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Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Lord Collins of Highbury, UK Minister for Africa visits Uganda

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    Lord Collins of Highbury, UK Minister for Africa visits Uganda

    Lord Collins of Highbury visited Uganda on 3 and 4 April to reinforce the UK’s commitment to sustainable development and mutual economic growth.

    UK Minister for Africa Lord Collins with British High Commissioner Lisa Chesney, CEO of Uganda Airlines Jenifer Bamuturaki, and Minister of Works and Transport Katumba Wamala, at a reception to mark the Uganda Airlines’ direct flight to the UK, scheduled for 18 May 2025.

    During his 2-day visit, Lord Collins announced the launch of a new UK-Uganda Growth Dialogue between the UK and the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

    The UK-Uganda Growth Dialogue will be a quarterly series of discussions on commercial deals, business environment and economic policy to identify opportunities to increase trade and investment between the 2 nations. It will unblock barriers to trade and create new opportunities for collaboration.

    Lord Collins visited areas of UK investments such as Zembo, a leading e-mobility company in Uganda, which has received financing from UK Innovate and Private Infrastructure Development Group.

    Uganda’s green transition

    Funding has accelerated the adoption of electric motorcycles and other zero-emission vehicles, reducing carbon emissions and saving the average boda driver US$500 annually on traditional fuel and maintenance costs. The investment supports Uganda’s transition to greener mobility while creating new job opportunities.

    Lord Collins of Highbury stated:

    My visit to Uganda reaffirms the UK’s unwavering commitment to building equal partnerships that supporting sustainable development and drive mutually beneficial economic growth in the region. We are dedicated to working closely with our Ugandan partners to achieve shared prosperity and a brighter future for all.

    Celebrating direct flights between UK and Uganda

    Lord Collins and Uganda Airlines jointly hosted a reception to celebrate the new Uganda Airlines direct flight to the UK – the first in 10 years. The direct flights are expected to enhance trade, tourism, and people-to-people links between the UK and Uganda, further strengthening the 2 countries’ historic relationship.

    Lord Collins remarked:

    The introduction of direct flights between Entebbe and London Gatwick marks a pivotal moment in our efforts to deepen ties and foster mutual growth. We are excited about the opportunities this new connection will bring.

    Supporting Uganda’s research and innovation

    During his visit to Uganda, Lord Collins of Highbury visited the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), which boasts over £25 million in active funding from UK Universities and Medical Research Council and hosts many British medical researchers for and a 35-year partnership with the UK.

    UVRI has pioneered breakthroughs, including significant advancements in HIV/AIDS treatment and Ebola research, enhanced disease surveillance and provided expert advice on controlling viral infections.

    UVRI partners with the Ministry of Health, the UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC), the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and other international and local experts to advance its mission

    Background

    UVRI (Uganda Virus Research Institute)

    UVRI is a leading research institute in Uganda, focusing on viral diseases and public health, collaborating with UK Universities and international partners.

    PIDG (Private Infrastructure Development Group)

    PIDG mobilises finance for infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia, promoting sustainable development through public-private partnerships.

    Innovate UK

    Innovate UK supports business-led innovation across sectors with financial support, expert advice and access to resources.

    Updates to this page

    Published 23 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Transport Secretary acts to make thousands of extra driving tests available each month

    Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

    Press release

    Transport Secretary acts to make thousands of extra driving tests available each month

    Further action to reduce waiting times will see thousands of additional tests made available every month.

    • new measures unveiled to crack down on test-buying bots and deliver at least 10,000 extra tests a month 
    • training capacity to be doubled to drive-up availability of driving examiners
    • government action to help ready learners pass, unlock opportunities, and drive economic growth — delivering on our Plan for Change

    Learner drivers are set to benefit from reduced waiting times as the Transport Secretary announced new measures today (23 April 2025) to combat test-buying bots and provide thousands of additional tests every month.

    The Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, has instructed the DVSA to intensify its efforts to reduce waiting times and improve access to driving tests which will break down barriers to opportunity as part of the government’s Plan for Change.

    To open up more tests and break down barriers to opportunity, she has announced: 

    • those in other DVSA roles who are qualified to examine will be asked to return to the frontline to provide practical driving tests
    • doubling the number of permanent trainers to skill up new driving examiners quickly
    • accelerated consultation to investigate the potential abuse of the driving test booking system and prevent bots from accessing tests
    • reintroduction of overtime pay incentives for everyone delivering driving tests

    Taken together, the government aims for these measures to reduce driving test waiting times to 7-weeks by summer next year.

    Significant progress has already been made as part of the DVSA’s 7-point plan to reduce waiting times, with 1.95 million tests delivered last year. However, further action is required to help learners pass quickly and ensure young people can access vital training and job opportunities to help them get on in life.

    Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander said:  

    We inherited an enormous backlog of learners ready to ditch their L-Plates but being forced to endure record waiting time for their tests.

    We simply cannot deliver on our Plan for Change if thousands remain held back, with their aspirations on pause.

    I am instructing DVSA to take further action immediately to reduce waiting times which will see thousands of additional tests made available every month. We’re acting fast to get Britain’s drivers moving.

    The DVSA’s Additional Testing Award scheme will reopen for up to 18 months, allowing more examiners to deliver additional tests. 

    Examiner training capacity will be doubled to ensure newly recruited driving examiners can qualify as quickly as possible. An accelerated consultation will also launch in May to improve the booking system and block bots from accessing tests. This comes on top of the work DVSA is already undertaking with leading IT specialists to enhance resilience against resellers.

    Additionally, the government will temporarily ask eligible staff to deploy into examining roles, increasing test availability and providing coverage for examiner sickness or leave. 

    These measures come following the launch of a 7-point plan to drive down the waiting times to 7 weeks.  

    Progress has been made in recruiting more than 100 new examiners, increasing the short notice cancellation period for candidates, and introducing tougher terms and conditions for driving instructors booking driving tests for their pupils.  

    DVSA Driver Services Director, Pauline Reeves said:

    Since December 2024, we’ve made significant progress on implementing our plan to reduce waiting times. But we know that many learner drivers are not seeing the immediate effects of the measures.

    The further action which the Secretary of State has announced today will help us to accelerate those measures, including expanding training capacity for newly recruited driving examiners so more of them can start carrying out driving tests sooner.

    Rhydian Jones, motoring expert at Confused.com car insurance said:   

    A long wait for driving test availability has held back many learner drivers from getting their licence. That’s why it’s positive to see that the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, is enforcing more measures to improve waiting times for learners. This will bring hope to those starting to learn, or still waiting to take their test. And ultimately, it should help make what is meant to be an exciting time for them something they can look forward to without the thought of a long wait.

    Emma Bush, Managing Director of AA Driving School, said:

    Learner drivers have been dealing with frustratingly long waiting times to book a driving test since the easing of pandemic related restrictions several years ago. As we have highlighted, there is an urgent need for effective action to bring waiting times down to an acceptable level and, as such, we welcome today’s announcement giving further details of how the DVSA will meet its target waiting time of 7 weeks by the end of the year.

    Many people, particularly young people, need to pass their driving test for their job or to access education. Unblocking the system by creating extra tests will help ensure people are not being held back due to a lack of a driving licence.

    Roads media enquiries

    Media enquiries 0300 7777 878

    Switchboard 0300 330 3000

    Updates to this page

    Published 23 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI NGOs: Todos, todos, todos

    Source: Greenpeace Statement –

    He’ll come back again, I muttered as I declined a friend’s invitation to see Pope Francis when he visited the University of Sto. Tomas in 2015. There was good reason to believe he would. Being one of two predominantly Catholic countries in Asia, the Philippines would certainly be a prime place for a liberal-leaning pope to visit. That confidence was also masked by a certain hubris that I might find myself in Rome one of these days, looking up at St. Peter’s Square. So his sudden death brings more regrets than questions; a certainty that I missed the mark and did not see Christ’s representative in the flesh.

    Having been raised Catholic, the life of the Church was always like a familiar plaza. There was as much friendship as there was gossip, and it was a place to cultivate not only one’s faith but also the sense of community that is so important with the Church. In a sense, I was also brought up in the more traditional track of Catholicism, and this was also reflected in my theological interests during graduate studies. Looking back, it seemed all the more strange that I would refuse an opportunity to see the Pope. Perhaps there was something stirring inside me, a subconscious feeling that made it difficult for me to embrace the Church.

    Francis, in many ways, represented a perceived break—a moment of irruption in the unified vision of the Church. One could remember the fear in his eyes when he was presented to the world for the first time in strikingly simple garb. There was something uncanny about him when he was addressing the crowd. Why couldn’t I shake off the feeling of discomfort? Being Jesuit-educated, I should understand this simplicity, but for some reason, there was what Karl Rahner called “the unsolved remainder” that lingered long after the pomp and excitement of Francis’s election.

    And it became more and more apparent as Francis slowly broke down what I thought was the Church, often in gentle ways. From admitting—to a Haiyan survivor—the failure of human reason amidst unspeakable suffering, to kissing the feet of inmates in Regina Coeli prison in Rome every Maundy Thursday, Francis’s brand of Church-building was one of humility.

    The Franciscan brand of humility was never far away from radical unity. In order for the Church to be truly itself, she had to go back to her roots, a Church that called for the liberation of the oppressed, that swung open the doors of secrecy, that loved everyone—todos, todos, todos—regardless of orientation, belief, background, or status. The roots of the Church, Francis pressed, had to go where there was a real chance it would not grow and then eventually rot away. The fringes and the frontlines where God seemingly has abandoned humanity: among the wastelands of war, famine, and communities flattened by extreme weather, and even in the most personal and intimate encounters of the deafening silence of God.

    Perhaps it was the reaching out to the margins that terrified me, because spiritually, I’ve found myself in those dark corners especially in the last few years. Perhaps I felt seen and heard, and I did not want to be because I refused to admit that all I heard was silence. Because such is the nature of the dark night–it creeps up silently, etching away the facade of one’s faith. It then becomes like an irresistible itch that one unconsciously scratches, preventing any kind of healing. Paradoxically, it is only ever in this kind of darkness and silence that the God of Francis’s teaching fully reveals His power, the power of pure presence, and this presence had a name: mercy.

    That was probably the unsolved remainder: a God that offered no world-changing reason for the problems of humanity, no quick fixes to the climate crisis, no easy answers to the suffering of the innocent. A God that simply announces Himself as Herself in the midst of the world’s brokenness, with the complete honesty that nothing will ever fully address the weight of suffering. Francis represented that simple, honest, and all-embracing mercy, and that disturbed me, because little did I know that I was the one being ministered to.

    Perhaps that was what Francis really tried to teach: to be able to have the confidence to confront even the darkest questions, mustering up the courage to face the world’s problems with nothing more than the quiet assurance that God will never leave. This conviction probably annoyed me because it was easier said than done. It probably angered me too as it didn’t offer the kind of solutions our world has been accustomed to.

    The urgency is much more pressing in a world that is slowly crumbling away from the excesses of the rich and powerful, who continue to prioritize greed and self-interest over the life of the planet, and who foment hate towards those that are not like them. Could you believe that? The “answer” to all these overwhelming problems was to be silent and sit by someone and cry with them?

    Maybe it was less of an answer and more of a signpost towards a starting point. That, to meet and commune with those who have suffered, what was required was to refrain from immediately offering solutions and open oneself up to the simple power of presence. In many ways it is also a slap on my face: working in an environmental NGO, one gets lost in the urgency of the calls, for instance, to make polluters pay, and one forgets the truly essential starting point of mercy. One gets addicted to the thrill of campaigning, and one neglects the unsolved remainder that will always result from the calculus of the climate crisis. Perhaps the starting point in addressing the climate crisis is on the level of fear and trembling with others, where words fail and presence remains the only acceptable response. Much like the silence that envelops a household swept away by a storm surge, and no amount of campaigning will ever repay or repair what was lost. Campaigning involving human suffering always entails acquiescing to the silence of presence, and only then can one build truly merciful and human connections and tackle the climate crisis together with others.

    It took Francis’s death to make me realize that I was being ministered to spiritually and in work, and there is no timeline for when the darkness will be lifted. Now the plaza is less bustling and, at times, flooded. And the floating garbage is like the lingering memories of the moments I wasted neglecting my own faith and conviction for my work. But when I look up, all I see are the forgotten that Francis invited back into the Church, and I realize my own brokenness and darkness too, as I am constantly being invited back to the Church that is equally broken.

    Maybe this is what it means to be a Church now: to acknowledge our brokenness and how we have become used to or even addicted to it. To use this as a starting point to see each other as each other and cultivate the kind of courageous presence that breaks down the powerful. Until everyone, everyone, and everyone is embraced without measure.

    You might want to check out Greenpeace Philippines’ petition called Courage for Climate, a drive in support of real policy and legal solutions in the pursuit of climate justice.

    Courage for Climate

    The climate crisis may seem hopeless, but now is the time for courage, not despair. Join Filipino communities taking bold action for our planet.

    Make an Act of Courage Today!

    Jefferson Chua is a Greenpeace Campaigner working on climate, based in the Philippines.

    MIL OSI NGO –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Severance: what the hit show can teach us about cybersecurity and human risk

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Oli Buckley, Professor in Cyber Security, Loughborough University

    What if your work self didn’t know about your personal life, and your home self had no idea what you did for a living? In Apple TV’s Severance, that’s exactly the deal: a surgical procedure splits the memories of employees into “innies” (who only exist at work) and “outies” (who never recall what they do from nine to five).

    On the surface, it sounds like an ideal solution to a growing cybersecurity problem of insider threats, such as leaks or sabotage by employees. After all, if an employee can’t remember what they accessed at work, how can they leak it, sabotage it, or sell it?

    As someone who has researched insider threats for the last decade I can’t help but see Severance as a cautionary tale of what happens when we try to eliminate threats without understanding people.

    The threat from within

    Insider threats really hit prominence in the wake of high-profile incidents like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who both leaked top secret government information. These threats are one of the most persistent challenges in security because unlike “traditional” hackers, insiders already have access to sensitive systems and information.

    They might act maliciously, stealing trade secrets or exposing data, or accidentally, through phishing links or lost devices. Either way, the consequences can be more serious because of the unprecedented levels of access someone has while working within an organisation.

    While we often think of the high-profile cases in the first instance, the reality of most insider incidents is far less dramatic. Think of the disgruntled employee who downloads a client database before leaving, or the well-meaning staff member who shares a sensitive file via the wrong link.

    In fact, one of the most iconic examples of an insider threat in fiction is Jurassic Park. The entire catastrophe begins, not with a dinosaur, but with a software engineer, Dennis Nedry, who disables the park’s security in an attempt to steal trade secrets. It’s a reminder that even the most sophisticated systems can be undone by a single rogue employee.

