Category: DJF

  • MIL-OSI Europe: The EBA publishes its final Guidelines on Acquisition, Development and Construction exposures to residential property under the standardised approach of credit risk

    Source: European Banking Authority

    The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its final Guidelines on the treatment of Acquisition, Development and Construction (ADC) exposures to residential property under the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR). The Guidelines specify the conditions under which institutions may apply a risk weight of 100% instead of 150% to ADC exposures that meet defined credit risk-mitigating requirements. These Guidelines form part of the first phase of the EBA’s roadmap on credit risk implementation of the EU Banking Package. The Guidelines follow a public consultation launched in May 2024 and take into account stakeholder feedback as well as data collected through the related 2024 Quantitative Impact Study (QIS).

    The Guidelines specify further the two conditions introduced in the CRR for ADC exposures to residential property to benefit from a risk weight of 100% instead of 150%:

    • Condition 1: a significant portion (at least 50%) of total contracts are either:
      • pre-sale contracts with a cash deposit equal to or above 10% of the sale price, or
      • pre-lease contracts with a cash deposit equal to or above three times the monthly lease rate, or
      • sale and lease contracts.
    • Condition 2: the obligor has substantial equity at risk, i.e. obligor-contributed equity amounting to at least 25% of the residential property’s value upon completion.

    While the first condition remains unchanged compared to the consultation, the second condition has been revised, lowering the equity threshold from 35% to 25% in response to industry feedback and leveraging on QIS data.

    In addition, the Guidelines now offer more flexibility for public housing projects, allowing them to meet the first condition if applicant demand exceeds unit supply, even at municipality level. Furthermore, the equity requirement for public housing has been reduced to 20%, and the scope of eligible equity broadened to include committed subsidies, grants, and preferential junior loans. These changes aim to better reflect the specific characteristics of public housing while maintaining a prudential approach.

    Legal basis and background

    The draft Guidelines have been developed according to Article 126a(3) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR), as amended by the CRR3. 

    MIL OSI Europe News

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Warm Nights Expected To Continue In Next Fortnight

    Source: Government of Singapore

    Singapore, 1 July 2025 The prevailing Southwest Monsoon conditions are forecast to persist over Singapore and the surrounding region in the next fortnight with winds blowing mainly from the southeast or southwest.

    2          During this period, localised short-duration thundery showers are expected over parts of the island in the late morning and afternoon on most days. In addition, Sumatra squalls may bring widespread thundery showers and gusty winds in the pre-dawn and morning on a few days. The total rainfall for the first fortnight of July 2025 is forecast to be near average over most parts of the island.

    3          The daily maximum temperatures are likely to range between 33 degrees Celsius and 34 degrees Celsius on most days and slightly exceed 34 degrees Celsius on a few days. Several nights may also be warm and humid, and the temperatures may stay above 28 degrees Celsius.

    4          For updates of the daily weather forecast, please visit the MSS website (www.weather.gov.sg), NEA website (www.nea.gov.sg), or download the myENV app.

     REVIEW OF THE PAST TWO WEEKS (16 – 30 JUNE 2025)

    5          Southwest Monsoon conditions prevailed over Singapore and the surrounding region in the second fortnight of June 2025, with winds blowing mostly from the southeast or southwest.

    6          In the second fortnight of June 2025, localised short-duration thundery showers fell over parts of the island on several days. On 28 June 2025, regional convergence of winds brought moderate to heavy thundery showers over many areas of Singapore in the early afternoon. The daily total rainfall of 69.3mm recorded at Woodlands that day was the highest rainfall recorded for the second fortnight of June 2025.

    7          The daily maximum temperatures in the second fortnight of June 2025 were between 32 degrees Celsius and 34 degrees Celsius on most days. The highest daily maximum temperature of 35.3 degree Celsius was recorded at Paya Lebar on 22 June 2025. There were also several warm nights, particularly over the eastern, southern and western parts of the island where the minimum night-time temperatures stayed above 28 degrees Celsius.

     8          Most parts of Singapore recorded below average rainfall in the second fortnight of June 2025. The area around Jurong West registered rainfall of 69 per cent below average, and the area around Admiralty registered rainfall of 63 per cent above average.

    CLIMATE STATION STATISTICS

    Long-term Statistics for July
    (Climatological reference period: 1991-2020)
    Average daily maximum temperature: 31.4      °C
    Average daily minimum temperature: 25.4 °C
    Average monthly temperature: 28.2 °C
         
    Average rainfall: 146.6 mm
    Average number of rain days: 14  
     
    Historical Extremes for July
    (Rainfall since 1869 and temperature since 1929)
    Highest monthly mean daily maximum temperature: 32.4  °C (1997)
    Lowest monthly mean daily minimum temperature: 22.9  °C (1975)
         
    Highest monthly rainfall ever recorded:  527.3  mm (1890)
    Lowest monthly rainfall ever recorded: 12.2  mm (2019)

    METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE SINGAPORE
    1 Jul 2025

    ~~ End ~~

    For more information, please submit your enquiries electronically via the Online Feedback Form or myENV mobile application.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News

  • MIL-OSI USA: DBEDT NEWS RELEASE: Visitor Arrivals and Expenditures Increased in May 2025

    Source: US State of Hawaii

    DBEDT NEWS RELEASE: Visitor Arrivals and Expenditures Increased in May 2025

    Posted on Jun 30, 2025 in Latest Department News, Newsroom

    STATE OF HAWAIʻI

    KA MOKU ʻĀINA O HAWAIʻI

     

    JOSH GREEN, M.D.
    GOVERNOR

    KE KIAʻĀINA

    DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM

    KA ʻOIHANA HOʻOMOHALA PĀʻOIHANA, ʻIMI WAIWAI A HOʻOMĀKAʻIKAʻI

     

    RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS DIVISION

     

    JAMES KUNANE TOKIOKA

    DIRECTOR

    KA LUNA HOʻOKELE

     

    VISITOR ARRIVALS AND EXPENDITURES INCREASED IN MAY 2025

     

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    June 30, 2025

     

    HONOLULU – According to preliminary statistics from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), total visitor arrivals and total visitor spending in May 2025 increased compared to May 2024. There were 771,038 visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in May 2025, up slightly by 1.0 percent from the same month last year. Total visitor spending measured in nominal dollars was $1.68 billion, a 3.7 percent growth from May 2024. May 2025 total visitor arrivals represent a 91.0 percent recovery compared to pre-pandemic May 2019 and total visitor spending was higher than May 2019 ($1.41 billion, +18.9%).

    In May 2025, 766,377 visitors arrived by air service, mainly from the U.S. West and U.S. East. Additionally, 4,661 visitors came via out-of-state cruise ships. In comparison, 757,841 visitors (+1.1%) arrived by air and 5,420 visitors (-14.0%) came by cruise ships in May 2024, and 836,058 visitors (-8.3%) arrived by air and 11,338 visitors (-58.9%) came by cruise ships in May 2019. The average length of stay by all visitors in May 2025 was 8.47 days, compared to 8.51 days (-0.5%) in May 2024 and 8.37 days (+1.2%) in May 2019. The statewide average daily census was 210,695 visitors in May 2025, compared to 209,543 visitors (+0.5%) in May 2024 and 228,768 visitors (-7.9%) in May 2019.

    In May 2025, 411,318 visitors arrived from the U.S. West, an increase compared to May 2024 (403,981 visitors, +1.8%) and May 2019 (387,844 visitors, +6.1%). U.S. West visitor spending of $831.1 million grew from May 2024 ($767.9 million, +8.2%) and was much higher than May 2019 ($564.0 million, +47.4%). Daily spending by U.S. West visitors in May 2025 ($248 per person) was up compared to May 2024 ($233 per person, +6.4%) and was considerably more than May 2019 ($174 per person, +42.7%).

    In May 2025, 207,445 visitors arrived from the U.S. East, a decline from May 2024 (209,711 visitors, -1.1%), but an increase compared to May 2019 (199,344 visitors, +4.1%). U.S. East visitor spending of $540.5 million rose slightly from May 2024 ($539.4 million, +0.2%) and was much greater than May 2019 ($392.4 million, +37.7%). Daily spending by U.S. East visitors in May 2025 ($279 per person) was higher than May 2024 ($274 per person, +1.8%) and up significantly from May 2019 ($211 per person, +32.3%).

    There were 45,895 visitors from Japan in May 2025, a slight drop from May 2024 (46,124 visitors, -0.5%) and much lower than May 2019 (113,226 visitors, -59.5%). Visitors from Japan spent $67.1 million in May 2025, compared to $68.4 million (-1.8%) in May 2024 and $162.4 million (-58.7%) in May 2019. Daily spending by Japanese visitors in May 2025 ($244 per person) was higher than May 2024 ($237 per person, +3.0%) and similar to May 2019 ($244 per person, +0.3%).

    In May 2025, 18,672 visitors arrived from Canada, a decrease compared to May 2024 (20,301 visitors, -8.0%) and May 2019 (26,424 visitors, -29.3%). Visitors from Canada spent $40.0 million in May 2025, down from May 2024 ($44.6 million, -10.2%) and May 2019 ($48.3 million, -17.1%). Daily spending by Canadian visitors in May 2025 ($221 per person) was lower than May 2024 ($225 per person, -1.7%), but considerably more than May 2019 ($170 per person, +29.8%).

    There were 83,047 visitors from all other international markets in May 2025, which included visitors from Oceania, Other Asia, Europe, Latin America, Guam, the Philippines, and the Pacific Islands. In comparison, there were 77,725 visitors (+6.8%) from all other international markets in May 2024 and 109,220 visitors (-24.0%) in May 2019.

    In May 2025, a total of 4,771 transpacific flights with 1,060,288 total seats serviced the Hawaiian Islands. There was a similar number of total flights (4,770, 0.0%) but fewer total seats (1,070,804, -1.0%) compared to May 2024. Air capacity in May 2025 decreased in comparison to May 2019 (5,085 total flights, -6.2% with 1,118,421 total seats, -5.2%).

    Year-to-Date 2025

     A total of 4,060,004 visitors arrived in the first five months of 2025, which was a 2.8 percent growth from 3,949,483 visitors in the first five months of 2024. Total arrivals declined 3.9 percent when compared to 4,224,071 visitors in the first five months of 2019.

    In the first five months of 2025, total visitor spending was $8.99 billion, which was an increase compared to $8.44 billion (+6.5%) in the first five months of 2024 and $7.23 billion (+24.3%) in the first five months of 2019.

    VIEW FULL NEWS RELEASE AND TABLES

     

    Statement by DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka

    May 2025 saw a modest increase in total visitors (+1.0%), led by growth from the U.S. West, which offset fewer arrivals from U.S. East (-1.1%), Japan (-0.5%) and Canada (-8.0%). Visitor expenditures in May 2025 were higher compared to May 2024.

    As we go into the summer months, air service from U.S., Japan and Canada is scheduled to decrease. Combined with political and economic uncertainties, both nationally and globally, we are expecting to see a soft summer. We have been hearing from our partners that the average booking window for a trip to Hawai‘i is about 120 days, however, they are still seeing bookings in the month for the month.

     

     

    # # #

     

     

    Media Contacts:

     

    Laci Goshi

    Communications Officer

    Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism

    Cell: 808-518-5480

    Email: [email protected]

     

    Jennifer Chun

    Director of Tourism Research

    Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism

    Phone: 808-973-9446

    Email: [email protected]

    MIL OSI USA News

  • MIL-OSI Security: NATO to participate at World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan

    Source: NATO

    From 1 to 12 August, NATO will participate in the 2025 edition of the World Expo in Japan. Taking place in Osaka, Kansai, the theme for this year’s Expo is “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, with the sub-themes of “Saving Lives”, “Empowering Lives” and “Connecting Lives”. This landmark event is expected to welcome over 28 million visitors, making it one of the largest global gatherings after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.

    With a long tradition dating back to 1851, World Expos (also known as World’s Fairs) are grand international exhibitions where countries unite to showcase their cultures, technologies and innovations, fostering global cooperation and exchanging new ideas. Since 2000, they have taken place once every five years.

    Osaka’s Expo is taking place over several months, from 13 April to 13 October. The “NATO Days” will take place in August aligning appropriately with the “Peace, Human Security and Dignity Week.” Although NATO is not an official Expo participant, it will collaborate closely with NATO member countries hosting pavilions at the event — a partnership facilitated by the Mission of Japan to NATO and coordinated through Norway and Romania, NATO’s Contact Point Embassies for Japan.

    This collaboration is a prime example of NATO’s broad framework of partnership with Japan. Since the early 1990s, NATO and Japan have been working together on a range of global security challenges, enhancing political dialogue and practical cooperation, and upholding and strengthening the rules-based international order. This complements the firm relationships between NATO and its other partners in the Indo-Pacific region: Australia, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand.

    NATO’s engagement activities during the “Peace, Security and Dignity Week” will emphasise the importance of multilateralism and cooperative security in addressing today’s complex challenges, including cyber security, hybrid threats, information threats, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, emerging technologies, and industrial cooperation. The events will also showcase NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Programme, promoting joint scientific research, technological innovation and knowledge exchange.

    Like many other countries and organisations who will be represented in Osaka by mascots, NATO will be travelling to Japan with a new version of its long-term unofficial mascot, the NATO Hedgehog. Hedgehogs are peaceful animals, but formidable and resilient when attacked, making them the perfect representation of NATO’s role as a defensive alliance.

    The provisional agenda for NATO’s participation at the Expo can be found below. Sign-up links for events requiring registration will be shared in late July. Any questions may be addressed to Dr Pietro De Matteis, Programme Officer for the Indo-Pacific.

    1 August

    • Romanian Pavilion: Opening of the “Home Beyond the Dawn: Contemporary Art Exhibit”. This exhibition features works by Ukrainian artists and is organised by the European Union in collaboration with Romania. The exhibition will be open until 12 August.

    5 August – Ukrainian National Day at Expo 2025

    • Romanian Pavilion: 15:30–16:30 – Panel discussion with Ukrainian artists of the “Home Beyond the Dawn: Contemporary Art Exhibit” on the topic: “Art as an instrument for resistance and solidarity in times of war”.
       
    • Belgian Pavilion:
      • 17:00–18:00 (provisional) – Panel discussion on “Women (artists) at war” to contribute to the celebration of Ukraine National Day at World Expo Osaka celebrated on 5 August.
      • 20:00–21:00 (provisional) Cultural event with Ukrainian DJ Reset at the Belgian Pavilion organised by the European Union in collaboration with the Belgian Pavilion and Ukraine.
         
    • Expo Guest House:19:00–20:30 – Official Reception linked to the Ukraine National Day at Expo Guest House (by invitation only).

    7 August

    • Nordic Pavilion: 10:00–13:30 NATO Conference Day 1: “NATO’s Contribution to Preserving Peace & Stability” at the shared pavilion of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss NATO’s engagement and its commitment to peace, security and international cooperation with representatives from the diplomatic community, international organisations, academia, think-tanks and youth.
       
    • Nordic Pavilion: 19:00–21:00 (provisional) – Networking Reception

    8 August

    • Nordic Pavilion: 10:00–13:30 –NATO Conference Day 2 – Continuation of the conference “NATO’s Contribution to Preserving Peace & Stability”
       
    • Nordic Pavilion: 14:30–16:30 (provisional) – “Youth for peace & security”. Activities involving young people from Japan and NATO member countries in partnership with Japanese universities.
       
    • Czech Pavilion: 13:00–18:00 –NATO Industry Day: Designing Future Security for Our Lives”. This event will present NATO’s approach to industrial cooperation and foster connections with businesses, startups and young entrepreneurs from NATO member and partner countries.
       
    • Czech Pavilion: 19:00–21:00 – NATO Days Closing reception: A Spectacle of Air and Water show

    MIL Security OSI

  • MIL-OSI Security: NATO to participate at World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan

    Source: NATO

    From 1 to 12 August, NATO will participate in the 2025 edition of the World Expo in Japan. Taking place in Osaka, Kansai, the theme for this year’s Expo is “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, with the sub-themes of “Saving Lives”, “Empowering Lives” and “Connecting Lives”. This landmark event is expected to welcome over 28 million visitors, making it one of the largest global gatherings after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.

    With a long tradition dating back to 1851, World Expos (also known as World’s Fairs) are grand international exhibitions where countries unite to showcase their cultures, technologies and innovations, fostering global cooperation and exchanging new ideas. Since 2000, they have taken place once every five years.

    Osaka’s Expo is taking place over several months, from 13 April to 13 October. The “NATO Days” will take place in August aligning appropriately with the “Peace, Human Security and Dignity Week.” Although NATO is not an official Expo participant, it will collaborate closely with NATO member countries hosting pavilions at the event — a partnership facilitated by the Mission of Japan to NATO and coordinated through Norway and Romania, NATO’s Contact Point Embassies for Japan.

    This collaboration is a prime example of NATO’s broad framework of partnership with Japan. Since the early 1990s, NATO and Japan have been working together on a range of global security challenges, enhancing political dialogue and practical cooperation, and upholding and strengthening the rules-based international order. This complements the firm relationships between NATO and its other partners in the Indo-Pacific region: Australia, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand.

    NATO’s engagement activities during the “Peace, Security and Dignity Week” will emphasise the importance of multilateralism and cooperative security in addressing today’s complex challenges, including cyber security, hybrid threats, information threats, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, emerging technologies, and industrial cooperation. The events will also showcase NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Programme, promoting joint scientific research, technological innovation and knowledge exchange.

    Like many other countries and organisations who will be represented in Osaka by mascots, NATO will be travelling to Japan with a new version of its long-term unofficial mascot, the NATO Hedgehog. Hedgehogs are peaceful animals, but formidable and resilient when attacked, making them the perfect representation of NATO’s role as a defensive alliance.

    The provisional agenda for NATO’s participation at the Expo can be found below. Sign-up links for events requiring registration will be shared in late July. Any questions may be addressed to Dr Pietro De Matteis, Programme Officer for the Indo-Pacific.

    1 August

    • Romanian Pavilion: Opening of the “Home Beyond the Dawn: Contemporary Art Exhibit”. This exhibition features works by Ukrainian artists and is organised by the European Union in collaboration with Romania. The exhibition will be open until 12 August.

    5 August – Ukrainian National Day at Expo 2025

    • Romanian Pavilion: 15:30–16:30 – Panel discussion with Ukrainian artists of the “Home Beyond the Dawn: Contemporary Art Exhibit” on the topic: “Art as an instrument for resistance and solidarity in times of war”.
       
