations are embracing a modern, AI-first approach that redefines productivity and customer engagement. Embedded Microsoft Copilot capabilities help sellers and customer service agents work smarter by generating content, surfacing insights, and summarizing customer interactions.
AI agents take this a step further, automating repetitive tasks and allowing teams to focus on what truly matters—building relationships and closing deals. In the near future, legacy CRM systems will become background systems, while AI-powered workflows will take center stage.
Together, copilots and agents can accelerate your business outcomes. For example, imagine a sales rep preparing for a big client meeting. Copilot can pull together a summary of recent customer interactions, generate a tailored pitch based on account details, and suggest case studies that may be relevant to the customer. Meanwhile, an AI agent is working in the background, logging customer inquiries, triggering follow-up tasks, and updating the sales pipeline based on real-time interactions.
Common CRM system challenges, and how an AI-first approach solves them
Microsoft has worked with hundreds of companies navigating CRM system modernization, and while each journey is unique, several pain points come up time and again. Here’s a look at the most common challenges, and how organizations are overcoming them with Dynamics 365.
The challenge: Disparate systems and data silos
Legacy CRM systems often sit apart from the tools employees use every day. Sales leaders have to jump between systems to get a full view of the customer, resulting in time lost, inconsistent data, and disconnected experiences for both employees and customers.
The solution: A unified platform
Dynamics 365 provides a unified platform across sales, marketing, and service. It brings together internal and external data in one place through Microsoft Dataverse and connects with the Microsoft tools people already rely on, like Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft Power BI. That means relevant insights are available in the flow of work and updates happen in real time, which can reduce manual effort and improve accuracy.
The challenge: Lack of innovation
Many organizations are trying to retrofit AI into systems that weren’t built for it. As a result, they miss out on the true potential of AI to personalize engagement, suggest next steps, and automate time-consuming work.
The solution: AI integration
Dynamics 365 is built with AI at its core. With embedded Copilot capabilities, sellers can draft emails, generate proposals, and summarize meetings based on real-time customer data. AI agents go even further by handling complete workflows, like qualifying leads or following up on customer inquiries. With tools like Sales Agent, Sales Chat, and Sales Qualification Agent, sales teams can scale their impact and focus on high-value interactions.
The challenge: High total cost of ownership
Legacy CRM systems often require costly add-ons, third-party integrations, and ongoing maintenance. The systems that once seemed quick to deploy become difficult to scale or adapt and drain resources instead of delivering value.
The solution: Business value through consolidation
Dynamics 365 consolidates capabilities on a single platform, reducing redundancy and unlocking efficiencies. Since it uses tools that many companies already use—like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, and Power BI—organizations can get more from their existing investments.
ABN AMRO, one of the largest banks in the Netherlands, embraced Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and has lowered total cost of ownership for its customer engagement platform by up to 40%.
Real-world results: What an AI-first CRM system looks like in action
Companies that have made the leap to Dynamics 365 are already seeing measurable impact, including shortened sales cycles, improved responsiveness, and greater customer satisfaction.
For instance, Lenovo, a global leader in technology solutions, used Dynamics 365 to build a unified global view of customer activity and power its digital sales transformation.
“We’re seeing the benefit of having one standardized system and a global view to all geographies’ activities. This is the foundation for Lenovo’s sales digital transformation—enabling better connections and an increase in sales productivity and actionable insights.”
Wei Bi, Business Strategy Senior Manager, Lenovo
Lexmark, a global innovator in cloud-supported printing and internet of things (IoT) solutions, migrated from Salesforce to Dynamics 365 to streamline and modernize its sales operations.
“We’ve been on the journey with Microsoft after moving from Salesforce to Dynamics 365 Sales. We’re excited to be one of the first customers to use Sales Qualification Agent and look forward to the ability to scale our sales team with agents and provide an exceptional experience to our customers.”
Kyle Farmer, Vice President, Global Sales and Strategy, Lexmark
Gardens Alive replaced its legacy CRM system with Dynamics 365 Customer Service, integrating voice, chat, and email channels through third-party connectors and unified routing. The result was a more than 7% improvement in customer service delivery.