    Organisations try to manage this through access controls, behaviour monitoring and training. But people are unpredictable. Insider threats sit at the messy intersection of human behaviour, organisational culture and digital systems.

    This is where Severance strikes a chord. What if you could eliminate the human risk altogether, by turning employees into separate, tightly compartmentalised selves? In the show, workers at the shadowy Lumon Corporation have no memory of their job outside the office and vice versa.

    In a sense, it’s the ultimate form of “need to know.” An “innie” can’t tell anyone what they do because they don’t know anything beyond their desk. It’s a very elegant, although ethically problematic, solution for someone working in security. However, as the series unfolds, it becomes clear that the levels of control on offer through the process of severance come with a terrible cost.

    The problem with control

    The innies in Severance are trapped in an endless workday, unable to understand the meaning or value of their tasks. They form bonds, question authority and ultimately rebel. Ironically, it is the severed employees, the ones who are most closely controlled in the company, who become the greatest insider threat to Lumon.

    This mirrors something we know from real organisations: excessive surveillance, control and secrecy often backfires. For instance, Amazon has faced repeated criticism over its use of tracking technologies to monitor warehouse workers’ movements and productivity, with reports suggesting this has contributed to high stress, burnout and even rule-breaking as workers try to “game” the system.

    A 2022 study published in Harvard Business Review found that employees who feel overly monitored are significantly more likely to break rules or engage in counterproductive behaviour – undermining the very goals of workplace surveillance. If people feel undervalued or mistreated, they’re more likely to become disengaged or actively hostile. Security systems that ignore culture and trust are therefore often brittle.

    What Severance gets right is that insider threats are emotional and ethical problems as much as technical ones. They stem from how people feel about their role, their autonomy and their identity within a system. This is something that we can’t simply patch within a piece of software.

    Lessons from fiction

    Thankfully, no company in the real world is proposing surgical memory separation, at least not yet. But in an age of algorithmic management, increasing surveillance, and growing concerns about privacy, Severance resonates. It forces us to ask just how far should we go in the name of security?

    The answer isn’t to separate people from their work, but to build systems that are secure and respectful of the people within them; something increasingly backed by research.

    That means better design, clearer boundaries and a workplace culture that values openness, not just compliance. For example, implementing clear expectations around work hours and communication norms can help prevent burnout and promote wellbeing.

    Encouraging open communication channels, such as anonymous feedback systems, empowers employees to voice concerns without fear, fostering a culture of trust. Additionally, designing physical workspaces that promote collaboration, like open-plan areas and communal lounges, can enhance team cohesion and reflect organisational values.

    If we follow the example set by Lumon and try to remove all risk then we lose something far more essential – the humanity at the centre of our systems and organisations. Ultimately, removing that human focus could be the most significant vulnerability of all.

    Oli Buckley receives funding from Jason R.C. Nurse receives funding from The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Responsible AI UK.

    – ref. Severance: what the hit show can teach us about cybersecurity and human risk – https://theconversation.com/severance-what-the-hit-show-can-teach-us-about-cybersecurity-and-human-risk-255024

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Cook with a Chemist and Play Chess with an Artist: How the Science and Ice Cream FEST Festival Will Be Held at VDNKh

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    The first Science and Ice Cream FEST festival will be held at VDNKh from May 23 to 25. More than 30 events are planned, with about three thousand people expected to attend. All events will be free. You can view the full program and pre-register for the events from April 28 on the website.

    The program will be held at 10 VDNKh sites, such as the Cosmonautics and Aviation Center, the Atom Museum, Pavilion No. 1 Central, the Moscow Transport Museum, the Biotech Museum, the Moscow Municipal Economy Museum, the summer cinema, Pavilion No. 25 Oil, the Books Pavilion Rosiso, and the Moscow Longevity Center. The festival is organized by VDNKh and the Future Time Foundation.

    Guests will meet with famous scientists and popularizers of science, including Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexey Semikhatov, famous chemist and crystallographer Artem Oganov, popularizer of evidence-based medicine Alexey Vodovozov, artist Rostan Tavasiev and candidate of psychological sciences Olga Svarnik.

    The Science and Ice Cream FEST festival will offer you to try yourself in unexpected roles and take a fresh look at familiar communication formats, erasing the boundaries between science, creativity and entertainment.

    Chess with an artist, cooking with a chemist, science with a film critic and more

    One of the most exciting events of the festival will be the “Chemical Party” at the Atom Museum. Guests will become part of an exciting scientific show, where chemical experiments by Artem Oganov, a crystallographer, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences and professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), will turn into an exciting game. Participants will learn how chemical processes work. In addition, a culinary master class by Maria Kalinina, an expert in the field of colloid chemistry, will be organized. Everyone will be able to find out whether and how exactly to disassemble products into components in order to eat right, and talk about how exactly food chemistry affects our everyday life.

    At the Cosmonautics and Aviation Center, festival guests will be able not only to discuss quantum physics with Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexey Semikhatov, but also to take part in a photo shoot with the famous scientist. And in the dome space of the center, visitors will be greeted by artist Rostan Tavasiev, with whom they can talk about contemporary art inspired by space, and play chess.

    A master class on neurographics will be held at the Biotech Museum. Olga Svarnik, PhD in Psychology and leading researcher at the RAS Laboratory of Psychophysiology, will explore their unconscious together with the participants. During the class, guests will learn how this creative method helps solve personal and psychological problems, and will also be able to check how the human brain reacts to the process.

    Several events will be held at the Moscow Transport Museum. The public talk on bicycle transport design will appeal to those interested in innovations in transport technologies and design, as well as those wishing to participate in the development of the urban environment. The meeting “Teenage Vibe. Where Should We Get Off?” will discuss how modern teenagers see the world, and at the interactive lecture “Science Under the Hood: How Does an Internal Combustion Engine Work?” visitors will learn about the structure of the heart of a car.

    At the festival, you will also be able to join the program “Superschool Rules”, which will be hosted by science journalist and host of the podcast on Channel One “Schrödinger’s Cat” Grigory Tarasevich. Together with the guests, he will develop original mnemonic rules for memorizing scientific terms, the best of which will be offered to school teachers for use in the educational process.

    In addition, guests of all ages will be able to discuss science with a film critic and listen to medical folklore, play board games with scientists and writers, take part in botanical walks and scientific battles, create their own literary comics based on famous books, and join public lectures, live discussions, interactive master classes, and author’s programs from the country’s leading universities.

    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.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/152922073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Several streets in the center and west of the capital will be closed in connection with the motorcycle festival

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    The traffic pattern on several streets in the center and west of the capital will temporarily change this weekend. This is due to the 12th Moscow Motofestival. It will take place on April 26.

    From 09:00 on April 25 to 07:00 on April 27, traffic will be restricted on the section of University Square from Kosygina Street to Universitetsky Prospekt. From 08:00 to 19:00, traffic will be closed on the section from Michurinsky Prospekt to house 28, building 22 on Kosygina Street (towards Leninsky Prospekt) and on University Square from Universitetsky Prospekt to Kosygina Street.

    At 12:00, the column of motorcyclists will start from Vorobyovy Gory, make a circle around the Garden Ring and return back. Thus, from 11:40 on April 26, it will be impossible to drive along the outer side of the Garden Ring, as well as along Kosygina Street from house 28, building 22 to Vorobyovskoye Highway, along Vorobyovskoye Highway from Kosygina Street to Berezhkovskaya Embankment and along Berezhkovskaya Embankment to Tarasa Shevchenko Embankment. There will also be no traffic on Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Street in the area of the Borodinsky Bridge and on the bridge itself, as well as on the section of Smolenskaya Street from the Borodinsky Bridge to the Garden Ring. As the motorcyclist column passes, traffic will resume.

    In addition, on April 26 from 12:30 to 15:00, traffic will be closed on a section of Kosygina Street (towards Vorobyovskoye Highway) from house 28, building 22 to Michurinsky Prospekt.

    From 08:00 to 12:00 it will be impossible to drive in the far right lane of Universitetsky Prospekt in the area of Universitetskaya Square (in the direction of Michurinsky Prospekt).

    This year, the motorcycle festival is dedicated to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The program for participants and guests will be held at the observation deck of Vorobyovy Gory. Visitors will enjoy performances by artists, motorcycle club competitions, quizzes, prize draws, an exhibition of historical equipment and much more. For the first time in the history of the festival, military motorcycles from the Motors of War Museum will take part in the motorcycle rally.

    From 20:00 on April 23 to 18:00 on April 27, the parking pocket on University Square at the intersection with Kosygina Street will be closed. From 00:01 on April 25 until the end of the event, parking will also be prohibited on Berezhkovskaya Embankment, at the exit from Borodinsky Bridge to Tarasa Shevchenko Embankment, on University Square from University Avenue to Kosygina Street, and on the section of Kosygina Street from Michurinsky Avenue to house 28, building 22 on Kosygina Street.

    Drivers are advised to plan their route in advance and choose detours. Detailed information on road changes is available at official website Traffic Management Center.

    You can read the full list of traffic restrictions atMoscow transport website.

    Quickly find out the main news of the capital in the official telegram channelthe city of Moscow.

    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.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/153026073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Academic Commonwealth of St. Petersburg and Belarus

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

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

    A delegation from the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPbB RAS) visited the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus (NAS of Belarus). The purpose of the visit was to establish a long-term and meaningful scientific partnership between the two academies based on the existing close ties between Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and the institutes of the SPbB RAS with scientific organizations of the Republic of Belarus.

    The Russian delegation was headed by the Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Rector of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Rudskoy. The delegation also included Deputy Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Arsenyev and Director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Anatoly Popovich.

    The visit began with a visit to the Center for Systems Analysis and Strategic Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the permanent exhibition “Achievements of Domestic Science for Production”, dedicated to unique developments and technologies that were created in the institutes of the National Academy of Sciences and have already been implemented in real production.

    The First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Academician Sergei Chizhik, and the Academician-Secretary of the Department of Physics, Mathematics and Informatics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Alexander Shumilin, presented the guests with the latest developments completed by order of industrial enterprises of Belarus, including joint projects with Russia, including nuclear energy and the space program.

    The central event of the visit was the official meeting at the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The Belarusian side was represented by the First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergei Chizhik and academician-secretaries of the relevant departments of the National Academy of Sciences. The event is taking place in a significant year for both countries – the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the 25th anniversary of the establishment of partnership relations between St. Petersburg and the Republic of Belarus. The context of common historical heritage and sustainable cooperation in our days gave the event a special symbolic meaning.

    Andrey Rudskoy gave a report in which he spoke about the history of the creation of the SPbB RAS, about great scientists and academicians of Russia and Belarus, including graduates of SPbPU. He gave examples of successful scientific projects, fundamental and applied research implemented in partnership between the institutes of the two academies.

    “Scientific organizations of St. Petersburg and Belarus have been cooperating for many years. We are united not only by common cultural and scientific traditions, but also by common goals: technological sovereignty, sustainable development and strengthening of positions in world science,” noted Andrei Rudskoy.

    At the end of the official meeting, a ceremonial signing of an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation between the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus took place.

    The agreement is aimed at developing fundamental and applied research, training highly qualified scientific personnel, joint implementation of scientific and technical projects and exchange of scientific information. The parties also agreed to support applications for national and international grants, develop educational programs and organize joint conferences and seminars.

    Particular attention is paid to creating conditions for the formation of scientific schools, promoting jointly created technologies and attracting partners from third countries to scientific interaction.

    The visit of the Russian delegation continued with a visit to the leading scientific institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. At the B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics (IPh), the guests from St. Petersburg were met by the director, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergei Gaponenko. After the official part, the representatives of the SPbB RAS got acquainted with the practical developments of the institute’s scientists. One of the most interesting projects is research in the field of creating transistors based on gallium nitride, in which the B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics can compete with Chinese developers and manufacturers. In addition, unique devices developed at the Center for Laser and Optical Technologies for Medicine and Biology were presented.

    The next stop on the visit was the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP). Its director, Mikhail Kheifets, is a frequent guest of SPbPU and heads the dissertation council of SPbPU in the specialty “Technology and equipment for mechanical and physical-technical processing.” The institute he heads conducts important research, including with a number of scientific organizations and enterprises in St. Petersburg. For example, magnetometers are calibrated and verified using standards developed at the IAP, and then the devices are certified at the Mendeleyev Research Institute in St. Petersburg. Among other projects, a contactless ore measurement technology developed by the IAP in the interests of Severstal was presented. Significant potential for cooperation between the IAP and scientific and educational institutions of St. Petersburg is contained in the joint program for space research of Belarus and Russia, which is supervised by Academician Pyotr Vityaz, Head of the Aerospace Activities Department of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. This topic was actively discussed during the recent visit of the delegation of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus to SPbPU, when visiting the laboratories of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications.

    The day’s program ended at the Institute of Powder Metallurgy named after Academician O. V. Roman. The guests were introduced to the exhibition of scientific and technical developments and products of the institute, the test stand, and the additive technologies section. After the inspection of the production sites, a scientific seminar was held, where representatives of the SPbB RAS and SPbPU heard reports on the institute’s developments in the field of additive technologies, obtaining metal and alloy powders for them, filled filaments. The head of the test stand presented methods for studying metal, ceramic and composite materials using the center’s equipment.

    SPbPU and the Roman Institute of Powder Metallurgy have been successfully cooperating for a long time. A joint project, “Development of a technology for producing composite materials based on ceramics and products using additive manufacturing,” is being implemented using a grant from the St. Petersburg Science Foundation. A joint monograph, “Additive Technologies. Materials and Technological Processes,” co-authored by SPbPU and the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, has been published. Director General Alexander Ilyushchenko proposed new topics for joint research, including in the field of surgical implants, new composite filaments for additive technologies, effective materials, and coatings made of radio-absorbing materials. The parties agreed to prepare a new program for the Union State in the field of modern materials science.

    “Today’s visit is a step towards a deeper scientific union. Belarus has always been and will be a key strategic partner for us,” Andrey Rudskoy, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, summed up the results of the visit to the NAS of Belarus.

    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 Africa: Minerals Commission of Ghana to Participate at Mining in Motion 2025

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

    ACCRA, Ghana, April 23, 2025/APO Group/ —

    Martin Kwaku Ayisi, CEO of the Minerals Commission of Ghana, will speak at the upcoming Mining in Motion 2025 Summit. As the head of the government agency responsible for developing, coordinating and monitoring mineral sector policies, Ayisi’s participation will be instrumental in presenting Ghana’s vision for sustainable mining sector growth.