    • Belgian Pavilion:
      • 17:00–18:00 (provisional) – Panel discussion on “Women (artists) at war” to contribute to the celebration of Ukraine National Day at World Expo Osaka celebrated on 5 August.
      • 20:00–21:00 (provisional) Cultural event with Ukrainian DJ Reset at the Belgian Pavilion organised by the European Union in collaboration with the Belgian Pavilion and Ukraine.
         
    • Expo Guest House:19:00–20:30 – Official Reception linked to the Ukraine National Day at Expo Guest House (by invitation only).

    7 August

    • Nordic Pavilion: 10:00–13:30 NATO Conference Day 1: “NATO’s Contribution to Preserving Peace & Stability” at the shared pavilion of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss NATO’s engagement and its commitment to peace, security and international cooperation with representatives from the diplomatic community, international organisations, academia, think-tanks and youth.
       
    • Nordic Pavilion: 19:00–21:00 (provisional) – Networking Reception

    8 August

    • Nordic Pavilion: 10:00–13:30 –NATO Conference Day 2 – Continuation of the conference “NATO’s Contribution to Preserving Peace & Stability”
       
    • Nordic Pavilion: 14:30–16:30 (provisional) – “Youth for peace & security”. Activities involving young people from Japan and NATO member countries in partnership with Japanese universities.
       
    • Czech Pavilion: 13:00–18:00 –NATO Industry Day: Designing Future Security for Our Lives”. This event will present NATO’s approach to industrial cooperation and foster connections with businesses, startups and young entrepreneurs from NATO member and partner countries.
       
    • Czech Pavilion: 19:00–21:00 – NATO Days Closing reception: A Spectacle of Air and Water show

    MIL Security OSI

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Call for municipalities to harness innovation for service delivery

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Call for municipalities to harness innovation for service delivery

    Municipalities across South Africa have been urged to adopt innovative technologies and foster a culture of innovation as an essential step towards enhancing service delivery and building a more responsive local government in the country.

    During the keynote address at the 2nd Municipal Innovation Recognition Awards (MIRA) held in Durban on Monday, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation Nomalungelo Gina emphasised that adopting innovative technologies is not optional, but essential. 

    The Deputy Minister believes this is particularly true for rural municipalities that continue to face longstanding development challenges.

    She pointed to recent reports by the Auditor-General, highlighting persistent underperformance in municipalities, and said that repeating outdated methods will not yield different results.  

    “Innovation allows us to leapfrog to better outcomes,” she said. 

    “New technologies disrupt the status quo, reduce costs, and streamline processes, ultimately empowering citizens and restoring public trust in local government.”

    The MIRA awards are an initiative of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). 

    The awards recognise municipalities that demonstrate leadership in applying innovative solutions to improve essential services such as water provision, waste management, and citizen engagement.

    Gina encouraged municipalities to embed innovation as a standard way of working. 

    “We must transform the culture of our municipalities to embrace new ideas, smarter tools, and evidence-based approaches to delivering services. Innovation is not a luxury reserved for metros; it is a necessity for every municipality, including those in rural areas,” she said.

    The awards are informed by the Municipal Innovation Maturity Index (MIMI), which was introduced in 2021 as a decision-support tool to assess the innovation capacity of municipalities. 

    In 2025, a total of 57 towns participated in the rollout of MIMI, and all received awards at the ceremony.

    Trailblazers 

    Among the trailblazers were the City of Cape Town, which received the Trailblazing Innovation Award for its Digital Wayleave Management System, which consolidates and streamlines development-related permissions into a single, web-based platform.  

    The City of Tshwane, Emalahleni, eThekwini, and Waterberg District Municipality received Special Recognition Awards for achieving Innovation Maturity Level 4, indicating that their innovation processes are consistent, well-managed, and embedded within their respective municipalities.

    Municipalities such as Vhembe, Waterberg, Modimolle-Mookgopong, and uMgungundlovu were also honoured for successfully applying innovation within specific departments. 

    Although not yet institutionalised across the entire municipality, their innovation efforts are considered promising and repeatable.
    The Deputy Minister congratulated all the winners of MIRA 2025 and encouraged more municipalities to follow suit. 

    “This recognition should inspire others to embark on their innovation journeys. In the future, we want to see all municipalities reaching the required innovation threshold, and I believe we are getting closer to that reality.”

    Municipal Innovation Fund

    A key milestone at the event was the official launch of the Municipal Innovation Fund (MIF), a dedicated funding instrument designed to support municipalities in developing and implementing innovative projects that enhance basic service delivery.  

    The Fund, which is managed by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), will provide up to R3 million per project to qualifying municipalities for the development and scaling up of technologies that deliver measurable community impact.

    According to the department, funding will be prioritised for municipalities that have reached Level 4 or higher on the MIMI scale and that have demonstrated sound governance and clean audits.

    Approved projects must be implemented through dedicated accounts with regular reporting on progress, financial management, and community benefits.

    The ceremony also featured addresses by representatives of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, SALGA President Councillor Bheke Stofile, eThekwini Mayor Councillor Cyril Xaba, and Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Namane Dickson Masemola. – SAnews.gov.za

    Gabisile

    MIL OSI Africa

  • MIL-OSI Africa: SA, US strengthen working relations

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    SA, US strengthen working relations

    The Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Zuko Godlimpi, has engaged with the Assistant United States Trade Representative responsible for Africa, Connie Hamilton, on the sidelines of the recently held United States of America-Africa Summit in Luanda, Angola.

    The meeting followed the submission by South Africa on a proposed Framework Deal with the US on 20 May 2025, which outlines measures to enhance mutually beneficial trade and investment relations with the US.

    The submission of the Framework Deal was immediately followed by an engagement between President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Donald Trump in Washington on 21 May 2025.

    The Framework Deal addresses US concerns relating to, among others, non-tariff barriers, trade deficit, and commercial relations though two-way procurement or import of strategic goods. It aims to also resolve long-standing market access issues of interests to both sides, and to promote bilateral investments in a mutually beneficial manner.

    South Africa is also seeking, through the Framework Deal, to have some of the key export products exempted from the Sections 232 duties, including autos and auto parts, and steel and aluminium through tariff rate quotas.

    South Africa is also seeking the maximum tariff application of 10%, as a worst-case situation. The Framework also seeks exemption for small and medium enterprises, counter-seasonal products and products that the US does not have productive capacity for.

    South Africa used the meeting with the US to continue to raise its concerns with the impact of the reciprocal tariffs, especially on African countries. 

    In this regard, one of the key issues that emerged from the meeting is that the US is developing a trade-matters template that will be the basis for its engagements with countries in sub-Saharan Africa. 

    It was advised that the template will be shared as soon as it has gone through the internal approval processes within the US Administration. South Africa welcomed this indication and expressed preparedness to engage with the said template once finalised.

    In view of this development, including the limited time between now and the deadline for the expiry of the 90-day pause, scheduled for 9 July 2025, African countries, including South Africa, have advocated for the extension of the 90-day deadline to enable countries to prepare their proposed Deals in accordance with the new template. 

    “In this regard, we are of the view that South Africa may need to re-submit its Framework Deal in accordance with the new template. It is thus expected that the deadline may be shifted.

    “We urge South African industry to exercise strategic patience and not take decisions in haste, and that government will continue to use every avenue to engage the US government to find amicable solutions to safeguard South African interests in the US market,” said Trade, Industry and Competition Minister, Parks Tau. – SAnews.gov.za

    Edwin

    MIL OSI Africa

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Health sector forum reaffirms anti-corruption stance

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Health sector forum reaffirms anti-corruption stance

    The Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum (HSACF) has reaffirmed its commitment to accountability, transparency and fighting corruption at its quarterly meeting held last week.

    The forum comprises stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, the Health Professional Council of South Africa (HPCSA), civil society groups, private sector organisations and government.

    The meeting held presentations from the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI, also known as the Hawks), the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), and the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS).

    “The Hawks reported on the status of 106 cases, with 21 currently under investigation, two on the court roll and 69 awaiting decisions from the NPA. These cases involve approximately R3 billion, with R11.8 million already recovered in cash and assets.

    “The SIU highlighted its success in preventing losses exceeding R6 billion, including R3.1 billion in actual losses and R1.6 billion in potential losses through referrals to provincial health departments. 

    “The SIU also identified 54 fraudulent medico-legal claims and closed 97 investigations, referring cases worth R689 million to the Legal Practice Council, R279 million to the Legal Practitioners’ Fidelity Fund, and R412 million to the NPA for further action,” the SIU said in a statement.

    The NPA presented its progress on some 18 priority cases.

    “From SIU referrals, under Proclamation 23 of 2020, which focuses on COVID-19-related corruption, the NPA has enrolled 125 cases, finalised 83, and is pursuing 32 still on the court roll.

    “The CMS shared details of its investigations into medical schemes, including inquiries into Foodmed Medical Scheme regarding governance issues, GEMS and Polmed for multivitamin scheme irregularities, Optivest Health Services for overcharging, and Sizwe Hosmed Medical Scheme for compliance breaches,” the statement read.

    Furthermore, a “whole of society” approach was touted as important for combatting corruption in the country.

    “This aligns with the National Development Plan’s vision of a corruption-free South Africa. The forum emphasised the need for continued vigilance, stronger preventive measures, and swift prosecution to eliminate fraud and maladministration in the health sector. 

    “The HSACF remains dedicated to fostering transparency and accountability, ensuring that public resources are protected and used effectively for the benefit of all South Africans,” the statement concluded. – SAnews.gov.za

    NeoB

    MIL OSI Africa

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Operation Shanela nets 15 248 suspects

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Operation Shanela nets 15 248 suspects

    Operation Shanela has netted over 15 000 suspects around the country in its latest sting, said the South African Police Service (SAPS).

    As part of a nationwide move to combat and prevent crime, 15 248 suspects were arrested for various crimes.  

    These crime-fighting activities included tracking operations, roadblocks, high visibility patrols, stop and searches, as well as tracing of wanted suspects. 

    According to the police, 2 441 wanted suspects were arrested for various serious and violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder, rape, business and house robberies. Additionally, 170 suspects were arrested for murder with KwaZulu-Natal recording the highest figure (47), followed by Gauteng (34) and the Western Cape (32).

    Police also arrested 106 suspects for attempted murder and 145 people for rape. A total 233 drug dealers were arrested, while 2 234 suspects were arrested for being in possession of drugs, with the highest arrests in the Western Cape (1 214).

    The long arm of the law also caught up with 96 suspects, who were arrested for being in the illegal possession of firearms while 1 460 illegal foreign nationals were also arrested.

    Additionally, 772 drivers were arrested for drunken driving, said the SAPS in a statement on Monday.

    Under recoveries and confiscations, police registered the following successes: 
    •    115 firearms were confiscated in the past week
    •    2 394 rounds of ammunition were also confiscated
    •    81 hijacked and stolen vehicles were also recovered during this week’s operations. 

    Highlights of major takedowns and other successes include the following:

    •    Eastern Cape: On 23 June 2025, six-armed extortion suspects were shot and killed in a shootout with police on the R61 between Mthatha and Ngcobo.
    •    Northern Cape: Police seized illicit cigarettes worth R2.8 million in a storage facility at Groblershoop in Upington, on 23 June 2025
    •    KwaZulu-Natal: Police recovered drugs worth over R10 million and arrested a 37-year-old foreign national during an intelligence-led operation, on 25 June 2025
    •    Free State: Police arrested three suspects on charges of kidnapping and rescued a 19-year-old Kamogelo Baukudi in Wepener, on 27 June 2025
    •    Western Cape: Anti-Gang Unit arrested a 68-year-old man for unlawful possession of seven different calibre firearms and ammunition in Gulden Crescent, Cape Town, on 23 June 2025
    •    Limpopo: Police arrested a 40-year-old man for the gruesome murder of his 87-year-old mother after her body parts were found in plastic buckets in Sebora Village in the Mashashane area, on 28 June 2025.
    •    Last week alone, the SAPS Anti-Kidnapping Task Team rescued a 30-year-old man and arrested three kidnappers during an operation in Germiston. In a separate case, on 27 June 2025, Gauteng police rescued an 82-year-old Businessman and arrested five suspects aged between 25 and 31 years in Roodepoort.

    “Police will continue with their operations by asserting the authority of the state to ensure the safety and security of all South Africans and visitors to the country,” the police said. – SAnews.gov.za

    Edwin

    MIL OSI Africa

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Lamola highlights investment challenges at international financing development conference

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Lamola highlights investment challenges at international financing development conference

    International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Ronald Lamola, has underscored the persistent difficulties that hinder private investment, underscoring political and regulatory volatility as matters of primary concern. 

    “Frequent policy shifts, coupled with weak institutions and inconsistent regulatory frameworks, create a climate of uncertainty that undermines investor confidence. This unpredictability hampers long-term planning and complicates risk assessments,” he said on Monday. 

    The Minister was speaking at the 4th International Conference on the Financing for Development Summit, which is taking place in Seville, Spain. The gathering kicked off on Monday. 

    Lamola, the head of the South African delegation, delivered a speech at a multi-stakeholder roundtable themed: “Revitalising International Development Cooperation”.

    The event aims to address new and emerging issues in development financing, emphasising the need to fully implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    Lamola called for a unified approach to building institutional capacity, coherence in policy, and independent regulatory bodies. 

    “We need robust investment protection laws to foster investor confidence. Without these safeguards, we are undermining our own potential for growth.”

    The Minister further elaborated on macroeconomic fragility, emphasising that high inflation, currency instability, and unsustainable debt burdens restrict governments’ abilities to provide incentives for investment. 

    To restore stability, he said leaders must adopt prudent fiscal and monetary policies. 

    Lamola believes that improving debt management and collaborating with development finance institutions can create an environment where private investment flourishes.

    Pointing out the limitations posed by underdeveloped financial markets, Lamola highlighted the necessity of expanding local capital markets. 

    “Governments must prioritise regulatory reforms and infrastructure improvements to unlock the potential of our economies. 

    “Supporting fintech innovation and promoting financial inclusion are pivotal in creating a more accessible financing landscape.”

    Building capacity to attract investment

    The Minister also addressed the significant infrastructure gaps that plague many developing nations, which further deter investment. 

    “Inadequate transport and energy infrastructure increase operational costs and evaporate profitability. 

    “We need strategic infrastructure planning, informed by private sector insights, to mobilise the capital necessary for development.”

    He noted that many initiatives falter due to weak design and a lack of feasibility assessments. 

    “We must invest in building technical capacity within the public sector. Establishing dedicated project preparation facilities will significantly increase the attractiveness of investment opportunities,” he urged.  

    To level the playing field for investors, Lamola stressed the importance of improving governance and regulatory certainty. 

    “Simplifying investment-related regulations and reducing bureaucratic hurdles can greatly enhance investor confidence.  

    “We must create an environment where potential investors feel secure in their commitments.”

    The Minister also stressed the importance of developing national sustainable finance strategies to align financial flows with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. 

    “We must define what constitutes a sustainable investment. Robust taxonomies and disclosure standards can enhance transparency and credibility in the market.”

    He also highlighted the crucial role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in fostering a conducive investment environment. 

    “MDBs can offer credit enhancements, support project preparation, and co-finance investments alongside private capital.  

    “Their involvement can significantly increase the viability of projects in emerging markets.”

    The Minister expressed optimism about the potential for collaboration in driving sustainable development through private investment. 

    “Together, we can create a future where every dollar invested unlocks new opportunities, tackles pressing challenges, and builds a more sustainable world.” 

    The event highlighted a collective commitment from governments, private sector representatives, and development institutions to work together to revitalise international development cooperation and attract the much-needed private investment that can empower developing nations in their growth journey. – SAnews.gov.za

    Gabisile

    MIL OSI Africa

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds than normal

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marcus Pearce, Reader in Cognitive Science, Queen Mary University of London

    ‘Hare speed, please.’ Pressmaster

    Many of us have got into the habit of listening to podcasts, audiobooks and other online content at increased playback speeds. For younger people, it might even be the norm. One survey of students in California, for instance, showed that 89% changed the playback speed of online lectures, while there have been numerous articles in the media about how common speedy viewing has become.

    It is easy to think of some advantages to watching things more quickly. It can let you consume more content in the same amount of time, or go through the same piece of content a couple of times to get the most out of it.

    This could be particularly useful in an educational context, where it might free up time for consolidating knowledge, doing practice tests and so forth. Watching quickly is also potentially a good way of making sure you sustain your attention and engagement for the entire duration to avoid the mind wandering.

    But what about the disadvantages? It turns out that there are one or two of those as well.

    When a person is exposed to spoken information, researchers distinguish three phases of memory: encoding the information, storing it and subsequently retrieving it. At the encoding phase, it takes the brain some time to process and comprehend the incoming speech-stream. Words must be extracted and their contextual meaning retrieved from the memory in real-time.

    People generally speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute, though doubling the rate to 300 or even tripling it to 450 words per minute is still within the range of what we can find intelligible. The question is more about the quality and longevity of the memories that we form.

    Incoming information is stored temporarily in a memory system called working memory. This allows chunks of information to be transformed, combined and manipulated into a form that is ready for transfer to the long-term memory. Because our working memory has a limited capacity, if too much information arrives too quickly it can be exceeded. This leads to cognitive overload and loss of information.

    Speedy viewing and information recall

    A recent meta analysis in this area examined 24 studies of learning from lecture videos. The studies varied in their design but generally involved playing a video lecture to one group at original speed (1x) and playing the same video lecture to another group at a faster speed (1.25x, 1.5x, 2x and 2.5x).

    Just like in a randomised controlled trial used to test medical treatments, participants were randomly assigned to each of the two groups. Both groups then completed an identical test after watching the video to assess their knowledge of the material. The tests either required them to recall information, used multiple choice questions to assess their recall, or both.

    Faster playback may not help with study.
    V.Studio

    The meta-analysis showed that increasing playback speed had increasingly negative effects on test performance. At speeds of up to 1.5x, the cost was very small. But at 2x and above, the negative effect was moderate to large.

    To put this in context, if the average score for a cohort of students was 75% with a typical variation of 20 percentage points in either direction, then increasing the playback speed to 1.5x would bring down the average person’s result by 2 percentage points. And increasing the playback speed to 2.5x would lead to an average loss of 17 percentage points.

    Older people

    Interestingly, one of the studies included in the meta-analysis also investigated older adults (aged 61-94) and found that they were more affected by watching content at faster speeds than younger adults (aged 18-36). This may reflect a weakening of memory capacity in otherwise healthy people, suggesting that older adults should watch at normal speed or even slower playback speeds to compensate.

    However, we don’t yet know whether you can reduce the negative effects of fast playback by doing it regularly. So it could be that younger adults simply have more experience of fast playback and are therefore better able to cope with the increased cognitive load. Similarly, it means we don’t know whether younger people can mitigate the negative effects on their ability to retain information by using faster playback more often.

    Another unknown is whether there are any long-term effects on mental function and brain activity from watching videos at increased playback speeds. In theory, such effects could be positive, such as a better ability to handle increased cognitive load. Or they could be negative, such as greater mental fatigue resulting from increased cognitive load, but we currently lack the scientific evidence to answer this question.

    A final observation is that even if playing back content at, say, 1.5 times the normal speed doesn’t affect memory performance, there is evidence to suggest the experience is less enjoyable. That may affect people’s motivation and experience at learning things, which might make them find more excuses not to do it. On the other hand, faster playback has become popular, so maybe once people get used to it, it’s fine – hopefully we’ll understand these processes better in the years to come.

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

    ref. What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds than normal – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-watch-videos-online-at-faster-speeds-than-normal-259930

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds than normal

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marcus Pearce, Reader in Cognitive Science, Queen Mary University of London

    ‘Hare speed, please.’ Pressmaster

    Many of us have got into the habit of listening to podcasts, audiobooks and other online content at increased playback speeds. For younger people, it might even be the norm. One survey of students in California, for instance, showed that 89% changed the playback speed of online lectures, while there have been numerous articles in the media about how common speedy viewing has become.

    It is easy to think of some advantages to watching things more quickly. It can let you consume more content in the same amount of time, or go through the same piece of content a couple of times to get the most out of it.

    This could be particularly useful in an educational context, where it might free up time for consolidating knowledge, doing practice tests and so forth. Watching quickly is also potentially a good way of making sure you sustain your attention and engagement for the entire duration to avoid the mind wandering.

    But what about the disadvantages? It turns out that there are one or two of those as well.

    When a person is exposed to spoken information, researchers distinguish three phases of memory: encoding the information, storing it and subsequently retrieving it. At the encoding phase, it takes the brain some time to process and comprehend the incoming speech-stream. Words must be extracted and their contextual meaning retrieved from the memory in real-time.

    People generally speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute, though doubling the rate to 300 or even tripling it to 450 words per minute is still within the range of what we can find intelligible. The question is more about the quality and longevity of the memories that we form.

    Incoming information is stored temporarily in a memory system called working memory. This allows chunks of information to be transformed, combined and manipulated into a form that is ready for transfer to the long-term memory. Because our working memory has a limited capacity, if too much information arrives too quickly it can be exceeded. This leads to cognitive overload and loss of information.

    Speedy viewing and information recall

    A recent meta analysis in this area examined 24 studies of learning from lecture videos. The studies varied in their design but generally involved playing a video lecture to one group at original speed (1x) and playing the same video lecture to another group at a faster speed (1.25x, 1.5x, 2x and 2.5x).

    Just like in a randomised controlled trial used to test medical treatments, participants were randomly assigned to each of the two groups. Both groups then completed an identical test after watching the video to assess their knowledge of the material. The tests either required them to recall information, used multiple choice questions to assess their recall, or both.

    Faster playback may not help with study.
    V.Studio

    The meta-analysis showed that increasing playback speed had increasingly negative effects on test performance. At speeds of up to 1.5x, the cost was very small. But at 2x and above, the negative effect was moderate to large.

    To put this in context, if the average score for a cohort of students was 75% with a typical variation of 20 percentage points in either direction, then increasing the playback speed to 1.5x would bring down the average person’s result by 2 percentage points. And increasing the playback speed to 2.5x would lead to an average loss of 17 percentage points.

    Older people

    Interestingly, one of the studies included in the meta-analysis also investigated older adults (aged 61-94) and found that they were more affected by watching content at faster speeds than younger adults (aged 18-36). This may reflect a weakening of memory capacity in otherwise healthy people, suggesting that older adults should watch at normal speed or even slower playback speeds to compensate.

    However, we don’t yet know whether you can reduce the negative effects of fast playback by doing it regularly. So it could be that younger adults simply have more experience of fast playback and are therefore better able to cope with the increased cognitive load. Similarly, it means we don’t know whether younger people can mitigate the negative effects on their ability to retain information by using faster playback more often.

    Another unknown is whether there are any long-term effects on mental function and brain activity from watching videos at increased playback speeds. In theory, such effects could be positive, such as a better ability to handle increased cognitive load. Or they could be negative, such as greater mental fatigue resulting from increased cognitive load, but we currently lack the scientific evidence to answer this question.

    A final observation is that even if playing back content at, say, 1.5 times the normal speed doesn’t affect memory performance, there is evidence to suggest the experience is less enjoyable. That may affect people’s motivation and experience at learning things, which might make them find more excuses not to do it. On the other hand, faster playback has become popular, so maybe once people get used to it, it’s fine – hopefully we’ll understand these processes better in the years to come.

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

    ref. What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds than normal – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-watch-videos-online-at-faster-speeds-than-normal-259930

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Row over damage to Iran’s nuclear programme raises questions about intelligence

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, University of Hull

    The ongoing debate over whether Iranian nuclear sites were “obliterated”, as the US president and his team insist, or merely “damaged”, as much of the intelligence suggest, should make us pause and think about the nature and purpose of intelligence.

    As Donald Rumsfeld famously said “if it was a fact it wouldn’t be called intelligence”.

    The recorded fate of the Iranian nuclear sites will be decided by the collection and assessment of difficult to reach raw intelligence feeds. These will include imagery, technical, communications and human intelligence, among many secret techniques.

    The classified conclusions of these efforts are unlikely to make their way into the public realm, unless there is Congressional or Senate inquiry, like the one held after 9/11.

    So, why does it matter?

    There has been strong public interest in intelligence assessments since 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Intelligence is often only seen in public when something has gone wrong – either that something was missed or the public has been misled. Inquiries into 9/11 criticised intelligence agencies for not putting together single strands of intelligence into a whole picture, revealing the plot and the attack.

    Inquiries into the approach to the 2003 Iraq war suggested intelligence agencies had allowed their assessments to become shaped by political need, or had failed to adequately caution about what they did not know.

    Successful intelligence operations nearly always mean that something damaging to the country or the public has been prevented. If agencies celebrated these successes loudly they might reveal something about their techniques and reach that is useful to our adversaries. So, our understanding of intelligence tends to be framed by popular culture – or by the inquiries around intelligence failures.

    From these two sources, intelligence is simultaneously all-seeing and deeply flawed. Add in narratives around the “deep state” – a shorthand that accuses unnamed and publicly unaccountable government officials of frustrating the will of the people – and it should be no surprise that the public and politicians are sometimes confused about security intelligence and published assessmements.

    In the case of the Iranian nuclear facilities, the importance of the intelligence picture is focused around politics, diplomacy and security. Donald Trump would obviously prefer an official narrative that his decision and orders have put back the Iranian nuclear programme by years. This is why he talks about the sites being obliterated. And it’s why his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has affirmed that her intelligence-led assessment agrees. That said, she has opted not to give testimony to the Senate.

    When it comes diplomacy, the judgement of intelligence officials could do one of two things. It could either place Iran in a poorer negotiating position with no nuclear programme to provide it with the ultimate security. Or it could allow Tehran to present the country as an emerging nuclear power, with the added muscle that implies. This judgement will have an impact on Israel’s need to preemptively contain Iran. And in security terms, the classified judgement will also help to shape the next steps of the US president, his diplomats and his armed forces.

    Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of niitonal intellgence, delivers the annual threat assessment. She testifies that Iran is not actively building a nuclear weapon.

    The assessment given to the public may well be different from the one held within the administration. While uncomfortable for us outside of government circles, this is often a perfectly reasonable choice for a government to make. Security diplomacy is best done behind closed doors. Or at least, this used to be the case. Now Trump appears to be remaking the art of statecraft in public with his TruthSocial posts and his earthy and authentic language in press conferences.

    Misinformation and public mistrust

    Having a large gap between the secret intelligence assessment and the publicly acknowledged position can have stark consequences for a government. The 1971 Pentagon Papers are a good example of this.

    These were prepared for the government about the progress of the Vietnam war and leaked to the press. The leaks highlighted the inaccuracy in government reporting to the American public about the progress of the war. The fallout included a number of official inquiries that shone a negative light on intelligence agencies. They also resulted in a strengthening of media freedoms.

    Similarly, the 2003 Iraq war damaged the credibility of the US intelligence community. It became clear to that the unequivocal statements about Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction turned out to be overstated and under-evidenced. The loss of trust, limitations on the executive use of intelligence and the losses to the US in blood and treasure in the Iraq campaign are still being felt in American politics.

    Last, the Snowden leaks of 2013 highlighted the mismatch between what was understood about intelligence intrusion into private communications data, including internet browsing activities, and what was happening in the National Security Agency through programmes such as Prism.

    The Snowden leaks had an impact on America’s standing with its allies and resulted in the USA Freedom Act in 2015. This imposed some limits on the data that US intelligence agencies can collect on American citizens and also clarified the use of wiretaps and tracking “lone wolf” terrorists.

    The Snowden affair also fuelled a growing narrative about unaccountable deep state activity that has foregrounded online phenomena such as the conspiracy site QAnon. It has also boosted some populist politics that point to, and feed off the public suspicion on, mass surveillance and hidden government activities.

    The lessons for the current debate are clear. The first is that using intelligence assessments to justify military actions contain enduring hazards for governments, given the propensity among public servants for leaking.

    From that, it naturally follows that when published intelligence is shown to be incorrect, the unintended consequence for governments is a loss of trust and having fewer freedoms to make use of intelligence to protect the nation state.

    Robert Dover has previously received research funding from the AHRC to examine lessons that can be drawn from intelligence and he and Michael Goodman published an edited collection from this project.

    ref. Row over damage to Iran’s nuclear programme raises questions about intelligence – https://theconversation.com/row-over-damage-to-irans-nuclear-programme-raises-questions-about-intelligence-260021

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Row over damage to Iran’s nuclear programme raises questions about intelligence

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, University of Hull

    The ongoing debate over whether Iranian nuclear sites were “obliterated”, as the US president and his team insist, or merely “damaged”, as much of the intelligence suggest, should make us pause and think about the nature and purpose of intelligence.

    As Donald Rumsfeld famously said “if it was a fact it wouldn’t be called intelligence”.

    The recorded fate of the Iranian nuclear sites will be decided by the collection and assessment of difficult to reach raw intelligence feeds. These will include imagery, technical, communications and human intelligence, among many secret techniques.

    The classified conclusions of these efforts are unlikely to make their way into the public realm, unless there is Congressional or Senate inquiry, like the one held after 9/11.

    So, why does it matter?

    There has been strong public interest in intelligence assessments since 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Intelligence is often only seen in public when something has gone wrong – either that something was missed or the public has been misled. Inquiries into 9/11 criticised intelligence agencies for not putting together single strands of intelligence into a whole picture, revealing the plot and the attack.

    Inquiries into the approach to the 2003 Iraq war suggested intelligence agencies had allowed their assessments to become shaped by political need, or had failed to adequately caution about what they did not know.

    Successful intelligence operations nearly always mean that something damaging to the country or the public has been prevented. If agencies celebrated these successes loudly they might reveal something about their techniques and reach that is useful to our adversaries. So, our understanding of intelligence tends to be framed by popular culture – or by the inquiries around intelligence failures.

    From these two sources, intelligence is simultaneously all-seeing and deeply flawed. Add in narratives around the “deep state” – a shorthand that accuses unnamed and publicly unaccountable government officials of frustrating the will of the people – and it should be no surprise that the public and politicians are sometimes confused about security intelligence and published assessmements.

    In the case of the Iranian nuclear facilities, the importance of the intelligence picture is focused around politics, diplomacy and security. Donald Trump would obviously prefer an official narrative that his decision and orders have put back the Iranian nuclear programme by years. This is why he talks about the sites being obliterated. And it’s why his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has affirmed that her intelligence-led assessment agrees. That said, she has opted not to give testimony to the Senate.

    When it comes diplomacy, the judgement of intelligence officials could do one of two things. It could either place Iran in a poorer negotiating position with no nuclear programme to provide it with the ultimate security. Or it could allow Tehran to present the country as an emerging nuclear power, with the added muscle that implies. This judgement will have an impact on Israel’s need to preemptively contain Iran. And in security terms, the classified judgement will also help to shape the next steps of the US president, his diplomats and his armed forces.

    Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of niitonal intellgence, delivers the annual threat assessment. She testifies that Iran is not actively building a nuclear weapon.

    The assessment given to the public may well be different from the one held within the administration. While uncomfortable for us outside of government circles, this is often a perfectly reasonable choice for a government to make. Security diplomacy is best done behind closed doors. Or at least, this used to be the case. Now Trump appears to be remaking the art of statecraft in public with his TruthSocial posts and his earthy and authentic language in press conferences.

    Misinformation and public mistrust

    Having a large gap between the secret intelligence assessment and the publicly acknowledged position can have stark consequences for a government. The 1971 Pentagon Papers are a good example of this.

    These were prepared for the government about the progress of the Vietnam war and leaked to the press. The leaks highlighted the inaccuracy in government reporting to the American public about the progress of the war. The fallout included a number of official inquiries that shone a negative light on intelligence agencies. They also resulted in a strengthening of media freedoms.

    Similarly, the 2003 Iraq war damaged the credibility of the US intelligence community. It became clear to that the unequivocal statements about Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction turned out to be overstated and under-evidenced. The loss of trust, limitations on the executive use of intelligence and the losses to the US in blood and treasure in the Iraq campaign are still being felt in American politics.

    Last, the Snowden leaks of 2013 highlighted the mismatch between what was understood about intelligence intrusion into private communications data, including internet browsing activities, and what was happening in the National Security Agency through programmes such as Prism.

    The Snowden leaks had an impact on America’s standing with its allies and resulted in the USA Freedom Act in 2015. This imposed some limits on the data that US intelligence agencies can collect on American citizens and also clarified the use of wiretaps and tracking “lone wolf” terrorists.

    The Snowden affair also fuelled a growing narrative about unaccountable deep state activity that has foregrounded online phenomena such as the conspiracy site QAnon. It has also boosted some populist politics that point to, and feed off the public suspicion on, mass surveillance and hidden government activities.

    The lessons for the current debate are clear. The first is that using intelligence assessments to justify military actions contain enduring hazards for governments, given the propensity among public servants for leaking.

    From that, it naturally follows that when published intelligence is shown to be incorrect, the unintended consequence for governments is a loss of trust and having fewer freedoms to make use of intelligence to protect the nation state.

    Robert Dover has previously received research funding from the AHRC to examine lessons that can be drawn from intelligence and he and Michael Goodman published an edited collection from this project.

    ref. Row over damage to Iran’s nuclear programme raises questions about intelligence – https://theconversation.com/row-over-damage-to-irans-nuclear-programme-raises-questions-about-intelligence-260021

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How tennis takes a toll: the leg and foot injuries players need to watch out for

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Craig Gwynne, Senior Lecturer in Podiatry, Cardiff Metropolitan University

    When Novak Djokovic limped out of the 2024 French Open with a torn meniscus in his knee, all eyes turned to whether he’d be fit for Wimbledon. And when Nick Kyrgios pulled out of Wimbledon for the third year running earlier this month due to a knee injury, fans were disappointed, but medical experts may not have been surprised.

    These weren’t freak accidents. They were reminders of just how much stress elite tennis puts on the legs and feet. But the same risks apply to anyone picking up a racket this summer. From Centre Court to local parks, tennis takes a toll on the body that many players don’t appreciate.

    Tennis demands explosive movement like lunges, pivots, sprints and sudden stops. Every serve starts with a push from the toes. Every rally shifts weight between the heel and forefoot. Unlike sports with linear movement, like sprinting, tennis places constant multi-directional stress on the feet and ankles – two of the most frequently injured body parts in the game.

    Grass courts like Wimbledon’s are notoriously slick, even when dry. They offer less traction than hard courts and can increase the risk of slipping and twisting injuries. Ankle sprains and midfoot stress injuries are more common on these surfaces, particularly for players not wearing surface-appropriate shoes.

    But problems aren’t limited to grass. Hard courts often trigger repetitive strain in the heel or forefoot. And while clay is more forgiving, it still demands relentless lateral movement. No matter the surface, tennis puts pressure on the small joints and bones of the foot.

    Consequently, even the world’s best aren’t immune. Nick Kyrgios’s long-running foot issues have disrupted multiple seasons for him. Rafael Nadal has battled Mueller-Weiss syndrome, which is a rare condition that damages the navicular bone in the foot and requires specialist treatment and custom shoe-inserts.

    In April 2024, French player Arthur Cazaux rolled his ankle at the Barcelona Open, posting a viral image of the swelling that underscored how brutal the sport can be.

    What science says about foot injuries in tennis

    Many foot and ankle injuries in tennis often don’t result from one big moment — they build slowly over time. Stress fractures in the navicular and metatarsals (small bones in the midfoot) are especially common in players who train and play often. These bones are repeatedly loaded during sprints, pivots and push-offs, and can become damaged without any obvious trauma.

    Sprained ankles are another common problem. The ligaments on the outside of the ankle (known as the lateral ligaments) are particularly at risk during sudden changes in direction, especially on slippery surfaces. This is a major feature of tennis movement and makes ankle injuries hard to avoid without good support or strength.

    Foot mechanics, which is the way the foot absorbs, transfers and responds to forces during movement, also play a key role in injury risk. Research shows that players shift their body weight across different areas of the foot depending on the shot. Over time, repeated pressure on the forefoot or heel can lead to tendon strain or bone stress injuries.

    Ankle flexibility and lower limb strength also matter. Studies show that players with poor ankle mobility or control are not only more likely to lose power in their shots, they’re also more prone to overloading the foot and ankle during play.

    Despite this, foot and ankle injuries still get overlooked in many tennis injury prevention plans. Most focus on the knees, hips or shoulders, leaving one of the most injury-prone parts of the body without enough attention or support.

    The Wimbledon effect

    Wimbledon inspires thousands to pick up a racket every summer. But this seasonal spike in participation is often matched by a rise in injuries, particularly among casual players.

    Studies show that leg and foot injuries are prevalent among amateur tennis players. Ankle sprains, Achilles tendon issues and plantar fasciitis (pain in the bottom of the foot) are among the most common complaints.

    Footwear is one of the main reasons for this. Professionals wear tennis-specific shoes tailored to surface type. Grass-court shoes, for example, have shallow pimples for traction without damaging the turf. But many recreational players hit the court in running shoes, which are designed for straight-line motion, not side-to-side movement. This increases the risk of slips, ankle rolls and stress to the plantar fascia.

    Others ignore foot pain, assuming it’s normal or age-related. But aching arches, bruised heels or soreness across the midfoot may signal deeper issues like tendon overload, early stress fractures or plantar tissue damage.

    How to protect your feet

    So if you’re heading out to play tennis this summer, whether at a club or on the local court, a few small changes can help protect your feet:

    1. Wear tennis shoes designed for the surface. Don’t rely on general trainers or running shoes.

    2. Warm up properly. Include ankle rolls, calf raises and lateral drills (side-to-side movements).

    3. Strengthen your feet between matches with balance work or resistance-band exercises. You can also do towel curls, which involves placing a towel on the floor and gripping it towards your arch with your toes.

    4. Listen to pain. Discomfort in the heel, arch or midfoot isn’t “just tiredness”. It may be a warning sign.

    5. Replace worn shoes regularly, especially if you play on grass where grip is crucial.

    If you do sustain a minor ankle sprain apply the “police” principle:

    Protection = Avoid activities that aggravate pain and further injury.

    Optimal loading = Gentle, controlled movement and weight-bearing as tolerated, aiming to promote tissue healing and prevent stiffness.

    Ice = Apply ice to reduce swelling and pain, typically for 15-20 minutes every few hours.

    Compression = Use an elastic bandage to help reduce swelling, but be mindful of circulation.

    Elevation = Keep the injured ankle elevated to minimise swelling.

    If pain doesn’t ease after 48 hours, or worsens during activity, speak to a podiatrist or physiotherapist. Stress fractures in particular can worsen without rest.

    Wimbledon is a celebration of tennis at its most graceful and exciting. But it’s also a high-impact sport that places a lot of strain on the body.

    Whether you’re serving aces at your club or just hitting a couple of balls with friends, your feet are your secret weapon and your first line of defence. Take care of them, and you’ll stay in the match for longer.

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

    ref. How tennis takes a toll: the leg and foot injuries players need to watch out for – https://theconversation.com/how-tennis-takes-a-toll-the-leg-and-foot-injuries-players-need-to-watch-out-for-258872

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: New special tribunal for Ukraine will pave the way for holding Russian leaders to account for the invasion

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Forde, Assistant Professor – European Human Rights Law, Dublin City University

    A special tribunal has been established by the international human rights organisation the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Ukrainian government to try crimes of aggression against Ukraine which could be used to hold Vladimir Putin and others to account for the February 2022 invasion and war crimes committed since.

    The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, signed an agreement with CoE secretary general, Alain Berset, on June 25, setting up the special tribunal. Subject to it securing the necessary political backing and budget the tribunal will be established within the framework of the CoE (which is not part of the European Union.

    Work on the first phase of the court could progress in 2026. In his speech to the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg, Zelensky was cautious in his optimism but stressed that the agreement was “just the beginning”.

    “It will take strong political and legal cooperation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice – including Putin,” he said. He knows, through years of hard experience as he travelled the world seeking help from Ukraine’s allies, that political support can be fleeting.

    A new Nuremberg?

    Inspired by ad hoc courts established after major conflicts such as the Nuremberg tribunal after the second world war or, more recently the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
    in the 1990s, the Ukraine has been established with the aim of holding to account the perpetrators of the first full-scale armed conflict in Europe in the 21st century.

    The prohibition against the crime of aggression is a basic principle of international law, and a key part of the UN charter.

    In principle, the crime of aggression should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). But as Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute which underpins the court, that option was ruled out. Similarly, Russia’s veto on the UN security council meant that it would be impossible in practice to practically set up a court under the mandate of the UN – as the ICTY was in 1993.

    The Ukraine special tribunal, which was developed by a Core Group, made up of states plus the EU and the Council of Europe, seeks to fill an obvious accountability gap. If the illegal invasion is left unpunished, it would set a dangerous precedent.

    Such impunity would embolden Russia and inspire others with revanchist ambitions, undermining an already shaky international order. The US, which was instrumental in setting up the Core Group under the presidency of Joe Biden, withdrew in March 2025 when Donald Trump took office.

    The statute of the special tribunal sets out that the court will be based on Ukrainian law and will have a strong link to the country’s legal system. Ukraine’s prosecutor-general will play a key role in the proceedings, referring evidence for further investigation by the tribunal. But it will be internationally funded with international judges and prosecutors, and strong cooperation with the International Criminal Court. It is likely to be based in the Hague – although this has yet to be confirmed.

    The need for accountability for the illegal invasion of Ukraine was stressed in a resolution of the UN general assembly in February 2023 as the war headed into its second year. The resolution, which calls for “appropriate, fair and independent investigations and prosecutions at the national or international level” to “ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes” was approved by an overwhelming majority of 141 states. Any country in the world can join this core group to support its establishment.

    Holding leaders accountable

    Unlike previous international courts, the caseload is likely to be extremely narrow. There are likely to be dozens of charges rather than hundreds or thousands, which is perhaps reassuring in terms of managing costs.

    The tribunal will focus on those “most responsible” including the so-called “troika”: the president Vladimir Putin, prime minister Mikhail Mishustin and the minister for foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov. Charges may also be levelled against the leadership of Belarus and North Korea for their role in aiding, abetting and actively participating in the war of aggression. But don’t expect Kim Jong-un or Alexander Lukashenko in the dock anytime soon.

    The Court has opted for a novel approach to a longstanding customary rule by noting that heads of state are not functionally immune from prosecution. But it adds that indictments won’t be confirmed until such time as the suspect is no longer in office.

    Trials can take place in absentia if the accused fails to attend and all reasonable steps taken to apprehend them have failed. But, like the ICC, the court will still rely on states to apprehend and physically transfer indicted individuals in due course. This will inevitably limit the chances of seeing any of the key individuals actually in a court, something that has also dogged the ICC.

    The fact that a tribunal has now been set up is a major development in international criminal justice. But it is now in a sort of purgatory, existing and not existing at the same time. To become operational, another treaty known as an enlarged partial agreement must be signed by interested states. This will have to be ratified by many national parliaments, depending on their constitutions. This process could take years.

    But simply by creating the framework for the tribunal, the Council of Europe has demonstrated its commitment to ensuring accountability. In a further development, the European Court of Human Rights delivers its long-awaited judgment in the case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v Russia on July 9.

    This concerns “complaints about the conflict in eastern Ukraine involving pro-Russian separatists which began in 2014, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and the Russian military operations in Ukraine since 2022”. The judgement will add further momentum to these accountability efforts.

    Symbolic as it may seem, this week’s agreement creates a real opportunity for the international community to send a message that impunity for international aggression is intolerable – not just for the victims, but for all who believe in the rule of law.

    Andrew Forde is affiliated with Dublin City University (Assistant Professor, European Human Rights Law). He is also, separately, affiliated with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Commissioner).

    ref. New special tribunal for Ukraine will pave the way for holding Russian leaders to account for the invasion – https://theconversation.com/new-special-tribunal-for-ukraine-will-pave-the-way-for-holding-russian-leaders-to-account-for-the-invasion-260022

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Class and masculinity are connected – when industry changes, so does what it means to ‘be a man’

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie Lively, PhD Candidate in Human Geography, Newcastle University

    Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

    On July 3, I’ll be discussing Youth, Masculinity and the Political Divide at an event with The Conversation and Cumberland Lodge at Newcastle University (get your tickets here).

    Young people involved in the panel have brought up class and the decline of industry as topics for discussion. This is particularly fitting, given my ongoing PhD research exploring masculinity and the contemporary lives of working-class men in Tyneside.

    Tyneside is an area in north-east England which was once a major centre of Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Its coal mining, shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries were seen as the backbone of the region, upheld by a large industrial skilled working class.

    As with many northern towns, widespread deindustrialisation, predominantly around the 1970s and 1980s, dramatically changed the area. At its peak, Swan Hunter – a globally recognised shipyard and significant employer in Wallsend (North Tyneside) and the surrounding area – employed up to 12,000 people. By 2005, the year before its closure, only 357 direct workers were employed.

    The process of deindustrialisation affected not just the type of work that was done, but how men in the region saw themselves. As I am currently researching, the effects of this ring true today.



    Boys and girls are together facing an uncertain world. But research shows they are diverging when it comes to attitudes about masculinity, feminism and gender equality.

    Social media, politics, and identity all play a role. But what’s really going on with boys and girls? Join The Conversation UK and Cumberland Lodge’s Youth and Democracy project at Newcastle University for a discussion of these issues with young people and academic experts. Tickets available here.


    Like other regions in Britain, Tyneside shifted from mostly masculine manual labour to a largely “feminised” service sector. Informal work, subcontracting and part-time work proliferated while rates of trade unionism declined.

    Changes in industry and understandings of social class have a surprising amount to do with how we think about masculinity. Paul Willis’ 1977 seminal study Learning to Labour explores how the links between social class and masculinity are forged early in life.

    Our ideas about masculinity are produced, reinforced and upheld through institutions such as schools, the workplace and media. There is no singular “form” of masculinity – men perform it in many different ways. There is, however, hegemonic masculinity. This is the most dominant form of masculinity in a society at any given time, valued above other forms of gender identities that do not match up to the dominant ideal.

    “Traditional” views of masculinity were particularly prevalent during the height of industry in the area. These views centred around ideas of men as providers and ideas of toughness. Value was placed on a willingness (or need) to do physical and often hazardous labour.

    The demise of “masculine” labour in areas such as Tyneside disrupted not only economic stability but also male identity and pride. As broader socioeconomic shifts unfolded across England, many working class men found themselves outside of those traditional masculine ideals around labour.

    This has been well documented, particularly in ethnographic work such as Anoop Nayak’s 2006 study Displaced Masculinities. This key text explored how working-class boys navigate “what it is to be a ‘man’ beyond the world of industrial paid employment”.

    Class and identity in a changing world

    Early findings from my research suggest that today, class (and working-class identity) is not as salient in mens’ everyday lives. Participants in my study have spoken about class, but it does not overtly feature in how they make sense of their identities. As one man put it: “Class means you have to use yourself to earn money. Your labour, that’s what I understand by it, but I’ve never thought about class much.”

    The quayside in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
    Philip Mowbray/Shutterstock

    What happens to men when an area’s strong working-class identity declines, but there is no narrative to replace it? There is a risk that harmful ideas about masculinity step in to fill a gap left by declining industry and continued economic inequality. We have seen this in extensive research in the US about masculinity, class and the appeal of the far right.

    This is why class must be part of the discussion around the rise of the “manosphere” – online communities and influencers sharing content about masculinity that can veer into misogyny. Class politics also presents a positive and unifying alternative.

    It is imperative that working-class areas and the people within them aren’t portrayed as somehow inherently susceptible to, or represented by, the narratives of the manosphere. Indeed, the men I have spoken to have not been particularly pulled in by the manosphere. However they do recognise the feeling of being overlooked and not measuring up to idealised “standards” about masculinity.

    The “manosphere” preys on this, tapping into boys’ and young men’s fears around masculinity and their (perceived) social status. Narrow portrayals of what success looks like puts immense pressure on young people to live up to unattainable standards.

    As I have written before, mansophere content often relies on messages around hyper-individualism that ignore the broader effects of class, the economy and political views.

    Manosphere messaging that “most men are invisible” and that the system is now “rigged against men” fits neatly with young boys’ and men’s anxieties about not having the same place or opportunities in society that previous generations of men might have had.

    Without honest discussion about working-class communities and the effects of deindustrialisation on identity, this messaging may become alluring in postindustrial towns.

    Sophie Lively receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership.

    ref. Class and masculinity are connected – when industry changes, so does what it means to ‘be a man’ – https://theconversation.com/class-and-masculinity-are-connected-when-industry-changes-so-does-what-it-means-to-be-a-man-258857

    MIL OSI Analysis

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Holiday Activity programme sets out summer of fun for Manchester’s kids

    Source: City of Manchester

    A range of free holiday activities are on offer for eligible families this summer.

    Through the Holiday Activity and Food programme (HAF) there is a huge number of things to help keep the kids active during the summer break.

    From arts and crafts, sporting events and other physical activities there is a host of entertaining things to do, making sure no one gets bored over the holidays.

    Funded through the Department for Education, HAF’s goal is to ensure that some of the most vulnerable children and young people in Manchester – aged between 5-16 years old – get the support they need when the school term is over.

    The HAF is primarily for families whose children are in receipt of free school meals – but eligibility can be checked via the MCRactive website.

    During the previous financial year via the HAF, Manchester City Council has supported 29,224 children in accessing 3,971 holiday sessions. Additional support is also on offer for children with special educational needs as well as children in care and young carers.

    A free and nutritious meal is also provided as part of this programme ensuring that no child has to endure holiday hunger.

    A range of families will be eligible for HAF – details of which can be found by visiting the MCRactive website here – mcractive.com/haf – where you can register for free.

    The Council knows that the HAF can make a huge difference for the families who take part. 98% of the children who take part say they came home having met a new friend, and parents have provided feedback telling us that their child comes home feeling more engaged and less likely to spend time using electronic equipment.

    On top of the HAF programme parents and families can find an extensive range of other free or low-cost activities that are taking place in Manchester this summer by visiting our Loads to Do website. They can enjoy great events like Parktastic, a new series of free, drop-in play sessions run by the council and its youth delivery partners taking place at parks all over the city.

    There is also a range of support available for anyone in Manchester who has been struggling due to the cost-of-living crisis, with a free advice line operating to anyone in need of additional help. Details can be found here.

    Councillor Julie Reid, Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People said: “We know the holidays can be a real pinch point for families which is why schemes such as the HAF programme are so important.

    “Providing free activities can be a real boost for children of all ages throughout the holidays, allowing them to meet new friends and try out new things – both hugely significant in terms of their personal wellbeing and mental health.

    “A huge amount of work has taken place in recent years to address the inequality around early years development and we’re proud to be able to have schemes in place that will help us achieve this aim.

    “There are a lot of great events that will be running over the summer holidays with a free meal or snack included, so if you have not already been contacted to take part I’d urge families to have a look at our Loads to Do website and see what they think their child would enjoy over the break.”


    Manchester as a Child Friendly City

    Manchester is determined to make the city the very best place for children and young people to grow up in. A place where children’s rights are understood, respected and actioned in the everyday life of the city and in decision making. A place also where children and young people are given a voice and where their ideas and opinions matter.

    In 2023 it therefore set itself the target of becoming a UNICEF recognised Child Friendly City.

    The city’s bid to be recognised by UNICEF as a Child Friendly City will see the council and local partners putting children’s rights into practice over a time frame of three to five years, as they work together towards the shared goal.

    As part of this the council, in consultation with children and young people, has had to identify areas of particular focus – known as ‘badges’ – that it must work towards before it can be recognised as a UNICEF Child Friendly City.

    The top three badges identified by Manchester’s children and young people for the city to focus on are: Safe and Secure, Place, and Healthy. In addition to these the city must also focus on a further three core badges – Culture, Co-operation and leadership, and Communication – and has also set itself the extra challenge of including a seventh badge, Equal and Included, as a cross-cutting golden thread through all its work in each of the different badge areas.

    With over 200 languages spoken in Manchester and as the only city outside London to have residents in each of the 90 listed ethnic groups in the census, city leaders agreed that the Equal and Included priority should as a necessity underpin all of the work undertaken towards becoming a Child-Friendly City.

    For more information visit childfriendlymanchester.co.uk

    Making Manchester Fairer

    Making Manchester Fairer is a five-year action plan initiated by the Manchester City Council aimed at addressing health inequalities and improving fairness in the city. The plan focuses on eight key themes:

    1. Early years, children, and young people
    2. Poverty, income, and debt
    3. Work and employment
    4. Prevention of ill health and preventable death
    5. Homes and housing
    6. Places, transport, and climate change
    7. Tackling systemic and structural racism and discrimination
    8. Communities and power

    This initiative is part of a broader Anti-Poverty Strategy that seeks to produce evidence-based recommendations to tackle poverty and its consequences.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Travel company to take over running of Park and Ride

    Source: City of Leicester

    LEICESTER’S three Park and Ride services are to be run by local company and current bus provider Roberts Travel Group, after it made a successful bid to the city and county councils to take on the full operation of the service.

    Roberts will take over the services, which operate from Birstall, Enderby and Meynell’s Gorse, from August 24 this year. The company will take on the revenue risk for the service and have control over the timetables and fares. The city and county councils will continue to fund the park and ride operation, but will reduce their subsidy by half, from £422,000 a year to £211,000.

    Under the three-year contract to operate, buses must continue to run at least every 15 minutes from Monday to Saturday, from 7am to 7pm.

    Roberts plans to introduce more stops along all three routes, introducing popular locations like Freemans Common, Redhill Circle and Braunstone Leisure Centre.

    Fares will increase for the first time in five years, but will remain lower than other commercial bus operators and city centre parking charges. A day return ticket will cost £4.85 and a group day ticket for up to five people will cost £6. Concessionary fares will be reduced from £1 to become free.

    Cllr Geoff Whittle, Leicester’s asst city mayor for environment and transport said: “After a thorough procurement process I’m pleased that Roberts Travel Group will be taking over the running of these important services.

    “Like all councils we are having to make some very difficult decisions around funding, and this contractual arrangement means we can reduce our subsidy to the park and ride service, while ensuring it continues to operate.

    “I know that the service from Enderby which stops at the Leicester Royal Infirmary is particularly well used by both staff and patients, with no other bus service on offer on that route

    “Roberts will be introducing more stops along all of the routes, and there are plans to better link in with our Hop! Service and the Hospital Hopper in the future, which will bring strong benefits to city residents.”

    The new timetables and fare changes will be introduced from 26 August this year.

    Alex Niemczyk, Managing Director of Roberts Travel Group said: “We are proud to have been awarded the contract to operate Leicester’s Park and Ride services.

    “As a local operator with a long-standing commitment to the community, we’re excited to take full responsibility for delivering a reliable, affordable, modern Park and Ride service from Birstall, Enderby and Meynell’s Gorse.

    “We look forward to welcoming passengers aboard and delivering a Park and Ride service Leicester can be proud of.”

    More detail is available on Roberts’ website  

    MIL OSI United Kingdom

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Secretary-General’s remarks at the opening of the 4th Financing for Development Conference [trilingual, as delivered; scroll down for all-English and all-Spanish and all-French]

    Source: United Nations

    Majestades,

    Excelencias, señoras y señores:

    Agradezco al Gobierno y al pueblo de España por su cálida acogida en Sevilla para esta importante conferencia.

    Durante décadas, la misión del desarrollo sostenible ha unido a países grandes y pequeños, desarrollados y en desarrollo.

    Juntos, hemos logrado avances.

    Reduciendo la pobreza y el hambre en el mundo.
     
    Salvando vidas con sistemas sanitarios más sólidos.
     
    Llevando más niños a la escuela.
     
    Ampliando las oportunidades para mujeres y niñas.
     
    Y fortaleciendo las redes de seguridad social.
     
    Pero hoy, el desarrollo y su gran impulsor – la cooperación internacional –enfrentan fortísimos vientos en contra.
     
    Vivimos en un mundo donde la confianza se está desmoronando y el multilateralismo está bajo tensión.
     
    Un mundo con una economía en desaceleración, tensiones comerciales crecientes y presupuestos de ayuda diezmados.
     
    Un mundo sacudido por desigualdades, caos climático y conflictos devastadores.
     
    El vínculo entre paz y desarrollo es evidente.
     
    Nueve de los diez países con los Indicadores de Desarrollo Humano más bajos se encuentran actualmente en situación de conflicto.
     
    Excelencias,
     
    La financiación es el motor del desarrollo.
     
    Y, ahora mismo, ese motor se está ahogando.
     
    Mientras nos reunimos, la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible – nuestra promesa global de transformar nuestro mundo para lograr un futuro mejor y más justo – está en peligro.
     
    Dos tercios de las metas de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible están rezagadas.
     
    Alcanzarlos requiere una inversión de más de 4 billones de dólares al año.
     
    Pero no se trata sólo de una crisis de cifras.
     
    Es una crisis de personas.
     
    De familias que pasan hambre.
     
    De niños que no reciben vacunas.
     
    De niñas obligadas a abandonar la escuela.
     
    Estamos aquí en Sevilla para cambiar el rumbo.
     
    Para reparar y poner en marcha el motor del desarrollo y acelerar la inversión a la escala y velocidad necesarias.
     
    Y restaurar equidad y justicia – para todas y todos.
     
    Excellencies,
     
    The Sevilla Commitment is a global promise to fix how the world supports countries as they climb the development ladder.
     
    I see three areas of action.
     
    First — we must get resources flowing. Fast.  
     
    Countries must lead by mobilizing domestic resources and investing in areas of greatest impact: schools, health care, social protection, decent work, and renewable energy.
     
    Unlocking these investments requires strengthening tax systems, and tackling illicit financial flows and tax evasion.
     
    And helping developing countries dedicate a greater share of their tax revenues to the systems people need.
     
    The Sevilla Commitment’s call on developed countries to double their aid dedicated to domestic resource mobilization to support this.
     
    Multilateral and national development banks must unite to finance major investments. 
     
    This includes tripling the lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks — and rechanneling Special Drawing Rights that can unlock lending capacity and help developing countries boost investment.
     
    We also need innovative funding solutions to unlock private capital.
     
    Solutions that mitigate currency risks;
     
    That combine public and private finance more effectively, and ensure the risks and rewards of development projects are shared by both the public and the private sectors; 
     
    And that ensure financial regulations assess risk appropriately and support investments in frontier markets.
     
    Second — we must fix the global debt system which is unsustainable, unfair and unaffordable.
     
    With annual debt service at $1.4 trillion, countries need — and deserve — a system that lowers borrowing costs, enables fair and timely debt-restructuring, and prevents debt crises in the first place.
     
    The Sevilla Commitment lays the groundwork:  
     
    With other aspects, by also creating a single debt registry for transparency, and promoting responsible lending and borrowing;
     
    By lowering the cost of capital through debt swaps and debt management support;
     
    And through debt service pauses in times of emergency.    
     
    And third — we must increase the participation of developing countries in the institutions of the global financial architecture. The present major shareholders have a role to play recognizing the importance of correcting injustices and adapting to a changing world. 

    A new borrowers forum will give voice to borrowers for fairer debt resolution and to foster transparency, shared learning and coordinated debt action.
     
    And we need a fairer global tax system shaped by all, not just by a few.
     
    Excellences, Mesdames et Messieurs,
     
    Cette conférence n’est pas une affaire de charité.
     
    Il s’agit de rétablir la justice – et de permettre à chacun de vivre dans la dignité.
     
    Cette conférence n’est pas une affaire d’argent.
     
    Il s’agit d’investir dans l’avenir que nous voulons construire – ensemble.
     
    Merci – à toutes et à tous – de participer à cet effort essentiel et ambitieux.
     

    ****

    DECLARACIONES DEL SECRETARIO GENERAL
    CON OCASIÓN DE LA INAUGURACIÓN DE LA CUARTA CONFERENCIA SOBRE LA FINANCIACIÓN PARA EL DESARROLLO

    Majestades,

    Excelencias, señoras y señores:

    Agradezco al Gobierno y al pueblo de España por su cálida acogida en Sevilla para esta importante conferencia.

    Durante décadas, la misión del desarrollo sostenible ha unido a países grandes y pequeños, desarrollados y en desarrollo.

    Juntos, hemos logrado avances.

    Reduciendo la pobreza y el hambre en el mundo.

    Salvando vidas con sistemas sanitarios más sólidos.

    Llevando más niños a la escuela.
            
    Ampliando las oportunidades para mujeres y niñas.

    Y fortaleciendo las redes de seguridad social.

    Pero hoy, el desarrollo y su gran impulsor – la cooperación internacional –enfrentan fortísimos vientos en contra.

    Vivimos en un mundo donde la confianza se está desmoronando y el multilateralismo está bajo tensión.

    Un mundo con una economía en desaceleración, tensiones comerciales crecientes y presupuestos de ayuda diezmados.

    Un mundo sacudido por desigualdades, caos climático y conflictos devastadores.

    El vínculo entre paz y desarrollo es evidente.

    Nueve de los diez países con los Indicadores de Desarrollo Humano más bajos se encuentran actualmente en situación de conflicto.

    Excelencias,

    La financiación es el motor del desarrollo.

    Y, ahora mismo, ese motor se está ahogando.

    Mientras nos reunimos, la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible – nuestra promesa global de transformar nuestro mundo para lograr un futuro mejor y más justo – está en peligro.

    Dos tercios de las metas de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible están rezagadas.

    Alcanzarlos requiere una inversión de más de 4 billones de dólares al año.

    Pero no se trata sólo de una crisis de cifras.

    Es una crisis de personas.

    De familias que pasan hambre.

    De niños que no reciben vacunas.

    De niñas obligadas a abandonar la escuela.

    Estamos aquí en Sevilla para cambiar el rumbo.

    Para reparar y poner en marcha el motor del desarrollo y acelerar la inversión a la escala y velocidad necesarias.

    Y restaurar equidad y justicia – para todas y todos.

    Excelencias:

    El documento del Compromiso de Sevilla es una clara promesa global de reparar la forma en que el mundo apoya a los países que suben la escalera del desarrollo.

    Veo tres esferas de acción.

    En primer lugar, tenemos que hacer fluir los recursos. Rápido.

    Los países deben dirigir el proceso movilizando recursos nacionales e invirtiendo en las esferas de mayor impacto: escuelas, atención sanitaria, protección social, trabajo decente y energía renovable.

    Para favorecer estas inversiones es necesario reforzar los sistemas tributarios y combatir los flujos financieros ilícitos y la evasión fiscal.

    Y ayudar a los países en desarrollo a que puedan dedicar una mayor parte de sus ingresos tributarios a los sistemas que necesitan las personas.

    El llamamiento del Compromiso de Sevilla a los países desarrollados para que dupliquen la ayuda dedicada a la movilización de recursos nacionales para servir de apoyo.

    Los bancos multilaterales y nacionales de desarrollo deben unirse para financiar grandes inversiones. 

    Para ello, hay que triplicar la capacidad de préstamo de los bancos multilaterales de desarrollo y reorientar los derechos especiales de giro para aumentar la capacidad de préstamo y ayudar a los países en desarrollo a impulsar la inversión.

    También necesitamos soluciones de financiación innovadora para facilitar el capital privado: 

    Que mitiguen los riesgos cambiarios;

    Que combinen más eficazmente la financiación pública y privada, y garanticen que los riesgos y las recompensas de los proyectos de desarrollo sean compartidos por el sector público y el sector privado; 

    Y que garanticen que la reglamentación financiera evalúa los riesgos adecuadamente y apoya las inversiones en mercados frontera.

    En segundo lugar, debemos reparar el sistema mundial de la deuda, que es insostenible, injusto e inasequible.

    Con un servicio de la deuda que asciende a 1,4 billones de dólares al año, los países necesitan — y merecen — un sistema que abarate el costo del endeudamiento, facilite la reestructuración justa y oportuna de la deuda, y prevenga las crisis de deuda en primer lugar.

    El Compromiso de Sevilla sienta las bases:  

    Con otros factores, creando también un registro único de la deuda en aras de la transparencia, y promoviendo prácticas responsables de préstamo y endeudamiento;

    Reduciendo el costo del capital mediante canjes de deuda y el apoyo a la gestión de la deuda;

    Y suspendiendo el servicio de la deuda en épocas de emergencia.    

    Y en tercer lugar debemos incrementar la participación de los países en desarrollo en las instituciones de la arquitectura financiera global. Los principales accionistas tienen un papel que desempeñar al reconocer la importancia de corregir las injusticias y adaptarse a un mundo cambiante.

    Las partes principales deben apoyar reformas que les den una voz más potente.

    Un foro de prestatarios puede fomentar el aprendizaje común y la acción coordinada en materia de deuda. 

    Un nuevo foro de prestatarios dará voz a los prestatarios para una resolución de la deuda más justa y puede fomentar el aprendizaje compartido y la acción coordinada en materia de deuda.

    Y necesitamos un sistema tributario mundial más justo, conformado por todos, no solo por unos pocos.

    Excelencias, señoras y señores:

    Esta conferencia no trata de caridad.

    Trata de restablecer la justicia y permitir que todos vivan con dignidad.

    Esta conferencia no trata de dinero.

    Trata de invertir en el futuro que queremos construir, juntos.

    Gracias a todos por participar en este importante y ambicioso esfuerzo.
     

    ******

    THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
    REMARKS AT THE OPENING OF THE 4TH FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

    Your Majesties,

    Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

    I thank the Government and people of Spain for welcoming us to Sevilla for this important conference.

    For decades, the mission of sustainable development has united countries large and small, developed and developing.

    Together, we achieved progress.

    Reducing global poverty and hunger.

    Saving lives with stronger health care systems.

    Getting more children into school.
                                        
    Expanding opportunities for women and girls.

    And strengthening social safety nets.

    But today, development and its great enabler — international cooperation — are facing massive headwinds.

    We are living in a world where trust is fraying and multilateralism is strained.

    A world with a slowing economy, rising trade tensions, and decimated aid budgets.

    A world shaken by inequalities, climate chaos and raging conflicts. 

    The link between peace and development is clear.

    Nine of the ten countries with the lowest Human Development Indicators are currently in a state of conflict. 

    Excellencies,

    Financing is the engine of development.

    And right now, this engine is sputtering.

    As we meet, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — our global promise to transform our world for a better, fairer future — is in danger.

    Two-thirds of the Sustainable Development Goals targets are lagging.

    Achieving them requires an investment of more than $4 trillion a year.

    But this is not just a crisis of numbers. 

    It’s a crisis of people.

    Of families going hungry.

    Of children going unvaccinated.

    Of girls forced to drop out of school.

    We are here in Sevilla to change course.
     
    To repair and rev up the engine of development to accelerate investment at the scale and speed required.

    And to restore a measure of fairness and justice for all.

    Excellencies,

    The Sevilla Commitment document is a global promise to fix how the world supports countries as they climb the development ladder.

    I see three areas of action.

    First — we must get resources flowing. Fast.  

    Countries must lead by mobilizing domestic resources and investing in areas of greatest impact: schools, health care, social protection, decent work, and renewable energy.

    Unlocking these investments requires strengthening tax systems, and tackling illicit financial flows and tax evasion.

    And helping developing countries dedicate a greater share of their tax revenues to the systems people need.

    The Sevilla Commitment’s call on developed countries to double their aid dedicated to domestic resource mobilization to support this. 

    Multilateral and national development banks must unite to finance major investments. 

    This includes tripling the lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks — and rechanneling Special Drawing Rights that can unlock lending capacity and help developing countries boost investment.

    We also need innovative funding solutions to unlock private capital.  

    Solutions that mitigate currency risks;

    That combine public and private finance more effectively, and ensure the risks and rewards of development projects are shared by both the public and private sectors; 

    And that ensure financial regulations assess risk appropriately and support investments in frontier markets.

    Second — we must fix the global debt system which is unsustainable, unfair and unaffordable.

    With annual debt service at $1.4 trillion, countries need — and deserve — a system that lowers borrowing costs, enables fair and timely debt-restructuring, and prevents debt crises in the first place.

    The Sevilla Commitment lays the groundwork:  

    With other aspects, by also creating a single debt registry for transparency, and promoting responsible lending and borrowing;

    By lowering the cost of capital through debt swaps and debt management support;

    And through debt service pauses in times of emergency.    

    And third — we must increase the participation of developing countries in the institutions of the global financial architecture. The present major shareholders have a role to play recognizing the importance of correcting injustices and adapting to a changing world. 

    A new borrowers forum will give voice to borrowers for fairer debt resolution and can foster transparency, shared learning and coordinated debt action.

    And we need a fairer global tax system shaped by all, not just a few.

    Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

    This conference is not about charity.

    It’s about restoring justice and lives of dignity.

    This conference is not about money.

    It’s about investing in the future we want to build, together.

    Thank you all for being part of this important and ambitious effort.
     

    *****
    [all-French]

    Je remercie le Gouvernement et le peuple espagnols de nous accueillir à Séville pour cette importante conférence.

    Depuis des décennies, l’aspiration au développement durable est le trait d’union entre tous les pays – grands et petits, développés et en développement.

    Ensemble, nous avons fait des progrès.

    En réduisant la pauvreté et la faim dans le monde.

    En sauvant des vies grâce à des systèmes de santé plus solides.

    En scolarisant plus d’enfants.

    En ouvrant de nouveaux horizons pour les femmes et les filles.

    Et en renforçant les filets de sécurité sociale.

    Aujourd’hui pourtant, le développement et son principal catalyseur – la coopération internationale – sont freinés par de puissants vents contraires.

    Nous vivons dans un monde où la confiance s’effrite et où le multilatéralisme est mis à rude épreuve.

    Un monde où l’économie ralentit, où les tensions commerciales s’accentuent et où les budgets consacrés à l’aide sont amputés.

    Un monde ébranlé par les inégalités, le chaos climatique et la brutalité des conflits.

    Le lien entre la paix et le développement saute aux yeux.

    De fait, neuf des dix pays ayant les indicateurs de développement humain les plus faibles sont actuellement en proie à un conflit.

    Excellences,

    Le financement est le moteur du développement.

    Et pour l’instant, ce moteur tousse.

    À l’heure où nous nous réunissons, le Programme de développement durable à l’horizon 2030 – notre promesse de transformer le monde et de faire advenir un avenir meilleur et plus juste – vacille.

    Deux tiers des cibles associées aux objectifs de développement risquent de ne pas être atteintes.

    Pour y remédier, il faudrait investir plus de 4 000 milliards de dollars par an.

    Mais la crise que nous traversons n’est pas qu’une affaire de chiffres.

    Elle touche aussi les personnes.

    Les familles qui ont faim.

    Les enfants que l’on ne peut pas vacciner.

    Les filles obligées d’abandonner l’école.

    Nous sommes ici à Séville pour changer de cap.

    Pour réparer le moteur du développement et passer la vitesse supérieure afin d’accélérer les investissements à l’échelle et à la vitesse voulues.

    Et pour rétablir un certain degré d’équité et de justice pour toutes et tous.

    Excellences,

    L’Engagement de Séville est une promesse qui cherche à changer la façon dont le monde aide les pays à gravir les échelons du développement.

    Pour moi, il faut agir sur trois fronts.

    Premièrement, nous devons dégager des ressources, sans attendre.

    Les pays doivent prendre les choses en main et mobiliser les ressources nationales pour les injecter dans les domaines qui ont le plus d’impact : l’éducation, la santé, la protection sociale, le travail décent et les énergies renouvelables.

    Pour débloquer ces investissements, il faut renforcer les régimes fiscaux et lutter contre les flux financiers illicites et la fraude fiscale.

    Il faut aider les pays en développement à consacrer une plus grande part de leurs recettes fiscales aux systèmes dont les populations ont besoin.

    À cette fin, un appel est lancé dans l’Engagement de Séville pour que les pays développés multiplient par deux l’aide qu’ils consacrent à la mobilisation des ressources nationales.

    Les banques de développement multilatérales et nationales doivent unir leurs forces pour financer les grands projets d’investissement.

    Il s’agit notamment de tripler la capacité de prêt des banques multilatérales de développement et de réaffecter les droits de tirage spéciaux qui peuvent débloquer la capacité de prêt et aider les pays en développement à stimuler l’investissement.

    Il nous faut, en outre, des modes de financement novateurs pour débloquer les capitaux privés.

    Des solutions qui atténuent les risques de change.

    Des solutions qui combinent plus efficacement les financements publics et privés et garantissent que les risques et les avantages des projets de développement se répartissent entre les secteurs public et privé.

    Des solutions qui garantissent que les réglementations financières évaluent correctement les risques et appuient l’investissement dans les marchés frontières.

    Deuxièmement, nous devons repenser le système mondial de la dette, qui est insoutenable et injuste, et qui coûte trop cher

    Le service de la dette atteint 1 400 milliards de dollars par an ; aussi les pays ont-ils besoin – et méritent-ils – un système qui réduise les coûts d’emprunt, qui facilite une restructuration équitable et rapide de la dette et qui s’attache en premier lieu à prévenir les crises de la dette.

    L’Engagement de Séville prépare le terrain :

    En créant notamment un seul registre de la dette pour plus de transparence et en encourageant les prêts et les emprunts responsables.

    En réduisant le coût du capital grâce à des conversions de dettes et à un soutien à l’administration de la dette.

    Et en suspendant le service de la dette en cas d’urgence.

    Troisièmement, nous devons accroître la participation des pays en développement aux institutions de l’architecture financière mondiale. Les principaux actionnaires actuels ont un rôle à jouer en reconnaissant l’importance de corriger les injustices et de s’adapter à un monde en mutation.

    Une nouvelle tribune permettra aux emprunteurs de défendre un règlement plus équitable de la dette et pourra favoriser la transparence, l’apprentissage en commun et une action coordonnée en matière de dette.

    Enfin, il nous faut un système fiscal mondial plus équitable, pensé par tous et pas seulement par une minorité.

    Excellences, Mesdames et Messieurs,

    Cette conférence n’est pas une affaire de charité.

    Il s’agit de rétablir la justice – et de permettre à chacun de vivre dans la dignité.

    Cette conférence n’est pas une affaire d’argent.

    Il s’agit d’investir dans l’avenir que nous voulons construire – ensemble.

    Merci – à toutes et à tous – de participer à cet effort essentiel et ambitieux.

    MIL OSI United Nations News

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Haiti on the brink: Gangs fill power vacuum as current solutions fail a nation in crisis

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Greg Beckett, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western University

    Haiti is facing a multifaceted crisis unlike any in the country’s modern history.

    Haiti recently marked the one-year anniversary of Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council’s (CPT) new government — an internationally backed effort to restore governance in the country after Prime Minister Ariel Henry was ousted by gangs.

    But rather than charting a path to stability, the CPT remains mired in dysfunction as Haiti’s crisis deepens with no end in sight. Armed gangs now control most of the capital, more than a million Haitians have been displaced and half the country faces acute food insecurity.

    Criminal gangs have taken control of most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince and significant parts of the country. Since 2021, gangs have killed more than 15,000 people and forcibly displaced over a million people.

    Beyond the security situation, there is a dire humanitarian emergency as more than half the country faces severe food insecurity.

    The United Nations says the country may be reaching a point of no return and risks falling into “total chaos.”

    Haitian friends tell me their whole country feels as blocked as the barricaded streets and choke points used by the gangs to control the capital.

    A security crisis paralyzing everything

    The impasse is undoubtedly shaped by entrenched gang violence. Armed groups have been used by political players for political ends in Haiti for decades.

    But now, new, well-organized armed gangs have emerged as political entities in their own right.

    For example, the G9 Alliance, the most notorious of gangs — actually a federation of gangs — is led by former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier.

    Chérizier presents himself on social media as a revolutionary figure fighting the elites, but in the streets of Port-au-Prince most, see him as a violent criminal.

    Last year, the G9 merged with rivals to form a coalition called Viv Ansamn (Live Together). Led by Chérizier and others, the group forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry from power. Henry had become prime pinister after the assassination of Haiti’s last elected head of state, President Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021, despite himself being implicated in the assassination.

    Both Henry and Moïse were accused of paying gangs to maintain control.

    Viv Ansamn’s takeover of the capital confirms gangs have become an autonomous political force. They have since expanded their power through their control over fuel supplies, critical infrastructure and key choke points.

    It’s telling that the gangs have become so powerful despite the presence of a UN-approved, Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission. The mission has been in Haiti since shortly after Henry was forced out of power.

    But with limited scope and funding from donor countries, including the United States, Canada and Ecuador, the mission has failed to achieve any major successes. Indeed, by the UN’s own estimates, gang violence continues to have a “devastating impact” on the population, despite the presence of the mission.

    Last month, the U.S. government designated Viv Ansamn and Gran Grif, Haiti’s two most powerful armed gangs, as terrorist organizations. Canada and others have also imposed sanctions on politicians and gang leaders, and perhaps this could lead to more sanctions against those who most directly benefit from the crisis. But for residents of Port-au-Prince, little has changed on the ground, where many feel the gangs are holding the country hostage.

    Democratic vacuum with no clear path forward

    A common saying in Haiti goes like this: peyi’m pa gen leta, my country has no state. Once a criticism of a particular government, it now feels literal. Haiti has no elected national officials.

    The CPT was established by the Organization of American States after Henry’s ousting, but has has done little to restore democracy. Elections are impossible under the current security conditions.

    Instead, the CPT has become another obstacle to resolution. Mired in internal conflict, some members have been accused of bribery. With no framework for political compromise, the council reflects a system where some key players actually benefit from the political impasse.

    Governing structures that can’t govern

    Haiti is now in uncharted territory. The CPT operates in a legal vacuum, making decisions without a clear mandate or authority.

    Still, the council is moving forward with a controversial plan to rewrite the Haitian constitution. The proposed changes will fundamentally alter Haiti’s government structure, including abolishing the senate and the prime minister, allowing presidents to hold consecutive terms, changing election procedures and allowing dual citizens and Haitians living abroad to run for office.

    This constitutional reform highlights the paradox at the heart of Haiti’s crisis: an institution with questionable legitimacy is attempting to redesign the very framework that would determine its own authority.

    These aren’t just procedural problems: they represent fundamental questions about who has the authority to govern and how decisions get made in a country where democratic institutions have always been fragile.

    International responses miss the mark

    International groups, including the UN, the Organization of American States and the Core Group that includes the United States, Canada and France, have overseen Haiti’s politics for decades. But their influence has often backfired. Many in Haiti see the international community as directly responsible for the current crisis.

    Whatever internal problems have given rise to the current crisis, the role played by the international community in Haiti has undoubtedly contributed to the impasse.

    The MSS mission is a stop gap at best and a liability at worst. It is insufficient for the scale of the crisis.

    Some observers have called for a full UN peacekeeping mission, but there is little support for it and such a mission would likely face resistance within Haiti given the country’s fraught history with international interventions.

    Can the international community undo the damage it has already done? And can Haiti make it through the impasse without the international community?

    Beyond the impasse: What needs to change

    There are no easy solutions. Addressing gang violence without legitimate governing institutions won’t create lasting stability. Yet the path to a legitimate government remains unclear as organizing elections without basic security is unrealistic.

    The international community must stop treating Haiti as a series of separate crises requiring separate responses. The current piecemeal approach treats symptoms while ignoring the underlying causes that block political resolutions.

    For Haitians, the stakes could not be higher. The question isn’t whether change is needed, but whether the international community and Haitian leaders can move beyond the impasse before the situation deteriorates even further.

    Greg Beckett receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    ref. Haiti on the brink: Gangs fill power vacuum as current solutions fail a nation in crisis – https://theconversation.com/haiti-on-the-brink-gangs-fill-power-vacuum-as-current-solutions-fail-a-nation-in-crisis-257948

    MIL OSI

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How pterosaurs learned to fly: scientists have been looking in the wrong place to solve this mystery

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Davide Foffa, Research Fellow in Palaeobiology, University of Birmingham

    Ever since the first fragments of pterosaur bone surfaced nearly 250 years ago, palaeontologists have puzzled over one question: how did these close cousins of land-bound dinosaurs take to the air and evolve powered flight? The first flying vertebrates seemed to appear on the geological stage fully formed, leaving almost no trace of their first tentative steps into the air.

    Taken at face value, the fossil record implies that pterosaurs suddenly originated in the later part of the Triassic period (around 215 million years ago), close to the equator on the northern super-continent Pangaea. They then spread quickly between the Triassic and the Jurassic periods, about 10 million years later, in the wake of a mass extinction that was most likely caused by massive volcanic activity.

    Most of the handful of Triassic specimens come from narrow seams of dark shale in Italy and Austria, with other fragments discovered in Greenland, Argentina and the southwestern US. These skeletons appear fully adapted for flight, with a hyper-elongated fourth finger supporting membrane-wings. Yet older rocks show no trace of intermediate gliders or other transitional forms that you might expect as evidence of pterosaurs’ evolution over time.

    There are two classic competing explanations for this. The literal reading says pterosaurs evolved elsewhere and did not reach those regions where most have been discovered until very late in the Triassic period, by which time they were already adept flyers. The sceptical reading notes that pterosaurs’ wafer-thin, hollow bones could easily vanish from the fossil record, dissolve, get crushed or simply be overlooked, creating this false gap.

    Eudimorphodon ranzii fossil from Bergamo in 1973 is one of many pterosaur discoveries from southern Europe.
    Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

    For decades, the debate stalled as a result of too few fossils or too many missing rocks. This impasse began to change in 2020, when scientists identified the closest relatives of pterosaurs in a group of smallish upright reptiles called lagerpetids.

    From comparing many anatomical traits across different species, the researchers established that pterosaurs and lagerpetids shared many similarities including their skulls, skeletons and inner ears. While this discovery did not bring any “missing link” to the table, it showed what the ancestor of pterosaurs would have looked like: a rat-to-dog-sized creature that lived on land and in trees.

    This brought new evidence about when pterosaurs may have originated. Pterosaurs and lagerpetids like Scleromochlus, a small land-dwelling reptile, diverged at some point after the end-Permian mass extinction. It occurred some 250 million years ago, 35 million years before the first pterosaur appearance in the fossil record.

    Scleromochlus is one of the lagerpetids, the closest known relatives to the pterosaurs.
    Gabriel Ugueto

    Pterosaurs and their closest kin did not share the same habitats, however. Our new study, featuring new fossil maps, shows that soon after lagerpetids appeared (in southern Pangaea), they spread across wide areas, including harsh deserts, that many other groups were unable to get past. Lagerpetids lived both in these deserts and in humid floodplains.

    They tolerated hotter, drier settings better than any early pterosaur, implying that they had evolved to cope with extreme temperatures. Pterosaurs, by contrast, were more restricted. Their earliest fossils cluster in the river and lake beds of the Chinle and Dockum basins (southwest US) and in moist coastal belts fringing the northern arm of the Tethys Sea, a huge area that occupied today’s Alps.

    Scientists have inferred from analysing a combination of fossil distributions, rock features and climate simulations that pterosaurs lived in areas that were warm but not scorching. The rainfall would have been comparable to today’s tropical forests rather than inland deserts.

    This suggests that the earliest flying dinosaurs may have lived in tree canopies, using foliage both for take-off and to protect themselves from predators and heat. As a result of this confined habitat, the distances that they flew may have been quite limited.

    Changing climates

    We were then able to add a fresh dimension to the story using a method called ecological niche modelling. This is routinely used in modern conservation to project where endangered animals and plants might live as the climate gets hotter. By applying this approach to later Triassic temperatures, rainfall and coastlines, we asked where early pterosaurs lived, regardless of whether they’ve shown up there in the fossil record.

    Many celebrated fossil sites in Europe emerge as poor pterosaur habitat until very late in the Triassic period: they were simply too hot, too dry or otherwise inhospitable before the Carnian age, around 235 million years ago. The fact that no specimens have been discovered there that are more than about 215 million years old may be because the climate conditions were still unsuitable or simply because we don’t have the right type of rocks preserved of that age.

    In contrast, parts of the south-western US, Morocco, India, Brazil, Tanzania and southern China seem to have offered welcoming environments several million years earlier than the age of our oldest discoveries. This rewrites the search map. If pterosaurs could have thrived in those regions much more than 215 million years ago, but we have not found them there, the problem may again lie not with biology but with geology: the right rocks have not been explored, or they preserve fragile fossils only under exceptional conditions.

    Our study flags a dozen geological formations, from rivers with fine sediment deposits to lake beds, as potential prime targets for the next breakthrough discovery. They include the Timezgadiouine beds of Morocco, the Guanling Formation of south-west China and, in South America, several layers of rock from the Carnian age, such as the Santa Maria Formation, Chañares Formation and Ischigualasto Formation.

    Pterosaurs were initially confined to tropical treetops near the equator. When global climates shifted and forested corridors opened, pterosaurs’ wings catapulted them into every corner of the planet and ultimately carried them through one of Earth’s greatest extinctions. What began as a tale of missing fossils has become a textbook example of how climate, ecology and evolutionary science have come together to illuminate a fragmentary history that has intrigued paleontologists for over two centuries.

    Davide Foffa is funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: Individual (Global) Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020; No.101022550), and by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851–Science Fellowship

    Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza receives funding from The Royal Society (Newton International Fellowship NIFR1231802)

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

    ref. How pterosaurs learned to fly: scientists have been looking in the wrong place to solve this mystery – https://theconversation.com/how-pterosaurs-learned-to-fly-scientists-have-been-looking-in-the-wrong-place-to-solve-this-mystery-259063

    MIL OSI

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: ‘Making decisions closer to the wharf’ can ensure the sustainability of Canada’s fisheries and oceans

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Matthew Robertson, Research Scientist, Fisheries and Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland

    The harbour in Bonavista, Newfoundland. Major reforms could fundamentally reshape fisheries science and management in Canada (Sally LeDrew/Wikimedia commons), CC BY-SA

    During the federal election campaign, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that if elected, he would look into restructuring Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Carney stated that he understood the importance of DFO and of “making decisions closer to the wharf.”

    Carney’s statement was made in response to protesting fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador who decried recent DFO decision-making for multiple fisheries, including Northern cod and snow crab.

    Although addressing industry concerns is important, any change to DFO decision-making must serve the broader public interest, which includes commitments to reconciliation and conserving biodiversity.

    Major reforms could fundamentally reshape fisheries science and management in Canada, yet most Canadians are unaware of how DFO’s science-management process works, or why change might be needed.

    The DFO’s dual mandate

    DFO has long been criticized for its dual mandate, which involves both supporting economic growth and conserving the environment.

    For organizations like DFO to be trusted by the public, they need to produce information and policies that are credible, relevant and legitimate.

    However, DFO’s dual mandates have been viewed as antithetical and have at the least created a perceived conflict of interest. The issue at stake is how science advice from DFO can be considered independent, if it is also supposed to serve commercial interests.

    One solution to this problem would be to shift control over the economic viability of fisheries to provinces. This is not a radical idea by any means, as most of the economic value of the fishery arises after fish are brought to harbour.

    Fishing boats in the town of Clarke’s Harbour, located on Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia in July 2011.
    (Dennis G. Jarvis/Wikimedia commons), CC BY-SA

    For example, licences to process groundfish like cod, haddock and halibut —which Nova Scotia has just announced will be opened for new entrants following decades of a moratorium — as well as policies governing the purchase of seafood already fall to provinces.

    In 2024, all 13 ministers from the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers indicated a desire for “joint management” between provinces and DFO.

    This was driven driven by a concern that the department has not focused enough on provincial and territorial fisheries issues. This shouldn’t be seen as a criticism of DFO, but rather an opportunity to embrace differentiated responsibility.

    DFO could maintain regulatory control for fisheries, like enforcing the Fisheries Act, defining licence conditions and performing long-term monitoring and assessments. As included in the modernized Fisheries Act, it could still consider the social and economic objectives in decision-making.

    Regional decision-making

    DFO is structured into regions with their own science and management branches, but many decisions end up being made by staff at DFO headquarters in Ottawa. In addition, the federal fisheries minister retains ministerial discretion for almost every decision, something that has been criticized as being inequitable.

    During an interview with researchers looking into fisheries management policy, a regional manager stated that they no longer make decisions:

    “Because of…risk aversion, much more of the decision-making has now been bumped up to higher levels. So I like to facetiously state that I am no longer a manager, I am a recommender.”

    Centralized decision-making can limit communication between regional scientists and managers and federal government policymakers.

    This communication gap can make it difficult for managers to use the latest science and adjust policies quickly and it can also lead to recommended policies that are challenging to implement at the local level.

    Handing management decision-making power to regional fisheries managers could therefore benefit science and policy, and contribute to decisions that are deemed more equitable by those impacted.

    A map representing DFO’s regional structure.
    (Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

    Other countries use a regional management approach. In the United States, marine fisheries are managed by eight regional fishery management councils that use scientific advice from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Although not without their flaws, the successful rebuilding of overfished stocks in the U.S. has been attributed, in part, to the regional council system.

    Governance systems that have multiple but connected centres of decision-making are generally expected to be more participatory, flexible to respond to changes and have improved spatial fit between knowledge and policy actions.

    This type of approach could shift the focus of Ottawa-based managers and the fisheries minister to ensuring national consistency.

    Local stakeholder involvement

    Canada’s current methods for inclusion of social and economic considerations are limited and have produced scientific advice that is not fully separable from rights holder and stakeholder input.

    Most of DFO’s scientific peer-review process is focused on ecological science conducted by DFO scientists. The peer-review process often also involves rights holders and stakeholders. While Indigenous rights holders and community stakeholders may not be trained in the presented analyses, they often contribute to these meetings by describing their knowledge and experiences.

    However, because the meetings are focused on DFO ecological science, they are not designed to formally consider stakeholder and rights holder knowledge. This can lead to two key issues. First, it may blur the line between peer-reviewed science and rights holder and stakeholder input, reducing the credibility of the scientific advice.

    Second, the valuable information provided by rights holders and stakeholders may be overlooked since it is not shared in a setting designed to incorporate it.

    The lack of review of alternative Indigenous knowledge sources and social and economic science during peer-review processes inherently limits the advice that can be provided. It suggests that the government is not benefiting from the opportunity to incorporate diverse knowledge bases.

    These problems could be addressed by developing procedures through which stakeholders and rights holders contribute their local and traditional knowledge to better inform ecological and socio-economic considerations.

    By increasing the number of peer-review platforms, rights holder and stakeholder input could be reviewed similarly to ecological science. This change would likely increase the credibility, legitimacy and salience of information used to inform fishery managers.

    Regardless of how rights holders and stakeholders perspectives are included, the process should be clearly structured and documented.

    By reconsidering DFO’s mandate, decentralizing management decision-making and improving the scientific consideration of varied forms of knowledge, DFO could make decisions that are closer to the wharf.

    Matthew Robertson receives funding from the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant and the Fisheries & Oceans Canada (DFO) Atlantic Fisheries Fund (AFF).

    Megan Bailey receives research funding from multiple sources, including NSERC, SSHRC, CIRNAC, Genome Atlantic, Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Centre, Ocean Frontier Institute (through a Canada First Research Excellence Fund), and the Canada Research Chairs program.

    Tyler Eddy receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant, Fisheries & Oceans Canada (DFO) Atlantic Fisheries Fund (AFF) and Sustainable Fisheries Science Fund (SFSF), the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), and the Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) Indigenous Community-Based Climate Monitoring (ICBCM) Program.

    ref. ‘Making decisions closer to the wharf’ can ensure the sustainability of Canada’s fisheries and oceans – https://theconversation.com/making-decisions-closer-to-the-wharf-can-ensure-the-sustainability-of-canadas-fisheries-and-oceans-254874

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Nineteen Eighty-Four might have been inspired by George Orwell’s fear of drowning

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nathan Waddell, Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century Literature, University of Birmingham

    George Orwell had a traumatic relationship with the sea. In August 1947, while he was writing Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) on the island of Jura in the Scottish Hebrides, he went on a fishing trip with his young son, nephew and niece.

    Having misread the tidal schedules, on the way back Orwell mistakenly piloted the boat into rough swells. He was pulled into the fringe of the Corryvreckan whirlpool off the coasts of Jura and Scarba. The boat capsized and Orwell and his relatives were thrown overboard.

    It was a close call – a fact recorded with characteristic detachment by Orwell in his diary that same evening: “On return journey today ran into the whirlpool & were all nearly drowned.” Though he seems to have taken the experience in his stride, this may have been a trauma response: detachment ensures the ability to persist after a near-death experience.

    We don’t know for sure if Nineteen Eighty-Four was influenced by the Corryvreckan incident. But it’s clear that the novel was written by a man fixated on water’s terrifying power.


    This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.


    Nineteen Eighty-Four isn’t typically associated with fear of death by water. Yet it’s filled with references to sinking ships, drowning people and the dread of oceanic engulfment. Fear of drowning is a torment that social dissidents might face in Room 101, the torture chamber to which all revolutionaries are sent in the appropriately named totalitarian state of Oceania.

    An early sequence in the novel describes a helicopter attack on a ship full of refugees, who are bombed as they fall into the sea. The novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, has a recurring nightmare in which he dreams of his long-lost mother and sister trapped “in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking up at him through the darkening water”.

    George Orwell in 1943.
    National Union of Journalists

    The sight of them “drowning deeper every minute” takes Winston back to a culminating moment in his childhood when he stole chocolate from his mother’s hand, possibly condemning his sister to starvation. These watery graves imply that Winston is drowning in guilt.

    The “wateriness” of Nineteen Eighty-Four may have another interesting historical source. In his essay My Country Right or Left (1940), Orwell recalls that when he had just become a teenager he read about the “atrocity stories” of the first world war.

    Orwell states in this same essay that “nothing in the whole war moved [him] so deeply as the loss of the Titanic had done a few years earlier”, in 1912. What upset Orwell most about the Titanic disaster was that in its final moments it “suddenly up-ended and sank bow foremost, so that the people clinging to the stern were lifted no less than 300 feet into the air before they plunged into the abyss”.

    Sinking ships and dying civilisations

    Orwell never forgot this image. Something similar to it appears in his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) where the idea of a sinking passenger liner evokes the collapse of modern civilisation, just as the Titanic disaster evoked the end of Edwardian industrial confidence two decades beforehand.

    The Titanic disaster had a profound impact on Orwell.
    Wiki Commons

    References to sinking ships and drowning people appear at key moments in many other works by Orwell, too. But did the full impact of the Titanic surface in Nineteen Eighty-Four?

    Sinking ships were part of Orwell’s descriptive toolkit. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel driven by memories of unsympathetic water, they convey nightmares. Filled with references to water and liquidity, it’s one of the most aqueous novels Orwell produced, relying for many of its most shocking episodes on imagery of desperate people drowning or facing imminent death on sinking sea craft.

    The thought of trapped passengers descending into the depths survives in Winston’s traumatic memories of his mother and sister, who, in the logic of his dreams, are alive inside a sinking ship’s saloon.


    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.


    There’s no way to prove that the Nineteen Eighty-Four is “about” the Titanic disaster, but in the novel, and indeed in Orwell’s wider body of work, there are too many tantalising hints to let the matter rest.

    Thinking about fear of death by water takes us into Orwell’s terrors just as it takes us into Winston’s, allowing readers to see the frightened boy inside the adult man and, indeed, inside the author who dreamed up one of the 20th century’s most famous nightmares.

    Beyond the canon

    As part of the Rethinking the Classics series, we’re asking our experts to recommend a book or artwork that tackles similar themes to the canonical work in question, but isn’t (yet) considered a classic itself. Here is Nathan Waddell’s suggestion:

    As soon as the news broke of the Titanic’s sinking, literary works of all shapes and sizes started to appear in tribute to the disaster and its victims. As the century went on, and as research into the tragedy developed (particularly after the ships wreckage was discovered in 1985), more nuanced literary responses to the sinking became possible.

    One such response is Beryl Bainbridge’s Whitbread-prize-winning novel Every Man for Himself (1996). It reimagines the disaster from the first-person perspective of an imaginary character, Morgan, the fictional nephew of the historically real financier J. P. Morgan (who was due to sail on the Titanic but changed plans before it sailed).

    This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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

    ref. Nineteen Eighty-Four might have been inspired by George Orwell’s fear of drowning – https://theconversation.com/nineteen-eighty-four-might-have-been-inspired-by-george-orwells-fear-of-drowning-251289

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Air India crash in Ahmedabad sends reverberations to Canadian families of Air India Flight 182

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Chandrima Chakraborty, Professor, English and Cultural Studies; Director, Centre for Global Peace, Justice and Health, McMaster University

    The June 12 Air India crash in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, with 230 passengers and 12 crew members aboard is sending deep reverberations through a group of Canadians who know all too well the shock, grief and horror of losing loved ones in hauntingly similar circumstances.

    They are the families of those killed in the bombing of Air India Flight 182 en route from Canada to India 40 years ago this month.

    I work closely with these families as a researcher and advocate. I began interviewing these families in 2014 and have witnessed firsthand their pain, advocacy and emotional turmoil of living in the shadow of a historical event.

    As reports of the Ahmedabad crash came in, the WhatsApp account of the Air India Flight 182 families immediately flooded with expressions of shock, concern, sympathy and memories triggered by the latest incident.

    On June 23, 1985, Flight 182 was brought down by terrorist bombs created and planted on Canadian soil. The devastating mid-air explosion occurred over the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland. It killed all 329 passengers and crew, including 268 Canadians. The crew and most of the passengers were of Indian origin.

    Investigations into the causes of the crash of Air India Flight 171, en route to London’s Gatwick airport, shortly after take-off are still underway. At least 279 people died in the crash, which also impacted people on the ground.

    Acknowledging losses as significant

    A recent public conference at McMaster University commemorated the 40th anniversary of Flight 182, bringing together Indian and Canadian families, researchers, creative artists and community members.

    Book cover for ‘Remembering Air India The Art of Public Mourning,’ edited by Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean and Angela Failler.
    University of Alberta Press

    The conference dealt with critical themes, including the challenge of Flight 182 families recovering from their losses within a climate of broad indifference among their fellow Canadians.

    Regardless of what may have caused the more recent crash in western India, these Canadian families know the shock and loss that a new set of victims’ families are facing, and how important it is to support them.

    Hopefully, the home countries of last week’s crash victims — most of them Indian and British citizens, with at least one Canadian reported to have been aboard — will regard their deaths as significant losses. If so, this would be unlike what the 1985 victims’ families experienced in Canada.

    A little-mourned Canadian tragedy

    In Canada, we have a national day to remember on June 23, 1985. The bombing has been called a Canadian tragedy in a public inquiry report.

    Yet according to a 2023 Angus Reid poll, “nine out of 10 Canadians say they have little or no knowledge of the worst single instance of the mass killing of their fellow citizens.” That essentially means the bombing has yet to penetrate the consciousness of everyday Canadians or evoke shared grief or public mourning.

    The families continue to carry the torch of remembrance as they organize annual memorial vigils every June 23. Few others attend. Many victims’ relatives have died since 1985. Some spouses, siblings or parents are now in their 80s, wondering why the bombing is still not widely discussed in schools or in public discourse.

    The grinding and unsatisfying criminal proceedings, the belated public inquiry and the welcome but lukewarm apology by the Canadian government 25 years after the fact have all contributed to the failure of this tragedy to adhere more solidly to the Canadian consciousness. In fact, many continue to deny the Canadian significance of Flight 182 and view the bombing as a foreign event.

    A torch of remembrance

    At last month’s conference, my research team launched the Air India Flight 182 archive to counter this collective amnesia and lack of acknowledgement.

    Canadian archival consultant and writer Laura Millar has said that archives act as “touchstones to memory” and can aid the process of transforming individual memories into collective remembering. Adopting NYU professor Carol Gilligan’s ethics of care for the archive, we have been consulting with families to find ways to share their grief with the public.

    The Flight 182 memory archive — both physical and digital — serves as a repository for artefacts, first-person narratives, memorabilia and creative works related to the tragedy produced by family members. Family donations of artefacts such as dance videos and pilot wings redirect notions of archives away from a documental deposit. Hopefully, they can move the public to learn and care for the impacts of the Flight 182 bombing.

    The archive is a publicly accessible record of the tragedy, where scholars and everyday citizens can learn about the victims and their families.

    Since the past involves both the present and the future, the archive will enable a meaningful recognition of marginalized voices and histories. It can offer a form of memory justice for those who would otherwise be forgotten by sustaining memory from generation to generation.

    While the archive articulates the demand from families that the bombing of Flight 182 and its aftermath be incorporated into Canadian national consciousness, establishing this archive alone will not be enough to elevate the memory of Flight 182 to the place it deserves.

    But at least it establishes a rich, permanent academic and personal legacy for the community of mourners, and for the Canadian and global public to find it, use it and learn from its many lessons.

    Families of those on board the 1985 flight are preparing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the terror bombing of Flight 182 that has devastated their lives.

    As we learn more about the tragic Air India Flight 171 crash on June 12, the lessons of Flight 182 will hopefully prevent a new set of families from feeling the pain of indifference on top of the unimaginable agony of loss they’re already experiencing.

    Chandrima Chakraborty receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    ref. Air India crash in Ahmedabad sends reverberations to Canadian families of Air India Flight 182 – https://theconversation.com/air-india-crash-in-ahmedabad-sends-reverberations-to-canadian-families-of-air-india-flight-182-258991

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Is Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover satire or self-degradation? A psychology expert explores our reactions

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Katrina Muller-Townsend, Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University

    Island Records

    Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover has fans divided.

    Carpenter poses on all fours, her glossy blond hair grasped by a male figure cropped from the frame. Her wide-eyed expression intensifies an ambiguous performance of subservience, tapping into a visual language tied to female objectification, from classic pin-up imagery to contemporary pop culture.

    The emotionally loaded image plays on her hyper-feminine, tongue-in-cheek pop star persona, forcing us to question where irony ends and objectification begins.

    Is it satire, or self-degradation?

    Up for debate

    At first glance, the cover seems like just another stylised, provocative pop image. It delivers what we’ve come to expect: a bold, ironic twist on the exaggerated Juno-style pose she reinvents on stage.

    To some fans, it’s clever satire: a pop star reclaiming and amplifying her image to mock industry norms. Satire uses exaggeration, irony, or humour to critique power structures – and Carpenter’s pose walks that tightrope.

    To others it crosses a line, reinforcing regressive attitudes about women’s sexuality and drawing criticism from domestic violence advocates.

    The debate reflects our unresolved discomfort about gender, power and control. There is a tension between Carpenter’s ironic persona and the submissive pose, creating uncertainty for the viewer.

    We can use psychology to better understand this dichotomy.

    The schema violation

    This mismatch between expectation and perception is a schema violation.

    A schema is a mental shortcut: a template built from experience and unspoken rules that helps us make sense of the world and predict what to expect. When something breaks that pattern, it’s called a schema violation.

    Carpenter’s brand is cheeky, self-aware irony – so when she adopts a pose steeped in submission and hyper-femininity as in this album image, it feels off.

    That can trigger cognitive dissonance: the mental tension we feel when two ideas (here, empowerment and obedience) don’t align.

    To resolve the conflict, some fans reinterpret the image as feminist sarcasm. Others reject it, fearing it panders to outdated, dangerous norms.

    Both reactions reflect our emotional and ideological investments in who Carpenter is or should be.

    Exploring confirmation bias

    Part of this conflicted reaction is driven by confirmation bias: our tendency to filter information to support what we already believe.

    Fans who see Carpenter as witty and empowered interpret the image as intentionally ironic. Others – more sceptical of the industry’s history of exploiting female sexuality – view it as a throwback to damaging norms.

    Either way, our interpretations often reflect more about ourselves than about Carpenter’s intent.

    When her image contradicts both her public persona and our social values, it creates a gap between what we think is right and what we want to be right. So, we try to explain it away, by either defending the image or criticising it.

    Satire and scandal

    Carpenter’s cover follows a long tradition of female artists whose work straddles satire and scandal, complicating public reception.

    Madonna’s Like a Prayer drew outrage for mixing religion with sexual imagery. Yet it positioned her as a provocateur – a woman resisting the lack of agency that so often defines sexualised media.

    Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz era shocked fans with a bold shift from Hannah Montana innocence to hypersexualised rebellion, challenging the narrow roles women in pop culture are confined to.

    Doja Cat’s shift from glam pop princess to glitch villainess unsettled audiences. Was it satire, rebellion, or just chaos?

    These women, like Carpenter, force us to confront our own discomfort with women who won’t stay in one lane.

    Performer and provocateur

    Audience reaction is also shaped by emotional investment in Carpenter’s persona. Through carefully curated social media, interviews and lyrics, fans build intimate narratives forming parasocial relationships – one-sided emotional bonds with celebrities.

    When an image contradicts that imagined persona, it can feel jarring, even like betrayal.

    Audiences often expect idols to be empowering but not polarising, sexy but safe, to challenge norms – but only in ways that affirm our own values.

    Carpenter’s image breaks that implicit contract, which creates discomfort for some viewers.

    Carpenter’s cover raises uncomfortable but necessary questions about how much freedom female artists have to be both critical and complicit. Can they play with society and play along, to be both performer and provocateur?

    This highlights the double bind many women face in media and popular culture. Female artists are expected to both subvert and satisfy; to entertain without offending; empower without alienating. The burden to be palatable and provocative is one male artists rarely face.

    It’s what we make of it

    Is Carpenter undermining herself or subverting the system? Perhaps both. Or perhaps the image isn’t the message: our reaction is.

    The image forces us to confront not only our perception of Sabrina Carpenter but also our cultural discomfort with women who defy neat categorisation. Satire demands interpretation, especially when it comes from women addressing sex or power.

    More than provocation, Carpenter’s cover mirrors our cultural struggle to accept women who defy simple labels of satire or submission. The image can reflect broader social ideals and tensions projected onto public figures.

    What we see says more about our assumptions than her intent. Understanding those reactions doesn’t kill the fun – it deepens it.

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

    ref. Is Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover satire or self-degradation? A psychology expert explores our reactions – https://theconversation.com/is-sabrina-carpenters-mans-best-friend-album-cover-satire-or-self-degradation-a-psychology-expert-explores-our-reactions-259043

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Plastics threaten ecosystems and human health, but evidence-based solutions are under political fire

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tony Robert Walker, Professor, School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University

    Negotiations toward a global, legally binding plastics treaty are set to resume this summer, with the United Nations Environment Programme announcing that the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution will reconvene in August.

    The committee was established to develop an international legally binding instrument — known as the plastics treaty — to end plastic pollution, one of the fastest-growing environmental threats.




    Read more:
    Here’s how the new global treaty on plastic pollution can help solve this crisis


    Globally, 40 per cent of plastics production goes into the production of single-use plastic packaging, which is the single largest source of plastic waste and is a threat to wildlife and human health. Without meaningful action, global plastic waste is projected to nearly triple by 2060, reaching an estimated 1.2 billion tonnes.

    As the world prepares for another round of talks, Canada’s own plastic problem reveals what’s at stake, and what’s possible for the future.

    Canada’s plastic problem

    Canada is no exception to the global plastic crisis. Nearly half (47 per cent) of all plastic waste in Canada comes from the food and drink sector, contributing 3,268 million tonnes annually. Canadians use 15 billion plastic bags annually and nearly 57 million straws daily, yet only nine per cent of plastics are recycled — a figure that is not expected to improve.

    Most of Canada’s plastic — except for plastic bottles made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) — are uneconomical or difficult to recycle because of the complexity of mixed plastics used in our economy. As a result, 2.8 million tonnes of plastic waste — equivalent to the weight of 24 CN Towers — end up in landfills every year.

    This is not a trivial problem, as Ontario is projected to run out of landfill space by 2035. Plastic pollution poses growing risks to both urban and rural infrastructure.

    In addition to landfill overflow, around one per cent of Canada’s plastic waste leaks into the environment. In 2016, this was 29,000 tonnes of plastic pollution. Once in the environment, plastics disintegrate into tiny particles, called microplastics (small pieces of plastic less than five millimetres long).

    We drink those tiny microplastic particles in our tap water, and eat them in our fish dinners. Some are even making their way into farmland.

    Plastics are everywhere, including inside us

    More than 93 per cent of Canadians have expressed concerns over single-use plastics used in food packaging and have supported government bans. There is a good reason for concern over the mounting levels of plastics in the environment, in our food and in us.

    Growing evidence indicates that plastics can cause harmful health effects in humans and animals. Microplastics and smaller nanoplastics (less than one micron in length) have been found in humans, including infants and breast milk. They can cause metabolic disorders, interfere with our immune and reproductive systems and cause behavioural problems.

    These health problems may be caused by chemicals added to plastics, including single-use plastics, of which 4,200 chemicals have been identified as posing a hazard to human and ecosystem health.

    It is for these reasons that the Canadian government introduced a ban on single-use plastics in 2022 as part of a plan to reach zero plastic waste in Canada by 2030.

    The decision was based extensive public and industry consultation, as well as decades of data on plastic pollution gathered from the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. This data shows the most common plastic litter items found in the environment across Canada, known as the “dirty dozen” list.

    Six of these items were included in the federal ban. Three eastern Canadian provinces had already implemented single-use plastic bag bans before the federal government, with little to no public or industry opposition. Prince Edward Island was the first Canadian province to implement a province-wide plastic bag ban in July 2019, closely followed by Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia in October 2020.

    The politics of plastic

    Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, debates around plastic pollution are becoming increasingly politicized.

    In February in the United States, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. government to “stop purchasing paper straws and ensure they are no longer provided within federal buildings.”

    Trump told reporters at the White House: “I don’t think plastic is going to affect a shark very much, as they’re munching their way through the ocean.” Almost 2,000 peer-reviewed studies have reported, however, that more than 4,000 species have ingested or been entangled by plastic litter.

    In Canada, plastic has also become a political flashpoint. During the recent federal election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he would scrap the federal government’s ban on single-use plastics and bring back plastic straws and grocery bags. He argued the government’s ban was about “symbolism” rather than “science,” saying, “the Liberals’ plastics ban is not about the environment, it’s about cost and control.”

    His promise would have harmed Canadians by dismissing the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that plastics in our bodies are linked to health impacts. Legislation to ban single-use plastics can be highly effective, ranging from 33 to 96 per cent reductions in plastic waste and pollution in the environment, depending on the policy and jurisdiction.

    Canada’s single-use plastics ban is a great example of evidence-based policymaking. The latest data from the conservation group Ocean Wise shows there was a 32 per cent drop in plastic straws found on Canadian shorelines in 2024 compared to the previous year.

    Science-based policies are needed

    It is indisputable that growing plastic production is directly related to plastic pollution in the environment and in human beings. Increasing plastic pollution is a global threat to human and ecosystem health, regardless of borders and political affiliation.

    As negotiators gear up for another round of talks to finalize a Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution, the need for policies that are supported by scientific evidence is more urgent than ever.

    Future generations deserve a healthy and sustainable planet. The path towards a healthy and sustainable planet requires supporting action based on scientific evidence, not misinforming people with catchy phrases and political rhetoric.

    Tony Robert Walker receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and Research Nova Scotia. He is also a non-remunerated member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.

    Miriam L Diamond receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, Future Earth, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. She is affiliated with the University of Toronto, serves as a paid expert for the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility, and has non-remunerated positions with the International Panel on Chemical Pollution (Vice-Chair), is a member of the Scientist Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, and sits on the board of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

    ref. Plastics threaten ecosystems and human health, but evidence-based solutions are under political fire – https://theconversation.com/plastics-threaten-ecosystems-and-human-health-but-evidence-based-solutions-are-under-political-fire-256764

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: The 28 Days Later franchise redefined zombie films. But the undead have an old, rich and varied history

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Christopher White, Historian, The University of Queensland

    The history of the dead – or, more precisely, the history of the living’s fascination with the dead – is an intriguing one.

    As a researcher of the supernatural, I’m often pulled aside at conferences or at the school gate, and told in furtive whispers about people’s encounters with the dead.

    The dead haunt our imagination in a number of different forms, whether as “cold spots”, or the walking dead popularised in zombie franchises such as 28 Days Later.

    The franchise’s latest release, 28 Years Later, brings back the Hollywood zombie in all its glory – but these archetypal creatures have a much wider and varied history.

    Zombis, revenants and the returning dead

    A zombie is typically a reanimated corpse: a category of the returning dead. Scholars refer to them as “revenants”, and continue to argue over their exact characteristics.

    In the Haitian Vodou religion, the zombi is not the same as the Hollywood zombie. Instead, zombi are people who, as a religious punishment, are drugged, buried alive, then dug out and forced into slavery.

    The Hollywood zombie, however, draws more from medieval European stories about the returning dead than from Vodou.

    A perfect setting for a ‘zombie’ film

    In 28 Years Later, the latest entry in Danny Boyle’s blockbuster horror franchise, the monsters technically aren’t zombies because they aren’t dead. Instead, they are infected by a “rage virus”, accidentally released by a group of animal rights activists in the beginning of the first film.

    This third film focuses on events almost three decades after the first film. The British Isles is quarantined, and the young protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) and his family live in a village on Lindisfarne Island. This island, one of the most important sites in early medieval British Christianity, is isolated and protected by a tidal causeway that links it to the mainland.

    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams star in the new film, out in Australian cinemas today.
    Sony Pictures

    The film leans heavily on how we imagine the medieval world, with scenes showing silhouetted fletchers at work making arrows, children training with bows, towering ossuaries and various memento mori. There’s also footage from earlier depictions of medieval warfare. And at one point, the characters seek sanctuary in the ruins of Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, which was built in 1132.

    The medieval locations and imagery of 28 Years Later evoke the long history of revenants, and the returned dead who once roved medieval England.

    Early accounts of the medieval dead

    In the medieval world, or at least the parts that wrote in Latin, the returning dead were usually called spiritus (“spirit”), but they weren’t limited to the non-corporeal like today’s ghosts are.

    Medieval Latin Christians from as early as the 3rd century saw the dead as part of a parallel society that mirrored the world of the living, where each group relied on the other to aid them through the afterlife.

    Depiction of the undead from a medieval manuscript.
    British Library, Yates Thompson MS 13

    While some medieval ghosts would warn the living about what awaited sinners in the afterlife, or lead their relatives to treasure, or prophesise the future, some also returned to terrorise the living.

    And like the “zombies” affected by the rage virus in 28 Years Later, these revenants could go into a frenzy in the presence of the living.

    Thietmar, the Prince-Bishop of Merseburg, Germany, wrote the Chronicon Thietmari (Thietmar’s Chronicle) between 1012 and 1018, and included a number of ghost stories that featured revenants.

    Although not all of them framed the dead as terrifying, they certainly didn’t paint them as friendly, either. In one story, a congregation of the dead at a church set the priest upon the altar, before burning him to ashes – intended to be read as a mirror of pagan sacrifice.

    These dead were physical beings, capable of seizing a man and sacrificing him in his own church.

    A threat to be dealt with

    The English monastic historian William of Newburgh (1136–98) wrote revenants were so common in his day that recording them all would be exhausting. According to him, the returned dead were frequently seen in 12th century England.

    So, instead of providing a exhausting list, he offered some choice examples which, like most medieval ghost stories, had a good Christian moral attached to them.

    William’s revenants mostly killed the people of the towns they lived, returning to the grave between their escapades. But the medieval English had a method for dealing with these monsters; they dug them up, tore out the heart and then burned the body.

    Other revenants were dealt with less harshly, William explained. In one case, all it took was the Bishop of Lincoln writing a letter of absolution to stop a dead man returning to his widow’s bed.

    These medieval dead were also thought to spread disease – much like those infected with the rage virus – and were capable of physically killing someone.

    Depiction of the undead from a medieval manuscript.
    British Library, Arundel MS 83.

    The undead, further north

    In medieval Scandinavia and Iceland, the undead draugr were extremely strong, hideous to look at and stunk of decomposition. Some were immune to human weapons and often killed animals near their tombs before building up to kill humans. Like their English counterparts, they also spread disease.

    But according to the Eyrbyggja saga, an anonymous 13th or 14th century text written in Iceland, all it took was a type of community court and the threat of legal action to drive off these returned dead.

    It’s a method the survivors in 28 Years Later didn’t try.

    The dead live on

    The first-hand zombie stories that were common during the medieval period started to dwindle in the 16th century with the Protestant Reformation, which focused more on individuals’ behaviours and salvation.

    Nonetheless, their influence can still be felt in Catholic ritual practices today, such as in prayers offered for the dead, and the lighting of votive candles.

    We still tell ghost stories, and we still worry about things that go bump in the night. And of course, we continue to explore the undead in all its forms on the big screen.

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

    ref. The 28 Days Later franchise redefined zombie films. But the undead have an old, rich and varied history – https://theconversation.com/the-28-days-later-franchise-redefined-zombie-films-but-the-undead-have-an-old-rich-and-varied-history-247900

    MIL OSI

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Decolonizing history and social studies curricula has a long way to go in Canada

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara Karn, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, McMaster University

    In June 2015, 10 years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) called for curriculum on Indigenous histories and contemporary contributions to Canada to foster intercultural understanding, empathy and respect. This was the focus of calls to action Nos. 62 to 65.

    As education scholars, we are part of a project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council called Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future. This project involves researchers, educators and partner organizations from across Canada, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous team members.

    As part of this work, we examined Canadian history and social studies curricula in elementary, middle and secondary schools with the aim of understanding how they address — and may better address in future — the need for decolonization.

    We found that although steps have been made towards decolonizing history curricula in Canada, there is still a long way to go. These curricula must do far more to challenge dominant narratives, prompt students to critically reflect on their identities and value Indigenous world views.




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    Looking for Indigenous history? ‘Shekon Neechie’ website recentres Indigenous perspectives


    Reimagining curriculum

    As white settler scholars and educators, we acknowledge our responsibility to unlearn colonial ways of being and learn how to further decolonization in Canada.

    In approaching this study, we began by listening to Indigenous scholars, such as Cree scholar Dwayne Donald. Donald and other scholars call for reimagining curriculum through unlearning colonialism and renewing relationships.




    Read more:
    Leaked Alberta school curriculum in urgent need of guidance from Indigenous wisdom teachings


    The late Arapaho education scholar Michael Marker suggested that in history education, renewing relations involves learning from Indigenous understandings of the past, situated within local meanings of time and place.

    History, social studies curricula

    Curricula across Canada have been updated in the last 10 years to include teaching about treaties, Indian Residential Schools and the cultures, perspectives and experiences of Indigenous Peoples over time.

    Thanks primarily to the work of Indigenous scholars and educators, including Donald, Marker, Mi’kmaw educator Marie Battiste, Anishinaabe scholar Nicole Bell and others, some public school educators are attentive to land-based learning and the importance of oral history.

    But these teachings are, for the most part, ad hoc and not supported by provincial curriculum mandates.

    Our study revealed that most provincial history curricula are still focused on colonial narratives that centre settler histories and emphasize “progress” over time. Curricula are largely inattentive to critical understandings of white settler power and to Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

    Notably, we do not include the three territories in this statement. Most of the territorial history curricula have been co-created with local Indigenous communities, and stand out with regard to decolonization.

    For example, in Nunavut’s Grade 5 curriculum, the importance of local knowledge tied to the land is highlighted throughout. There are learning expectations related to survival skills and ecological knowledge.

    Members of our broader research team are dedicated to analyzing curricula in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Their work may offer approaches to be adapted for other educational contexts.

    Dominant narratives

    In contrast, we found that provincial curricula often reinforce dominant historical narratives, especially surrounding colonialism. Some documents use the term “the history,” implying a singular history of Canada (for example, Manitoba’s Grade 6 curriculum).

    Historical content, examples and guiding questions are predominantly written from a Euro-western perspective, while minimizing racialized identities and community histories. In particular, curricula often ignore illustrations of Indigenous agency and experience.




    Read more:
    Moving beyond Black history month towards inclusive histories in Québec secondary schools


    Most curricula primarily situate Indigenous Peoples in the past, without substantial consideration for present-day implications of settler colonialism, as well as Indigenous agency and experiences today.

    For example, in British Columbia’s Grade 4 curriculum, there are lengthy discussions of the harms of colonization in the past. Yet, there is no mention of the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism or the need to engage in decolonization today.

    To disrupt these dominant narratives, we recommend that history curricula should critically discuss the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, while centring stories of Indigenous resistance and survival over time.

    Identity and privilege

    There are also missed opportunities within history curricula when it comes to critical discussions around identity, including systemic marginalization or privilege.

    Who we are informs how we understand history, but curricula largely does not prompt student reflection in these ways, including around treaty relationships.

    In Saskatchewan’s Grade 5 curriculum, students are expected to explain what treaties are and “affirm that all Saskatchewan residents are Treaty people.”

    However, there is no mention of students considering how their own backgrounds, identities, values and experiences shape their understandings of and responsibilities for treaties. Yet these discussions are essential for engaging students in considering the legacies of colonialism and how they may act to redress those legacies.

    A key learning outcome could involve students becoming more aware of how their own personal and community histories inform their historical understandings and reconciliation commitments.

    Indigenous ways of knowing and being

    History curricula generally ignore Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Most curricula are inattentive to Indigenous oral traditions, conceptions of time, local contexts and relationships with other species and the environment.

    Instead, these documents reflect Euro-western, settler colonial worldviews and educational values. For example, history curricula overwhelmingly ignore local meanings of time and place, while failing to encourage opportunities for land-based and experiential learning.

    In Prince Edward Island’s Grade 12 curriculum, the documents expect that students will “demonstrate an understanding of the interactions among people, places and the environment.” While this may seem promising, environmental histories in this curriculum and others uphold capitalist world views by focusing on resource extraction and economic progress.

    To disrupt settler colonial relationships with the land and empower youth as environmental stewards, we support reframing history curricula in ways that are attentive to Indigenous ways of knowing the past and relations with other people, beings and the land.

    Ways forward

    Schools have been, and continue to be, harmful spaces for many Indigenous communities, and various aspects of our schooling beg questions about how well-served both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students are for meeting current and future challenges.

    If, as a society, we accept the premise that the transformation of current curricular expectations is possible for schools, then more substantive engagement is required in working toward decolonization.

    Decolonizing curricula is a long-term, challenging process that requires consideration of many things: who sits on curriculum writing teams; the resources allocated to supporting curricular reform; broader school or board-wide policies; and ways of teaching that support reconciliation.

    We encourage history curriculum writing teams to take up these recommendations as part of a broader commitment to reconciliation.

    While not exhaustive, recommendations for curricular reform are a critical step in the future redesign of history curricula. The goal is a history education committed to listening and learning from Indigenous communities to build more inclusive national stories of the past, and into the future.

    This is a corrected version of a story originally published June 17, 2025. The earlier story said Michael Marker was from the Lummi Nation instead of saying he was an Arapaho scholar.

    Sara Karn receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

    Kristina R. Llewellyn receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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

    ref. Decolonizing history and social studies curricula has a long way to go in Canada – https://theconversation.com/decolonizing-history-and-social-studies-curricula-has-a-long-way-to-go-in-canada-253679

    MIL OSI

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Digital government can benefit citizens: how South Africa can reduce the risks and get it right

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Busani Ngcaweni, Visiting Adjunct Professor, Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand

    The digital revolution is reshaping governance worldwide. From the electronic filing of taxes to digital visa applications, technology is making government services more accessible, efficient and transparent.

    South Africa is making progress in its digital journey. In 2024 it climbed to 40th place out of 193 countries, from 65th place in 2022, in the United Nations e-Government Index. This improvement makes the country one of Africa’s digital leaders, surpassing Mauritius and Tunisia.

    South Africa has identified more than 255 government services for digitisation. Already, 134 are available on the National e-Government Portal. This achievement is remarkable. Nevertheless, the shift to digitisation comes with challenges and risks.

    Some countries have weakened the state’s role by rapidly outsourcing key government functions. But South Africa has the opportunity to build a model of digital transformation that strengthens public institutions rather than diminishes them.

    New technologies must bring tangible benefits for citizens. Digital transformation can improve public administration. But, if mismanaged, it could burden taxpayers with costs.

    Benefits

    Digital transformation comes at a cost. This is particularly true if the state fails to use its procurement power to negotiate reasonable prices. Infrastructure upgrades, cybersecurity measures, software licensing and system maintenance require substantial financial investment.

    The question is whether these expenses are a necessary step towards a more efficient and accessible government.

    Two South African examples illustrate that digital transformation can save money and enhance service delivery quality.

    The first is the South African Revenue Service. Its goal is to ensure that taxpayers and tax advisers can use the service from anywhere and at any time. The changes made more than a decade ago show that digital systems can yield substantial financial gains. After introducing e-filing in 2006, the revenue service streamlined tax processes, reduced inefficiencies and led to higher compliance rates. Ultimately this led to improved revenue collection.

    Similarly, digitising social grant payments has had a number of positive effects. In a chapter of a recent edited volume on public governance, my colleagues and I wrote a case study about how the South African Social Security Agency used basic technologies and platforms like WhatsApp and email to process a grant during the COVID pandemic. It allowed over 14 million people to apply, paid grants to over 6 million beneficiaries during the first phase of the project.

    South African Social Security Agency annual reports show that over 95% of grant beneficiaries receive their payouts electronically through debit cards, instead of going to cash points. This improves security and lets beneficiaries decide when to get and spend their money.

    There are fears that automation could result in massive job losses. But global experience has shown that digitalisation does not necessarily lead to large-scale retrenchments. Instead it can shift the nature of work to other responsibilities.

    The South African Social Security Agency provides a compelling case. Its transition to digital grant payments did not lead to job losses. Similarly, the expansion of e-filing at the revenue service has not resulted in workforce reductions. In both cases efficiencies improved.

    These cases highlight that digital transformation is reshaping roles rather than displacing employees. Public servants are moving into areas such as cybersecurity, data analysis and AI-driven decision-making.

    Shortcomings and pitfalls

    A number of inefficiencies are at play in government services.

    Firstly, most government digital operations still work with outdated paper-based systems. The lack of a uniform digital identity creates bureaucratic inefficiencies and delays.

    Secondly, fragmented procurement of equipment in government has led to duplicated efforts, increased costs and fruitless expenditure.

    Thirdly, different departments often use isolated and incompatible digital systems. This reduce the mutual benefits of digital transformation. The State IT Agency has been blamed for inefficiencies, procurement failures and questionable spending.

    Fourthly, South Africa’s public service remains fragmented. Citizens still struggle to access government services seamlessly. They often move between departments to complete what should be a single transaction.

    Without a centralised system, departments operate in isolation, duplicating efforts, increasing costs and eroding public trust.




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    South Africa’s civil servants are missing skills, especially when it comes to technology – report


    Fifth, a lack of skills. Increasing reliance on digital tools requires expertise in data analytics, cloud computing and automation. Many public servants lack the training to take on these new roles. The National Digital and Future Skills Strategy was introduced in September 2020 to bridge this gap, but its effectiveness depends on its implementation.

    Introducing it in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic forced government to make digital leaps which otherwise might have taken longer. To sustain services, technology had to be rapidly adopted, including basic things like holding Cabinet meetings online, using a system rapidly developed by the State Information Technology Agency.

    Sixth, security concerns complicate the transformation. As government systems become digital, they become vulnerable to cyberattacks. South Africa must put in place cybersecurity infrastructure to prevent identity theft, data breaches and service disruptions. A cyberattack on one department could affect the entire public sector.

    What needs to be done

    Government must streamline procurement, improve coordination and eliminate inefficiencies to ensure interdepartmental collaboration.

    A single, integrated e-government platform would:

    • cut red tape

    • reduce queues

    • increase efficiency.

    Government needs to upskill civil servants and improve their digital literacy.

    Government must create a seamless e-government system that connects services while protecting citizens’ personal information. The success of digitalisation depends on technological advancements as well as the level of trust citizens have in government systems. Without strong security measures, transparency and accountability, even the most sophisticated digital tools will fail to gain public confidence.

    South Africa has the chance to demonstrate that a strong, capable state can successfully integrate technology while safeguarding public interests. It should take full advantage of offers by Microsoft, Amazon and Huawei to support digital skills training in the public sector in a way that does not advantage one company’s technologies over others. Choices of technology must be user-centric, not based on preferences of accounting officers and chief information officers. Leaders of public institutions must be measured on their ability to digitally transform their organisations.

    Busani Ngcaweni is affiliated with the National School of Government, Wits and Johannesburg Universities.

    ref. Digital government can benefit citizens: how South Africa can reduce the risks and get it right – https://theconversation.com/digital-government-can-benefit-citizens-how-south-africa-can-reduce-the-risks-and-get-it-right-254089

    MIL OSI