And the momentum continues. In our Fiscal Year 2025 Third Quarter Earnings, Satya Nadella stated: “When it comes to business applications, Dynamics 365 again took share as companies like Avaya, Brunswick, SoftCat, switched to (Dynamics 365) from legacy providers. Verizon, for example, chose Dynamics 365 Sales to improve the efficiency of its sellers”.
More than a CRM system, Microsoft is a strategic resource in your transformation journey
For CROs and CSOs, the decision to modernize CRM systems is about more than upgrading technology. It’s about unlocking new potential. Companies want more than just a vendor; they’re looking for a strategic partner to help them navigate change, scale intelligently, and lead with data and empathy.
With Dynamics 365, Microsoft brings not only a powerful AI-first platform, but also a global ecosystem of expertise in sales, engineering, and business transformation. The result? A CRM system that’s intuitive, connected, and future-ready, so companies can deliver standout customer experiences and drive sustainable growth.
Ready to explore your own AI-first CRM system journey?
Take a guided tour, see a demo, or start a free trial.
In a major step toward ensuring fairness and accessibility in its ticketing system, Indian Railways has launched a wide-ranging digital reform initiative aimed at curbing unauthorized automated bookings. Central to this overhaul is the deployment of AI-powered bot mitigation systems, which have already led to the deactivation of over 2.5 crore suspicious user IDs on the IRCTC platform. This measure has significantly improved access for genuine users, especially during peak booking hours.
As part of its broader digital transformation, Indian Railways has also integrated its ticketing system with a top-tier Content Delivery Network (CDN). This move is intended to enhance website performance and prevent disruptions caused by bot-driven traffic, which previously accounted for nearly half of all login attempts during the critical first five minutes of Tatkal bookings.
The success of these upgrades was dramatically demonstrated on May 22, when IRCTC set a new record by booking 31,814 tickets in a single minute. This achievement underscores the scalability and robustness of the modernized infrastructure, now better equipped to handle massive volumes of simultaneous requests.
To further enhance fairness, Indian Railways has introduced new user authentication protocols. Non–Aadhaar-verified users are now required to wait three days after registration before booking high-demand tickets such as Opening Advance Reservation Period (ARP), Tatkal, or Premium Tatkal. Meanwhile, Aadhaar-authenticated users can continue to book tickets without delay.
These reforms have yielded measurable improvements in overall platform performance. The daily average of user logins has surged from 69.08 lakh in FY 2023–24 to 82.57 lakh in FY 2024–25, representing a 19.53 percent increase. Similarly, average daily ticket bookings rose by 11.85 percent during the same period. E-ticketing has now become the dominant mode of reservation, accounting for 86.38 percent of all reserved tickets.
In addition to backend improvements, Indian Railways has restructured its website delivery, with 87 percent of static content now served via CDN, which ensures faster page loading and reduces server load. The system also employs sophisticated AI tools to detect and block bot activity in real-time. Suspicious user accounts are being actively identified and deactivated, with channels open for public complaints through the Cyber Crime Portal.
Continuing Travelling Gallery’s 2025 programme is a group exhibition exploring ways to connect with our worlds through other-than-human perspectives. Challenging the boundaries between culture and nature, the exhibition looks to destabilise colonial systems, categories, and hierarchies, that tend to favour scientific theory and marginalise ancestral knowledges and indigenous cosmologies.
Curated with Jelena Sofronijevic, and featuring work by artists Emii Alrai, Iman Datoo, Remi Jabłecki, Radovan Kraguly, Zeljko Kujundzic, Leo Robinson, and Amba Sayal-Bennett, the exhibition brings together a variety of contemporary artistic practices, including drawing, printmaking, sculpture and film, that reimagine our collective understandings and visions of places and times.
