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  • MIL-OSI Global: US health care is rife with high costs and deep inequities, and that’s no accident – a public health historian explains how the system was shaped to serve profit and politicians

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Zachary W. Schulz, Senior Lecturer of History, Auburn University

    Concessions to the private sector are one reason why health care is so costly. FS Productions/Tetra images via Getty Images

    A few years ago, a student in my history of public health course asked why her mother couldn’t afford insulin without insurance, despite having a full-time job. I told her what I’ve come to believe: The U.S. health care system was deliberately built this way.

    People often hear that health care in America is dysfunctional – too expensive, too complex and too inequitable. But dysfunction implies failure. What if the real problem is that the system is functioning exactly as it was designed to? Understanding this legacy is key to explaining not only why reform has failed repeatedly, but why change remains so difficult.

    I am a historian of public health with experience researching oral health access and health care disparities in the Deep South. My work focuses on how historical policy choices continue to shape the systems we rely on today.

    By tracing the roots of today’s system and all its problems, it’s easier to understand why American health care looks the way it does and what it will take to reform it into a system that provides high-quality, affordable care for all. Only by confronting how profit, politics and prejudice have shaped the current system can Americans imagine and demand something different.

    Decades of compromise

    My research and that of many others show that today’s high costs, deep inequities and fragmented care are predictable features developed from decades of policy choices that prioritized profit over people, entrenched racial and regional hierarchies, and treated health care as a commodity rather than a public good.

    Over the past century, U.S. health care developed not from a shared vision of universal care, but from compromises that prioritized private markets, protected racial hierarchies and elevated individual responsibility over collective well-being.

    Employer-based insurance emerged in the 1940s, not from a commitment to worker health but from a tax policy workaround during wartime wage freezes. The federal government allowed employers to offer health benefits tax-free, incentivizing coverage while sidestepping nationalized care. This decision bound health access to employment status, a structure that is still dominant today. In contrast, many other countries with employer-provided insurance pair it with robust public options, ensuring that access is not tied solely to a job.

    In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid programs greatly expanded public health infrastructure. Unfortunately, they also reinforced and deepened existing inequalities. Medicare, a federally administered program for people over 64, primarily benefited wealthier Americans who had access to stable, formal employment and employer-based insurance during their working years. Medicaid, designed by Congress as a joint federal-state program, is aimed at the poor, including many people with disabilities. The combination of federal and state oversight resulted in 50 different programs with widely variable eligibility, coverage and quality.

    Southern lawmakers, in particular, fought for this decentralization. Fearing federal oversight of public health spending and civil rights enforcement, they sought to maintain control over who received benefits. Historians have shown that these efforts were primarily designed to restrict access to health care benefits along racial lines during the Jim Crow period of time.

    Bloated bureaucracies, ‘creeping socialism’

    Today, that legacy is painfully visible.

    States that chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are overwhelmingly located in the South and include several with large Black populations. Nearly 1 in 4 uninsured Black adults are uninsured because they fall into the coverage gap – unable to access affordable health insurance – they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to receive subsidies through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace.

    The system’s architecture also discourages care aimed at prevention. Because Medicaid’s scope is limited and inconsistent, preventive care screenings, dental cleanings and chronic disease management often fall through the cracks. That leads to costlier, later-stage care that further burdens hospitals and patients alike.

    Meanwhile, cultural attitudes around concepts like “rugged individualism” and “freedom of choice” have long been deployed to resist public solutions. In the postwar decades, while European nations built national health care systems, the U.S. reinforced a market-driven approach.

    Publicly funded systems were increasingly portrayed by American politicians and industry leaders as threats to individual freedom – often dismissed as “socialized medicine” or signs of creeping socialism. In 1961, for example, Ronald Reagan recorded a 10-minute LP titled “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine,” which was distributed by the American Medical Association as part of a national effort to block Medicare.

    The health care system’s administrative complexity ballooned beginning in the 1960s, driven by the rise of state-run Medicaid programs, private insurers and increasingly fragmented billing systems. Patients were expected to navigate opaque billing codes, networks and formularies, all while trying to treat, manage and prevent illness. In my view, and that of other scholars, this isn’t accidental but rather a form of profitable confusion built into the system to benefit insurers and intermediaries.

    President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts would reduce Medicaid spending by about US$700 billion.

    Coverage gaps, chronic disinvestment

    Even well-meaning reforms have been built atop this structure. The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, expanded access to health insurance but preserved many of the system’s underlying inequities. And by subsidizing private insurers rather than creating a public option, the law reinforced the central role of private companies in the health care system.

    The public option – a government-run insurance plan intended to compete with private insurers and expand coverage – was ultimately stripped from the Affordable Care Act during negotiations due to political opposition from both Republicans and moderate Democrats.

    When the U.S. Supreme Court made it optional in 2012 for states to offer expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, it amplified the very inequalities that the ACA sought to reduce.

    These decisions have consequences. In states like Alabama, an estimated 220,000 adults remain uninsured due to the Medicaid coverage gap – the most recent year for which reliable data is available – highlighting the ongoing impact of the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid.

    In addition, rural hospitals have closed, patients forgo care, and entire counties lack practicing OB/GYNs or dentists. And when people do get care – especially in states where many remain uninsured – they can amass medical debt that can upend their lives.

    All of this is compounded by chronic disinvestment in public health. Federal funding for emergency preparedness has declined for years, and local health departments are underfunded and understaffed.

    The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how brittle the infrastructure is – especially in low-income and rural communities, where overwhelmed clinics, delayed testing, limited hospital capacity, and higher mortality rates exposed the deadly consequences of neglect.

    A system by design

    Change is hard not because reformers haven’t tried before, but because the system serves the very interests it was designed to serve. Insurers profit from obscurity – networks that shift, formularies that confuse, billing codes that few can decipher. Providers profit from a fee-for-service model that rewards quantity over quality, procedure over prevention. Politicians reap campaign contributions and avoid blame through delegation, diffusion and plausible deniability.

    This is not an accidental web of dysfunction. It is a system that transforms complexity into capital, bureaucracy into barriers.

    Patients – especially the uninsured and underinsured – are left to make impossible choices: delay treatment or take on debt, ration medication or skip checkups, trust the health care system or go without. Meanwhile, I believe the rhetoric of choice and freedom disguises how constrained most people’s options really are.

    Other countries show us that alternatives are possible. Systems in Germany, France and Canada vary widely in structure, but all prioritize universal access and transparency.

    Understanding what the U.S. health care system is designed to do – rather than assuming it is failing unintentionally – is a necessary first step toward considering meaningful change.

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

    – ref. US health care is rife with high costs and deep inequities, and that’s no accident – a public health historian explains how the system was shaped to serve profit and politicians – https://theconversation.com/us-health-care-is-rife-with-high-costs-and-deep-inequities-and-thats-no-accident-a-public-health-historian-explains-how-the-system-was-shaped-to-serve-profit-and-politicians-256393

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Golden Dome dangers: An arms control expert explains how Trump’s missile defense threatens to make the US less safe

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Matthew Bunn, Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

    President Donald Trump has grandiose plans for Golden Dome. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

    President Donald Trump’s idea of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system carries a range of potential strategic dangers for the United States.

    Golden Dome is meant to protect the U.S. from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump has called for the missile defense to be fully operational before the end of his term in three years.

    Trump’s goals for Golden Dome are likely beyond reach. A wide range of studies makes clear that even defenses far more limited than what Trump envisions would be far more expensive and less effective than Trump expects, especially against enemy missiles equipped with modern countermeasures. Countermeasures include multiple warheads per missile, decoy warheads and warheads that can maneuver or are difficult to track, among others.

    Regardless of Golden Dome’s feasibility, there is a long history of scholarship about strategic missile defenses, and the weight of evidence points to the defenses making their host country less safe from nuclear attack.

    I’m a national security and foreign policy professor at Harvard University, where I lead “Managing the Atom,” the university’s main research group on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policies. For decades, I’ve been participating in dialogues with Russian and Chinese nuclear experts – and their fears about U.S. missile defenses have been a consistent theme throughout.

    Russian President Vladmir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have already warned that Golden Dome is destabilizing. Along with U.S. offensive capabilities, Golden Dome poses a threat of “directly undermining global strategic stability, spurring an arms race and increasing conflict potential both among nuclear-weapon states and in the international arena as a whole,” a joint statement from China and Russia said. While that is a propaganda statement, it reflects real concerns broadly held in both countries.

    Golden Dome explained.

    History lessons

    Experience going back half a century makes clear that if the administration pursues Golden Dome, it is likely to provoke even larger arms buildups, derail already-dim prospects for any negotiated nuclear arms restraint, and perhaps even increase the chances of nuclear war.

    My first book, 35 years ago, made the case that it would be in the U.S. national security interest to remain within the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which strictly limited U.S. and Soviet – and later Russian – missile defenses. The United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the ABM Treaty as part of SALT I, the first agreements limiting the nuclear arms race. It was approved in the Senate 98-2.

    The ABM Treaty experience is instructive for the implications of Golden Dome today.

    Why did the two countries agree to limit defenses? First and foremost, because they understood that unless each side’s defenses were limited, they would not be able to stop an offensive nuclear arms race. If each side wants to maintain the ability to retaliate if the other attacks – “don’t nuke me, or I’ll nuke you” – then an obvious answer to one side building up more defenses is for the other to build up more nuclear warheads.

    For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviets installed 100 interceptors to defend Moscow – so the United States targeted still more warheads on Moscow to overwhelm the defense. Had it ever come to a nuclear war, Moscow would have been even more thoroughly obliterated than if there had been no defense at all. Both sides came to realize that unlimited missile defenses would just mean more offense on both sides, leaving both less secure than before.

    In addition, nations viewed an adversary’s shield as going hand in hand with a nuclear sword. A nuclear first strike might destroy a major part of a country’s nuclear forces. Missile defenses would inevitably be more effective against the reduced, disorganized retaliation that they knew would be coming than they would be against a massive, well-planned surprise attack. That potential advantage to whoever struck first could make nuclear crises even more dangerous.

    Post-ABM Treaty world

    Unfortunately, President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, seeking to free U.S. development of defenses against potential missile attacks from small states such as North Korea. But even now, decades later, the U.S. has fewer missile interceptors deployed (44) than the treaty permitted (100).

    The U.S. pullout did not lead to an immediate arms buildup or the end of nuclear arms control. But Putin has complained bitterly about U.S. missile defenses and the U.S. refusal to accept any limitation at all on them. He views the U.S. stance as an effort to achieve military superiority by negating Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

    Russia is investing heavily in new types of strategic nuclear weapons intended to avoid U.S. missile defenses, from an intercontinental nuclear torpedo to a missile that can go around the world and attack from the south, while U.S. defenses are mainly pointed north toward Russia.

    Russia maintains a large force of nuclear weapons like this mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.
    Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via APPEAR

    Similarly, much of China’s nuclear buildup appears to be driven by wanting a reliable nuclear deterrent in the face of the United States’ capability to strike its nuclear forces and use missile defenses to mop up the remainder. Indeed, China was so angered by South Korea’s deployment of U.S.-provided regional defenses – which they saw as aiding the U.S. ability to intercept their missiles – that they imposed stiff sanctions on South Korea.

    Fuel to the fire

    Now, Trump wants to go much further, with a defense “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” with a success rate “very close to 100%.” I believe that this effort is highly likely to lead to still larger nuclear buildups in Russia and China. The Putin-Xi joint statement pledges to “counter” defenses “aimed at achieving military superiority.”

    Given the ease of developing countermeasures that are extraordinarily difficult for defenses to overcome, odds are the resulting offense-defense competition will leave the United States worse off than before – and a good bit poorer.

    Putin and Xi made clear that they are particularly concerned about the thousands of space-based interceptors Trump envisions. These interceptors are designed to hit missiles while their rockets are still burning during launch.

    Most countries are likely to oppose the idea of deploying huge numbers of weapons in space – and these interceptors would be both expensive and vulnerable. China and Russia could focus on further developing anti-satellite weapons to blow a hole in the defense, increasing the risk of space war.

    Already, there is a real danger that the whole effort of negotiated limits to temper nuclear arms racing may be coming to an end. The last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, the New START Treaty, expires in February 2026. China’s rapid nuclear buildup is making many defense officials and experts in Washington call for a U.S. buildup in response.

    Intense hostility all around means that for now, neither Russia nor China is even willing to sit down to discuss nuclear restraints, in treaty form or otherwise.

    A way forward

    In my view, adding Golden Dome to this combustible mix would likely end any prospect of avoiding a future of unrestrained and unpredictable nuclear arms competition. But paths away from these dangers are available.

    It would be quite plausible to design defenses that would provide some protection against attacks from a handful of missiles from North Korea or others that would not seriously threaten Russian or Chinese deterrent forces – and design restraints that would allow all parties to plan their offensive forces knowing what missile defenses they would be facing in the years to come.

    I believe that Trump should temper his Golden Dome ambitions to achieve his other dream – of negotiating a deal to reduce nuclear dangers.

    Matthew Bunn is a member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control and a board member of the Arms Control Association. He is a member of the Academic Alliance of the United States Strategic Command and a consultant to Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

    – ref. Golden Dome dangers: An arms control expert explains how Trump’s missile defense threatens to make the US less safe – https://theconversation.com/golden-dome-dangers-an-arms-control-expert-explains-how-trumps-missile-defense-threatens-to-make-the-us-less-safe-258048

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Beyond de-extinction and dire wolves, gene editing can help today’s endangered species

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alex Erwin, Assistant Professor of Law, Florida International University

    Only a few hundred red wolves still exist, most in captivity. JeffGoulden/E+ via Getty Images

    Have you been hearing about the dire wolf lately? Maybe you saw a massive white wolf on the cover of Time magazine or a photo of “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin holding a puppy named after a character from his books.

    The dire wolf, a large, wolflike species that went extinct about 12,000 years ago, has been in the news after biotech company Colossal claimed to have resurrected it using cloning and gene-editing technologies. Colossal calls itself a “de-extinction” company. The very concept of de-extinction is a lightning rod for criticism. There are broad accusations of playing God or messing with nature, as well as more focused objections that contemporary de-extinction tools create poor imitations rather than truly resurrected species.

    While the biological and philosophical debates are interesting, the legal ramifications for endangered species conservation are of paramount importance. As a legal scholar with a Ph.D. in wildlife genetics, my work focuses on how we legally define the term “endangered species.” The use of biotechnology for conservation, whether for de-extinction or genetic augmentation of existing species, promises solutions to otherwise intractable problems. But it needs to work in harmony with both the letter and purpose of the laws governing biodiversity conservation.

    All that’s left of dire wolves today are bones, like these skulls on display in a museum.
    Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

    Of dire wolves and de-extinction

    What did Colossal actually do? Scientists extracted and sequenced DNA from Ice Age-era bones to understand the genetic makeup of the dire wolf. They were able to piece together around 90% of a complete dire wolf genome. While the gray wolf and the dire wolf are separated by a few million years of evolution, they share over 99.5% of their genomes.

    The scientists scanned the recovered dire wolf sequences for specific genes that they believed were responsible for the physical and ecological differences between dire wolves and other species of canids, including genes related to body size and coat color. CRISPR gene-editing technology allows scientists to make specific changes in the DNA of an organism. The Colossal team used CRISPR to make 20 changes in 14 different genes in a modern gray wolf cell before implanting the embryo into a surrogate mother.

    While the technology on display is marvelous, what should we call the resulting animals? Some commentators argue that the animals are just modified gray wolves. They point out that it would take far more than 20 edits to bridge the gap left by millions of years of evolution. For instance, that 0.5% of the genome that doesn’t match in the two species represents over 12 million base pair differences.

    More philosophically, perhaps, other skeptics argue that a species is more than a collection of genes devoid of environmental, ecological or evolutionary context.

    Colossal, on the other hand, maintains that it is in the “functional de-extinction” game. The company acknowledges it isn’t making a perfect dire wolf copy. Instead it wants to recreate something that looks and acts like the dire wolf of old. It prefers the “if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck” school of speciation.

    Disagreements about taxonomy – the science of naming and categorizing living organisms – are as old as the field itself. Biologists are notorious for failing to adopt a single clear definition of “species,” and there are dozens of competing definitions in the biological literature.

    Biologists can afford to be flexible and imprecise when the stakes are merely a conversational misunderstanding. Lawyers and policymakers, on the other hand, do not have that luxury.