    He will join the panel discussion, Case Studies in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASGM) Formalization: Learning from Successes and Addressing Challenges, highlighting Ghana’s progress in supporting small-scale miners. Under Ayisi’s leadership, the Commission has introduced key initiatives including the Cooperative Mining Policy, the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project and the establishment of District Mining Committees – all aimed at improving and formalizing the ASGM sector.

    The Commission is also advancing gender inclusivity and economic empowerment through its Financial Independence, Skills Development and Women Empowerment Initiative, which promotes the active participation of women in the mining industry. These efforts have contributed to the continued expansion of the ASGM sector, which in 2024 generated $5 billion in export revenue and employed over one million people, reinforcing Ghana’s position as Africa’s leading gold producer and the sixth largest globally.

    With more than two decades of experience in Ghana’s extractive sector, Ayisi brings valuable insight to the Summit. A seasoned mining and petroleum lawyer, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development Corporation and previously held the role of Senior Legal Officer at the Minerals Commission.

    Organized by the Ashanti Green Initiative in partnership with the World Bank, the World Gold Council,and other global stakeholders, the Mining in Motion 2025 Summit will be held under the theme, Sustainable Mining & Local Growth – Leveraging Resources for Global Impact. The event will convene public and private sector leaders including H.E. John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana, along with high-level representatives from the African Union and the United Nations.

    Stay informed about the latest advancements, network with industry leaders, and engage in critical discussions on key issues impacting small-scale miners and medium to large scale mining in Ghana. Secure your spot at the Mining in Motion 2025 Summit by visiting www.MiningInMotionSummit.com. For sponsorship opportunities or delegate participation, contact sales@ashantigreeninitiative.org.  

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: South Africa: state of the nation 30 years into democracy

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sandy Africa, Director Research, MISTRA and Research Associate, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria

    Just over 30 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, public opinion is divided over how to evaluate the post-apartheid, democratic state. Characterisations range from “failed or failing state”, to “mafia state” to the more optimistic “developmental state” committed to addressing historical patterns of injustice through decisive state intervention.

    The characterisations vary so widely because interpretations of the state are shaped not only by a complex empirical reality but also by competing theoretical and ideological perspectives. Some parts of the state appear dysfunctional, marked by failure, corruption, or capture. Others are viewed as evolving, contested, or in need of transformation. The perspective depends on the framework of analysis applied.

    Theoretical approaches reinforce these divisions. Some emphasise state failure and breakdowns. Some highlight illicit networks and patronage. Others focus on whether the state is supported by strong institutions and leadership, has the necessary operational know-how, or operates within a clear ethical matrix.

    These overlapping dimensions produce divergent conclusions. To some, the proverbial glass is half empty, while to others it is half full.

    The ongoing debate about the successes and failures of the South African state is the subject of a book that followed a call for papers in 2023 – The State of the South African State: Capability, Capacity and Ethics.

    The book poses the question of whether South Africa’s future lies in hope or despair. Contributors cover a range of themes through the lens of a range of disciplines in the social sciences. The themes include financing of the state’s responsibilities, managing the energy transition, water provision, the political economy, foreign policy, the state of the security sector, traditional leadership, the role of civil society and the capacity of the public service.

    Capacity, capability and ethics

    In assessing the state’s performance, the book addresses three interdependent components: capacity, capability and ethics.

    Capacity refers to the state’s institutional make-up (its tangible infrastructure).

    Capability refers to the means at the society’s disposal to enable the state to deliver on its mandate. It includes the operational know-how, including how effectively the state uses its resources.

    Ethics refers to the behaviours displayed by those entrusted with leadership and implementation responsibilities across the state.

    A state with ample capacity and high capability but lacking in ethical grounding may misuse its resources. This leads to corruption and public disillusionment. Conversely, strong ethical commitments without sufficient capacity or capability may result in well-intentioned but ineffective policies.

    When ethics guide the accumulation of capacity as well as the effective, strategic use of those resources, the state is more likely to fulfil its public mandate and uphold constitutional values.

    Historical evolution

    The volume situates this framework within broader theoretical debates. It explains how past and present challenges (such as state capture or institutional decay) have emerged. It also charts a pathway for renewal.

    The democratic South African state’s formal evolution has passed through four phases:

    • transition and transformation (1994-1999)

    • policy orientation and compromise (mid-1990s to early 2000s)

    • erosion and institutional decay (2008-2018)

    • attempts at recovery and renewal (2019-July 2024)

    • the government of national unity agenda (July 2024 to present).

    In the immediate post-1994 era, the state transformed its capacity. It replaced apartheid-era structures with new bodies designed to uphold constitutional principles and reflect democratic values.

    The guiding ethical operating system was strong. Ideals of dignity, equality, and inclusivity were central to the nation-building project. This set the stage for policies intended to redress historical injustices, even if practical know‐how was still maturing.

    In the second phase of state-building (after the first five years of democracy) there was a shift from the initial promise of the Reconstruction and Development Programme towards a market-oriented approach. This policy change was an attempt to manage economic realities through market mechanisms. But some policy actors saw it as a betrayal of the poor and the working class.

    During this period, the ethical underbelly began to show signs of strain. As pragmatic and market-driven ideas took precedence, some of the original ethical commitments were diluted. These included broad-based development and social justice. This contributed to compromises that would later affect public trust.

    In the third phase from about 2009 onwards, the state’s institutional capacity suffered from high levels of mismanagement and poor oversight. The robustness of institutions was undermined by chronic neglect and corruption.

    State capture and corruption impaired the state’s ability to use its capacity effectively. The result was policy failures. This made it more difficult to meet social and economic challenges.

    The weakening of accountability allowed unethical practices to flourish. It also undermined the very ideas that had originally set the state on a path of inclusive development.

    In the phases that followed reform efforts focused on rebuilding operational capacity. There were attempts to improve administrative efficiency and strategic planning, and build compacts for social change and redress.

    Measures were introduced – albeit gradually – to reinforce accountability and transparency. The aim was to renew the social compact between the state and society around inclusive growth and accountability.

    After the 2024 national and provincial government elections, the African National Congress (ANC) had to form a unity government in July 2024. Since then, there has been a renewed effort to strengthen the state’s capacity. The unity government’s agenda places some emphasis on improving operational efficiency and strategic planning.

    Hope or despair?

    Despite both domestic and international pressures, including a change in administration in the US, recent unity government efforts highlight that a positive turnaround is possible, though it is far from guaranteed.

    The framework set out in the book suggests that building an effective, capable and developmental depends on:

    • bolstering institutional capacity

    • improving the effective use of resources

    • embedding strong ethical standards into all levels of state activity.

    To some observers, the post-apartheid state was doomed to failure from the start, due to the negotiated settlement that brought it about. To others, the legitimacy of the state has been eroded by poor policy choices, and that’s why it now faces a polycrisis.

    And to others, the state has been captured and repurposed by opportunistic and self-serving forces.

    Understanding the state of the South African state is contested territory. And probably will be for a long time to come.

    The upcoming book was the subject of a webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, MISTRA, earlier this year: A YouTube recording of the webinar can be found here.

    – South Africa: state of the nation 30 years into democracy
    – https://theconversation.com/south-africa-state-of-the-nation-30-years-into-democracy-251724

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

    Urban flooding is a major problem in the global south. In west and central Africa, more than 4 million people were affected by flooding in 2024. In Ghana, cities suffer damage from flooding every year.

    Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, has established a task force to find ways of improving flood resilience in the country. This is partly driven by an increase in flooding incidents in cities such as Accra and Kumasi in the last decade.

    We are urban planning and sustainability scholars. In a recent paper we analysed whether flooding in Accra, Ghana’s capital, was caused by climate change or poor land use planning.

    We conclude from our analysis that flooding is caused by poor and uncoordinated land use planning rather than climate change. We recommend that the physical planning department and other regulatory agencies are equipped to ensure the effective enforcement the relevant land use regulations.

    Mixed push factors

    The Accra metropolitan area is one of the 29 administrative units of Ghana’s Greater Accra region. It is the most populous region in Ghana, with over five million residents, according to the 2021 Housing and Population Census.

    We interviewed 100 households living in areas such as Kaneshie, Adabraka and Kwame Nkrumah Circle. These areas experience a high incidence of floods. Representatives of agencies such as the Physical Planning Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation and the Environmental Protection Agency were interviewed too, about:

    • the nature and areas most prone to flooding in the study area

    • the frequency of flooding

    • land use planning and regulations and their influence on flooding.

    About 40% of the people we interviewed attributed flooding to both weak enforcement of land use regulation and changes in rainfall patterns. Most of the households (52%) said floods in Accra were the result of weak enforcement of land use regulations, while 8% blamed changes in land use regulations.

    We also analysed recorded data on flood incidence and rainfall. We found no correlation between increased rainfall and flooding. For example in 2017 there was a decrease in rainfall, but an increase in flooding.

    This finding points to the fact that rainfall isn’t the only factor contributing to flooding in the city.

    The agencies and city residents reported that between 2008 and 2018, they could see that more people were encroaching on the city’s wetlands by building homes and commercial infrastructure. This has changed the natural flow of water bodies. The Greater Accra Metropolitan and its environs has major wetlands such as Densu Delta, Sakumo Lagoon and Songor Lagoon.

    Interview respondents noted that the siting of unauthorised buildings and the encroachment on buffer zones of water bodies in the city could have been averted. They blamed political interference in the enforcement of land use regulation. The government makes the situation worse in two ways, they said:

    • planning standards and regulations are neglected in the development process. The processes involved in acquiring development permits are cumbersome and expensive, so people go ahead and develop without permits.

    • regulatory institutions and authorities are ineffective. This is clear from the fact that planning happens chaotically. No attention is given to the ecological infrastructure that’s needed.

    The way forward

    We conclude that land use malpractices remain the dominant causes of flooding in Accra. They include:

    • poor disposal of solid waste, which eventually blocks drains and results in water overflow during heavy rains

    • building on wetlands as a result of non-compliance or non-enforcement of land use regulations.

    There is an urgent need for Ghana’s cities to adopt best practices in waste management. These include recycling of plastic waste and composting for urban agriculture. An environmental excise tax was introduced in 2011 to fund plastic waste recycling and support waste management agencies.

    The increasing encroachment on wetlands should be addressed through the strict enforcement of buffer regulations. Planning authorities and the judiciary can collaborate on this. The city must also encourage green infrastructure, like rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavement, street trees and rain harvesting systems. Research has shown these to be environmentally sustainable and cost-effective approaches to managing storm water.

    Another suggested approach is the introduction of the polluter pays principle in city management. This is a system where city residents who are involved in the pollution of the environment are made to pay for the cost of mitigating the impact. Residents who dispose of waste indiscriminately and encroach on wetlands would be made to pay for the cost of the environmental degradation. Cities such as Barcelona and Helsinki have applied this principle in the management of their industrial discharge and contaminated waste.

    Finally, there should be incentives for city residents to promote environmental sustainability. For example, a deposit refund system has been introduced in several states in the US and Australia. In this system, consumers are made to pay a deposit after purchasing items that can be recycled, such as plastic bottles, and the deposit is reimbursed to the consumer after the return of the empty bottles to a retail store.

    – Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause
    – https://theconversation.com/flooding-incidents-in-ghanas-capital-are-on-the-rise-researchers-chase-the-cause-254000

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Geoengineering – an explainer on the science and ethics

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Geoengineering, also known as climate engineering or climate intervention, refers to the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate system to counteract human-caused climate change. It involves interventions like reflecting sunlight back into space to mitigate the effects of global warming. While the UK government and main research funders are in favour of conducting fundamental research to improve our understanding of these potential interventions (but not deployment of these approaches), these initiatives have still proved controversial with many inside and outside science, who argue that even researching this area is a dangerous distraction from the kind of climate action we need now.

    The National Environment Research Council (NERC) announced £10 million of new funding for modelling solar radiation management schemes last week and we expect ARIA to announce funding soon. The Royal Society is currently working on a new report on Solar Radiation Management (SRM) expected later this year, and NERC, part of UK Research and Innovation, have also announced a public engagement exercise this summer. With all this activity planned, the SMC invited some leading experts to meet science journalists explain the main scientific approaches to this research, outline why funders believe this research is justified and answer questions.

    Speakers included:

    Prof Mark Symes, Programme Director, ARIA and Professor of Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Technology, University of Glasgow

    Kate Hamer, NERC Director, Strategy & Analysis

    Prof Jim Haywood, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Exeter

    Dr Pete Irvine, Research Assistant Professor, Solar Geoengineering, University of Chicago and Co-founder of SRM360

    Dr Sebastian Eastham, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Aviation, Imperial College London

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Energy security’ is being used to justify more fossil fuels – but this will only make us less secure

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Freddie Daley, Research Associate, Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex

    corlaffra / shutterstock

    The UK government is about to host a summit with the International Energy Agency (IEA) on the future of energy security. It does so as the world grapples with war, geopolitical realignments and trade barriers, against a backdrop of accelerating climate upheavals. One of the expected outcomes of this summit is a new, agreed definition of what constitutes energy security in the 21st century.

    Common understandings of energy security have focused on making supplies reliable and affordable, with less attention paid to ensuring sources of energy are sustainable and less volatile over the medium- and long-term. This neglect compromises our collective security.

    The IEA’s 31 member countries and 13 associates include most of the world’s most powerful states. Its influence means that this new definition of energy security will be used to inform government policies and investment decisions around the world. Given the cost of energy infrastructure, and the lengthy time it takes to build these projects, this definition is set to shape our future, economically and climatically.

    But there is a very real risk that this definition will open the door to further investments into fossil fuel production under the guise of energy security.

    International Energy Agency (IEA) member and ‘association member’ countries.
    IEA, CC BY-SA

    After Russia invaded Ukraine, governments rushed to cut their reliance on Russian fossil fuels. This caused major disruptions as prices spiked and millions were pushed into energy poverty.

    Europe alone spent an extra €517–€831 billion (£444–£713 billion) on energy in 2021 and 2022, even though some imports from Russia continued through so-called “shadow fleets”. Some argued that high fossil fuel prices only embolden leaders like Putin and help fund their conflicts.

    Governments responded with “energy nativism”, as they sought to secure as much energy as possible for their citizens at whatever cost. This typically meant boosting renewables and bulk buying oil and gas. In the UK’s case, it also meant the previous government issuing hundreds of new licenses to drill for oil and gas to “increase energy security” – licenses the current government says it will honour).

    Shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) were also redirected from poorer countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh towards the highest bidders in Europe and Asia. This raises the question of who exactly is becoming more energy secure and at what cost.

