Category: Economy

MIL-OSI Europe: The EBA provides its technical advice to the European Commission on fees to validate pro forma models under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation

Source: European Banking Authority

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its response to the European Commission’s Call for Advice on fees to validate pro forma models under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

The Technical Advice makes a series of recommendations to the Commission in view of its Delegated Acton fees to be charged by the EBA for the performance of its new role as central validator of pro forma models, such as ISDA SIMM, under EMIR.

First, the EBA proposes that the Delegated Act allows for all costs – whether direct or indirect – relating to the activities linked to the central validation function of pro forma models to be covered.

Second, to address the feedback received on the difficulties in calculating the 12-month average notional amount of non-centrally cleared OTC derivatives, the EBA proposes to rely on simpler approaches than the ones consulted upon. To this end, the EBA makes proposals on the practical details of the calculation methodology that would ensure proportionality amongst all counterparties in the determination of the annual fee.

Finally, the EBA makes recommendations on the payment modalities and the information to be communicated to EBA for the determination of the individual fees and the invoicing process.

Legal basis

Article 11(12a) of EMIR mandates the EBA to set up a central validation function for the elements and general aspects of pro forma models, and changes thereto, used or to be used by financial and non-financial counterparties. The EBA shall charge an annual fee, per pro forma model, to financial and non-financial counterparties using the pro forma models validated by the EBA. The fees are expected to cover the costs incurred by the EBA in performing this role as central validator.

Pro forma models, such as ISDA SIMM, are used by the industry to calculate initial margin.

On 31 July 2024, the EBA received a Call for advice on a possible Delegated Act on fees with the request to submit its response by Q2 2025.

In March 2025, the EBA consulted market participants as part of its response. The feedback received to this Discussion Paper helped the EBA finalise its response to the European Commission.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: The EBA provides its technical advice to the European Commission on fees to validate pro forma models under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation

Source: European Banking Authority

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its response to the European Commission’s Call for Advice on fees to validate pro forma models under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

The Technical Advice makes a series of recommendations to the Commission in view of its Delegated Acton fees to be charged by the EBA for the performance of its new role as central validator of pro forma models, such as ISDA SIMM, under EMIR.

First, the EBA proposes that the Delegated Act allows for all costs – whether direct or indirect – relating to the activities linked to the central validation function of pro forma models to be covered.

Second, to address the feedback received on the difficulties in calculating the 12-month average notional amount of non-centrally cleared OTC derivatives, the EBA proposes to rely on simpler approaches than the ones consulted upon. To this end, the EBA makes proposals on the practical details of the calculation methodology that would ensure proportionality amongst all counterparties in the determination of the annual fee.

Finally, the EBA makes recommendations on the payment modalities and the information to be communicated to EBA for the determination of the individual fees and the invoicing process.

Legal basis

Article 11(12a) of EMIR mandates the EBA to set up a central validation function for the elements and general aspects of pro forma models, and changes thereto, used or to be used by financial and non-financial counterparties. The EBA shall charge an annual fee, per pro forma model, to financial and non-financial counterparties using the pro forma models validated by the EBA. The fees are expected to cover the costs incurred by the EBA in performing this role as central validator.

Pro forma models, such as ISDA SIMM, are used by the industry to calculate initial margin.

On 31 July 2024, the EBA received a Call for advice on a possible Delegated Act on fees with the request to submit its response by Q2 2025.

In March 2025, the EBA consulted market participants as part of its response. The feedback received to this Discussion Paper helped the EBA finalise its response to the European Commission.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: ECB’s Governing Council updates its monetary policy strategy
Source: European Central Bank

30 June 2025
- Governing Council confirms symmetric 2% inflation target over the medium term
- Symmetry requires appropriately forceful or persistent policy response to large, sustained deviations of inflation from target in either direction
- All tools remain in toolkit and their choice, design and implementation will enable an agile response to new shocks
- Structural shifts such as geopolitical and economic fragmentation and increasing use of artificial intelligence make the inflation environment more uncertain
The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) today published the results of its strategy assessment, which are set out in an updated monetary policy strategy statement.

Following the strategy review carried out in 2020-21, the Governing Council announced that it would periodically assess the appropriateness of its monetary policy strategy. The assessment published today meets this commitment, ensuring that our framework, toolkit and approach remain fit for purpose.

The monetary policy strategy enables the Governing Council to respond effectively to major changes in the inflation environment. This is especially important as ongoing structural shifts, such as geopolitical and economic fragmentation, increasing use of artificial intelligence, demographic change and the threat to environmental sustainability, suggest that the inflation environment will remain uncertain and potentially more volatile, with larger deviations from the symmetric 2% inflation target.

To maintain the symmetry of the target, appropriately forceful or persistent monetary policy action in response to large, sustained deviations of inflation from the target in either direction is important. This will help to avoid inflation expectations becoming de-anchored and inflation deviations from the target becoming entrenched.

“I am happy to announce that the Governing Council during its latest meeting approved the ECB’s updated monetary policy strategy”, said ECB President Christine Lagarde. “This assessment was a valuable opportunity to challenge our thinking, check our policy toolkit and fine-tune our strategy. It provides us with an even stronger basis to conduct monetary policy and fulfil our mandate of price stability in an increasingly uncertain environment.”

All monetary policy tools currently available to the Governing Council will remain in its toolkit. Their use at any time will continue to be subject to a comprehensive proportionality assessment. Their choice, design and implementation will be sufficiently flexible to enable an agile response to changes in the inflation environment.

In monetary policy decisions the Governing Council takes into account not only the most likely path for inflation and the economy but also surrounding risks and uncertainty, including through the appropriate use of scenarios and sensitivity analyses.

The first regular monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council applying the updated strategy will be held on 23-24 July 2025. The Governing Council intends to assess periodically the appropriateness of its monetary policy strategy, with the next assessment expected in 2030.

For media queries, please contact Stefan Ruhkamp, tel.: +49 69 1344 5057.

Notes
- Prior to the 2025 strategy assessment, the Governing Council concluded strategy reviews in 2003 and 2021.
- Over the last 12 months the Governing Council has held seminars, presentations, discussions and meetings dedicated to the strategy assessment.
- The strategy assessment is the result of a significant collaborative effort over this period. It involved staff of the ECB and national central banks across the euro area and was organised into two separate workstreams.
MIL OSI Europe News –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: ECB’s Governing Council updates its monetary policy strategy
Source: European Central Bank

30 June 2025
- Governing Council confirms symmetric 2% inflation target over the medium term
- Symmetry requires appropriately forceful or persistent policy response to large, sustained deviations of inflation from target in either direction
- All tools remain in toolkit and their choice, design and implementation will enable an agile response to new shocks
- Structural shifts such as geopolitical and economic fragmentation and increasing use of artificial intelligence make the inflation environment more uncertain
The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) today published the results of its strategy assessment, which are set out in an updated monetary policy strategy statement.

Following the strategy review carried out in 2020-21, the Governing Council announced that it would periodically assess the appropriateness of its monetary policy strategy. The assessment published today meets this commitment, ensuring that our framework, toolkit and approach remain fit for purpose.

The monetary policy strategy enables the Governing Council to respond effectively to major changes in the inflation environment. This is especially important as ongoing structural shifts, such as geopolitical and economic fragmentation, increasing use of artificial intelligence, demographic change and the threat to environmental sustainability, suggest that the inflation environment will remain uncertain and potentially more volatile, with larger deviations from the symmetric 2% inflation target.

To maintain the symmetry of the target, appropriately forceful or persistent monetary policy action in response to large, sustained deviations of inflation from the target in either direction is important. This will help to avoid inflation expectations becoming de-anchored and inflation deviations from the target becoming entrenched.

“I am happy to announce that the Governing Council during its latest meeting approved the ECB’s updated monetary policy strategy”, said ECB President Christine Lagarde. “This assessment was a valuable opportunity to challenge our thinking, check our policy toolkit and fine-tune our strategy. It provides us with an even stronger basis to conduct monetary policy and fulfil our mandate of price stability in an increasingly uncertain environment.”

All monetary policy tools currently available to the Governing Council will remain in its toolkit. Their use at any time will continue to be subject to a comprehensive proportionality assessment. Their choice, design and implementation will be sufficiently flexible to enable an agile response to changes in the inflation environment.

In monetary policy decisions the Governing Council takes into account not only the most likely path for inflation and the economy but also surrounding risks and uncertainty, including through the appropriate use of scenarios and sensitivity analyses.

The first regular monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council applying the updated strategy will be held on 23-24 July 2025. The Governing Council intends to assess periodically the appropriateness of its monetary policy strategy, with the next assessment expected in 2030.

For media queries, please contact Stefan Ruhkamp, tel.: +49 69 1344 5057.

Notes
- Prior to the 2025 strategy assessment, the Governing Council concluded strategy reviews in 2003 and 2021.
- Over the last 12 months the Governing Council has held seminars, presentations, discussions and meetings dedicated to the strategy assessment.
- The strategy assessment is the result of a significant collaborative effort over this period. It involved staff of the ECB and national central banks across the euro area and was organised into two separate workstreams.
MIL OSI Europe News –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Museums give city economy multi-million pound boost

Source: City of Leeds

The city’s council-run museums and galleries have given a massive £47.3m boost to the local economy over the past year, new figures have revealed.

The latest economic impact report compiled by Leeds Museums and Galleries sets out the remarkable figures, with the service’s eight sites also welcoming an impressive 939,494 people in the same period.

Aimed at assessing the positive impact of the sites on the city and the region, the figures are calculated using factors such as overall spend on and off sites, employment impact and overall spend on local goods and services.

Against an annual budget of approximately £5m, the figures mean that every £1 invested in museums and galleries in turn generates £9 for the city.

As well as the economic benefits, the report also captures the huge social impact the service has, with 105,501 children and adults taking part in family activities, 46,349 school pupils visiting, as well as 38,855 visits from vulnerable adults and young adults.

Successful applications for grant funding over the course of the year also brought £2,394,855 into the city and the use of local services supported 100 external jobs worth £3.3m.

The news comes after the service recently launched a new contactless “Pay What Your Can” entrance model at Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds City Museum, Kirkstall Abbey and Leeds Discovery Centre, asking visitors to help support the upkeep of the attractions and the care and conservation of more than 1.3 million objects.

Councillor Salma Arif, Leeds City Council’s executive member for adult social care, active lifestyles and culture, said: “The fact our museums and galleries have managed to achieve so much against such a uniquely challenging climate for the sector and for local authorities really does speak volumes about the exceptional work which goes into creating a visitor offer that’s exciting, innovative, and appealing to visitors.

“The economic impact these wonderful attractions have unquestionably makes a huge difference to the city each and every year, but just as important is the social value our sites have, giving people of all ages the chance to engage with history, heritage, art and the natural world in a multitude of different ways, supporting education, combatting social isolation and raising the city’s profile as a national and international cultural destination.

“Now more than ever we need the support of the public to ensure council-run museums and galleries remain accessible, sustainable and can carry on inspiring visitors for generations to come.”

Among the country’s largest services of its kind, Leeds Museums and Galleries operates eight sites in total: Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds City Museum, Temple Newsam House, Lotherton Hall, Abbey House Museum, Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds Industrial Museum and the Leeds Discovery Centre.

Popular exhibitions which have attracted visitors over the past year include a celebration of beloved children’s character Miffy at Leeds City Museum, Story Time at Abbey House Museum, which explores how reading, learning and enjoying stories has changed through the ages, and Peter Mitchell, Nothing Lasts Forever at Leeds Art Gallery, a retrospective exhibition showcasing the work of British documentary photographer Peter Mitchell.

For more information on Leeds Museums and Galleries, please visit: Leeds Museums and Galleries | Days out and exhibitions

ENDS

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Fourth Financing for Development (FfD4) Conference Opening Session: Keynote Speech by DMD Nigel Clarke

Source: IMF – News in Russian

Fourth Financing for Development (FfD4) Conference Opening Session: Keynote Speech by DMD Nigel Clarke

Seville, Spain

June 30, 2025

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today, on behalf of the International Monetary Fund. It is a great honor to join you here at the Fourth Financing for Development Conference.

This conference comes at a particularly challenging moment. Once again, the resilience of the world economy is being tested. Uncertainty has been escalating, as major policy shifts reshape countries priorities. Despite progress on trade talks and the scaling back of some tariffs, trade policy uncertainty indicators remain off the charts.

This has major implications for developing countries, for whom risks have grown: downside risks to short-term and longer-term growth prospects. Risks of tightened financing conditions. And yes, risks to their development agenda—including due to cuts in overseas development assistance.

That is why this conference is so important—and so timely. It provides an opportunity to take decisive and necessary steps to accelerate development progress.

And these steps must be taken at both the individual country level and the international community level.

With that in mind, and with this opportunity in our hands, let me stress three critical priorities, one at the country level, and two at the international level.

First priority, at the country level: implement strong domestic reforms. In an uncertain economic environment, the work to advance development must begin at home. Let me point to two sets of critical reforms within this first priority.

One, domestic revenues remain the bedrock of country-led efforts for sustainable growth and development. Many countries can boost the resources available to them by broadening the tax base and improving compliance.

And two, by building strong public financial management systems, they can redirect spending to sectors like health, education, well-targeted social safety nets, and growth- enhancing public investments.

Second priority, at the international level: ensure that the support to development is coordinated and tailored. Development partners must help with policy advice, capacity building, and financial support. And to be effective, that assistance should be tailored to countries’ individual circumstances and challenges. Indeed, while developing countries share many characteristics, there are differences in their economic conditions.