    President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in December 1973.
    Associated Press

    Deciding what counts as an endangered ‘species’

    In the United States, the Endangered Species Act is the main tool for protecting biodiversity.

    To be protected by the act, an organism must be a member of an endangered or threatened species. Some of the most contentious ESA issues are definitional, such as whether the listed species is a valid “species” and whether individual organisms, especially hybrids, are members of the listed species.

    Colossal’s functional species concept is anathema to the Endangered Species Act. It shrinks the value of a species down to the way it looks or the way it functions. When passing the act, however, Congress made clear that species were to be valued for their “aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.” In my view, the myopic focus on function seems to miss the point.

    Despite its insistence otherwise, Colossal’s definitional sleight of hand has opened the door to arguments that people should reduce conservation funding or protections for currently imperiled species. Why spend the money to protect a critter and its habitat when, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, you can just “pick your favorite species and call up Colossal”?

    Putting biotechnology to work for conservation

    Biotechnology can provide real conservation benefits for today’s endangered species. I suggest gene editing’s real value is not in recreating facsimiles of long-extinct species like dire wolves, but instead using it to recover ones in trouble now.

    Projects, by both Colossal and other groups, are underway around the world to help endangered species develop disease resistance or evolve to tolerate a warmer world. Other projects use gene editing to reintroduce genetic variation into populations where genetic diversity has been lost.

    For example, Colossal has also announced that it has cloned a red wolf. Unlike the dire wolf, the red wolf is not extinct, though it came extremely close. After decades of conservation efforts, there are about a dozen red wolves in the wild in the reintroduced population in eastern North Carolina, as well as a few hundred red wolves in captivity.

    Most of the tiny population of red wolves live in captivity.
    Cornell Watson for The Washington Post via Getty Images

    The entire population of red wolves, both wild and captive, descends from merely 14 founders of the captive breeding program. This limited heritage means the species has lost a significant amount of the genetic diversity that would help it continue to evolve and adapt.

    In order to reintroduce some of that missing genetic diversity, you’d need to find genetic material from red wolves outside the managed population. Right now that would require stored tissue samples from animals that lived before the captive breeding program was established or rediscovering a “lost” population in the wild.

    Recently, researchers discovered that coyotes along the Texas Gulf Coast possess a sizable percentage of red wolf-derived DNA in their genomes. Hybridization between coyotes and red wolves is both a threat to red wolves and a natural part of their evolutionary history, complicating management. The red wolf genes found within these coyotes do present a possible source of genetic material that biotechnology could harness to help the captive breeding population if the legal hurdles can be managed.

    This coyote population was Colossal’s source for its cloned “ghost” red wolf. Even this announcement is marred by definitional confusion. Due to its hybrid nature, the animal Colossal cloned is likely not legally considered a red wolf at all.

    Under the Endangered Species Act, hybrid organisms are typically not protected. So by cloning one of these animals, Colossal likely sidestepped the need for ESA permits. It will almost certainly run into resistance if it attempts to breed these “ghost wolves” into the current red wolf captive breeding program that has spent decades trying to minimize hybridization. How much to value genetic “purity” versus genetic diversity in managed species still proves an extraordinarily difficult question, even without the legal uncertainty.

    Biotechnology could never solve every conservation problem – especially habitat destruction. The ability to make “functional” copies of a species certainly does not lessen the urgency to respond to biodiversity loss, nor does it reduce human beings’ moral culpability. But to adequately respond to the ever-worsening biodiversity crisis, conservationists will need all available tools.

    Alex Erwin 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. Beyond de-extinction and dire wolves, gene editing can help today’s endangered species – https://theconversation.com/beyond-de-extinction-and-dire-wolves-gene-editing-can-help-todays-endangered-species-254670

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the Musk and Trump relationship is breaking down – a psychologist explains

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Geoff Beattie, Professor of Psychology, Edge Hill University

    It is not a good break-up. These were always two big beasts used to getting their own way. Two alpha males, if you like the evolutionary metaphor, trying to get along. And now the Donald Trump and Elon Musk relationship is in meltdown.

    Who could forget that iconic image from just a few short weeks back? Elon Musk standing behind the seated the US president, Donald Trump, in the Oval Office, towering over him. Trump, his hands clasped, having to turn awkwardly to look up at him. That silent language of the body. Musk accompanied by his four-year old, a charming and informal image, or that great evolutionary signal of mating potential and dominance, depending on your point of view.

    These were also clearly two massive narcissistic egos out in their gleaming open-top speedster. Musk was appointed special advisor to Trump, heading the Department of Government Efficiency, cutting excess and waste. The backseat driver for a while.

    There were a lot of bureaucratic casualties already, road kill at the side of the highway as the sports car roared on with frightening speed. But things were always going to be difficult if they hit a bump in the road. And they did. Perhaps, more quickly than many had imagined.

    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.

    There were differing views on what caused the crash. Many pointed to the dramatic fall in the sales of Tesla, a 71% fall in profits in one quarter, and the inevitable impact on Musk’s reputation. And yesterday Tesla shares were falling even faster, as investors panicked. The attacks on Tesla showrooms couldn’t have helped either.

    Others pointed to Trump’s proposed removal of the tax credit for owners of electric vehicles, or the political backlash in Washington over Space X’s potential involvement in Trump’s proposed “golden dome” anti-missile defense system.

    However, according to former White House strategist Steve Bannon, what really caused the crash was when the president refused to show Musk the Pentagon’s attack plans for any possible war with China. There’s only so far being the president’s best buddy can get you. Bannon is reported as saying: “You could feel it. Everything changed.” That, according to Bannon, was the beginning of the end.



    Read more:
    Trump sees himself as more like a king than president. Here’s why

    Elon Musk has criticised Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’.

    So now we watch Trump and Musk stumbling away from the crash scene. One minute Trump is putting on a show for the cameras. He’s beaming away and introducing the “big, beautiful bill”, a budget reconciliation bill that rolls together hundreds of controversial proposals. Next, he is accusing Musk of “going crazy” and talking about withdrawing government contracts from the Musk empire.

    Musk is unhappy too. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” he wrote on X. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong.”

    Rejection and repositioning

    He says he’s disgusted by the bill. Disgust is one of the most primitive of all the emotions. A survival mechanism – you must avoid what disgusts you. He’s social signalling here, alerting others, warning them that there’s something disgusting in the camp.

    Musk is highly attuned to public perception, perhaps even more so than Trump (which is saying something). With his acquisition of X (formerly Twitter), Musk was able to direct (and add to) online discourse, shaping public conversations.

    Psychologically, Musk’s rejection of Trump is an attempt to simultaneously elevate himself and diminish the man behind the bill. He can call out the president’s action like nobody else. He is positioning himself anew as that free thinker, that risk taker, innovative, courageous, unfettered by any ties. That is his personality, his brand – and he’s reasserting it.

    Trump on Musk’s criticism of the ‘big beautiful bill’

    But it’s also a vengeful act. And it’s perhaps reminiscent of another political insider (and geek), former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings, who was sacked by the then UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, in 2020. Cummings was accused of masterminding leaks about the social gatherings in Downing Street.

    He went on to criticise Johnson as lacking the necessary discipline and focus for a prime minister as well as questioning his competence and decision-making abilities. The revenge of a self-proclaimed genius.

    And revenge is sweet. In a 2004 study, researchers scanned participants’ brains using positron emission tomography (PET) – a medical imaging technique that is used to study brain function (among other things) – while the participants played an economic game based on trust. When trust was violated, participants wanted revenge, and this was reflected in increased activity in the reward-related regions of the brain, the dorsal striatum.

    Revenge, in other words, is primarily about making yourself feel better rather than righting any wrongs. Your act may make you appear moral but it may be more selfish.

    But revenge for what here? That’s where these big narcissistic egos come into play.

    Psychologically, narcissists are highly sensitive to perceived slights – real or imagined. Musk may have felt Trump was attempting to diminish his achievements for political gain, violating this pact of mutual respect. This kind of sensitivity can quickly transmogrify admiration into contempt.

    Contempt, coincidentally, is the single best predictor of a breakdown in very close relationships.

    Disgust and contempt are powerful emotions, evolving to protect us – disgust from physical contamination (spoiled food, disease), and contempt from social or moral contamination (betrayal, incompetence). Both involve rejection – disgust rejects something physically; contempt rejects something socially or morally. Musk may be giving it to Trump with both barrels here.

    Break-ups are always hard, they get much harder when emotions like these get intertwined with the process.

    But how will the most powerful man in the world respond to this sort of rejection from the richest man in the world? And where will it end?

    Geoff Beattie 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. Why the Musk and Trump relationship is breaking down – a psychologist explains – https://theconversation.com/why-the-musk-and-trump-relationship-is-breaking-down-a-psychologist-explains-258213

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: US state passes law allowing experimental drugs to be prescribed – a model for the future?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

    fizkes/Shutterstock.com

    The US state of Montana has become the first in the country to let patients try experimental drugs – even if they are not terminally ill.

    The new law allows doctors to refer patients to licensed “experimental treatment centres”, where they can access drugs that have only passed phase 1 clinical trials – the earliest stage of testing in humans.

    This goes far beyond existing federal law, which only allows terminally ill patients to access such drugs under the Right to Try Act, passed in 2017.

    Montana already had a fairly permissive right to try law, which was originally designed to let terminally ill patients access treatments that hadn’t yet received full approval by the drug regulator.

    In 2023, that law was expanded to include patients with any medical condition. The latest law goes even further, creating a formal system for clinics to offer these experimental treatments.

    According to an article in MIT Technology Review, the new law was shaped and promoted by a group of longevity advocates – a mix of scientists and influencers who are focused on extending human life.

    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.

    Before new medicines reach the market, they usually go through several stages of testing. A phase 1 trial is the first step in human studies and is designed to find a safe dose and spot early side-effects. It typically involves a small group – between 20 and 100 people – and does not prove the drug works.

    Only around 12% of drugs that enter phase 1 trials go on to gain full approval. Many fail due to safety issues or lack of effectiveness.

    Montana’s new law allows access to these early-stage treatments with a doctor’s recommendation – even for patients who are not terminally ill. Clinics must be licensed as experimental treatment centres, and 2% of their profits must be used to help low-income patients access these therapies.

    Supporters say it gives people more control over their own health and could help boost innovation in areas like cancer, neurodegenerative disease and age-related decline. There is also hope it could turn Montana into a destination for medical tourism, attracting biotech investment.

    But critics warn that the move could put vulnerable patients at risk.

    Drugs in phase 1 trials may be safe enough to test – but their long-term effects are still unknown, and they may not work. There are also concerns over whether insurers will cover complications, since the drugs are not approved. Legal protections for both patients and doctors remain unclear.

    Longevity advocates could use the new law to try experimental anti-ageing drugs.
    Hyejin Kang/Shutterstock.com

    The situation in other countries

    Elsewhere in the world, access to experimental drugs is more tightly controlled.

    In the UK, experimental drugs are usually only available through formal clinical trials or special “compassionate use” requests – all subject to strict oversight by regulators like the Medicines and Healthcare products
    Regulatory Agency     and the Health Research Authority.

    The same applies across the EU, where compassionate use is typically limited to drugs in later stages of testing.

    Japan has a similar system, called “expanded access clinical trials”, which also limits use to drugs already in phase 2 or beyond.

    And in South America, some countries allow patients to keep receiving experimental drugs after trials end – but not to start them outside of a trial.

    Montana’s decision marks a bold new approach in the continuing debate over patient rights. It raises big questions about safety, ethics, regulation and the role of government in balancing innovation with public health. It could end up being a model for other states – or a cautionary tale.

    Dipa Kamdar 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. US state passes law allowing experimental drugs to be prescribed – a model for the future? – https://theconversation.com/us-state-passes-law-allowing-experimental-drugs-to-be-prescribed-a-model-for-the-future-256991

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Six TV moments that changed British LGBTQ+ history – and what we can learn from them

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate McNicholas Smith, Lecturer in Television Theory, University of Westminster

    The past two decades have seen a notable rise in LGBTQ+ representation on TV. Recent shifts, however, seem to threaten that progress. LGBTQ+ characters continue to meet tragic ends on screen – while off-screen, queer shows are being cancelled, media companies in the US have joined others in rolling back DEI initiatives and anti-LGBTQ+ violence is on the rise.

    At this critical moment, it feels apt to take a look back at some of the moments that made British LGBTQ+ TV history, exploring why they mattered and what we can learn from them.

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

    1. Man Alive (1967)

    In June 1967, the BBC documentary and current affairs series Man Alive focused two episodes on homosexuality. These episodes featured interviews with gay men and lesbian women about their lives and experiences, and how society treats them.

    The episode on “the women” featured an interview set in The Gateways club, a long-running lesbian nightclub on the Kings Road in west London (it closed in 1985). The Gateways also appeared in 1968 film, The Killing of Sister George, one of the first mainstream film representations of lesbian characters.

    ‘The Women’ episode of Man Alive.

    The month after the Man Alive documentaries aired, the Sexual Offences Act legalised homosexual acts between men over the age of 21 in England and Wales, so long as they took place consensually and in private.

    Documentaries such as these took an outside-looking-in approach to the subject matter, but nonetheless addressed the significant (albeit limited) shifts seen in this period.

    2. Girl (1974)

    In 1974, an episode of BBC Birmingham’s anthology series Second City Firsts featured the first kiss between two women on British television. The post-watershed television play portrayed a past relationship between Myra Francis’ army corporal, Chrissie, and Alison Steadman’s recruit Jackie. While this is no happily-ever-after romance, happier flashbacks do show the two women in bed together – a brief, but radical for its time, representation of queer intimacy.

    The broadcast was, unsurprisingly, controversial and was preceded by a special announcement from the controller of BBC. The rights of LGBTQ+ people in the military later became a major campaign, with the ban on openly gay and lesbian people serving lifted in the UK in 2000.

    Notably, fights for LGBTQ+ rights in the military demand equality, but also raise questions around the kinds of inclusions LGBTQ+ people are fighting for. As many activists and writers have argued, LGBTQ+ rights can be co-opted in ways that include some but exclude others, or justify other oppressive forces (for example in what is often referred to as pinkwashing).

    3. Lesbian activists protest Section 28 on the six o’clock news (1988)

    In May 1988, Margeret Thatcher’s Conservative government brought in Section 28: legislation that prohibited local authorities and schools from “promoting” homosexuality, reflecting the powerful anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice of the period.

    The lesbian protestors remember the moment they stormed the studio.

    The evening before the legislation was passed in parliament, a group of lesbian activists interrupted the live broadcast of the six o’clock news. As one of the protesters, Booan Temple, reflected: “By getting on the news, we would be the news.”

    The bill still passed, and Section 28 remained in place until 2000 in Scotland, and 2003 in England and Wales, but the power of LGBTQ+ resistance was palpable. Looking back today, there are worrying echoes of the moral panics of the 1980s to be found in the current climate.

    4. The Brookside kiss (1994)

    In 1985, Gordan Collins (Mark Burgess) came out on Channel 4’s popular soap opera, Brookside – making him the first openly gay character on a British television series. Five years later the soap featured the first pre-watershed kiss between two women, when Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) kissed Margaret Clemence (Nicola Stephenson).

    Anna Friel looks back on her lesbian kiss scene from Brookside.

    The kiss was so culturally significant that it later featured in Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Just one year after the episode, however, Beth died off screen in prison, an example of the “bury your gays” trope (where LGBTQ+ characters are frequently killed off in TV and film).

    Meanwhile, 1994 also saw Eastenders introduce Della Alexander (Michelle Joseph), the soap’s first lesbian and one of the first Black LGBTQ+ characters on British television. Della and girlfriend Binnie departed the soap a year later.

    Bisexual actor Pam St Clement, who played Eastenders matriarch Pat Butcher reflected: “Having given themselves that brief, they didn’t know what the fuck to do with it.”

    5. Coronation Street’s Hayley Cropper (1998)

    In 1998 it was Coronation Street’s turn to make LGBTQ+ TV history, when the ITV soap introduced Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), a transgender woman initially intended for a comic “bad date” storyline.

    Julie Hesmondhalgh reflecting on Hayley Cropper’s ‘coming out’ scene many years later.

    Following criticism from trans activists, ITV recruited trans actress Annie Wallace as a research assistant to work with Hesmondhalgh on the role. In 2015, Wallace joined Hollyoaks, becoming the first transgender person to play a regular transgender character on a British soap opera.