Common across the works in the exhibition is the use of the seed as a means to think about and connect themes concerning ecologies, environments, and migration. For some, the seed represents a world of its own, a self-contained body or cell, capable of crossing borders. For others, it serves as a starting point for alternative possibilities and ways of being. Many of the artists have researched specific seeds, in their ‘native’ soils, and displaced in banks and libraries. The potato is offered as an incidental ‘root’ to many of their works. In the film, Kinnomic Botany (2022), Iman Datoo draws upon research in the Commonwealth Potato Collection at the James Hutton Institute near Dundee, the UK’s largest collection of potato seeds, to challenge dominant taxonomies or ways of classifying lives.
More speculative connections can be made between Remi Jabłecki and Radovan Kraguly’s practices. The former’s futuristic sculptures remind us of the otherworldly, even alien qualities of these most earthly and everyday British crops, with the artist using them as a means to think about transformation and personal growth. Kraguly’s prints,though as detailed as scientific and botanical illustrations, are similarly cosmic, avoiding categorisation in their ambiguous representations and titles. Reflecting on relations of control between humans and nature, his works also illustrate the role of different pastoral and agricultural environments in the formation of the artist’s own identity and early adoption of ‘climate politics’, connecting his formative experiences growing up on a farm in the former Yugoslavia, to his later practice in rural Wales.
Amba Sayal-Bennett’s architectural sculptures Kern (2024) and Phlo (2024) are part of the artist’s investigations into rubber, a commodity once so highly demanded its value surpassed that of silver. In a mission facilitated by the British government, Henry Wickham stole and trafficked 70,000 rubber seeds from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil in 1876. Transported to Kew Gardens in London, they were then dispersed to British colonies for cultivation. Its plural uses and potential for profit led to its proliferation across the globe – yet the soil in India refused to take the seeds, which the artist puts forward as a form of environmental resistance to the colonial project. Artist Emii Alrai, by contrast, focusses on excavation, exploring archaeology, Western museological structures, and the complex process of ruination.
Scotland has proved fertile land for many of the artists’ practices, yet, for some, SEEDLINGS presents the first opportunity to experience their works in these contexts. Born in Subotica, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Zeljko Kujundzic lived and worked in Edinburgh between 1948 and 1958, before moving with his partner and frequent collaborator, Ann, and their children, to British Columbia (BC). His developed, complex work in ceramic sculpture, often featuring the thunderbird, a mythological bird-like spirit widespread in North American indigenous and First Nation cultures and storytelling, is deeply rooted in these early experiences. Yet his part in Edinburgh’s growing artistic community, and work with artists and writers like Ian Hamilton Finlay, Nannie Katharin Wells, Bernard Leach, and Joan Faithfull, has, thus far, been walked over, in more conventional art histories. A selection of archive materials concerning his invention of the solar kiln, unearthed from public and private collections across the UK and Canada, are presented here for the first time – the exhibition itself seeking to germinate future research.
The exhibition will also include a newly commissioned essay, How does a tree fit inside a seed?, exploring the artists’ works, both individually, and as constellated in the exhibition, by the curator Jelena Sofronijevic. The text journeys through the construction and overlapping uses of terms like ‘native’ and, ‘invasive’, ‘indigenous’, ‘naturalisation’, and ‘dispersal’, to challenge binaries between beings, and consider ideas of home, identity, and belonging in the context of diasporas. Launching in Edinburgh on Calton Hill (outside the Collective Gallery) on Friday 6 June from 11am to 5pm, the exhibition will tour to arts venues, community centres, high streets and schools across Scotland including in the Western Isles, Glasgow, Falkirk,Clackmannanshire, North Lanarkshire, Scottish Borders before culminating at Edinburgh Art Festival in August.
It is accompanied by a series of interventions on social media, highlighting the artists’ connections to the places of our tour, and a number of talks, tours, and workshops, including with artist Leo Robinson.
Details of confirmed tour dates and venues can be found on the Travelling Gallery website.
Louise Briggs, Curator, Travelling Gallery said:
It has been a real pleasure to work with Jelena Sofronijevic on this exhibition and to be introduced to the work of a number of artists, many of whom have interesting connections to Edinburgh and Scotland through their work & research as well as their personal & professional lives. This exhibition continues to explore our annual theme looking at The Environment and Climate Emergency. We hope SEEDLINGS will offer visitors a new way of thinking about our relationship with, and connection to nature and may encourage them to perhaps think about our worlds and our interconnectedness in different ways.