The needs of the poorest and most fragile countries, in particular—who are often hit hardest by global shocks—demand our attention, and for these countries concessional financing remains of critical importance.

Third priority, also at the international level: address debt vulnerabilities. The risk of a systemic debt crisis seems broadly contained for now. But many countries are struggling with high interest costs and refinancing needs that constrain their ability to finance critical development spending and build resilience.

That is why the international community must further improve debt restructuring processes to ensure that countries with unsustainable debt have access to timely and sufficiently deep debt relief.

We have already seen progress under the Common Framework and at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable. And the recently published Sovereign Debt Restructuring Playbook is an important resource for countries considering seeking a restructuring. But there is still work to be done.

The IMF is doing its part to support developing countries.

Through our tailored policy advice, we help our members make their economies more vibrant and more resilient. We will continue to strengthen our analysis and guidance on monetary, fiscal, exchange rate, and financial sector policies.

Through our capacity development, we will continue to help equip our members with the tools and expertise to chart their own path, working closely with other development partners.

Through our lending instruments, we provide financial support to our members when they need it. Last Fall, we reformed our concessional lending framework, to double its lending capacity while restoring its self-sustainability. And we will continue to explore ways to strengthen our precautionary facilities and ensure our programs are well-designed.

The Fund also actively contributes to addressing debt challenges. We provide technical support to individual restructuring. With the World Bank, we are advancing the work at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable and are implementing the “three-pillar approach” to help countries with sustainable debt and strong reform agendas, but where high debt service crowds out productive spending.

Simply put: the IMF will continue to help our members achieve economic and financial stability—a prerequisite for reaching their development objectives.

And as we work together this week, we will remain a trusted partner and champion for the international development agenda. Together, we can help bring our members towards a brighter future.

Thank you.

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

PRESS OFFICER:

Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

@IMFSpokesperson

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/06/30/sp063025-FfD4-conference-opening-session-keynote-speech-dmd-nigel-clarke

MIL OSI

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Damian Tobin, Lecturer in International Business, University College Cork

Kev Gregory / Shutterstock

Nato leaders agreed to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output by 2035 at a summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25. US president Donald Trump, who has spent months saying Europe should take more responsibility for its own security, described the pledge as “a monumental win for the US” and a “big win” for western civilisation.

A few months earlier, in March, the EU also launched its long-awaited white paper on defence. This provides a blueprint for improving Europe’s readiness to respond to military threats by 2030. On top of the fact that global military spending has surged in the past ten years, these developments indicate that the world’s largest nations now prioritise military over economic diplomacy.

One of the main ideas behind military diplomacy is that increased defence spending acts as a deterrent to future conflicts. The nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union during the cold war provides some support for this argument. The prospect of mutual destruction was so great that it acted as a deterrent to nuclear war.

But is increased defence spending really the necessary price for greater peace and prosperity? My research on interactions between firms, geopolitics and the political economy of defence indicates that this is no “big win” for society or economic productivity.

A convoy of naval ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock

Deterrence requires a level of brinkmanship if it is to work. But as American economist Thomas Schelling pointed out in his 1960 book, The Strategy of Conflict, the problem with brinkmanship is that it relies on deliberately allowing a situation to get somewhat out of hand, with the intention of forcing the other party to back down.

This can result in strategic blunders. Efforts by the former US president, Richard Nixon, to engineer such a situation in 1969 by threatening to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam failed to gain credibility with the Soviets and North Vietnamese. This undoubtedly helped convince North Vietnam that it could survive the war and locked the US into a much longer conflict.

The recent confrontation between Israel and Iran also showed that brinkmanship can produce situations where there are significant casualties and no clear long-term resolution. Iran has long recognised that keeping itself near the threshold of nuclear weapons capability would offer a deterrent against external threats.

But this strategy created many opportunities for error. Israel claimed that Iran was too close to building a nuclear weapon and, alongside the US, launched strikes that they say inflicted significant damage on Iranian nuclear enrichment capabilities and military leadership.

Read more:
Israeli aggression and Iranian nuclear brinkmanship made this confrontation all but inevitable

Beyond this, it is unclear just how much military spending is needed to deter aggression. Nato allies have now committed to a big increase in defence spending – thanks largely to pressure from Trump.

However, even Nato’s previous objective that countries commit 2% of their national income to defence has proved unattractive for many governments. This has even been the case in post-conflict areas such as the Balkans, where Nato has had a heavy involvement.

A costly alternative

Boosting defence spending falls short on delivering economic prosperity, too. Analysing US military spending in the Vietnam war, economist Les Fishman noted in 1967 that military diplomacy was far more costly than its economic equivalent.

Military production requires continuously high levels of investment to maintain technological progress. This sucks public investment from other parts of the economy.

That’s not to say defence spending has an entirely negative effect on the economy. Studies have found evidence that US federal funding of military research and development results in significant increases in private business research in sectors such as chemicals and aerospace.

And, over the past decade, the value of venture capital deals in the US defence industry has grown 18-fold. This far outstrips sectors such as energy and healthcare. But such investment in military-related research and development is also often acknowledged as inefficient and not necessarily the best way to boost productivity.

Fishman pointed out that the Marshall Plan, which provided substantial economic aid to western Europe after the second world war, had a far higher return for the US.

Economic stabilisation kept the Soviet Union at bay for relatively small outlay compared to the Vietnam war, where casualties were of such a magnitude that it made any cost-benefit analysis meaningless.

The Vietnam war proved extremely costly for the US.
Department of the Army Special Photo Office / Wikimedia Commons

Boosting defence spending also represents a lost opportunity to invest in more socially beneficial projects. This will worsen the climate crisis.

According to a study shared with the Guardian in May, the initial rearmament planned by Nato alone could have increased greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200 million tonnes a year. The expanded defence commitment will only increase this further.

Unlike defence, where the repurposing of civilian technologies for military uses carries a cost to society, many green investments involve beneficial substitutions that reduce the cost of a green transition.

The substitution of conventional fossil fuel heating and transport systems with heat pumps and electric vehicles, for example, is far more socially beneficial than repurposing civilian satellites for missile systems.

A final point is that military diplomacy is itself geopolitically destabilising. US efforts to contain communism in Asia during the 1950s and 1960s are a good example. Not only did such efforts see China align its trade with other communist states, it also ensured that self-reliance became a cornerstone of China’s economic strategy.

This all suggests that the current drive for deterrence-based military spending carries with it a huge cost for society that could ultimately prove economically wasteful and geopolitically destabilising.

Damian Tobin 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. Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity? – https://theconversation.com/nato-leaders-pledge-increased-defence-spending-is-this-really-the-price-for-peace-and-prosperity-255989

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Damian Tobin, Lecturer in International Business, University College Cork

Kev Gregory / Shutterstock

Nato leaders agreed to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output by 2035 at a summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25. US president Donald Trump, who has spent months saying Europe should take more responsibility for its own security, described the pledge as “a monumental win for the US” and a “big win” for western civilisation.

A few months earlier, in March, the EU also launched its long-awaited white paper on defence. This provides a blueprint for improving Europe’s readiness to respond to military threats by 2030. On top of the fact that global military spending has surged in the past ten years, these developments indicate that the world’s largest nations now prioritise military over economic diplomacy.

One of the main ideas behind military diplomacy is that increased defence spending acts as a deterrent to future conflicts. The nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union during the cold war provides some support for this argument. The prospect of mutual destruction was so great that it acted as a deterrent to nuclear war.

But is increased defence spending really the necessary price for greater peace and prosperity? My research on interactions between firms, geopolitics and the political economy of defence indicates that this is no “big win” for society or economic productivity.

A convoy of naval ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock

Deterrence requires a level of brinkmanship if it is to work. But as American economist Thomas Schelling pointed out in his 1960 book, The Strategy of Conflict, the problem with brinkmanship is that it relies on deliberately allowing a situation to get somewhat out of hand, with the intention of forcing the other party to back down.

This can result in strategic blunders. Efforts by the former US president, Richard Nixon, to engineer such a situation in 1969 by threatening to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam failed to gain credibility with the Soviets and North Vietnamese. This undoubtedly helped convince North Vietnam that it could survive the war and locked the US into a much longer conflict.

The recent confrontation between Israel and Iran also showed that brinkmanship can produce situations where there are significant casualties and no clear long-term resolution. Iran has long recognised that keeping itself near the threshold of nuclear weapons capability would offer a deterrent against external threats.

But this strategy created many opportunities for error. Israel claimed that Iran was too close to building a nuclear weapon and, alongside the US, launched strikes that they say inflicted significant damage on Iranian nuclear enrichment capabilities and military leadership.

Read more:
Israeli aggression and Iranian nuclear brinkmanship made this confrontation all but inevitable

Beyond this, it is unclear just how much military spending is needed to deter aggression. Nato allies have now committed to a big increase in defence spending – thanks largely to pressure from Trump.

However, even Nato’s previous objective that countries commit 2% of their national income to defence has proved unattractive for many governments. This has even been the case in post-conflict areas such as the Balkans, where Nato has had a heavy involvement.

A costly alternative

Boosting defence spending falls short on delivering economic prosperity, too. Analysing US military spending in the Vietnam war, economist Les Fishman noted in 1967 that military diplomacy was far more costly than its economic equivalent.

Military production requires continuously high levels of investment to maintain technological progress. This sucks public investment from other parts of the economy.

That’s not to say defence spending has an entirely negative effect on the economy. Studies have found evidence that US federal funding of military research and development results in significant increases in private business research in sectors such as chemicals and aerospace.

And, over the past decade, the value of venture capital deals in the US defence industry has grown 18-fold. This far outstrips sectors such as energy and healthcare. But such investment in military-related research and development is also often acknowledged as inefficient and not necessarily the best way to boost productivity.

Fishman pointed out that the Marshall Plan, which provided substantial economic aid to western Europe after the second world war, had a far higher return for the US.

Economic stabilisation kept the Soviet Union at bay for relatively small outlay compared to the Vietnam war, where casualties were of such a magnitude that it made any cost-benefit analysis meaningless.

The Vietnam war proved extremely costly for the US.
Department of the Army Special Photo Office / Wikimedia Commons

Boosting defence spending also represents a lost opportunity to invest in more socially beneficial projects. This will worsen the climate crisis.

According to a study shared with the Guardian in May, the initial rearmament planned by Nato alone could have increased greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200 million tonnes a year. The expanded defence commitment will only increase this further.

Unlike defence, where the repurposing of civilian technologies for military uses carries a cost to society, many green investments involve beneficial substitutions that reduce the cost of a green transition.

The substitution of conventional fossil fuel heating and transport systems with heat pumps and electric vehicles, for example, is far more socially beneficial than repurposing civilian satellites for missile systems.

A final point is that military diplomacy is itself geopolitically destabilising. US efforts to contain communism in Asia during the 1950s and 1960s are a good example. Not only did such efforts see China align its trade with other communist states, it also ensured that self-reliance became a cornerstone of China’s economic strategy.

This all suggests that the current drive for deterrence-based military spending carries with it a huge cost for society that could ultimately prove economically wasteful and geopolitically destabilising.

Damian Tobin 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. Nato leaders pledge increased defence spending – is this really the price for peace and prosperity? – https://theconversation.com/nato-leaders-pledge-increased-defence-spending-is-this-really-the-price-for-peace-and-prosperity-255989

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Over 4,000 school-based childcare places this September
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

Press release

Over 4,000 school-based childcare places this September

Nearly 200 school-based nurseries planning to open this September, with next wave of rollout – backed by almost £370 million – to launch in the Autumn.
Thousands of families across the country will soon benefit from new childcare places in local schools closer to where they live, as the government’s school-based nurseries rollout is on track to deliver over 4,000 places this September.

Nearly 200 schools with spades in the ground, that are planning to open in just two months’ time, have reported they are set to exceed the government’s initial projections on places, meaning more high-quality, accessible and affordable childcare options for parents.

Thanks to the brilliant work from school and early years leaders, these new school-based nursery places and thousands more across the provider sector are set to be available in time for working parents to take up the 30 government-funded hours, saving them up to £7,500 on average every year.

On top of cash back in parents’ pockets, the upcoming milestone will break down barriers to opportunity for families by enabling more parents to return to work – increasing choices for parents, and life chances for children. According to a recent government survey, of the 2,723 respondents who are planning to increase their childcare hours in September, over half (1,425) are intending to up their work hours too.

With savings from the government’s free breakfast club rollout – which has already delivered over two million meals – and school uniform cap, this rises to up to £8,000 for working parents who also have school-aged children, every year.

As part of its Plan for Change, delivering on its promise of high-quality childcare to the children who need it most is a government priority. That’s why schools were chosen in places currently underserved by the market, to increase choices for parents that need it, in their local area. On average, 20 places will be available per site – and up to 6,000 new places in total across the 300 schools taking part in the first phase of the rollout.

Last month, the government announced almost £370 million of further funding to support the future of the programme, with the next phase due to launch in the Autumn.

School-based nurseries, private, voluntary and independent nurseries, as well as childminders, all have an important role to play in the government’s mission to get tens of thousands more children school ready every year and put more cash in working parents’ pockets.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said:

Giving every child the best start in life is my number one priority, and making sure hard-working parents are able to benefit from this rollout is a promise made, and promise kept.

Every corner of the early years sector has a vital role to play, and the progress made so far, in the face of an enormous inherited delivery challenge, is testament to their dedication to children and families up and down the country.