    Hayley went on to exceed her problematic origins and win the hearts of audiences, educating them, as she did so, on the prejudices and legal barriers trans people faced. Hesmondhalgh, a trans ally and supporter of the charity Trans Media Watch, has, however, reflected that, as a cis actor, she “definitely wouldn’t take it” if the role was offered to her today.

    6. Queer as Folk (1999)

    Back on Channel 4, 1999 saw the broadcast of another groundbreaking show: Queer as Folk, written by Russell T Davies. Based around Manchester’s gay village, Queer as Folk broke boundaries with an unapologetic portrayal of the lives, loves and lusts of a group of queer characters.

    From explicit sex scenes to queer family making, the series’ represented LGBTQ+ lives in previously unseen ways. This radical visibility was, however, largely limited to white gay male characters – reflecting longstanding inequalities in media representation.

    The trailer for Queer as Folk.

    In later work, Davies has represented a more diverse spectrum of LGBTQ+ experience. Returning to Manchester’s queer scene again in 2015, anthology series Banana (2015) began with the story of Dean, a young Black gay man portrayed by British Nigerian actor Fisayo Akinade, and featured Bethany Black as the first trans actor to play a trans role in a British series (a few months before Annie Wallace joined Hollyoaks).

    The following years have seen more, and more diverse, examples of LGBTQ+ representation on TV. But tired tropes and exclusions continue, and the power of representation to shape possibilities, protections and prejudices is more pressing than ever.

    Kate McNicholas Smith 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. Six TV moments that changed British LGBTQ+ history – and what we can learn from them – https://theconversation.com/six-tv-moments-that-changed-british-lgbtq-history-and-what-we-can-learn-from-them-258126

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Video: So, you want to be a U.S. Army Ranger? | The Creed: Ranger School | Army Lethality

    Source: US Army (video statements)

    Witness the journey as several U.S. Army Soldiers attempt to complete one of the Army’s most challenging tasks: being accepted into the U.S. Army Ranger School.

    About the U.S. Army:
    The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt & sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force.

    Interested in joining the U.S. Army?
    Visit: https://www.goarmy.com/?iom=BNL7-22-0029_N_OSOC_OCPA_AL_ocpagen_xx_xx

    Connect with the U.S. Army online:
    Web: https://www.army.mil
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/USarmy/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/USArmy
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/usarmy/
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-army
    Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter

    #USArmy

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

    MIL OSI Video –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Artificial Intelligence in Construction. ISI Students Developed the IMPULSE Complex

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    The team of the Civil Engineering Institute has developed a unique software package “IMPULSE” for automated classification of elements of digital information models (DIM) based on artificial intelligence technologies. The use of a PC allows to significantly reduce labor costs at the stages of classification and coding of data in DIM, as well as to speed up and simplify the process of assigning codes and attributes to elements of the information model.

    The project is interdisciplinary. The development was carried out by the Civil Engineering and Physics and Mechanical Institutes of SPbPU, whose specialists combined engineering competencies in the field of construction modeling and computational methods. Technical manager – Pavel Nedviga.

    Students from two institutes took part in the project. This collaboration provided a unique opportunity not only to develop the technical aspects of the product, but also to develop skills in working with modern digital technologies in young specialists. The PhysMech team was led by Vyacheslav Chukanov, a senior lecturer at the Higher School of Applied Mathematics and Computational Physics.

    The work lasted for two and a half years. The final stage was the inclusion of the PC “IMPULSE” in the Unified Register of Russian programs for electronic computers and databases with a special mark indicating that the software belongs to the field of artificial intelligence. The registration of the program confirms its compliance with the requirements for domestic software and its importance for the construction industry.

    The project partners were GC Pioneer, a development company implementing large-scale housing and infrastructure projects, and the State Expertise Center, an organization that carries out an independent assessment of the quality of project documentation.

    The IMPULSE PC is actively used in the educational process within the Digital Departments project. ISI students master the software package as part of their practical training and apply artificial intelligence mechanisms. The total number of such students has exceeded 350 people.

    Currently, “IMPULSE” is successfully used by design organizations that turn to BIM modeling technologies. The program has proven highly effective in the educational process and project practice.

    The use of artificial intelligence technologies allows to significantly reduce labor costs of certain types of work and operations in the process of developing design documentation and to increase the efficiency of design work. Thanks to the use of the software package “IMPULSE”, design engineers will be more focused on expert work, eliminating the need to perform routine tasks, such as manual classification of elements of the information model and assigning codes and classes to them. At the moment, the product is unique and has no analogues in the world, – noted the director of the Civil Engineering Institute Marina Petrochenko.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: When Stressors Converge, How Will Our Forests Fare?

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    As global temperatures rise, ecosystems face new pressures and often multiple challenges simultaneously. This was the case in 2016 in areas of the northeast that experienced a one-two punch of extreme drought and an onslaught of spongy moth caterpillars that feasted on a massive portion of the region’s oak leaves.

    Eastern Connecticut, much of Rhode Island, and large swaths of Central Massachusetts were hit hard, says UConn Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Associate Professor Robert Fahey. This stacking of disturbances is expected to increase with climate change, and it is important to understand how forests are responding.

    Fahey and his collaborators Danielle Tanzer ’21 MS, now at the University of Wisconsin; UConn Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Associate Professor Robert Bagchi; Audrey Barker Plotkin at the Harvad Forest; James Mickley ’17 Ph.D., now at Oregon State University; Keenan Rivers ’20 (CAHNR), now at Michigan Technological University; researcher Maya Sagarin, now at the University of California; and UConn Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Assistant Professor Chandi Witharana saw the opportunity to study these interactions and their impacts on defoliation and tree mortality and their findings are published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, and Forest Ecology and Management.

    “When disturbances overlap in their effects on an ecosystem, we often call that compounding disturbance, where sometimes there is more influence on the ecosystem than you would get from either of those disturbances independently. It’s this additive or multiplicative effect,” says Fahey.

    The team developed a proposal to study these multiplicative effects with a National Science Foundation RAPID grant, which streamlined the funding process and helped them jumpstart the project.

    Fahey explains they applied experimental and observational methods to assess the interactions of the disturbances by collecting increment cores from tree trunks to estimate biomass accumulation before and after the disturbances and by surveying the mortality of trees across the study sites.

    Then the researchers compared their field data with satellite imagery in hope of developing a method to remotely assess mortality that was not only accurate but also faster and less labor-intensive than taking field samples.

    The Landsat satellite collects images on an almost bi-weekly basis, and finding a method to analyze these vast quantities of data can be tricky. Besides being labor-intensive and time-consuming, current methods also rely on costly aerial overflights.

    “One of the things we were trying to do is compare what we can see in the remote sensing imagery and use machine learning models to take the known mortality and map mortality across the landscape, and then compare that to the aerial documentation,” says Fahey.

    The method they developed was able to predict between 60% and 80% of the mortality within Landsat’s resolution of a 30-by-30-meter pixel. Fahey says the method could be a useful tool, enabling land managers to quickly and easily assess the landscape.

    To better understand the frequency and timing of the defoliation relative to the drought conditions, Fahey teamed up with Bagchi, whose research group had been studying caterpillars and their interactions within the food web in the region. They hoped to study the characteristics that led to different outcomes and levels of severity across the region.

    Fahey’s group sampled and surveyed sites around Eastern Connecticut where Bagchi’s lab had already sampled for spongy moth caterpillars.

    One curious observation was the timing of the defoliation differed across the landscape and the researchers wondered if these timing differences led to variations in mortality, says Fahey.

    “The question is if that’s because there were fewer caterpillars in some places,” he says. “Is it because the drought differed in its severity across the landscape? Is it because there were fewer oaks available as host species across different forests, across the landscape, or is it something to do with the environment?”

    They found the factor that mattered the most was whether a site experienced multiple years of defoliation, which Fahey says is not a novel or surprising result, but it is interesting because it showed the severity of the drought, and the timing of the defoliation also did not seem to matter as much as frequency.

    “The drought definitely impacted the defoliation, but it didn’t seem to impact the mortality outcomes relating to the defoliation. The drought is probably associated with the severity of the defoliation in multiple ways,” says Fahey.

    For example, one of the main controls of the spongy moth caterpillars is a fungus that doesn’t get established when there’s a drought; therefore, in an extremely dry year like 2016, the spongy moth population was able to explode across the landscape.

    That extremely dry weather also stressed the trees, rendering them less capable of fighting defoliation. The 2016-17 drought was possibly the most severe New England has experienced since the 1960s, says Fahey, and we have had multiple such “100-year” droughts in the last decade.

    “Obviously, things are changing, but that 2016 drought was severe enough across the landscape that there wasn’t enough variation for us to pick up a signal, and it probably affected the outcomes of defoliation and led to higher mortality across the landscape. We can’t say for sure because we don’t have anything to control it against, because there wasn’t a place that didn’t have drought,” he says.

    Moving forward, Fahey says they are evaluating the response of the overall forest to the disturbance by looking at productivity, carbon sequestration, and any changes that occurred. The researchers are also trying to understand how growth prior to the disturbances impacted mortality outcomes. Did fast or slow-growing oaks fare better, and why? These questions are the focus of ongoing research that will help us understand how the region’s forests will fare as the climate continues to change. With thousands of increment cores from trees across Eastern Connecticut and from the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts yet to analyze, Fahey says it will take some time before they have answers.

    “The frequency, severity, and nature of the disturbances that affect our forests is changing as a result of the impacts of climate change and other stressors, such as invasive pests and pathogens,” says Fahey. “These changes are leading to more frequent interactions between disturbances and understanding how compounding disturbance affects our forests will be an essential part of predicting the future of our region and its ecosystems.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Jeremy Rose: Mister Netanyahu have you no sense of decency?

    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

    COMMENTARY: By Jeremy Rose

    The word antisemitism has become so debased that depending on who is using it I might well take it as a sign that the accused is worth listening to.

    When the World Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest, he responded by saying the court was being antisemitic. One of the court’s legal advisers was Theodor Meron, a former Israeli ambassador and legal adviser who spent a chunk of his childhood in a Nazi concentration camp.

    Last month, Netanyahu declared the leaders of France, the UK and Canada of fuelling antisemitism.

    Their “crime”? Threatening “concrete action” against Israel if it continues its “egregious” blockade of aid entering Gaza.

    Egregious not genocidal. And the concrete action referred to wasn’t sanctions or a full arms embargo but stalling free trade talks.

    The bitter irony is that with none of those countries having yet imposed a complete ban on arms exports to Israel they are all in a sense fuelling a genocide.

    The Army-McCarthy hearings
    We’re coming up to the 71st anniversary of the Army-McCarthy hearings where an army lawyer, Joseph Welch, rebuked Senator Joseph McCarthy with the famous line: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

    We’ll be waiting a long time for the wanted war criminal Netanyahu to show any decency, but could we be approaching a tipping point where the establishment finally calls off a witch hunt after realising no one is safe from false accusations.

    The McCarthyite red scare, which began in the late 1940s, saw more than 2000 federal workers sacked, thousands of academics, teachers, and union members pressured or forced to resign due to anti-communist policies, and up to 500 Hollywood directors and actors blacklisted for being leftwing or refusing to name names.

    Welch’s rebuke was triggered by none of that. It was McCarthy turning his metaphorical guns onto the military implying he would expose high ranking army personnel that saw the army lawyer return fire.

    The conflating of criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been spectacularly successful in making any criticism of Israel a potentially career ending move. Three Ivy League presidents have been pushed out of their jobs for failing to crack down hard enough on students protesting the brutality of Israel’s ongoing genocide.

    UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose popularity had seen the party become the biggest political movement in Europe, was toppled in 2016 after bogus accusations of antisemitism.

    In the purge of the Labour Party that followed Jews were five times more likely to be investigated for antisemitism than goys.

    It’s the same story in Germany where Jews feature prominently among those cancelled for alleged antisemitism. Renowned professor of Jewish studies Peter Schäfe was forced to resign as the director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum after it retweeted a post critical of Germany’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions.

    Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis — not a Jew — has been banned from Germany or even appearing via Zoom for this response, on 8 October 2023, to being asked if he condemned Hamas:

    “I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do not condemn is armed resistance to an apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning, but inexorable, ethnic cleansing programme.
    As a European, it is important to refrain from condemning either the Israelis or the Palestinians when it is us, Europeans, who have caused this never-ending tragedy: after practising rabid anti-Semitism for centuries, leading up to the uniquely vile Holocaust, we have been complicit for decades with the slow genocide of Palestinians, as if two wrongs make one right.”

    That nuanced response, with its acknowledgement of the dreadful legacy of real antisemitism, has not only seen him banned from speaking — in person or virtually — but dropped by his German publisher.

    Antisemitism is often referred to as the oldest hatred — with good reason — but the word itself is relatively recent.

    A ‘scientific’ word for an old hatred
    Nineteenth century German journalist, Wilhelm Marr, popularised the term in a pamphlet the title of which translates as: The way to victory of Germanism over Judaism.

    What distinguished antisemitism from the commonly used Judenhass — or Jewish hate — was the idea that it was a Jew’s race not their religion that was deserving of hate.

    Antisemitism was a prejudice proud to speak its name. It was respectable in a way that religious intolerance wasn’t. Prominent professors and politicians happily declared themselves antisemites and adherents of “scientific racism”.

    It was an old idea dressed up in new clothing. Fifteenth century Spain passed Limpieza de Sangre (cleanliness of blood) statutes to allow discrimination against Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity.

    The Judeo-Christian civilisational conflict with Islam, often referred to by right-wing supporters of Israel, is a relatively new construct. When the Jews were expelled from Spain, the Ottomans sent ships to take them to new homes in Istanbul, Thessaloniki and Izmer.

    Times change and while it was once possible — even common — to be a respectable antisemite and scientific racist but frowned upon to discriminate based on religious belief, now the reverse is true.

    So-called new atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins declare all religions bad but Islam worse.

    “Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive sounding “Allahu Akhbar.” Or is that just my cultural upbringing?” Dawkins once tweeted.

    The cultures of Europe have indeed cultivated racist ideas for centuries. And just as half a millennia ago conversion offered you no protection from the racism of the Spanish court, embracing Buddhism didn’t protect Columbia University student Moshen Mahdawi from being snatched from a naturalisation interview by balaclava-clad ICE agents.

    His crime? Being Palestinian and telling his story.

    It’s a topsy-turvy world where life-long anti-fascists like Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis are sanctioned on bogus claims of antisemitism while the likes of Elon Musk and Hungarian PM Victor Orban — both peddlers of old-style antisemitic conspiracies — are welcomed to Israel as friends and allies in a contrived battle of civilisations.

    One thing that differentiates antisemitism from the Judeophobia, which has been a European disease since the early days of Christianity, is that it places Jews among the victims of the continent’s white supremacist legacy.

    It’s perhaps no coincidence the Christopher Columbus set sail for the Americas in the same year, 1492, that Spain expelled its Jews and Muslims.

    The settler colonisation of the Americas has been estimated by historian David Stannard to have resulted in the death of 100 million indigenous people — many from introduced diseases but tens of millions also died in genocides only recently making their way into history books.

    Last month, when Netanyahu declared Israel’s attacks on Gaza “a war against human beasts” he was echoing the words of settler colonialists from Alaska to Aotearoa and the dehumanising language of the Nazis against the Jews.

    So, back to that question about whether we’ve reached a tipping point where unfair accusations of antisemitism will be seen in a similar light to McCarthy’s red scare.

    With Netanyahu accusing the leader of the Democrats party, Yair Golan, an IDF reserve major-general, of promoting a blood libel for speaking out against the starving of babies in Gaza, it’s hard not to draw parallels with the Army-McCarthy hearings.

    It’s worth quoting the words that saw Israel’s PM accuse Golan of a blood libel — a reference to the lie that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish children in the baking of matzos, and a trigger for centuries of pogroms.

    “A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population.”

    The idea that an IDF general speaking out against the killing of babies is propagating racist hatred of Jews is surely a leap too far even for many fervent Zionists.

    Another sign that the tide might be turning is Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, saying the US administration’s weaponisation of the IHRA definition is making academics and students (including Jews) less safe.

    The self-described Zionist said the definition was being distorted and used to silence anti-Israel critics.

    The IHRA working definition has been widely adopted internationally — including by institutions in New Zealand and Australia.

    Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both criticised the definition claiming it has seen those documenting Israel’s human rights abuses being falsely accused of antisemitism.