    Meanwhile, large fossil fuel exporters like Qatar, the US and Australia ramped up production. A US official even referred to its gas exports as “molecules of freedom”. Australia has exported so much natural gas it may have to buy its own gas back from Japan at market price.

    The sheer volume of investment in new oil and gas infrastructure like offshore rigs or LNG terminals, combined with long build times, has locked in higher fossil fuel production and pushed emissions to record levels. This poses significant risks for both exporters and importers, especially as future demand is uncertain and energy markets remain volatile.

    Fossil fuels remain dominant

    More fundamentally, continued reliance on fossil fuels is making humanity less secure. The vast majority of emissions still come from burning coal, oil or gas. Preventing climate catastrophe therefore requires us to phase out fossil fuels as fast as possible – with wealthy nations leading the charge. In their place, we’ll have to generate energy from renewable sources that do not replicate the volatility of globally traded fossil fuels.

    Yet despite some progressive policies, fossil fuels remain dominant across the global economy. Investment in oil and gas today is almost double the level it must fall below if the world is to reach net zero by 2050, according to the IEA’s own modelling.

    The pursuit of energy security has boosted renewables, but adding additional clean energy isn’t enough – it must ultimately displace fossil fuels entirely. This will require a whole-economy shift. That means cutting production of fossil fuels while also reducing demand, stabilising prices and building out clean energy fast enough to support the electrification of transport, industry and heating.

    But supply chains for batteries, solar panels and other key technologies are vulnerable. Delays and shortages could mean electricity prices spike, sparking social unrest. This is yet another risk of getting energy security wrong: if inflationary pressures drive the immiseration of the general public, governments and their energy plans will be short lived.

    The definition of energy security that comes out of the IEA summit should reflect the fact we’re now in a world of constant crises. True energy security means charting a path towards a world that is more socially, economically and environmentally secure. This means developing a well-managed global plan to phase out fossil fuels.

    Peter Newell receives research funding from UKRI for work on energy transitions.

    Freddie Daley 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. ‘Energy security’ is being used to justify more fossil fuels – but this will only make us less secure – https://theconversation.com/energy-security-is-being-used-to-justify-more-fossil-fuels-but-this-will-only-make-us-less-secure-254094

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: First prisoners arrive at new 1,500-place jail

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    First prisoners arrive at new 1,500-place jail

    The first prisoners have been locked up at a new jail that will create nearly 1,500 prison places, helping to cut crime and make streets safer today as part of the Government’s Plan for Change (23 April).

    • New prison built to cut crime and keep dangerous offenders locked up 

    • Part of Government’s Plan for Change to make streets safer 

    • 2,400 prison places already delivered since July

    HMP Millsike in Yorkshire is now operational, making it the first of four new jails to be opened as part of the pledge to create 14,000 extra prison places by 2031, keeping dangerous offenders locked up.  

    This extra capacity will help keep the public safe by making sure the country never runs out of space again.  

    As a Category C “resettlement” prison, HMP Millsike has been designed with a clear aim – cutting crime and reducing reoffending. It includes 24 workshops and training facilities aimed at getting offenders into work on release and away from crime for good, so fewer people become victims in the future.     

    Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, James Timpson, said: 

    HMP Millsike is a vital part of our Plan for Change, building 14,000 new prison places by 2031.  

    This modern prison has been designed to cut crime. This prison will force offenders to turn their backs on crime, delivering safer streets and ensuring there are fewer victims in the future.” 

    The prison is the size of 39 football pitches and comes fitted with security technology to combat the drugs, drones and phones that have plagued prisons in recent years and risked the safety of frontline officers.   

    This includes reinforced barless windows to deter drone activity, hundreds of CCTV cameras, and X-ray body scanners to spot and stop contraband entering the prison.  

    The prison will be operated by Mitie Care and Custody. Education and workplace training provider PeoplePlus will give offenders the tools they need to find work on release and stay on the straight and narrow. 

     Russell Trent, Managing Director, Immigration and Justice, Mitie Care & Custody said:  

    As the first prisoners arrive at HMP Millsike, our focus is on building safer communities by creating an environment that promotes problem solving and self-determination to help the rehabilitation process enabling prisoners to break the cycle of reoffending.  

    As a resettlement prison, every element including the design, facilities and technology is purposfully structured so that prisoners leave HMP Millsike qualified, employable and ready to integrate and contribute to society.” 

    With the country still using many of its Victorian prisons, HMP Millsike has been built to also stand the test of time. Its use of modern materials and fittings will keep running and repairs costs to a minimum for taxpayers.   

    Its opening is a major milestone in the government’s 10-year prison capacity strategy published in December. This plan includes 6,400 places through new houseblocks and 6,500 places via new prisons. One thousand rapid deployment cells will be rolled out across the estate while more than 1,000 existing cells will be refurbished.    

    It follows a £2.3 billion investment to deliver these prison builds, with a further £500 million going towards vital building maintenance across prisons and the probation service by the end of March 2026. The strategy will work alongside the Independent Sentencing Review to ensure the most serious offenders can always be sent to prison to protect the public. 

    Background information 

    • The first prisoners arrived today, and the population will steadily increase each week to ensure a safe and stable ramp-up process. 

    • Ramp up will be strictly monitored and can be adjusted or paused should the safety or stability of the prison require it. 

    Updates to this page

    Published 23 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: A “Need for Chaos” Powers Some Americans’ Support for Elon Musk

    Source: Universities – Science Po in English

    Who are the Americans that want to tear down social institutions?  Answers by Kevin Arceneaux, Director of Sciences Po’s Centre for Political Research (CEVIPOF) and Dannagal G. Young, Professor at the University of Delaware. An article initially published by our partner The Conversation.

    A video of a Las Vegas Tesla dealership that had been set on fire by anti-Elon Musk protesters was posted on March 18, 2025, by an account on X called EndWokeness.

    The next day Musk replied to the post, “Some people just want to watch the world burn,” an iconic line from the 2008 Batman film “The Dark Knight.” Alfred, the Wayne family’s faithful butler, says the line to Bruce Wayne – Batman – to describe the motivations behind the Joker’s chaotic acts of violence.

    Musk – and Alfred – was right. Some people do, in fact, say they think that society should be burned to the ground. It’s part of a psychological measure political psychologists created called “need for chaos.”

    New data from the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware suggests that those people – the ones who want society to burn – are the ones with more, not less, trust in Musk. They also report more trust in the Department of Government Efficiency, the government entity Musk advises, which the Trump administration claims it created to cut government waste and fraud.

    Yet, critics point out that Musk and DOGE’s seemingly indiscriminate approach to spending cuts risks damaging the infrastructure necessary for American innovation.

    This desire to watch the world burn doesn’t come out of nowhere.

    Fear of losing status

    Somewhat like the Joker, whose perpetual sense of victimhood – “You wanna know how I got these scars?” – drove his need for chaos and destruction, people can develop a need for chaos in response to a sense that they are losing.

    When political psychologists introduced this concept of “need for chaos” in 2021, they described it not as a psychological trait, but as a character adaptation that occurs when some people experience a cultural and political situation that makes them feel like they are losing status and power. For some people, this feeling triggers a desire to “burn it all down” – “it” being society, institutions, the world – maybe to rebuild it all anew, or maybe just to see it all destroyed.

    Only a small percentage of the U.S. population – less than 15% – tends to score high in need for chaos. But even so, understanding this minority is important to gaining insight into this political moment.

    For example, people who score high in need for chaos exhibit greater support for political violence and a willingness to knowingly share hostile and false information online. And in our data, those higher in need for chaos report holding more trust in Musk, DOGE and Trump than people who score lower in the need for chaos measure.

    Who wants to burn it down

    We are political psychologists who study the link between psychological traits and political beliefs. Last month, the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication ran a national survey that we designed to understand where the public stands on various political issues and how those beliefs relate to psychological traits, including need for chaos.

    In our national study of 1,600 Americans conducted between Feb. 27-March 5, 2025, by YouGov, we asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

    • “I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over”

    • “I think society should be burned to the ground”

    • “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions; we need to tear them down and start over”

    • “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on”

    Similar to prior work by author Kevin Arceneaux and his colleagues, our data shows that a very small number – fewer than 20% of the sample – agrees strongly or agrees somewhat with each item.

    However, looking at need for chaos among groups of varying ages, education levels and media habits, we find the highest need for chaos scores among people under age 40, those with less education, and those who pay the least attention to politics.

    Musk fans more inclined to ‘tear down’ social institutions

    A nationally representative survey of 1,600 Americans taken between Feb. 27 and March 5, 2025, found that 18.2% of all Americans “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” with the statement: “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions; we need to tear them down and start over.” People who expressed “a lot” or “a great deal” of trust in presidential adviser and billionaire Elon Musk were more inclined to agree than the average American. People with lower levels of trust in Musk, or none at all, were less likely to agree with the desire to tear things down and start again.

    The results have a margin of error of +/-2.5 percentage points. (credits: Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: University of Delaware Center for Political Communication)

    Burning it down through government policy

    Our new data also shows that while people highest in need for chaos report having more trust in Musk, DOGE, and President Trump, these chaos-seeking folks report having less trust in “people in general,” journalists or the federal government. These findings hold even when statistically accounting for other factors, among them party, race, gender, education and ideology.

    Musk’s penchant for wielding chainsaws as a symbol of DOGE’s work provides some insight into why chaos seekers may like what they see in Musk.

    It’s not clear exactly what Musk’s aim is with his work at DOGE, as he eliminates the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government workers.

    What is clear, however, is that by many accounts, the mass firings and the gutting of agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Institute for Peace, are sowing chaos. And a significant portion of Americans want just that.

    Cover image caption: There’s a sizable group of Americans who agree with the phrase “I think society should be burned to the ground.” (credits: Anton Petrus-Moment/Getty Images)

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: New survey shows the extent of class privilege in UK journalism

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Imke Henkel, Lecturer in Journalism and Media, University of Leeds

    UK journalism has a class problem. This statement will not surprise most people familiar with UK newsrooms. What is astonishing, though, is the scarcity of empirical data that could help us better understand the extent to which class inequality affects journalists and their work.

    For the first time, research by my colleagues and me an for the report UK Journalists in the 2020s uses a representative sample of UK journalists to measure their socioeconomic background. The vast majority of our respondents came from a privileged background, measured by their schooling and by the job held by their main household earner when they were a child.

    Previous research on this issue was based on considerably more limited data. In July 2009, a report commissioned by the then Labour government found that journalism was one of two professions that had experienced the biggest decline in social mobility (the other being accountancy).

    Research by the Sutton Trust established repeatedly (most recently in 2019), that leading news editors, broadcasters and newspaper columnists are about six to seven times more likely to be privately educated than the general population, a typical marker for privilege in Britain.

    Some of the best data we have regarding UK journalists’ social class was collected by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, who since 2017 has regularly published reports on the diversity among UK journalists.

    However, as the report’s author Mark Spilsbury concedes, the findings have a considerable margin of error. The report uses data from the UK Government Labour Force Survey, and only extrapolates its figures for the small fraction of journalists within that workforce.

    Our report, for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, draws on a survey that media researchers Neil Thurman, Sina Thäsler-Kordonouri and I conducted between September 27 and November 30 2023.

    We used data from the 2021 Census for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and from the Roxhill Media database to estimate the total number of UK journalists to be 68,279. Given how notoriously reluctant journalists are to respond to surveys, already swamped as they are with similar requests, we sent our questionnaire to 16,497 randomly selected participants.

    We considered journalists to be those who worked for a media outlet with an identifiable focus on news, and who earned at least 50% of their income from journalism or worked at least 50% of their working week as a journalist. To be included in our survey, respondents also needed to work for a news outlet with a UK base and that was aimed, at least in part, at a UK audience.

    After data cleaning, we retained a final sample of 1,130 respondents, a sufficient size to achieve a confidence level of at least 95% and a maximum error margin of 3%.

    Our survey is part of the international Worlds of Journalism Study, which uses the same core questionnaire across 75 countries. The survey covers a wide range of topics, including journalists’ demographics, working conditions and their experience of safety and wellbeing.

    For the UK study, we added two questions regarding journalists’ socioeconomic background. First, we asked what job the main earner in their households held when the respondents were 14 years old. Second, we asked about the school journalists attended: fee-paying private or state primary and secondary school, non-fee-paying selective secondary school (such as grammar school) or a school not in the UK.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

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    The question on parents’ occupation allowed respondents to write in the title of the relevant job. We coded the replies manually using the nine categories of the Office for National Statistics’ 2020 Standard Occupational Classification.

    Seventy-one percent of journalists in our sample came from a privileged background, with the main earner in their childhood household holding a job within the three top categories of the classification. Only 12% of our respondents came from a working-class background (sales and customer service occupations; process, plant and machine operatives and elementary occupations).



    Read more:
    Know your place: what happened to class in British politics – a podcast series from The Conversation Documentaries

    We lack the data for an outright comparison with the general population. But the 2021 census gives an indication. It shows that 23.3% of the main earner in all households in England and Wales held a job in the highest AB social grade, about equivalent to the top three categories in our classification. Nearly double (43.9%) fell into the social grade C2 and DE, roughly equivalent with our bottom three categories.

    Journalists’ privilege also shows in their schooling. Twenty-two percent of journalists in our sample attended a fee-paying secondary, and 13% attended a fee-paying primary school. Around 6% of the general pupil population in England attends private schools, and fewer in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    Does privilege matter?

    Our data does not suggest that a privileged upbringing makes it more likely for journalists to hold a top management position. Where it does make a difference, though, is whether they work for national media or outlets with international presence (like the Guardian or the Financial Times). Of those who do only 9% come from a working-class background, while 72% come from a privileged one (the rest come from the middle groups in our classification).

    In contrast, 20% of journalists working for local and regional outlets (including regional arms of national outlets, such as BBC Wales) have a working-class background, and 57% grew up in a more privileged household.

    Our survey also shows other areas of inequality. An interesting one is age. Both women and journalists from an ethnic minority background seem to drop out of the profession after the age of 50. Journalists with an Asian or Black background in particular remain underrepresented compared to the overall population, as they were in 2015.

    Female journalists are also still less well paid, less likely to have a permanent contract or to hold a top management role than their male colleagues. They also more often report feeling stressed out. Their disadvantage against their male colleagues may well be a reason.

    New survey data shows that of those who work for national media, 72% are from a privileged background.
    Zeynep Demir Aslim/Shutterstock

    One reason for the privileged background of so many journalists will be that journalism has become a thoroughly academic profession. Nine out of ten journalists in our sample were university educated.