This September is only the beginning. This government has a clear Plan for Change to get tens of thousands more children school ready each year so that every child, from any background, gets the opportunities they need to get on in life.

Alongside the benefits to family finances, high-quality early education builds children’s confidence, social skills, and prepares them for school. That’s why the government is backing programmes to provide early years educators with the bespoke tools, training and resources they need to help young minds to thrive.

Already, 11,000 primary schools are registered to deliver the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, and 800 more settings have been recruited to the Maths Champions professional development programme. In the coming days, the Education Secretary will set out the government’s vision for Reception and next phase of action on school readiness.

Minet Infant and Nursery School in Hayes is one of the nearly 200 schools set to roll out new early years places from this September. Headteacher Wayne Wathen-Howell said:

We’re proud to be opening a new nursery right here in our school – it’s a big moment for our community.

Parents have told us how important it is to have affordable, high-quality childcare close to home, and this new nursery will make a real difference. Not only will it help families balance work and family life, it also gives our youngest children the best possible start in a familiar, supportive environment.

Being based on a school site means children can settle in early, build confidence, and feel ready for the step into Reception. We’re excited to welcome them through our doors this September.

Next year, the government will work with the sector to go further and faster, increasing funding to over £9 billion, building on £75 million already delivered to help providers grow places, and a record uplift to the Early Years Pupil Premium.

DfE media enquiries

Central newsdesk – for journalists 020 7783 8300

Share this page

The following links open in a new tab

Share on Facebook (opens in new tab)

Share on Twitter (opens in new tab)

Updates to this page

Published 30 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 30, 2025
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]

Source: United Nations secretary general

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.

MIL OSI United Nations News –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Colorado’s fentanyl criminalization bill won’t solve the opioid epidemic, say the people most affected

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Katherine LeMasters, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Boulder

The people most impacted by Colorado’s fentanyl criminalization bill have divergent views on the role of the legal system in curbing the opioid epidemic. Erik McGregor/GettyImages

Colorado passed the Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Bill in May 2022. The legislation made the possession of small amounts of fentanyl a felony, rather than a misdemeanor.

Felonies are more likely than misdemeanors to result in a prison sentence.

Time in prison is associated with an increased risk of fatal overdose in the year after release. People with felonies on their record often struggle to find a job or rent an apartment.

In 2023, lawmakers in 46 states passed legislation similar to Colorado’s. They introduced more than 600 bills related to fentanyl criminalization and enacted over 100 other laws to attempt to curb the opioid epidemic.

Possession of small amounts of ketamine, GHB and other criminalized drugs is also a felony in Colorado.

I’m an assistant professor of medicine, social epidemiologist and community researcher who studies mass incarceration as a public health threat. I am a member of the Right Response Coalition, which advocates for community rather than criminal-legal responses to behavioral health needs in Colorado. Recently, my work has focused on how increasing criminal penalties for fentanyl possession in Colorado affects the individuals and communities most impacted by such laws.

Our team conducted 31 interviews with Colorado policymakers, peer support specialists, law enforcement, community behavioral health providers and people providing behavioral health in prisons and jails to explore a variety of perspectives on Colorado’s Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Bill and the role of the criminal-legal system in addressing substance use and overdose.

Most of our interviewees agreed that criminalization alone wouldn’t solve the opioid epidemic.

“You can’t incarcerate yourself to sobriety,” said a rural law enforcement officer. “You can’t incarcerate yourself out of the drug problem in America.”

Criminalization of drug use

Incarceration and substance use are deeply intertwined. The U.S. houses one-quarter of the world’s incarcerated population – largely due to policies created during the “war on Drugs” of the 1980s. The war on drugs included mandatory minimum sentencing for drug-related charges and “three strikes” laws that lengthened sentences after multiple charges.

Today, one-fifth of the U.S. incarcerated population has a drug-related charge.

People recently released from incarceration are more likely to overdose than the general public because their tolerance is greatly reduced following forced abstinence and there are not enough community-based treatment options.
Erik McGregor/GettyImages

Incarceration is often seen as a deterrent, but research shows it is not actually associated with reduced drug use. Instead, people recently released from incarceration are more likely to die of a fatal overdose and face a high likelihood of reincarceration.

Perspectives of front-line workers

All 31 of the participants in our study supported policies to prevent fentanyl overdoses. However, most thought that use of police and incarceration as avenues to do so was misguided.

We spoke to some individuals who felt the bill was appropriate, but most felt that increased criminalization perpetuates stigma against people who use drugs. They also saw the law as ignoring the root causes of the opioid epidemic, which include a lack of voluntary community-based treatment options. They also said the law creates stressful law enforcement encounters that can perpetuate drug use as a coping mechanism.

“It just seems like there’s no getting away from [the police], they’re everywhere,” said an urban peer support specialist. “I got arrested by the same cops, I don’t know how many times. And then it makes you want to try to be avoidant or run because they’re not going to help you.”

Participants worried that the policy has an inadvertent chilling effect, deterring individuals from calling 911 when an overdose occurs.

“Most people with substance abuse are not trying to report anything or get help for fear of going to jail,” one rural provider said. “It’s so stigmatized that everyone’s just scared to do that.”

Study participants worried that the Colorado fentanyl criminalization bill will deter people from reporting an overdose for fear of being arrested.
Spencer Platt/GettyImages

Participants largely thought that counties were using incarceration as a default treatment setting and that it wasn’t an ideal solution.

“[I] don’t want to see [people] incarcerated, but I don’t want ‘em to die either,” said an urban peer support specialist.

The people we interviewed pointed to a lack of community-based care options that could come before people are incarcerated. Those options include substance use treatment centers, mental health services and community health centers.

Substance use treatment

Colorado’s fentanyl bill did more than just increase penalties. It also provided additional funding for a state naloxone program and required that all jails provide medications for opioid use disorder.

Along with increasing penalties, Colorado’s bill increased access to naloxone, an opioid-reversal drug.
Hyoung Chang/GettyImages

These medications include methadone, buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone. All are part of an established public health strategy shown to reduce overdose deaths and opioid use. They’re also shown to increase engagement with non-jail-based treatment and reduce reincarceration.

However, jail capacity and the lack of treatment options based in one’s community play a large role in which medications are offered and to whom. For example, only 11 out of Colorado’s 46 counties with a county jail have an opioid treatment program in the community that can dispense methadone. Therefore, some facilities do not offer all medications, or only offer medications to individuals with an active prescription or to certain populations such as pregnant people.

Investing in community solutions

Based on our study’s findings, my study co-authors and I believe increased criminal penalties should not be the solution for linking individuals to treatment. Instead, there should be more investment in long-term community solutions.

One such solution is Denver’s Substance Use Navigation Program. The program sends behavioral health specialists to emergency calls to prevent legal involvement when someone is experiencing distress related to mental health, poverty, homelessness or substance use. In many cases, those individuals are then routed to services rather than jails.

Our findings also lead us to believe there is a need for more participatory policymaking processes when it comes to fentanyl legislation, and that policymakers should more closely work with the people who will be most impacted by new legislation. Most of our participants agree.

“[I] don’t think that [the] state realized how difficult it is,” said a rural provider about giving medication-assisted treatment in jail, an increasing need as more people are arrested for fentanyl possession. “They probably should come here and visit us.”

Katherine LeMasters received funding from the Colorado Department of Human Services, Behavioral Health Administration. Katherine LeMasters is part of the Right Response Coalition.

– ref. Colorado’s fentanyl criminalization bill won’t solve the opioid epidemic, say the people most affected – https://theconversation.com/colorados-fentanyl-criminalization-bill-wont-solve-the-opioid-epidemic-say-the-people-most-affected-256661

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jane Tavares, Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer of Gerontology, UMass Boston

Seeing the same doctor on a regular basis is good for your health. Morsa Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images

When you lose your health insurance or switch to a plan that skimps on preventive care, something critical breaks.

The connection to your primary care provider, usually a doctor, gets severed. You stop getting routine checkups. Warning signs get missed. Medical problems that could have been caught early become emergencies. And because emergencies are both dangerous and expensive, your health gets worse while your medical bills climb.

As gerontology researchers who study health and financial well-being in later life, we’ve analyzed how someone’s ties to the health care system strengthen or unravel depending on whether they have insurance coverage. What we’ve found is simple: Staying connected to a trusted doctor keeps you healthier and saves the system money. Breaking that link does just the opposite.

And that’s exactly what has us worried right now. Members of Congress are debating whether to make major cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs. If the Senate passes its own version of the tax-and-spending package that the House approved in May 2025, millions of Americans will soon face exactly this kind of disruption – with big consequences for their health and well-being.

How people end up uninsured

Someone can lose their health insurance for a number of reasons. For many Americans, coverage is tied to employment. Being fired, retiring before you turn 65 and become eligible to enroll in the Medicare program, or even getting a new job can mean losing insurance. Others wind up uninsured due to a different array of changes: moving to a different state, getting divorced or aging out of a parent’s plan after their 26th birthday.

And those who buy their own coverage may find that they can no longer afford the premiums. In 2024, average premiums on the individual market exceeded more than US$600 per month for many adults, even with subsidies.

Government-sponsored insurance programs can also leave you vulnerable to this predicament. The Senate is currently considering its own version of a tax-and-spending bill the House of Representatives passed in May that would make cuts and changes to Medicaid. If the provisions in the House bill are enacted, millions of Americans who get health insurance through Medicaid – a health insurance program jointly run by the federal government and the states that is mainly for people who have low incomes or disabilities – would lose their coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Medicaid was established in the 1960s, explains a scholar of the program’s history.

Consequences of becoming uninsured

Health insurance is more than a way to pay medical bills; it’s a doorway into the health care system itself. It connects people to health care providers who come to know their medical history, their medications and their personal circumstances.

When that door closes, the effects are immediate. Uninsured people are much less likely to have a usual source of care – typically a doctor or another primary care provider or clinic you know and trust. That relationship acts as a foundation for managing chronic conditions, staying current with preventive screenings and getting guidance when new symptoms arise.

Researchers have found that adults who go uninsured for even six months become significantly more likely to postpone care or forgo it altogether to save money. In practical terms, this means they’re less likely to be examined by someone who knows their medical history and can spot red flags early.

The Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law enacted during the Obama administration, made the number of Americans without insurance plummet. The share of people without insurance fell from 16% in 2010 to 7.7% in 2023.

The people who got insurance coverage, particularly those who were middle age, saw big improvements in their health.

Researching the results

In research that looked at data collected from 2014 to 2020, we followed what happened to 12,000 adults who were 50 or older and lived across the nation.

Our research team analyzed how their experiences changed when they lost, and sometimes later regained, a regular source of care during those six years.

Many of the participants in this study had multiple chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

The results were striking.

Those who didn’t see the same provider on a regular basis were far less likely to feel heard or respected by health care professionals. They had fewer medical appointments, filled fewer prescriptions and were less likely to follow through with recommended treatments.

Their health also deteriorated considerably over the six years. Their blood pressure and blood sugar levels rose, and they had more elevated indicators of kidney impairment compared with their counterparts who had regular care providers.

The longer they went without consistent health care, the worse these clinical markers became.

Warning signs

Preventive care is one of the best tools that both patients and their health care providers have to head off major health problems. This care includes screenings like cholesterol and blood pressure checks, mammograms, PAP smears and prostate exams, as well as routine vaccinations. But most people only get preventive care when they stay engaged with the health care system.

And that’s far more likely when you have stable and comprehensive health insurance coverage.

Our research team also examined what happened to preventive care based on whether the participants had a regular doctor. We found that those who kept seeing the same providers were almost three times more likely to get basic preventive services than those who did not.

Over time, these missed preventive care opportunities can add up to a big problem. They can turn what could have been a manageable issue into an emergency room visit or a long, expensive hospital stay.

For example, imagine a man in his 50s who no longer gets cholesterol screenings after losing insurance coverage. Over several years, his undiagnosed high cholesterol leads to a heart attack that could have been prevented with early medication. Or a woman who skips mammograms because of out-of-pocket costs, only to face a late-stage cancer diagnosis that might have been caught years earlier.

Waiting too long to deal with a health condition can mean you make a trip to the emergency room, increasing the cost of care for you and others.
FS Productions/Tetra images via Getty Images

Shifting the costs

Patients whose conditions take too long to be diagnosed aren’t the only ones who pay the price.

We also studied how stable care relationships affect health care spending. To do this, we linked Medicare claims cost data to our original study and tracked the medical costs of the same adults age 50 and older from 2014 to 2020. One of our key findings is that people with regular care providers were 38% less likely to incur above-average health care costs.

These savings aren’t just for patients – they ripple through the entire health care system. Primary care stability lowers costs for both public and private health insurers and, ultimately, for taxpayers.

But when people lose their health care coverage, those savings disappear.

Emergency rooms see more uninsured patients seeking care that could have been handled earlier and more cheaply in a clinic or doctor’s office. While hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, much of the resulting cost goes unreimbursed.

Hospitals foot the bill for about two-thirds of those losses. They pass the other third along to private insurance companies through higher hospital fees. Those insurers, in turn, raise their customers’ premiums. Larger taxpayer subsidies can then be required to keep hospitals open.

Seeing Medicaid as a lifeline

For the nearly 80 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the program provides more than coverage.

It contributes to the health care stability our research shows is critical for good health. Medicaid makes it possible for many Americans with serious medical conditions to have a regular doctor, get routine preventive services and have someone to turn to when symptoms arise – even when they have low incomes. It helps prevent health care from becoming purely crisis-driven.