    It’s a tragedy that weaponised accusations of antisemitism aimed at protecting Israel from criticism are obscuring a rise in Judeophobic conspiracy theories and attacks on Jewish community centres and synagogues around the world.

    And even more tragically that those accusations are blunting criticisms of Israel that could help bring the ongoing genocide in Gaza to an end.

    Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist. He has a Substack: Towards democracy

    This article was first published on Café Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: GPDRR 2025 highlights: Thursday 5 June 2025

    Source: UNISDR Disaster Risk Reduction

    This report is provided by Earth Negotiations Bulletin/International Institute for Sustainable Development. View the original report here.

    Finance is critical to implementation of the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), but investments have not kept pace with rising demands, and aid budgets are shrinking worldwide. In many sessions through the day, delegates focused attention on financing a wide range of needs, including school safety, measures to deal with extreme heat, and nature-based solutions (NbS).

    High-level dialogue

    What will it take to scale DRR financing solutions at the national and local level?

    Journalist Mayowa Adegoke moderated the session.

    Stine Renate Håheim, State Secretary to Minister of International Development, Norway, emphasized DRR financing as a high priority, saying, “it is better to prevent than repair afterwards.” She noted that one in three people globally-most in cities or highly vulnerable areas-are not covered by Early Warning Systems (EWS).

    Hans Sy, CEO, SM Prime Holdings, explained his company’s investment in resilient building construction, such as building on concrete pillars to allow free flow of floodwaters. He stressed that risk-informed decisions based on science and technology “makes good business sense.”

    Fatima Yasmin, Asian Development Bank (ADB), said the Bank regards DRR as a critical priority investment, particularly through supporting policy making, planning, advising on innovative investments, and incentivizing preparedness. On scaling DRR investments, she said financing should be fast, flexible and forward-looking.

    Rob Wesseling, CEO, Co-operators Group, said no path to net zero emissions is possible without investment in both prevention and recovery. He encouraged governments to utilize the risk information gathered by insurance companies over decades to assist with decision making.

    On mobilizing private sector investment, Velenkosini Fiki Hlabisa, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, South Africa, stressed that every cent invested in resilience and preparedness saves lives and livelihoods.

    View of the panel during the Multi-Stakeholder Plenary. Source: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

    Ministerial roundtable

    Inclusive comprehensive school safety-strengthening resilience for children and youth in all hazards

    The event, which convened 36 ministries, was co-chaired by Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head, UNDRR, and Paul Steffen, Deputy Director, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland.

    In opening remarks, Kishore encouraged delegates to endorse the Comprehensive School Safety Framework 2017 (CSSF), noting only 80 countries have done so, and for countries to make schools heat-resilient.

    On school safety policies, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Saint Lucia recognized the CSSF. Portugal highlighted its DRR working group on children and youth. Brunei Darussalam, Kenya, and Portugal recognized the fundamental rights of children to safe school environments. Colombia highlighted its Law on Teaching for Sustainability, Climate Change, and Disaster Risk Management. Republic of Korea described its 2020 Child Safety Management Act.

    Many countries identified education programming as fundamental to reducing risk and developing children as agents of change in their homes and communities. Malaysia, Uganda, Russia, Algeria and others described homegrown examples of such programmes, for example, student leadership groups and First Aid skills training.

    Leaders from around the globe express their shared commitment to making schools safer and more resilient to disasters. Source: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

    Several countries, including Greece, Kenya and Cuba, recognized the importance of social support to children experiencing disaster and loss, and the ensuing mental and emotional health impacts. The Holy See flagged the need for spiritual care of those “who have seen whole lives swept away.”

    Most countries discussed sustainable and resilient school infrastructure, including standards for new or retrofitted buildings. Belgium, Republic of Moldova, and Singapore highlighted energy efficiency and climate resilience. On heat stress in schools, Singapore flagged cooling strategies and energy-efficient fans. Tunisia described its sustainable school network that integrates climate change, disaster risk, and biodiversity objectives. Spain said new schools need to be “climate shelters.” Bangladesh noted the construction of more than 5,000 cyclone-resistant schools.

    Multistakeholder plenary

    Investments in reducing risk and building resilience to accelerate investments in sustainable development

    Kishore introduced the session, which was co-chaired by Paul Steffen, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland, and Paola Albrito, UNDRR. Kishore noted less than 1% of national budgets is allocated to DRR.

    Countries presented their national commitments, such as Australia’s Disaster-Ready Fund, which is providing up to AUD 1 billion (USD 648 million) over five years for locally-identified needs, and Switzerland’s DRR commitment of more than CHF 2 billion (USD 2.5 billion) annually. Many expressed appreciation for international support, including for Moldova’s local adaptation plans in 38 communities, and Samoa’s community-based disaster risk management activities. Peru highlighted its introduction of budget flexibility for regional and local authorities, enabling rapid response to imminent hazards.

    The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) reported that only 3% of all development assistance is allocated to agricultural DRR measures, even while these deliver significant returns in ensuring food security. Swiss Re highlighted the role of insurance in informing risk and mitigation measures, noting the availaility of parametric insurance, for example, against extreme heat events and flooding. The Resilience Action Fund showcased the work of the International Finance Corporation in developing the Building Resilience Index as a world-first metric for assessing the safety and risk of buildings for insurers and construction developers. The Latin America and the Caribbean Development Bank (CAF), India, and the UK welcomed innovative initiatives, such as a new center on extreme events, establishment of risk pools, and the use of AI to identify flood threats.

    Delegates affirmed regional solidarity, demonstrated in Tunisia’s hosting of the Africa-Arab Platform for DRR in 2023, and Iran’s hosting of three regional organizations, including a Regional Center for Urban Water Management. Albania welcomed its responsibilities under the EU Civil Protection Code for cooperation among EU countries and other partners, which, he noted, enables access to advanced DRR solutions.

    The International Organization for Migration highlighted its 2024 launch of Climate Mobility Innovation Labs for the Africa and Asia regions to develop solutions to climate-related mobility.

    Steffen urged all present to accelerate investment in DRR, and to engage the private sector as key partners.

    Ministerial Roundtable. Source: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

    Special event on extreme heat

    Moderator, Juli Trtanj, Co-Chair, Gobal Heat Health Information Network, opened the session. Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), called heat a “silent killer” because it is the least managed of all climate hazards. She said 50% of countries have heat warning systems in place but only 26 have dedicated Heat Health EWS. She identified three priorities: integrating heat risk into climate and DRR governance, heat EWS, and implementation using risk information and data.

    In his keynote, Pramod Kumar Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, India, said heat threatened public health, economic stability, and the ecological resilience of cities and communities. He underscored UNDRR’s Common Framework on Extreme Heat Risk Governance and drew attention to India’s national guidelines on heat wave management, which decentralized more than 250 heat action plans in 23 states. He called for scaling hospital and primary health care preparedness and resilience and noted India is adopting a long-term heat wave mitigation strategy, including roof-cooling technologies, passive cooling centers, revival of traditional water bodies, and improved thermal comfort and livability of informal settlements.

    In a panel discussion, Benoît Faraco, Ambassador, Climate Negotiations for Decarbonized Energies and for the Prevention of Climate Risks, France, urged being modest since we are still discovering impacts and avoiding maladaptation. Ousmane Ndiaye, Director General, African Center for Meteorological Application for Development, stressed the links between heat waves, energy crises, and health care demand. Rosa Galvez, Senator, Canada, spoke about lived experience saying, “We cannot adapt forever – we must work on the causes.” Jagan Chapagain, Secretary-General, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said extreme heat is a humanitarian crisis. On involving the financial sector, Mia Seppo, Assistant Director General, International Labour Organization, discussed climate risk insurance, just transition principles, and access to essential services. Mishra advised that industry protect labor from heat risk.

    Source: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

    Special session

    Comprehensive approaches to reduce loss and damage-bridging climate action and DRR

    Fatou Jeng, Former Climate Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and Member of the Early Warnings for All Advisory Panel, moderated the session.

    Ralph Regenvanu, Minister for Climate Change, Adaptation, Meteorology and Geo Hazards, Energy, Environment and Disaster Management, Vanuatu, appreciated the support from the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) and the Santiago Network, which combined forces to launch the inaugural integrated loss and damage and DRR initiative in Vanuatu.

    Kishore noted that, while many DRR practices are now in place, these need to be updated to deal with climate system changes and the associated risks, uncertainty, and volatility.

    Benoît Faraco, argued that the distinction between loss and damage, and DRR, is theoretical, and remains irrelevant to people on the ground who want response, prevention, action, and solidarity to alleviate their situation.

    Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, Executive Director, FRLD, emphasized the need to look at how interventions can be most impactful, stressing that solutions must be country-led, and recognize Indigenous groups and civil society participants. He expressed awareness that the FRLD must be “nimble, accessible, flexible and built on partnerships, always ensuring no one is left behind.”

    Carolina Fuentes Castellanos, Director, Santiago Network Secretariat, elaborated on how the network is supporting countries to accelerate loss and damage, using Vanuatu’s experience to demonstrate how the Network can accelerate fund distribution and support with bold and transformative support.

    Jagan Chapagain, Secretary-General, IFRC, cautioned that the terms loss and damage represent different meanings to communities, but the bottom line is to ensure the funds really reach the local level.

    Thematic Sessions

    Catalyzing governance solutions for disaster and climate-related displacement

    Irwin Loy, The New Humanitarian, moderated this session.

    John Mussington, activist and displaced person, Antigua & Barbuda, described his work of founding the community network, Stronger Caribbean Together, with others displaced by “disaster capitalism”, as storm-damaged sites are cleared for tourism development.

    Sakiasi Ditoka, Minister of Rural and Maritime Development and Disaster Management, Fiji, highlighted the 2023 Pacific Regional Mobility Framework and Fiji’s own planned relocation guidelines.

    Zahra Abdi Mohamed, Director-General, National Center for Rural Development and Durable Solutions, Somalia, described Somalia’s National Transformation Plan that prioritizes anticipatory action and climate-smart livelihoods, responding to the needs of long-term displaced communities.

    Fatimah Zannah Mustapha, community representative, Nigeria, called for centering the voices of local women in decision making by removing barriers, “whether digital, linguistic, or cultural.” Claudinne Ogaldes Cruz, Executive Secretary, National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (CONRED), Guatemala, noted that many Guatemalan households are women-led and have the knowledge to inform decision making.

    Robert Piper, former UN Secretary-General’s Advisor on Solutions to Internal Displacement, said line ministries responsible for decisions on land use and building codes-“those who are responsible for dealing with the failure to prevent”-must become deeply involved in the governance of disaster displacement.

    Leveraging Values of Nature for Resilience: Moderated by Cecilia Aipira, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the session addressed the role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in DRR.

    In his keynote, Mohammed-Yahya Lafdal, General Director, National Environment and Coastline Observatory, Mauritania, highlighted the increase in tree cover through reforestation and restoration, taking into account Indigenous knowledge and solutions, and the development of barrier systems for water distribution and management in desert areas. He emphasized how addressing land degradation and rehabilitation has been Mauritania’s best solution for increasing resilience.

    Rodrigo Hernández Escobar, Representative of the Latin American and Caribbean Indigenous Knowledge & DRR Network, highlighted political will and respect for Indigenous cosmovision and territories as key elements for leveraging traditional knowledge into programmes supporting NbS. Isaac Luwaga Mugumbule, Head of Landscaping, Kampala Capital City Authority, Uganda, stated that NbS are context-specific and require community involvement to be sustained.

    Professor Satoru Nishikawa, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), stressed the need for scientific numerical quantification, analysis, and testing on the strengths and durability of NbS. Swenja Surminski, London School of Economics, noting that NbS “are not silver bullets,” stressed the need to work with nature, drawing attention to NbS co-benefits. Oliver Schelske, Swiss Re Institute, noting the absence of standardized values for nature, emphasized that even if “not everything is insurable,” investing in nature makes sense from an insurance perspective, as it reduces risks to the asset being insured.

    On the prerequisites for NbS to be viable, speakers mentioned common sense, co-benefit considerations, identifying the number of protected lives, and conducting independent auditing.

    Thematic Sessions as visual summaries capturing key messages and insights. Source: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

    Side event

    Inclusive comprehensive school safety—Strengthening resilience for children and youth in all hazards

    This side event, organized and facilitated by the Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector (GADRRRES), showcased school safety and resilience programmes from Central Asia, the Pacific region and the Caribbean.

    Anja Nielsen, Co-Chair, GADRRRES, gave an overview of CSSF, noting the all-hazards, all-risks approach that includes environmental, climate change, and biological health risks, technical threats, and other everyday risks. She elaborated on the global school safety survey, representing 350 million school-aged children, and highlighted, among other concerns, that significant infrastructure investment is needed to better protect children and teachers from natural hazards, with most suffering from funding constraints.

    Education administrators from Saint Lucia, Tonga, and Kyrgyzstan described CSSF activities and outcomes from their regions, and emphasized: involving the children actively in school safety is a game changer; collaboration is the essence of resilience, requiring whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches; and building capacity at all levels, particularly teachers, for comprehensive school safety is key.

    IISD’s summary

    The summary report of the meeting will be available on Monday, 9 June 2025, here.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Newsom joins Compton students to announce the Golden State Literacy Plan and deployment of literacy coaches statewide

    Source: US State of California 2

    Jun 5, 2025

    What you need to know: Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the Golden State Literacy Plan — a step-by-step strategy to improve student reading achievement across California, building on existing efforts and proposing bold new investments. The Golden State Literacy Plan includes the deployment of over one thousand literacy coaches and specialists to the state’s highest need schools.

    COMPTON – Standing alongside students and educators at Clinton Elementary School, Governor Gavin Newsom today launched the Golden State Literacy Plan, a step-by-step plan to boost literacy outcomes for California students. The plan builds on California’s recent progress in reading achievement while expanding investments to ensure every student — in every zip code — has the support they need to learn to read and read to learn. Implementation of these reforms over the coming years will mean that all students receive the comprehensive literacy instruction they need to read and analyze diverse texts, think critically and express their ideas orally and in writing, as students today and as citizens tomorrow.

    “Literacy is the pathway to success – all of California’s kids deserve to discover the joys and benefits of reading and the power to formulate and express their ideas. I’m proud to unveil the Golden State Plan for Literacy today to give teachers, schools, and students the power to read – and succeed.”

    Governor Gavin Newsom

    State Superintendent Tony Thurmond: “Literacy has the power to unlock countless doors for our students and transform their lives. We are implementing a strategy to move the needle on literacy, which has already funded literacy coaches and reading specialists at 803 sites across 45 counties and has provided professional learning to nearly 4,000 educators within just this past year. I thank Governor Newsom for his partnership in this work and for proposing a budget this year that builds upon these critical investments in our children’s futures.”

    State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond: “The Golden State Literacy Plan is an encouraging milestone in our ongoing quest to improve literacy education, making sure it’s effective, meaningful, and engaging for all of our students. We know effective literacy instruction requires early language development; diagnosis of student needs and progress; high-quality curriculum and materials; and preparation, professional development, and coaching for teachers so that they understand the reading process thoroughly and become adept at addressing diverse student needs, including those of English learners.  As all of these elements are being strengthened in California, we are seeing progress that will accelerate in the years to come.”

    Current landscape

    While California, like all states, experienced setbacks during the pandemic, the state’s progress in literacy since the adoption of our curriculum framework has been noteworthy. 

    • Between 2011 and 2022, California’s 8th grade reading achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) improved more than any other state in the nation. 
    • California was one of three states that had the nation’s largest gains in 4th grade reading on NAEP over that decade. 
    • California was one of only a few states whose NAEP reading scores did not decline during the pandemic (2019-2022). 
    • While these indicators are positive, there is more work to be done to ensure all students achieve literacy success.