    In an increasingly complex world, there may be good reasons for those who report on it to undergo an academic training. However, as some scholars have argued, trust in journalism not only depends on accurate and reliable reporting, but also on emotional and social factors that are essential for the relationship between journalists and audiences.

    Given the lack of trust in news and rising news avoidance among UK audiences, the inequalities our report found should be of concern. If journalists are found to belong to a privileged elite they are less likely to be trusted by the general public. Reliable data on the inequalities that shape the journalism profession is a necessary start to tackle this problem.

    Imke Henkel 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. New survey shows the extent of class privilege in UK journalism – https://theconversation.com/new-survey-shows-the-extent-of-class-privilege-in-uk-journalism-254838

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Consul General of China in St. Petersburg visited Polytech

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

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

    Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in St. Petersburg Luo Zhanhui visited Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University as part of a working visit dedicated to strengthening scientific and educational cooperation between the two countries.

    At a meeting with SPbPU Rector, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Rudskoy, Luo Zhanhui discussed key areas of cooperation, including the development of joint educational programs, scientific research, and technology projects. Andrey Rudskoy emphasized that China remains one of the university’s most important strategic partners.

    “We have come a long way from simple academic exchanges to the creation of joint institutes and laboratories. Today, SPbPU cooperates with more than 75 Chinese universities, and our graduates work in leading corporations and research centers in China. Projects in the field of additive technologies, artificial intelligence and biomedicine are especially valuable, where the combination of the Russian fundamental approach and Chinese speed of implementation yields impressive results,” Andrey Rudskoy emphasized.

    The Rector of SPbPU also noted that the university is actively developing digital educational platforms, including hosting online courses on the Chinese platform XueTangX, and expressed interest in expanding cooperation with industrial enterprises in the context of global technological challenges.

    The Consul General got acquainted with the experience of using additive manufacturing technologies at the Polytechnic University. In the laboratories of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport, he was shown metal products printed using the method of selective laser melting of metal powders, electric arc growth from wire. The products successfully passed functional tests and are currently used in industry, medicine, energy and other areas. In addition to metal parts, products made of carbon fiber and ceramics were presented, manufactured using 3D printing technologies, such as coextrusion of continuous carbon fibers based on FFF technology and jet application of a binder.

    The delegation visited the world-class Scientific Center “Advanced Digital Technologies” (NCMT), where Deputy Head of the Engineering Center Nikolay Efimov-Soini presented key achievements.

    The guests were particularly interested in developments in the field of digital twins, including the national standard GOST R 57700.37-2021, which was recognized in China and included in the list of mutually recognized standards in the aircraft industry.

    “This standard is the result of many years of work by our scientists. Its adoption in China opens up new opportunities for joint projects, especially in high-tech industries,” said Nikolai Efimov-Soini.

    The guests were shown the CML-Bench® Digital Platform, which allows for the acceleration of the development and certification of complex engineering products. The platform is used in ten industries, including aircraft manufacturing, energy, and medicine.

    “We actively cooperate with Chinese partners, including joint research in the field of digital testing. For example, in November 2023, our specialists presented a “digital certification” methodology at the MPE Testing Technology Conference 2023 in China, which reduces the costs of field testing,” added Nikolay Efimov-Soini.

    During the excursion, the delegation got acquainted with the work of the Advanced Engineering School of SPbPU “Digital Engineering”, where specialists are trained for Industry 4.0 tasks. Consul General Luo Zhanhui highly praised the potential of the center: “I am confident that the integration of the competencies of SPbPU and Chinese technology companies will allow us to create breakthrough solutions for the global market.”

    The visit ended with an informal meeting of the Consul General with Chinese students of SPbPU. Luo Zhanhui emphasized the importance of young people in strengthening Russian-Chinese relations: “You are a bridge between our countries. Your knowledge and energy will help create new technologies that will change the world. I am confident that Polytechnic University graduates will become drivers of progress in both China and Russia.”

    Students shared their impressions of their studies and plans for the future, noting the high level of teaching and opportunities for research.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: New Horizons in Accounting Education. Polytechnic University Receives IPB Russia Accreditation

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

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

    The Polytechnic University received accreditation from the Institute of Professional Accountants and Auditors of Russia (IPA Russia) for the development and implementation of training and certification programs.

    Polytechnic University was already a corporate member of the IPB. For many years, the IPB of Russia educational and methodological center successfully operated on the basis of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Commerce of SPbPU, which played a significant role in training qualified specialists in the field of accounting and auditing, as well as in raising the professional level of current specialists. This year, cooperation with the institute was resumed.

    The main goal of the IPB is to create conditions for the professional development of accountants and auditors, and to represent and protect the interests of the professional community at the national and international levels.

    The organization takes part in the work of committees and commissions of various ministries and departments, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Education and Science, as well as the State Duma and leading business associations.

    “The accreditation received is not just a formal confirmation, but recognition of the compliance of our educational programs with the most modern requirements and high standards established by the IPB. The center will become a platform for holding specialized seminars, master classes and trainings organized jointly with leading experts of the IPB of Russia. This will allow students to obtain relevant knowledge and skills that meet the requirements of the modern labor market,” noted the leading specialist of the Center for Professional Retraining Tatyana Uskova.

    Accredited programs cover a wide range of topics, including financial and management accounting, taxation, auditing and other key areas of accounting. The use of best practices and international standards makes them relevant for both Russian and international specialists.

    In the context of rapidly changing legislation and economic situation, regular updating of knowledge becomes especially important. Accredited courses allow not only to deepen knowledge, but also to acquire new skills necessary for successful work in this field.

    The cooperation between the IPB and the Polytechnic University is an important step towards creating a professional community that is ready for the challenges of the times and capable of ensuring high quality standards in the field of financial accounting and auditing.

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    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: A large-scale plein air for schoolchildren and college students will be held at the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    On Saturday, April 26, the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve will host a large-scale plein air for Moscow schoolchildren, college students, their parents and teachers. They will draw the architectural ensemble of the palace, and also attend 30 master classes by professional artists. This was reported by the press service of the capital’s Department of Education and Science.

    “The plein air will be held as part of the city project of children’s and youth creativity “ARTeria”, which started in 2024 and united young artists of the capital. On April 26, on the palace square of the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, everyone will be able to join a large-scale plein air. Participants can choose any technique – draw with pencils, markers or watercolors. Experienced mentors will help create works in the style of architectural sketching,” the press service of the department said.

    Participants will gather at 11:00 at the Grand Tsaritsyno Palace. After the grand opening, which will take place at 12:00, they will disperse to five sites and begin drawing.

    In addition to the plein air, other creative events await young Muscovites and their mentors. Professional artists will teach guests how to use various materials and create works in the style of architectural sketching. Art historians and experts from the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve will give lectures on digital art in the urban environment and artistic textiles of the 21st century.

    To participate, you must register. on the website, and also choose one of the proposed techniques: painting with watercolors, sketching with charcoal and pencil or dry pastel.

    The event is organized with the support of the Peredvizhnik chain of art supply stores, which will provide gifts to the best participants in the plein air.

    The ARTERIA project appeared in October 2024. Its goal is to support young Muscovites who are interested in creativity. Thus, in March, the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art organized an exhibition of works by schoolchildren and college students “18-“. In addition, participation in the project allows the children and their teachers to meet famous artists and attend their lectures. The mentors have already met with art critic Rushaniya Akhunova, who spoke about contemporary art and its connection with national traditions.

    The ARTERIA project will introduce the capital’s schoolchildren and college students to contemporary artYoung Muscovites presented their works at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art

    In addition, creative competitions and events are held. For example, last year there was a competition for urban design “Bright City” and an art challenge “Draw with Me”. The curator was digital artist Petr Sklyar. He held lectures and master classes for the participants, including classes on word graphics – a visual display of proverbs.

    You can find out more about additional education in the capital and the ARTERIA project in the Telegram channels “Moscow education” And “Moscow Center for Educational Practices”.

    Conducting creative events for schoolchildren and college students helps develop talents and skills that will be useful to them in their future profession, and is consistent with the objectives of the “Professionalism” and “All the Best for Children” projects of the national project “Youth and Children”.

    Quickly find out the main news of the capital in official telegram channelthe city of Moscow.

    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.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/153010073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Filmmakers’ Forum and Actors’ Master Classes: How the Weekend Went at the Moskino Cinema Park

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    Last weekend, April 19 and 20, the Moskino Cinema Park hosted a filmmakers’ forum dedicated to the use of modern technologies in film production. Industry experts spoke at the forum. In addition, it was possible to take part in acting master classes and the quest “Film! Film! Film!”, as well as see the one-man show “Dog”.

    Lectures, master classes and creative evenings

    The first lecture was given by Broadcast’s Product Director Leonid Novoselov. He spoke about real-time filming technology, 3D graphics and innovative programs for implementing creative ideas. The lecture helped students of specialized universities learn a lot of new things.

    The master class by Natalia Klibanova, chief producer of the film company Amedia Production, was devoted to the topic of complex staging of filming. She worked on such projects as The Master and Margarita, Palma-2 and Psychologists. She shared stories from her own professional experience with the student filmmakers.

    “It is very nice that there are people who come to my lectures at the cinema park more than once. In general, the audience is very interested, these are either those who want to learn more about cinema or those who want to integrate into the industry. Actors who want to expand their professional opportunities often come to the lectures. And we always invite them to castings, tell them about projects. This certainly gives results. There are also those who want to reformat their activities, while remaining in cinema. For example, they were involved in advertising, but dream of moving towards TV series. We talk about the work of our company, about who we are looking for, offer internships for students. The most important thing is not to be afraid to participate in pitching, festivals, educational programs that the Moskino cinema park organizes. It is incredibly valuable that forums, lectures and master classes for aspiring filmmakers are held here,” said Natalia Klibanova.

    The artistic part of film production was the subject of a lecture by Alexandrina Trapeznikova, a teacher at the Institute of Cinema and Television (GITR). The production designer spoke about how the tools of professionals in this field have changed thanks to the advent of computer technology, as well as about drawing skills and new tasks. At a panel discussion, filmmakers Natalia Klibanova, Alexandra Trapeznikova and Leonid Novoselov discussed the latest trends in the industry, the future of cinematography and answered questions from the audience.

    The Gonzaga Theatre set hosted a creative evening with actor Lev Zulkarnaev, a participant in the projects “The Word of a Boy” and “Buratino”. The graduate of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts – GITIS, spoke about the acting profession and interaction with the director. Many young fans gathered for his performance, took photos with the artist, asked questions and received autographs.

    “I think that such meetings are important, but only in combination with my own experience. Because in theory everything sounds one way, but in practice it is completely different. It is important that those who want to get into cinema definitely try, get their hand in, maybe make mistakes and learn from them. The Cinema Park is a professional space with good organization, where I felt very comfortable working. I starred here in the film “Buratino” on the “Provincial Towns of Europe” set, and I only have positive impressions. I have never seen such amazing scenery. I hope that I will definitely work on the Cinema Park sets again,” shared Lev Zulkarnayev.

    In addition, a master class and lecture on acting were held by the actor of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre Nikita Makhalov and the director of the Theatre of Young Muscovites Andrey Zadubrovsky. Nikita Makhalov demonstrated professional techniques for conveying the emotional state of the hero. Andrey Zadubrovsky told the audience about the means of expressiveness of speech and plasticity, and also revealed the secret of how to play a role while remaining yourself.

    Performances, quests and film screenings

    At the Gonzaga Theatre, children and parents watched Alexey Poltavsky’s one-man show “Dog” based on the story of the same name by Georgian writer Nodar Dumbadze. The story about the struggle between good and evil, a teenager’s difficult choice and love for an abandoned animal evoked genuine feelings in the audience.

    The immersive quest “Film! Film! Film!” was held at the Uyezdny Gorod location. The participants had to go through the entire film production process – from creating a script to releasing the film, and they were helped in this by episodes played out by professional actors. In the process of creating a cinematic masterpiece, the participants were inspired by realistic decorations of suburban streets and buildings.

    Unforgettable impressions of the weekend were left by watching films for the whole family at the Moskino Kinopark cinema. Adventure lovers remembered the new Russian film Kraken. The film tells about the search for a missile submarine cruiser that disappeared during a secret mission in the Greenland Sea. In addition, viewers saw kind films about family, friendship and loyalty Batya-2. Ded and Palma-2. And the cartoon Jurassic Jungle was especially memorable for the young guests of the cinema park.

    Sobyanin told how virtual technologies simplify film shooting in MoscowThe 47th Moscow International Film Festival opened with the historical war drama “Not on the Lists”

    The Moskino cinema park is part of Sergei Sobyanin’s “Moscow – City of Cinema” project and an object of the Moscow cinema cluster, which is being developed by the capital Department of CultureThe first stage of development has already been completed here: 24 natural sites, four pavilions and six infrastructure facilities have been built, including the sets “Center of Moscow”, “Moscow in the 1940s”, “Vitebsk Station”, “Yurovo Airport”, “Cathedral Square of Moscow”, “Deaf Village”, “County Town”, “Cowboy Town”, “St. Petersburg Bar” and others.

    The Moscow Film Cluster is an infrastructure facility, services and facilities for filmmakers, which are being developed by the Moscow Government within the framework of the Moscow — City of Cinema project. Its structure includes the Moskino film park, the Gorky Film Studio (sites on Sergei Eisenstein Street and Valdaisky Proyezd), the Moskino film factory, the Moskino cinema chain, the film commission and the Moskino film platform.

    Get the latest news quickly in the official telegram channel the city of Moscow.

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    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/153022073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

    Urban flooding is a major problem in the global south. In west and central Africa, more than 4 million people were affected by flooding in 2024. In Ghana, cities suffer damage from flooding every year.

    Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, has established a task force to find ways of improving flood resilience in the country. This is partly driven by an increase in flooding incidents in cities such as Accra and Kumasi in the last decade.

    We are urban planning and sustainability scholars. In a recent paper we analysed whether flooding in Accra, Ghana’s capital, was caused by climate change or poor land use planning.

    We conclude from our analysis that flooding is caused by poor and uncoordinated land use planning rather than climate change. We recommend that the physical planning department and other regulatory agencies are equipped to ensure the effective enforcement the relevant land use regulations.

    Mixed push factors

    The Accra metropolitan area is one of the 29 administrative units of Ghana’s Greater Accra region. It is the most populous region in Ghana, with over five million residents, according to the 2021 Housing and Population Census.

    We interviewed 100 households living in areas such as Kaneshie, Adabraka and Kwame Nkrumah Circle. These areas experience a high incidence of floods. Representatives of agencies such as the Physical Planning Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation and the Environmental Protection Agency were interviewed too, about:

    • the nature and areas most prone to flooding in the study area

    • the frequency of flooding

    • land use planning and regulations and their influence on flooding.