As Congress considers cutting Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars, we believe that lawmakers should realize that scaling back coverage would break the fragile links between millions of patients and the providers who know them best.

Jane Tavares receives funding from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging, and Milbank Memorial Fund .

Marc Cohen receives funding from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging and Milbank Memorial Fund .

– ref. When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health – https://theconversation.com/when-you-lose-your-health-insurance-you-may-also-lose-your-primary-doctor-and-that-hurts-your-health-258380

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Work requirements are better at blocking benefits for low-income people than they are at helping those folks find jobs

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Anne Whitesell, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Miami University

Meeting work requirements to get government benefits can lead to burdensome paperwork. JackF/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Republican lawmakers have been battling over a bill that includes massive tax and spending cuts. Much of their disagreement has been over provisions intended to reduce the cost of Medicaid.

The popular health insurance program, which is funded by both the federal and state governments, covers about 78.5 million low-income and disabled people – more than 1 in 5 Americans.

On May 22, 2025, the House of Representatives narrowly approved the tax, spending and immigration bill. The legislation, which passed without any support from Democrats, is designed to reduce federal Medicaid spending by requiring anyone enrolled in the program who appears to be able to get a job to either satisfy work requirements or lose their coverage. It’s still unclear, however, whether Senate Republicans would support that provision.

Although there are few precedents for such a mandate for Medicaid, other safety net programs have been enforcing similar rules for nearly three decades. I’m a political scientist who has extensively studied the work requirements of another safety net program: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

As I explain in my book, “Living Off the Government? Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare,” work requirements place extra burdens on low-income families but do little to lift them out of poverty.

Work requirements for TANF

TANF gives families with very low incomes some cash they can spend on housing, food, clothing or whatever they need most. The Clinton administration launched it as a replacement for a similar program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in 1996. At the time, both political parties were eager to end a welfare system they believed was riddled with abuse. A big goal with TANF was ending the dependence of people getting cash benefits on the government by moving them from welfare to work.

Many people were removed from the welfare rolls, but not because work requirements led to economic prosperity. Instead, they had trouble navigating the bureaucratic demands.

TANF is administered by the states. They can set many rules of their own, but they must comply with an important federal requirement: Adult recipients have to work or engage in an authorized alternative activity for at least 30 hours per week. The number of weekly hours is only 20 if the recipient is caring for a child under the age of 6.

The dozen activities or so that can count toward this quota range from participating in job training programs to engaging in community service.

Some adults enrolled in TANF are exempt from work requirements, depending on their state’s own policies. The most common exemptions are for people who are ill, have a disability or are over age 60.

To qualify for TANF, families must have dependent children; in some states pregnant women also qualify. Income limits are set by the state and range from US$307 a month for a family of three in Alabama to $2,935 a month for a family of three in Minnesota.

Adult TANF recipients face a federal five-year lifetime limit on benefits. States can adopt shorter time limits; Arizona’s is 12 months.

An administrative burden

Complying with these work requirements generally means proving that you’re working or making the case that you should be exempt from this mandate. This places what’s known as an “administrative burden” on the people who get cash assistance. It often requires lots of documentation and time. If you have an unpredictable work schedule, inconsistent access to child care or obligations to care for an older relative, this paperwork is hard to deal with.

What counts as work, how many hours must be completed and who is exempt from these requirements often comes down to a caseworker’s discretion. Social science research shows that this discretion is not equally applied and is often informed by stereotypes.

The number of people getting cash assistance has fallen sharply since TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children. In some states caseloads have dropped by more than 50% despite significant population growth.

Some of this decline happened because recipients got jobs that paid them too much to qualify. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan office that provides economic research to Congress, attributes, at least in part, an increase in employment among less-educated single mothers in the 1990s to work requirements.

Not everyone who stopped getting cash benefits through TANF wound up employed, however. Other recipients who did not meet requirements fell into deep poverty.

Regardless of why people leave the program, when fewer low-income Americans get TANF benefits, the government spends less money on cash assistance. Federal funding has remained flat at $16.5 billion since 1996. Taking inflation into account, the program receives half as much funding as when it was created. In addition, states have used the flexibility granted them to direct most of their TANF funds to priorities other than cash benefits, such as pre-K education.

Many Americans who get help paying for groceries through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are also subject to work requirements. People the government calls “able-bodied adults without dependents” can only receive SNAP benefits for three months within a three-year period if they are not employed.

A failed experiment in Arkansas

Lawmakers in Congress and in statehouses have debated whether to add work requirements for Medicaid before. More than a dozen states have applied for waivers that would let them give it a try.

When Arkansas instituted Medicaid work requirements in 2018, during the first Trump administration, it was largely seen as a failure. Some 18,000 people lost their health care coverage, but employment rates did not increase.

After a court order stopped the policy in 2019, most people regained their coverage.

Georgia is currently the only state with Medicaid work requirements in effect, after implementing a waiver in July 2023. The program has experienced technical difficulties and has had trouble verifying work activities.

Other states, including Idaho, Indiana and Kentucky, are already asking the federal government to let them enforce Medicaid work requirements.

Then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks during a news conference in 2017, in Little Rock, Arkansas, calling for Medicaid work requirements.
AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo

What this may mean for Medicaid

The multitrillion-dollar bill the House passed 215-214 would introduce Medicaid work requirements nationwide by late 2026 for childless adults age 19 to 64, with some exemptions.

But most people covered by Medicaid in that age range are already working, and those who are not would likely be eligible for work requirement waivers. An analysis by KFF – a nonprofit that informs the public about health issues – shows that in 2023, 44% of Medicaid recipients were working full time and another 20% were working part time. In 2023, that was more than 16 million Americans.

About 20% of the American adults under 65 who are covered by Medicaid are not working due to illness or disability, or because of caregiving responsibilities, according to KFF. This includes both people caring for young children and those taking care of relatives with an illness or disability. In my own research, I read testimony from families seeking work exemptions because caregiving, including for children with disabilities, was a full-time job.

The rest of the adults under 65 with Medicaid coverage are not working because they are in school, are retired, cannot find work or have some other reason. It’s approximately 3.9 million Americans. Depending on what counts as “work,” they may be meeting any requirements that could be added to the program.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that introducing Medicaid work requirements would save around $300 billion over a decade. Given past experience with work requirements, it is unlikely those savings would come from Americans finding jobs.

My research suggests it’s more likely that the government would trim spending by taking away the health insurance of people eligible for Medicaid coverage who get tangled up in red tape.

This article was updated on May 22, 2025, with details about the House of Representatives’ passage of the budget bill.

Anne Whitesell is a 2024-2025 PRRI Public Fellow.

– ref. Work requirements are better at blocking benefits for low-income people than they are at helping those folks find jobs – https://theconversation.com/work-requirements-are-better-at-blocking-benefits-for-low-income-people-than-they-are-at-helping-those-folks-find-jobs-256839

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Critical minerals don’t belong in landfills – microwave tech offers a cleaner way to reclaim them from e-waste

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Terence Musho, Associate Professor of Engineering, West Virginia University

Broken electronics still contain valuable critical minerals. Beeldbewerking/iStock/Getty Images Plus

When the computer or phone you’re using right now blinks its last blink and you drop it off for recycling, do you know what happens?

At the recycling center, powerful magnets will pull out steel. Spinning drums will toss aluminum into bins. Copper wires will get neatly bundled up for resale. But as the conveyor belt keeps rolling, tiny specks of valuable, lesser-known materials such as gallium, indium and tantalum will be left behind.

Those tiny specks are critical materials. They’re essential for building new technology, and they’re in short supply in the U.S. They could be reused, but there’s a problem: Current recycling methods make recovering critical minerals from e-waste too costly or hazardous, so many recyclers simply skip them.

Sadly, most of these hard-to-recycle materials end up buried in landfills or get mixed into products like cement. But it doesn’t have to be this way. New technology is starting to make a difference.

A treasure trove of critical materials is often overlooked in e-waste, including gallium in LEDs, indium in LCDs, and tantalum in surface mount capacitors.
Ansan Pokharel/West Virginia University, CC BY

As demand for these critical materials keeps growing, discarded electronics can become valuable resources. My colleagues and I at West Virginia University are developing a new technology to change how we recycle. Instead of using toxic chemicals, our approach uses electricity, making it safer, cleaner and more affordable to recover critical materials from electronics.

How much e-waste are we talking about?

Americans generated about 2.7 million tons of electronic waste in 2018, according to the latest federal data. Including uncounted electronics, a survey by the United Nations suggests that the U.S. recycles only about 15% of its total e-waste.

Even worse, nearly half the electronics that people in Northern America sent to recycling centers end up shipped overseas. They often land in scrapyards, where workers may use dangerous methods like burning or leaching using harsh chemicals to pull out valuable metals. These practices can harm both the environment and workers’ health. That’s why the Environmental Protection Agency restricts these methods in the U.S.

The tiny specks matter

Critical minerals are in most of the technology around you. Every phone screen has a super-thin layer of a material called indium tin oxide. LEDs glow because of a metal called gallium. Tantalum stores energy in tiny electronic parts called capacitors.

All of these materials are flagged as “high risk” on the U.S. Department of Energy’s critical materials list. That means the U.S. relies heavily on these materials for important technologies, but their supply could be easily disrupted by conflicts, trade disputes or shortages.

Right now, just a few countries, including China, control most of the mining, processing and recovery of these materials, making the U.S. vulnerable if those countries decide to limit exports or raise prices.

These materials aren’t cheap, either. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that gallium was priced between US$220 to $500 per kilogram in 2024. That’s 50 times more expensive than common metals like copper, at $9.48 per kilogram in 2024.

Revolutionizing recycling with microwaves

At West Virginia University’s Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering, I and materials scientist Edward Sabolsky asked a simple question: Could we find a way to heat only specific parts of electronic waste to recover these valuable materials?

If we could focus the heat on just the tiny specks of critical minerals, we might be able to recycle them easily and efficiently.

The solution we found: microwaves.

This equipment isn’t very different from the microwave ovens you use to heat food at home, just bigger and more powerful. The basic science is the same – electromagnetic waves cause electrons to oscillate, creating heat.

In our approach, though, we’re not heating water molecules like you do when cooking. Instead, we heat carbon, the black residue that collects around a candle flame or car tailpipe. Carbon heats up much faster in a microwave than water does. But don’t try this at home; your kitchen microwave wasn’t designed for such high temperatures.

West Virginia University researchers are using this experimental microwave reactor to recycle critical materials from end-of-life electronics.
Ansan Pokharel/West Virginia University, CC BY

In our recycling method, we first shred the electronic waste, mix it with materials called fluxes that trap impurities, and then heat the mixture with microwaves. The microwaves rapidly heat the carbon that comes from the plastics and adhesives in the e-waste. This causes the carbon to react with the tiny specks of critical materials. The result: a tiny piece of pure, sponge-like metal about the size of a grain of rice.

This metal can then be easily separated from leftover waste using filters.

So far, in our laboratory tests, we have successfully recovered about 80% of the gallium, indium and tantalum from e-waste, at purities between 95% and 97%. We have also demonstrated how it can be integrated with existing recycling processes.

Why the Department of Defense is interested

Our recycling technology got its start with help from a program funded by the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Many important technologies, from radar systems to nuclear reactors, depend on these special materials. While the Department of Defense uses less of them than the commercial market, they are a national security concern.

We’re planning to launch larger pilot projects next to test the method on smartphone circuit boards, LED lighting parts and server cards from data centers. These tests will help us fine-tune the design for a bigger system that can recycle tons of e-waste per hour instead of just a few pounds. That could mean producing up to 50 pounds of these critical minerals per hour from every ton of e-waste processed.

If the technology works as expected, we believe this approach could help meet the nation’s demand for critical materials.

How to make e-waste recycling common

One way e-waste recycling could become more common is if Congress held electronics companies responsible for recycling their products and recovering the critical materials inside. Closing loopholes that allow companies to ship e-waste overseas, instead of processing it safely in the U.S., could also help build a reserve of recovered critical minerals.

But the biggest change may come from simple economics. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials.

Terence Musho has received funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

– ref. Critical minerals don’t belong in landfills – microwave tech offers a cleaner way to reclaim them from e-waste – https://theconversation.com/critical-minerals-dont-belong-in-landfills-microwave-tech-offers-a-cleaner-way-to-reclaim-them-from-e-waste-254908

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Public health and private equity: What the Walgreens buyout could mean for the future of pharmacy care

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Patrick Aguilar, Professor of Practice of Organizational Behavior, Washington University in St. Louis

Pharmacies are more than just stores – they’re vital links between people and their health care.

One of us, Patrick, witnessed this firsthand in 2003 while working as a pharmacy technician at Walgreens in a midsize West Texas town. Each day involved handling hundreds of prescriptions as they moved through the system – meticulously counting pills, deciphering doctors’ handwriting and sorting out confusing insurance issues. The experience revealed that how pharmacies are owned and managed is as much a public health issue as it is a financial one.

Fast-forward to today, and Walgreens – one of the world’s largest pharmacy chains, which filled nearly 800 million U.S. prescriptions in 2024 – is at a turning point. In March, the company announced it would be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for US$10 billion, just 10% of its peak market value. That deal takes the storied pharmacy chain off the public market for the first time in nearly 100 years.