    Literacy initiatives under Governor Newsom 

    The Newsom Administration in partnership with the Legislature has made significant investments in evidence-based literacy and professional learning to support the implementation of the ELA/ELD standards. Among these initiatives are:

    • Literacy Coaches: To date, the State has invested a total of $500 million for Literacy Coaches in the 2022 and 2023 Budget Acts, funding 818 of the state’s highest needs schools to hire and train literacy coaches and reading specialists.  
    • Screener for Reading Difficulties: Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, California’s 1.2 million kindergarten, first, and second grade students will be annually screened for reading difficulties, including dyslexia. $25 million is allocated to support administration of literacy screenings. 
    • Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Well-prepared educators are essential to delivering high quality literacy instruction, and the state has invested $1.3 billion in recent years to recruit and retain quality educators.
    • Literacy Roadmap: Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, elementary grades educators have literacy blocks to guide instruction with evidence-based strategies to support comprehensive literacy instruction.
    • Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant: The State has allocated a total of $6.8 billion for the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant (LREBG) to support LEAs in addressing the academic and emotional impacts of the pandemic, including low ELA test scores.
    • Universal Transitional Kindergarten (TK): . In 2025-26, the state will provide universal access to TK, which will provide pre-kindergarten to more than 300,000 additional four-year-olds (compared to the 2021-22 school year).
    • Before School, After School, and Summer School: The Expanded Learning Opportunities Program provides before, after, and summer school instruction and enrichment for students in grades TK-6, including high-impact tutoring.

    Proposed investments in literacy 

    The Governor’s Budget builds on the existing literacy initiatives and includes the following additional investments:

    • $500 million for TK-12 Literacy and Mathematics Coaching, which builds upon and expands the existing Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant Program and includes a new opportunity to support mathematics coaching.
    • $378.6 million in additional LREBG funding for LEAs.
    • $40 million in additional funding to support annual reading difficulties screenings for kindergarten, first, and second grade students. 
    • $25 million to launch Literacy and Mathematics Networks to support implementation of state reading and mathematics initiatives. 
    • Directs the Instructional Quality Commission to initiate an adoption for ELA/ELD instructional materials.
    • $1.7 billion for the Student Support and Discretionary Block Grant which prioritizes professional development on the ELA/ELD Framework and the Literacy Roadmap.
    • $2.1 billion to support the full implementation of universal TK, so that all children who turn four years old by September 1 of the school year can enroll in TK, and an additional $1.2 billion to support lowering the average student-to-adult ratio in every TK classroom.
    • $525.5 million to support full implementation of the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, increasing the total ongoing funding for before, after school and summer school instruction and enrichment to $4.5 billion. 

    In addition, the Governor’s May Revision includes:

    • $200 million one-time funding to support evidence-based professional learning in literacy instruction for elementary school teachers. This proposal stems from AB 1454 by Speaker Robert Rivas that has brought together a broad coalition to support evidenced-based literacy teaching. 

    $10 million one-time funding to support the expansion of the Multitudes reading difficulties screening tool in additional languages. 

    Press releases, Recent news

    Recent news

    Jun 5, 2025

    News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom issued the following statement today after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must restore funding to AmeriCorps in California. This comes after Governor Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of…

    Jun 5, 2025

    News What you need to know: California is launching the CalAssist Mortgage Fund on June 12, 2025, to provide $105 million in relief offering up to $20,000 to homeowners whose homes were destroyed in recent disasters, including the Los Angeles firestorms. LOS ANGELES —…

    Jun 4, 2025

    News What you need to know: California added a record of nearly 7,000 megawatts of new clean energy capacity in 2024, marking the largest single-year increase in state history and the third consecutive year of unprecedented growth. SACRAMENTO – California has achieved…

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 3 things Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o taught me: language matters, stories are universal, Africa can thrive

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Charles Cantalupo, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative Literature, and African Studies, Penn State

    Ngũgi wa Thiong’o reads from his work in Mexico in 2017. He wrote across a huge variety of genres. Tania Victoria/Secretaría de Cultura CDMX/Flickr, CC BY-SA

    Celebrated Kenyan writer and decolonial scholar Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o passed away on 28 May at the age of 87. Many tributes and obituaries have appeared across the world, but we wanted to know more about Thiong’o the man and his thought processes. So we asked Charles Cantalupo, a leading scholar of his work, to tell us more.

    Who was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – and who was he to you?

    When I heard that Ngũgĩ had died, one of my first thoughts was about how far he had come in his life. No African writer has as many major, lasting creative achievements in such a wide range of genres as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. His books include novels, plays, short stories, essays and scholarship, criticism, poetry, memoirs and children’s books.



    Read more:
    Five things you should know about Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, one of Africa’s greatest writers of all time

    His fiction, nonfiction and plays from the early 1960s until today are frequently reprinted. Furthermore, Ngũgĩ’s monumental oeuvre is in two languages, English and Gĩkũyũ, and his works have been translated into many other languages.

    From a large family in rural Kenya and a son of his father’s third wife, he was saved by his mother’s pushing him to be educated. This included a British high school in Kenya and Makerere University in Uganda.

    When the brilliant young writer had his first big breakthrough at a 1962 meeting in Kampala, the Conference of African Writers of English Expression, he called himself “James Ngũgi”. This was also the name on the cover his first three novels. He had achieved fame already as an African writer but, as is often said, the best was yet to come.

    Not until he co-wrote the play I Will Marry When I Want with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii was the name “Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o” on the cover of his books, including on the first modern novel written in Gĩkũyũ, Devil on the Cross (Caitaani Mũtharaba-inĩ).

    I Will Marry When I Want was performed in 1977 in Gĩkũyũ in a local community centre. It was banned and Ngũgĩ was imprisoned for a year.

    And still so much more was to come: exile from Kenya, professorships in the UK and US, book after book, fiction and nonfiction, myriad invited lectures and conferences all over the world, a stunning collection of literary awards (with the notable exception of the Nobel Prize for Literature), honorary degrees, and the most distinguished academic appointments in the US, from the east coast to the west.

    Yet besides his mother’s influence and no doubt his own aptitude and determination, if one factor could be said to have fuelled his intellectual and literary evolution – from the red clay of Kenya into the firmament of world literary history – it was the language of his birth: Gĩkũyũ. From the stories his mother told him as a child to his own writing in Gĩkũyũ for a local, pan-African and international readership. He provided every reason why he should choose this path in his books of criticism and theory.

    Ngũgĩ was also my friend for over three decades – through his US professorships, to Eritrea, to South Africa, to his finally moving to the US to live with his children. We had an ongoing conversation – in person, during many literary projects, over the phone and the internet.

    Our friendship started in 1993, when I first interviewed him. He was living in exile from Kenya in Orange, New Jersey, where I was born. We both felt at home at the start of our working together. We felt the same way together through the conferences, books, translations, interviews and the many more literary projects that followed.

    What are his most important works?

    Since Ngũgĩ was such a voluminous and highly varied writer, he has many different important works. His earliest and historical novels like A Grain of Wheat and The River Between. His regime-shaking plays.

    His critical and controversial novels like Devil on the Cross and Petals of Blood. His more experimental and absolutely modern novels like Matigari and Wizard of the Crow.

    His epoch-making literary criticism like Decolonising the Mind. His informal and captivating three volumes of memoirs written later in life. His retelling in poetry of a Gĩkũyũ epic, The Perfect Nine, his last great book. A reader of Ngũgĩ can have many a heart’s desire.

    My book, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Texts and Contexts, was based on the three-day conference of the same name that I organised in the US. At the time, it was the largest conference ever held on an African writer anywhere in the world.

    What I learned back then applies now more than ever. There are no limits to the interest that Ngũgĩ’s work can generate anytime anywhere and in any form. I saw it happen in 1994 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I see it now 30 years later in the outpouring of interest and recognition all over the world at Ngũgĩ’s death.

    In 1993, he had published a book of essays titled Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Focusing on Ngũgĩ’s work, the conference and the book were “moving the centre” in Ngũgĩ’s words, “to real creative centres among the working people in conditions of gender, racial, and religious equality”.

    What are your takeaways from your discussions with him?

    First, African languages are the key to African development, including African literature. Ngũgĩ comprehensively explored and advocated this fundamental premise in over 40 years of teaching, lectures, interviews, conversations and throughout his many books of literary criticism and theory. Also, he epitomised it, writing his later novels in Gĩkũyũ, including his magnum opus, Wizard of the Crow.

    Moreover, he codified his declaration of African language independence in co-writing The Asmara Declaration, which has been widely translated. It advocates for the importance and recognition of African languages and literatures.

    Second, literature and writing are a world and not a country. Every single place and language can be omnicentric: translation can overcome any border, boundary, or geography and make understanding universal. Be it Shakespeare’s English, Dante’s Italian, Ngugi’s Gĩkũyũ, the Bible’s Hebrew and Aramaic, or anything else, big or small.

    Third, on a more personal level, when I first met Ngũgĩ, I was a European American literary scholar and a poet with little knowledge of Africa and its literature and languages, much less of Ngũgĩ himself. He was its favourite son. But this didn’t stop him from giving me the idea and making me understand how African languages contained the seeds of an African Renaissance if only they were allowed to grow.

    I knew that the historical European Renaissance rooted, grew, flourished and blossomed through its writers in European vernacular languages. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and more took the place of Latin in expressing the best that was being thought and said in their countries. Yet translation between and among these languages as well as from classical Latin and Greek culture, plus biblical texts and cultures, made them ever more widely shared and understood.



    Read more:
    Drama that shaped Ngũgĩ’s writing and activism comes home to Kenya

    From Ngũgĩ discussing African languages I took away a sense that African writers, storytellers, people, arts, and cultures could create a similar paradigm and overcome colonialism, colonial languages, neocolonialism and anything else that might prevent greatness.

    Charles Cantalupo 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. 3 things Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o taught me: language matters, stories are universal, Africa can thrive – https://theconversation.com/3-things-ngugi-wa-thiongo-taught-me-language-matters-stories-are-universal-africa-can-thrive-258074

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The pursuit of eternal youth goes back centuries. Modern cosmetic surgery is turning it into a reality – for rich people

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Margaret Gibson, Associate Professor of Sociology, Griffith University

    The Conversation, CC BY-SA

    Kris Jenner’s “new” face sparked myriad headlines about how she can look so good at 69 years old. While she’s not confirmed what sort of procedures she’s undergone, speculation abounds.

    As a US reality TV personality, socialite and Kardashian matriarch, Jenner has long curated her on-screen identity. Her fame and fortune are intimately tied to a multinational cosmetics industry that has, for centuries, bartered in the illusion of timeless beauty.

    The pursuit of cosmetic enhancement can be traced back as far as Ancient Egypt, reminding us the desire to look younger is hardly new.

    But while many women try in vain to battle the ageing process, Jenner is an example of someone who’s actually succeeded, at least visually. What does that mean for the rest of us?

    Decades of surgeries

    Modern cosmetic plastic surgery has its roots in compassion. It was developed to help disfigured first world war soldiers rebuild their faces and identities.

    But this origin story has been sidelined. Today, aesthetic procedures are overwhelmingly pursued by women and marketed as lifestyle enhancements rather than medical interventions.

    Advancements in reconstructive surgery were made after both world wars with treatments on wounded soldiers.
    AFP/Getty Images

    Plastic surgery, once considered extreme or shameful, began to gain popularity in the 1960s, and is now widespread.

    Hollywood has long played a role in shaping these standards. During its Golden Age, stars like Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne are reported to have undergone cosmetic surgeries – rhinoplasty (nose jobs), chin implants, facelifts – to preserve their screen personas.

    Even before Instagram, before-and-after images were a cultural obsession, often used to shame or expose.

    From taboo to trend

    The digital age has further normalised cosmetic enhancements, with social media influencers and celebrities promoting procedures alongside beauty products.

    It’s estimated Jenner spent upwards of US$130,000 (around A$200,000) on cosmetic interventions, resulting in a look that some media outlets suggest places her in her 30s.

    There’s been similar speculation about Lindsay Lohan, Christina Aguilera and Anne Hathaway, though none of the women have confirmed anything themselves.

    On Jenner, social media users are split. Some offer aspirational praise (“If I had the money, I’d get it all done!”), while others criticise her rejection of “ageing gracefully”.

    Today, celebrities increasingly control the narrative. Jenner has embraced her past cosmetic transformations, sharing them openly on social media and in interviews. The taboo is evolving.

    Yet many stars, including Courtney Cox, Ariana Grande, and Mickey Rourke, have spoken openly about regrets and the psychological toll of these procedures. Even with agency, the pressure remains immense.

    Youth as a cultural ideal

    This obsession with agelessness reflects a deeper societal discomfort with visible ageing, particularly in women.

    Celebrities, with access to elite medical professionals and procedures, seem to cheat time.

    Yet the outcome of is often disorienting: when Jenner appears younger than her children, the generational lines blur.

    This erasure of age difference entrenches youth as an end in itself. It also destabilises how we perceive kinship and mortality.

    Supermodel Bella Hadid has said she regrets getting a rhinoplasty as a teenager. Of Palestinian descent, she said “I wish I’d kept the nose of my ancestors”.

    In my own research, I’ve argued cosmetic enhancement is tied to a cultural denial of death.

    The ageing isn’t the problem – it’s our refusal to accept it.

    The desperate clinging to youth reflects a collective resistance to change. Celebrity culture and consumer capitalism exploit this vulnerability, making age a problem to be solved rather than a life stage to be honoured.

    We should mourn our ageing, not erase it. In another world, we could witness it, share it, and celebrate its quiet, powerful beauty.

    So what about us?

    But that’s not the world many live in, and the pressure extends beyond Hollywood.

    With filters, apps, and social media platforms, ordinary people also curate and enhance their images, playing their part in a fantasy of perfection.

    A recent study looked at the way young Australians use selfie editing tools. It found the widespread use of such apps have a significant effect on the body image of young people.



    Read more:
    ‘Perfect bodies and perfect lives’: how selfie-editing tools are distorting how young people see themselves

    The line between self-care and self-deception has never been blurrier. We all want to present the best version of ourselves, even if reality slips into illusion.

    So while women have long tried to outrun visible ageing, whether that be through anti-wrinkle creams or more invasive means, Jenner is an example of something relatively rare: a woman who’s actually managed to do it.

    In doing so, she and her celebrity counterparts set a new youthful beauty standard in what ageing should (or shouldn’t) look like.

    And while that standard may be felt by a variety of women, few will be able to achieve it.

    Extremely wealthy beauty moguls like Kris Jenner can afford elite treatments, while most people face growing financial pressure and a cost-of-living crisis. The divide isn’t just aesthetic – it’s economic.

    Beauty, in this context, is both a product and a privilege.

    And of course, judgement of women’s appearances remains a powerful force for discrediting their political, social, and moral worth. For every bit of praise there is for Jenner’s “youthful” appearance, there are videos claiming she’s “ruined her face” and questioning of whether she should spend so much money on such a cause.

    As long as gender inequality persists and beauty remains a currency of value, the pressure to conform will endure.

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

    – ref. The pursuit of eternal youth goes back centuries. Modern cosmetic surgery is turning it into a reality – for rich people – https://theconversation.com/the-pursuit-of-eternal-youth-goes-back-centuries-modern-cosmetic-surgery-is-turning-it-into-a-reality-for-rich-people-257969

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Dehorning rhinos tips the balance against poaching – new study

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Timothy Kuiper, Senior Lecturer – Biodiversity and Statistics, Nelson Mandela University

    Black and white rhino populations in the Greater Kruger (Kruger National Park and surrounding reserves) in South Africa have plummeted from over 10,000 rhinos in 2010 to around 2,600 in 2023. Hundreds of rhinos are killed each year by poachers for their horns. These are sold on the illegal global market.

    Nature reserve managers, rangers, international funders, and local non-profit organisations have invested millions of dollars in anti-poaching interventions. These include tracking dogs to track poachers, artificial intelligence-enabled detection cameras, helicopters to monitor reserves and, more recently, dehorning (removing rhinos’ horns reduces the incentive for poachers).

    To see if these were working, the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation set up a research project involving several reserve managers, rangers, and scientists from the University of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela University, University of Stellenbosch, and the University of Oxford.

    The South African National Parks, World Wildlife Fund South Africa, and the Rhino Recovery Fund were also involved.



    Read more:
    Why military and market responses are no way to save species from extinction

    Together, managers and scientists gathered seven years of rhino poaching data across 2.4 million hectares in the north-eastern region of South Africa and western Mozambique. During this time, we documented the poaching of 1,985 rhinos across 11 reserves in the Greater Kruger area. This number is about 6.5% of the rhino populations in these reserves annually.

    This landscape is a critical global stronghold that conserves around 25% of all Africa’s rhinos.

    Our study’s headline result was that dehorning rhinos to reduce incentives for poaching achieved a 78% reduction in poaching (average reduction across implementing reserves). This was based on comparison between sites with and without dehorning as well as changes in poaching before and after dehorning. Exactly 2,284 rhinos were dehorned across eight reserves over the seven years of our research – this was most of the rhino in the region.