Culture and Communities Convener Margaret Graham, said:
The Travelling Gallery is a unique and fantastic example of how art can and should be accessible for all. I’m delighted that, with our support, the Gallery has been able to remove barriers to art by taking powerful and thought-provoking exhibitions into communities across Scotland.
This year’s exhibition not only invites us to engage with outstanding contemporary works but also encourages us to reflect on the world through different lenses. With such a talented group of artists involved, I encourage everyone to visit when the gallery sets off this week.
Additional thanks go to: All of the exhibiting artists; Nena Kraguly; Family and Friends of Kujundzic; The City of Edinburgh Council; Creative Scotland; City Art Centre, Edinburgh; Government Art Collection; Ingleby Gallery; Carbon 12 Gallery; Palmer Gallery; and the University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Brussels/Sofia, June 4 (Xinhua) — Bulgaria has met the criteria to adopt the euro as of January 1, 2026, making it the 21st member of the eurozone, the European Commission (EC) announced on Wednesday.
The conclusion of the Commission’s 2025 Convergence Report, prepared at Bulgaria’s request, confirms that the country meets the four nominal convergence criteria required for adoption of the euro. The assessment also took into account broader economic indicators such as market integration and the balance of payments. The findings were also supported by a parallel report from the European Central Bank (ECB).
Based on the conclusion, the European Commission proposed that the EU Council adopt a decision and a regulation on the introduction of the euro in Bulgaria. The final decision should be taken by the EU Council in the first half of July after consultations with the Eurogroup, the European Council, the European Parliament and the ECB.
“This brings Bulgaria one step closer to adopting the euro,” said EC President Ursula von der Leyen, adding that eurozone membership would strengthen the country’s economy through increased trade, investment and access to finance.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov welcomed the positive assessment, calling it the result of years of reforms and coordination with other European partners. He is expected to make a formal statement later on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, public opinion in Bulgaria remains divided on the issue. A recent poll by the Trend Research Center found that only 21 percent of respondents support switching to the euro in 2026, while 33 percent want to delay the introduction of the single currency and 38 percent reject the idea entirely. In recent weeks, protests have been held across the country demanding a referendum on keeping the national currency, the lev. –0–
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
NEW DELHI, June 4 (Xinhua) — At least 11 people were killed and 50 others injured in a stampede near a cricket stadium in the southern Indian city of Bangalore on Wednesday, multiple local media reported.
The stampede occurred outside the Mangalam Chinnaswamy Stadium where thousands of cricket fans had gathered to celebrate Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) winning their first Indian Premier League title.
“The injured were taken to Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital and Vaidehi Hospital. Seven people succumbed to their injuries in Bowring and four others succumbed to their injuries in Vaidehi,” New Delhi-based News18 reported.
RCB won the league title for the first time in 18 years, which led to a rush of jubilant fans filling the stadium and surrounding areas to see their idols.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar confirmed the deaths but did not specify the number of casualties.
“I apologize for the stampede,” he said. “We have deployed over 5,000 personnel. We are dealing with a young, lively crowd and cannot use lathis (long batons used by Indian police) against them,” DK Shivakumar added.
Television channels showed thousands of people, some waving the team’s red flags, lining the streets leading to the stadium as the cricket team arrived at the venue by bus. –0–
Alberta’s Oil Sands Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity Analysis shows that while production has grown by 96 per cent since 2012, reaching 1.56 million barrels per day, oil sands emissions continue to decline.
The new report supports the federal government’s 2025 National Inventory Report, which shows that Alberta had the greatest absolute reduction in emissions of any Canadian province or territory between 2022 and 2023, reducing emissions by 2.1 million tonnes.
This data is part of declining emissions across Alberta’s economy:
Overall emissions have declined by nine per cent since 2015, while overall energy production increased by 20 per cent.
Conventional oil emissions have declined 19 per cent since 2015, while production increased by seven per cent.
Transportation emissions have declined 12 per cent since 2015.
Heavy industry emissions have declined eight per cent since 2015.