    About 40% of the people we interviewed attributed flooding to both weak enforcement of land use regulation and changes in rainfall patterns. Most of the households (52%) said floods in Accra were the result of weak enforcement of land use regulations, while 8% blamed changes in land use regulations.

    We also analysed recorded data on flood incidence and rainfall. We found no correlation between increased rainfall and flooding. For example in 2017 there was a decrease in rainfall, but an increase in flooding.

    This finding points to the fact that rainfall isn’t the only factor contributing to flooding in the city.

    The agencies and city residents reported that between 2008 and 2018, they could see that more people were encroaching on the city’s wetlands by building homes and commercial infrastructure. This has changed the natural flow of water bodies. The Greater Accra Metropolitan and its environs has major wetlands such as Densu Delta, Sakumo Lagoon and Songor Lagoon.

    Interview respondents noted that the siting of unauthorised buildings and the encroachment on buffer zones of water bodies in the city could have been averted. They blamed political interference in the enforcement of land use regulation. The government makes the situation worse in two ways, they said:

    • planning standards and regulations are neglected in the development process. The processes involved in acquiring development permits are cumbersome and expensive, so people go ahead and develop without permits.

    • regulatory institutions and authorities are ineffective. This is clear from the fact that planning happens chaotically. No attention is given to the ecological infrastructure that’s needed.

    The way forward

    We conclude that land use malpractices remain the dominant causes of flooding in Accra. They include:

    • poor disposal of solid waste, which eventually blocks drains and results in water overflow during heavy rains

    • building on wetlands as a result of non-compliance or non-enforcement of land use regulations.

    There is an urgent need for Ghana’s cities to adopt best practices in waste management. These include recycling of plastic waste and composting for urban agriculture. An environmental excise tax was introduced in 2011 to fund plastic waste recycling and support waste management agencies.

    The increasing encroachment on wetlands should be addressed through the strict enforcement of buffer regulations. Planning authorities and the judiciary can collaborate on this. The city must also encourage green infrastructure, like rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavement, street trees and rain harvesting systems.
    Research has shown these to be environmentally sustainable and cost-effective approaches to managing storm water.

    Another suggested approach is the introduction of the polluter pays principle in city management. This is a system where city residents who are involved in the pollution of the environment are made to pay for the cost of mitigating the impact. Residents who dispose of waste indiscriminately and encroach on wetlands would be made to pay for the cost of the environmental degradation. Cities such as Barcelona and Helsinki have applied this principle in the management of their industrial discharge and contaminated waste.

    Finally, there should be incentives for city residents to promote environmental sustainability. For example, a deposit refund system has been introduced in several states in the US and Australia. In this system, consumers are made to pay a deposit after purchasing items that can be recycled, such as plastic bottles, and the deposit is reimbursed to the consumer after the return of the empty bottles to a retail store.

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

    – ref. Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause – https://theconversation.com/flooding-incidents-in-ghanas-capital-are-on-the-rise-researchers-chase-the-cause-254000

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: PM remarks at St George’s Day reception: 22 April 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Speech

    PM remarks at St George’s Day reception: 22 April 2025

    Prime Minister’s remarks from the St. George’s Day reception in Downing Street.

    Maro, it’s fantastic to see you up here and to hear you talk about the pride of pulling on an England jersey.

    I think it’s something we’ve dreamt of doing all our lives, though I only got to pulling on a replica.

    But it’s really important, that sense of pride that you described by the simple act of putting on a shirt, a sports shirt, and I think that pride and joy is hugely important.

    And as for your reminder of St George I’ve got a few ideas about what we could feed the dragon.

    But look it’s amazing just to look out and see so many people here, Tony Adams here in his red suit.

    He won’t remember this, but Vic and I drove along the Cotswolds years ago and he was out for a walk and I screeched to halt and insisted on shaking his hand, so it’s great to see you again.

    But it’s a really fantastic group of people and thank you so much for coming here to be in Downing Street with us.

    This is where I work and live just upstairs but it’s also your building and I’m really keen to get across this sense that this isn’t just a remote place where the government is, but that we are here to serve our communities and serve our country.

    So this is your place just as much as it is mine, it’s your right to be here and my privilege to invite you here as guests, so you are very welcome, to test and push us and to tell us what your ideas are and have the opportunity to put your fingerprints on everything we’re doing as a government.

    And of course – as a proud Englishman, this is a particularly special occasion: St. George’s Day. And it’s the eve of the day to revel in all the wonder and joy of our country.

    You see that reflected in this reception and I think it’s one of the biggest we’ve had here in Downing Street running all the way through to the rooms at the back with some fantastic people.

    We’ve got Pimms, we’ve got English sparkling wine and we’ve got our brilliant showcases with Melton Mowbray pork pies, Lancashire Eccles cakes, Bakewell tarts and gin from Exmoor distillery. We were going to have Morris Dancers too at one point, but we’re saving them for the next Cabinet away day instead.

    Because one of the great things about this country is we have so many wonderful traditions and so many individual, personal reasons that make us proud to be English.

    For me – it always starts with football of course. I was there at Wembley in Euro 1996. I was there at Wembley in 2021 and I was there also last year when we went to Germany, where we came so close again.

    But that still makes the nation proud. Though whatever it is, whether it’s football, festivals, cricket, Shakespeare – his birthday tomorrow of course, or our music – from Elgar to the Rolling Stones, our art – from Tracy Emin to Turner or our universities, inventions and innovations – the world’s first vaccine was an incredible moment, the world wide web, the computer and of course our landscape.

    Everyone in this room will have their favourite spots. Whether it’s rocky coves and beaches in Cornwall or the incomparable beauty of the Lake District.

    My late mum struggled to walk, so she decided to have all her holidays in the Lake District where the only thing you can do is walk, but that summed her up.

    And we still go there with our children now. But you also have the Chalk Hills of the North Downs where I grew up: this is a beautiful country, rich with pride, potential and creativity. 

    It’s also a country where a person like me who grew up working class and a person like the previous occupant, Rishi Sunak, an English Hindu, can both become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. That for me is something I think we should always be proud of and never take for granted. 

    Because, while this is a day for celebration, we cannot be under any illusions that there is a never-ending fight for our flag and what it represents. I’ll put it this way, when I was standing in the old Wembley in 1996 – not many people sat down that day, it felt like that whole tournament embodied the best of our country.

    Yet now – there are people trying to sow division in our communities, people taking the red and white of our flag, like the bunting downstairs, with them, as they throw bricks at businesses… 

    The day after the terrible Southport incident last year, I went up to take the opportunity to shake the hands of the first respondents of police and ambulance workers, you’ll now have seen what they all faced.

    As I simply said thank you, almost all said to me they were just doing their job, but of course they weren’t, and it’s just incredible to think about what they were doing, and they were all back in work the next day to help clear up.

    By the time I got back to London that very day, we had people throwing bricks at the very same police officers I was shaking hands with.

    And that’s why the battle for our flag is really important because that is what happened and that was only last year. So, we have to fight for our flag and for our values.

    Because it was the aftermath of the riots that showed what it means to be English. It marked the coming together of a country.

    People who got together the morning after, all across Britain with shovels, brooms, and brushes, to clean up their communities. Rebuilding walls, repairing damage and it’s in that spirit that we reclaim our flag and that was incredibly uplifting to go from rioting to people coming out to do what they could for our country.

    So that’s what we must do for our country, for English decency, honour and fairness. Wrench it out of the hands of those who want to divide this nation and reclaim it for good.  

    Because that flag doesn’t belong to me as Prime Minister or any group or political party and that is the point.

    It belongs to all of us to England, in all its wonder and diversity. And we should be proud of that flag, we must never concede it, because it is an expression of our values and our patriotism.

    And patriotism – for me is about serving the country we love. That’s what drove me when I was Chief Prosecutor, serving people who’d faced appalling crimes and injustice. People like John and Penny Clough who are with us today – they lost their daughter in an appalling crime and came to see me many years ago in their journey for justice and have become friends of mine.

    And it’s what drives me today – when I say I want to make working people’s lives better.

    It’s at the heart of this Government, what’s written through our Plan for Change: putting money in people’s pockets; getting public services back on their feet so they serve the public in the way that people deserve; making our streets safer so we can all enjoy our communities; building the homes working people need, which are an aspiration and opportunity for so many; breaking down barriers to opportunity and honouring Britain’s veterans – by making sure there are “homes for heroes”.

    As we also protect our national security with the biggest defence investment since the end of the Cold War. 

    We know this won’t be easy and we’re living through a time of uncertainty which I’m sure everyone in this room can feel that over the past six months. Whether that’s through defence, national security or the global economy.

    But moments like this, as we come together to celebrate St. George’s Day are a reminder of all our nation has been through over generations and the values that have endured.

    The creativity, resilience and good will and humour that have remained a constant through the ages and will endure for generations to come.

    So, let’s be proud of our national identity, let’s pay tribute to all those who keep our country going from the generations who laid down their lives to keep us free, to those serving our country today. Our armed forces, our NHS staff, our teachers and the small businesses who serve their community. 

    Let’s remember our shared history, our shared inheritance and the values that have endured. And most of all, let’s hear it for England and for St. George! Thank you very much.

    Updates to this page

    Published 23 April 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Australia needs bold ideas on defence. The Coalition’s increased spending plan falls disappointingly short

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University

    Just as voting has begun in this year’s federal election, the Coalition has released its long-awaited defence policy platform. The main focus, as expected, is a boost in defence spending to 3% of Australia’s GDP within the next decade.

    If elected, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says a Coalition government will spend A$21 billion over the next five years to bring defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. It would aim to reach 3% five years after that.

    This sounds impressive, but as shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie notes, this isn’t a huge increase, given it’s over many years.

    In dry fiscal planning terms, Labor’s defence spending plan would amount to 2.23% of GDP in budget year 2028–29, while the Coalition’s plan would be expected to reach around 2.4% by that time.

    While the Coalition’s costings are yet to come, its plan is arguably affordable – if need be through deficit financing.

    What’s in the Coalition plan?

    The Coalition’s extra money would go to numerous capabilities:

    • purchasing 28 extra F-35 joint strike fighter jets from the United States

    • accelerating the infrastructure and shipyard building capacity in Western Australia (some in Hastie’s electorate) to support the AUKUS submarine plan

    • improving Australian Defence Force (ADF) recruitment and retention

    • and boosting “sustainment” (that is, maintenance of military equipment, weaponry and systems and personnel training).

    Hastie is particularly enthusiastic about improving the Australian defence industrial base, which he says involves ramping up purchases of defence equipment from small and medium-size enterprises.

    There is some logic to this. In the past few years, some spending on new acquisitions has been shifted to sustainment. This was necessary, as the long-term defence plan when Labor came to power in 2022 did not accurately estimate how much money would be needed for the new equipment then entering service.

    This is not unusual. There is always optimism within the Department of Defence that new equipment will be cheaper to operate than it actually turns out to be.

    Given significant money has already been moved to sustainment under Labor defence budgets over the past few years, it’s plausible we don’t actually need as much money for this as the Coalition asserts.

    This might be fortunate as the F-35 purchase is likely to be considerably more than the $3 billion the Coalition touted last month, given inflation and issues with the program in the US.

    Problems with the plan

    The biggest problem with Dutton’s plan is the same one faced by both the Morrison and Albanese governments. Strong rhetoric is consistently at odds with slow progress on defence force modernisation. The Coalition policy continues this bipartisan tradition.

    Hastie repeated several times at his news conference with Dutton in Perth that the country faces the “most dangerous strategic circumstances since the second world war”.

    Yet, this sense of urgency is not reflected in the extra $21 billion in spending the Coalition is proposing. The F-35 fighter jets, the major centrepiece of the plan, are unlikely to be in service until the first half of the 2030s.

    Similarly, the naval shipbuilding (which is necessary and already in train) also won’t begin to deliver greater capacity until well into the next decade.

    The only high-priority item outlined by the Coalition appears to be accelerating spending on the infrastructure needed to base US and UK nuclear attack submarines in Western Australia from 2027.

    Hastie said on Radio National Breakfast that a drive through the area where this infrastructure is being built would reveal few signs of any progress, particularly when it comes to housing.

    This comment highlights a policy incoherence problem for both parties. Accelerating the construction of defence infrastructure will drag tradies away from building homes for other Australians – and contribute to construction cost increases.

    The Coalition’s planned cuts in skilled worker migration will further exacerbate this problem.

    This throws up another issue. The Coalition has criticised Labor for cutting or delaying defence equipment projects costing some $80 billion while in government, yet it has offered no plans to return these specific projects to the defence budget.

    As Hastie observed, these cuts and delays were, in part, to land-force capabilities, such as the infantry fighting vehicle program. A shift to a more maritime focus and away from equipment better suited to wars in the Middle East is reasonable, given the stress both parties have placed on China’s naval buildup.

    Little to feel inspired about

    Interestingly, Hastie said on Radio National Breakfast that AUKUS is “a structural imposition” the current defence budget can’t meet.

    This suggests that when the AUKUS deal was agreed to under former Prime Minster Scott Morrison, there was inadequate funding for the program and it is now consuming other defence acquisition plans.

    Given this, the Coalition’s plans to grow defence spending to 3% of GDP in ten years may be prudent – and necessary – mainly to meet the looming AUKUS funding shortfalls. This again may be problem for both parties, given their strident support for AUKUS at seemingly any cost.

    Hastie is keen to increase Australian self-reliance, in part, through building up the Australian defence industry.

    However, the Coalition plan doesn’t offer many specifics on how Australian industry will benefit. Instead of buying yet more American-built F-35s, for instance, the Coalition could have given thought to buying the innovative Ghost Bat uncrewed air vehicles made in Queensland.

    This shortcoming highlights the biggest disappointment with the Coalition plan. It is “steady as she goes” approach in a world of increasing volatility.

    There really needs to be some fresh thinking on defence, particularly given the growing doubts about the Trump administration’s stance on its security alliances. Australia may need to be more self-reliant as Hastie claims, but this policy platform – as well as Labor’s – won’t achieve this possibility.

    The reason the Coalition is emphasising the 3% of GDP figure is that there are no new ideas. A great opportunity for an imaginative recasting of Australian defence has been missed.

    This piece is part of a series on the future of defence in Australia. Read the other stories here.

    Peter Layton 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. Australia needs bold ideas on defence. The Coalition’s increased spending plan falls disappointingly short – https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-bold-ideas-on-defence-the-coalitions-increased-spending-plan-falls-disappointingly-short-255106

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

    Urban flooding is a major problem in the global south. In west and central Africa, more than 4 million people were affected by flooding in 2024. In Ghana, cities suffer damage from flooding every year.

    Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, has established a task force to find ways of improving flood resilience in the country. This is partly driven by an increase in flooding incidents in cities such as Accra and Kumasi in the last decade.

    We are urban planning and sustainability scholars. In a recent paper we analysed whether flooding in Accra, Ghana’s capital, was caused by climate change or poor land use planning.

    We conclude from our analysis that flooding is caused by poor and uncoordinated land use planning rather than climate change. We recommend that the physical planning department and other regulatory agencies are equipped to ensure the effective enforcement the relevant land use regulations.

    Mixed push factors

    The Accra metropolitan area is one of the 29 administrative units of Ghana’s Greater Accra region. It is the most populous region in Ghana, with over five million residents, according to the 2021 Housing and Population Census.

    We interviewed 100 households living in areas such as Kaneshie, Adabraka and Kwame Nkrumah Circle. These areas experience a high incidence of floods. Representatives of agencies such as the Physical Planning Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation and the Environmental Protection Agency were interviewed too, about:

    • the nature and areas most prone to flooding in the study area

    • the frequency of flooding

    • land use planning and regulations and their influence on flooding.

    About 40% of the people we interviewed attributed flooding to both weak enforcement of land use regulation and changes in rainfall patterns. Most of the households (52%) said floods in Accra were the result of weak enforcement of land use regulations, while 8% blamed changes in land use regulations.

    We also analysed recorded data on flood incidence and rainfall. We found no correlation between increased rainfall and flooding. For example in 2017 there was a decrease in rainfall, but an increase in flooding.

    This finding points to the fact that rainfall isn’t the only factor contributing to flooding in the city.

    The agencies and city residents reported that between 2008 and 2018, they could see that more people were encroaching on the city’s wetlands by building homes and commercial infrastructure. This has changed the natural flow of water bodies. The Greater Accra Metropolitan and its environs has major wetlands such as Densu Delta, Sakumo Lagoon and Songor Lagoon.

    Interview respondents noted that the siting of unauthorised buildings and the encroachment on buffer zones of water bodies in the city could have been averted. They blamed political interference in the enforcement of land use regulation. The government makes the situation worse in two ways, they said:

    • planning standards and regulations are neglected in the development process. The processes involved in acquiring development permits are cumbersome and expensive, so people go ahead and develop without permits.

    • regulatory institutions and authorities are ineffective. This is clear from the fact that planning happens chaotically. No attention is given to the ecological infrastructure that’s needed.

    The way forward

    We conclude that land use malpractices remain the dominant causes of flooding in Accra. They include:

    • poor disposal of solid waste, which eventually blocks drains and results in water overflow during heavy rains

    • building on wetlands as a result of non-compliance or non-enforcement of land use regulations.

    There is an urgent need for Ghana’s cities to adopt best practices in waste management. These include recycling of plastic waste and composting for urban agriculture. An environmental excise tax was introduced in 2011 to fund plastic waste recycling and support waste management agencies.

    The increasing encroachment on wetlands should be addressed through the strict enforcement of buffer regulations. Planning authorities and the judiciary can collaborate on this. The city must also encourage green infrastructure, like rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavement, street trees and rain harvesting systems.
    Research has shown these to be environmentally sustainable and cost-effective approaches to managing storm water.

    Another suggested approach is the introduction of the polluter pays principle in city management. This is a system where city residents who are involved in the pollution of the environment are made to pay for the cost of mitigating the impact. Residents who dispose of waste indiscriminately and encroach on wetlands would be made to pay for the cost of the environmental degradation. Cities such as Barcelona and Helsinki have applied this principle in the management of their industrial discharge and contaminated waste.

    Finally, there should be incentives for city residents to promote environmental sustainability. For example, a deposit refund system has been introduced in several states in the US and Australia. In this system, consumers are made to pay a deposit after purchasing items that can be recycled, such as plastic bottles, and the deposit is reimbursed to the consumer after the return of the empty bottles to a retail store.

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

    – ref. Flooding incidents in Ghana’s capital are on the rise. Researchers chase the cause – https://theconversation.com/flooding-incidents-in-ghanas-capital-are-on-the-rise-researchers-chase-the-cause-254000

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: All singing, all dancing at Portsmouth SEND Local Offer Live

    Source: City of Portsmouth

    Families in Portsmouth are invited to a special event at Cosham Community Centre on Wednesday 30 April from 10:30am to 2:30pm for Local Offer Live.

    Organised by Portsmouth City Council, the event brings together services and groups who support families who have children and young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

    Parents/carers can also take part in free dance and performance workshops with their children at the event.

    Councillor Nick Dorrington, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education at Portsmouth City Council said:

    “Local Offer Live provides families with the information they need to live happy and healthy lives in the city. Community groups and services come together to offer advice and signpost individuals.

    “The introduction of Boogie Mites and Identical Dance helps families to have fun and be active together. These sessions are free and a great way to meet other parents/carers.”

    Identical Dance is a unique performance group where children are encouraged to be themselves and make new friends. Their session will take place at 11:15am with families invited to learn simple techniques to dance at home.

    Boogie Mites is an interactive music and dance group exclusively for families of children and young people with additional needs. This workshop will take place at 12:30pm. The session gives children the creative flair to dance to music through easy-to-follow routines.

    Families will need to arrive before the workshop begins as sessions will start promptly. Trained facilitators will be available during each session to support everyone.

    Local Offer Live is one-way parents/carers and professionals can learn more about services in the city with 20 exhibitors in attendance on the day.

    For those who are unable to make the event, the Portsmouth SEND Local Offer website is a comprehensive resource designed to support children and young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The website provides detailed information about the services and support available in the PO1 – PO6 area.

    For more information on Local Offer Live and to register for a ticket, please visit portsmouthlocaloffer.org.uk/live.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Voting has begun for the best drawings in the “Create a New Muscovite Card” competition

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    Department of Information Technology of the City of Moscow announced the start of the third stage of the competition “Create a new Muscovite card” – this is vote for the best drawings that will make it to the finals. It will last until May 4.

    “The theme of the competition turned out to be very interesting. We were worried in vain whether schoolchildren would like it, because we have already received more than 1.9 thousand applications and 2.3 thousand drawings. The jury faced a difficult task – to choose the most vivid and original illustrations. Now the city residents need to decide which of the 60 selected works will make it to the finals,” said Olesya Kuzmina, head of the “Muscovite Card” project.

    At the previous stage, the expert jury selected 30 works in each age category, which were shortlisted. Of these, on the competition page and in the services of the Active Citizen project, city residents will choose the drawings that will go to the finals in each age category – from seven to 10 years old and from 11 to 14 years old. And young Muscovites will be able to do this on the platform “Active Citizen for Children”The final stage will be voting, which will determine one winner of the Grand Prix of the competition, as well as winners of first, second and third places in each age group.

    The winners of the competition will be able to attend a tour and master classes at the Russian State University of Art and Industry named after S.G. Stroganov, they will also be presented with memorable gifts from the store of goods for creativity. The winner of the Grand Prix will have the opportunity to study at the Stroganov Children’s Academy of Design, and based on his competition illustration, a limited edition design of the Muscovite card will be developed.

    The announcement of the results and the awarding of the winners will take place on June 1 in the Smart City pavilion at VDNKh. An exhibition of drawings by the competition finalists will also be opened there. All the winners’ works will also be published on the competition website and in the Active Citizen project services.

    The Muscovite card with a unique design selected based on the results of the competition will be issued during the 2025/2026 academic year. It will be possible to apply for such a card from August 1, 2025 on the mos.ru portal. It will be available to children up to and including 14 years old who are receiving the card for the first time or are participants in the competition.

    The competition is held by the Department of Information Technology of the City of Moscow with the support of the Department of Culture of the City of Moscow and the State Institution “New Management Technologies”.

    Muscovite card — one of the main social projects of the capital. This is a personalized plastic card that is issued to residents of Moscow and provides them with personal access to the city infrastructure. It can be obtained by students schools and colleges, students, pensioners, people with disabilities, children and parents from large families, as well as other categories of citizens.

    You can find out more about the Muscovite card in telegram channel project, as well as from the mini-series “Moscow in Digital”.

    How to get a Muscovite card

    You can apply for a Muscovite card on the mos.ru portal. This requires a standard or full account. Children over 14 can do this on their own, but for children under 14, a parent or other legal guardian must apply for the service.

    You can check the status of the card production in your personal account on the mos.ru portal in the “Applications and notifications” section, using the service “Checking the readiness of the Muscovite card”, as well as by calling the hotline: 7 495 539-55-55 and in official groups on social networks “VKontakte” And“Classmates”.

    The Muscovite card will be ready within 30 days from the date of application. Notification about the possibility of receiving it will be sent to your personal account on the mos.ru portal and by e-mail. Preschoolers over seven years old, school and college students can pick up the ready card at the educational institution. Those who are studying in private schools or outside Moscow, as well as other preferential categories of citizens – at the selected center of state services “My Documents”.

    Receipt of a Muscovite card for a student must be confirmed in the personal account on mos.ru within 90 days. In other cases, this is not required.

    The creation, development and operation of the e-government infrastructure, including the provision of mass socially significant services, as well as other services in electronic form, correspond to the objectives of the national project “Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State” and the regional project of the city of Moscow “Digital Public Administration”.

    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.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/152998073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: South Africa: state of the nation 30 years into democracy

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sandy Africa, Director Research, MISTRA and Research Associate, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria

    Just over 30 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, public opinion is divided over how to evaluate the post-apartheid, democratic state. Characterisations range from “failed or failing state”, to
    “mafia state” to the more optimistic “developmental state” committed to addressing historical patterns of injustice through decisive state intervention.

    The characterisations vary so widely because interpretations of the state are shaped not only by a complex empirical reality but also by competing theoretical and ideological perspectives. Some parts of the state appear dysfunctional, marked by failure, corruption, or capture. Others are viewed as evolving, contested, or in need of transformation. The perspective depends on the framework of analysis applied.

    Theoretical approaches reinforce these divisions. Some emphasise state failure and breakdowns. Some highlight illicit networks and patronage. Others focus on whether the state is supported by strong institutions and leadership, has the necessary operational know-how, or operates within a clear ethical matrix.

    These overlapping dimensions produce divergent conclusions. To some, the proverbial glass is half empty, while to others it is half full.

    The ongoing debate about the successes and failures of the South African state is the subject of a book that followed a call for papers in 2023 – The State of the South African State: Capability, Capacity and Ethics.

    The book poses the question of whether South Africa’s future lies in hope or despair. Contributors cover a range of themes through the lens of a range of disciplines in the social sciences. The themes include financing of the state’s responsibilities, managing the energy transition, water provision, the political economy, foreign policy, the state of the security sector, traditional leadership, the role of civil society and the capacity of the public service.

    Capacity, capability and ethics

    In assessing the state’s performance, the book addresses three interdependent components: capacity, capability and ethics.

    Capacity refers to the state’s institutional make-up (its tangible infrastructure).

    Capability refers to the means at the society’s disposal to enable the state to deliver on its mandate. It includes the operational know-how, including how effectively the state uses its resources.

    Ethics refers to the behaviours displayed by those entrusted with leadership and implementation responsibilities across the state.

    A state with ample capacity and high capability but lacking in ethical grounding may misuse its resources. This leads to corruption and public disillusionment.
    Conversely, strong ethical commitments without sufficient capacity or capability may result in well-intentioned but ineffective policies.

    When ethics guide the accumulation of capacity as well as the effective, strategic use of those resources, the state is more likely to fulfil its public mandate and uphold constitutional values.

    Historical evolution

    The volume situates this framework within broader theoretical debates. It explains how past and present challenges (such as state capture or institutional decay) have emerged. It also charts a pathway for renewal.

    The democratic South African state’s formal evolution has passed through four phases:

    • transition and transformation (1994-1999)

    • policy orientation and compromise (mid-1990s to early 2000s)

    • erosion and institutional decay (2008-2018)

    • attempts at recovery and renewal (2019-July 2024)

    • the government of national unity agenda (July 2024 to present).

    In the immediate post-1994 era, the state transformed its capacity. It replaced apartheid-era structures with new bodies designed to uphold constitutional principles and reflect democratic values.

    The guiding ethical operating system was strong. Ideals of dignity, equality, and inclusivity were central to the nation-building project. This set the stage for policies intended to redress historical injustices, even if practical know‐how was still maturing.

    In the second phase of state-building (after the first five years of democracy) there was a shift from the initial promise of the Reconstruction and Development Programme towards a market-oriented approach. This policy change was an attempt to manage economic realities through market mechanisms. But some policy actors saw it as a betrayal of the poor and the working class.

    During this period, the ethical underbelly began to show signs of strain. As pragmatic and market-driven ideas took precedence, some of the original ethical commitments were diluted. These included broad-based development and social justice. This contributed to compromises that would later affect public trust.

    In the third phase from about 2009 onwards, the state’s institutional capacity suffered from high levels of mismanagement and poor oversight. The robustness of institutions was undermined by chronic neglect and corruption.

    State capture and corruption impaired the state’s ability to use its capacity effectively. The result was policy failures. This made it more difficult to meet social and economic challenges.

    The weakening of accountability allowed unethical practices to flourish. It also undermined the very ideas that had originally set the state on a path of inclusive development.

    In the phases that followed reform efforts focused on rebuilding operational capacity. There were attempts to improve administrative efficiency and strategic planning, and build compacts for social change and redress.

    Measures were introduced – albeit gradually – to reinforce accountability and transparency. The aim was to renew the social compact between the state and society around inclusive growth and accountability.

    After the 2024 national and provincial government elections, the African National Congress (ANC) had to form a unity government in July 2024. Since then, there has been a renewed effort to strengthen the state’s capacity. The unity government’s agenda places some emphasis on improving operational efficiency and strategic planning.

    Hope or despair?

    Despite both domestic and international pressures, including a change in administration in the US, recent unity government efforts highlight that a positive turnaround is possible, though it is far from guaranteed.

    The framework set out in the book suggests that building an effective, capable and developmental depends on:

    • bolstering institutional capacity

    • improving the effective use of resources

    • embedding strong ethical standards into all levels of state activity.

    To some observers, the post-apartheid state was doomed to failure from the start, due to the negotiated settlement that brought it about. To others, the legitimacy of the state has been eroded by poor policy choices, and that’s why it now faces a polycrisis.

    And to others, the state has been captured and repurposed by opportunistic and self-serving forces.

    Understanding the state of the South African state is contested territory. And probably will be for a long time to come.

    The upcoming book was the subject of a webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, MISTRA, earlier this year:
    A YouTube recording of the webinar can be found here.

    Sandy Africa is the Research Director of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection and a Research Associate at the University of Pretoria. Together with Na’eem Jeenah and Musa Nxele, she is a co-editor of the forthcoming book.

    Musa Nxele is the Academic Director of the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town.

    Na’eem Jeenah is a senior researcher at the Mapungubwe Insttitute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA).

    – ref. South Africa: state of the nation 30 years into democracy – https://theconversation.com/south-africa-state-of-the-nation-30-years-into-democracy-251724

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: 23 April 2025 News release WHO releases new guideline to prevent adolescent pregnancies and improve girls’ health

    Source: World Health Organisation

    In a bid to tackle the leading cause of death globally among 15–19-year-old girls, the World Health Organization (WHO) today released a new guideline aimed at preventing adolescent pregnancy and its significant related health complications.

    Among other strategies, the guideline urges rapid action to end child marriage, extend girls’ schooling, and improve access to sexual and reproductive health services and information – all critical factors for reducing early pregnancies among teenagers around the world.

    “Early pregnancies can have serious physical and psychological consequences for girls and young women, and often reflect fundamental inequalities that affect their ability to shape their relationships and their lives,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at WHO and the United Nations’ Special Programme in Human Reproduction (HRP). “Tackling this issue therefore means creating conditions where girls and young women can thrive – by ensuring they can stay in school, be protected from violence and coercion, access sexual and reproductive health services that uphold their rights, and have real choices about their futures.”

    More than 21 million adolescent girls become pregnant each year in low and middle-income countries, around half of which are unintended. With impacts on girls’ education, social connection and future employment prospects, early pregnancy can create cycles of intergenerational poverty that become difficult to break. It also brings serious health risks, including relatively higher rates of infections and preterm births as well as complications from unsafe abortions – linked to particular challenges in accessing safe and respectful care.

    Reasons for early pregnancy are varied and interrelated, including gender inequities, poverty, lack of opportunity and inability to access sexual and reproductive health services. There is a strong correlation with child marriage: in low- and middle-income countries, 9 in 10 adolescent births take place among girls who were married before the age of 18.

    The guideline recommends holistic efforts to provide viable alternatives to early marriage by strengthening girls’ education, savings and employment prospects. If all girls finished their secondary schooling, it has been estimated that child marriages could be reduced by as much as two thirds. For girls at highest risk, the guideline recommends considering incentives to support secondary school completion, such as targeted financial stipends or scholarship programmes. The guideline also recommends laws to prohibit marriage below the age of 18, consistent with human rights standards, and community engagement to prevent the practice.

    “Early marriage denies girls their childhood and has severe consequences for their health,” said Dr Sheri Bastien, Scientist for Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health at WHO. “Education is critical to change the future for young girls, while empowering adolescents – both boys and girls – to understand consent, take charge of their health, and challenge the major gender inequalities that continue to drive high rates of child marriage and early pregnancy in many parts of the world.”

    The recommendations highlight the need to ensure adolescents can access high quality, adolescent-responsive sexual and reproductive health services including contraceptive options. In some countries, consent from an adult is required to access services, which is a significant barrier to their use. Young girls who get pregnant also need to be able to access high quality and respectful healthcare during and after pregnancy and birth, free from stigma and discrimination, as well as safe abortion care.

    Finally, comprehensive sexuality education is essential for both boys and girls to ensure they know where to access such services and how to use different types of contraception. It has been shown to reduce early pregnancies, delay the onset of sexual activity, and improve adolescents’ knowledge about their bodies and reproductive health. 

    This guideline updates an earlier edition of the guideline on adolescent pregnancy prevention from 2011 and focuses particularly on preventing child marriage and improving adolescents’ access to and use of contraception. It complements WHO’s related guidance around health services for adolescents, comprehensive sexuality education and gender-based violence.

    Globally, there has been progress in reducing adolescent pregnancies and births. In 2021, an estimated 1 in 25 girls gave birth before the age of 20, compared to 1 in 15 two decades prior. There remain significant disparities. In some countries, close to 1 in 10 adolescent girls (15–19 years) give birth each year.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Panda Katyusha began living in the Moscow Zoo separately from her mother

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    Katyusha – my favorite Moscow Zoo and the first panda born in Russia, will turn one year and eight months old on April 24. Her mother, Dindin, has decided that Katyusha is old enough to live on her own.

    In the wild, bamboo bears take care of their cubs and feed them for up to one and a half to two years. Dinding was very sensitive to her daughter – she fed her milk, taught her caution, instilled all the necessary skills – for example, the ability to climb and group when falling. Then she taught Katyusha to eat bamboo, and at six months the little panda tried carrots. Now the cub’s diet includes everything an adult needs and everything necessary for full growth and development. Katyusha eats bamboo, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples and panda cakes – special steamed bread.

    “Now Dindin has decided that her cub has grown up and is ready to live separately. This moment comes suddenly and quickly for animals. One day, the female began to show the first signs of a fight for territory. She began to growl threateningly, snort and chase Katyusha away. These aggressive actions could be dangerous for the cub. Our zoologists contacted Chinese specialists, and they recommended that we separate the pandas, which was done,” said Svetlana Akulova, General Director of the Moscow Zoo.

    Katyusha has excellent indicators – she weighs 65 kilograms. For comparison: Dindin at this age was almost nine kilograms lighter. Katyusha also recently began to participate in veterinary training: she allows you to feel her belly, examine her teeth, and stand on the scales. She also learned this by repeating her mother’s movements.

    The design of the Fauna of China pavilion allows for rotation of the animals: now Katyusha and Dinding take turns walking in the outdoor enclosure. After some time, zoologists tried to connect the mother with the cub through a lattice gate, but the adult female began making threatening sounds again. Therefore, now the pandas remain in separate rooms.

    Moscow Zoo specialists believe that Katyusha is ready for independent life. But the baby will have a certain period of adaptation. Zoologists are closely monitoring the condition of these animals and are in constant contact with Chinese specialists from the Center for the Conservation and Study of Giant Pandas.

    You can watch how pandas live online at this page.

    The name for the first giant panda born in Russia chose Muscovites: The Moscow City Department of Culture and the Active Citizen project have prepared a special vote.

    The Moscow Zoo opened in 1864. Today it is one of the oldest zoos in Europe. It is under the jurisdiction of the capital’s Department of Culture.

    Sobyanin: Moscow Zoo takes first place in the world in species diversity

    Get the latest news quickly official telegram channel the city of Moscow.

    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.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/153019073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Sniping koalas from helicopters: here’s what’s wrong with Victoria’s unprecedented cull

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Hicks, Lecturer in Law, The University of Melbourne

    Roberto La Rosa/Shutterstock

    Snipers in helicopters have shot more than 700 koalas in the Budj Bim National Park in western Victoria in recent weeks. It’s believed to be the first time koalas have been culled in this way.

    The cull became public on Good Friday after local wildlife carers were reportedly tipped off.

    A fire burned about 20% of the park in mid-March. The government said the cull was urgent because koalas had been left starving or burned.

    Wildlife groups have expressed serious concern about how individual koalas had been chosen for culling, because the animals are assessed from a distance. It’s not clear how shooting from a helicopter complies with the state government’s own animal welfare and response plans for wildlife in disasters.

    The Victorian government must explain why it is undertaking aerial culling and why it did so without announcing it publicly. The incident points to ongoing failures in managing these iconic marsupials, which are already threatened in other states.

    Hundreds of koalas were left starving or injured after bushfires in Budj Bim National Park a month ago.
    Vincent_Nguyen/Shutterstock

    Why did this happen?

    Koalas live in eucalypt forests in Australia’s eastern and southern states. The species faces a double threat from habitat destruction and bushfire risk. They are considered endangered in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory.

    In Victoria, koala population levels are currently secure. But they are densely concentrated, often in fragments of bush known as “habitat islands” in the state’s southwest. Budj Bim National Park is one of these islands.

    Over time, this concentration becomes a problem. When the koalas are too abundant, they can strip leaves from their favourite gums, killing the trees. The koalas must then move or risk starvation.

    If fire or drought make these habitat islands impossible to live in, koalas in dense concentrations often have nowhere to go.

    In Budj Bim, Victoria’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Parks Victoria have tackled koala overpopulation alongside Traditional Owners by moving koalas to new locations or sterilising them.

    But Budj Bim is also surrounded by commercial blue gum plantations. Koalas spread out through the plantations to graze on the leaves. Their populations grow. But when the plantations are logged, some koalas have to return to the national park, where food may be in short supply.

    Plantations of blue gums are located near Budj Bim. Animal welfare groups claim logging has driven koala overpopulation in the national park.
    Anna Carolina Negri/Shutterstock

    Animal welfare groups say logging is one reason Budj Bim had so many koalas.

    It’s hard to say definitively whether this is the case, because the state environment department hasn’t shared much information. But researchers have found habitat islands lead to overabundance by preventing the natural dispersal of individuals.

    So why was the culling done? Department officials have described the program as “primarily” motivated by animal welfare. After the bushfire last month, koalas have been left starving or injured.

    Why shooters in helicopters? Here, the justification given is that the national park is difficult to access due to rocky terrain and fire damage, ruling out other methods.

    Euthanising wildlife has to be done carefully

    Under Victoria’s plan for animal welfare during disasters, the environment department is responsible for examining and, where necessary, euthanising wildlife during an emergency.

    For human intervention to be justified, euthanasia must be necessary on welfare grounds. Victoria’s response plan for fire-affected wildlife says culling is permitted when an animal’s health is “significantly” compromised, invasive treatment is required, or survival is unlikely.

    For koalas, this could mean loss of digits or hands, burns to more than 15% of the body, pneumonia from smoke inhalation, or blindness or injuries requiring surgery. Euthanised females must also be promptly examined for young in their pouches.

    The problem is that while aerial shooting can be accurate in some cases for larger animals, the method has questionable efficacy for smaller animals – especially in denser habitats.

    It’s likely a number of koalas were seriously injured but not killed. But the shooters employed by the department were not able to thoroughly verify injuries or whether there were joeys in pouches, because they were in the air and reportedly 30 or more metres away from their targets.

    While the department cited concerns about food resources as a reason for the cull, the state’s wildlife fire plan lays out another option: delivery of supplementary feed. Delivering fresh gum leaves could potentially have prevented starvation while the forest regenerates.

    What should the government learn from this?

    The state government should take steps to avoid tragic incidents like this from happening again.

    Preserving remaining habitat across the state is a vital step, as is reconnecting isolated areas with habitat corridors. This would not only reduce the concentration of koalas in small pockets but increase viable refuges and give koalas safe paths to new food sources after a fire.

    Future policies should be developed in consultation with Traditional Owners, who have detailed knowledge of species distributions and landscapes.

    We need better ways to help wildlife in disasters. One step would be bringing wildlife rescue organisations into emergency management more broadly, as emphasised in the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and the more recent Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

    This latter report pointed to South Australia’s specialised emergency animal rescue and relief organisation – SAVEM – as an effective model. Under SA’s emergency management plan, the organisation is able to rapidly access burned areas after the fire has passed through.

    Victoria’s dense communities of koalas would be well served by a similar organisation able to work alongside existing skilled firefighting services.

    The goal would be to make it possible for rescuers to get to injured wildlife earlier and avoid any more mass aerial culls.

    Liz Hicks has previously received a Commonwealth Research Training Program stipend. She is a member of the Australian Greens Victoria, although her views do not reflect a party position or party policy.

    Dr Ashleigh Best previously received a Commonwealth Research Training Program scholarship, which supported some of the research in this article. She is an inactive member of the Animal Justice Party, and previously volunteered with Wildlife Victoria.

    – ref. Sniping koalas from helicopters: here’s what’s wrong with Victoria’s unprecedented cull – https://theconversation.com/sniping-koalas-from-helicopters-heres-whats-wrong-with-victorias-unprecedented-cull-254996

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: NSU is the first in Russia to launch an educational course on product management with elements of artificial intelligence

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    In February 2025, EhFaculty of Economics, Novosibirsk State University The course “Product Management” was launched. Its participants were final-year undergraduate students in the fields of “Business Informatics”, “Management” and “Economics”. This is the first course in Russia on such a topic, which pays special attention to the use of artificial intelligence. 60 students have already completed the course.

    — Product management is a relatively new discipline that emerged in the 21st century in the Silicon Valley startup environment. In Russia, it has only begun to gain popularity in the last ten years. Until recently, such courses were only available at the Higher School of Economics, ITMO University, and the Moscow branch of RANEPA. NSU was one of the first universities to introduce a full-fledged course on this topic, and the first to include a block on the use of artificial intelligence, — said Alexander Doronin, author of the course, NSU graduate, product manager at LC Group, a company specializing in the development of fintech solutions.

    The object of study of the discipline is primarily IT products – solutions created on the basis of program code. Today, digital products play a key role in both online and offline business. Their development, integration into business processes and promotion on the market require a comprehensive approach, and understanding these processes is becoming an important competitive advantage for specialists of various profiles.

    The course program covers key aspects of product management, including product marketing, product research, A/B testing, and unit economics. Particular attention is paid to the use of artificial intelligence: individual classes are devoted to the use of large language models and other machine learning technologies in product development, which is an important difference between the course and other similar ones that already exist in Russia.

    — As part of one of the classes, my students and I went through the entire product research cycle and tried using AI at different stages. As a result, the students developed an understanding of the tasks in which AI is really useful, and which tasks are better solved independently for now. For example, at the stage of preparation for the study, AI can help in composing questions for a problem interview if the prompt (request for the neural network) describes the respondent’s portrait well. When conducting the interviews themselves, you shouldn’t count on AI: most often, AI plays along with the interlocutor, agrees with everything and gives extremely expected answers to questions. An interview with a live interlocutor allows you to collect much more insights. After the interview, AI can be useful for systematizing the results. For example, as part of the course, my students and I built a User Story Map, and the AI did an excellent job of writing the stories themselves, receiving the interview results as input, — explained Alexander Doronin.

    Another key advantage of the course is that it combines a systematic presentation of theory and many practical cases, including those from the author’s experience. Alexander Doronin has experience working with product teams both on the customer’s side and on the development side. The practical experience of the teacher allowed him to fill the course with real cases and tasks that specialists face in the market.

    The course duration is 16 pairs (32 classroom hours). As part of the course, students also complete a project assignment, which they will defend at the end of the semester in a differentiated test. Thus, taking into account independent practice, the course volume is 108 hours. So far, it is designed only for students of the Faculty of Economics. However, NSU does not rule out that in the future the course may be introduced in other faculties of the university.

    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 –