    Our findings show that significant progress can be made against rhino poaching by reducing the reward attached to poaching (removing the horn). This is a strategic shift in focus away from purely focusing on increasing risks to poachers.



    Read more:
    Chopping off the rhino’s horn and the war on wildlife crime

    But we are being careful to note that dehorning is not a complete solution. Our research found that 111 rhinos were poached even though they had been dehorned. This is because up to 15cm of horn is left on the rhino when it is dehorned by veterinarians. This is to protect the growth plate at the base of the horn.

    Rhinos’ horns regrow over time. During our fieldwork, we also noticed that criminal syndicates remain willing to kill rhinos for their stumps, even if they do this at lower rates than before dehorning.

    It may be best to think of dehorning as a very effective but short-term solution that buys us time to address the more ultimate drivers of poaching: horn demand, socio-economic inequality, corruption, and organised criminal networks.

    A different approach to pinning down the problem

    Part of what made our study special was its strong focus on collaboration between managers and scientists. The project was first conceived by reserve managers at the frontline of rhino conservation and led by Sharon Haussmann, chief executive officer of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation. They recognised the need to take a look at whether their investments into tracking dogs, artificial intelligence cameras and other anti-poaching interventions were paying off.

    Faced with a poaching crisis despite millions of dollars invested in law enforcement, security and technology, Sharon and the team were bold enough to ask: “Why are we still losing so many rhinos? What could we do differently?” These managers then began working closely with scientists to tackle this problem together through our research.

    Tragically, Sharon died unexpectedly on 31 May, less than a week before our research was published. We want to dedicate this research to her legacy.

    Detecting and arresting poachers alone is not enough

    The nature reserves we studied had invested US$74 million (R1 billion) in anti-poaching interventions between 2017 and 2021. Most of the investment focused on reactive law enforcement – rangers, tracking dogs, helicopters, access controls and detection cameras. This helped achieve over 700 poacher arrests. Yet we found no statistical evidence that these interventions significantly reduced poaching.

    Why? These interventions are a necessary element of the anti-poaching toolkit. But they were compromised by bigger challenges. For example, stark socio-economic inequality in the region creates the ideal conditions for crime to thrive, and criminal syndicates find it easy to recruit people willing to take the large risk of poaching rhino.



    Read more:
    Rhino poaching in South Africa has dipped but corruption hinders progress

    Entrenched corruption among police and reserve staff allowed offenders access to inside information on the locations of dogs, cameras and rhinos. This meant that poaching was not deterred as much as it could have been.

    Finally, ineffective criminal justice systems mean that arrested offenders often escape punishment, with evidence from the Greater Kruger of poachers who were multiple repeat offenders.

    What can be done differently?

    A range of interventions will be needed to complement dehorning, particularly as poaching for stumps would probably continue if there were no risk to poachers. There is also some evidence that dehorning rhino in one area means poachers may move to another area where rhino still have horns and poach there instead. (This has happened in South Africa’s second largest rhino stronghold in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park where rhino have not been dehorned.)



    Read more:
    The fight against poaching must shift to empowering communities

    Our findings challenge the conventional wisdom that detecting and arresting poachers is enough on its own. Instead, we recommend these measures:

    1. Give local people a voice and a stake. Many people affected by rhino conservation have no say and don’t share in the benefits of the industry.

    2. Disrupt transnational criminal networks outside protected areas through intelligence-led investigations (follow the money).

    3. Continue supporting dehorning in the short term. This will buy time to solve the biggest drivers of wildlife crime: inequality, horn demand, and corruption.

    4. Dehorning needs to be supported by other measures to protect the rhino.

    5. Support people first, then interventions. Rangers are key here – their welfare, wages, training and safety are not always given the attention or funding they deserve.

    6. Keep loving rhinos and buying your kids pyjamas with them on.

    Timothy Kuiper has received funding from the National Research Foundation in South Africa.

    – ref. Dehorning rhinos tips the balance against poaching – new study – https://theconversation.com/dehorning-rhinos-tips-the-balance-against-poaching-new-study-258315

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Godfather of AI’ now fears it’s unsafe. He has a plan to rein it in

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Armin Chitizadeh, Lecturer, School of Computer Science, University of Sydney

    fran_kie/Shutterstock

    This week the US Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed two men suspected of bombing a fertility clinic in California last month allegedly used artificial intelligence (AI) to obtain bomb-making instructions. The FBI did not disclose the name of the AI program in question.

    This brings into sharp focus the urgent need to make AI safer. Currently we are living in the “wild west” era of AI, where companies are fiercely competing to develop the fastest and most entertaining AI systems. Each company wants to outdo competitors and claim the top spot. This intense competition often leads to intentional or unintentional shortcuts – especially when it comes to safety.

    Coincidentally, at around the same time of the FBI’s revelation, one of the godfathers of modern AI, Canadian computer science professor Yoshua Bengio, launched a new nonprofit organisation dedicated to developing a new AI model specifically designed to be safer than other AI models – and target those that cause social harm.

    So what is Bengio’s new AI model? And will it actually protect the world from AI-faciliated harm?

    An ‘honest’ AI

    In 2018, Bengio, alongside his colleagues Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton, won the Turing Award for groundbreaking research they had published three years earlier on deep learning. A branch of machine learning, deep learning attempts to mimic the processes of the human brain by using artificial neural networks to learn from computational data and make predictions.

    Bengio’s new nonprofit organisation, LawZero, is developing “Scientist AI”. Bengio has said this model will be “honest and not deceptive”, and incorporate safety-by-design principles.

    According to a preprint paper released online earlier this year, Scientist AI will differ from current AI systems in two key ways.

    First, it can assess and communicate its confidence level in its answers, helping to reduce the problem of AI giving overly confident and incorrect responses.

    Second, it can explain its reasoning to humans, allowing its conclusions to be evaluated and tested for accuracy.

    Interestingly, older AI systems had this feature. But in the rush for speed and new approaches, many modern AI models can’t explain their decisions. Their developers have sacrificed explainability for speed.

    Bengio also intends “Scientist AI” to act as a guardrail against unsafe AI. It could monitor other, less reliable and harmful AI systems — essentially fighting fire with fire.

    This may be the only viable solution to improve AI safety. Humans cannot properly monitor systems such as ChatGPT, which handle over a billion queries daily. Only another AI can manage this scale.

    Using an AI system against other AI systems is not just a sci-fi concept – it’s a common practice in research to compare and test different level of intelligence in AI systems.

    Adding a ‘world model’

    Large language models and machine learning are just small parts of today’s AI landscape.

    Another key addition Bengio’s team are adding to Scientist AI is the “world model” which brings certainty and explainability. Just as humans make decisions based on their understanding of the world, AI needs a similar model to function effectively.

    The absence of a world model in current AI models is clear.

    One well-known example is the “hand problem”: most of today’s AI models can imitate the appearance of hands but cannot replicate natural hand movements, because they lack an understanding of the physics — a world model — behind them.

    Another example is how models such as ChatGPT struggle with chess, failing to win and even making illegal moves.

    This is despite simpler AI systems, which do contain a model of the “world” of chess, beating even the best human players.

    These issues stem from the lack of a foundational world model in these systems, which are not inherently designed to model the dynamics of the real world.

    Yoshua Bengio is recognised as one of the godfathers of AI.
    Alex Wong/Getty Images

    On the right track – but it will be bumpy

    Bengio is on the right track, aiming to build safer, more trustworthy AI by combining large language models with other AI technologies.

    However, his journey isn’t going to be easy. LawZero’s US$30 million in funding is small compared to efforts such as the US$500 billion project announced by US President Donald Trump earlier this year to accelerate the development of AI.

    Making LawZero’s task harder is the fact that Scientist AI – like any other AI project – needs huge amounts of data to be powerful, and most data are controlled by major tech companies.

    There’s also an outstanding question. Even if Bengio can build an AI system that does everything he says it can, how is it going to be able to control other systems that might be causing harm?

    Still, this project, with talented researchers behind it, could spark a movement toward a future where AI truly helps humans thrive. If successful, it could set new expectations for safe AI, motivating researchers, developers, and policymakers to prioritise safety.

    Perhaps if we had taken similar action when social media first emerged, we would have a safer online environment for young people’s mental health. And maybe, if Scientist AI had already been in place, it could have prevented people with harmful intentions from accessing dangerous information with the help of AI systems.

    Armin Chitizadeh 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. ‘Godfather of AI’ now fears it’s unsafe. He has a plan to rein it in – https://theconversation.com/godfather-of-ai-now-fears-its-unsafe-he-has-a-plan-to-rein-it-in-258288

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Evans, Edwards Introduce Bipartisan Job-Training Bill

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Dwight Evans (2nd District of Pennsylvania)

    LEON Act is named for Rev. Leon Sullivan

    WASHINGTON (June 5, 2025) – U.S. Reps. Dwight Evans (D-PA) and Chuck Edwards (R-NC-11) have introduced a bipartisan job-training bill, the Leveraging Educational Opportunity Networks (LEON) Act, to help build pathways out of poverty and solve the nation’s structural, long-term labor shortage. 

    Under the bill (H.R. 3681), the U.S. Department of Labor would provide federal competitive grants to organizations that partner with local employers to provide no-cost professional training to workers for living-wage jobs in construction, disaster recovery, manufacturing and more. 

    “Too many families — in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District and across the country — have been shut out from employment opportunities that offer them a pathway to the middle class,” said Congressman Evans. “The LEON Act would help build a national career technical education system that would break down barriers and prepare low-income people with the skills that employers need.”

    “Western North Carolina is still recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene last fall, and recovery is going to take years. This is in part because we have a shortage of qualified construction workers to help us rebuild,” said Congressman Edwards. “The LEON Act would enable us to quickly train the workers we need to help us build stronger, more resilient communities and economies.”

    The bill — which would award grants to accredited, not-for-profit, post-secondary educational institutions providing training at no out-of-pocket cost to students — is named for civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan, who in 1964 founded a worldwide network of skills-training organizations under the umbrella of Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC).

    “The LEON Act is an opportunity to future-proof tomorrow’s workforce by preparing adults for jobs that will provide a pathway to the middle class,” said Louis J. King II, OIC of America’s president and CEO. “With no-cost training, we can transform lives, stabilize and strengthen communities, and address the demands of our national labor shortage. In doing so, we can create a stronger America.

    The text of the bill is available here.

    Evans represents the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Northwest and West Philadelphia and parts of North, South, Southwest and Center City Philadelphia. He recently announced that his office returned to or saved $4.5 million for constituents in 2024 in cases involving federal agencies such as the IRS, Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs. The 2024 figure brings Evans’ office’s total to more than $45.5 million returned to or saved for constituents during his first eight years in Congress.

    Evans serves on the influential House Ways and Means Committee, including its Subcommittee on Health. The committee oversees Social Security, Medicare, taxes, and trade. Evans’ website is evans.house.gov and his social media handle is @RepDwightEvans on YouTube, Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Chief Executive in Council approves provision of land resources to Urban Renewal Authority to take forward redevelopment programmes

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Chief Executive in Council approves provision of land resources to Urban Renewal Authority to take forward redevelopment programmes 
    The Secretary for Development, Ms Bernadette Linn, said, “As an important partner of the Government in urban renewal, the URA has been adopting a district-based approach in planning and taking forward redevelopment projects over the past years to avoid ‘pencil’ block development, inject holistic planning into urban redevelopment, and enhance liveability. Meanwhile, redevelopment projects of larger scale involve huge acquisition costs. Coupled with the sluggish property market in recent years, the URA’s projects have been subject to the ‘buy-high-sell-low’ situation (i.e. acquiring properties at the market peak but tendering at low price or even a failed tender), thus affecting its cashflow.”
     
    The URA has taken a number of measures to maintain a financially healthy portfolio, such as adjusting the pacing of taking forward redevelopment projects, obtaining external financing through bond issuance and loan facilities, enhancing the market attractiveness of project tenders, and critically controlling its operating expenditure. Notwithstanding, according to the URA’s latest assessment, in the event that the property market continues to falter and the results of project tenders are not as expected, the URA will have to secure additional financial support in order to maintain the redevelopment momentum, including making acquisition offers for the commenced redevelopment projects.
     
    “The Government has been providing financial support to the URA to enable it to carry out redevelopment and fulfil other statutory missions in a self-financing manner. Granting land at nominal land premium has long been one of the major government support measures for the URA. For example, the Government will grant urban renewal sites to the URA at nil land premium, as well as, in recent years, Government, Institution or Community (G/IC) sites in the vicinity of individual urban redevelopment projects to increase the overall development potential. Granting the two sites to the URA is along the same direction that helps the URA to fulfil its urban renewal mission,” Ms Linn continued.
     
    Ms Linn added, “The granting of the two sites to the URA could also benefit the community. Specifically, the Bailey Street Site can create synergy with the URA’s cluster of redevelopment projects in the Kowloon City area. As for the TKO Site, the original housing development of which has been deferred due to re-prioritisation of the Hong Kong Housing Authority’s (HKHA) projects, granting the site to the URA would optimise the use of the land resources in a timely manner.”
     
    The Bailey Street Site, with a net site area of 7 610 square metres, was reserved for school development. Upon review, the Education Bureau considered that this site can be released for other uses. Granting the Bailey Street Site to the URA could result in optimised land use and enhanced planning gains for the area by accommodating G/IC facilities to meet the district shortfall, enhancing connectivity of the area, and amalgamating the adjacent Hoi Sum Park to provide public open space. The proposed total gross floor area (GFA) will be about 68 490 sq m with a plot ratio of 9.
     
    The TKO Site has a net site area of about 9.15 hectares. The proposed total GFA is about 713 700 sq m with a plot ratio of 7.8. While the residential site concerned was reserved for public housing development, having considered the re-prioritisation of the HKHA’s projects and with sufficient land supply for public housing over the next 10 years, the granting of the site to the URA will have no impact on the overall public housing supply target for the current 10-year period (from 2025-26 to 2034-35). Furthermore, there are still about 42 ha of land reserved for housing development in Tseung Kwan O Area 137, which can be flexibly deployed for public or private housing use. The Government will take into account the market needs and adjust the public-to-private housing ratio in the area in a timely and appropriate manner to provide flexibility in the mix of housing planned for the longer term.
     
    The Executive Council has set clear requirements for this land grant, including (i) requesting the URA to make good use of the two sites as its assets to enhance its financing and borrowing capacity to maintain the momentum of urban redevelopment in a financially prudent manner in the next few years including making acquisition offers to the six commenced redevelopment projects (Note) between now and 2027-28. Moreover, with the land sales revenue to be generated from the two sites for the URA in the future, the URA should make good use of the additional and other income and re-prioritise yet-to-be-commenced projects in light of its financial position; and (ii) the URA should work with the Government to review and refine its operating and financing model that can enable it to undertake urban redevelopment in a financially sustainable manner irrespective of market ups and downs. Furthermore, the URA should advise how to step up building rehabilitation to extend the service life of aged buildings and reduce the immediate need for redevelopment. The URA should come up with specific recommendations within 2026.
     
    For details of the above, please refer to the Legislative Council Brief 
    Note: These six commenced redevelopment projects are Kau Pui Lung Road/Chi Kiang Street Project, Ma Tau Wai Road/Lok Shan Road Project, Queen’s Road West/Kwai Heung Street Project, Ming Lun Street/Ma Tau Kok Road Project, To Kwa Wan Road/Ma Tau Kok Road Project and Sai Yee Street/Flower Market Road Project.
    Issued at HKT 11:06

    NNNN

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI: Lucinity Appoints Payoneer CCO and Goldman Sachs MD as Strategic Advisors

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    REYKJAVIK, Iceland, June 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lucinity has expanded its Advisory Council with the appointment of industry leaders Micheal Sheehy, Chief Compliance Officer at Payoneer, and Konstantinos Rizakos, Managing Director of Compliance Engineering at Goldman Sachs. Both bring deep expertise to Lucinity from their experience in managing large compliance and technology programs across global financial institutions.

    Lucinity helps financial institutions detect and investigate financial crime faster and smarter using AI-powered tools. Its Advisory Council brings together industry leaders to guide the company’s international expansion, go-to-market strategy, and customer-driven product innovation.