Natural gas production and processing emissions have declined 24 per cent since 2015.
Methane emissions have declined 52 per cent since 2014.
Electricity emissions have declined 45 per cent since 2015.
Albertans can learn more by visiting Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction performance.
“Alberta continues to lead the way in responsible energy development. The 2023 report shows our oil sands sector is producing more energy with fewer emissions per barrel – a clear sign of innovation and commitment that comes from working with producers. This is why countries around the world are looking to us as a responsible producer of choice. We’re proud to lead Canada in absolute emissions reductions. We don’t need top-down policies from the federal government to do this, and we’ll continue to drive common sense progress that benefits both our economy and the environment.”
“Albertans have always been at the forefront of innovation and produce the most responsible oil in the world. With our vast reserves, we have the ability to bring energy security to North America and our Asian trading partners and continue to fuel our economy for generations to come.”
Related information
Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction performance
Oil Sands Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity Analysis
BC Hydro has launched two requests for expressions of interest (RFEOI) to explore the next era of the province’s power potential, expand clean-energy resources and advance energy efficiency.
These actions are critical to ensuring a stable, reliable electricity system that supports new housing, businesses and industries while keeping energy costs affordable for people.
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead the world in clean energy and we’re acting with urgency to make sure every British Columbian benefits,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions. “By expanding our clean-power supply and increasing energy efficiency, we’re securing our power grid, building a resilient electricity system and creating sustainable jobs that drive economic growth.”
The first RFEOI focuses on expanding B.C.’s long-term capacity to meet peak electricity demand as consumption patterns evolve. BC Hydro is seeking ideas on capacity and baseload energy projects, including geothermal, pumped storage and hydroelectric resources. Capacity and baseload projects can reliably deliver firm power and provide backup for intermittent energy projects, such as wind and solar that rely on external, uncontrollable conditions such as the wind blowing or the sun shining to deliver power.
The second RFEOI targets innovation in energy efficiency by identifying partners capable of delivering market-ready technologies that help conserve energy in homes and buildings. Through the RFEOI, BC Hydro seeks to collaborate with industry leaders and forward-thinking organizations to help people in British Columbia save energy and lower costs.
Energy efficiency is the cleanest and least expensive way to meet increasing demand for power. The energy-efficiency RFEOI supports BC Hydro’s comprehensive Power Smart energy savings program and complements BC Hydro’s $700 million expanded Energy Efficiency Plan, which increases investments in tools, technologies and rebates. These initiatives encourage energy-conscious decisions and help customers reduce electricity consumption. BC Hydro estimates that this plan will save customers $80 million annually and deliver more than 2,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity savings by 2030, the equivalent of powering more than 200,000 homes.
“We are looking beyond the near term and opening up exploration of the next chapter of B.C.’s energy future by advancing the dialogue with industry participants and potential partners around clean-technology investments and expanding our leading energy-efficiency programs,” said Chris O’Riley, president and CEO of BC Hydro. “With BC Hydro’s long-standing legacy of delivering clean, reliable power, these initiatives will drive growth, sustainability and energy security, creating new opportunities across British Columbia.”
The information gathered from both RFEOIs will guide future energy planning and procurement strategies. Submissions will close in September 2025.
Both initiatives are part of the recently announced Clean Power Action Plan, an ambitious strategy to strengthen energy security, enhance system resilience and accelerate the transition to clean power. The plan also includes:
launching a second call for power to acquire a target of as much as 5,000 gigawatt-hours per year of energy from large, clean and renewable projects, which builds on the success of the 2024 call for power and resulted in 10 new renewable-energy projects, with First Nations asset ownership between 49% and 51%, capable of powering about 500,000 new homes;
investing more than $12 million from the B.C. Innovative Clean Energy fund in a targeted three-year call for new, made-in-B.C. clean-energy technologies that will combat climate change and create sustainable jobs; and
streamlining connections to B.C.’s grid to enable new homes and businesses to access clean electricity faster and less expensively.
Through these actions, BC Hydro is reinforcing its commitment to delivering clean, reliable energy, supporting British Columbia’s transition to a low-carbon economy and ensuring electricity remains affordable, sustainable and accessible to all residents.
Quick Facts:
The following BC Hydro actions will power more than one million new homes in the coming years:
adding the Site C hydroelectric dam, which will generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes and increase supply by 8%;
bringing new renewable wind and solar projects into service from the recent call for power, collectively powering 500,000 homes and boosting supply by 8%; and,
expanding investments in energy efficiency, expected to save 2,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power 200,000 homes.
Learn More:
To learn more about the Province’s plans to power B.C.’s potential, visit: https://www.bchydro.com/poweringpotential
The Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan (FCAA) warns investors in Saskatchewan of an impersonation scam on social media using fake news articles claiming that Prime Minister Mark Carney is endorsing the trading platform Canfirst.
“Do not make investment decisions solely due to a notable figure endorsement,” FCAA Securities Division Executive Director Dean Murrison said. “Scammers can create fraudulent news articles that imitate the real media source. Before you consider investing with an entity, always check the registration status at aretheyregistered.ca and do not deal with any unregistered entities.”
Canfirst claims to offer Saskatchewan residents trading opportunities, including stocks, cryptocurrencies and forex.
This alert applies to the online entity using the website “canfirst net” (this URL has been manually altered so as not to be interactive).
Canfirst is not registered with the FCAA to trade or sell securities or derivatives in Saskatchewan. The FCAA cautions investors and consumers not to send money to companies that are not registered in Saskatchewan, as they may not be legitimate businesses.
If you have invested with Canfirst, or anyone claiming to be acting on their behalf, contact the FCAA’s Securities Division at 306-787-5936.
In Saskatchewan, individuals or companies need to be registered with the FCAA to trade or sell securities or derivatives. The registration provisions of The Securities Act, 1988, and accompanying regulations are intended to ensure that only honest and knowledgeable people are registered to sell securities and derivatives and that their businesses are financially stable.
Tips to protect yourself:
Always verify that the person or company is registered in Saskatchewan to sell or advise about securities or derivatives. To check registration, visit The Canadian Securities Administrators’ National Registration Search at aretheyregistered.ca.
Know exactly what you are investing in. Make sure you understand how the investment, product, or service works.
Get a second opinion and seek professional advice about the investment.
Do not allow unknown or unverified individuals to remotely access your computer.
Never make an investment decision based solely on a notable figure endorsement. Scammers often create fake news articles to mimic legitimate media.
Philip Yen, M.D. has agreed to pay the United States $125,000 to resolve allegations that he failed to comply with federal statutory requirements related to his role as the Drug Enforcement Administration registrant at Sutter Imaging Capitol Pavilion.
Tampa, Florida – United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announces that Ah’Jhzae Diamondric Artag Berry (30, St. Petersburg) has pleaded guilty to four counts of bank fraud and six counts of mail theft. Berry faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison for each bank fraud count and up to 5 years’ imprisonment for each mail theft count. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
In light of recent media coverage regarding the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) involvement in matters related to the Israel-Hamas armed conflict, we wish to clarify the nature and scope of our activities.
In early 2024, the RCMP initiated a structural investigation in connection with this ongoing conflict. A structural investigation is a broad, intelligence-led intake process designed to collect, preserve, and assess information potentially relevant under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. This includes gathering open-source material and voluntary submissions from individuals wishing to provide information. The primary objective is to proactively collect relevant information that may support future investigative steps, should jurisdictional and legal thresholds be met.
It is important to emphasize that a structural investigation is not a criminal investigation. The RCMP employs a well-established structured protocol to efficiently triage and process incoming information related to global conflicts, this standardized initial procedure serves as a foundation for every case, after which specialized investigative techniques are applied to address the unique aspects of each investigation, including the Israel-Hamas structural investigation. Should a perpetrator of core international crimes—such as genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity—with the appropriate nexus to Canada be identified, the RCMP will initiate a separate criminal investigation. To date, the RCMP has not initiated any related criminal investigations.
