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Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Care for those with learning disabilities or autistic people

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Care for those with learning disabilities or autistic people

    New guidance published today will provide a boost in the quality of care for people with a learning disability or autistic people

    • New guidance published today to ensure health and care staff have skills to provide care for people with a learning disability and autistic people

    • Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism named after teenager who died in 2016 after having severe reaction to medication given to him against family’s wishes

    • Training will aim to tackle health inequalities faced by people with a learning disability and autistic people, who face poorer health outcomes than general population

    People with a learning disability and autistic people will get safer, more personalised care as the government publishes new guidelines for health and care providers to train staff.

    The Oliver McGowan code of practice on statutory learning disability and autism training aims to ensure staff have the right skills to provide care and boost understanding of the needs of these groups of people.

    It sets out the standards that providers are expected to meet to be compliant with the law and help make sure patients are kept safe.

    Those with a learning disability or autistic people face poorer health outcomes than the general population, and it is crucial that health and social care staff have the right knowledge and skills to tackle these inequalities.

    The training and the Code of Practice are named after Oliver McGowan, an 18-year-old from Bristol with a mild learning disability who died following a severe reaction to medication given to him against his and his family’s strong wishes.

    Under the law, health and care providers registered by the Care Quality Commission have a requirement to ensure staff have the appropriate training.

    Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock said:

    I pay tribute to Paula McGowan OBE and Tom McGowan and their incredible campaign to improve the care of people with a learning disability and autistic people after the tragic death of their son, Oliver.

    Through their work, they have shown admirable dedication, commitment and passion – Oliver’s memory and legacy lives through them.

    This government recognises the appalling health inequalities faced by people with a learning disability and autistic people.

    Everyone deserves to receive high-quality, empathetic and dignified care but this cannot be achieved if staff do not have the right training. The Oliver McGowan Code of Practice published today will be a boost for anyone with a learning disability or autistic people, their families and loved ones.

    Paul and Tom McGowan said:

    The publication of the Code of Practice marks a deeply emotional and significant milestone for us and will ensure Oliver’s legacy will continue to make a difference by safeguarding people with a learning disability and autistic individuals from the same preventable failings that he tragically endured.

    The Code establishes a comprehensive legal framework for the delivery of the training, promoting consistency and a deeper understanding across health and social care services.

    We are profoundly grateful to cross party politicians for their unwavering support and especially to Baroness Sheila Hollins, whose leadership has been pivotal in advancing this important work.

    Our heartfelt thanks extend to everyone within the NHS and social care sectors, to our expert trainers, and to individuals with a learning disability and or autism, along with their families and carers. This is a true example of what meaningful change looks like, giving a voice to those who are not always seen or heard, creating a lasting impact that will continue to transform lives for the better.

    Tom Cahill CBE, National Director, Learning Disability and Autism NHS England said:

    We know that often the quality of care and support for people with a learning disability and autistic people has not been good enough and we are determined to make this better  .

    This code of practice – a result of Paula and Tom McGowan’s tireless dedication – will mean all NHS staff have the training and support they need to reduce inequalities and give people with a learning disability or autistic people the care they deserve.

    Rebecca Bushell-Bauers, Care Quality Commission Director for people with a learning disability and autistic people said:

    Today highlights Paula and Tom McGowan’s tireless campaigning in their son’s name for better care for autistic people and people with a learning disability.

    We are dedicated to advocating for and improving the health and care outcomes for people with learning disabilities and autistic people. The code of practice will further support us in assessing and inspecting whether health and social care providers are training their carers and staff to support autistic people and people with a learning disability appropriately and hold them to account to ensure they are delivering good, informed and safe care.

    Baroness Hollins said:

    I am delighted that, following my amendment to the 2022 Health and Care Act, the Oliver McGowan Code of Practice has now been laid before Parliament. This milestone supports the requirement that health and care staff complete training that equips them to better care for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

    I pay special tribute to Paula and Tom McGowan, whose tireless advocacy in memory of their son, Oliver, has led to lasting change including through the Code and training in his name. This is a vital step towards tackling health inequalities and improving care across health and social care services.

    The training will be backed by funding as part of the Learning and Development Support Scheme for adult social care in Autumn 2025.

    Any adult social care providers who arrange for training for their staff between April 2025 and March 2026 will be reimbursed for the costs.

    The Health and Care Act 2022 set out a legal requirement for CQC health and care providers to ensure staff receive appropriate training in caring for those with a learning disability or autistic people.

    Oliver McGowan was repeatedly prescribed antipsychotic medications despite medical notes highlighting his severe adverse reactions to these drugs and against his and his family’s wishes.

    Healthcare staff consistently failed to understand how autism presented alongside epilepsy and did not make the adjustments needed to accommodate for his needs.

    Oliver died after developing a severe side effect to the medication which caused brain damage, and after life support was withdrawn by his parents, he died on 11 November 2016.

    Oliver’s parents, Paula and Tom McGowan, have campaigned for better training for health and care staff to improve understanding of the needs of people with a learning disability or autistic people.

    Updates to this page

    Published 19 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Man jailed for life for drugging and raping 10 women as judge commends Met officers

    Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police

    A senior judge has praised the Metropolitan Police Service following one of the most challenging and complex investigations conducted by detectives to bring a serial rapist to justice.

    The case demonstrates the Met’s ongoing commitment to keeping women and girls safe and work to eradicate sexual violence, largely at the hands of predatory men.

    Zhenhao Zou, 28 (20.02.97), of Churchyard Row, Elephant and Castle, was convicted of drugging and raping women both in the UK and China in March 2025. A jury found him guilty of 28 offences in total, including counts of voyeurism, possession of an extreme pornographic image, possession of a drug to commit a sexual offence and false imprisonment.

    On Thursday, 19 June, he was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court to a life sentence. He will have to serve a minimum of 24 years.

    The lengthy sentence reflects justice for the women who are victim-survivors of Zou and is testament to the extraordinary lengths gone to by investigators, who left no stone unturned in their pursuit to take a dangerous sexual predator off the streets.

    Following the sentencing hearing, officers paid tribute to the brave victim-survivors, who have always remained at the very heart of the investigation.

    During the sentencing hearing, the judge commended Met detectives DC Jack Woods and DC Oliver Colville, while paying tribute to the whole prosecution team.

    Commander Kevin Southworth, of the Metropolitan Police Service, said: “First and foremost, our thoughts have always been with the courageous victim-survivors of Zou’s heinous and predatory crimes.

    “Thanks to the remarkable efforts of our officers and prosecutors, a dangerous and cowardly offender has been handed a life sentence. I hope the fact Zou can no longer harm others serves as a small amount of comfort to the women who have suffered immeasurably.

    “I would also like to take this opportunity to stress that our investigation remains open and we continue to appeal to anyone who may think they have been a victim of Zou. Please come forward and speak with our team – we will treat you with empathy, kindness and respect.”

    The investigation

    Before his arrest in January 2024, Zou was a student at University College London (UCL) since 2019 and prior to that studied at Queen’s University Belfast.

    Zou used social media platforms and dating websites to target victim-survivors – all of which are believed to be of Chinese heritage. He lured women to his accommodation under the pretence of having a drink or studying and then plied them with drinks laced with drugs.

    He filmed himself as he raped the woman as they lost consciousness.

    Met investigators watched hundreds of these disturbing videos as they built a case of evidence against Zou. It was after analysis of this graphic and disturbing material that it became apparent that he had not only committed offences in London, but also in his home country of China too.

    The prosecution team were unable to identify all of the victim-survivors captured, so relied on this video evidence to present a compelling case during the trial. Officers also meticulously pulled together over 4000 documents to leave no doubt in the jury’s mind about Zou’s guilt.

    Alongside this, they downloaded around six and a half terabytes worth of data from Zou’s phones and laptops, which included around nine million messages. This is the equivalent to 1,664 hours of footage and is one of the biggest cases the Met’s digital forensics lab has ever dealt with.

    Met officers spent months trawling through messages to understand Zou’s pattern of offending, scrupulously translating them into English from Simplified Chinese.

    The appeal

    Following Zou’s conviction, investigators shared that they believed Zou’s offending was much wider than the eleven rapes he was convicted of. They made a direct appeal to unidentified victim-survivors to come forward and seek specialist support.

    Securing justice for the victim-survivors of Zou and putting him behind bars has been at the forefront of detective’s minds since the start of the investigation. To secure a conviction through a fair trial, officers made the decision not to appeal for further victim-survivors ahead of conviction. Sharing specific information relating to his offending may have caused the case to collapse, leaving Zou to offend again. By appealing post-conviction, the Met was able to share the fullest details to support potential victim-survivors coming forward.

    Since the appeal in March 2025, 24 women have made reports to the police. These continue to be investigated thoroughly by a dedicated team of officers. Following the sentencing hearing, the team will continue to liaise with the Crown Prosecution Services around potential future charges.

    Detectives continue to keep an open mind about the identities of unidentified victim-survivors but have been keen to speak to women from the Chinese student community – they may have been living in London between 2019-2024 or met Zou while he was living in China.

    So far, investigators have not received any reports from women who met Zou while he was living in Belfast but remain in contact with Police Service Northern Ireland. They continue to encourage any current or former Northern Ireland residents who have concerns to come forward and speak to officers.

    Saira Pike, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women. His life sentence reflects the heinous acts and harm he caused to women and the danger he posed to society.

    “We have always been determined to seek justice for both the unidentified and identified victims in this case. We used an evidence-led approach that relied on the video recordings of Zou to ensure this dangerous predator faced justice.

    “The prosecution team worked with the police for over a year to pick apart an unprecedented amount of footage and web chats showing his meticulous planning and the horrifying execution of his crimes.

    “Following the police appeal, we will continue to review and consider any further charges to ensure that he is held accountable and seek justice for all victims.

    “I’d like to take this opportunity to once again express my heartfelt thanks to the courageous women who came forward to report Zou’s horrific crimes. They have been incredibly strong and brave – there is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure his conviction, and the life sentence handed to him today.”

    How to contact the police and independent support agencies:

    Reports relating to Zhenhao Zou can be made online via the Major Incident Public Portal (MIPP): https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25X38-PO1 . The MIPP is also available in Simplified Chinese https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25X38-PO2, so it is as accessible as possible for potential victim-survivors.

    If you wish to speak to Met detectives or make a report relating to Zou, you can also contact police via email on survivors@met.police.uk

    You can also make a report to police by calling 101 from within the UK, quoting reference 2904/04FEB25.

    If you live in England or Wales and have been affected by this case and would like to seek support from specialist agencies, please contact the independent charity Rape Crisis via their 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line or call them on 0808 500 2222. Specially trained staff are there to listen, answer questions and offer emotional support.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Man jailed for drugging and raping 10 women as judge commends officers

    Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police

    A senior judge has praised the Metropolitan Police Service following one of the most challenging and complex investigations conducted by detectives to bring a serial rapist to justice.

    The case demonstrates the Met’s ongoing commitment to keeping women and girls safe and work to eradicate sexual violence, largely at the hands of predatory men.

    Zhenhao Zou, 28 (20.02.97), of Churchyard Row, Elephant and Castle, was convicted of drugging and raping women both in the UK and China in March 2025. A jury found him guilty of 28 offences in total, including counts of voyeurism, possession of an extreme pornographic image, possession of a drug to commit a sexual offence and false imprisonment.

    On Thursday, 19 June, he was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court to a life sentence. He will have to serve a minimum of 24 years.

    The lengthy sentence reflects justice for the women who are victim-survivors of Zou and is testament to the extraordinary lengths gone to by investigators, who left no stone unturned in their pursuit to take a dangerous sexual predator off the streets.

    Following the sentencing hearing, officers paid tribute to the brave victim-survivors, who have always remained at the very heart of the investigation.

    During the sentencing hearing, the judge commended Met detectives DC Jack Woods and DC Oliver Colville, while paying tribute to the whole prosecution team.

    Commander Kevin Southworth, of the Metropolitan Police Service, said: “First and foremost, our thoughts have always been with the courageous victim-survivors of Zou’s heinous and predatory crimes.

    “Thanks to the remarkable efforts of our officers and prosecutors, a dangerous and cowardly offender has been handed a life sentence. I hope the fact Zou can no longer harm others serves as a small amount of comfort to the women who have suffered immeasurably.

    “I would also like to take this opportunity to stress that our investigation remains open and we continue to appeal to anyone who may think they have been a victim of Zou. Please come forward and speak with our team – we will treat you with empathy, kindness and respect.”

    The investigation

    Before his arrest in January 2024, Zou was a student at University College London (UCL) since 2019 and prior to that studied at Queen’s University Belfast.

    Zou used social media platforms and dating websites to target victim-survivors – all of which are believed to be of Chinese heritage. He lured women to his accommodation under the pretence of having a drink or studying and then plied them with drinks laced with drugs.

    He filmed himself as he raped the woman as they lost consciousness.

    Met investigators watched hundreds of these disturbing videos as they built a case of evidence against Zou. It was after analysis of this graphic and disturbing material that it became apparent that he had not only committed offences in London, but also in his home country of China too.

    The prosecution team were unable to identify all of the victim-survivors captured, so relied on this video evidence to present a compelling case during the trial. Officers also meticulously pulled together over 4000 documents to leave no doubt in the jury’s mind about Zou’s guilt.

    Alongside this, they downloaded around six and a half terabytes worth of data from Zou’s phones and laptops, which included around nine million messages. This is the equivalent to 1,664 hours of footage and is one of the biggest cases the Met’s digital forensics lab has ever dealt with.

    Met officers spent months trawling through messages to understand Zou’s pattern of offending, scrupulously translating them into English from Simplified Chinese.

    The appeal

    Following Zou’s conviction, investigators shared that they believed Zou’s offending was much wider than the eleven rapes he was convicted of. They made a direct appeal to unidentified victim-survivors to come forward and seek specialist support.

    Securing justice for the victim-survivors of Zou and putting him behind bars has been at the forefront of detective’s minds since the start of the investigation. To secure a conviction through a fair trial, officers made the decision not to appeal for further victim-survivors ahead of conviction. Sharing specific information relating to his offending may have caused the case to collapse, leaving Zou to offend again. By appealing post-conviction, the Met was able to share the fullest details to support potential victim-survivors coming forward.

    Since the appeal in March 2025, 24 women have made reports to the police. These continue to be investigated thoroughly by a dedicated team of officers. Following the sentencing hearing, the team will continue to liaise with the Crown Prosecution Services around potential future charges.

    Detectives continue to keep an open mind about the identities of unidentified victim-survivors but have been keen to speak to women from the Chinese student community – they may have been living in London between 2019-2024 or met Zou while he was living in China.

    So far, investigators have not received any reports from women who met Zou while he was living in Belfast but remain in contact with Police Service Northern Ireland. They continue to encourage any current or former Northern Ireland residents who have concerns to come forward and speak to officers.

    Saira Pike, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women. His life sentence reflects the heinous acts and harm he caused to women and the danger he posed to society.

    “We have always been determined to seek justice for both the unidentified and identified victims in this case. We used an evidence-led approach that relied on the video recordings of Zou to ensure this dangerous predator faced justice.

    “The prosecution team worked with the police for over a year to pick apart an unprecedented amount of footage and web chats showing his meticulous planning and the horrifying execution of his crimes.

    “Following the police appeal, we will continue to review and consider any further charges to ensure that he is held accountable and seek justice for all victims.

    “I’d like to take this opportunity to once again express my heartfelt thanks to the courageous women who came forward to report Zou’s horrific crimes. They have been incredibly strong and brave – there is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure his conviction, and the life sentence handed to him today.”

    How to contact the police and independent support agencies:

    Reports relating to Zhenhao Zou can be made online via the Major Incident Public Portal (MIPP): https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25X38-PO1 . The MIPP is also available in Simplified Chinese https://mipp.police.uk/operation/01MPS25X38-PO2, so it is as accessible as possible for potential victim-survivors.

    If you wish to speak to Met detectives or make a report relating to Zou, you can also contact police via email on survivors@met.police.uk

    You can also make a report to police by calling 101 from within the UK, quoting reference 2904/04FEB25.

    If you live in England or Wales and have been affected by this case and would like to seek support from specialist agencies, please contact the independent charity Rape Crisis via their 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line or call them on 0808 500 2222. Specially trained staff are there to listen, answer questions and offer emotional support.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Extreme weather’s true damage cost is a mystery – that’s a problem for understanding storm risk

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Nielsen-Gammon, Regents Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University

    Hail can be destructive, yet the cost of the damage often isn’t publicly tracked. NOAA/NSSL

    On Jan. 5, 2025, at about 2:35 in the afternoon, the first severe hailstorm of the season dropped quarter-size hail in Chatham, Mississippi. According to the federal storm events database, there were no injuries, but it caused $10,000 in property damage.

    How do we know the storm caused $10,000 in damage? We don’t.

    That estimate is probably a best guess from someone whose primary job is weather forecasting. Yet these guesses, and thousands like them, form the foundation for publicly available tallies of the costs of severe weather.

    If the damage estimates from hailstorms are consistently lower in one county than the next, potential property buyers might think it’s because there’s less risk of hailstorms. Instead, it might just be because different people are making the estimates.

    Hail damage in Dallas in June 2012.
    Rondo Estrello/Flickr, CC BY-SA

    We are atmospheric scientists at Texas A&M University who lead the Office of the Texas State Climatologist. Through our involvement in state-level planning for weather-related disasters, we have seen county-scale patterns of storm damage over the past 20 years that just didn’t make sense. So, we decided to dig deeper.

    We looked at storm event reports for a mix of seven urban and rural counties in southeast Texas, with populations ranging from 50,000 to 5 million. We included all reported types of extreme weather. We also talked with people from the two National Weather Service offices that cover the area.

    Storm damage investigations vary widely

    Typically, two specific types of extreme weather receive special attention.

    After a tornado, the National Weather Service conducts an on-site damage survey, examining its track and destruction. That survey forms the basis for the official estimate of a tornado’s strength on the enhanced Fujita scale. Weather Service staff are able to make decent damage cost estimates from knowledge of home values in the area.

    They also investigate flash flood damage in detail, and loss information is available from the National Flood Insurance Program, the main source of flood insurance for U.S. homes.

    Tornadoes in May 2025 destroyed homes in communities in several states, including London, Ky.
    AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley

    Most other losses from extreme weather are privately insured, if they’re insured at all.

    Insured loss information is collected by reinsurance companies – the companies that insure the insurance companies – and gets tabulated for major events. Insurance companies use their own detailed information to try to make better decisions on rates than their competitors do, so event-based loss data by county from insurance companies isn’t readily available.

    Losing billion-dollar disaster data

    There’s one big window into how disaster damage has changed over the years in the U.S.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, compiled information for major disasters, including insured losses by state. Bulk data won’t tell communities or counties about their specific risk, but it enabled NOAA to calculate overall damage estimates, which it released as its billion-dollar disasters list.

    From that program, we know that the number and cost of billion-dollar disasters in the United States has increased dramatically in recent years. News articles and even scientific papers often point to climate change as the primary culprit, but a much larger driver has been the increasing number and value of buildings and other types of infrastructure, particularly along hurricane-prone coasts.

    Critics in the past year called for more transparency and vetting of the procedures used to estimate billion-dollar disasters. But that’s not going to happen, because NOAA in May 2025 stopped making billion-dollar disaster estimates and retired its user interface.

    Previous estimates can still be retrieved from NOAA’s online data archive, but by shutting down that program, the window into current and future disaster losses and insurance claims is now closed.

    Emergency managers at the county level also make local damage estimates, but the resources they have available vary widely. They may estimate damages only when the total might be large enough to trigger a disaster declaration that makes relief funds available from the federal government.

    Patching together very rough estimates

    Without insurance data or county estimates, the local offices of the National Weather Service are on their own to estimate losses.

    There is no standard operating procedure that every office must follow. One office might choose to simply not provide damage estimates for any hailstorms because the staff doesn’t see how it could come up with accurate values. Others may make estimates, but with varying methods.

    The result is a patchwork of damage estimates. Accurate values are more likely for rare events that cause extensive damage. Loss estimates from more frequent events that don’t reach a high damage threshold are generally far less reliable.

    The number of severe hail reports in southeast Texas listed in the National Centers for Environmental Information’s storm events database is strongly correlated with population. The county with the most reports and greatest detail in those reports is home to Houston. Hailstorms in the three easternmost counties are rarely associated with damage estimates.
    John Nielsen-Gammon and B.J. Baule

    Do you want to look at local damage trends? Forget about it. For most extreme weather events, estimation methods vary over time and are not documented.

    Do you want to direct funding to help communities improve resilience to natural disasters where the need is greatest? Forget about it. The places experiencing the largest per capita damages depend not just on actual damages but on the different practices of local National Weather Service offices.

    Are you moving to a location that might be vulnerable to extreme weather? Companies are starting to provide localized risk estimates through real estate websites, but the algorithms tend to be proprietary, and there’s no independent validation.

    4 steps to improve disaster data

    We believe a few fixes could make NOAA’s storm events database and the corresponding values in the larger SHELDUS database, managed by Arizona State University, more reliable. Both databases include county-level disasters and loss estimates for some of those disasters.

    First, the National Weather Service could develop standard procedures for local offices for estimating disaster damages.

    Second, additional state support could encourage local emergency managers to make concrete damage estimates from individual events and share them with the National Weather Service. The local emergency manager generally knows the extent of damage much better than a forecaster sitting in an office a few counties away.

    Third, state or federal governments and insurance companies can agree to make public the aggregate loss information at the county level or other scale that doesn’t jeopardize the privacy of their policyholders. If all companies provide this data, there is no competitive disadvantage for doing so.

    Fourth, NOAA could create a small “tiger team” of damage specialists to make well-informed, consistent damage estimates of larger events and train local offices on how to handle the smaller stuff.

    With these processes in place, the U.S. wouldn’t need a billion-dollar disasters program anymore. We’d have reliable information on all the disasters.

    John Nielsen-Gammon receives funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the State of Texas.

    William Baule receives funding from NOAA, the State of Texas, & the Austin Community Foundation.

    – ref. Extreme weather’s true damage cost is a mystery – that’s a problem for understanding storm risk – https://theconversation.com/extreme-weathers-true-damage-cost-is-a-mystery-thats-a-problem-for-understanding-storm-risk-257105

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: New start date for the Anthropocene proposed – when humans first changed global methane levels

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vincent Gauci, Professorial Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

    Robsonphoto/Shutterstock

    Humans have been reshaping the environment for at least 10,000 years. But the Anthropocene is the name given to the specific period of Earth history during which humans have had a global effect on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Despite formal rejection as a geological epoch, it’s widely understood within academic research as useful shorthand for the age of human interference in the Earth system.

    Various dates have been proposed for when the anthropocene effectively began, from the early 17th century to the mid-20th century, when the first atomic weapons were detonated. My new research into atmospheric methane concentration supports the idea of an early date, when European arrival in the Americas first had a notable impact on the atmosphere, but slightly before previous estimates.

    Ice cores – cylinders of ice drilled from glaciers and ice sheets – provide important evidence of historical changes in the global atmospheric composition. It is from these records that a date for the Anthropocene’s pre-industrial beginnings was first proposed in 2015 by two Earth systems scientists at the University College London, Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin.

    They suggested that an unprecedented drop in the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere that was recorded in ice cores – known as the “Orbis spike” – dates back to 1610. This unusually low level reflects additional atmospheric CO₂ absorption into trees from forest regrowth in the Americas following European arrival in the late 1400s.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    From European arrival in 1492 and colonisation in the 1500s, the introduction of disease, mostly smallpox, resulted in demographic collapse of around 50 million people across the Americas. Lewis and Maslin proposed that, as millions of hectares of farmland went untended, forests could regrow and this increased CO₂ removal from the atmosphere.

    This happened in sufficient quantities to be recorded in glacial ice. And that change became a global marker for the start of the so-called Anthropocene.



    Read more:
    Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the ‘great dying’ of the 16th century

    My own research into changing methane concentrations indicates that the Anthropocene began slightly earlier than that, in 1592. Ice core records show a minimum atmospheric methane concentration exactly 100 years after explorer Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas. This, I believe, strengthens support for the hypothesis put forward by Lewis and Maslin a decade ago.

    In a paper published in Nature Reviews, Earth and Environment, I consider the effects of global fluctuations in how trees and forests exchange methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is around 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Crucially, methane has a short lifetime of just under ten years, so any ice core record will be far more responsive to changes to the methane cycle than that of longer-lived CO₂.



    Read more:
    Methane is pitched as a climate villain – could changing how we think about it make it a saviour?

    Trees are a methane sink

    So what’s the link to trees? Trees and their woody bark surfaces, despite their biologically inert appearance when compared to leaves, are important interfaces of methane exchange. In swamps and forested floodplains like the Amazon, they are exit points of methane to the atmosphere from the saturated soils where the methane is formed by anaerobic soil microbes.

    However, last year, my team uncovered how the more extensive areas of forest growing on free-draining soils interact with atmospheric methane. The trees host microbes that directly remove methane from the atmosphere.

    This is one of two mechanisms that, together, might explain an unprecedented drop in atmospheric methane concentrations recorded in Antarctic ice cores in the first century following European arrival in the Americas. This would support Lewis and Maslin’s idea that regrowing forests in that period had global effects.

    With more trees growing on abandoned farmland, there was more woody tree surface area in contact with the atmosphere. This meant more methane being taken up by the microbes they host.

    Measuring methane uptake of trees.
    Vincent Gauci, CC BY-NC-ND

    The second mechanism relates to how trees intercept incoming rainfall. Some rainfall is re-evaporated before reaching the soil. Any rain reaching the soil may then be taken up by tree roots and released back to the atmosphere. The rest moves into the soil or washes off into rivers and wetlands.

    It is possible that the spike in forest regrowth led to more evaporation and transpiration. So more water was released by the trees back to the atmosphere and less washed off over the soil surface.

    This limited water flowing into wetlands. Those wetlands are a major methane source. So a small shrinkage in wetland area, combined with more trees absorbing atmospheric methane, could have reduced the atmospheric methane concentration and explain the minimum methane levels observed in 1592.

    When exactly the Anthropocene began may be an argument that has been overtaken by the decision to not label it a new epoch. Indeed, it’s possible that forest clearance for early agriculture by humans around 5,000-8,000 years ago in the mid-Holocene, (a period of relative climate stability in the Neolithic period) contributed to the atmospheric methane increase observed in Antarctic ice from that time.

    As well as an ancient trace of human influence over our forests, the ice core methane records provide a chance to evaluate newly discovered processes operating in the world’s forests. This is something I’m now investigating with my colleague Peter Hopcroft, a palaeoclimate modeller at the University of Birmingham.

    Whether through forest clearances for early agriculture or through the effects on forests of massive depopulation of Indigenous peoples following European contact, these traces of our past influence point to something significant: that there has always been an intimate and evolving connection between humanity and the natural world. A connection so fundamental that, for the vast span of our existence as a species, we have been inseparable from nature itself.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Vincent Gauci receives funding from or has received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, The Royal Society, Spark Climate Solutions, AXA Research Fund, Defra and the JABBS Foundation.

    – ref. New start date for the Anthropocene proposed – when humans first changed global methane levels – https://theconversation.com/new-start-date-for-the-anthropocene-proposed-when-humans-first-changed-global-methane-levels-258834

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Britain’s plan for defence AI risks the ethical and legal integrity of the military

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elke Schwarz, Professor of Political Theory, Queen Mary University of London

    Autonomous technology on the battlefield may not look like ‘killer robots’, but still has huge ethical implications. TSViPhoto/Shutterstock

    In an unstable geopolitical climate, the UK’s strategic defence review focused on improving national resilience, from critical infrastructure security to technology and innovation. Many of the review’s recommendations have to do with transforming defence through artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy, to make the armed forces “ten times more lethal”.

    These recommendations and investments – drones, autonomous systems and £1 billion for a “digital targeting web” that would connect weapons systems – may well make the armed forces more lethal. But this comes at a risk to the ethical and legal integrity of the military.

    A key part of international humanitarian law is the principle of precautions in attack. This requires that those planning an attack must do everything they feasibly can to ensure that targets are of a military nature. Similar is the principle of distinction, which mandates that civilians must never become a target.

    In armed conflict, these principles are meant to protect civilians. They require human judgement — the ability to weigh up context, intent and likely outcomes. But how might they be upheld when humans are embedded in AI systems, which prioritise speed and scale in decision-making and action?

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    An AI-enabled digital targeting web, like the one proposed in the strategic review, connects information (sensors) and action (weapons), enabling faster identification and elimination of potential targets. These webs would be able to identify and suggest possible targets considerably faster than humans. In many cases, leaving soldiers with only a few minutes, or indeed seconds, to decide whether these targets are appropriate or legitimate in legal or ethical terms.

    One example already in use is the Maven Smart System, which was recently procured by Nato. This system could make it possible for small army teams to make up to “1,000 tactical decisions an hour”, according to a report by the US thinktank the Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

    Legal scholars have argued that the prioritisation of speed with AI in conflict “leaves little room for human judgement” or restraint.

    Unlike other technologies used in war, AI is more than an instrument. It is part of a cognitive system of humans and machines, which makes human control a lot more complicated than operating a fleet of tanks.

    Proponents of autonomous weapons and AI targeting systems often argue that this technology would make warfare more precise, dispassionate and humane. However, military ethics scholar Neil Renic and I have shown how it can instead lead to an erosion of moral restraint, creating a war environment where technological processes replace moral reasoning.



    Read more:
    Silicon Valley’s bet on AI defence startups and what it means for the future of war – podcast

    Training the data

    The strategic defence review lauds autonomy as providing “greater accuracy”, but this is complicated by technical and human limitations. Instead of providing greater accuracy in targeting, AI-enabled systems threaten to undermine the principle of distinction and precaution.

    AI systems also bear technical challenges for something as complex and dynamic as warfare. AI-supported systems are only as good as the data on which they are trained. Appropriate, comprehensive and up-to-date data is hard to come by in conflict, and dynamics can change quickly.

    This is particularly true in urban conflicts. Understanding the complexities of a situation on the ground is difficult enough for human military personnel, without bringing in AI.

    New AI models, in particular, bear risks. AI large language models are known to “hallucinate” – produce outputs that are erroneous or made up. As these systems are integrated into defence, the risks of technological failure become more pronounced.

    AI could significantly speed up targeting technology.
    Yuri A/Shutterstock

    There is also a considerable risk of this technology enabling uncontrolled escalation and conflict at speed – what scholars have described as a “flash war”. Escalation from crisis to war, or escalating a conflict to a higher level of violence, could come about due to erroneous indications of attack, or a simple sensor or computer error.

    Consider an AI system alerting commanders of a hostile tank approaching a border area. With potentially only minutes to spare, time for verification of the incoming information is sparse. Commanders may “prioritise rapid response over thorough analysis”. If the tank turns out to be a school bus, this response could have further retaliatory consequences.

    Unpredictable systems could also give leaders false impressions of their capabilities, leading to overconfidence or encouraging preemptive attacks. This all may lead to greater global instability and insecurity.

    Responsible AI

    The UK government has shown that it is aware of some of these risks. Its 2022 report on responsible AI in defence emphasised ethics in the use of AI. It specified that the deployment “of AI-enabled capabilities in armed conflict needs to comply fully with [international humanitarian law]”, including the principles of distinction, necessity, humanity and proportionality.

    The report also notes that responsible and ethical use of AI systems requires reliability and human understanding of the AI system and its decisions.

    The strategic defence review, on the other hand, notes that the speed with which technologies develop is outpacing regulatory frameworks. It says that “the UK’s competitors are unlikely to adhere to common ethical standards in developing or using them”.

    This might be so, but it should not open the door to a less ethical and responsible development or use of such systems by the UK. Ethics is not only about how we treat others, but also about who we are.

    The UK still has an opportunity to shape global norms around military AI — before a generation of unaccountable systems becomes the default. But that window for action is closing rapidly.

    Elke Schwarz is affiliated with the International Committtee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)

    – ref. Britain’s plan for defence AI risks the ethical and legal integrity of the military – https://theconversation.com/britains-plan-for-defence-ai-risks-the-ethical-and-legal-integrity-of-the-military-258149

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Iran air strikes: Republicans split over support for Trump and another ‘foreign war’

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Hargy, Visiting Research Fellow in International Studies, Queen’s University Belfast

    After returning early from the G7 summit in Canada, Donald Trump met with his national security team to be briefed on the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. It became clear that Trump was considering direct US military support for the Israelis.

    This has the potential to cause a split among the president’s supporters between the Republican hawks (traditional interventionists) on one side and the Maga isolationists on the other.

    During his three presidential campaigns, Trump condemned former presidents for leading America into “ridiculous endless wars”. This isolationist tilt won him plaudits with his base of those who supported him for his populist promises to “make America great again” (Maga).

    In their work on US attitudes to foreign policy and US overseas involvement, Elaine Kamarck and Jordan Muchnick of the Brookings Institution – a non-profit research organisation in Washington – looked at a range of evidence in 2023.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    They found Republicans supporting less global involvement from the US had increased from 40% to 54% from 2004 to 2017. At that time only 16% of voters supported increasing US troop presence abroad, and 40% wanted a decrease, they found. They related this change in attitudes to Trump’s foreign policy position.

    Fast forward to his second term, and many in the Maga camp are fiercely opposed to Trump’s current posturing about leading the US into another conflict in the Middle East. Over the past few days the White House has doubled down on the line that Trump keeps repeating: “Iran can not have a nuclear weapon”.

    As Trump edges closer to committing the US to joining Israel in air strikes on Iran, Steve Bannon, a staunch Trump ally, argued that allowing the “deep state” to drive the US into conflict with Iran would “blow up” the coalition of Trump support.

    Meanwhile, Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson denounced those Republicans supporting action against Iran as “warmongers” and said they were encouraging the president to drag the US into a war.

    Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene, in an unusual break with Trump, openly criticised the president’s stance on the Israel-Iran conflict, writing on X: “Foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.”

    Other prominent Republican senators, including Josh Hawley and Rand Paul, have urged the president to avoid US involvement in an offensive against Iran.

    Another Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, has gone even further. He has joined with a coalition of Democrats in filing a House resolution under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which would seek to prevent Trump from engaging in “unauthorized hostilities” with Iran without Congressional consent.

    These Republicans may believe their views are popular with their electoral base. In an Economist/YouGov poll in June 2025, 53% of Republicans stated that they did not think the US military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

    But Donald Trump does seem to enjoy widespread support in the US for his position that the US cannot allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. According to CNN data analysis, 83% of Republicans, 79% independents, and 79% of Democrats, agree with the president’s position on this issue. This slightly confusing split suggests there could be US voter support for air strikes, but it’s clear there would not be that same support for troops on the ground.

    Resistance from ultra-Trump die-hards, however, might put them on the wrong side of the president in the long-term. Greg Sargent, a writer at The New Republic magazine, believes that, “people become enemies of Trump not when they substantively work against some principle he supposedly holds dear, but rather when they publicly criticize him … or become an inconvenience in any way”.

    So why is Trump, to the dismay of many from within the Maga faithful, seemingly abandoning the anti-war tenet of his “America first” doctrine? Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest magazine, thinks that “now that Israel’s assault on Iran appears to be successful, Trump wants in on the action”.

    The president has several prominent Republican hawks urging him to do exactly that, and order the US Air Force to deploy their “bunker-buster bombs”“ to destroy Iran’s underground arsenals. One of these is Senator Lindsey Graham.

    Earlier this week on Fox News, he told Trump to be “all in … in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations.”

    Former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell is also advocating US military action. He told CNN: “What’s happening here is some of the isolationist movement led by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are distressed we may be helping the Israelis defeat the Iranians,” adding that its “been kind of a bad week for the isolationists” in the party.

    Donald Trump talks about potential involvement in air strikes.

    The same Economist/YouGov poll mentioned earlier showed that the stance taken by these Republicans – that Iran poses a threat to the US – is a position shared by a majority of GOP voters, with 69% viewing Iran as either an immediate and serious threat to the US, or at least somewhat of a serious threat.

    Always an interventionist?

    Some believe that Trump’s evolving attitude towards American military involvement in the worsening crisis in the Middle East, however, is not a volte-face on isolationism, or an ideological pivot to the virtues of attacking Iran. Ross Douthat of the New York Times has observed that Trump “has never been a principled noninterventionist” and that “his deal-making style has always involved the threat of force as a crucial bargaining chip”.

    It is always difficult to fully determine what Trump’s foreign policy doctrine actually is. It is useful, however, to reflect on some of the president’s overseas actions from his first term.

    In April 2018, following a suspected chemical weapons attack by the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in a Damascus suburb, Trump ordered US air strikes in retaliation for what he called an “evil and despicable attack” that left “mothers and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain and gasping for air”.

    This led the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, to describe Trump as “something wholly unique in the history of the presidency: an isolationist interventionist”.

    Richard Hargy 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. Iran air strikes: Republicans split over support for Trump and another ‘foreign war’ – https://theconversation.com/iran-air-strikes-republicans-split-over-support-for-trump-and-another-foreign-war-259314

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Could trees know when the summer solstice is?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Hacket-Pain, Senior Lecturer, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool

    cashcashcash/Shutterstock

    People have been celebrating the summer solstice with elaborate rituals since prehistoric times. But humans aren’t the only species to take mark June 21 as a special time. Studies are showing the summer solstice is an important cue for plants too.

    Recent studies, including one of my own, have proposed that trees may use the longest day of the year as a key marker for their growth and reproductive cycles. The solstice seems to act like a calendar reminder for trees.

    Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.

    This story is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

    For example, at the solstice, trees growing in cold places slow down the creation of new wood cells and focus their energy on finishing already formed but still incomplete cells. This ensures trees have time to complete cell construction before winter hits. Incomplete cells are damaged by freezing winter temperatures, rendering them useless for water transport the following year.

    Along similar lines, trees use the solstice to fine-tune the “winding down”, or senescence, of their leaves in preparation for autumn. Senescence allows the tree to reabsorb critical nutrients from the leaves before they fall. This process is timed to balance missing out on sunlight from “winding down” too early, against leaving it too late and losing nutrients if still-green leaves are killed by autumn frosts.

    Stonehenge has been part of summer solstice celebrations since ancient times.
    Ria Sh/Shutterstock

    Satellite observations of forests, and controlled experiments in greenhouses, reveal that warmer temperatures immediately prior to the solstice cause the onset of leaf browning to start earlier that autumn. In contrast, warmer temperatures just after the solstice slow down the senescence process.

    This means a longer transition period from green to fully brown leaves. This fine-tuning enables trees to extend the period of photosynthesis in years when temperatures stay warmer for longer, so they don’t miss out on these favourable conditions.

    But not all scientists is convinced. From an evolutionary perspective, the solstice may not be the best seasonal marker for timing these transitions. For example, in forests in the far north, leaves do not appear until early June, only days before the solstice, and the growing season can extend late into October. In these forests, using the solstice to initiate the winding down process makes little sense for trees that have only just started growing for the year.

    Nevertheless, there is more consensus about plants using the solstice to synchronise reproduction.

    In many plants, especially trees from the temperate mid-latitudes, the number of seeds they produce varies dramatically year on year, known as masting. A large European beech tree can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds in a bumper year (a “mast event”) and forgo reproduction altogether in other years.

    Beech trees vary their annual seed production in step, often on a continental scale. They do this to increase the efficiency of their reproduction.

    Beech trees coordinate their reproduction.
    Gabriele Rohde/Shutterstock

    A small moth, Cydia fagiglandana, lays its eggs in beech flowers. When the grubs hatch, they eat and destroy the developing seeds. Cycles of famine and bumper years help protect their seeds from these moths.

    UK beech trees typically lose less than 5% of their seeds to Cydia because the cycles starve the moths into low numbers ready for masting years. But when trees are out of sync, seed loss can increase to over 40%.

    For decades we have known that beech mast events happen in the year after a warm summer. These warmer temperatures trigger an increase in the formation of flower buds. More flower buds usually lead to a greater crop of seeds that autumn.

    Scientists have long puzzled over how beech trees across Europe seem to use the same seasonal window to control mast events. Their seed production is determined by temperatures in late June and early July, irrespective of where they grow in Europe. But how can a beech tree know the date?

    In my team’s 2024 study, we showed that they use the solstice as a seasonal marker. As soon as the days start to shorten after the solstice, beech trees across Europe seem to simultaneously sense the temperature.

    Anywhere temperatures are above average in the weeks following the solstice can expect to have a mast event the next year. Weather conditions in the weeks before the solstice, by contrast, seem to be irrelevant. As seen on weather maps, warm and cool spells tend to occur simultaneously over large areas.

    This allows beech trees to maximise the synchrony of their reproduction, whether that is investing in a mast year (warm temperatures), or forgoing reproduction for a year (low temperatures). Using a fixed marker like the solstice is the key to achieving this synchrony, and the benefits that come from it.

    Note how bumper seed crops and failures tend to be regionally synchronised, and occasionally occur as pan-European events.
    Andrew Hacket Pain, CC BY-NC-ND

    The evidence for this phenomenon has come from observations across dozens of forests across Europe. However, my research group is collaborating with about a dozen other groups in Europe to test this effect by manipulating the temperature of beech branches before and after the solstice at different sites. Ongoing research I am involved with seems to show flowering genes are activated at the summer solstice.

    Also, studies into the circadian rhythms of plants show they have mechanisms in their molecules that allow them to detect and respond to tiny changes in day length. This is the basis for that extraordinary scale of synchronised reproduction.

    If the weather is warm over the next month or so, then there is a good chance that beech trees in your local area will have heavy seed crops next autumn. What’s more, trees across the UK and into northern and central Europe will probably be doing the same.

    Andrew Hacket-Pain has received funding from UKRI, Defra and the British Council.

    – ref. Could trees know when the summer solstice is? – https://theconversation.com/could-trees-know-when-the-summer-solstice-is-259309

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Tanzania celebrates and honors Akinwumi Adesina’s impactful legacy as President of the African Development Bank

    Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:

    The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, on 14 June, has honored the President of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) Dr Akinwumi Adesina describing him as “a visionary leader, a tireless son of Africa who has dedicated his life to transform the narrative of the continent.”

    President Samia Suluhu Hassan praised Adesina’s vital role in the development of her country’s economy, singling out large-scale infrastructure projects financed by the Bank.

    During a two-day visit to Tanzania that began on Friday, Bank president Dr Akinwumi Adesina was invited on a tour of some of the Bank-financed infrastructure projects that are transforming Tanzania’s economy and strengthening its regional and international roles. This includes a new international airport and a major highway that encircles the administrative capital of Dodoma.

    The Tanzanian leader highlighted projects in other sectors, such as agriculture and energy, that are financed by the Bank.

    “This is in addition to the construction of a modern Standard Gauge Railway line that will link Tanzania to Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said President Suluhu Hassan.

    The African Development Bank Group has invested $9 billion in Tanzania since it started its operations in the country in 1971. Total financial support over the last 10 years under Adesina’s leadership stands at $4.73 billion, equivalent to 53% of the Bank’s lending to Tanzania over the past 54 years.

    “On behalf of the people of Tanzania, I express our gratitude to the African Development Bank for being a dependable partner of our country’s development journey,” the Tanzanian President said.

    Referencing the Bank’s transformative impact, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan told Adesina, “Your visionary leadership has brought significant socio-economic change to Tanzania and across Africa.”

    To cheers from the crowd President Suluhu Hassan announced, “I have accepted a recommendation by the Ministry of Works to rename the Dodoma Outer Ring Road as the Dr Akinwumi Adesina Road.”

    Adesina, accompanied by his wife, Grace Yemisi Adesina, was visibly moved to tears.

    The newly named 112-kilometer dual carriageway is a strategic link in the Cape to Cairo continental corridor. It will decongest Tanzania’s fast-growing administrative capital and enhance regional connectivity.

    The Bank provided $138 million in funding for the project, with an additional $42 million from the Africa Growing Together Fund and $34.69 million from the Government of Tanzania.

    Earlier, Adesina surprised the crowd when he delivered a lengthy portion of his speech in Kiswahili, the national language of Tanzania, which is widely spoken in East and Central Africa. After recognizing all dignitaries in Kiswahili, he went on to thank President Suluhu Hassan for the warm and generous hospitality accorded to him, first in the City of Peace, Dar es Salaam, and in the attractive city of Dodoma.

    “Mheshimiwa Rais Samia Suluhu Hassan, ningependa kukushukuru kwa mapokezi yako ya upendo na ukarimu tuliopewa jana katika jiji la amani, Dar es Salaam na hapa pia katika jiji lenye mvuto la Dodoma. Nimefurahi sana kuwa hapa Dodoma,” Adesina said as the crowd cheered him on.

    Earlier, on Friday 13 June, Adesina was awarded a Doctor of Science Honorary Degree (Honoris Causa) from the prestigious University of Dar es Salaam.

    The citation highlighted Adesina’s leadership and “lifelong dedication to public service, evidence-based policymaking, and pan-African progress.”

    It read further: “Dr Adesina exemplifies the rare blend of academic brilliance, visionary leadership, and practical impact that honorary doctorates are meant to recognize. His emphasis on inclusive growth, innovation, and economic resilience makes him a beacon of integrity, excellence, and servant leadership.”

    The honorary degree was bestowed on Adesina by the Chancellor of the University and former President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, who said, “I would like to tell Tanzanians, the African Development Bank has been a major anchor of Tanzania’s development sector. When it comes to infrastructure, no institution comes close to the African Development Bank.”

    Addressing the graduating class, Adesina spoke of his humble beginnings, emphasizing resilience, character, and unity. “Success cannot be achieved alone,” he said, inviting the students to rise, link hands, and repeat together: “Together, we will succeed and make a difference.”

    In his congratulatory remarks, Finance Minister Mwigulu Nchemba said, “Tanzania is proud to stand among the nations celebrating this remarkable journey and enduring legacy.”

    From Dar es Salaam, Adesina, accompanied by former President Kikwete and Finance Minister Nchemba, took the Standard Gauge Railway train for the three-hour, 450-kilometre journey to Dodoma.

    The African Development Bank Group has established a syndication strategy to mobilize $1.2 billion in conjunction with Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, and other partners for the 651-kilometre extension of the electrified Standard Gauge Railway that will connect Tanzania to Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    The project financing, signed during the 2024 Africa Investment Forum Market Days and includes more than $85 million from the Bank’s concessional financing window, the African Development Fund, a mix of Partial Credit Guarantees totaling $994.3 million across some sections of the railway, complemented by $247 million from the Government of Tanzania in counterpart financing. Initial disbursement from the African Development Fund and partner, the OPEC Fund, is expected by July 2025.

    Adesina said, “This railway line is a cornerstone of East Africa’s regional integration vision, aimed at delivering a modern, cost-effective, and high-capacity transport system anchored on the port of Dar es Salaam and linking landlocked nations.”

    “Our shift from traditional road systems to integrated transport solutions is helping position Tanzania as a key logistics and trade hub in the region,” he added.

    Accompanied by Adesina, President Suluhu Hassan travelled across more than 30 kilometers of the Dodoma Outer Ring Road, stopping along the way at the Bank-funded Msalato International Airport which is expected to be completed by the end of 2026. The state-of-the-art airport features a 3.6-kilometre landing strip—one of the longest in East Africa, with a capacity to accommodate Airbus A380 aircraft.

    The African Development Bank has provided over $198 million to finance the Msalato International Airport project with $23 million coming from the African Development Fund and $50 million from the African Grow Together Fund.

    – on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

    Media contact:
    Christin Roby
    Regional Communication Officer for East Africa
    Communication and External Relations
    Email: media@afdb.org

    About the African Development Bank Group:
    The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 41 African countries with an external office in Japan, the Bank contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. For more information: www.AfDB.org

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    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Preventing avoidable deaths in custody

    Source: Scottish Government

    Members of expert group to oversee reforms announced.

    Details of an expert group that will help drive reforms to prevent avoidable deaths in custody have been announced.

    Justice Secretary Angela Constance is leading the Ministerial Accountability Board overseeing the implementation of actions to address the recommendations of Sheriff Collins’ Fatal Accident Inquiry report into the deaths of Katie Allan and William Lindsay (also known as William Brown) at HMP & YOI Polmont. The first meeting of the Board was held on Thursday (19 June).

    Bringing a wealth of experience from third sector, legal, operational, research and health backgrounds, the members of the Board will provide support to mitigate challenges and ensure action is delivered as quickly as possible. Engaging with families will also be a central part of the Board’s role, to ensure lived experience is integral to reform.

    The Board is an interim measure until the National Oversight Mechanism – an independent national oversight body for all deaths in custody, separate from the Government – is established over the coming year. It will take on responsibility for overseeing implementation of the FAI actions along with its other responsibilities.

    Ms Constance said:

    “Action is already being taken to prevent avoidable deaths in custody but it is essential that these reforms are driven at pace to make lasting change.

    “The members of the Ministerial Accountability Board are all leaders in their fields and will bring invaluable expertise and experience across a wide range of sectors to make sure the promise of reform is delivered.

    “Engaging with families will be a vital part of the Boards role to ensure that lived experience remains central to the action taken.”

    Background             

    The Ministerial Accountability Board members are:

    Sam Gluckstein, Head of the UK National Preventive Mechanism.

    Sarah Armstrong, Professor of Criminology at University of Glasgow, SCCJR researcher and co-author of ‘Nothing to See Here’.

    Phil Wheatley, British prison officer, formerly the Director General of the National Offender Management Service and before that, the Director General of HM Prison Service.

    Professor Nancy Loucks OBE, Chief Executive of Families Outside and co-chair of the Independent Review into Deaths in Prison Custody, Chair to the DiPC Family Reference Group.

    Nicky Brown, Head of Service at Public Defence Solicitors office.

    Dr Sarah Couper, Public Health Scotland, lead consultant for mental health.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: GUU and Rostransnadzor signed an agreement at SPIEF-2025

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    On June 19, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a cooperation agreement was signed between the State University of Management and the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor).

    The document was signed by the rector of the State University of Management Vladimir Stroyev and the head of Rostransnadzor Viktor Gulin.

    The organizations agreed to work together to develop and implement educational programs for higher and additional education, as well as practical training of specialists, including within the framework of project-based learning.

    Another area of cooperation will be the implementation of joint research and development work on the introduction of unmanned aircraft systems into control (supervisory) activities.

    Also on the sidelines of the SPIEF, agreements were signed with the Fatherland Defenders Foundation, as well as with TMH JSC and Netology.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: At SPIEF-2025, Vladimir Stroyev signed agreements with new partners of the State University of Management

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

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

    At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the State University of Management signed cooperation agreements with new partners.

    On June 19, Vladimir Stroyev, Rector of the State University of Management, and Natalia Shishlakova, Director of the TMH Corporate University, signed an agreement to implement joint educational programs and practical training for students, as well as candidates for a PhD degree, without interrupting their work.

    On June 18, an agreement was signed with Netology to develop joint interactive educational programs.

    In addition, agreements were signed with the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation, as well as with the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump administration’s conflicting messages on Chinese student visas reflect complex US-China relations

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meredith Oyen, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    The U.S. announced plans to scrutinize and revoke student visas for students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or whose studies are in critical fields, but appears to have reconsidered. The decision and apparent about-face could have a wide-ranging impact on both nations. LAW Ho Ming/Getty Images

    President Donald Trump appears to have walked back plans for the U.S. State Department to scrutinize and revoke visas for Chinese students studying in the country.

    On June 11, 2025, Trump posted on his social media platform TruthSocial that visas for Chinese students would continue and that they are welcome in the United States, as their presence “has always been good with me!”

    The announcement came weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that his department would begin scrutinizing and revoking student visas for Chinese nationals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, or whose studies are in critical fields.

    The contradictory moves have led to confusion among Chinese students attending college or considering studying in the United States.

    Over time, Chinese nationals have faced barriers to studying in the U.S. As a scholar who studies relations between the two nations, I argue that efforts to ban Chinese students in the United States are not unprecedented, and historically they have come with consequences.

    Student visas under fire

    The Trump administration laid out the terms for revoking or denying student visas to Chinese nationals but then backtracked.
    STAP/Getty Images

    Since the late 1970s, millions of Chinese students have been granted visas to study at American universities. That total includes approximately 277,000 who studied in the United States in the 2023-2024 academic year.

    It is difficult to determine how many of these students would have been affected by a ban on visas for individuals with Chinese Community Party affiliations or in critical fields.

    Approximately 40% of all new members of the Chinese Communist Party each year are drawn from China’s student population. And many universities in China have party connections or charters that emphasize party loyalty.

    The “critical fields” at risk were not defined. A majority of Chinese students in the U.S. are enrolled in math, technology, science and engineering fields.

    A long history

    Since the late 1970s, the number of Chinese students attending college in the U.S. has increased dramatically.
    Kenishiroite/Getty Images

    Yung Wing became the first Chinese student to graduate from a U.S. university in 1852.

    Since then, millions of Chinese students have come to the United States to study, supported by programs such as the “Chinese Educational Mission,” Boxer Indemnity Fund scholarships and the Fulbright Program.

    The Institute for International Education in New York estimated the economic impact of Chinese students in the U.S. at over US$14 billion a year. Chinese students tend to pay full tuition to their universities. At the graduate level, they perform vital roles in labs and classrooms. Just under half of all Chinese students attending college in the U.S. are graduate students.

    However, there is a long history of equating Chinese migrants as invaders, spies or risks to national security.

    After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the U.S. Department of Justice began to prevent Chinese scholars and students in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – from returning to China by stopping them at U.S. ports of entry and exit. They could be pulled aside when trying to board a flight or ship and their tickets canceled.

    In one infamous case, Chinese rocket scientist Qian Xuesen was arrested, harassed, ordered deported and prevented from leaving over five years from 1950 to 1955. In 1955, the United States and China began ambassadorial-level talks to negotiate repatriations from either country. After his experience, Qian became a much-lauded supporter of the Communist government and played an important role in the development of Chinese transcontinental missile technology.

    During the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Justice raided Chinatown organizations looking for Chinese migrants who arrived under false names during the Chinese Exclusion Era, a period from the 1880s to 1940s when the U.S. government placed tight restrictions on Chinese immigration into the country. A primary justification for the tactics was fear that the Chinese in the U.S. would spy for their home country.

    Between 1949 and 1979, the U.S and China did not have normal diplomatic relations. The two nations recognized each other and exchanged ambassadors starting in January 1979. In the more than four decades since, the number of Chinese students in the U.S. has increased dramatically.

    Anti-Chinese discrimination

    The idea of an outright ban on Chinese student visas has raised concerns about increased targeting of Chinese in the U.S. for harassment.

    In 1999, Taiwanese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested on suspicion of using his position at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to spy for China. Lee remained imprisoned in solitary confinement for 278 days before he was released without a conviction.

    In 2018, during the first Trump administration, the Department of Justice launched its China Initiative. In its effort to weed out industrial, technological and corporate espionage, the initiative targeted many ethnic Chinese researchers and had a chilling effect on continued exchanges, but it secured no convictions for wrongdoing.

    Trump again expressed concerns last year that undocumented migrants from China might be coming to the United States to spy or “build an army.”

    The repeated search for spies among Chinese migrants and residents in the U.S. has created an atmosphere of fear for Chinese American communities.

    Broader foreign policy context

    An atmosphere of suspicion has altered the climate for Chinese international students.
    J Studios/Getty Images

    The U.S. plan to revoke visas for students studying in the U.S. and the Chinese response is being formed amid contentious debates over trade.

    Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian accused the U.S. of violating an agreement on tariff reduction the two sides discussed in Geneva in May, citing the visa issues as one example.

    Trump has also complained that the Chinese violated agreements between the countries, and some reports suggest that the announcement on student visas was a negotiating tactic to change the Chinese stance on the export of rare earth minerals.

    When Trump announced his trade deal with China on June 11, he added a statement welcoming Chinese students.

    However, past practice shows that the atmosphere of uncertainty and suspicion may have already damaged the climate for Chinese international students, and at least some degree of increased scrutiny of student visas will likely continue regardless.

    Meredith Oyen 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. Trump administration’s conflicting messages on Chinese student visas reflect complex US-China relations – https://theconversation.com/trump-administrations-conflicting-messages-on-chinese-student-visas-reflect-complex-us-china-relations-258351

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The term ‘lone gunman’ ignores the structures that enable violence

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

    Members of law enforcement agencies search for shooting suspect Vance Boelter at a house on June 15, 2025, in Belle Plaine, Minn. AP Photo/George Walker IV

    When shots rang out in Minnesota, targeting state Democratic politicians, the headlines quickly followed a familiar script: a mentally unstable suspect and the well-worn label “lone gunman.”

    According to media reports, the Minnesota gunman, Vance Luther Boelter, was a deeply religious anti-abortion activist and a conservative who supported President Donald Trump.

    The term lone gunman, routinely deployed in the aftermath of mass shootings and political violence – that the suspect was simply acting alone, so there’s no one or nothing else to blame – may offer a comforting explanation, but it’s dangerously simplistic.

    It obscures the conditions that made the violence possible in the first place. It casts the perpetrator as an isolated anomaly – mentally unwell, unpredictable, detached from broader movements or ideologies.

    As a scholar of extremism, I argue that the use of this term ignores the larger symptoms of deeper societal failures such as rising political extremism, systemic hate or the normalization of violent rhetoric.

    The lone gunman myth

    The idea of the lone gunman has long held sway in American public discourse, with perhaps no example more iconic than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Warren Commission that was set up to investigate concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, a finding still contested by many.

    But more significant than the historical debate is how the lone gunman label became entrenched in the national psyche. It presents a digestible narrative, one that absolves institutions of responsibility and short-circuits more difficult questions about what conditions produced the attacker in the first place.

    More recent examples reveal how this myth continues to serve as a shield against systemic scrutiny.

    After the 2012 mass shooting that killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, media coverage quickly centered on James Holmes’ mental state, with little emphasis on the culture of gun access, misogyny or disaffection with peers that shaped his actions.

    Similarly, after Dylann Roof murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, early coverage emphasized his apparent isolation and mental state. However, he had openly stated his motivations in a racist manifesto and had long-standing connections to white supremacist ideology that motivated and shaped his violence.

    Radicalization is rarely solitary

    In most cases, so-called lone wolves are not as isolated as the term implies. Researchers have increasingly shown that radicalization is a social process.

    Individuals absorb extremist views through online echo chambers, algorithmic recommendation systems, peer validation and reinforcement from political and media figures.

    Robert Bowers’ lawyers claimed in a public court filing that he was suffering from schizophrenia and structural and functional brain impairments.
    AP Photo/Matt Rourke

    This is evident in cases like that of Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Bowers’ defense attorneys said in a March 2023 court filing that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Though he acted alone, Bowers was deeply embedded in far-right networks on the social media platform Gab, where he echoed white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

    Similarly, Payton Gendron, who killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, cited previous mass shooters as inspiration and plagiarized sections of a white nationalist manifesto. His radicalization was nourished in extremist online forums on platforms such as 4chan and Discord.

    Even attacks without manifestos or explicit ideological tracts often follow recognizable scripts. The El Paso shooter, who killed 23 people in a Walmart in 2019, wrote that he was targeting Hispanics as part of a defense against an “invasion” of immigrants – echoing language used by some conservative analysts, pundits and political figures in mainstream U.S. media and government.

    Again and again, attackers are seen to be acting in ways that align with a broader rationalization or ideology, even if they do not carry official membership in a particular group or organization.

    The politics of the ‘lone gunman’

    Importantly, the lone gunman narrative is applied unevenly, especially along racial lines.

    White perpetrators are frequently described as mentally ill or troubled loners. Their violence is compartmentalized as the result of personal demons. In contrast, as the Sentencing Project – which is working to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system – has shown, Black, Muslim or immigrant suspects are often held up as proof of a broader threat: religious, ethnic or cultural.

    This double standard not only reinforces racial stereotypes but also shapes how law enforcement and the media view violence committed by white actors – as an aberration rather than a pattern.

    The media can play a crucial role in perpetuating the lone gunman myth.
    Consider how swiftly the media and politicians labeled the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, perpetrated by Omar Mateen, as an act of Islamist terrorism. Even though Mateen had no meaningful connections to any terrorist groups, his Islamic religious beliefs were used to construct a narrative that he was part of a global threat.

    By contrast, the FBI hesitated to call Dylann Roof’s actions “racial terrorism.” Terrorism is defined as a form of political violence, where the threat or use of physical force by individuals or groups is not only intended to influence or disrupt governmental authority but to instill fear and force political change. The FBI designated Roof’s crime as a hate crime perpetrated by a disturbed young man.

    This distinction between calling Roof’s attack a hate crime rather than racially motivated terrorism sparked significant criticism from scholars, activists and commentators. Many argued that Roof’s white supremacist motives and the symbolic target, a historic Black church, made it a clear case of racial terrorism.

    Moving toward a more honest understanding

    This asymmetry matters.

    I argue that it shapes public perception, policy responses and resource allocation. It allows white supremacist violence to flourish under the radar, often dismissed until it becomes undeniable – usually after multiple lives have been lost.

    At the same time, politicians are frequently reluctant to acknowledge the ideological underpinnings of such violence, particularly when those ideologies overlap with their own rhetoric or voter base.

    After the 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, where the gunman explicitly cited the “Great Replacement theory” in his manifesto, several Republican politicians who had previously echoed similar anti-immigrant rhetoric condemned the violence but avoided addressing the ideology behind it. The Great Replacement theory is a white supremacist conspiracy theory that falsely claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants, especially Muslims, Latinos or Black people, through immigration, higher birth rates and federal government policy.

    Despite the shooter’s clear ideological motivation, once again many officials focused on mental illness or the violence as an isolated case of extremism. The impact of the messages about immigration and demographic change in contributing to a climate of racial fear and conspiracy were left unacknowledged.

    The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly identified white supremacist violence as one of the top domestic terrorism threats. Investigations related to domestic terrorism and violence have increased significantly over the past few years. In a 2023 interview with “PBS NewsHour,” Seamus Hughes of the University of Nebraska Omaha’s National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology and Education Center said that “the FBI was investigating 850 people three years ago. Now they’re investigating 2,700.”

    Yet meaningful, structural reforms, whether in tech and social media regulation, gun control or public education, have remained elusive. I believe connecting the larger social, political and cultural issues that surround extreme violence is critical to building healthy communities.

    Art Jipson 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. The term ‘lone gunman’ ignores the structures that enable violence – https://theconversation.com/the-term-lone-gunman-ignores-the-structures-that-enable-violence-259107

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Metro Detroit is growing – but its suburbs are telling a more complicated story

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Grigoris Argeros, Professor of Sociology, Eastern Michigan University

    Detroit is still a majority Black city, but the share of white, Asian and Hispanic residents is growing. DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

    Following decades of population loss, Detroit may finally be turning a corner.

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent estimates, the city saw an increase in population for both 2023 and 2024.

    An additional 11,000 people moved into the city in the years 2023 and 2024, a small gain in a city with a population of 645,705 – but one which marked a symbolic shift.

    The census data shows just over 1% growth in the past year alone and 0.7% the year before compared with a nearly 25% loss between 2000 and 2010.

    As an urban sociologist studying issues related to race and ethnicity, I am interested in how Detroit’s population is changing, and where different groups live in both the city and its suburbs.

    Analyzing population trends in the metro Detroit area using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I wanted to understand how racial, ethnic and socioeconomic trends are unfolding, and what those changes can tell us about the evolution and vitality of Detroit.

    Black Detroiters relocate, city diversifies

    From 2010 to 2023, Detroit’s racial and ethnic makeup continued to gradually diversify even as the city was declining in population.

    While Black residents are still the majority, their proportion of the total number fell from around 84% to 79%.

    Other groups, in contrast, increased their share of the city’s population. Between 2010 and 2023, the percentage of Hispanic residents grew from 6.6% to 8.3%, the percentage of white residents grew from 8.2% to 10.7%, and the percentage of Asian residents grew from 1.3% to 1.7%.

    These shifts reflect a steady and ongoing diversification of Detroit’s population, indicative of new migration trends and shifting neighborhood dynamics.

    Suburbs in flux

    In addition to Detroit’s recent population growth, a broader story is unfolding in the city’s suburbs.

    The population of the suburban area as a whole increased 0.73% from 2023 to 2024, but growth was not evenly spread. Collectively, the outer-ring suburbs gained almost 20,000 people, increasing by 1%. Communities such as the city of Troy and Macomb Township accounted for a significant share of that growth.

    A map of Detroit and the surrounding suburbs, with shading to indicate which areas are considered to be the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ suburbs.
    Grigoris Argeros, CC BY

    Inner-ring suburbs, such as Southfield, Warren and others, grew less vigorously – gaining just 4,000 people, or 0.31%.

    These differences highlight the necessity of complicating the conventional city-versus-suburb narrative to acknowledge the many economic and racial divisions across the metropolitan region.

    The socioeconomic statuses of residents of the inner- and outer-ring suburbs diverged between 2000 and 2020.

    My analysis of census data shows that although both subregions witnessed increases in median household incomes, the rates of change were significantly higher in the outer-ring suburbs, with a 37.7% increase versus a 16.8% increase in the inner rings.

    The data shows a similar trend in higher education attainment. Outer ring suburbs gained 7.1% more residents with college degrees or higher during this period, while the inner suburbs lost 7.5%.

    Homeownership patterns in the two suburban regions also diverged over those two decades, increasing 18% in the outer rings and decreasing 10% in the inner rings.

    The data on poverty and immigration also reveal contrasting results.

    According to my calculations of census data, inner-ring suburbs experienced a 77% increase in poverty, while the outer ring experienced a lesser, though considerable, 50.8% bump in poverty during the 2000-2020 period.

    Meanwhile, during the same time period, the foreign-born populations in the outer suburbs expanded by 24.9%, with increases of at least 10,000 in places such as Sterling Heights, Novi and Canton. In contrast, the inner suburbs saw more modest gains — around 5,000 in cities such as Dearborn Heights and Warren — while their overall foreign-born share declined by nearly 20%.

    Together, the above trends highlight the necessity of not viewing the suburban area as a monolith. These patterns reflect national trends, in which many older, inner-ring suburbs are experiencing socioeconomic stagnation or decline while newer, outer-ring suburbs continue to attract more people who have higher incomes.

    Mixed neighborhoods grow

    Residential segregation also differentiates inner and outer suburban rings.

    Segregation levels remain high in the inner suburbs, especially between white and Black residents. While outer suburbs tend to be more integrated today, the rate of change there has been more modest over the past two decades.

    Social scientists measure segregation using a tool called the “dissimilarity index.” The index represents the proportion of one group that would need to move to establish an equal distribution of the population based on their relative numbers. It ranges from 0 to 100. A score of 0 means equal distribution across neighborhoods, while a score of 100 means the two groups live in completely separate areas.

    From 2000 to 2020, white-Black segregation across the region decreased from 84.4% to 68.3% on the index, while white-Hispanic segregation decreased from 47.6% to 39.9%. Together, these numbers indicate a broader trend toward more integrated living patterns.

    In the inner-ring suburbs, segregation fell across the board. White-Black segregation went down by 15.6%; white-Asian and white-Hispanic segregation dropped even more, by 43.2% and 30.7%, respectively.

    These trends suggest that while the outer suburbs currently have lower levels of segregation, the inner suburbs are integrating more rapidly, reflecting shifting patterns of neighborhood change and increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

    Detroit has come a long way since exiting bankruptcy in 2014. Its recent population growth and increasing diversity show important signs of renewal.

    Grigoris Argeros 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. Metro Detroit is growing – but its suburbs are telling a more complicated story – https://theconversation.com/metro-detroit-is-growing-but-its-suburbs-are-telling-a-more-complicated-story-257875

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Metro Detroit is growing – but its suburbs are telling a more complicated story

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Grigoris Argeros, Professor of Sociology, Eastern Michigan University

    Detroit is still a majority Black city, but the share of white, Asian and Hispanic residents is growing. DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

    Following decades of population loss, Detroit may finally be turning a corner.

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent estimates, the city saw an increase in population for both 2023 and 2024.

    An additional 11,000 people moved into the city in the years 2023 and 2024, a small gain in a city with a population of 645,705 – but one which marked a symbolic shift.

    The census data shows just over 1% growth in the past year alone and 0.7% the year before compared with a nearly 25% loss between 2000 and 2010.

    As an urban sociologist studying issues related to race and ethnicity, I am interested in how Detroit’s population is changing, and where different groups live in both the city and its suburbs.

    Analyzing population trends in the metro Detroit area using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I wanted to understand how racial, ethnic and socioeconomic trends are unfolding, and what those changes can tell us about the evolution and vitality of Detroit.

    Black Detroiters relocate, city diversifies

    From 2010 to 2023, Detroit’s racial and ethnic makeup continued to gradually diversify even as the city was declining in population.

    While Black residents are still the majority, their proportion of the total number fell from around 84% to 79%.

    Other groups, in contrast, increased their share of the city’s population. Between 2010 and 2023, the percentage of Hispanic residents grew from 6.6% to 8.3%, the percentage of white residents grew from 8.2% to 10.7%, and the percentage of Asian residents grew from 1.3% to 1.7%.

    These shifts reflect a steady and ongoing diversification of Detroit’s population, indicative of new migration trends and shifting neighborhood dynamics.

    Suburbs in flux

    In addition to Detroit’s recent population growth, a broader story is unfolding in the city’s suburbs.

    The population of the suburban area as a whole increased 0.73% from 2023 to 2024, but growth was not evenly spread. Collectively, the outer-ring suburbs gained almost 20,000 people, increasing by 1%. Communities such as the city of Troy and Macomb Township accounted for a significant share of that growth.

    A map of Detroit and the surrounding suburbs, with shading to indicate which areas are considered to be the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ suburbs.
    Grigoris Argeros, CC BY

    Inner-ring suburbs, such as Southfield, Warren and others, grew less vigorously – gaining just 4,000 people, or 0.31%.

    These differences highlight the necessity of complicating the conventional city-versus-suburb narrative to acknowledge the many economic and racial divisions across the metropolitan region.

    The socioeconomic statuses of residents of the inner- and outer-ring suburbs diverged between 2000 and 2020.

    My analysis of census data shows that although both subregions witnessed increases in median household incomes, the rates of change were significantly higher in the outer-ring suburbs, with a 37.7% increase versus a 16.8% increase in the inner rings.

    The data shows a similar trend in higher education attainment. Outer ring suburbs gained 7.1% more residents with college degrees or higher during this period, while the inner suburbs lost 7.5%.

    Homeownership patterns in the two suburban regions also diverged over those two decades, increasing 18% in the outer rings and decreasing 10% in the inner rings.

    The data on poverty and immigration also reveal contrasting results.

    According to my calculations of census data, inner-ring suburbs experienced a 77% increase in poverty, while the outer ring experienced a lesser, though considerable, 50.8% bump in poverty during the 2000-2020 period.

    Meanwhile, during the same time period, the foreign-born populations in the outer suburbs expanded by 24.9%, with increases of at least 10,000 in places such as Sterling Heights, Novi and Canton. In contrast, the inner suburbs saw more modest gains — around 5,000 in cities such as Dearborn Heights and Warren — while their overall foreign-born share declined by nearly 20%.

    Together, the above trends highlight the necessity of not viewing the suburban area as a monolith. These patterns reflect national trends, in which many older, inner-ring suburbs are experiencing socioeconomic stagnation or decline while newer, outer-ring suburbs continue to attract more people who have higher incomes.

    Mixed neighborhoods grow

    Residential segregation also differentiates inner and outer suburban rings.

    Segregation levels remain high in the inner suburbs, especially between white and Black residents. While outer suburbs tend to be more integrated today, the rate of change there has been more modest over the past two decades.

    Social scientists measure segregation using a tool called the “dissimilarity index.” The index represents the proportion of one group that would need to move to establish an equal distribution of the population based on their relative numbers. It ranges from 0 to 100. A score of 0 means equal distribution across neighborhoods, while a score of 100 means the two groups live in completely separate areas.

    From 2000 to 2020, white-Black segregation across the region decreased from 84.4% to 68.3% on the index, while white-Hispanic segregation decreased from 47.6% to 39.9%. Together, these numbers indicate a broader trend toward more integrated living patterns.

    In the inner-ring suburbs, segregation fell across the board. White-Black segregation went down by 15.6%; white-Asian and white-Hispanic segregation dropped even more, by 43.2% and 30.7%, respectively.

    These trends suggest that while the outer suburbs currently have lower levels of segregation, the inner suburbs are integrating more rapidly, reflecting shifting patterns of neighborhood change and increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

    Detroit has come a long way since exiting bankruptcy in 2014. Its recent population growth and increasing diversity show important signs of renewal.

    Grigoris Argeros 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. Metro Detroit is growing – but its suburbs are telling a more complicated story – https://theconversation.com/metro-detroit-is-growing-but-its-suburbs-are-telling-a-more-complicated-story-257875

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Deputy President calls for solidarity as global landscape changes

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    Deputy President Paul Mashatile has highlighted the importance of solidarity and collaboration in today’s rapidly evolving global landscape. 

    Delivering a public lecture at St. Petersburg State University, the Deputy President explained that South Africa’s Presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) comes at a time characterised by geopolitical tensions and economic disparities.

    “As we gather here today, amidst the tumultuous global crises characterised by rising geopolitical tensions, trade wars, unemployment, inequality, poverty, armed conflicts, and climate catastrophe, it has become very clear that the world needs solidarity now more than ever,” the Deputy President said on Thursday. 

    Deputy President Mashatile arrived in Russia this week for a working visit aimed at strengthening economic and trade ties between the two nations. 

    The visit focuses on enhancing economic cooperation between the two countries in sectors such as agriculture, automotive, energy, and mining industries, as well as cooperation in science and technology.

    South Africa’s G20 Presidency

    Deputy President Mashatile’s speech highlighted South Africa’s role as the current chair of the G20 and its commitment to addressing pressing global challenges.

    South Africa’s G20 Presidency theme: “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability” articulates the necessary principles of fostering a more inclusive global community. 

    “Only through exercising solidarity and identifying with each other’s struggles can we do justice to the notion of international community or ‘Ubuntu’.”

    Deputy President Mashatile reiterated the importance of global solidarity, urging those present to work together to create a more equitable world. 

    “We aim to capitalise on the prospects of globalisation while limiting its risks and ensuring that the benefits of economic progress and technological advancement are shared by all,” he said.

    He called for unity, adding that “we must build upon that legacy and strengthen our cooperation in science, technology, research, and innovation”.

    Universities like St. Petersburg State University can play a pivotal role in bridging the priorities of BRICS, the African Union, and the G20.
     “Our future lies in knowledge economies, and your institution is a natural partner in this effort,” Mashatile added.

    The country’s second-in-command praised the university’s Faculty of International Relations and the Institute for African Studies for their engagement with scholars across Africa. 

    He extended an invitation for deeper collaborations with leading South African institutions, emphasising the mutual benefits that such partnerships could foster.

    The Deputy President highlighted the university’s impressive legacy, noting that it has produced numerous renowned figures, including President Vladimir Putin and the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. 

    “The presence of so many renowned scholars, leaders, and diplomats here today is a testament to the university’s continued relevance in shaping discourse on global affairs.” 

    The Deputy President reflected on the historical ties between South Africa and Russia, expressing gratitude for the support received during the anti-apartheid struggle. 

    Despite the prevailing geopolitical environment, he said South Africa is steadfast in its commitment to this course. 

    “… And with our G20 Presidency, we possess a unique opportunity to influence the global discourse on critical issues.” 

    Sustainable Development Goals

    The G20 has a significant role to play in fostering global cooperation, collaboration and partnership to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda.

    He announced the country’s G20 Presidency will, through its four overarching priorities, seek to address challenges that stifle the ability of the Global South to achieve desired levels of growth and development. 

    In addition, South Africa will take steps to enhance disaster resilience and response. 

    The country also aims to ensure debt sustainability for low-income nations, mobilise financing for a Just Energy Transition, and seek to leverage critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development. – SAnews.gov.za
     

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Anti-ageing drug rapamycin may extend life almost as effectively as restricting calories – our new research

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Zahida Sultanova, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia

    There’s a better way. Africa Studio/Shutterstock

    For centuries, humans have searched for ways to extend life. Alchemists never found the philosopher’s stone, but scientists have consistently shown that a longer life can be attained by eating less – at least in certain lab animals. But can we find a way to live longer while still enjoying our food?

    Compounds that mimic the biological effects of dieting could be the answer, and the two most popular diet-mimicking drugs are rapamycin and metformin. In a new study, my colleagues and I found that rapamycin prolongs life almost as consistently as eating less, whereas metformin does not.

    Eating less, or dietary restriction, has been the gold standard for achieving a longer life ever since a study nearly a century ago in which laboratory rats that ate less surprised scientists by outliving their well-fed lab mates.

    But for many people, sticking to a permanent diet is hard and far from enjoyable. Also, if taken to extremes, it can even be bad for health. That is why we wanted to know whether drugs that are dieting mimics could bring the same benefit of eating less without the unwanted side-effects.

    Rapamycin was first discovered in bacteria living in Easter Island soil in the 1970s, and medical professionals now use it to prevent organ-transplant rejection, as it is a powerful immunosuppressant. It works by blocking a molecular switch that tells cells when nutrients are abundant.

    Metformin, meanwhile, is a synthetic descendant of a compound found in French lilac (also known as goat’s rue) and is widely prescribed to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes. Both drugs are involved in the body’s ability to sense nutrients and energy, so biologists like us hoped they might copy the mechanisms activated by eating less.

    To find out, we pooled the results of many studies to see if there were any overall patterns. We carefully examined thousands of scientific papers to finally home in on 167 studies on eight vertebrate species, from fish to monkeys, that provided sufficient details on survival and how the study was done. Then we compared three longevity strategies: eating less, taking rapamycin and taking metformin.

    We found that eating less still came out on top as the most consistent way to prolong life in all animals but rapamycin was close behind. Metformin, in contrast, showed no clear benefit. The life-extension effect of eating less was the same in both sexes, and it didn’t matter whether the diet plan involved eating smaller portions or intermittent fasting.

    That makes rapamycin one of the most exciting leads for new anti-ageing therapies. Ageing might not be considered a disease, but it is a risk factor behind many diseases from cancer to dementia. If we slow that underlying process, the benefit will be extra years of quality life and lower healthcare bills as the world’s population grows older.

    Rapamycin was first isolated from bacteria found in the soil on Easter Island.
    JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock.com

    Encouraging early signs, but we’re not quite there yet

    However, there are some important points to consider. First, we discovered considerable variation from experiment to experiment with some studies even showing that eating less or taking rapamycin reduced lifespan.

    Also, most of the evidence originates from mice and rats that have many of our genes but are clearly not exactly like us.

    Finally, rapamycin may have side-effects such as repressing immunity and reproduction. Researchers are now investigating milder doses of rapamycin to see if they provide the advantages without the side-effects.

    The preliminary signs are encouraging. In an ongoing human rapamycin trial, volunteers given low, intermittent doses of rapamycin have experienced positive effects on indicators of healthspan. For metformin, the human trial is still in progress and the findings are expected to be out in a few years time.

    For now, nobody should run to their doctor asking for prescriptions of rapamycin to live longer. But this drug, extracted from obscure soil bacteria, shows us that interfering with a single molecular pathway can be enough to mimic the benefits of eating less. The challenge is to use this discovery to produce therapies that make us healthier for longer without compromising our quality of life – or our taste for the occasional slice of chocolate cake.

    Dr. Zahida Sultanova works for the University of East Anglia and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She is a member of European Society of Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Society of Turkey (EkoEvo).

    – ref. Anti-ageing drug rapamycin may extend life almost as effectively as restricting calories – our new research – https://theconversation.com/anti-ageing-drug-rapamycin-may-extend-life-almost-as-effectively-as-restricting-calories-our-new-research-259169

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Experts discussed the digital transformation of the construction industry

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Seminar at SPbGASU

    A seminar entitled “Digital transformation of the construction sector and standardization in self-regulation as tools for improving the quality and safety of capital construction projects” was held at SPbGASU.

    The event was organized by the National Association of Surveyors and Designers (NOPRIZ), SPbGASU and the Association of SRO “OsnovaProekt”.

    The first day of the seminar began with a plenary session moderated by the coordinator of NOPRIZ for the Northwestern Federal District Alexander Vikhrov and the deputy director of the Association of SRO “OsnovaProekt” for development Polina Fedyuchek. Then two round tables were held: the first of them was devoted to the role of digital transformation of architectural and construction design and engineering surveys in improving the quality of capital construction. The second discussed how standardization in self-regulation affects the quality of construction.

    Vice President and member of the NOPRIZ Council Mikhail Lyubimov highlighted the main problems in the field of digitalization of the construction sector, proposed ways to solve them, emphasizing the potential of NOPRIZ, and also spoke about the support measures implemented by the national association. “It is important to remember that digitalization should be a means of optimizing our industry, and not an end in itself. A significant issue of digitalization is the availability of effective domestic software. At the last all-Russian congress of NOPRIZ, we concluded an agreement with the Domestic Software Association. The main idea of such cooperation is to support domestic developers,” he noted.

    In parallel, added Mikhail Lyubimov, NOPRIZ is working with Glavgosexpertiza to create comprehensive software solutions for the connectivity of the domestic ecosystem and the transition to full-fledged digital management of the construction life cycle.

    The President of the Association of SRO “OsnovaProekt” Sergey Levitsky emphasized the need to adapt professional standards and qualification requirements in construction to the realities of the digital age.

    Vice-Rector for Continuing Education at SPbGASU Victoria Vinogradova noted: “The common tasks of the university and self-regulatory organizations lie in the area of improving the quality of construction, ensuring the safety of facilities and training highly qualified specialists. We share the desire to create a sustainable and innovative construction industry. The university can be useful to self-regulatory organizations as a competence center offering educational programs, scientific research and a platform for testing new technologies. In turn, self-regulatory organizations can provide practical expertise, helping us adapt educational programs to the real needs of the market.”

    During the seminar, representatives of the NOPRIZ apparatus conducted training for employees of self-regulatory organizations in accordance with the professional standard “Specialist in the field of self-regulation in urban development activities” and on the work of SRO specialists in the Automated Information System “Rating”.

    At the end of the seminar, a ceremonial presentation of certificates of completion of training at SPbGASU took place.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Decade long Infrastructure Strategy to deliver stability, investment and national renewal

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Decade long Infrastructure Strategy to deliver stability, investment and national renewal

    10 Year Infrastructure Strategy published today (19 June) will deliver on the Government’s growth mission, as part of the Plan for Change, transforming how infrastructure projects are planned and delivered.

    • Safer hospitals, modernised schools, and renovated courts to replace crumbling public sector buildings, as Strategy pledges at least £9 billion per year over next decade for renewal of Health, Education and Justice estates
    • New approach to infrastructure will include vital reforms to ensure planning and delivery is joined up, backed by £725 billion in long-term funding for maintenance and major projects.

    The soaring maintenance backlog which has left our schools, colleges, hospitals and courts in a state of disrepair will be turned around as part of the government’s landmark 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy published today (19 June).  

    The Strategy sets out a long-term plan for how the government will invest in infrastructure and ensure that funding is spent effectively and efficiently, marking a new approach to how projects are planned and delivered.  

    This government is committed to doing things differently to deliver infrastructure and fix the failures of the past, having accepted all of the James Stewart Review’s recommendations on HS2. The Strategy provides the certainty and stability needed to attract investment, boosting British supply chains and jobs, and takes a joined-up view to improve planning and delivery across all types of infrastructure.  

    It will also encourage inward investment by providing a long-term vision that gives investors the confidence and certainty they need to truly commit funding to projects, creating job opportunities and boosting living standards for people across the country, delivering on the Plan for Change. 

    These plans are backed by at least £725 billion of government funding over the coming decade, from which at least £9 billion will be allocated in 2025-26 to address the critical maintenance needs of health, education and justice estates, rising to over £10 billion per year by 2034-35.  

    This will increase access to quality, modern public services, following years of underinvestment, and deliver significant real-world benefits for patients, students, staff, and communities.

    Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves said:

    Infrastructure is crucial to unlocking growth across the country, but for too long investment has been squeezed. Crumbling public buildings are a sign of the decay that has seeped into our everyday lives because of a total failure to plan and invest.

    We’re not just fixing buildings – we’re enhancing public services, improving lives and creating the conditions for sustainable economic growth in communities throughout the UK.

    This will deliver the decade of national renewal we promised Britain, and fulfil our Plan for Change goals to kickstart economic growth, and build an NHS fit for the future.

    The 10-year maintenance investment will deliver tangible improvements for people across the country:

    • Health: Over £6 billion per year will create safer hospital environments across England with reduced waiting times, improved patient outcomes, and better working conditions for NHS staff. By eliminating RAAC concrete and addressing critical infrastructure risks, patients will receive care in modern facilities that support rather than hinder their treatment and recovery.
    • Education: Investment in school and college maintenance will rise to almost £3 billion annually, transforming learning environments across England and providing safe and high-quality spaces for children and young people, improving educational outcomes and breaking down barriers to opportunity.
    • Justice: At least £600 million investment each year will improve safety and security in prisons across England and Wales, reducing incidents and creating environments more conducive to rehabilitation. Enhanced court facilities will help reduce backlogs and improve access to justice.

    This strategic investment approach will help break the cycle of deterioration and emergency repairs that has characterised public infrastructure maintenance for decades. By adopting a preventative approach, services will face fewer disruptive closures, operate more efficiently, and deliver better value for taxpayers in the long term. 

    The programme directly supports the government’s mission to build an NHS fit for the future, with healthcare facilities that enable earlier diagnosis and better treatment outcomes. It also advances the mission to break down barriers to opportunity by ensuring all children have access to quality learning environments, regardless of where they live. 

    To support delivery of this strategy, the government is funding at least £725 billion for the country’s infrastructure over the next decade, ensuring that public infrastructure capital funding continues to grow in line with inflation after the current Spending Review period. This funding certainty will help government and industry plan further ahead, allowing for more efficient delivery of UK wide infrastructure. 

    The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), established by the government this year, will work with partners across government and industry to effectively implement the strategy across the whole of the UK. NISTA will periodically review the progress made and work with devolved governments to ensure that infrastructure strategy across the UK is joined up.

    Becky Wood, Chief Executive Officer of NISTA, said:

    This investment is a welcome part of the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy and will help us to address some of the challenges that our key public services have faced over recent years.   

    Strategic preventative maintenance based on longer-term plans is a more effective approach than making decisions in the absence of certainty about the future – and will ensure our vital public services remain resilient and fit for purpose. 

    By approaching replacement and maintenance of our infrastructure in an informed and systematic way, we can target interventions effectively and plan properly for the future.

    More information

    The 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy outlines the government’s comprehensive approach to infrastructure investment across all sectors.

    This funding commitment follows recommendations from the National Audit Office on the need for long-term, sustainable maintenance funding.

    The funding in the 10YIS includes:   

    • £1 billion to carry out maintenance on key transport infrastructure, including crumbling bridges, flyovers and crossing.  

    • £590 million to start work on the Lower Thames Crossing. 

    • £16 billion of new public investment will help build over 500,000 new homes, which will also unlock over £53bn of private investment.

    Tracy Blackwell, Chief Executive Officer, Pension Insurance Corporation said:

    The government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy is a good step in the right direction – providing clarity, ambition, and commitment to long-term investors in UK infrastructure, like Pension Insurance Corporation. We welcome the clearer pipeline of projects and a renewed focus on social value, something that is of real importance for local people. The Government’s wider efforts on planning reform, transparent delivery bodies, and reducing the regulatory burden will supplement this new strategy – offering a much more investable environment across the UK.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley said:

    The Strategy set out today is a serious plan for addressing the long-running challenges that have prohibited investment for years. The government needs to be transparent in how it selects its infrastructure investments to drive growth and this Strategy is a big step forward in doing that. I look forward to further detail on the government’s plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail.

    Keith Lawson, Executive Vice President, Jacobs said:

    Jacobs welcomes the 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy as a testament to the Government’s commitment to driving economic growth, empowering communities, and providing market certainty. We are excited about the potential for this ambitious strategy to attract new talent to our sector, embrace new technologies, and promote the UK’s ability to compete globally.

    By investing in public services, transport, and clean energy, we are not only addressing today’s needs but also laying the foundation for a resilient future. The combined efforts of the Spending Review, NISTA, and the 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy provide the stability, coordination, and long-term vision necessary for efficient infrastructure delivery.

    At Jacobs, we are committed to partnering with the Government to deliver these vital projects, creating lasting positive impacts across the UK.

    Updates to this page

    Published 19 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Early works to start as contractor appointed for Wednesfield High Street transformation

    Source: City of Wolverhampton

    Taylor Woodrow will next week begin investigatory works to progress the design of the new scheme ahead of main construction works starting later in the year.

    Underground service surveys, drainage surveys and trial holes, are scheduled to take place between Monday 23 June and Friday 27 June with further investigatory works to follow. Dates are subject to change.

    The improvements will increase the vibrancy of the High Street by delivering environmental enhancements to the public realm and markets to encourage increased footfall, linked trips and dwell time to support businesses and boost the local economy.

    It follows the council securing UK Government funding for the scheme and extensive consultation and engagement with the public and traders, with the final works set to include:

    • Improved paving, lighting, greening and seating in High Street to attract more footfall and investment and support the established markets offer
    • Improved pedestrian crossings in the High Street
    • More attractive pedestrian access in the south from Bentley Bridge and from the north, linking the High Street with Lichfield Road and the new Wednesfield Technology Primary School
    • Improved access and signage from car parks, especially through Bealeys Fold where improved paving, landscaping, lighting and wayfinding will help draw people into the heart of the High Street
    • Creation of a new events and activity space to encourage further activation of the High Street

    Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for Resident Services, said: “I am delighted we have appointed Taylor Woodrow to carry out these important regeneration works in Wednesfield.

    “With the contractor now in place we can complete the investigatory works in the coming weeks and finalise the designs ahead of main works starting.

    “The finished scheme will bring the vibrancy back to Wednesfield High Street and surrounding areas, make it a more welcoming place for all and will boost the local economy.”

    Ninder Johal, Chair of Wolverhampton’s City Investment Board, said: “As a board we fought hard to secure funding to support improvements in district centres like Wednesfield and Bilston.

    “This scheme will make a major difference to Wednesfield High Street and the town centre as a whole, creating a better experience for businesses, residents and visitors.”

    Barriers and signs will be in place on street to create space for the survey works. Traffic flows and pedestrian routes will be maintained throughout with minimal disruption expected.

    Hours of work will be from 7.30am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday. Some weekend and night works maybe required but advanced notice will be given.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: ARU’s fashion students enjoy a ‘sails bonanza’

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    ARU students learning about sail fabrics with Holly Manvell founder of Clean Sailors (pictured right)

    Students at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) are making waves with their innovative, eco-friendly fashion creations made from end-of-life sails.

    As part of the Fashion Design degree course, students examine the social, cultural and environmental issues within fashion, and ARU’s Cambridge School of Art has teamed up with not-for-profit organisation Clean Sailors for the course’s Sustainable Design and Innovation Practice module.

    The first-year module focuses on subjects such as minimal waste and upcycling to tackle environmental concerns within the industry, and students were tasked with producing zero-waste clothes made from recycled, end-of-life fabrics.

    Clean Sailors runs a global upcycling and recycling scheme called ReSail by Clean Sailors to give a new life to old sails and this year provided a 30-year-old mainsail and a large spinnaker for ARU students to recreate into garments.

    After months of hard work in ARU’s fashion studios, Asmeet Kaur Wadhwa has been named the winner of a prize awarded by Clean Sailors, for the most inspiring and innovative use of the sail, for her cagoule jacket.

    “Whilst spent sails may no longer be any good for sailing, they retain inherent value as a textile. This partnership is really poignant for me, personally, as the mainsail was my grandfather’s – it had taken him across the Bay of Biscay, Azores and down to Cape Town before losing its integrity as a mainsail.

    “Protest through fashion has a powerful history. I spent my late teens in fashion industry and at the time designers such as Henry Holland and Katharine Hamnett were using slogans across garments to raise awareness of political issues, a movement of which Vivienne Westwood was really the queen of.

    “So, it’s a beautiful full-circle moment whereby a family mainsail has been used by students in the renowned Cambridge School of Art to explore sailcloth as a textile and through zero-waste patterns. It’s been so exciting seeing what these budding fashion designers have created.”

    Holly Manvell, founder of Clean Sailors

    “Fashion is a trillion-dollar market globally, with a host of environmental challenges of its own. In this course we provide students with sustainable creative practices, for example zero-waste design techniques, and through our use of seemingly ‘waste’ textiles, we aim to encourage an innovative way of thinking about the future of fashion design.

    “Having previously worked with recycling tents into clothing, we were looking for a new perspective on sustainable fashion and textiles. Sail fabric as a textile resource is even more hard wearing than the fabrics we have previously worked with, and we were interested to see how this versatile and underused fabric could feed into our student’s sustainable practice and make clothes more durable.

    “We reached out to Clean Sailors after seeing their ReSail platform and how they were connecting the sailing community with project partners to upcycle sails into a range of lifestyle products. We were delighted when Holly replied with such enthusiasm and support for our project.”

    Sarah Graham, Lecturer in Fashion Design at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Fairness and Child Poverty Update

    Source: Scotland – City of Dundee

    Grassroots examples of how Dundee City Council and partners are tackling fairness and child poverty issues are to be showcased to councillors.

    The frontline actions are contained in a new report which highlights the scale of the task faced by local agencies during the continuing cost of living crisis.

    While Dundee is setting itself the ambitious goal of matching the Scottish Government’s overall national target of reducing child poverty to less than 10% of children living in relative poverty, latest figures show a rate of 26.1 % for the city.

    A combined Fairness and Local Child Poverty Action Plan Report for 2024/25 is to go before the City Governance committee at its next meeting on Monday June 23. The document sets out how the council and partners will continue to work together to improve the situation for families and communities across Dundee.

    It also takes on board the latest recommendations of the Dundee Fairness Leadership Panel, which is looking to prioritise efforts around mental health and isolation, fair housing and support to third sector projects offering crisis assistance to tackle poverty.

    In the report, areas of improvement over the last year are highlighted.

    These include:  

    • The number of council and registered social landlord housing completions (increased by 29.2%).
    • percentage point gap in literacy in p1-p7 between pupils living in SIMD 1 areas and SIMD 5 areas (decreased by 16.6%)
    • number of children living in temporary accommodation (decreased by 13.4%) 

    Within the report, a number of case studies are used to illustrate the efforts that are ongoing throughout the city. These are grouped under themes and some of the projects listed include:

    Social Inclusion and Stigma

    Strengthening family support through volunteering – DVVA Programme

    Promoting community-led suicide prevention – Dundee Creating Hope Awards Pilot

    Work and Wages  

    Supporting young people into employment – Employability Pathfinder (LFI Linlathen)

    Safe Housing Enabling Employment – Housing & Communities Team

    Benefits and Advice

    Preventing housing insecurity through school-based advice

    Securing backdated benefits for an older resident

    Attainment and Child Poverty

    Tackling poverty and increasing attainment in Longhaugh and St Francis’ Primary Schools

    Closing the attainment gap through the Strategic Equity Fund

    Health Inequalities

    Promoting wellbeing and resilience in schools – S2 Health & Wellbeing Group

    Supporting mental health through community-led events – Hilltown Community

    Housing and Communities

    Adapting homes for children with disabilities

    Providing coordinated housing and community support

    Committee depute convener Councillor Willie Sawers said: “The voices of communities with experience continue to be listened to as they are a vital help to us to develop responses to inequalities and poverty.

    “Statistics concerning child poverty in Dundee are stark, that is why we committed to doing as much as we can to turn this around.

    “I am heartened by the strong partnerships that exist between Dundee organisations and agencies across the public, private and third sectors and the ongoing desire to work together to transform life for people in the city.” 

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Change of His Majesty’s Ambassador to Hungary: Justin McKenzie Smith

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    News story

    Change of His Majesty’s Ambassador to Hungary: Justin McKenzie Smith

    Mr Justin McKenzie Smith has been appointed His Majesty’s Ambassador to Hungary in succession to Mr Paul Fox, who will be retiring from the Diplomatic Service. Mr McKenzie Smith will take up his appointment during October 2025.

    Justin McKenzie Smith

    Curriculum vitae           

    Full name: Justin James McKenzie Smith

    Date Role
    2024 to present Language training (Hungarian)
    2021 to 2024 FCDO, Head, Central Asia & Eastern Neighbourhood Department
    2020 to 2021 Scottish Government (on secondment)
    2016 to 2020 Tbilisi, Her Majesty’s Ambassador
    2015 to 2016 Language training (Georgian)
    2011 to 2015 Mexico City, Director, Trade & Investment and Deputy Head of Mission
    2011 Language training (Spanish)
    2008 to 2011 FCO, Deputy Director/Director (acting), Eastern Europe & Central Asia Directorate
    2004 to 2008 New York, First Secretary, UK Mission to the United Nations
    2002 to 2004 FCO, Ministerial Press Officer
    1999 to 2002 FCO, Head, Europe Section, Human Rights Policy Department
    1996 to 1999 Moscow, Second Secretary
    1995 to 1996 Language training (Russian)
    1994 to 1995 FCO, European Union Department
    1994 Joined FCO

    Media enquiries

    Email newsdesk@fcdo.gov.uk

    Telephone 020 7008 3100

    Email the FCDO Newsdesk (monitored 24 hours a day) in the first instance, and we will respond as soon as possible.

    Updates to this page

    Published 19 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why New Zealand has paused funding to the Cook Islands over China deal

    BACKGROUNDER: By Christina Persico, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor/presenter;
    Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific; and Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    New Zealand has paused $18.2 million in development assistance funding to the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year.

    This move is causing consternation in the realm country, with one local political leader calling it “a significant escalation” between Avarua and Wellington.

    A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the Cook Islands did not consult with Aotearoa over the China deals and failed to ensure shared interests were not put at risk.

    On Thursday (Wednesday local time), Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown told Parliament that his government knew the funding cut was coming.

    “We have been aware that this core sector support would not be forthcoming in this budget because this had not been signed off by the New Zealand government in previous months, so it has not been included in the budget that we are debating this week,” he said.

    How the diplomatic stoush started
     A diplomatic row first kicked off in February between the two nations.

    Prime Minister Brown went on an official visit to China, where he signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement.

    The agreements focus in areas of economy, infrastructure and maritime cooperation and seabed mineral development, among others. They do not include security or defence.

    However, to New Zealand’s annoyance, Brown did not discuss the details with it first.

    Prior to signing, Brown said he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit to China.

    Afterwards, a spokesperson for Peters released a statement saying New Zealand would consider the agreements closely, in light of the countries’ mutual constitutional responsibilities.

    The Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship
     Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand. The country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief and defence.

    Cook Islanders also hold New Zealand passports entitling them to live and work there.

    In 2001, New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a joint centenary declaration, which required the two to “consult regularly on defence and security issues”.

    The Cook Islands did not think it needed to consult with New Zealand on the China agreement.

    Peters said there is an expectation that the government of the Cook Islands would not pursue policies that were “significantly at variance with New Zealand’s interests”.

    Later in February, the Cooks confirmed it had struck a five-year agreement with China to cooperate in exploring and researching seabed mineral riches.

    A spokesperson for Peters said at the time said the New Zealand government noted the mining agreements and would analyse them.

    How New Zealand reacted
     On Thursday morning, Peters said the Cook Islands had not lived up to the 2001 declaration.

    Peters said the Cook Islands had failed to give satisfactory answers to New Zealand’s questions about the arrangement.

    “We have made it very clear in our response to statements that were being made — which we do not think laid out the facts and truth behind this matter — of what New Zealand’s position is,” he said.

    “We’ve got responsibilities ourselves here. And we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put a step wrong in our commitment and our special arrangement which goes back decades.”

    Officials would be working through what the Cook Islands had to do so New Zealand was satisfied the funding could resume.

    He said New Zealand’s message was conveyed to the Cook Islands government “in its finality” on June 4.

    “When we made this decision, we said to them our senior officials need to work on clearing up this misunderstanding and confusion about our arrangements and about our relationship.”

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is in China this week.

    Asked about the timing of Luxon’s visit to China, and what he thought the response from China might be, Peters said the decision to pause the funding was not connected to China.

    He said he had raised the matter with his China counterpart Wang Yi, when he last visited China in February, and Wang understood New Zealand’s relationship with the Cook Islands.

    Concerns in the Cook Islands
     Over the past three years, New Zealand has provided nearly $194.6 million (about US$117m) to the Cook Islands through the development programme.

    Cook Islands opposition leader Tina Browne said she was deeply concerned about the pause.

    Browne said she was informed of the funding pause on Wednesday night, and she was worried about the indication from Peters that it might affect future funding.

    She issued a “please explain” request to Mark Brown:

    “The prime minister has been leading the country to think that everything with New Zealand has been repaired, hunky dory, etcetera — trust is still there,” she said.

    “Wham-bam, we get this in the Cook Islands News this morning. What does that tell you?”

    Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown (left) and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters in Rarotonga in February last year. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon

    Will NZ’s action ‘be a very good news story’ for Beijing?
     Massey University’s defence and security expert Dr Anna Powles told RNZ Pacific that aid should not be on the table in debate between New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

    “That spirit of the [2001] declaration is really in question here,” she said.

    “The negotiation between the two countries needs to take aid as a bargaining chip off the table for it to be able to continue — for it to be successful.”

    Dr Powles said New Zealand’s moves might help China strengthen its hand in the Pacific.

    She said China could contrast its position on using aid as a bargaining chip.

    “By Beijing being able to tell its partners in the region, ‘we would never do that, and certainly we would never seek to leverage our relationships in this way’. This could be a very good news story for China, and it certainly puts New Zealand in a weaker position, as a consequence.”

    However, a prominent Cook Islands lawyer said it was fair that New Zealand was pressing pause.

    Norman George said Brown should implore New Zealand for forgiveness.

    “It is absolutely a fair thing to do because our prime minister betrayed New Zealand and let the government and people of New Zealand down.”

    Brown has not responded to multiple attempts by RNZ Pacific for comment.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why New Zealand has paused funding to the Cook Islands over China deal

    BACKGROUNDER: By Christina Persico, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor/presenter;
    Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific; and Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    New Zealand has paused $18.2 million in development assistance funding to the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year.

    This move is causing consternation in the realm country, with one local political leader calling it “a significant escalation” between Avarua and Wellington.

    A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the Cook Islands did not consult with Aotearoa over the China deals and failed to ensure shared interests were not put at risk.

    On Thursday (Wednesday local time), Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown told Parliament that his government knew the funding cut was coming.

    “We have been aware that this core sector support would not be forthcoming in this budget because this had not been signed off by the New Zealand government in previous months, so it has not been included in the budget that we are debating this week,” he said.

    How the diplomatic stoush started
     A diplomatic row first kicked off in February between the two nations.

    Prime Minister Brown went on an official visit to China, where he signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement.

    The agreements focus in areas of economy, infrastructure and maritime cooperation and seabed mineral development, among others. They do not include security or defence.

    However, to New Zealand’s annoyance, Brown did not discuss the details with it first.

    Prior to signing, Brown said he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit to China.

    Afterwards, a spokesperson for Peters released a statement saying New Zealand would consider the agreements closely, in light of the countries’ mutual constitutional responsibilities.

    The Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship
     Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand. The country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief and defence.

    Cook Islanders also hold New Zealand passports entitling them to live and work there.

    In 2001, New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a joint centenary declaration, which required the two to “consult regularly on defence and security issues”.

    The Cook Islands did not think it needed to consult with New Zealand on the China agreement.

    Peters said there is an expectation that the government of the Cook Islands would not pursue policies that were “significantly at variance with New Zealand’s interests”.

    Later in February, the Cooks confirmed it had struck a five-year agreement with China to cooperate in exploring and researching seabed mineral riches.

    A spokesperson for Peters said at the time said the New Zealand government noted the mining agreements and would analyse them.

    How New Zealand reacted
     On Thursday morning, Peters said the Cook Islands had not lived up to the 2001 declaration.

    Peters said the Cook Islands had failed to give satisfactory answers to New Zealand’s questions about the arrangement.

    “We have made it very clear in our response to statements that were being made — which we do not think laid out the facts and truth behind this matter — of what New Zealand’s position is,” he said.

    “We’ve got responsibilities ourselves here. And we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put a step wrong in our commitment and our special arrangement which goes back decades.”

    Officials would be working through what the Cook Islands had to do so New Zealand was satisfied the funding could resume.

    He said New Zealand’s message was conveyed to the Cook Islands government “in its finality” on June 4.

    “When we made this decision, we said to them our senior officials need to work on clearing up this misunderstanding and confusion about our arrangements and about our relationship.”

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is in China this week.

    Asked about the timing of Luxon’s visit to China, and what he thought the response from China might be, Peters said the decision to pause the funding was not connected to China.

    He said he had raised the matter with his China counterpart Wang Yi, when he last visited China in February, and Wang understood New Zealand’s relationship with the Cook Islands.

    Concerns in the Cook Islands
     Over the past three years, New Zealand has provided nearly $194.6 million (about US$117m) to the Cook Islands through the development programme.

    Cook Islands opposition leader Tina Browne said she was deeply concerned about the pause.

    Browne said she was informed of the funding pause on Wednesday night, and she was worried about the indication from Peters that it might affect future funding.

    She issued a “please explain” request to Mark Brown:

    “The prime minister has been leading the country to think that everything with New Zealand has been repaired, hunky dory, etcetera — trust is still there,” she said.

    “Wham-bam, we get this in the Cook Islands News this morning. What does that tell you?”

    Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown (left) and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters in Rarotonga in February last year. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon

    Will NZ’s action ‘be a very good news story’ for Beijing?
     Massey University’s defence and security expert Dr Anna Powles told RNZ Pacific that aid should not be on the table in debate between New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

    “That spirit of the [2001] declaration is really in question here,” she said.

    “The negotiation between the two countries needs to take aid as a bargaining chip off the table for it to be able to continue — for it to be successful.”

    Dr Powles said New Zealand’s moves might help China strengthen its hand in the Pacific.

    She said China could contrast its position on using aid as a bargaining chip.

    “By Beijing being able to tell its partners in the region, ‘we would never do that, and certainly we would never seek to leverage our relationships in this way’. This could be a very good news story for China, and it certainly puts New Zealand in a weaker position, as a consequence.”

    However, a prominent Cook Islands lawyer said it was fair that New Zealand was pressing pause.

    Norman George said Brown should implore New Zealand for forgiveness.

    “It is absolutely a fair thing to do because our prime minister betrayed New Zealand and let the government and people of New Zealand down.”

    Brown has not responded to multiple attempts by RNZ Pacific for comment.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Grattan on Friday: Sussan Ley has her first big outing with the national media next week, so here are some questions for her

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    On Wednesday, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will front the National Press Club. So why is that a big deal?

    For one thing, her predecessor Peter Dutton never appeared there as opposition leader. For another, it’s a formidable forum for a new leader.

    It could all go badly wrong, but she’s right to make the early appearance. It sends a message she is not risk-averse.

    Ley wants to establish a better relationship with the Canberra Press Gallery than Dutton had. He saw the gallery journalists as part of the despised “Canberra bubble” and bypassed them when he could. That didn’t serve him well – not least because he wasn’t toughened up for when he had to face daily news conferences (with many Canberra reporters) on the election trail.

    Ley’s office has set up a WhatsApp group for gallery journalists, alerting them to who’s appearing in the media, and also dispatching short responses to things said by the government (such as links to ministers’ former statements). This matches the WhatsApp group for the gallery run by the Prime Minister’s Office. One of Ley’s press secretaries, Liam Jones, has also regularly been doing the rounds in the media corridors of Parliament House, something that very rarely happened with Dutton’s media staff.

    To the extent anyone is paying attention, Ley has made a better start than many, including some Liberals, had expected. She came out of the tiff with the Nationals well, despite having to give ground on their policy demands. Her frontbench reshuffle had flaws but wasn’t terrible. She’s struck a reasonable, rather than shrill, tone in her comments on issues, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s failure thus far to get a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

    Her next significant test will be how she handles at the Press Club questions she and her party are confronting. So here are a few for her.

    One (the most fundamental): How is she going to thread the needle between the two sides of the Liberal Party? Howard’s old “broad church” answer no longer holds. The church is fractured. In an era of identity politics, the Liberals have a massive identity crisis. The party’s conservatives are hardline, have hold of the party’s (narrow) base, and will undermine Ley if they can. Its moderates will struggle to shape its key policies in a way that will appeal to small-l liberal voters in urban seats.

    Two: How and when will she deal with the future of the Coalition’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050? She has put all policies on the table (but made exceptions for several Nationals’ core policies). There is a strong case for her staking out her own position on net zero, and getting the policy settled sooner rather than later. With younger voters having eschewed the Liberals, Ley told The Daily Aus podcast this week,“I want young people to know first and foremost that I want to listen to them and meet them where they are”. One place they are is in support of net zero by 2050. If the Liberals deserted that, they’d be making the challenge of attracting more youth votes a herculean one.

    For the opposition. net zero is likely THE climate debate of this term – and such debates are at best difficult and at worst lethal for Liberal leaders.

    Three: Won’t it be near impossible for the Liberals to get a respectable proportion of women in its House of Representatives team without quotas? Over the years, Ley has been equivocal on the issue. She told The Daily Aus: “Each of our [Liberal state] divisions is responsible for its own world, if you like, when it comes to [candidate] selections”. This is unlikely to cut it: she needs to have a view, and a strategy. Targets haven’t worked.

    Four: Ley says she wants to run a constructive opposition, so how constructive will it be in the tax debate Treasurer Jim Chalmers launched this week? Ley might have a chat with John Howard about the 1980s, when the Liberals had internal arguments about whether to support or oppose some of the Hawke government’s reform measures. Obviously, no total buy-in should be expected but to oppose reforms for the sake of it would discredit a party trying to sell its economic credentials.

    More generally, how constructive or obstructive will the opposition be in the Senate? This raises matters of principle, not just political opportunism. In the new Senate the government will have to negotiate on legislation with either the opposition or the Greens. If the opposition constantly forces Labor into the arms of the Greens, that could produce legislation that (from the Liberals’ point of view) is worse than if the Liberals were Labor’s partner. How does that sit with them philosophically?

    Five: Finally, how active will Ley be in trying to drive improvements in the appalling Liberal state organisations, especially in NSW (her home state) and Victoria?

    The Liberals’ federal executive extended federal intervention in the NSW division this week, with a new oversight committee, headed by onetime premier Nick Greiner. But the announcement spurred immediate backbiting, with conservatives seeing it advantaging the moderates. Ley is well across the NSW factions: her numbers man is Alex Hawke – whom she elevated to the shadow cabinet – from Scott Morrison’s old centre right faction, and she has a staffer from that faction in a senior position in her office. The faction has also protected her preselection in the past.

    In Victoria, the factional infighting has been beyond parody, with former leader John Pesutto scratching around for funds to avoid bankruptcy after losing a defamation case brought by colleague Moira Deeming. Some Liberals think the state party could even lose what should be the unlosable state election next year.

    That’s just the start of the questions for Ley. Meanwhile, the party this week has set up an inquiry into the election disaster, to be conducted by former federal minister Nick Minchin and former NSW minister Pru Goward. Identifying what went wrong won’t be hard for them – mostly, it was blindingly obvious. Recommending solutions that the party can and will implement – that will be the difficult bit.

    Michelle Grattan 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. Grattan on Friday: Sussan Ley has her first big outing with the national media next week, so here are some questions for her – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-sussan-ley-has-her-first-big-outing-with-the-national-media-next-week-so-here-are-some-questions-for-her-258970

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Grattan on Friday: Sussan Ley has her first big outing with the national media next week, so here are some questions for her

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    On Wednesday, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will front the National Press Club. So why is that a big deal?

    For one thing, her predecessor Peter Dutton never appeared there as opposition leader. For another, it’s a formidable forum for a new leader.

    It could all go badly wrong, but she’s right to make the early appearance. It sends a message she is not risk-averse.

    Ley wants to establish a better relationship with the Canberra Press Gallery than Dutton had. He saw the gallery journalists as part of the despised “Canberra bubble” and bypassed them when he could. That didn’t serve him well – not least because he wasn’t toughened up for when he had to face daily news conferences (with many Canberra reporters) on the election trail.

    Ley’s office has set up a WhatsApp group for gallery journalists, alerting them to who’s appearing in the media, and also dispatching short responses to things said by the government (such as links to ministers’ former statements). This matches the WhatsApp group for the gallery run by the Prime Minister’s Office. One of Ley’s press secretaries, Liam Jones, has also regularly been doing the rounds in the media corridors of Parliament House, something that very rarely happened with Dutton’s media staff.

    To the extent anyone is paying attention, Ley has made a better start than many, including some Liberals, had expected. She came out of the tiff with the Nationals well, despite having to give ground on their policy demands. Her frontbench reshuffle had flaws but wasn’t terrible. She’s struck a reasonable, rather than shrill, tone in her comments on issues, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s failure thus far to get a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

    Her next significant test will be how she handles at the Press Club questions she and her party are confronting. So here are a few for her.

    One (the most fundamental): How is she going to thread the needle between the two sides of the Liberal Party? Howard’s old “broad church” answer no longer holds. The church is fractured. In an era of identity politics, the Liberals have a massive identity crisis. The party’s conservatives are hardline, have hold of the party’s (narrow) base, and will undermine Ley if they can. Its moderates will struggle to shape its key policies in a way that will appeal to small-l liberal voters in urban seats.

    Two: How and when will she deal with the future of the Coalition’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050? She has put all policies on the table (but made exceptions for several Nationals’ core policies). There is a strong case for her staking out her own position on net zero, and getting the policy settled sooner rather than later. With younger voters having eschewed the Liberals, Ley told The Daily Aus podcast this week,“I want young people to know first and foremost that I want to listen to them and meet them where they are”. One place they are is in support of net zero by 2050. If the Liberals deserted that, they’d be making the challenge of attracting more youth votes a herculean one.

    For the opposition. net zero is likely THE climate debate of this term – and such debates are at best difficult and at worst lethal for Liberal leaders.

    Three: Won’t it be near impossible for the Liberals to get a respectable proportion of women in its House of Representatives team without quotas? Over the years, Ley has been equivocal on the issue. She told The Daily Aus: “Each of our [Liberal state] divisions is responsible for its own world, if you like, when it comes to [candidate] selections”. This is unlikely to cut it: she needs to have a view, and a strategy. Targets haven’t worked.

    Four: Ley says she wants to run a constructive opposition, so how constructive will it be in the tax debate Treasurer Jim Chalmers launched this week? Ley might have a chat with John Howard about the 1980s, when the Liberals had internal arguments about whether to support or oppose some of the Hawke government’s reform measures. Obviously, no total buy-in should be expected but to oppose reforms for the sake of it would discredit a party trying to sell its economic credentials.

    More generally, how constructive or obstructive will the opposition be in the Senate? This raises matters of principle, not just political opportunism. In the new Senate the government will have to negotiate on legislation with either the opposition or the Greens. If the opposition constantly forces Labor into the arms of the Greens, that could produce legislation that (from the Liberals’ point of view) is worse than if the Liberals were Labor’s partner. How does that sit with them philosophically?

    Five: Finally, how active will Ley be in trying to drive improvements in the appalling Liberal state organisations, especially in NSW (her home state) and Victoria?

    The Liberals’ federal executive extended federal intervention in the NSW division this week, with a new oversight committee, headed by onetime premier Nick Greiner. But the announcement spurred immediate backbiting, with conservatives seeing it advantaging the moderates. Ley is well across the NSW factions: her numbers man is Alex Hawke – whom she elevated to the shadow cabinet – from Scott Morrison’s old centre right faction, and she has a staffer from that faction in a senior position in her office. The faction has also protected her preselection in the past.

    In Victoria, the factional infighting has been beyond parody, with former leader John Pesutto scratching around for funds to avoid bankruptcy after losing a defamation case brought by colleague Moira Deeming. Some Liberals think the state party could even lose what should be the unlosable state election next year.

    That’s just the start of the questions for Ley. Meanwhile, the party this week has set up an inquiry into the election disaster, to be conducted by former federal minister Nick Minchin and former NSW minister Pru Goward. Identifying what went wrong won’t be hard for them – mostly, it was blindingly obvious. Recommending solutions that the party can and will implement – that will be the difficult bit.

    Michelle Grattan 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. Grattan on Friday: Sussan Ley has her first big outing with the national media next week, so here are some questions for her – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-sussan-ley-has-her-first-big-outing-with-the-national-media-next-week-so-here-are-some-questions-for-her-258970

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Call to nominate candidates to serve SAHRA reopened

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has encouraged the public to nominate women, youth, and persons with disabilities to serve as members of the Council of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), in line with government’s commitment to promote diversity and inclusion. 

    In a statement on Thursday, the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, reopened the call for nominations to the general public to nominate suitable persons to serve SAHRA from 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2028. 

    “Nominated candidates should possess broad knowledge and skills on the Council, inter alia, in the fields of archaeology, architecture, amasiko, law paleontology, shipwrecks, social history, victims of conflict and urban planning, managerial and financial expertise, legal knowledge and knowledge of marketing and liaison, fundraising, education and cultural/social research, as well as a willingness to render community service.

    “Individuals who have already been nominated during the previous call must not resubmit their nominations. All previously submitted nominations remain valid and will be considered,” the department said.

    Anyone wishing to nominate persons to serve as members of Council of the South African Heritage Resources Agency should submit the following:

    • A letter containing full names, address, and telephone numbers of the nominee, giving reasons for nomination.
    • Recently updated Curriculum Vitae of the nominee, including three contactable references.
    • A brief statement signed by the nominee accepting the nomination and explaining his/her suitability for appointment.
    • Certified copies of qualifications and ID document.

    “No nomination will be considered unless all of the above are included. Correspondence will only be entered into with shortlisted candidates. Should you not be contacted within three months from the closing date, consider your nomination unsuccessful. Suitability and background checks will be conducted prior to the appointment of recommended candidates,” the department said.

    The closing date for nominations is 26 June 2025.

    Nominations must be submitted by email to SAHRA.Nominations@dsac.gov.za. –SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Ireland’s schools and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – E-002363/2025

    Source: European Parliament

    Question for written answer  E-002363/2025
    to the Commission
    Rule 144
    Kathleen Funchion (The Left)

    In the recent Commission staff working document, entitled ‘2025 Country Report – Ireland’, which accompanies the Commission communication entitled ‘Recommendation for a Council Recommendation on the economic, social, employment, structural and budgetary policies of Ireland’ (COM(2025)0207), there is an acknowledgement that the segregated ‘special schools’ are not in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

    • 1.Could the Commission outline what supports, including financial supports, are available to Ireland to increase special classes within mainstream schools to cater for children with additional needs?
    • 2.What funding opportunities are there for targeted treatments within the school environment to assist with diagnoses, development and ongoing learning, such as speech and language therapy and additional resources teachers?
    • 3.What funding opportunities are there for other therapeutic treatments, play therapy counselling, nurture programme teachers and other related techniques?

    Submitted: 11.6.2025

    Last updated: 18 June 2025

    MIL OSI Europe News –