    Micheal brings over a decade of leadership across AML/CTF, payments compliance, and regulatory risk management. He has extensive experience leading global FCC/compliance operations in the U.S., Europe, and APAC. At Payoneer and throughout his career, he has built and scaled compliance programs, managed regulatory obligations across highly regulated markets, and implemented advanced RegTech solutions. His hands-on expertise with the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, various EU AML directives, and multiple APAC regulatory frameworks will be instrumental in guiding Lucinity’s strategy to serve clients operating globally.

    Konstantinos has been a leading figure in compliance technology for over twenty years, having run the Compliance application portfolios at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. He has been an advocate of machine learning, workflow automation, and large-scale data platforms, and has driven their adoption in the industry as a whole. In the (new) age of AI, he plays an active role in AI product governance and in steering enterprise platforms, both through committee memberships and by launching an AI product management course at NYU Stern School of Business.

    Micheal and Konstantinos both bring a rare combination of regulatory expertise and technical depth that will help shape Lucinity’s global strategy and platform evolution. Their expertise will help Lucinity deepen its impact: improving investigation efficiency, enhancing team productivity, and reducing the cost and complexity of compliance for financial institutions.

    “We brought in Micheal and Konstantinos because they’ve built and run compliance programs at the highest levels. They know what works, what breaks, and what it takes to scale. They understand where compliance is headed, and with their guidance, our product will be moving faster, getting better, and raising the bar for the industry,” said Guðmundur Kristjánsson (GK), CEO and Founder of Lucinity.

    Lucinity’s Advisory Council now includes:

    • Ed Wilson – Former Partner at Venable LLP with legal expertise in cross-border financial law 
    • Tanya Ziv – Former CCO at Visa Cross-Border Solutions and Former COO at Yapily
    • Frank Lawrence – VP and Head of Global Operations, Legal and Chief Compliance Officer at Facebook Payments
    • John McCarthy – Former AML/Sanctions Officer at Airbnb with law enforcement expertise
    • Micheal Sheehy – Chief Compliance Officer at Payoneer 
    • Konstantinos Rizakos – Managing Director of Compliance Engineering at Goldman Sachs

    As Lucinity continues to scale globally, the addition of Micheal and Konstantinos brings vital real-world insight to further align Lucinity’s platform with the goals of global compliance leaders.

    Contact:

    Celina Pablo
    celina@lucinity.com
    +354 792 4321

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Answer to a written question – Concerns over Roma minority school in Rakúsy, Slovakia – risks of reinforced segregation – E-000914/2025(ASW)

    Source: European Parliament

    Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union stipulates that the Union shall fully respect the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity.

    In exercising its competences in those matters , Slovakia is bound to respect applicable international and European law, which provides a number of safeguards to ensure that education in national minority languages does not lead to discrimination and ensures equivalent standards, quality and conditions of education .

    Segregation in education on the basis of ethnic origin is prohibited under EU law by the Racial Equality Directive[1] and m inority schools cannot be used as a means to circumvent EU law and discriminate against Roma children.

    Infringement proceedings against Slovakia for segregation of Roma children in education are pending at the Court of Justice[2]. The Commission will continue to closely monitor the situation.

    The EU Roma Strategic Framework for equality, inclusion and participation[3] and EU funds, including the Recovery and Resilience Facility and cohesion policy funds , can serve as additional tools to support the desegregation in education in Member States.

    The ‘Mapping Study on School segregation of Roma Communities: Pathways and trends towards educational inclusion’[4] compiles promising practices and relevant literature for policy-makers to support effective policy making on desegregation in education.

    • [1] Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, OJ L 180, 19.7.2000, p. 22-26.
    • [2] Case C-799/23.
    • [3] COM(2020) 620 final.
    • [4] https://pjp-eu.coe.int/en/web/inclusive-education-for-roma-children/texts-2.
    Last updated: 6 June 2025

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Highlights – Countdown to the European Youth Event (EYE2025) has begun – Committee on Culture and Education

    Source: European Parliament

    EN_EYE2025_visual_EP_article_1800x1200px_P01.jpg © European Union, 2025 – EP

    The European Youth Event (EYE2025) will take place on 13 and 14 June in Strasbourg, offering a unique opportunity for young people to connect with policymakers and discuss their ideas for the future of Europe. Whether attending in person or participating online, EYE2025 allows young people to engage in meaningful conversations and share their perspectives on key issues.

    #Engaged4YOUth: CULT Committee session (in cooperation with PETI)
    One of the highlights of this year’s event will be the CULT session, a dynamic conversation where Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the Committee on Culture and Education will engage directly with young participants. Each MEP will share insights into their work, focusing on how they connect with youth and support young people across Europe. After the initial presentations, attendees will break into four discussion groups. MEPs will rotate between the groups, answering questions and discussing ways policymakers can better engage with young people. This interactive format offers a valuable opportunity for youth to directly influence how European leaders connect with the next generation.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Malaysia and China’s openness to dialogue helps strengthen civilizational exchanges

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    KUALA LUMPUR, June 6 (Xinhua) — Malaysia and China’s openness to dialogue plays a key role in strengthening civilizational exchanges and people-to-people relations by overcoming differences, scholars and experts said Thursday at a forum titled “Youth’s Responsibility for a Common Future: Islamic-Confucian Dialogue and New Horizons of Malaysia-China Cooperation.”

    Shao Liang, Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia, who attended the event, said that the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by China has important theoretical and practical significance for promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, building a fair international order and strengthening mutual understanding.

    “We are living in an era of great global uncertainty,” said Malaysia-China Friendship Association President Abdul Majid Ahmad Khan, noting that there is an urgent need for dialogue among civilizations in response to global challenges.

    Abdul Majid Ahmad Khan also called on the youth to boldly shoulder the responsibilities dictated by the times, promote the ideals of peace and dedicate themselves to building an inclusive and harmonious global future.

    International Islamic University Malaysia Rector Osman Bakar noted that in today’s increasingly diverse world, cultural exchange and understanding between Malaysia and China is more important than ever.

    In his opinion, through dialogue and cooperation, young people can become bridges between different civilizations, resolve differences and promote common values.

    The youth representatives who attended the forum generally agreed that young people should contribute to cultural exchanges and dialogue between the civilizations of Malaysia and China. –0–

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Occupational safety and personnel policy issues discussed at All-Russian forum at Polytechnic

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    On June 5 and 6, the Polytechnic University is hosting the All-Russian Conference “Labor Protection and Personnel Work in Organizations Subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.” The event is organized by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. More than 650 specialists are participating in it, discussing current issues in the field of labor protection and personnel policy.

    Participants meet with representatives of relevant government agencies and consider various topics: compliance with labor legislation, holding competitions for positions of professors and teachers, research fellows, certification and selection of managers, anti-corruption policy, labor protection, and social partnership. The work takes place in the format of expert sessions, master classes, and discussion platforms. The experts were also able to get acquainted with the exhibition stands.

    State Secretary – Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Anastasia Bondarenko addressed the participants in a video format: The topics that are raised annually at the conference are the most relevant. Issues of safety and comfortable conditions are a priority. The strategic potential of any organization is people. We must preserve the best traditions that have developed and share experience on the problems that arise.

    The words of greeting from the Chairman of the Committee on Science and Higher Education of the St. Petersburg Administration Andrey Maksimov were read by his deputy Vladimir Gaidei: I am confident that the Polytechnic University will once again become a unifying discussion platform for the conference participants. You will have the opportunity to exchange experience and relevant information on issues important for the sustainable and stable functioning of educational and scientific organizations.

    The guests were greeted by the rector of SPbPU, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Rudskoy: At the federal level, programs for increasing competitiveness and academic leadership are consistently implemented, which have significantly changed the landscape of higher education, setting, among other things, new requirements for management culture. Personnel policy cannot be formulated in isolation from the university strategy, and it should be built with a focus on creating mechanisms for attracting the best teachers and staff, ensuring an effective contract and consistent integration of teachers’ activities into the implementation of work for industry.

    The participants of the plenary session discussed new challenges and solutions in personnel work and labor protection. The discussion was moderated by the President of the Southern Federal University Marina Borovskaya. Director of the Department of Personnel Policy of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia Alexey Svistunov made a report “Personnel Policy of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation: Main Development Trends”. Director of the Department of Legal Support, Administration and Civil Service of the Ministry of Education of Russia Andrey Sobolev spoke about how to improve the efficiency of labor protection services in educational organizations.

    Deputy Director of the Department of Working Conditions and Occupational Safety Tatyana Zhigastova devoted her speech to changes and prospects for the development of regulatory frameworks in the field of occupational safety. Chairperson of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of the Russian Federation Larisa Solodilova spoke in detail about the implementation of social partnership in solving problems of protecting social and labor rights and the effectiveness of monitoring compliance with labor safety legislation. Chairperson of the All-Russian Trade Union of RAS Workers Galina Chucheva gave a report on “Development of Social Partnership: Proposals of the Trade Union of RAS Workers”.

    Acting Head of the Department for Supervision of Compliance with Anti-Corruption Legislation of the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office Yegor Pavlov spoke about the organization’s anti-corruption policy, legislative requirements, their implementation and responsibility. Deputy Head of the Department of the Department of Permit and Visa Work and External Labor Migration of the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Police Colonel Elena Klimova emphasized the specifics of attracting foreign citizens to work in the Russian Federation. Deputy Director for Research at the Izmerov Research Institute of Occupational Medicine Evgeny Zibarev presented regulatory and legal changes in the field of health protection in his speech. Head of the Department of Acquisition, Departmental Archives and Records Management of the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg Yulia Arslanova spoke about the storage of personnel documents and labor protection documents.

    The moderator of the expert session “State supervision, departmental control: typical mistakes in personnel work. Ambiguous trends in law enforcement practice in labor disputes” was the head of the Directorate for Work with Personnel of SPbPU Maria Pakhomova. The participants discussed changes in supervisory activities and risk indicators, recruitment and registration of labor relations with foreign scientific and pedagogical workers, trends in law enforcement practice in labor disputes and other issues.

    The moderators of the discussion platform “Improving approaches to remuneration and motivation of personnel” were Deputy Chief Accountant of SPbPU Irina Tomshinskaya and Director of the Department of Economics and Finance of SPbPU Elena Vinogradova. The experts considered the automation of HR processes of the university, the use of IT services to optimize the activities of employees, the system of accounting for the achievements of university-forming personnel, modification of the algorithm for forming the staffing schedule and other topics. Head of the Department of Corporate and Information Systems of SPbPU Denis Varenikov presented the report “Personal account of an employee as a tool for the digital transformation of an institution”. Head of the Labor Protection and Safety Department of SPbPU Yulia Shadrina spoke about the modification of the algorithm for forming the staffing schedule.

    The round table “The Role of the Psychological Service in Ensuring Psychological Safety at the University” was moderated by Maxim Pasholikov, Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Communication Technologies at SPbPU. The participants discussed the activities of psychological services at universities, student support, and aspects of the work of the tutoring service. Anna Kalugina, Director of the Center for Psychological Support at SPbPU, presented a report on “Psychological Aspects of Training First-Year Group Curators.”

    The discussion platform “Assessment and development of personnel: current trends and effective mechanisms” was attended by the director of the Higher School of Industrial Management of SPbPU, secretary of the Competition Committee Olga Kalinina, who spoke about the assessment and development of the teaching staff within the framework of competition procedures.

    At the discussion platform “Current issues of organizing labor protection in scientific and educational organizations of higher education,” Nikolai Chumakov, associate professor of the Higher School of Technosphere Safety of SPbPU, spoke and presented the specifics of conducting first aid training.

    The debate “Experience is no obstacle to mastery. How to find the “golden mean”: professional standards vs. competencies / youth vs. “silver age”” was moderated by Vice-Rector for HR Policy of SPbPU Maria Vrublevskaya. The experts exchanged opinions on strategic issues of human capital management, discussed the age balance of the NPR, ways to attract and retain young people, professional standards and competencies.

    The moderator of the round table “Educational and methodological support for training specialists in labor protection” was the director of the Higher School of Technosphere Safety of SPbPU Andrey Andreev. The first vice-president of MANEB, associate professor of SPbPU Vitaly Tsaplin made a report “Artificial intelligence in labor protection management systems”. Senior lecturers of the Polytechnic University Yulia Logvinova and Maxim Polyukhovich spoke about the methodological foundations of the laboratory practical course on labor protection.

    Also planned today is a discussion platform “Mentoring as an element of developing human resources potential” together with the UNESCO Department at SPbPU and other activities.

    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: Anglia Ruskin champions diversity at Pride events

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is playing a key role at two major Pride events this month, proudly taking centre stage as the headline sponsor for both Cambridge Pride and Essex Pride.

    ARU is committed to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, including its vibrant LGBTQ+ staff and student community, and the University is thrilled to once again be supporting these two popular events.

    Cambridge Pride kicks off at 12 noon on Saturday, 14 June with a colourful parade through the city centre, before ending back at Jesus Green. The free-to-attend event will continue until 9pm, bringing together the diverse communities of Cambridge for a day of entertainment and unity.

    Attendees can look forward to an exciting lineup of performers on the main stage, including singers and dancers from Cambridge and beyond, and the event will also feature a dance tent, funfair rides, a wellbeing area and a community tent offering arts workshops for children.

    Essex Pride is taking place on Saturday, 21 June in Chelmsford, and this year is celebrating its 21st birthday. The day begins with the free City Centre Pride March, which sets off from Popworld Chelmsford at 11:20am, before arriving at Central Park, the main festival venue.

    Each year Essex Pride welcomes around 4,000 people and this year’s celebrations include a huge lineup of artists. The ticketed event includes two live stages and headlining this year will be The Vengaboys, X Factor star Louisa Johnson, and RuPaul Drag Race Queens Tia Kofi and La Voix.

    “We’re proud to be the headline sponsor of Cambridge Pride and Essex Pride once again this year.

    “Pride is more than a celebration, it’s a powerful act of solidarity. As ever, we stand together with our LGBTQ+ students, staff, and local communities, especially in these challenging times.

    “Inclusion and belonging are at the heart of everything we do at Anglia Ruskin University. Through our excellent education and research, we continue to drive positive change and challenge inequality.”

    Professor Catherine Lee, Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Education, Humanities and Social Sciences at ARU

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: York leaders welcome government plans to extend free school meals

    Source: City of York

    City of York Council leaders are highlighting the positive impact of the city’s free school meals pilots, following the government’s announcement [5 June] that it will extend free school meals.

    It will extend free school meals to children in households receiving Universal Credit from September 2026.

    In York, free school meal pilots are running at three primary schools as part of a citywide initiative, providing pupils with a free school meal even if they’re not eligible under the national scheme. 

    Over 46,000 free breakfasts or lunches have been given to children in the three primary schools piloting the initiative – Westfield Primary Community School, Burton Green Primary School and Fishergate Primary School – since it launched in January 2024.

    The campaign is part of the council’s wider commitment both to address affordability challenges and to ensure that  good health and wellbeing is prioritised as early as possible in residents’ lives – part of the council’s four year plan – One City for all. 
    The pilots have been made possible thanks to funding from the council and donations to the York Community Fund’s York Hungry Minds Appeal.

    York Hungry Minds was set up in a bid to address disadvantage and the impact of the cost of living crisis, responding to national evidence suggesting that providing children with healthy, nourishing food can make a significant difference to school attendance, concentration and learning and their physical and mental wellbeing.

    Initial research carried out by researchers from the Universities of York, Leeds and Sheffield into the impact of the York free school meal pilots last autumn showed that pupils taking part showed improved attendance and punctuality compared to their peers. 

    Schools also saw evidence of improved behaviour because children were feeling less hungry, with staff noting improvements in the pupils’ focus and energy levels after receiving a free breakfast [at Burton Green]. 

    Staff and parents at Burton Green Primary School and Westfield Primary Community School highlighted how the Universal Free School Meal pilot had helped ease financial pressures, as part of the evaluation work. They also raised the food insecurity families’ face and the importance of the meals in directly alleviating pressure.

    Tina Clarke, headteacher at Fishergate Primary School, explained the impact the free school meals pilot has had at her school:

    “The breakfast club at Fishergate has made a huge difference to the children who attend.

    “We have seen a positive impact on levels of attendance and punctuality – to be honest we have been surprised by how much of an impact it has had. It has also made a big difference to how the children start the school day – they come into their class settled, happy and ready to learn.”

    Cllr Bob Webb, the council’s Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education, said:

    “When I have spoken to parents, carers and school leaders about the impact of our free school meals pilot, they highlighted improvements in school attendance and children’s behaviour.