Although this work has been underway in a developmental capacity since early 2024, it has not been publicly announced as the RCMP continues to develop essential supporting operational tools. This includes a secure online portal available in French, English, Hebrew and Arabic, to facilitate the structured and secure any submissions of information by the public and potential witnesses. Unfortunately, technical challenges have resulted in delays to the rollout of this critical tool; once this online portal is ready for access, we will advise the public.
The RCMP remains committed to its mandate under Canadian law, to assess credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. We conduct this work with impartiality, relying on evidence-based assessments in alignment with the principles of the rule of law.
Given the sensitivity of the matter, we urge the public to refrain from drawing premature conclusions about the RCMP’s role or intent. This initiative is solely focused on collecting relevant information and does not target any community or group.
Further updates will be provided once the public reporting portal has been made available.
Washington, D.C. – 6/4/25… Today, Congressman Mike Lawler (NY-17) introduced the Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization Act, legislation that would establish a task force to evaluate the feasibility of a NATO-style collective security framework for the Indo-Pacific region.
The task force would assess current security challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party and the North Korean government, and explore whether a formal multilateral defense agreement among the United States and Indo-Pacific allies could serve as a credible deterrent to further aggression in the region.
“As Chairman of the MENA Subcommittee, I see every day how our adversaries, notably China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are coordinating to undermine global stability and democracy,” said Congressman Lawler. “This bill is about ensuring our allies in the Indo-Pacific have the support and structure they need to stand firm in the face of that aggression, and that we can too.”
“There is certainly appetite in the Indo-Pacific, our allies want a deeper, more reliable security cooperation with the United States,” continued Lawler. “A NATO-style alliance in the region may be the best way to bolster deterrence and ensure long-lasting peace.”
“We can’t afford to take a wait-and-see approach while the CCP threatens Taiwan, coerces its neighbors, and expands its military reach,” Lawler concluded. “This task force will help lay the groundwork for a strategic alliance rooted in democratic values, mutual defense, and long-term security in the Indo-Pacific.”
The Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization Act is part of Congressman Lawler’s broader effort to strengthen U.S. alliances and reinforce American leadership on the global stage.
Congressman Lawler is one of the most bipartisan members of Congress and represents New York’s 17th Congressional District, which is just north of New York City and contains all or parts of Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, and Westchester Counties. He was rated the most effective freshman lawmaker in the 118th Congress, 8th overall, surpassing dozens of committee chairs.
Source: United States Senator Pete Ricketts (Nebraska)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, participated in the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo in Washington, D.C. Speaking at a fireside chat titled “Winning the AI Race with the CCP,” Ricketts made the case for how America can be the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI).
“What we have to do is create an environment where American innovators are the ones who can continue to innovate,” said Ricketts. “We shouldn’t put up rules so that other countries don’t adopt what we’re doing… Either we’re right or they’re right. Either Communist China’s centralized system, where they’re directing state-owned enterprises, is right or ours is. I believe ours is and that’s why we have to unleash the power of free enterprise and get a critical mass of our friends onboard.”
Ricketts also underscored the importance of AI for various industries important to Nebraska and the United States.
”AI has a huge potential for making us more efficient,” said Ricketts. ”In the first few months, businesses that introduce AI see a 14% increase in productivity. That means we stay ahead in productivity here in the United States. That means we’re able to set our own destiny with how we do things like pharmaceutical research, agricultural research, or defense technology research.”
In a show of unity and wellness, more than 30,000 organisations across India have registered to participate in Yoga Sangam 2025, the main event of this year’s International Day of Yoga (IDY), underscoring the nation’s deepening commitment to holistic health and community well-being.
Organised by the Ministry of Ayush, the 2025 edition of Yoga Sangam reflects a growing movement that transcends traditional Yoga practice, positioning it as a nationwide initiative to promote mindfulness, resilience, and harmony. From educational institutions and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) to NGOs, corporate bodies, and government organisations, entities from across the country have enthusiastically registered their intent to host events on June 21, the day observed globally as the International Day of Yoga.
This year’s theme, “Yoga for One Earth, One Health,” continues to inspire a unified and inclusive movement, bridging geographies and cultures. The 11th edition of IDY will witness Yoga sessions in diverse settings—from the serene peaks of Ladakh to the vibrant beaches of Kerala, school grounds to corporate campuses, and historic temple courtyards to bustling railway stations—turning over one lakh locations into sanctuaries of wellness and unity.
A key feature of IDY 2025 is the integration of technology for tracking participation. The Ministry of Ayush has launched a dedicated portal—yoga.ayush.gov.in/yoga-sangam—where organisations can register their events, conduct Yoga sessions on June 21, and upload participation data to receive an official Certificate of Appreciation. This digital interface ensures seamless documentation and enhances transparency and visibility of the initiative at a national level.
Significantly, premier academic institutions such as IITs, IIMs, and Central Universities are actively contributing to the movement. These centres of excellence are not only hosting large-scale Yoga demonstrations but are also promoting its relevance in mental health, leadership development, and emotional well-being.
As the countdown to June 21 begins, the Ministry of Ayush invites all citizens, institutions, and communities to come together in shared movement and breath, making Yoga Sangam 2025 a cornerstone of India’s global leadership in wellness.
In accordance with the Monetary Policy Committee Rules of Procedure, the minutes of the Committee’s most recent meeting have been published on the Bank’s website. The minutes are published two weeks after the announcement of the Committee‘s decision.
Decorex Cape Town returns from 5 to 8 June 2025 and Samsung invites visitors to step into the future of smart living with an immersive showcase that promises to redefine the home experience. At the heart of this year’s exhibition, Samsung will highlight visionary innovations that blend technology, design, and lifestyle, transforming everyday spaces into intelligent, connected environments.
Samsung’s Visionary Innovation at Home
Samsung continues to lead the in intelligent living with SmartThings, its revolutionary ecosystem that integrates internet-powered devices and appliances for seamless, intuitive control. Visitors to the Samsung stand will discover how SmartThings anticipates their needs, adapts settings automatically, and brings unprecedented convenience and peace of mind to the home.
Discover What’s New
This year’s Decorex debut features Samsung’s latest product innovations that set new benchmarks in smart living. From sleek, AI-driven Bespoke appliances for kitchens and laundry rooms providing elegant, design-forward style, to interactive displays showcasing next-level connectivity. Visitors can see, touch, and experience the future first-hand.
Immersive Viewing Redefined in Latest TVs and Monitors
Samsung will also debut its latest range of Neo QLED 8K and OLED TVs, delivering unrivalled picture quality, AI-enhanced upscaling, and ultra-slim designs that blend seamlessly into modern interiors. Alongside these, Samsung’s Smart Monitors and ViewFinity series redefine hybrid living and working, with features like built-in entertainment apps, remote PC access, and USB-C connectivity. Whether upgrading your living room or enhancing a home office, these cutting-edge displays offer the perfect balance of productivity, entertainment, and design-forward elegance.
SmartThings Ecosystem: Connected Convenience Redefined
More than just smart tech, SmartThings represents an entire lifestyle ecosystem. Samsung’s hands-on demonstrations will reveal how users can effortlessly control their homes – intelligently linking Samsung’s devices that anticipate daily routines and personal preferences.
Bespoke AI Living: Where Design Meets Intelligence
Samsung’s Bespoke range transforms the home with appliances that don’t just perform, but adapt to individual lifestyles and patterns. These intelligent solutions elevate everyday tasks into refined experiences, blending sustainable living with personalisation and cutting-edge AI to create homes that are truly tailored to you.
Design Meets Technology
At Decorex, Samsung will showcase how innovation is inseparable from design. Marrying sleek aesthetics, beautiful designs with sustainable technology. Samsung’s home solutions are built to complement and enhance contemporary living spaces. This fusion of form and function perfectly aligns with Decorex’s celebration of lifestyle, design, and innovation.
From tech enthusiasts to homeowners, art and design lovers, Samsung’s Decorex Cape Town 2025 stand offers an inspiring glimpse into the homes of tomorrow. Join us from 5 – 8 June and discover how technology is evolving to create smarter, more beautiful, and more connected living spaces – designed around you.