We’re professors who study the intersection of medicine and business, and we think this deal offers a window into the future of pharmacy care. It matters not just to pharmacists but also to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on outlets like Walgreens to meet their everyday health needs.

The rise and struggles of Walgreens

A lot has changed in the pharmacy industry since 1901, when Charles R. Walgreen Sr. purchased the Chicago drugstore where he served as a pharmacist. The company went public in 1927, expanded rapidly throughout the 20th century and grew to 8,000 stores by 2013. By 2014, a merger with the European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots made Walgreens one of the largest pharmacy chains in the world.

More recently, however, the picture for the pharmacy industry hasn’t been so rosy. Labor costs have risen. Front-end retail sales – things like snacks, greeting cards and cosmetics – have fallen. And financial pressures from pharmacy benefit managers – those third-party groups that manage the cost of prescription drug benefits on the behalf of insurers – have grown.

All of these things have significantly constrained revenues across the industry, leading stores to shutter. Some estimates suggest that as many as one-third of U.S. retail pharmacies have closed since 2010.

Against that backdrop, Sycamore Partners’ March acquisition of Walgreens raises big questions. What does Sycamore see in this investment, and what might their strategies imply about the future of American pharmacy care?

Framing the private equity bet

Private equity firms typically buy companies, streamline their operations and seek to sell them for a profit within five to seven years of the acquisition.

This growing movement of private equity into the global economy is by no means limited to health care. In 2020, private equity firms employed 11.7 million U.S. workers, or about 7% of the country’s total workforce. The total assets under management by such investors have grown by over 11% annually over the past two decades, a trend that’s expected to continue.

In looking at Walgreens, Sycamore, like many of these businesses, likely sees an opportunity to buy low, cut costs and improve profitability. One survey of private equity investors found that the most common self-reported sources of value creation in these deals for companies of Sycamore’s size were changing the product and marketing it more robustly to drive demand, changing incentives for those within the business, and facilitating a high-value exit.

While private owners may have more patience than public markets, critics argue that private equity firms tend to have a short-term focus, looking for quick, predictable services of margin improvement – like, for example, cutting jobs.

There’s some evidence in favor of that claim. One study found that employment often drops in the years following a private equity buyout. And if the focus shifts to repaying debt or prepping for resale, long-term projects, such as investing in future innovation, can get deprioritized.

The history of privatized public companies offers a mix of successes and failures. Dell Technologies and hotel chain Hilton are two prominent examples of companies that went private, restructured successfully and came back stronger. In those cases, going private helped management focus without the constant pressure of quarterly earnings reports.

On the other hand, companies such as Toys R Us, which was taken private in 2005 and filed for bankruptcy in 2018, show how high debt and missed innovation can lead to collapse.

What’s next for Walgreens

So, where does this leave Walgreens − and the investors involved in the deal?

If part of the returns will be driven by “buying low” – the easiest indicator of potential future success to measure as of today – Sycamore started well: Its purchase price represents a mere 8% premium over the market trading value on the day of the announcement, significantly less than the 46% seen across industries in 2023. That said, Sycamore financed 83.4% of the purchase with debt, a number on the high end for these kinds of transactions. Health care groups have pointed to this number while raising concerns that innovation-focused investments may take a back seat to debt obligations.

As the dust settles on the purchase, Sycamore has indicated an interest in splitting Walgreens into three business units: one focused on U.S. pharmacies, one on U.K. pharmacies and one on U.S. primary health care through its VillageMD subsidiary.

That’s not unusual: Sycamore has used a similar approach before with its investment in the office supply retailer Staples, a strategy that has garnered strong financial returns but been called into question for its long-term sustainability.

Given the significant financial challenges VillageMD has faced since its acquisition by Walgreens, this represents an opportunity to separately evaluate and optimize its performance. Meanwhile, Sycamore’s historic focus on retail and customer-focused businesses might help it modernize the in-store experience or optimize staffing.

For more than a century, Walgreens has survived and adapted to sweeping changes in retail. Now, it’s entering a new chapter – one that could reshape not just its own future but the role of pharmacies in American life.

Will Sycamore help Walgreens thrive, using its resources to strengthen services and deliver more value to customers? Or will pressure to generate quick returns create problems? Either way, the answer matters – not just for investors but for anyone who’s ever relied on their neighborhood pharmacy to stay healthy.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Public health and private equity: What the Walgreens buyout could mean for the future of pharmacy care – https://theconversation.com/public-health-and-private-equity-what-the-walgreens-buyout-could-mean-for-the-future-of-pharmacy-care-253598

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: US bombs Iran’s nuclear sites: What led to Trump pulling the trigger – and what happens next?

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

US President Donald Trump addresses the nation on Iran strikes on June 21, 2025 Carlos Barria/AFP via Getty Images

In the early hours of June 22, 2025, local time, the United States attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran with “bunker buster” bombs and Tomahawk missiles.

Following more than a week of Israeli strikes on various targets in Iran – which had prompted retaliatory strikes from Tehran – the U.S. move marks a possible inflection point in the conflict. In initial comments on the strikes at the Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz facilities, President Donald Trump said that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and fully obliterated.” In response, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. had “crossed a very big red line.”

The Conversation U.S. turned to Javed Ali, an expert on Middle East affairs at the University of Michigan and a former senior official at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, to talk through why Trump chose now to act and what the potential repercussions could be.

What do we know about the nature and timing of US involvement?

President Trump has been forcefully hinting for days days that such a strike could happen, while at the same time opening up a window of negotiation by suggesting as late as June 20 that he would make a decision “within the next two weeks.” We know Trump can be very unpredictable, but he must have assessed that the current conditions presented an opportunity for U.S. action.

Trump met with the National Security Council twice in the days leading up to the strike. Typically at such meetings the president is presented with a menu of military options, which usually boil down to three: a narrow option, a middle ground and a “if you really want to go big” strike.

The one he picked, I would argue, is somewhere between the narrow option and the middle ground one.

The “go big” options would have been an attack on nuclear sites and Iranian leadership – be that senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, or possibly the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The more narrow approach would have been just one facility, likely to have been Fordo – a deeply fortified uranium enrichment site buried within a mountain.

What did occur was a strike there, but also at two other sites – Isfahan and Natanz.

U.S. military chiefs confirmed that that 12 GBU-57s – the so-called 30,000-pound bunker busters – were dropped by B-2 bombers on Fordo, and two on Isfahan.

That suggests to me that the military goal of the operation was to destroy Iran’s ability to produce and or store highly enriched uranium in a one-time strike rather than drag the U.S. into a more prolonged conflict.

Has the strike achieved Trump’s objectives?

It will take some time to properly assess the extent to which Iran’s ability to produce or store highly enriched uranium has been damaged.

Certainly we know that the bombs hit their targets, and they have been damaged – but to what extent is not immediately clear. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that all three target sites had suffered “extremely severe damage and destruction” – possibly rolling back from Trump’s “fully obliterated” assessment. Perhaps most tellingly, Iran has not commented yet on the extent of the damage.

But to Trump, the objective was not just military but political, too. Trump has long said “no” to a nuclear Iran while at the same time has expressed that he has no desire to drag the U.S. into another war.

And this strike may allow Trump to achieve those seemingly contradictory goals. If U.S. initial assessments are correct, Iran’s nuclear program will have been severely compromised. But the strikes won’t necessarily pull U.S. into the conflict fully – unless Iran retaliates in such a way that necessitates further U.S. action.

And that is what Iran’s supreme leader and his military generals will need to work out: Should Iran retaliate and, if so, is it prepared to deal with a heavier U.S. military response – especially when there is no end in sight to its current conflict with Israel.

An operational timeline of a strike on Iran is displayed during a news conference with U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on June 22, 2025.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

What options does Iran have to retaliate against US?

Iran has in the past tried to respond proportionately to any attack. But here is the problem for Iran’s leaders: There is no feasible proportionate response to the United States. Iran has no capability to hit nuclear plants in the U.S. – either conventionally or through unconventional warfare.

But there are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the region, stationed in Iraq, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Jordan. All are in range of Iran’s ballistic, drones or cruise missiles.

But that military inventory has been depleted – both by using ballistic missiles in waves of attacks against Israel and by Israel hitting missile launch and storage sites in Iran.

Similarly, Tehran’s capacity to respond through one of its proxy or aligned groups in the region has been degraded. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Gaza’s Hamas – both of whom have ties to Iran – are in survival mode following damaging attacks from Israel over the past 18 months.

The Houthis in Yemen are in many ways the “last man standing” in Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.” But the Houthis have limited capability and know that if they do attack U.S. assets, they will likely get hit hard. During Operation Rough Rider from March to May this year, the Trump administration launched over 1,000 strikes against the Houthis.

Meanwhile Shia militias in Iraq and Syria that could be encouraged to attack U.S. bases haven’t been active in months.

Of course, Iran could look outside the region. In the past the country has been involved in assassinations, kidnappings and terror attacks abroad that were organized through its Quds Force or via operatives of MOIS, its intelligence service.

But for Iran’s leaders, it is increasingly looking like a lose-lose proposition. If they don’t respond in a meaningful way, they look weak and more vulnerable. But if they do hit U.S. targets in any meaningful way, they will invite a stronger U.S. involvement in the conflict, as Trump has warned.

The parallel I see here is with the killing of Iranian general and commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020 by a U.S. drone strike.

On that occasion, Iran promised a strong retaliation. Its retaliatory attack against the U.S. Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq involved 27 ballistic missiles and caused the physical destruction of some of the facilities on base as well as traumatic brain injury-type symptoms to dozens of troops and personnel, but no deaths. Nevertheless, after this both the U.S. and Iran then backed off from deepening the conflict.

The circumstances now are very different. Iran is already at war with Israel. Moreover, the U.S. went after Iran’s crown jewels – its nuclear program – and it was on Iranian territory. Nonetheless, Khameini knows that if he retaliates, he risks provoking a larger response.

Trump suggested ‘further attacks’ could occur. What could that entail?

The U.S. has suggested that it has the intelligence and ability to hit senior leadership in Iran. And any “go big option” would have likely involved strikes on key personnel. Similarly there could be plans to hit the Iranian economy by attacking oil and gas targets.

A satellite image of the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran prior to the U.S. strike on June 22, 2025.
Maxar/Getty

But such actions risk either damaging the global economy or drawing the U.S. deeper into the conflict – it would evolve from a “one and done” strike to a cycle of attacks and responses. And that could widen political cracks between hawks in the administration and parts of Trump’s MAGA faithful who are against the U.S. being involved in overseas wars.

Is there any opportunity of a return to diplomacy?

Trump has not closed his “two weeks” window for talks – theoretically it is still open.

But will Iran come to table? Leaders there had already said they were not willing to entertain any deal while under attack from Israel. Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said after the U.S. strikes that the time for diplomacy had now passed.

In any event, you have to ask, what can Iran come to the table with? Do they have much of a nuclear program anymore? And if not, what would they try to negotiate? It would seem, using one of Trump’s phrases, they “don’t have the cards” to make much of a deal.

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

– ref. US bombs Iran’s nuclear sites: What led to Trump pulling the trigger – and what happens next? – https://theconversation.com/us-bombs-irans-nuclear-sites-what-led-to-trump-pulling-the-trigger-and-what-happens-next-259519

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Harvard fights to keep enrolling international students – 4 essential reads about their broader impact

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Corey Mitchell, Education Editor

Graduates of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government celebrate during commencement exercises in Cambridge, Mass. AP Photo/Steven Senne, File

A federal judge in Boston on May 23, 2025, temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have revoked Harvard University’s authorization to enroll international students.

The directive from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and resulting lawsuit from Harvard have escalated the ongoing conflict between the Trump administration and the Ivy League institution.

It’s also the latest step in a White House campaign to ramp up vetting and screening of foreign nationals, including students.

Homeland Security officials accused Harvard of creating a hostile campus climate by accommodating “anti-American” and “pro-terrorist agitators.” The accusation stems from the university’s alleged support for certain political groups and their activities on campus.

In early April, the Trump administration terminated the immigration statuses of thousands of international students listed in a government database, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. The database includes country of citizenship, which U.S. school they attend and what they study.

Barring Harvard from enrolling international students could have significant implications for the campus’s climate and the local economy. International students account for 27% of the university’s enrollment.

Here are four stories from The Conversation’s archive about the Trump administration’s battle with Harvard and the economic impact of international students.

1. A target on Harvard

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has targeted the university.

The White House has threatened to end the university’s tax-exempt status, and some media outlets have reported that the Internal Revenue Service is taking steps in that direction.

But it is illegal to revoke an entity’s tax-emempt status “on a whim,” according to Philip Hackney, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, and Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor at Ohio State University.

“Before the IRS can do that, tax law requires that it first audit that charity,” they wrote. “And it’s illegal for U.S. presidents or other officials to force the IRS to conduct an audit or stop one that’s already begun.”

Several U.S. senators, all Democrats, have urged the IRS inspector general to see whether the IRS has begun auditing Harvard or any nonprofits in response to the administration’s requests or whether Trump has violated any laws with his pressure campaign.

Hackney and Mittendorf wrote that the Trump administration’s moves are part of a larger push to exert control over Harvard, including its efforts to increase its diversity and its response to claims of discrimination on campus.

Read more:
Can Trump strip Harvard of its charitable status? Scholars of nonprofit law and accounting describe the obstacles in his way

University of Michigan students on campus on April 3, 2025, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

2. International students help keep ‘America First’

The U.S. has long been the global leader in attracting international students. But competition for these students is increasing as other countries vie to attract the scholars.

In a recent story for The Conversation, David L. Di Maria, vice provost for global engagement at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, wrote that stepped-up screening and vetting of students could make the U.S. a less attractive study destination.

Di Maria wrote that such efforts could hamper the Trump administration’s ability to achieve its “America First” priorities related to the economy, science and technology, and national security.

Trump administration officials have emphasized the importance of recruiting top global talent. And Trump has said that international students who graduate from U.S. colleges should be awarded a green card with their degree.

Research shows that international students launch successful startups at a rate that is eight to nine times higher than their U.S.-born peers. Roughly 25% of billion-dollar companies in the U.S. were founded by former international students, Di Maria noted.

Read more:
Deporting international students risks making the US a less attractive destination, putting its economic engine at risk

3. A boost to local economies

Indeed, international students have a tremendous economic impact on local communities.

If these global scholars stay home or go elsewhere, that’s bad economic news for cities and towns across the United States, wrote Barnet Sherman, a professor of multinational finance and trade at Boston University.

With the money they spend on tuition, food, housing and other other items, international students pump money into the local economy, but there are additional benefits.

On average, a new job is created for every three international students enrolled in a U.S. college or university. In the 2023-24 academic year, about 378,175 jobs were created, Sherman wrote.

In Greater Boston, where Harvard is located, there are about 63,000 international students who contribute to the economy. The gains are huge – about US$3 billion.

Read more:
International students infuse tens of millions of dollars into local economies across the US. What happens if they stay home?

4. Rising number of international students

The rising number of foreign students studying in the U.S. has long led to concerns about U.S. students being displaced by international peers.

The unease is often fueled by the assumption that financial interests are driving the trend, Cynthia Miller-Idriss of American University and Bernhard Streitwieser of George Washington University wrote in a 2015 story for The Conversation.

A common claim, they wrote, is the flawed assumption that “cash-strapped public universities” aggressively recruit more affluent students from abroad who can afford to pay rising tuition costs. The pair wrote that, historically, shifting demographics on college campuses result from social and economic changes.

In today’s context, Miller-Idriss and Streitwieser maintain that the argument that colleges prioritize international students fails to account for the global role of U.S. universities, which help support national security, foster international development projects and accelerate the pace of globalization.

Read more:
Foreign students not a threat, but an advantage

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

– ref. Harvard fights to keep enrolling international students – 4 essential reads about their broader impact – https://theconversation.com/harvard-fights-to-keep-enrolling-international-students-4-essential-reads-about-their-broader-impact-257506

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Texas’ annual reading test adjusted its difficulty every year, masking whether students are improving

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jeanne Sinclair, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Millions of Americans take high-stakes exams every year. Caiaimage/Chris Ryan/iStock via Getty Images

Texas children’s performance on an annual reading test was basically flat from 2012 to 2021, even as the state spent billions of additional dollars on K-12 education.

I recently did a peer-reviewed deep dive into the test design documentation to figure out why the reported results weren’t showing improvement. I found the flat scores were at least in part by design. According to policies buried in the documentation, the agency administering the tests adjusted their difficulty level every year. As a result, roughly the same share of students failed the test over that decade regardless of how objectively better they performed relative to previous years.

From 2008 to 2014, I was a bilingual teacher in Texas. Most of my students’ families hailed from Mexico and Central America and were learning English as a new language. I loved seeing my students’ progress.

Yet, no matter how much they learned, many failed the end-of-year tests in reading, writing and math. My hunch was that these tests were unfair, but I could not explain why. This, among other things, prompted me to pursue a Ph.D. in education to better understand large-scale educational assessment.

Ten years later, in 2024, I completed a detailed exploration of Texas’s exam, currently known as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. I found an unexpected trend: The share of students who correctly answered each test question was extraordinarily steady across years. Where we would expect to see fluctuation from year to year, performance instead appears artificially flat.

The STAAR’s technical documents suggest that the test is designed much like a norm-referenced test – that is, assessing students relative to their peers, rather than if they meet a fixed standard. In other words, a norm-referenced test cannot tell us if students meet key, fixed criteria or grade-level standards set by the state.

In addition, norm-referenced tests are designed so that a certain share of students always fail, because success is gauged by one’s position on the “bell curve” in relation to other students. Following this logic, STAAR developers use practices like omitting easier questions and adjusting scores to cancel out gains due to better teaching.

Ultimately, the STAAR tests over this time frame – taken by students every year from grade 3 to grade 8 in language arts and math, and less frequently in science and social studies – were not designed to show improvement. Since the test seems designed to keep scores flat, it’s impossible to know for sure if a lack of expected learning gains following big increases in per-student spending was because the extra funds failed to improve teaching and learning, or simply because the test hid the improvements.

Why it matters

Ever since the federal education policy known as No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002 and tied students’ test performance to rewards and sanctions for schools, achievement testing has been a primary driver of public education in the United States.

Texas’ educational accountability system has been in place since 1980, and it is well known in the state that the stakes and difficulty of Texas’ academic readiness tests increase with each new version, which typically come out every five to 10 years. What the Texas public may not know is that the tests have been adjusted each and every year – at the expense of really knowing who should “pass” or “fail.”

The test’s design affects not just students but also schools and communities. High-stakes test scores determine school resources, the state’s takeover of school districts and accreditation of teacher education programs. Home values are even driven by local schools’ performance on high-stakes tests.

Students who are marginalized by racism, poverty or language have historically tended to underperform on standardized tests. I believe STAAR’s design makes this problem worse.

On May 28, 2025, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would eliminate the STAAR test and replace it with a different, shorter test or a norm-referenced test. As best as I can tell, this wouldn’t address the problems I uncovered in my research.

What still isn’t known

I plan to investigate if other states or the federal government use similarly designed tests to evaluate students.

My deep dive into Texas’ test focused on STAAR before its 2022 redevelopment. The latest iteration has changed the test format and question types, but there appears to be little change to the way the test is scored. Without substantive revisions to the scoring calculations “under the hood” of the STAAR test, it is likely Texas will continue to see flat performance.

This article was updated on May 31, 2025, to clarify some language and the type of data used in the chart, replace a link and add a comment from the Texas Education Agency.

The Texas Education Agency responded to a pre-publication request for comment after the piece was published. A spokesman refuted several of the scholar’s research conclusions, including that it behaved like a norm-referenced test. However, the scholar stands by them.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Jeanne Sinclair receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.

– ref. Texas’ annual reading test adjusted its difficulty every year, masking whether students are improving – https://theconversation.com/texas-annual-reading-test-adjusted-its-difficulty-every-year-masking-whether-students-are-improving-244159

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Our trans health study was terminated by the government – the effects of abrupt NIH grant cuts ripple across science and society

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jae A. Puckett, Associate Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University

Funding cuts to trans health research are part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to medically and legally restrict trans rights. AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

Given the Trump administration’s systematic attempts to medically and legally disenfranchise trans people, and its abrupt termination of grants focused on LGBTQ+ health, we can’t say that the notice of termination we received regarding our federally funded research on transgender and nonbinary people’s health was unexpected.

As researchers who study the experiences of trans and nonbinary people, we have collectively dedicated nearly 50 years of our scientific careers to developing ways to address the health disparities negatively affecting these communities. The National Institutes of Health had placed a call for projects on this topic, and we had successfully applied for their support for our four-year study on resilience in trans communities.

However, our project on trans health became one of the hundreds of grants that have been terminated on ideological grounds. The termination notice stated that the grant no longer fit agency priorities and claimed that this work was not based on scientific research.

Termination notice sent to the authors from the National Institutes of Health.
Jae A. Puckett and Paz Galupo, CC BY-ND

These grant terminations undermine decades of science on gender diversity by dismissing research findings and purging data. During Trump’s current term, the NIH’s Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office was dismantled, references to LGBTQ+ people were removed from health-related websites, and datasets were removed from public access.

The effects of ending research on trans health ripple throughout the scientific community, the communities served by this work and the U.S. economy.

Studying resilience

Research focused on the mental health of trans and nonbinary people has grown substantially in recent years. Over time, this work has expanded beyond understanding the hardships these communities face to also study their resilience and positive life experiences.

Resilience is often understood as an ability to bounce back from challenges. For trans and nonbinary people experiencing gender-based stigma and discrimination, resilience can take several forms. This might look like simply continuing to survive in a transphobic climate, or it might take the form of being a role model for other trans and nonbinary people.

As a result of gender-based stigma and discrimination, trans and nonbinary people experience a range of health disparities, from elevated rates of psychological distress to heightened risk for chronic health conditions and poor physical health. In the face of these challenges and growing anti-trans legislation in the U.S., we believe that studying resilience in these communities can provide insights into how to offset the harms of these stresses.

Studies show anti-trans legislation is harming the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth.

With the support of the NIH, we began our work in earnest in 2022. The project was built on many years of research from our teams preceding the grant. From the beginning, we collaborated with trans and nonbinary community members to ensure our research would be attuned to the needs of the community.

At the time our grant was terminated, we were nearing completion of Year 3 of our four-year project. We had collected data from over 600 trans and nonbinary participants across the U.S. and started to follow their progress over time. We had developed a new way to measure resilience among trans and nonbinary people and were about to publish a second measure specifically tailored to people of color.

The termination of our grant and others like it harms our immediate research team, the communities we worked with and the field more broadly.

Loss of scientific workforce

For many researchers in trans health, the losses from these cuts go beyond employment.

Our project had served as a training opportunity for the students and early career professionals involved in the study, providing them with the research experience and mentorship necessary to advance their careers. But with the termination of our funding, two full-time researchers and at least three students will lose their positions. The three lead scientists have lost parts of their salaries and dedicated research time.

These NIH cuts will likely result in the loss of much of the next generation of trans researchers and the contributions they would have made to science and society. Our team and other labs in similar situations will be less likely to work with graduate students due to a lack of available funding to pay and support them. This changes the landscape for future scientists, as it means there will be fewer opportunities for individuals interested in these areas of research to enter graduate training programs.

The Trump administration has directly penalized universities across the country for ‘ideological overreach.’
Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Getty Images

As universities struggle to address federal funding cuts, junior academics will be less likely to gain tenure, and faculty in grant-funded positions may lose their jobs. Universities may also become hesitant to hire people who work in these areas because their research has essentially been banned from federal funding options.

Loss of community trust

Trans and nonbinary people have often been studied under opportunistic and demeaning circumstances. This includes when researchers collect data for their own gains but return little to the communities they work with, or when they do research that perpetuates theories that pathologize those communities. As a result, many are often reluctant to participate in research.

To overcome this reluctance, we grounded our study on community input. We involved an advisory board composed of local trans and nonbinary community members who helped to inform how we conducted our study and measured our findings.

Our work on resilience has been inspired by feedback we received from previous research participants who said that “[trans people] matter even when not in pain.”

Abruptly terminating projects like these can break down trust between researchers and the populations they study.

Loss of scientific knowledge

Research that focuses on the strengths of trans and nonbinary communities is in its infancy. The termination of our grant has led to the loss of the insights our study would have provided on ways to improve health among trans and nonbinary people and future work that would have built off our findings. Resilience is a process that takes time to unfold, and we had not finished the longitudinal data collection in our study – nor will we have the protected time to publish and share other findings from this work.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services released a May 2025 report stating that there is not enough evidence to support gender-affirming care for young people, contradicting decades of scientific research. Scientists, researchers and medical professional organizations have widely criticized the report as misrepresenting study findings, dismissing research showing benefits to gender-affirming care, and promoting misinformation rejected by major medical associations. Instead, the report recommends “exploratory therapy,” which experts have likened to discredited conversion therapy.

Transgender and nonbinary people continue to exist, regardless of legislation.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Despite claims that there is insufficient research on gender-affirming care and more data is needed on the health of trans and nonbinary people, the government has chosen to divest from actual scientific research about trans and nonbinary people’s lives.

Loss of taxpayer dollars

The termination of our grant means we are no longer able to achieve the aims of the project, which depended on the collection and analysis of data over time. This wastes the three years of NIH funding already spent on the project.

Scientists and experts who participated in the review of our NIH grant proposal rated our project more highly than 96% of the projects we competed against. Even so, the government made the unscientific choice to override these decisions and terminate our work.

Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been invested in these grants to improve the health of not only trans and nonbinary people, but also American society as a whole. With the termination of these grants, few will get to see the benefits of this investment.

Jae A. Puckett has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Paz Galupo has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.

– ref. Our trans health study was terminated by the government – the effects of abrupt NIH grant cuts ripple across science and society – https://theconversation.com/our-trans-health-study-was-terminated-by-the-government-the-effects-of-abrupt-nih-grant-cuts-ripple-across-science-and-society-254021

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Older adults with dementia misjudge their financial skills – which may make them more vulnerable to fraud, new research finds

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ian McDonough, Associate Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Older adults generally have a good sense of their own financial abilities – unless they have dementia. shapecharge/E+ via Getty Images

Older adults diagnosed with dementia lose their ability to assess how well they manage their finances, according to a recent study I co-authored in The Gerontologist. In comparison, people of the same age who don’t have dementia are aware of their financial abilities – and this awareness improves over time.

For our study, we used data from over 2,000 adults in the U.S. age 65 and older, collected during a long-term study on aging.
We focused on how participants’ financial skills changed over time. The study began in 1998 and is still running, but we probed data collected between 1998 and 2009.

Participants were assessed at one year, two years, five years and 10 years for their ability to carry out everyday tasks, including ones that required handling money. For example, they had to calculate the cost of a gym membership and a store discount rate, fill out part of a tax return and assess the cost of medical services. They also rated how well they thought they could do everyday financial tasks. Initially, none of the participants were diagnosed with dementia, but over the course of the decade, 87 participants, or 3.1%, received a dementia diagnosis.

We found that even though participants’ performance on financial tasks declined as they aged, older adults who did not have dementia and older adults who had mild cognitive impairment were appropriately aware of their financial abilities. What’s more, that awareness increased over time. However, participants who were diagnosed with dementia during the study and experienced severe cognitive decline often misjudged how well they performed financial tasks.

Financial scams targeting older adults are on the rise.

The lack of insight into one’s cognitive abilities is called anosognosia. This study reveals a new type called financial anosognosia.

Why it matters

As people get older, their financial management skills start to deteriorate. The combination of a lifelong accumulation of wealth, declining financial abilities and a lack of awareness of those declines puts older adults at serious risk for financial scams.

Few tools are available that can support families in helping cognitively impaired adults manage their finances. Our research suggests that there is a critical window of time after people begin to experience cognitive decline during which they are still aware of their financial abilities. We believe that this is when people can take action to secure their finances and develop systems to protect themselves from fraud.

What still isn’t known

Close friends or family members are often tempted to take away the financial autonomy of an older adult who is mismanaging their finances. However, that may not be the best solution, particularly for people who feel that handling their finances is a core part of their identity. More research is needed to identify how best to balance personal autonomy and the need to protect a person’s finances.

What’s next

This study used paper-and-pencil tasks to assess financial performance. But increasingly, many older adults are using online banking.

E-banking simplifies many calculations, which may be helpful for older adults with declining cognition. However, e-banking can also make finances more of a black box, which may decrease a person’s awareness of their financial abilities. Furthermore, e-banking is constantly advancing, putting older adults at a disadvantage because they are more likely to be less cognitively flexible and to learn more slowly.

We hope to explore whether older adults with and without cognitive decline have similar awareness of their ability to appropriately manage their finances online and identify potential financial scams.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Ian McDonough receives funding from The National Institutes of Health.

– ref. Older adults with dementia misjudge their financial skills – which may make them more vulnerable to fraud, new research finds – https://theconversation.com/older-adults-with-dementia-misjudge-their-financial-skills-which-may-make-them-more-vulnerable-to-fraud-new-research-finds-256973

MIL OSI –

June 30, 2025
88 pc global firms now have dedicated AI budgets; focus shifts to intelligent agents: Report

Source: Government of India

Source: Government of India (4)

Nearly 88 per cent of global enterprises now have dedicated budgets for Artificial Intelligence (AI), with nearly two-thirds of them spending over 15 per cent of their overall tech budgets on AI projects, a new report said on Monday.

This major investment push marks a clear shift from early experimentation with Generative AI to building intelligent, goal-oriented systems known as AI agents, according to data compiled by Nasscom.

Titled ‘Enterprise Experiments with AI Agents – 2025 Global Trends,’ the report provides a comprehensive look at how companies across the globe are preparing for the next phase of AI adoption.

Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Nasscom, said that enterprises are at a crucial turning point.

“AI agents represent the next evolution of enterprise AI — one that requires philosophical shifts in how we view work, intelligence, and autonomy,” she said.

However, she also emphasised that scaling AI systems responsibly would require strong trust, data readiness, and continuous human oversight.

Based on responses from over 100 companies across 8–9 global regions and more than 10 industries, the study shows how enterprises are moving beyond passive data analysis to more active AI systems that can perform tasks and make decisions with human oversight.

The report shows that businesses are strengthening their AI foundation through investments in GenAI tools, data infrastructure, and flexible processes.

Many companies have already formed specialised AI teams and are working with advanced platforms, upgrading their tech setups to support the deployment of AI agents.

However, despite high awareness of Generative AI, only half of the surveyed companies are fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) or foundation models for their own needs.

One of the biggest highlights of the report is the growing interest in Agentic AI — systems designed to act independently while still being monitored by humans.

About 62 per cent of companies are experimenting with such AI agents, mainly for internal tasks such as IT operations, HR, and finance.

External uses, like customer service, are still limited, with only 31 per cent of enterprises using Agentic AI in those areas.

However, looking ahead, 88 per cent of companies plan to set aside budgets specifically for Agentic AI systems in 2025.

The report also reveals that most companies are being cautious. Around 77 per cent are designing Agentic AI systems with a ‘human-in-the-loop’ model to ensure oversight and adaptability.

Only 46 per cent are testing fully autonomous agents. Manufacturing companies appear to be ahead in adoption, using AI for robotics, quality control, and other operational areas.

When it comes to benefits, companies believe AI agents can help in making faster decisions and responding better to market changes, the report said.

(IANS)

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: INTERPOL releases new information on globalization of scam centres
Source: Interpol (news and events)
- Victims have been trafficked into criminality from more than 60 countries around the world
- West Africa is emerging as a potential regional hub for online scam centres
LYON, France: Human trafficking-fueled scam centres have expanded their global footprint, according to a new crime trend update released by INTERPOL.

As of March 2025, victims from 66 countries were trafficked into online scam centres, with no continent left untouched.

Seventy-four percent of human trafficking victims were brought to centres in the original ‘hub’ region of Southeast Asia, according to analysis of the crime trend using data from relevant INTERPOL Notices issued in the past five years.

However, online scam centres have increasingly been observed in other regions, including the Middle East, West Africa – which could be developing into a new regional hub – and Central America.

While approximately 90 percent of human trafficking facilitators were from Asia, 11 per cent were from South America or Africa.

Eighty per cent of facilitators were men, and 61 per cent were aged between 20 and 39 years old.

Global crisis

Initially concentrated in a handful of Southeast Asian countries, the centres are estimated to have drawn in hundreds of thousands of human trafficking victims, typically through false job ads, detaining them in compounds and forcing them to carry out online social engineering scams.

While not every person committing fraud in a scam centre is a victim of human trafficking, those held against their will are often subject to extortion through debt bondage, as well as beatings, sexual exploitation, torture and rape.

Online scams engineered by the centres target a second set of globally-dispersed victims, who often suffer debilitating financial and emotional damage.

Since 2023, INTERPOL has documented how this double-edged crime trend has evolved from a regional threat in Southeast Asia to a global crisis, issuing an Orange Notice to signal its serious and imminent threat to public safety.

In 2024, a global operation coordinated by INTERPOL uncovered dozens of cases in which trafficking victims were deceived and coerced into committing fraud, with national police officers raiding an industrial-scale scam centre in the Philippines.

In the same year, an INTERPOL operation saw police dismantle a scam centre in Namibia, where 88 youths were forced to conduct scams.

Growing use of AI

The INTERPOL update also highlights how emerging technologies and convergence with other major crime areas could transform human trafficking-fueled scam centres as the crime trend continues to evolve.

The use of artificial intelligence has been observed in a growing number of scamming cases.

AI has been used to develop convincing fake job ads that attract human trafficking victims as well as generate online photos or profiles through ‘deepfake’ technology for sextortion and romance scams, among other social engineering schemes.

Moreover, reports analysed by INTERPOL show that the same routes used to traffic victims to scam centres can be used to traffic drugs, firearms and protected wildlife species.

The areas where scam centres have emerged in Southeast Asia are also key hubs for the trafficking of endangered species such as tigers or pangolins, making criminal diversification likely.

Cyril Gout, Acting Executive Director of Police Services at INTERPOL, said:

“The reach of online scam centres spans the globe and represents a dynamic and persistent global challenge.”

“Tackling this rapidly globalizing threat requires a coordinated international response. We must increase the exchange of information between law enforcement in the growing number of countries affected and strengthen partnerships with NGOs that help victims and technology companies whose platforms are being exploited.”

MIL Security OSI –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: INTERPOL launches our new external newsletter, INTERPOL Spotlight!

Source: Interpol (news and events)

Issue 1 is out now and focuses on how we are fighting back against organized crime.

INTERPOL Spotlight breaks down how transnational law enforcement forms the bedrock of global security, safeguarding people and the planet we live on, and supporting economic development. In it, we showcase how INTERPOL is uniquely placed to coordinate the global law enforcement response to meeting these challenges, through real-life examples of how we and our partners are working to make it a reality.

INTERPOL Spotlight highlights INTERPOL’s work through feature articles and news, with an Editorial from Secretary General, Valdecy Urquiza

INTERPOL Spotlight highlights INTERPOL’s work through feature articles and news, with an Editorial from Secretary General, Valdecy Urquiza

INTERPOL Spotlight highlights INTERPOL’s work through feature articles and news, with an Editorial from Secretary General, Valdecy Urquiza

INTERPOL Spotlight highlights INTERPOL’s work through feature articles and news, with an Editorial from Secretary General, Valdecy Urquiza

The June edition puts the spotlight on our fight against organized crime, with articles on how we are disrupting the criminal networks that increasingly threaten our shared future by plundering our planet, how we work hand in hand with our member countries to stop organized crime groups from exploiting new illicit markets, or how our new Silver Notice targets their illegal financial gains across borders.

If you’d like to learn more about that and more, sign up to INTERPOL Spotlight here and access our expertise from your inbox.

MIL Security OSI –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI: Qifu Technology Announces Results of Annual General Meeting
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SHANGHAI, China, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Qifu Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: QFIN; HKEx: 3660) (“Qifu Technology” or the “Company”), a leading AI-empowered Credit-Tech platform in China, today announced that the following proposed resolutions submitted for shareholder approval have been duly adopted at its annual general meeting of shareholders held today:
1. as a special resolution, THAT, the English name of the Company be changed from “Qifu Technology, Inc.” to “Qfin Holdings, Inc.”;
2. as a special resolution, THAT, the Third Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Company currently in effect be amended and restated by the deletion in their entirety and by the substitution in their place of the Fourth Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association in the form attached as Appendix I to the Notice of the Annual General Meeting;
3. as an ordinary resolution, THAT, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP shall be re-appointed as the auditor of the Company to hold office until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting of the Company and to authorize the Board to fix their remuneration for the year ending December 31, 2025; and
4. as an ordinary resolution, THAT, Mr. Xiangge Liu shall be re-elected as a director of the Company at the Annual General Meeting and retain office until his retirement pursuant to the Company’s memorandum and articles of association.
About Qifu Technology

Qifu Technology is a leading AI-empowered Credit-Tech platform in China. By leveraging its sophisticated machine learning models and data analytics capabilities, the Company provides a comprehensive suite of technology services to assist financial institutions and consumers and SMEs in the loan lifecycle, ranging from borrower acquisition, preliminary credit assessment, fund matching and post-facilitation services. The Company is dedicated to making credit services more accessible and personalized to consumers and SMEs through Credit-Tech services to financial institutions.

For more information, please visit: https://ir.qifu.tech.

Safe Harbor Statement

Any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates” and similar statements. Among other things, the business outlook and quotations from management in this announcement, as well as the Company’s strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Qifu Technology may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), in announcements made on the website of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the “Hong Kong Stock Exchange”), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including the Company’s business outlook, beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, which factors include but not limited to the following: the Company’s growth strategies, changes in laws, rules and regulatory environments, the recognition of the Company’s brand, market acceptance of the Company’s products and services, trends and developments in the credit-tech industry, governmental policies relating to the credit-tech industry, general economic conditions in China and around the globe, and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in Qifu Technology’s filings with the SEC and announcements on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Qifu Technology does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

For more information, please contact:

Qifu Technology
E-mail: ir@qfin.com

The MIL Network –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI: Qifu Technology Announces Results of Annual General Meeting
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SHANGHAI, China, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Qifu Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: QFIN; HKEx: 3660) (“Qifu Technology” or the “Company”), a leading AI-empowered Credit-Tech platform in China, today announced that the following proposed resolutions submitted for shareholder approval have been duly adopted at its annual general meeting of shareholders held today:
1. as a special resolution, THAT, the English name of the Company be changed from “Qifu Technology, Inc.” to “Qfin Holdings, Inc.”;
2. as a special resolution, THAT, the Third Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Company currently in effect be amended and restated by the deletion in their entirety and by the substitution in their place of the Fourth Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association in the form attached as Appendix I to the Notice of the Annual General Meeting;
3. as an ordinary resolution, THAT, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP shall be re-appointed as the auditor of the Company to hold office until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting of the Company and to authorize the Board to fix their remuneration for the year ending December 31, 2025; and
4. as an ordinary resolution, THAT, Mr. Xiangge Liu shall be re-elected as a director of the Company at the Annual General Meeting and retain office until his retirement pursuant to the Company’s memorandum and articles of association.
About Qifu Technology

Qifu Technology is a leading AI-empowered Credit-Tech platform in China. By leveraging its sophisticated machine learning models and data analytics capabilities, the Company provides a comprehensive suite of technology services to assist financial institutions and consumers and SMEs in the loan lifecycle, ranging from borrower acquisition, preliminary credit assessment, fund matching and post-facilitation services. The Company is dedicated to making credit services more accessible and personalized to consumers and SMEs through Credit-Tech services to financial institutions.

For more information, please visit: https://ir.qifu.tech.

Safe Harbor Statement

Any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates” and similar statements. Among other things, the business outlook and quotations from management in this announcement, as well as the Company’s strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Qifu Technology may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), in announcements made on the website of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the “Hong Kong Stock Exchange”), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including the Company’s business outlook, beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, which factors include but not limited to the following: the Company’s growth strategies, changes in laws, rules and regulatory environments, the recognition of the Company’s brand, market acceptance of the Company’s products and services, trends and developments in the credit-tech industry, governmental policies relating to the credit-tech industry, general economic conditions in China and around the globe, and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in Qifu Technology’s filings with the SEC and announcements on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Qifu Technology does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

For more information, please contact:

Qifu Technology
E-mail: ir@qfin.com

The MIL Network –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI: Karolinska Development divests shares in portfolio company OssDsign
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, June 30, 2025. Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) divests its remaining shares in the portfolio company OssDsign and thereby strengthens the investment company’s liquidity. The divestments brings Karolinska Development a capital injection of approximately SEK 34.5 million.

Karolinska Development has been a long-term owner of OssDsign and was involved in the listing of the company on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Stockholm in 2019.

“We have been on a long journey with OssDsign and supported the company through several important stages. In recent periods, OssDsign has demonstrated strong value development, which is also reflected in the share price. We have decided to realize the profit in Karolinska Development’s holdings and prioritize other investments where we see greater value creation potential, and a higher possible return on investment. The sale strengthens our financial position and increases our capacity to invest in other holdings,” says Viktor Drvota, CEO Karolinska Development.

Following the divestment, Karolinska Development has no direct ownership in OssDsign, but an indirect ownership via KCIF Co-Investment Fund remains.

For further information, please contact:

Viktor Drvota, CEO, Karolinska Development AB
Phone: +46 73 982 52 02, e-mail: viktor.drvota@karolinskadevelopment.com

Johan Dighed, General Counsel and Deputy CEO, Karolinska Development AB
Phone: +46 70 207 48 26, e-mail: johan.dighed@karolinskadevelopment.com

TO THE EDITORS

About Karolinska Development AB

Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) is a Nordic life sciences investment company. The company focuses on identifying breakthrough medical innovations in the Nordic region that are developed by entrepreneurs and leadership teams. The Company invests in the creation and growth of companies that advance these assets into commercial products that are designed to make a difference to patients’ lives while providing an attractive return on investment to shareholders.

Karolinska Development has access to world-class medical innovations at the Karolinska Institutet and other leading universities and research institutes in the Nordic region. The Company aims to build companies around scientists who are leaders in their fields, supported by experienced management teams and advisers, and co-funded by specialist international investors, to provide the greatest chance of success.

Karolinska Development has a portfolio of eleven companies targeting opportunities in innovative treatment for life-threatening or serious debilitating diseases.

The Company is led by an entrepreneurial team of investment professionals with a proven track record as company builders and with access to a strong global network.

For more information, please visit www.karolinskadevelopment.com.

Attachment
- PM KD OssDsign avyttring aktier juni 2025 ENG KLAR
The MIL Network –
June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Banking: Media release: East coast gas market review an opportunity to strengthen investment and increase supply – Australian Energy Producers

Source: Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association

Headline: Media release: East coast gas market review an opportunity to strengthen investment and increase supply – Australian Energy Producers

Australian Energy Producers welcomes the Federal Government’s review of the east coast gas market to deliver the natural gas needed to power the economy, put downward pressure on prices, and remain a reliable export partner.

Australian Energy Producers Chief Executive Samantha McCulloch said industry supported the Government’s commitment to consolidating and streamlining regulations and creating a long-term stable regulatory environment to facilitate investment in new supply.

“The review is an opportunity to future-proof the east coast gas market and ensure reliable and affordable gas supply for Australian households and manufacturers,” Ms McCulloch said.

“Natural gas will play a critical role in Australia’s energy mix for decades to come. The east coast gas market needs to be fit-for-purpose to support continued investment in our abundant gas resources and avoid projected shortfalls.

Ms McCulloch said the review should focus on delivering new gas supply by streamlining regulation, restoring market signals, and eliminating duplicative and onerous reporting requirements.

“The Government’s Future Gas Strategy makes clear that natural gas will remain critical to Australia’s energy security through to 2050 and beyond. This requires a strong, stable and competitive east coast gas market that encourages investment and timely supply.”

The ACCC’s latest report on the east coast gas market released today underscores the urgent need to remove barriers to new gas supply to avoid forecast gas shortfalls. It found “the east coast has sufficient gas reserves and resources to meet projected domestic demand for at least the next decade”, but “a combination of policy, technical and commercial factors over the past 15 years has impeded their development”.

“Australian gas producers are committed to delivering the reliable and affordable gas supply Australians need, and we look forward to working constructively with government, gas users and stakeholders throughout the review,” Ms McCulloch said.

Media Contact: 0434 631 511

MIL OSI Global Banks –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Africa: Cassava Technologies partners with the South African Artificial Intelligence Association to boost local access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) compute services

Cassava Technologies (https://www.CassavaTechnologies.com), a global technology leader of African heritage, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the South African AI Association (SAAIA), an industry body focused on growing responsible AI adoption, to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaas) across the African continent.

In terms of the agreement, SAAIA’s more than 3,000 AI practitioners, comprising entrepreneurs, researchers, and members of the wider business community in South Africa, will have access to Cassava’s data centre GPUs to develop and deploy local AI solutions and initiatives. The two organisations will also collaborate on initiatives aimed at supporting the regional and broader African AI ecosystem.

“We are proud to partner with SAAIA to support the growth of Africa’s AI ecosystem. By extending our advanced AI infrastructure and capabilities to SAAIA’s growing community of AI professionals, we’re enabling greater access to the compute power required to build, test, and scale innovative local solutions. We believe this partnership will deliver meaningful value to both organisations and, more importantly, to the business and research communities driving AI development on the continent,” said Ziaad Suleman, CEO of Cassava Technologies South Africa and Botswana.

As South Africa’s leading AI ecosystem builder, the South African Artificial Intelligence Association is focused on promoting the advancement of responsible AI in the country by uniting thousands of AI practitioners across the commercial, government, academic, startup, and NGO sectors. SAAIA also hosts the largest AI event in Africa, AI Expo Africa, and serves as a driving force behind trade and investment in the continent’s rapidly expanding smart technology segment.

“SAAIA is pleased to be partnering with Cassava Technologies in strengthening AI in South Africa. Supporting local AI entrepreneurs is a key pillar of SAAIA, and access to GPU-as-a-Service is a key enabler to growing the emerging AI startup ecosystem,” said SAAIA Founder and Chairman, Dr Nick Bradshaw.

Cassava’s collaboration with SAAIA reinforces its commitment to providing world-class digital solutions and advancing responsible AI adoption, innovation, and growth in Africa. It follows Cassava’s recent announcement of plans to build Africa’s first AI factory, providing local businesses, governments, and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI computing capacity. This aligns with Cassava’s vision of being the leading digital solutions provider in its chosen markets, empowering Africans to thrive in the digital economy.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Cassava Technologies.

About Cassava Technologies:
Cassava Technologies is a global technology leader of African heritage providing a vertically integrated ecosystem of digital services and infrastructure enabling digital transformation. Headquartered in the UK, Cassava has a presence across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the United States of America. Through its business units, namely, Cassava AI, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Liquid C2, Africa Data Centres, and Sasai Fintech, the company provides its customers’ products and services in 94 countries. These solutions drive the company’s ambition of establishing itself as a leading global technology company of African heritage. https://www.CassavaTechnologies.com/

MIL OSI Africa –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI Video: Opening & 1st Plenary- 4th International Conference on Financing for Development FFD4 Sevilla, Spain

Source: United Nations (video statements)

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) will be held in Sevilla, Spain, from 30 June to 3 July 2025. The Conference will bring together global leaders and key stakeholders to accelerate action and partnerships to finance sustainable development and achieve the SDGs. The opening will mark the official launch of the Conference and set the tone for a week of high-level engagement and dialogue.

The opening of the FFD4 Conference will feature statements by high-level dignitaries including Pedro Sánchez, President of the Conference and the President of the Government of Spain; António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Philemon Yang, President of the UN General Assembly; Bob Rae, President of ECOSOC; Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO; and Li Junhua, Secretary-General of the Conference and a Representative of the International Monetary Fund. Following the opening remarks, the Conference will address key procedural matters. The opeing statments will be followed a general debate and statements by Heads of State or Government, ministers, and heads of delegation, setting the stage for a week of high-level discussions on mobilizing financing for the SDGs.

More info: https://financing.desa.un.org/FFD4

To watch all other events from FF4D in all languages, visit: https://webtv.un.org/en/search/categories/meetings-events/conferences/international-conference-financing-development/fourth-session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G03SASjftAE

MIL OSI Video –

June 30, 2025
MIL-OSI: CryptoMiningFirm Launches GreenMine 2.0: A Next-Generation, AI-Powered, Carbon-Neutral Cloud Mining Platform
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

London, UK, June 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CryptoMiningFirm, a global innovator in green cloud mining solutions, today announced the official launch of its next-generation platform, GreenMine 2.0, a fully automated and carbon-neutral cloud mining ecosystem. With this release, CryptoMiningFirm aims to democratize cryptocurrency mining by eliminating traditional entry barriers such as hardware investment, technical expertise, and high electricity costs.

Leveraging AI-driven automation, renewable energy, and a zero-threshold onboarding model, GreenMine 2.0 empowers users globally to generate passive income through the mining of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and other top digital currencies — directly from their mobile devices.

Bitcoin Nears All-Time Highs as Cloud Mining Demand Surges

CryptoMiningFirm’s announcement comes amid a dramatic surge in Bitcoin prices, which recently rose to $107,340, edging closer to its historical high of $111,917. The rally has been fueled by strong inflows into spot ETFs — with BlackRock’s IBIT alone accounting for over $1.3 billion in net inflows in a single week — and growing expectations of U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.

“With global interest in cryptocurrency reigniting, there’s no better time to introduce a smarter, cleaner way to mine digital assets,” said Jane Doe, CEO of CryptoMiningFirm. “We built GreenMine 2.0 so that anyone, anywhere — with no technical skills or capital investment — can tap into the world of crypto mining and start earning immediately.”

Key Features of CryptoMiningFirm’s GreenMine 2.0

1. Zero Entry Barrier:

Users can register in under a minute and receive a free welcome bonus worth $10–$100, allowing them to mine without any upfront investment. The platform guarantees a minimum daily earning of $0.60 from this bonus alone.

2. Smart Mining Automation:

The platform’s AI intelligently selects the most profitable cryptocurrencies to mine in real time based on network difficulty, market volatility, and block rewards. Mining is completely automated — no hardware, no coding, and no daily intervention required.

3. Carbon-Neutral Infrastructure:

GreenMine 2.0 is powered entirely by 100% renewable energy, including solar and wind sources. The company has also implemented thermal recovery systems that redirect excess heat into local community heating projects, aligning with ESG best practices.

4. Transparent & Flexible Plans:

With more than 10 mining contracts available, users can choose between short-term high-yield plans or longer-term value accumulation. Contracts support a wide array of cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, DOGE, LTC, and XRP.

5. App-Enabled Wealth Management:

Available on both iOS and Android, the CryptoMiningFirm app allows users to monitor real-time earnings, manage contracts, and withdraw funds in just a few taps. Withdrawals are processed in under 60 seconds, with support for over 10 cryptocurrencies.

A Sustainable Model for Global Crypto Adoption

CryptoMiningFirm’s cloud-based model solves one of the most pressing challenges in traditional mining: environmental impact. By leveraging globally distributed data centers powered by clean energy, the company eliminates the massive carbon footprint typically associated with crypto mining.

In addition to zero hardware requirements, the company operates with no hidden fees, offers round-the-clock support, and ensures 100% platform uptime — features that have quickly made it a top choice for both beginners and crypto veterans.

“GreenMine 2.0 is more than a mining platform. It’s a financial empowerment tool,” said Jane Doe. “Whether you’re a student in India, a remote worker in Kenya, or a retiree in Canada — you can now participate in the crypto economy without risks or restrictions.”

New Referral and Affiliate System

To further expand its global user base, CryptoMiningFirm has introduced a referral program that offers up to 4.5% in commissions, capped at $10,000 per referral. This system enables users to monetize their networks while contributing to the adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools worldwide.

Upcoming Roadmap & Expansion

The company plans to roll out several enhancements in the coming months, including:
- Smart contract-based earnings verification for transparency and auditability
- Staking-as-a-Service modules to complement mining income
- AI portfolio rebalancing tools to help users maximize ROI across digital assets
Localized data centers in Latin America and Southeast Asia to reduce latency and boost regional performance

CryptoMiningFirm is also working on integrating Fiat-to-Crypto payment gateways, allowing users to fund accounts via credit cards or bank transfers and further easing access for first-time crypto users.

Industry Recognition and Compliance

With its focus on transparency, CryptoMiningFirm adheres to international KYC/AML standards and has undergone multiple third-party audits of its smart contract framework and platform code. The firm is registered in multiple jurisdictions and complies with local data privacy and digital asset laws.

The company’s current user base spans over 80 countries, with the largest adoption seen in the U.S., Nigeria, India, and Brazil. More than 120,000 active users have joined the platform since its soft launch earlier this year.

About CryptoMiningFirm

Founded in 2020, CryptoMiningFirm is a leading provider of green cloud mining solutions that allow individuals and institutions to generate passive income from cryptocurrencies without the need for technical expertise or hardware investments. The company is committed to reshaping the crypto mining landscape through innovation, sustainability, and global accessibility.

For more information, visit the official website: https://cryptominingfirm.com

Attachment
- cryptominingfirm
The MIL Network –
June 30, 2025