    “A good education is critical to helping children fulfil their potential and live happy and healthy lives, and all the national and local evidence shows that providing a regular, nutritious meal really can have a significant impact on their learning. 

    “I’m pleased that the government has again shown its commitment to expanding eligibility for free school meals and I hope that this announcement will enable even more children and young people in York to get a free school lunch.”

    More details on the research findings into the impact of York’s free school meal pilots are available at https://www.york.gov.uk/free-school-meals/york-hungry-minds

    You can find out more about how to make donations to support York’s free school meals pilots at Two Ridings Community Foundation.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Edinburgh 900 exhibition reveals the hidden lives of the first ‘Edinburghers’

    Source: Scotland – City of Edinburgh

    Visitors to St Giles’ Cathedral will come face-to-face with those of the first ‘Edinburghers’ in a new exhibition as part of Edinburgh 900 celebrations.

    Opening to the public on Friday 6 June, Edinburgh’s First Burghers: Revealing the Lives and Hidden Faces of Edinburgh’s Medieval Citizens, delves into the fascinating work carried out by experts from the Francis Crick Institute (London), University of Aberdeen, University of Dundee and the City of Edinburgh Council.

    Marking the joint 900th anniversaries of both Edinburgh and St Giles’ Cathedral, this extraordinary exhibition presents the results of new scientific research into the medieval citizens buried within the grounds of the Cathedral. Originally excavated in 1981, these remains have undergone new detailed analysis using advanced methods including ancient DNA sequencing, isotopic analysis, radiocarbon dating, and forensic facial reconstruction.

    This collaborative project offers a compelling look at the lives, diets, health, origins, and identities of Edinburgh’s earliest residents.

    The exhibition will feature:

    • Facial reconstructions of five individuals by Maria Maclennan, projected throughout the Cathedral using immersive lighting designs by artist Mettje Hunneman.
    • A specially commissioned short documentary by Cinetopia, featuring interviews with the research team and members of the Cathedral community.
    • A focus on three key burial groups – individuals from the birth of the burgh and foundation of the Cathedral in the 12th century, two 15th-century male pilgrims and eight women buried inside the Chapel of Our Lady between the 15th and 16th centuries.

    Lord Provost Robert Aldridge, said:

    This exhibition invites visitors to travel back through nine centuries of Edinburgh’s history, to meet the earliest people who called this city home. Thanks to scientific research and creative collaboration, we are able to share new insights into their lives, origins, health, and identities and, to actually see their faces once again.

    Edinburgh 900 is a year-long celebration of our city’s rich history, culture, and bright future. This exhibition brings the faces of our very first residents to life for our audiences of today. My thanks to our partners, scientists, artists, and all those whose contributions have brought this exhibition to life.

    City of Edinburgh Council Archaeologist John Lawson added:

    This has been a fascinating project that brings together new archaeological science and the creative arts to tell the story of Edinburgh’s first residents in an imaginative and exciting way.

    Visitors to the exhibition will come face-to-face with the first inhabitants of the city, ordinary individuals who lived through extraordinary chapters of history. While we are accustomed to the tales of the famous and powerful, this project shifts the spotlight to the everyday citizens, telling their stories in the very place they once walked, worshipped, and were laid to rest.

    To honour their lives in such a meaningful location has been a rare and powerful opportunity. It’s been an immensely rewarding partnership to be part of, and I’m grateful to the church, talented specialists and the artists whose hard work and dedication have have helped to tell these stories.

    Sarah Phemister, Head of Heritage and Culture, St Giles’ Cathedral, said:

    This exhibition is a celebration of the remarkable talent, collaboration, and creativity of the scientists and artists who have breathed life into the faces of the past. Their work connects us across centuries, reminding us that St Giles’ has always been a place where history, innovation, and human stories have met at the very heart of Edinburgh.

    Free and open to the public from 6 June to 30 November 2025, the exhibition invites visitors to explore the Cathedral’s medieval past in a new way—bringing faces and stories from Edinburgh’s early history to life.

    Maria Maclennan, Senior Lecturer School of Design, Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) The University of Edinburgh, said:

    It has been an enormous privilege to contribute to such a fascinating and interdisciplinary project, which adopted a truly interdisciplinary approach requiring collaboration on the part of many. Each craniofacial approximation involved the marriage of archaeological evidence together with myriad scientific analyses undertaken by the research team, to help inform final facial appearance: forensic anthropology, radiocarbon dating, isotopic signature, DNA profiling, and forensic-artistic techniques.

    Craniofacial Approximation is a hybrid sci-art practice dedicated to restoring the face of an unknown individual from their skeletal remains. In archaeological contexts, as is seen here in St. Giles’ Cathedral, the practice is often an important means of restoring visibility, identity, and humanity to those long lost or forgotten, and/or in promoting education and encouraging public engagement with historical figures of interest from the past.

    For each reconstruction, I produced both a more ‘neutral’ face (depicting how the individual may present in contemporary day Edinburgh), in addition to a ‘historical’ face, depicting the individual dressed in clothing/artefacts typical of the time in which they lived.

    Dr Tobias Houlton, Lecturer in Craniofacial Identification and Forensic Imaging at University of Dundee, said:

    This exhibition marks a significant milestone in the longstanding partnership between the City of Edinburgh Council Archaeology Service (CECAS) and the University of Dundee.

    While this particular project has been a year in the making, it builds on many years of collaboration and graduate involvement from the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID). It provides a unique opportunity for CAHID graduates to further develop their expertise in facial identification while contributing to meaningful research in partnership with CECAS. The exhibition showcases the powerful synergy between science and art in restoring the faces of Edinburgh’s earliest citizens and enriching our understanding of the city’s medieval past.

    This project has been made possible with support from Historic Environment Scotland, and all partner organisations.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The HSE has completed the TMH management reserve training program

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

    As part of the corporate program “Key Reserve: Broad Development Horizons,” the heads of TMH enterprises prepared to solve the company’s strategic tasks. Training in Higher School of Business The HSE University aimed to develop key competencies among TMH employees, which are necessary for the effective management of a modern business.

    The training was aimed at developing key competencies in TMH employees, necessary for effective management of a modern business. Over the course of a year, 47 program participants mastered strategic financial management, operational efficiency, change management and team development. The program also covered such areas as B2B and B2G marketing, making management decisions in conditions of uncertainty, conducting negotiations and implementing changes in the company.

    The educational trajectory included five modules, midterm tests and final defense of individual projects. Each participant demonstrated how he or she applies new knowledge in his or her management activities.

    The program combined the knowledge of the HSE professors and practitioners and the expertise of TMH top managers. The leading teachers were Natalia Shishlakova, Deputy General Director for Corporate Development and Project Activities — Member of the TMH Management Board, Andrey Vasiliev, Deputy General Director for Operations — Member of the TMH Management Board, Oleg Domsky, Deputy General Director for Economics and Finance — Member of the TMH Management Board, Andrey Sheremetyev, Deputy General Director for Commercial Activities — Member of the Management Board, and Vladimir Chekalin, General Director of DMZ JSC.

    The results of the training were summed up on May 16: the program participants presented their work to a committee that included top managers of TMH and teachers of the Higher School of Business of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    Natalia Shumkova, Deputy Director for Corporate Training at the Higher School of Business, National Research University Higher School of Economics

    “The partnership with TMH is a shining example of successful interaction between business and education. Joint work on the program allowed us to create a unique educational product that not only forms the management competencies of the participants, but also directly influences the strategic development of the company. We see the high practical value of the training and the willingness of the participants to apply the knowledge they have gained in their work.”

    Natalia Shishlakova, Deputy General Director for Corporate Development and Project Activities – Member of the Management Board of TMH

    “The Key Reserve: Broad Development Horizons program, implemented in partnership with the HSE Graduate School of Business, has become an important stage in TMH’s systematic work on developing its management reserve. Thanks to its practical focus, the participants mastered the tools of operational efficiency, strategic financial management, and teamwork. This knowledge is already being applied in projects, improving the quality of management decisions, transparency of processes, and coordination of actions. A comprehensive understanding of interrelated production and management factors helps to formulate mature and sustainable solutions. Inclusion in the teaching staff of the TMH senior management program in cooperation with the HSE Graduate School of Business played a key role in achieving these results: the expertise of the business school, the flexibility of the format, and deep immersion in the specifics of TMH’s business made it possible to make the program as practical as possible and focused on real tasks.”

    The program covered the best practices of senior management development. This allowed its participants not only to develop important management skills, but also to contribute to the further development of the holding, which is the leading manufacturer of rolling stock in Russia.

    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 Asia-Pac: Town Planning Board visits Hangzhou and Shanghai (with photos)

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Town Planning Board visits Hangzhou and Shanghai  
    To gain insights into successful experiences in urban-rural integration, the delegation visited Xiaogucheng Village in Jingshan Town, where the delegation learned the pivotal role of enterprises in rural revitalisation. By creating distinctive village houses and streetscapes, promoting an agricultural and tea culture, and converting some village homes into home-stay lodgings linked with surrounding attractions, the Village has been transformed into a new agri-cultural tourism destination. The delegation also visited the Xixi National Wetland Park, the first national wetland park in China, where the members observed its ecological protection projects, which presented a sustainable development model worthy of reference for Hong Kong. 
    The delegation then proceeded to visit Shanghai. Representatives of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources introduced to the delegation the history, current status and future prospects of Shanghai’s urban planning, particularly Shanghai’s development strategy to solidify its status as a leading financial and commercial hub, while also shifting focus to develop its I&T and manufacturing/industrial sector in recent years. The delegation visited the century-old Zhang Yuan to learn more about its revitalisation through acquisition and preservation of structures without demolition, and relocation of occupants by the local government, with a view to effectively preserve the traditional cultural landscape of Shanghai.
     
    The delegation also visited the GrandneoBay Sci-tech Innovation Park of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) where members learned how the research and development (R&D) platform facilitating the integration of industry, academia and research, as well as the local Government’s leading role in initiating innovation from 0 to 1, passing on to enterprises to drive scalability from 1 to 100. The key focus is to leverage the SJTU’s applied R&D achievements and combine the effort of the Government and the support of enterprises to provide capital assistance for the SJTU’s research talent to launch start-ups, transforming scientific achievements into marketable products and driving industrialisation. Finally, the delegation visited the assembly manufacturing centre of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) to learn about COMAC’s outstanding achievements and contributions in the manufacturing of large civil aircraft and the advancement of the aviation industry, particularly the advanced automated manufacturing processes and comprehensive monitoring systems, which impressed the delegation.Issued at HKT 17:55

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: 2 sites granted to URA

    Source: Hong Kong Information Services

    The Government today announced that the Chief Executive-in-Council approved granting a site at Bailey Street, Hung Hom, and a site in Tseung Kwan O Area 137 to the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) by private treaty at a nominal premium of $1,000.

    The grants aims to provide additional financial support to the URA to enhance its cashflow, so that it can continue to take forward its commenced redevelopment projects in an orderly manner.

    The two sites to be rezoned for residential use will be granted for 50 years from the date of execution through statutory town planning procedures in due course.

    Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn said the URA has been adopting a district-based approach in planning and taking forward redevelopment projects over the past years to avoid “pencil” block development, inject holistic planning into urban redevelopment, and enhance liveability.

    Meanwhile, redevelopment projects of larger scale involve huge acquisition costs. Coupled with the sluggish property market in recent years, the URA’s projects have been subject to the buy-high-sell-low situation, ie acquiring properties at the market peak but tendering at low price or even a failed tender, thus affecting its cashflow.

    Ms Linn noted that granting land at nominal land premium has long been one of the major government support measures for the URA.

    For example, the Government will grant urban renewal sites to the URA at nil land premium, as well as, in recent years, Government, Institution or Community (G/IC) sites in the vicinity of individual urban redevelopment projects to increase the overall development potential.

    Granting the two sites to the URA is along the same direction that helps fulfil its urban renewal mission.

    Ms Linn added that the granting of the two sites to the URA could also benefit the community.

    Specifically, the Bailey Street Site can create synergy with the URA’s cluster of redevelopment projects in the Kowloon City area.

    As for the Tseung Kwan O Site, the original housing development of which has been deferred due to reprioritisation of the Housing Authority’s projects, granting the site would optimise the use of the land resources in a timely manner.

    The Bailey Street Site, with a net site area of 7,610 sq m, was reserved for school development. Upon review, the Education Bureau considered that this site can be released for other uses. Granting the Bailey Street Site could result in optimised land use and enhanced planning gains for the area by accommodating G/IC facilities to meet the district shortfall. The proposed total gross floor area will be about 68,490 sq m.

    The Tseung Kwan O Site has a net site area of about 9.15 hectares. The proposed total gross floor area is about 713,700 sq m. While the residential site concerned was reserved for public housing development, having considered the reprioritisation of the Housing Authority’s projects and with sufficient land supply for public housing over the next 10 years. Furthermore, there are still about 42 ha of land reserved for housing development in Tseung Kwan O Area 137.

    Click here for details.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Western Balkans culture ministries adopt growth declaration to place creativity at the heart of growth

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    World news story

    Western Balkans culture ministries adopt growth declaration to place creativity at the heart of growth

    Culture ministries from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia met today under the Berlin Process and, together with UK Special Envoy to the Western Balkans Dame Karen Pierce, adopted a Joint Declaration that puts the region’s creative economy at the centre of its economic and European future.

    Berlin Process ministerial meeting on creative economy

    Kotor, Montenegro, 28 May 2025 – Culture ministries from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia met today under the Berlin Process and, together with UK Special Envoy to the Western Balkans Dame Karen Pierce, adopted a Joint Declaration that puts the region’s creative economy at the centre of its economic and European future.

    Long championed by the United Kingdom, the creative economy of the Western Balkans has taken centre stage in Berlin Process discussions for the very first time, reflecting its growing contribution to inclusive growth, social cohesion and regional cooperation.

    Co-hosted by Montenegro’s Minister of Culture and Media Dr Tamara Vujović, British Council Deputy CEO Kate Ewart Biggs and the UK Special Envoy to the Western Balkans Dame Karen Pierce, the forum explored how creative industries can generate skilled jobs, retain talented young people and deepen cross-border cooperation. Creative businesses already outpace many traditional sectors and are natural partners for the green and digital transitions the Western Balkans must complete on their path to EU membership.

    At the close of the meeting, the six ministers committed to embed creativity in national growth agendas. The Declaration pledges governments to treat the creative economy as a strategic sector, align the work of culture, education and economy ministries, create stable public-finance lines and incentives that crowd-in private investment, and open access to EU and international funds such as the Western Balkans Growth Plan and Horizon Europe. Ministries aim to turn the region’s cultural richness into a lasting engine of prosperity and regional cohesion.

    UK Special Envoy to the Western Balkans, Dame Karen Pierce said:

    “The UK’s hosting of the Berlin Process this year underlines our commitment to strengthen cooperation with our partners in the Western Balkans. The discussions we’ve had today, focused on the creative economy, highlight the importance of regional collaboration and the need for long-term investments in areas that will drive sustainable growth, foster social cohesion, and deepen ties across the region.”

    “The creative economy can be a driver for growth for all communities. It has immense potential in the Western Balkans. By working together, we can unlock the full potential of this sector, not just for economic benefits, but also as a means of strengthening cultural identity and heritage across the region.

    “Today’s adoption of the joint declaration by the Ministries of Culture from the Western Balkans is an important step forward in shaping the future of the creative economy in the region. It’s a clear statement of our shared vision for fostering innovation, promoting sustainable development, and supporting our creative industries as vital contributors to the region’s growth. While each country has its own requirements and ideas, by working together, governments and creative industry across the region can bring even more benefits to their citizens across each and every community.

    “We reaffirm our commitment to operationalising the creative economy as a strategic sector for growth. By strengthening collaboration between Ministries of Culture, Education, and Economy, we will ensure that culture and creativity are embedded in national economic plans, innovation strategies, and skills development. This is an investment in the future of the region and its citizens.”

    British Council programmes such as Culture & Creativity for the Western Balkans have trained thousands of cultural professionals and financed scores of start-ups, while links with UK institutions have opened new export markets for film, music and design. Building on today’s commitments, the British Council will launch a regional fund later this year to help creative entrepreneurs scale their ideas and reach international audiences, reinforcing the people-to-people ties at the heart of the Berlin Process.

    Updates to this page

    Published 6 June 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –