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Category: Education

  • MIL-OSI USA: Business Insider: More student-loan borrowers are taking advantage of an updated route to get rid of their debt in bankruptcy court, top Democratic senators say

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren

    October 28, 2024

    An updated process for student-loan borrowers to get rid of their debt in bankruptcy court is working, a group of Democratic senators said.

    On Monday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin led Sens. Raphael Warnock and Sheldon Whitehouse in sending a letter — first viewed by Business Insider — to the Justice and Education Departments regarding the status of recent guidance intended to make it easier for borrowers to have success in bankruptcy court.

    Discharging student loans in bankruptcy court has been historically difficult. Borrowers had to prove a standard known as “undue hardship,” in which they cannot maintain a minimal standard of living, their circumstances aren’t likely to improve, and they have made a good-faith effort to repay their debt.

    …

    Read the full story here.

    By:  Ayelet Sheffey
    Source: Business Insider

    Previous Article

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister announcing healthy meals for kids in Manitoba

    Source: Government of Canada News

    We’ve been through a tough time. When COVID first hit, our country suffered the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Our economy shrank by 17 per cent and it’s been tough getting out of that. In recent weeks, we’ve had some good news. What we’ve been seeing is light at the end of the tunnel. We are approaching a soft landing for the Canadian economy after the turbulence of the COVID recession and what followed.

    October 18, 2024 – Winnipeg, Manitoba

    Check against delivery

    I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are in Treaty 1 territory and that the land on which we gather today is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibway, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Red River Métis.

    I want to start by saying a couple of things about the Canadian economy.

    We’ve been through a tough time. When COVID first hit, our country suffered the deepest recession since the Great Depression.  Our economy shrank by 17 per cent and it’s been tough getting out of that.  In recent weeks, we’ve had some good news.  What we’ve been seeing is light at the end of the tunnel.  We are approaching a soft landing for the Canadian economy after the turbulence of the COVID recession and what followed.

    What kind of good news am I talking about?  First of all, inflation in September was at 1.6 per cent.  That is in the lower end of the Bank of Canada’s target range, below the central target of two per cent.  For the past nine months, inflation has been within the Bank of Canada’s target range.  I know that is a relief for people here.

    What that means is that interest rates are coming down, too.  Canada was the first G7 country to lower interest rates for the first time, the first G7 country to lower interest rates for the second time and the first G7 country to lower interest rates for the third time.  That is a relief for a lot of Canadians, a lot of Manitobans as well.

    Wages and employment are going up.  We had strong jobs numbers in September.  The Canadian economy added 47,000 new jobs and unemployment went down a bit.  For the past 20 months, wages have been outpacing inflation.

    All these things are important for Canadians, for families like the parents of the kids here who want to ensure they can take care of their kids, feed their kids, pay their mortgage, pay their rent.  What that economic progress means is that we as a country are able to make investments in our most precious resources, our kids.

    That is why we announced the National School Food Program in the 2024 Budget, which is, in my opinion, one of our government’s key programs.

    The National School Food Program is one of the most important investments we can make in our kids, in our families.  It’s $1 billion over five years.  It’s going to mean 400,000 kids can get fed at school, 400,000 kids who are hungry in their classroom are going to be able to have a snack or some breakfast or some lunch.  That’s going to make such a difference to them, to their teachers.  A family with two kids will save as much as $800 a year on groceries.

    We can only deliver a program like this when we have provincial partners who share our values, who share our commitment to Canada’s kids.  That’s what we have in Manitoba.  That is why I am deeply thrilled to be able to announce today that we have a deal with the great province of Manitoba to invest in school food for Manitoba’s kids.

    The federal government is investing $17.2 million over three years to expand school food programs in Manitoba.  Manitoba is putting money on the table too.  The result is 19,080 more kids in Manitoba are going to get school meals.

    Manitoba is, as usual, in a leadership position with Premier Kinew.  Manitoba is just the second province to conclude a school food deal.  It’s meaningful for every parent who has a kid and knows their kid is going to get a snack, for every kid who’s not going to be hungry.

    This is part of our government’s absolute commitment to investing in families and in children.  It is a companion program to our national system of early learning and childcare, and Manitoba is also playing a leadership role in the country.  You guys are down to $10 a day.  That is fantastic.  That is saving a family in Manitoba $2,610 per child per year, a real affordability measure.  There is also the Canada Child Benefit, where a family can get up to $7,787 per child per year thanks to that benefit.  When you put those programs together, this is a real investment in the most important people in our country, our kids.

    I would like to thank the Government of Manitoba, especially Premier Kinew, who is an excellent partner for us. Our work is not always easy but, because we share the same values, we are able to work together to get things done.

    We need our economy to grow, but that needs to be growth with a purpose. Our purpose needs to be to invest in Canadians.  There is no better investment and no more important investment that we can make than investing in our beautiful, amazing, precious children.  That’s what we’re here to celebrate today.  Thank you.

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Planets Beware: NASA Unburies Danger Zones of Star Cluster

    Source: NASA

    Most stars form in collections, called clusters or associations, that include very massive stars. These giant stars send out large amounts of high-energy radiation, which can disrupt relatively fragile disks of dust and gas that are in the process of coalescing to form new planets.
    A team of astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, in combination with ultraviolet, optical, and infrared data, to show where some of the most treacherous places in a star cluster may be, where planets’ chances to form are diminished.
    The target of the observations was Cygnus OB2, which is the nearest large cluster of stars to our Sun — at a distance of about 4,600 light-years. The cluster contains hundreds of massive stars as well as thousands of lower-mass stars. The team used long Chandra observations pointing at different regions of Cygnus OB2, and the resulting set of images were then stitched together into one large image.
    The deep Chandra observations mapped out the diffuse X-ray glow in between the stars, and they also provided an inventory of the young stars in the cluster. This inventory was combined with others using optical and infrared data to create the best census of young stars in the cluster.
    In this new composite image, the Chandra data (purple) shows the diffuse X-ray emission and young stars in Cygnus OB2, and infrared data from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, blue, and cyan) reveals young stars and the cooler dust and gas throughout the region.
    In these crowded stellar environments, copious amounts of high-energy radiation produced by stars and planets are present. Together, X-rays and intense ultraviolet light can have a devastating impact on planetary disks and systems in the process of forming.
    Planet-forming disks around stars naturally fade away over time. Some of the disk falls onto the star and some is heated up by X-ray and ultraviolet radiation from the star and evaporates in a wind. The latter process, known as “photoevaporation,” usually takes between 5 and 10 million years with average-sized stars before the disk disappears. If massive stars, which produce the most X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, are nearby, this process can be accelerated.
    The researchers using this data found clear evidence that planet-forming disks around stars indeed disappear much faster when they are close to massive stars producing a lot of high-energy radiation. The disks also disappear more quickly in regions where the stars are more closely packed together.
    For regions of Cygnus OB2 with less high-energy radiation and lower numbers of stars, the fraction of young stars with disks is about 40%. For regions with more high-energy radiation and higher numbers of stars, the fraction is about 18%. The strongest effect — meaning the worst place to be for a would-be planetary system — is within about 1.6 light-years of the most massive stars in the cluster.
    A separate study by the same team examined the properties of the diffuse X-ray emission in the cluster. They found that the higher-energy diffuse emission comes from areas where winds of gas blowing away from massive stars have collided with each other. This causes the gas to become hotter and produce X-rays. The less energetic emission probably comes from gas in the cluster colliding with gas surrounding the cluster.
    Two separate papers describing the Chandra data of Cygnus OB2 are available. The paper about the planetary danger zones, led by Mario Giuseppe Guarcello (National Institute for Astrophysics in Palermo, Italy), appeared in the November 2023 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, and is available here. The paper about the diffuse emission, led by Juan Facundo Albacete-Colombo (University of Rio Negro in Argentina) was published in the same issue of Astrophysical Journal Supplement, and is available here.
    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
    JPL managed the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington until the mission was retired in January 2020. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive operated by IPAC at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
    Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
    Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:

    chandra

    https://chandra.si.edu

    This release features a composite image of the Cygnus OB2 star cluster, which resembles a night sky blanketed in orange, purple, and grey clouds.
    The center of the square image is dominated by purple haze. This haze represents diffuse X-ray emissions, and young stars, detected by the Chandra X-ray observatory. Surrounding the purple haze is a mottled, streaky, brick orange cloud. Another cloud resembling a tendril of grey smoke stretches from our lower left to the center of the image. These clouds represent relatively cool dust and gas observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
    Although the interwoven clouds cover most of the image, the thousands of stars within the cluster shine through. The lower-mass stars present as tiny specks of light. The massive stars gleam, some with long refraction spikes.

    Megan WatzkeChandra X-ray CenterCambridge, Mass.617-496-7998mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
    Lane FigueroaMarshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama256-544-0034lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: MC Duke: a pioneering British rapper more people should know about

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam de Paor-Evans, Research Lead at Rhythm Obscura / Lecturer in the School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Plymouth

    MC Duke (Kashif Adham) was a key figure in the development of hip-hop in Britain in the late 80s. When he died in April, British rap lost a giant. From the East End of London, Duke strengthened the evolution of the genre in the UK by relating directly to US hip-hop and an emerging British rap identity through his lyrics and visual style.

    At the time of MC Duke’s arrival on the rap scene, British hip-hop was transitioning from the electro-based sound by London artists such as DSM, Three Wize Men and Family Quest, to a more sample-based style, much like the sounds of US artists Eric B. and Rakim and Biz Markie.

    In this transition, Duke emerged as the frontrunner in this new generation due to his embrace of hip-hop’s visual tropes as much as his sound.

    His first release, Jus-Dis landed in 1987 on Hard As Hell! Rap’s Next Generation, a compilation released on Music Of Life – a staple label for homegrown British talent. Jus-Dis presents Duke’s battle rap attitude through the diss track – a concept where the song’s narrative attacks another party.

    His lyrics and wordplay on the song title present social commentary on Britain and its legal system: “There ain’t no law, there’s only jus-dis.” Duke also brought the idea of the diss to live audiences throughout the UK by accelerating the dispute with Overlord X, another pioneering British rapper, as part of his stage routine.

    His first proper single release, Miracles, the next year, visually presented MC Duke and his DJ, DJ Leader 1, for the first time to audiences. The record sleeve depicts Duke donning a bright red goose jacket, a black leather cap, Cazal-style shades, gold rope chain and a name belt buckle – all highly sought-after attire in hip-hop fashion.

    These fashion choices linked the US image of rap with an emerging British one. In the US, rap pioneers T La Rock and Kool Moe Dee had previously used similar accessories on album covers to denote a sense of identity. In the UK, graffiti writers and breakdancers particularly were sporting name belt buckles.

    Miracles heavily samples The Jackson Sister’s I Believe In Miracles, which was a mainstay of the rare groove scene that developed in London during the early 80s. With the inclusion of vocal samples from Run-D.M.C.’s Run’s House and Public Enemy’s Bring The Noise, Miracles starts to bring together a transatlantic idea of hip-hop.

    Got To Get Your Own based on Reuben Wilson’s song of the same name and MC Duke’s follow-up single, I’m Riffin (English Rasta) heavily samples Funky Like A Train (link) by Equals, again a core record from many rare groove playlists.

    The introduction to I’m Riffin (English Rasta) is sampled from the powerful speech by American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson from Introduction (Complete). This immediately frames MC Duke’s lyrics with a sense of Black identity and history, as he raps: “Known to speak about men of freedom, Look for books on King and read ‘em”.

    Duke returns the narrative to a sense of the everyman: “We cover and smother another brother, Throw him away just like a used rubber,” twice referring to the system as at the heart of Black-on-Black crime.

    Duke’s “English Rasta” pseudonym is also a comment on Jamaican culture in Britain, in particular the second generation who grew up through an evolving Black British identity.

    M.C. Duke and DJ Leader 1’s debut album Organised Rhyme challenges the British class system, the aristocracy, colonialism and imperialism. Duke claims their associated visual tropes and brings them into a rap frame fusing tweed suits, hunting boots, Bentley cars and stately homes with the African medallions and chunky gold jewellery of hip-hop.

    In 1990, Duke countered the conventions of the British aristocracy as a producer and performer on the album The Royal Family, a collective of artists from the Music Of Life camp, including the likes of Lady Tame and Doc Savage. This album resonates with US label-related collectives such as Marley Marl’s Juice Crew and The 45 King’s Flavor Unit. Again, this enforces the transatlantic approach to hip-hop that Duke maintained.

    Duke’s work ensured British fans felt homegrown rap was becoming closer to US artists like Eric B. & Rakim and Public Enemy. Additionally, his music laid the foundation for future solo British rappers as diverse as Ty, Dizzee Rascal and Stormzy.

    As well as being a forerunner in British hip-hop, Duke worked across dance genres and influenced many jungle, drum ‘n’ bass and grime emcees. As Jumpin Jack Frost (the DJ behind the seminal jungle track Burial, which he released under the alias Leviticus) attested: “Duke was a true trailblazer who was one of the first UK MCs with a major record deal … His legacy will be remembered as someone who helped to shape UK MCs from jungle to grime we all owe MC Duke a lot.”

    MC Duke bridged the gap between US hip-hop history and set a new British trajectory for rap. His work should serve as a critical signpost for British rap audiences.

    Adam de Paor-Evans 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. MC Duke: a pioneering British rapper more people should know about – https://theconversation.com/mc-duke-a-pioneering-british-rapper-more-people-should-know-about-229966

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Rising vet fees leave pet owners facing tough choices – and vets often bear the brunt

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Williams, Reader in Human Resource Management, Cardiff University

    shutterstock SAI SU PAW KA/Shutterstock

    If you’re a pet owner, you may have noticed increases in your vet bills in recent years. The average cost of pet booster injections increased by 48% in the UK between 2020 and early 2024, while pet insurance prices rose by 21% in the year to March. Many families are struggling to afford care for their pets.

    But this situation isn’t just about rising prices – it’s about how these changes are affecting the people at the heart of veterinary care. For the past three years, I’ve been studying the experiences of early-career vets and what I’ve found is unsettling.

    The vets I spoke to described an emotional and ethical struggle that goes far beyond routine pet care. They’re increasingly having to balance the cost of treatment with the welfare of animals – sometimes being forced to euthanise otherwise healthy pets because the owners can’t afford treatment.

    Concerns about veterinary fees are also receiving national attention. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is conducting an investigation into the sector, citing a lack of transparency in pricing and the dominance of corporate ownership. For example, 60% of UK vet practices are owned by just six companies, including VetPartners, MediVet and IVC.

    Strikes at branches of Valley Vets in south Wales – the first in the UK veterinary sector – have also drawn attention to the issue of pay and the rising cost of treatment. Staff at the practice, owned by York-based VetPartners, are demanding a fair wage and pushing back against fee hikes that are pricing owners out of care.

    For vets, the stakes are high. Many enter the profession out of a love for animals, but increasing costs force them into difficult conversations with owners who can’t afford the necessary treatment.

    One early-career vet I interviewed described treating a four-month-old puppy with a broken leg. The owners couldn’t pay for surgery and had to make the heartbreaking decision to put the dog down. This not only caused distress to the family but also to the veterinary team performing the procedure.

    Prevention

    Veterinary practices are increasingly promoting preventative care to help avoid costly treatment down the road. But some pet owners view this merely as an attempt to maximise profit.

    The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), which regulates the sector, has expressed concern about a rise in abusive behaviour towards vets. The RCVS is encouraging owners to raise fee issues with practice owners rather than individual vets. Many practices have started removing abusive clients from their client lists, though some vets I spoke to were unhappy that abusive clients were allowed to return.

    Vet students are taught how to discuss costs with clients. For many new vets, however, these conversations are nerve-wracking, particularly when charges are high. Several vets described how they “forgot” to charge for items or charged reduced amounts when they believed the fees were too high. In some cases, the vets believed that managers chose not to notice, whereas others were criticised.

    But as vets gained experience, they also began to charge more accurately, partly due to valuing their training and expertise. They also realised that if they reduced a bill, clients were more likely to complain if the next vet charged correctly.

    60% of UK vet practices are owned by just six companies.
    FamVeld/Shutterstock

    I found evidence that over time some vets became less emotionally attached to their patients, particularly when they had no long-term relationship with the owner. They always wanted to reduce suffering and provide the best care. At the same time, though, they were exasperated at owners who acquired pets without investigating future costs or who failed to set money aside for emergencies.

    Some also expressed frustration at the owners of their practices imposing large fee increases. They described being ignored when warning managers that further fee increases would lead to a reduction in clients, and vindicated when clients left and associated income reduced.

    The CMA review could potentially reshape the veterinary sector, introducing greater price transparency and competition. The RCVS has welcomed the investigation, seeing it as an opportunity for much needed legislative reform.

    It is also seeking to extend its regulatory oversight to entire veterinary practices, not just individual vets and nurses. But it has warned the CMA to be cautious of breaking up businesses as this may lead to the closure of practices and leave pet owners without access to veterinary care.

    Crossroads

    The veterinary profession is at a crossroads. Rising costs, recruitment and retention challenges, as well as increasing emotional burnout are driving many vets to leave the profession. Meanwhile, pet owners are left struggling with tough decisions about how much care they can afford for their beloved animals.

    There are no easy answers. Teaching veterinary students how to offer treatment options that fit different budgets could help reduce the emotional burden on both vets and owners. Addressing vet retention through manageable working hours, supportive workplaces and fair salaries may also reduce pressures.

    Transparent pricing and educating owners about the real costs of pet care may help to enable more informed decisions. And giving vets a say in business and pricing decisions could help practices balance financial sustainability with compassionate animal care.

    Rachel Williams 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. Rising vet fees leave pet owners facing tough choices – and vets often bear the brunt – https://theconversation.com/rising-vet-fees-leave-pet-owners-facing-tough-choices-and-vets-often-bear-the-brunt-241647

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Alzheimer’s drug approved in the UK, but it won’t be available on the NHS – here’s why

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rahul Sidhu, PhD Candidate, Neuroscience, University of Sheffield

    Donanemab is delivered intravenously to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Studio Romantic/ Shutterstock

    The UK’s drugs regulator – the MHRA – has approved the Alzheimer’s drug donanemab, but it won’t be available on the NHS.

    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which determines what treatments are available on the NHS, decided not to recommend donanemab for NHS use. This is because of its cost, potential side-effects and what some consider insufficient benefits.

    While Nice’s decision is disappointing for a lot of people (about 70,000 people people in England would have qualified to receive the drug), it’s important to know why the decision was made.

    Slowing decline

    A key characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is the presence of amyloid plaques. These are sticky proteins that clump together and destroy brain cells (neurons), resulting in Alzheimer’s.

    Donanemab is a monoclonal antibody – a lab-made protein that targets and binds to amyloid to help eliminate it. This treatment is administered by an intravenous infusion, so the drug is delivered directly into the bloodstream. Each session lasts about 30 minutes and is needed every four weeks.

    In a clinical trial, donanemab was shown to be reasonably successful. The trial compared participants with early Alzheimer’s disease taking donanemab against those taking a placebo.

    Donanemab slowed the decline in memory and thinking by as much as 35% in people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. This is the equivalent of reducing the disease’s progression by four to seven months. Participants taking donanemab experienced a 40% slower decline in their ability to perform daily tasks, including managing finances, driving and enjoying hobbies.

    Donanemab helps eliminate amyloid from the brain.
    Signal Scientific Visuals/ Shutterstock

    While these results are promising, it’s important to note that the clinical trial had some limitations.

    The trial lasted only 18 months, so it remains unclear how donanemab’s effects will play out long-term for those using it. Future studies will be needed to explore the long-term effects.

    Although the trial had a large sample size of 1,736 participants with early Alzheimer’s disease, 90% of the participants were white. More diversity in clinical trials is needed to ensure that donanemab is effective for people of all races and ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, this lack of diversity is a common issue in medical research.

    But the major drawback with donanemab was its side-effects. About 80% of the side-effects participants experienced were either mild or participants showed no symptoms at all and side-effects were only picked up in further tests.

    However, 15% of participants had a serious side-effect. This included brain swelling or small brain bleeds known as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities. This may initially cause mild symptoms such as headaches, confusion or dizziness. But without constant monitoring, these conditions can become detrimental to health.

    There were three deaths believed to be linked to this brain swelling among the 853 participants who were administered the drug.

    Another concern in using the drug relates to the existing difficulties with diagnosis. To even qualify for the treatment, patients must be in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease – and already have confirmed high amyloid levels through a PET scan or lumbar puncture.

    In the UK, only 2% of dementia patients receive these gold-standard diagnoses. More than one-third of people living with dementia don’t receive a diagnosis at all.

    Improved and more accessible diagnostic methods would ensure more patients are eligible to receive the drug at the optimal time.

    But the key reason donanemab isn’t available through the NHS is its cost. The treatment is estimated to cost around £25,000 a year per patient, based on the US cost. This does not include the expense of brain scans to monitor its effects.

    Additionally, it requires monthly infusions at the hospital and careful monitoring for side-effects, which may seem excessive considering the treatment’s modest benefits.

    The future for Alzheimer’s treatments

    Nice’s decision on donanemab closely mirrors the decision they made about lecanemab in August 2024. This was the first ever Alzheimer’s slowing drug approved by the MHRA, and, like donanemab, is only available via private healthcare. The reasons both drugs were rejected by the Nice and the NHS are similar – with costs and side-effects being the main concerns.

    While people with dementia and their families may feel let down by this decision, the fact that these new therapies can slow the disease, even slightly, offers hope.

    Nice will be reassessing donanemab in 2025. There are also over 100 drugs currently in clinical trials for treating Alzheimer’s. Hopefully, one of these will prove to be as effective, if not more effective, as donanemab but with fewer side-effects and at a lower cost.

    Still, it’s a remarkable step that there are two drugs licensed in the UK for treating Alzheimer’s. Although there’s still a way to go before an NHS treatment is readily available.

    Rahul Sidhu 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. Alzheimer’s drug approved in the UK, but it won’t be available on the NHS – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-drug-approved-in-the-uk-but-it-wont-be-available-on-the-nhs-heres-why-242127

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Scabies outbreak in UK universities – what you need to know

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton

    Sarcoptes scabiei Arshindi/Shutterstock

    Scabies is an itchy skin infection that sees outbreaks across the world.

    It is caused by mites, similar to but much smaller than head lice. These mites burrow under the skin, lay eggs and reproduce, causing an immune response which generates the unpleasant itching associated with the disease.

    Outbreaks often occur in institutional settings, such as residential care homes for the elderly. In October 2024, outbreaks around UK university settings were reported in the media.

    The incubation period for scabies is typically four to six weeks. This is the time between being infected – a mite getting onto and then under the skin – and a patient showing symptoms such as the classic unpleasant itch.

    So, the cases reported in October 2024 would have been infected mid to late September, around the time of student arrival at their universities around the country.

    Given this long incubation period, it can be difficult to prevent and control outbreaks. The condition can also be difficult to diagnose because the clinical presentation on the skin can be tricky to spot – for example, between the fingers.

    Transmission is typically by prolonged skin-to-skin contact and sharing contiminated bedding, towels, clothes and soft furnishings where the mites can wait and crawl onto the next person who uses them. Guidance recommends washing bedding, clothes and towels at high temperatures to kill the mites, or if that is not possible then to seal the items inside plastic bags for three to four days.

    Stigma and under-reporting

    Data from The Royal College of General Practitioners’ report on communicable and respiratory disease in England for October 2024 indicates that the reported case numbers of scabies are higher than the seasonal average.

    These official figures are also likely to be conservative. Like many skin infections, scabies is a stigmatised disease and so under-reporting or late reporting are common.

    There is a perception that scabies is a disease “of the unwashed”. This is likely to be incorrect, with the burrowing of the scabies mites meaning they simply cannot be washed away by bathing. Also, scabies can appear in areas covered by clothes, including in the groin or on the buttocks – another reason for stigma and under-reporting. This means the data we have is likely to be much lower than the true number of cases.

    Treatment and prevention

    Treatment is usually a skin lotion called permethrin or sometimes another cream called malathion. In order to be effective, these creams have to be rubbed all over the body, not just at the site of infection.

    Ivermectin, taken orally, is also extremely effective at curing scabies and can be prescribed to control outbreaks. Public information campaigns can help with alerting the general public and describing the possible symptoms.

    The World Health Organization defines a range of diseases as Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). As the name indicates, the majority of these are mostly found in tropical countries. These include skin infections such as leprosy and mosquito-transmitted diseases such as dengue. However, scabies is unique among NTDs in being common in more temperate environments such as the UK. The mites thrive in almost all climates, and an infection does not go away unless correctly diagnosed and treated.

    In September 2023, there were scabies outbreaks and treatment shortages in the UK. It is uncertain whether there are shortages in the October 2024 outbreak. Regardless, anyone with a persistent itch or known contact with a scabies case should report this to a healthcare worker for follow up.

    While scabies does not kill many people, it is a thoroughly unpleasant infection that causes significant impact on quality of life. Awareness and early reporting can help to bring outbreaks to a rapid conclusion.

    Michael Head has previously received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Research England and the UK Department for International Development, and currently receives funding from the UK Medical Research Foundation.

    – ref. Scabies outbreak in UK universities – what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/scabies-outbreak-in-uk-universities-what-you-need-to-know-242237

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Navy Announces Latest Shore Energy Achievements During Energy Action Month

    Source: United States Navy

    National Clean Energy Action Month provides a valuable opportunity for the DON to spotlight the importance of energy as a strategic asset and catalyst for mission success. Amongst this year’s successes are advancements in enhanced energy security and shore and operational energy issues, Enhanced Use Leases (EULs) and Marine Energy Development (MED), the Energy & Water Analysis Tool (EWAT), the development of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Serial titled “Shore Energy Goals,” and youth education and outreach.

    Underlying all of these efforts is a DON strategy focused on three Cs – Climate, Communities, and Critical Infrastructure that emphasize execution of core strategies via the 3 Pillars of Energy Security – Reliability, Resiliency, and Efficiency.

    “Energy security is mission success,” said Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment Meredith Berger. “As we celebrate Energy Action Month, we reflect on the ambitious energy goals we’ve set and the great progress we’ve made throughout the year that ensure we continue to build a climate-ready force. Our Sailors and Marines rely on and respond to energy issues in their daily operations, and the DON’s persistent focus on energy security coupled with our strategic partnerships with the community enable mission success for our Naval force.”

    Increased energy security was at the forefront in October with the release of an industry request for information (RFI) to explore concepts for the development of nuclear power facilities to support increased energy security at seven Navy and Marine Corps installations in the United States. The responses are expected to enable the Department to further consider alternative carbon-free shore energy opportunities and build upon the DON’s commitment to enhance energy security as a responsible community partner.

    New focus has also been given to the intersection of shore and operational energy issues, to bridge the gap between installations and the warfighters they serve. Amongst the installation efforts being explored are pier-power assessments at naval bases to ensure ships and submarines receive resilient and quality power. Other efforts focused on the warfighter include a renewed opportunity for a Masters of Operational Energy degree at the Naval Postgraduate School that will equip graduates with the essential skills required to enhance their effectives in the modern battlespace whether on a ship, submarine, aircraft, or on land.

    Energy partnerships with States and industry benefit both the Navy and the communities we live in. Enhanced Use Leases (EULs) are one way that the DON works with our neighbors to ensure energy resilience. The Navy recently entered into two EULs that, upon completion, will provide more than 250-megawatts of renewable energy to the local utility, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO), and full-base resilience for the DON in the event of a grid outage. As part of the EULs, the Kūpono Solar site provides clean, renewable energy and battery storage to approximately 10,000 homes on O‘ahu while offsetting 50,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually. The Pu`uloa Energy site, currently in development, will provide additional renewable energy generation and battery storage, improving island-wide power reliability and contributing to the State of Hawai’i’s goal of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2045.

    In pursuit of innovative renewable energy technologies, the DON’s Marine Energy Development (MED) program explores ways to ensure marine energy – a consistent, clean, and renewable power source – remains a reliable and sustainable energy source for naval facilities and remote applications. As part of the program, the DON’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS), situated at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on O’ahu, Hawai’i, is the United States’ first and only grid-connected wave energy test site playing a vital role in advancing cutting edge wave energy technology by providing a dynamic real-world environment and supporting wave energy converter

    (WEC) developers. Another Department of Energy project, Ocean Energy, is also scheduled to be grid-connected at WETS within the year.

    In April 2024, the DON launched the Energy & Water Analysis Tool (EWAT) online dashboard that provides timely, accurate installation energy operational data, for agile and responsive energy resilience investments and operational decisions. The next phase of EWAT will include an increased cadence of data reporting, the inclusion of project pipeline impacts on future usage, and the addition of enhancements to track progress against energy and water conservation, carbon-pollution free electricity, and renewable energy goals. Together, they will improve resilience and readiness by ensuring that the Navy and Marine Corps are maximizing the resources they rely on for quality of life, training, logistics, and combat support: energy and water.

    Aligned with the Department of Navy’s Climate Action 2030 strategy and the objectives of Executive Order 14057, the Navy continues its commitment to drive energy innovation and prioritize environmental responsibility. As part of this, the DON released the fifth CSO Serial titled “Shore Energy Goals”, which builds on the DON’s commitment to enhance energy security and targets that commitment with sustainability practices and concrete actions that fortify the reliable, resilient, renewable energy Navy installations and communities need.

    A renewed focus on youth education was brought to the forefront when Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment Meredith Berger spoke with Sea Cadets and Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets at a climate and energy technology demonstration in September where she discussed the importance of climate and energy. Berger also joined DON researchers and engineers at the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square during Climate Week NYC where they showcased technologies, such as hydrogen-powered fuel cells, small unit power systems, water-conserving firefighting nozzles, atmospheric water generation, and green concrete, to educate students on the DON’s commitment to climate action and inspire them to explore careers in climate and energy focused roles.

    “Having these young Sea Cadets and NJROTC cadets – the future of our nation – learn about our climate and energy technologies was a fantastic way to kick off Climate Week in NYC,” said Berger. “They clearly understand how climate change is impacting our world and how climate readiness is mission readiness for the Navy.”

    The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment serves the Department of the Navy and the nation by enhancing combat capabilities for the warfighter through a focus on communities, critical infrastructure, and climate action. Specifically, the portfolio focuses on renewable, reliable, resilient energy sources, sustainability and construction, maintenance and sustainment of infrastructure, protecting the safety and occupational health of military and civilian personnel; environmental protection in support of mission readiness, planning and restoration ashore and afloat; and conservation of natural and cultural resources.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Lambent Executives to Co-Present with NSU Florida on Occupancy Analytics and Operational Excellence

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    BOSTON, Oct. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Executives from occupancy analytics software company Lambent are partnering with NSU Florida to highlight how businesses and higher education institutions are using occupancy analytics to maximize operational excellence.

    Lambent CEO Richard Scannell and Campus Technology Advisor/Sales Director Sue Wohlford Bork will be joined by Daniel Alfonso, Vice President of Facilities Management and Safety at NSU Florida at two different events in the next two weeks—SRAPPA (Southeast Region Association of Physical Plant Administrators) and Tradeline’s Space Strategies 2024.  

    The sessions will examine the role of occupancy analytics in revolutionizing operational excellence across real estate and facilities management, and the resulting cost reductions, adaptability improvements, and energy efficiencies. The presenters will share NSU Florida’s own experience integrating occupancy data with its Building Automation Systems (BAS) and the opportunities that created for data-driven space discussions and the improved management of hybrid workplaces. They will also discuss the transformational potential of predictive occupancy analytics in developing operational strategies, anticipating space usage trends and aligning resources to quickly adapt to those shifts.

    The session will be presented at two separate conferences:
    SRAPPA (Southeast Region Association of Physical Plant Administrators)

    • Chattanooga, TN
    • Wed. Oct. 30th  @ 2:25 PM

    Speakers:

    Sue Bork
    Campus Technology Advisor to Higher Education Institutions
    Lambent    		 Daniel Alfonso
    Vice President of Facilities Management and Safety
    NSU Florida
       

    Tradeline Space Strategies 2024

    • Scottsdale, AZ
    • Mon. Nov. 11th @ 2:20 PM and Tue.  Nov. 12th @ 1:45 PM

    Speakers: 

    Richard Scannell
    CEO
    Lambent    		 Daniel Alfonso
    Vice President of Facilities Management and Safety
    NSU Florida
       

    About Lambent
    Lambent is an occupancy analytics software company helping corporate and higher ed campuses optimize space utilization, facilities operations and real estate investments. Its SaaS platform, Lambent Spaces, leverages existing data sources such as Wi-Fi and sensors to provide anonymous and predictive analytics to inform decisions related to utilization, workplace experiences, planning, scheduling, and maintenance. The software delivers actionable intelligence so facilities professionals and space planners can make better use of the spaces they have. For more information, visit https://lambentspaces.com/.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: October 28th, 2024 Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández Welcome Over $1 Million to Break Down Barriers to Home Ownership for New Mexicans Living With HIV/AIDS

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for New Mexico Martin Heinrich

    SANTA FE, N.M. — U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), and U.S. Representative Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) welcomed $1,345,637 for the Santa Fe Housing Trust to provide more pathways to first-time home ownership to 2,050 New Mexicans living with HIV/AIDS. 

    This grant is funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Program. The HOPWA program is the only federal program dedicated to the housing needs of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families.

    During the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis, individuals surviving with HIV/AIDS faced barriers to employment and incurred expensive medical costs. This trend continues and disproportionately impact low-income individuals who are struggling to afford stable housing even before diagnosis and treatment. The financial and health vulnerabilities associated with HIV/AIDS often result in housing instability and homelessness. Research shows individuals living with HIV/AIDS who have a stable place to live have more positive health outcomes and spend less time in hospitals or emergency rooms.

    “We should be making it easier for all New Mexicans to become homeowners. Full stop,”said Heinrich. “This funding will break down barriers for individuals living with HIV/AIDS to become first-time home buyers, ensuring more folks have a safe and secure place to call home. I’ll keep fighting to increase our housing stock, bring down the cost of housing, and ensure all people in our state have a shot at achieving the dream of home ownership.”

    “No New Mexican should ever worry about whether they will have a safe place to sleep at night,” said Luján. “I’m proud to welcome more than $1.3 million in federal funding that will help allow New Mexicans living with HIV/AIDS to secure permanent, stable housing so they can focus on their health. I will continue to fight to expand housing options for all New Mexicans.”

    “Home is more than a roof you live under, it provides safety and stability,” said Leger Fernández. “As we work to tackle the home affordability crisis across the country, we must use all tools available to help. We know one of the biggest hurdles homebuyers face is saving up for a downpayment. This $1.3 million for the Santa Fe Housing Trust will provide funding for important services like down payment reduction assistance for first-time home buyers living with HIV/AIDS. I’ll continue to fight for funding that helps our communities through legislation like my Home of Your Own Act which would also help first time homebuyers with down payment assistance.”

    Background

    Heinrich, Luján, and Leger Fernández are tireless advocates for lowering housing costs, increasing housing supply, and expanding housing affordability and access for families in New Mexico.

    Through Heinrich’s role as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, particularly through his seat as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, Heinrich has worked to deliver millions of dollars to New Mexico for renters and home buyers.

    Most recently, Heinrich secured Committee support for the following investments in Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Appropriations:

    In Heinrich’s Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, he secured $1.6 billion for rental assistance, an increase of $120 million over Fiscal Year 2023. Heinrich’s 2024 Appropriations Bill also provided for a pilot program that decoupled rental assistance from Multifamily Direct Loans, preventing thousands of low-income families from losing rental assistance.

    Additionally, Heinrich secured $1,100,000 through the Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations process for Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity to develop land into a mixed-income development focused on building 25 to 30 housing units for working families. In total, Heinrich has secured $14,500,000 in Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) for northern New Mexico to address the housing shortage.

    In May, Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández, and the N.M. Congressional Delegation welcomed $11.8 million from the U.S. Department of Housing to support public housing authorities build, renovate, and modernize public housing across New Mexico.

    In February, Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández, and the N.M. Congressional Delegation welcomed more than $16 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care program to support New Mexico projects that provide housing assistance and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness.

    Luján has also been a champion of expanding access to affordable housing for all New Mexicans. Earlier this year, Luján partnered with Heinrich to push for more funding for Tribal housing programs.

    Through Luján’s work on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Luján has also fought to secure critical support for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

    Luján introduced the bipartisan Ryan White PrEP Availability Act, bipartisan legislation to increase flexibility for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program clinics, which provide care and treatment for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

    In the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Appropriations package, Luján secured $300,000 to advance the goals of his Oral Health Literacy Act and support the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.

    Heinrich and Luján have also introduced a number of bills to tackle New Mexico’s housing crisis.

    Last month, Heinrich introduced the New Homes Tax Credit Act, legislation that would provide tax credits to incentivize new investments and additional resources for single-family home construction and renovations for working families. The bill would address the lack of housing inventory for individuals and families whose incomes are up to 120 percent of the area median income (AMI), particularly including in areas where middle-income families have historically been priced out. In Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, for example, this added housing inventory would benefit families with annual incomes of up to $103,680, $109,800, and $78,960, respectively.

    At a recent roundtable conversation with local educators in Albuquerque, Heinrich announced his Educator Down Payment Assistance Act, legislation designed to help more educators and school staff in New Mexico purchase a home and keep teachers in the communities where they teach.  

    In March, Heinrich co-led the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Act, legislation to support homeownership among lower- and middle-income Americans by establishing a refundable tax credit worth up to 10 percent of a home’s purchase price – up to a maximum of $15,000 – for first-time homebuyers. 

    Heinrich also cosponsored the Housing for All Act, comprehensive legislation to expand access to affordable housing in New Mexico and supporting those experiencing homelessness. The bill would invest in proven solutions and provide a historic level of federal funding for strategic, existing programs to keep people housed and reduce homelessness, as well as for innovative, locally developed solutions to help vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness.

    Last year, Heinrich introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would help build over 14,000 new affordable homes in New Mexico over the next decade, generating over $2.5 billion in wages and business income. The legislation would support the financing of more affordable housing by expanding and strengthening the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, our country’s most successful affordable housing program.    

    Heinrich also introduced the Delivering Essential Protection, Opportunity, and Security for Tenants (DEPOSIT) Act, which would help an estimated 12,000 New Mexican families access rental housing through the Housing Choice Voucher Program to pay security deposits and get into a rental home. Luján is also a cosponsor of this bill.

    In January, as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee (JEC), Heinrich released a report highlighting policy approaches to increasing housing supply in America. Heinrich also chaired a JEC hearing on the report. His full opening statement can be found here.

    Luján introduced the bipartisan Homes for Every Local Protector, Educator, and Responder Act of 2023 or the HELPER Act of 2023, legislation that would establish a new home loan program under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to make homeownership more accessible to teachers and first responders.

    Luján also introduced the bipartisan Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, legislation that would establish a community disaster assistance fund for housing.

    Additionally, Luján introduced bipartisan legislation to expand Native American housing programs that builds on successful Native American housing programs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) authorized by the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA).

    Luján and Heinrich introduced the bipartisan Native American Rural Homeownership Improvement Act of 2021, legislation that would expand an existing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pilot program and deploy loans to eligible Native borrowers.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congressman Cohen Announces $26.2 Million in Federal Railroad Administration Grants

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09)

    MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, today announced two Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program grants from the Federal Railroad Administration totaling $26,269,987. The first, for $19,843,062, is for the conversion of eight Watco Company diesel locomotives to battery-electric, zero-emission locomotives. Watco operates the Memphis Dock Street Marine Terminal on Presidents Island. Congressman Cohen submitted a letter of support for the project. The second grant, for $6,426,925, is for Montana State University’s initiative to create multidisciplinary rail workforce capacity. The 20 percent non-federal match will come from Caltrans, the University of Memphis, Montana State University, and the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, among others. The federal funding for both grants comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Congressman Cohen alone among current members of the Tennessee Congressional delegation supported.

    Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

    “Lowering air-polluting emissions while modernizing rail operations is a forward-thinking approach to moving freight. Those operations will require a workforce of the future, trained in modern rail technologies. These grants will propel our region and the nation into a smarter and cleaner rail industry. I’m pleased to see more IIJA funding coming to the district.”

    # # #

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: You’ve heard of Asterix and Obelix, but who really were the Gauls? And why were they such a problem for Rome?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, Associate Professor of Ancient History, The University of Melbourne

    JayC75/Shutterstock

    The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely. One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.

    So begins the Asterix comic series, which positions Julius Caesar as the power-lusting dictator of the mighty Roman Empire who conquered all of Gaul. All except, of course, for one heroic village, where Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix are among the Gauls (or Gaul dogs) frustrating Rome’s hapless legions.

    Well, that’s the comic book version.

    But who really were the Gauls? And why were they such a problem for Rome?

    The Gauls are the most famous group of Celtic peoples who occupied most of the lands west of the Rhine, thus causing this area to be known in antiquity as Gaul.

    They sported long blonde or reddish dreadlocks (often washing their hair in lime-water and pulling it back to the nape of the neck), handlebar moustaches on the men, colourful shirts and striped coats. The ethnonym Galli is believed to derive from a Celtic root gal- meaning “power” or “ability”, and has been linked to the Irish word gal, meaning “bravery” or “courage”.

    Fearsome warriors

    From the fifth to third centuries BCE, the Celtic tribes of central Europe were among the continent’s most fearsome warriors.

    This 1842 illustration depicts Gaul warriors with their customary large shields, swords, long hair and distinctive helmets.
    Wattier/Marzolino/Shutterstock

    From their heartlands around what is now the Czech Republic (Bohemia derives its name from the powerful Boii Gallic tribe), they conquered the British Isles, all of France and Belgium (Gaul proper) and parts of Spain. They also conquered the fertile alluvial plains of what became known to Romans as Cisalpine Gaul, meaning “Gaul this side of the Alps”.

    The Gauls even conquered lands as far afield as in present-day Turkey. The descendants from these once mighty peoples still live in Ireland (Gaelic comes from the word Gaul), Wales and Brittany.

    The Gauls had a very warlike reputation. They produced tall and muscular warriors who often wore helmets that, according to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, sometimes had horns attached or “images of the fore-parts of birds or four-footed animals”. He also wrote that:

    The women of the Gauls are not only like the men in their great stature but they are a match for them in courage as well.

    Gauls fought with long broad-swords, barbed spears, and chariots drawn by two horses. They fastened the severed heads of their enemies about the necks of their horses.

    Possessing huge quantities of alluvial gold, Gallic nobles wore heavy necklaces (known as “torcs”) of solid gold and consumed untold amounts of imported wine, fabulously enriching Italian merchants.

    Their acts of bravery were immortalised by lyric poets called bards, and they put great stock in their shamans, called druids, who also presided over regular human sacrifices.

    In 387 BCE, Gallic raiders from Cisalpine Gaul sacked Rome. They only failed to take the Capitol because of a hostile incursion into their own homelands, forcing them to break camp and return – not before, however, exacting a crippling price in gold from the profoundly humiliated Romans.

    The Romans were so impressed with Gallic military kit they resorted to wholesale plagiarism. The iconic armour of Roman republican legionaries was largely of Celtic origin.

    The Gauls had a very warlike reputation.
    J. Photos/Shutterstock

    Rome rallies against the Gauls

    In 295 BCE, the Senones (a Gallic tribe) inhabiting the Adriatic coastline south of Cisalpine Gaul were part of an alliance soundly defeated by the Roman Republic in the battle of Sentinum.

    This represented a watershed moment on the road to Roman hegemony in the Italian peninsula.

    In 232, against the backdrop of renewed hostilities with the Cisalpine Gauls, leading Roman politician Gaius Flaminius passed legislation redistributing land won from the Senones (following their final defeat in 283) among Romans from the lower property classes.

    To ease Roman colonisation, the same Flaminius in 220 commissioned the construction of the Via Flaminia, a paved speedway from Rome all the way to Rimini, at the doorstep of Cisalpine Gaul.

    Fearing the same fate as the Senones, the Cisalpine Gauls united against Rome, aided by some Transalpine Gauls.

    By 225, this alliance became strong enough to invade peninsular Italy, ravage Tuscany, and threaten Rome itself.

    This famously triggered the Romans to muster all Roman and Italian manpower at their disposal (about 800,000 draftable men, according to ancient the historian Pliny).

    Being now superior in every respect, the Romans and their Italian allies decisively defeated the Cisalpine Gauls in 223 and 222. The Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus even managed to kill a Gallic king in single combat.

    The vanquished Cisalpine Gauls then joined the feared Carthaginian general Hannibal, who at the time posed a great risk to Rome and defeated its forces in many battles. They joined Hannibal en masse after he crossed the Alps to invade Italy in 218.

    But Hannibal failed to vanquish Rome and was later defeated. The Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul continued after Roman forces defeated Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal at the Metaurus River in 207.

    To secure their rich holdings in Cisalpine Gaul and the land corridor to their Spanish provinces, the Romans subsequently conquered first Liguria and next southern Gaul, incorporated as the Province of Transalpine Gaul. The area was so thoroughly colonised it is still known today as La Provence (“the province”).

    Caesar’s self-interested war on the Gauls

    Julius Caesar, eager to amass glory and wealth, subjugated all of Gaul in less than a decade (from 58 to 50 BCE).

    He sold this outright aggression to the Senate and people in Rome as a war waged in defence of tribes allied with Rome, a necessary pre-emptive strike of sorts.

    In addition to enslaving perhaps up to one million Gauls, Caesar proudly claimed to have killed well over another million, a staggering casualty rate considered by Pliny the Elder “a prodigious even if unavoidable wrong inflicted on the human race”.

    Julius Caesar subjugated all of Gaul in less than a decade.
    Paolo Gallo/Shutterstock

    Caesar got away with mass murder because he shamelessly played into lingering feelings of metus Gallicus, or “Gallic fear”.

    The Roman fear of Gauls was heightened by the so-called Cimbric War that took place in earlier years, when a formidable confederacy of Germanic and Gallic tribes inflicted a series of costly defeats upon Rome, threatening Italy itself.

    But Rome would triumph in the end. Under the leadership of Gaius Marius, the Romans destroyed these tribes in 102/101 BCE in Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul.

    Turned into a Roman province in final stages of this war, Cisalpine Gaul eventually became so heavily Romanised it was incorporated into Roman Italy proper in 42 BCE.

    Frederik Juliaan Vervaet receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    – ref. You’ve heard of Asterix and Obelix, but who really were the Gauls? And why were they such a problem for Rome? – https://theconversation.com/youve-heard-of-asterix-and-obelix-but-who-really-were-the-gauls-and-why-were-they-such-a-problem-for-rome-233447

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why building more big dams is a costly gamble for our future water security and the environment

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Kandulu, Research Fellow, College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University

    Climate change and biodiversity loss are mounting threats to Australia’s water security. So ee often hear calls for more dams. But is that the answer?

    Our recent research reveals large dam projects are costly gambles with public money. They often fail to deliver promised economic benefits. They also have major environmental, financial and social impacts.

    In New South Wales, some members of the Lower Lachlan River community were concerned about plans to expand Wyangala Dam. They first asked us in 2020 to investigate its full costs and benefits, with findings presented at a local workshop in 2022.

    The first WaterNSW estimate of capital and operating costs was A$620 million in 2018. Within a few years, it had soared to as much as $2.1 billion. In 2023, the project was scrapped because it wasn’t economically viable.

    Similar concerns surround other projects overseas and in Australia, including Hells Gate Dam in Queensland, and Dungowan Dam and Snowy Hydro 2.0 in NSW.

    To avoid repeating costly mistakes and mismanaging taxpayers’ money, we need a smarter approach to major water projects. This includes independent assessments and greater transparency, with business cases made public and decision-making open to scrutiny. And planning for climate change must become a priority.

    Lessons from past mistakes

    Inadequate economic assessments of big dam projects are a global problem. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and India’s Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project promised big, but had rising price tags and devastating impacts on ecosystems.

    In Australia and worldwide, big dam cost overruns can be up to 825%. The average overrun is 120%. This casts serious doubt on such projects’ financial and social viability. Public costs for private gains are a major concern.

    Our study reviewed the original business case for the Wyangala Dam expansion. The original study had concluded there would be net social benefits and gave the project the green light.

    Our review found the business case was seriously flawed. It overestimated benefits and grossly underestimated physical capital and environmental costs.

    Estimated building costs blew out by 239%. If the project had gone ahead, the costs would undoubtedly have increased.

    On top of this, assessments of impacts on rivers and wetlands were poor and superficial. They greatly undervalued the environmental effects of expanding the dam, particularly on downstream wetlands.

    On the other side of the equation, its benefits were overblown, particularly for water security and agriculture.

    Local voices believed many of their concerns had been ignored. There were deep concerns that flood-dependent farmers downstream might lose some of their livelihoods. Indigenous communities were worried about their cultural sites being destroyed.

    Our analysis provided a more rigorous assessment of benefits and costs of the Wyangala Dam expansion.

    We found total project costs were underestimated by at least 116%. The benefits were inflated by 56%. This meant the true impacts on the environment, agriculture and local communities were misrepresented.

    Rethinking Australia’s water future

    Our analysis provides a salutary lesson on why we need to rethink water security. Instead of sinking billions into dams, we should find smart and sustainable ways to manage our water.

    The fixation on building and expanding dams means innovative alternatives are often ignored. These other options include recycling water, managing demand and carefully recharging aquifers (using aquifers as underground dams).

    The National Water Grid Fund exemplifies the misguided “build more dams” mindset. Its portfolio of 61 large water projects has a total capital cost estimate of up to $10 billion.

    Despite this massive investment, only 23 of these projects have publicly available business cases. It leaves more than $1.7 billion in committed funding shrouded in secrecy.

    This lack of transparency is alarming, given the history of cost overruns and inadequate assessment of environmental damage. It points to the urgent need to reassess our approach to water security. The public has a right to know that their governments are spending wisely.

    To avoid repeating costly mistakes and mismanaging taxpayers’ money, we need a smarter approach. Independent business cases should be mandated for all major water projects.

    We also need a strong public sector capable of transparent evaluation. Promised new National Environmental Standards as part of reforms to environmental protection laws are likely to require rigorous scrutiny too. We must embrace transparency by opening decision-making to public scrutiny and diverse perspectives, including local voices and Indigenous stakeholders, from the start.

    Finally, infrastructure planning must account for long-term climate impacts on water availability. Planning for climate change is vital.

    As projects such as the proposed Wyangala Dam expansion demonstrate, Australia can no longer afford to gamble its water future on outdated, costly and environmentally destructive solutions. It’s time to end the wasteful spending.

    Instead, we need to channel our efforts into truly effective, sustainable and transparent water management. Strategies must give priority to community needs, First Nations’ water rights, environmental protection and long-term climate resilience.

    John Kandulu is a recipient of funding from various sources, such as state and Commonwealth governments, as well as non-profit organisations. His affiliations include the Centre for Social Impact at Flinders University and the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.

    Richard Kingsford receives funding from a range of organisations, including the Australian Research Council, state and Commonwealth governments, non-government organisations, including World Wide Fund for Nature and Australian Conservation Foundation. He is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and a councillor on the Biodiversity Council.

    Sarah Ann Wheeler receives funding from a range of organisations, including the Australian Research Council, state and Commonwealth governments and non-government organisations.

    – ref. Why building more big dams is a costly gamble for our future water security and the environment – https://theconversation.com/why-building-more-big-dams-is-a-costly-gamble-for-our-future-water-security-and-the-environment-239106

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: 6 reasons why people enjoy horror movies

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shane Rogers, Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University

    Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

    The creeping shadows and haunting decorations transform the everyday into something eerie at Halloween. And you might be thinking about scaring yourself with a good horror movie.

    Grotesque imagery, extreme violence, startling jump scares and menacing characters are common elements, making viewers feel fear, dread and disgust.

    We generally aim to avoid these negative emotions in our everyday lives.

    So why would some people seek them out, and enjoy them, in horror movies?

    1. Fear can be thrilling

    There is lots of overlap between the emotions of fear and excitement. In both, stress hormones are released that can produce physical symptoms such as increased heart and breathing rates, sweating and muscle tension. People also feel more alert and “on edge”.

    Research has consistently shown people with personalities that crave intense emotional experiences, including fear and excitement, tend to enjoy horror movies.

    But for more fearful people, the jump scares and violent scenes can be too intense. This can result in coping behaviours such as looking away or putting their hands over the ears, especially if they are highly immersed in the movie.

    Although, if they also happen to enjoy intense emotion, they may still enjoy the thrill of the ride.

    Movie makers work hard to get these ‘jump scares’ just right. And viewers enjoy the thrill.

    2. There’s a sense of relief

    People may enjoy horror movies because of a sense of relief after a scary moment has passed.

    Watching a horror movie can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, with distinct peaks and troughs of fear and relief over the course of the film.

    For example, in the 2017 movie It the main protagonists survive a series of scary encounters with a demonic clown. The scary moments are separated by calmer scenes, prompting a rollercoaster of emotions.

    In the classic 1975 movie Jaws, viewers experience relief from the scary moments, only to be scared again and again.

    Jaws is a rollercoaster of emotions.

    3. They satisfy our morbid curiosity

    Many horror movies feature supernatural themes and characters such as zombies, werewolves and vampires. So horror movies can help satiate a morbid curiosity.

    The violence, death, destruction and grotesque elements can provide curious people a safe space to explore things that are not safe (or socially appropriate) in the real world.

    Horror movies can help people satisfy their curiosity about death. But why are they curious in the first place?

    4. We can work out our limits

    Horror movies can reflect our deepest fears and prompt introspection about our personal thresholds of fear and disgust.

    So some people may enjoy watching them to get a better understanding of their own limits.

    Watching horror might also be a way to push personal boundaries to potentially become less fearful or grossed out by things in real life.

    In a study one of us (Coltan) conducted, horror movie fans reported less psychological distress during the early months of the COVID pandemic compared with people not identifying as a horror movie fan.

    5. They can be social

    Some people say the social aspect of watching horror movies with others is a big part of their appeal.

    Watching with others might help some people feel safer. Alternatively, this might help amplify the emotional experience by feeding off the emotions of people around them.

    Horror movies are also a common pick as a date night movie. Being scared together gives a good excuse to snuggle and take comfort in each other.

    6. They give us pleasure in other people’s misery

    Horror movies can provide the pleasurable emotion we feel when witnessing the misfortune of others, known as schadenfreude. This occurs most when we feel the person experiencing misfortune deserves it.

    In many horror movies the characters that suffer a gruesome fate are only side characters. Much of the time these unfortunate souls are made out to be unlikeable and often make foolish choices before their grisly end.

    For example, in the 1996 teen witch movie The Craft, the character Chris Hooker is portrayed as being cruel to women. Then he dies by being blasted out of a window.

    Despite the grisly nature of horror movies, a study by one of us (Coltan) found horror fans seem to have the same levels of empathy as anyone else.

    In The Craft, viewers enjoy witnessing the misfortune of others, particularly if the character is a ‘baddy’.

    What do I make of all this?

    Horror movies allow us to confront our deepest fears through the safety of make-believe.

    People enjoy them for lots of different reasons. And the precise combination of reasons differs depending on the specific movie, and the person or people watching it.

    What is certain though, is the increasing popularity of horror movies, with many to choose from.

    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. 6 reasons why people enjoy horror movies – https://theconversation.com/6-reasons-why-people-enjoy-horror-movies-241480

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flora Salim, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, inaugural Cisco Chair of Digital Transport & AI, UNSW Sydney

    Maxim Berg / Unsplash

    In 2014, the British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a book about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the ominous title Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It proved highly influential in promoting the idea that advanced AI systems – “superintelligences” more capable than humans – might one day take over the world and destroy humanity.

    A decade later, OpenAI boss Sam Altman says superintelligence may only be “a few thousand days” away. A year ago, Altman’s OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever set up a team within the company to focus on “safe superintelligence”, but he and his team have now raised a billion dollars to create a startup of their own to pursue this goal.

    What exactly are they talking about? Broadly speaking, superintelligence is anything more intelligent than humans. But unpacking what that might mean in practice can get a bit tricky.

    Different kinds of AI

    In my view the most useful way to think about different levels and kinds of intelligence in AI was developed by US computer scientist Meredith Ringel Morris and her colleagues at Google.

    Their framework lists six levels of AI performance: no AI, emerging, competent, expert, virtuoso and superhuman. It also makes an important distinction between narrow systems, which can carry out a small range of tasks, and more general systems.

    A narrow, no-AI system is something like a calculator. It carries out various mathematical tasks according to a set of explicitly programmed rules.

    There are already plenty of very successful narrow AI systems. Morris gives the Deep Blue chess program that famously defeated world champion Garry Kasparov way back in 1997 as an example of a virtuoso-level narrow AI system.

    Some narrow systems even have superhuman capabilities. One example is Alphafold, which uses machine learning to predict the structure of protein molecules, and whose creators won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year.

    What about general systems? This is software that can tackle a much wider range of tasks, including things like learning new skills.

    A general no-AI system might be something like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: it can do a wide range of things, but it does them by asking real people.

    Overall, general AI systems are far less advanced than their narrow cousins. According to Morris, the state-of-the-art language models behind chatbots such as ChatGPT are general AI – but they are so far at the “emerging” level (meaning they are “equal to or somewhat better than an unskilled human”), and yet to reach “competent” (as good as 50% of skilled adults).

    So by this reckoning, we are still some distance from general superintelligence.

    How intelligent is AI right now?

    As Morris points out, precisely determining where any given system sits would depend on having reliable tests or benchmarks.

    Depending on our benchmarks, an image-generating system such as DALL-E might be at virtuoso level (because it can produce images 99% of humans could not draw or paint), or it might be emerging (because it produces errors no human would, such as mutant hands and impossible objects).

    There is significant debate even about the capabilities of current systems. One notable 2023 paper argued GPT-4 showed “sparks of artificial general intelligence”.

    OpenAI says its latest language model, o1, can “perform complex reasoning” and “rivals the performance of human experts” on many benchmarks.

    However, a recent paper from Apple researchers found o1 and many other language models have significant trouble solving genuine mathematical reasoning problems. Their experiments show the outputs of these models seem to resemble sophisticated pattern-matching rather than true advanced reasoning. This indicates superintelligence is not as imminent as many have suggested.

    Will AI keep getting smarter?

    Some people think the rapid pace of AI progress over the past few years will continue or even accelerate. Tech companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI hardware and capabilities, so this doesn’t seem impossible.

    If this happens, we may indeed see general superintelligence within the “few thousand days” proposed by Sam Altman (that’s a decade or so in less scifi terms). Sutskever and his team mentioned a similar timeframe in their superalignment article.

    Many recent successes in AI have come from the application of a technique called “deep learning”, which, in simplistic terms, finds associative patterns in gigantic collections of data. Indeed, this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Hopfield and also the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, for their invention of Hopfield Networks and Boltzmann machine, which are the foundation for many powerful deep learning models used today.

    General systems such as ChatGPT have relied on data generated by humans, much of it in the form of text from books and websites. Improvements in their capabilities have largely come from increasing the scale of the systems and the amount of data on which they are trained.

    However, there may not be enough human-generated data to take this process much further (although efforts to use data more efficiently, generate synthetic data, and improve transfer of skills between different domains may bring improvements). Even if there were enough data, some researchers say language models such as ChatGPT are fundamentally incapable of reaching what Morris would call general competence.

    One recent paper has suggested an essential feature of superintelligence would be open-endedness, at least from a human perspective. It would need to be able to continuously generate outputs that a human observer would regard as novel and be able to learn from.

    Existing foundation models are not trained in an open-ended way, and existing open-ended systems are quite narrow. This paper also highlights how either novelty or learnability alone is not enough. A new type of open-ended foundation model is needed to achieve superintelligence.

    What are the risks?

    So what does all this mean for the risks of AI? In the short term, at least, we don’t need to worry about superintelligent AI taking over the world.

    But that’s not to say AI doesn’t present risks. Again, Morris and co have thought this through: as AI systems gain great capability, they may also gain greater autonomy. Different levels of capability and autonomy present different risks.

    For example, when AI systems have little autonomy and people use them as a kind of consultant – when we ask ChatGPT to summarise documents, say, or let the YouTube algorithm shape our viewing habits – we might face a risk of over-trusting or over-relying on them.

    In the meantime, Morris points out other risks to watch out for as AI systems become more capable, ranging from people forming parasocial relationships with AI systems to mass job displacement and society-wide ennui.

    What’s next?

    Let’s suppose we do one day have superintelligent, fully autonomous AI agents. Will we then face the risk they could concentrate power or act against human interests?

    Not necessarily. Autonomy and control can go hand in hand. A system can be highly automated, yet provide a high level of human control.

    Like many in the AI research community, I believe safe superintelligence is feasible. However, building it will be a complex and multidisciplinary task, and researchers will have to tread unbeaten paths to get there.

    Flora Salim receives funding from Australian Research Council and Cisco. She acknowledges the support from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) (CE200100005).

    – ref. What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-ai-superintelligence-could-it-destroy-humanity-and-is-it-really-almost-here-240682

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Pesticides: farming chemicals make insects sick at non-deadly doses – especially in hot weather

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology (Evolution, Behaviour and Environment), University of Sussex

    Farm workers are also at risk of serious harm from pesticide exposure. Bell Ka Pang/Shutterstock

    The various regulatory systems for approving pesticides in operation around the world are crude and flawed. This has long been clear to scientists and it is deeply worrying, as this regulation is supposed to protect people and the environment from harm.

    The EU regulatory system for pesticides is arguably the most rigorous in the world, yet it has repeatedly approved the use of pesticides that have subsequently been found to cause harm to humans or wildlife, leading to eventual bans. It often takes decades for the harm to accumulate before it is recognised.

    The history of pesticide use is littered with such examples: DDT, parathion, paraquat, chlorpyrifos, neonicotinoids, chlorothalonil and many more. Most pesticides that were once deemed safe for humans and wildlife that aren’t the target, like bees, have since been banned. This ought to tell us that the regulatory system is not working.

    A new study offers yet more evidence. Research by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory shows how pesticide tests focus on the death of an animal and ignore any important “sublethal” effects.

    If a creature, such as a honeybee, is alive 48 hours after exposure, then it is deemed that all is well, and the chemical may be approved for use. The bee may be unable to fly or navigate, or its immune system may no longer function, but that is not recorded.

    Multiple regulatory failings

    There are many other failings in UK and EU pesticide regulation.

    Regulatory tests assess the “active substance” in a pesticide, but farmers use products with lots of extra ingredients that can amplify its toxicity. Strangely, the product used by farmers is not evaluated.

    Insecticide use on a vineyard in Missouri, US.
    Damann/Shutterstock

    Tests to ascertain how deadly new pesticides are for wildlife are often done in-house by the companies seeking approval. This research is rarely made public as it is considered commercially sensitive.

    Tests focus on the short-term (often 48-hour) effects of exposure in healthy test animals, such as honeybees, predatory beetles or zebra fish. In reality, exposure may last for weeks, months or years, and its effects may be cumulative.

    Tests also focus on exposing subjects to a single pesticide, when wild organisms – and humans – are exposed to complex mixtures of pesticides, some of which act synergistically (meaning the harm they do is more than the sum of the effects of each chemical in isolation).

    In the new study, the researchers used the larvae of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) as a model species. This provided the scientists with huge numbers of test insects with which to study the lethal and sublethal effects of 1,024 different pesticides (almost all of the chemicals available to farmers worldwide, predominantly comprising insecticides, fungicides and herbicides).

    The researchers exposed these larvae to a range of concentrations of pesticides, spanning what insects are likely to encounter in cropland, and subsequently measured aspects of their behaviour, physiology, fitness and survival over time.

    Herbicides and fungicides harm insects too

    Several of this study’s findings highlight inadequacies in pesticide regulation.

    First, many non-insecticides kill insects. Farmers often avoid spraying insecticides when beneficial insects such as bees are active and instead spray late in the evening. They don’t usually worry about when they spray chemicals designed to target weeds and fungi. The new study suggests that it would be safer to assume that all pesticides can harm insects.

    Second, many non-insecticides killed few if any insects during the 16 hours for which they were exposed to them in this study, but many died in the following ten days. Clearly, only assessing short-term effects misses the total impact.

    Third, 57% of the pesticides tested affected the behaviour of insect larvae, including 382 non-insecticides, demonstrating that sublethal effects are widespread.

    Fourth, the researchers found that the effects of pesticides on insect survival were often much higher at elevated temperatures, something not examined by any regulatory system in the world.

    Exposure to a concentration of less than one part per million of the insecticide lindane, for example, killed no insects at 25°C but killed 79% of them at 29°C. This is obviously relevant to climate change, and particularly to the increasing frequency of heatwaves. We should perhaps not be surprised that organisms struggle to cope when faced with multiple sources of stress at the same time.

    Pesticide exposure heightens the threat of climate change to insects.
    Kzww/Shutterstock

    There have been attempts to introduce more rigorous regulations that include assessing the sublethal and chronic effects of pesticides. In 2013, the European Food Standards Agency published a revised protocol for safety testing of the effects of new pesticides on bees with a group of independent scientists. Eleven years on and the protocol has not been adopted due to stiff opposition from the pesticide industry, which argues that it would be more expensive to implement.

    We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. A recent study estimated that wild populations of vertebrates have declined by 73% since 1970. Insects are less thoroughly monitored, but recent reviews estimate that their populations have fallen dramatically and continue to decline at an average rate of 1-2% a year.

    There is lots of evidence that pesticides are contributing to these declines, and that the regulatory system has failed us. Ian Boyd, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs chief scientist, wrote in 2017 that pesticides passing a battery of tests in a lab or field trial are assumed to be benign even when used at industrial scales. “The effects of dosing whole landscapes with chemicals have been largely ignored by regulatory systems,” he said.

    Despite this admission by a senior government scientist, the system remains unchanged in both the UK and EU. While this remains the case, insect populations will continue to decline, with consequences for all of us.


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

    Get our award-winning weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Dave Goulson is a member of the Green Party

    – ref. Pesticides: farming chemicals make insects sick at non-deadly doses – especially in hot weather – https://theconversation.com/pesticides-farming-chemicals-make-insects-sick-at-non-deadly-doses-especially-in-hot-weather-241856

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández Welcome Over $1 Million to Break Down Barriers to Home Ownership for New Mexicans Living With HIV/AIDS

    US Senate News:

    Source: US Senator for New Mexico Ben Ray Luján

    SANTA FE, N.M. — U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), and U.S. Representative Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) welcomed $1,345,637 for the Santa Fe Housing Trust to provide more pathways to first-time home ownership to 2,050 New Mexicans living with HIV/AIDS.  

    This grant is funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Program. The HOPWA program is the only federal program dedicated to the housing needs of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. 

    During the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis, individuals surviving with HIV/AIDS faced barriers to employment and incurred expensive medical costs. This trend continues and disproportionately impact low-income individuals who are struggling to afford stable housing even before diagnosis and treatment. The financial and health vulnerabilities associated with HIV/AIDS often result in housing instability and homelessness. Research shows individuals living with HIV/AIDS who have a stable place to live have more positive health outcomes and spend less time in hospitals or emergency rooms. 

    “We should be making it easier for all New Mexicans to become homeowners. Full stop,” said Heinrich. “This funding will break down barriers for individuals living with HIV/AIDS to become first-time home buyers, ensuring more folks have a safe and secure place to call home. I’ll keep fighting to increase our housing stock, bring down the cost of housing, and ensure all people in our state have a shot at achieving the dream of home ownership.” 

    “No New Mexican should ever worry about whether they will have a safe place to sleep at night,” said Luján. “I’m proud to welcome more than $1.3 million in federal funding that will help allow New Mexicans living with HIV/AIDS to secure permanent, stable housing so they can focus on their health. I will continue to fight to expand housing options for all New Mexicans.” 

    “Home is more than a roof you live under, it provides safety and stability,” said Leger Fernández. “As we work to tackle the home affordability crisis across the country, we must use all tools available to help. We know one of the biggest hurdles homebuyers face is saving up for a downpayment. This $1.3 million for the Santa Fe Housing Trust will provide funding for important services like down payment reduction assistance for first-time home buyers living with HIV/AIDS. I’ll continue to fight for funding that helps our communities through legislation like my Home of Your Own Act which would also help first time homebuyers with down payment assistance.” 

    Background 

    Heinrich, Luján, and Leger Fernández are tireless advocates for lowering housing costs, increasing housing supply, and expanding housing affordability and access for families in New Mexico. 

    Through Heinrich’s role as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, particularly through his seat as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, Heinrich has worked to deliver millions of dollars to New Mexico for renters and home buyers. 

    Most recently, Heinrich secured Committee support for the following investments in Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Appropriations: 

    In Heinrich’s Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, he secured $1.6 billion for rental assistance, an increase of $120 million over Fiscal Year 2023. Heinrich’s 2024 Appropriations Bill also provided for a pilot program that decoupled rental assistance from Multifamily Direct Loans, preventing thousands of low-income families from losing rental assistance. 

    Additionally, Heinrich secured $1,100,000 through the Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations process for Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity to develop land into a mixed-income development focused on building 25 to 30 housing units for working families. In total, Heinrich has secured $14,500,000 in Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) for northern New Mexico to address the housing shortage. 

    In May, Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández, and the N.M. Congressional Delegation welcomed $11.8 million from the U.S. Department of Housing to support public housing authorities build, renovate, and modernize public housing across New Mexico. 

    In February, Heinrich, Luján, Leger Fernández, and the N.M. Congressional Delegation welcomed more than $16 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care program to support New Mexico projects that provide housing assistance and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness. 

    Luján has also been a champion of expanding access to affordable housing for all New Mexicans. Earlier this year, Luján partnered with Heinrich to push for more funding for Tribal housing programs. 

    Through Luján’s work on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Luján has also fought to secure critical support for individuals living with HIV/AIDS. 

    Luján introduced the bipartisan Ryan White PrEP Availability Act, bipartisan legislation to increase flexibility for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program clinics, which provide care and treatment for individuals living with HIV/AIDS. 

    In the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Appropriations package, Luján secured $300,000 to advance the goals of his Oral Health Literacy Act and support the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. 

    Heinrich and Luján have also introduced a number of bills to tackle New Mexico’s housing crisis. 

    Last month, Heinrich introduced the New Homes Tax Credit Act, legislation that would provide tax credits to incentivize new investments and additional resources for single-family home construction and renovations for working families. The bill would address the lack of housing inventory for individuals and families whose incomes are up to 120 percent of the area median income (AMI), particularly including in areas where middle-income families have historically been priced out. In Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, for example, this added housing inventory would benefit families with annual incomes of up to $103,680, $109,800, and $78,960, respectively. 

    At a recent roundtable conversation with local educators in Albuquerque, Heinrich announced his Educator Down Payment Assistance Act, legislation designed to help more educators and school staff in New Mexico purchase a home and keep teachers in the communities where they teach.   

    In March, Heinrich co-led the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Act, legislation to support homeownership among lower- and middle-income Americans by establishing a refundable tax credit worth up to 10 percent of a home’s purchase price – up to a maximum of $15,000 – for first-time homebuyers.  

    Heinrich also cosponsored the Housing for All Act, comprehensive legislation to expand access to affordable housing in New Mexico and supporting those experiencing homelessness. The bill would invest in proven solutions and provide a historic level of federal funding for strategic, existing programs to keep people housed and reduce homelessness, as well as for innovative, locally developed solutions to help vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness. 

    Last year, Heinrich introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would help build over 14,000 new affordable homes in New Mexico over the next decade, generating over $2.5 billion in wages and business income. The legislation would support the financing of more affordable housing by expanding and strengthening the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, our country’s most successful affordable housing program.     

    Heinrich also introduced the Delivering Essential Protection, Opportunity, and Security for Tenants (DEPOSIT) Act, which would help an estimated 12,000 New Mexican families access rental housing through the Housing Choice Voucher Program to pay security deposits and get into a rental home. Luján is also a cosponsor of this bill. 

    In January, as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee (JEC), Heinrich released a report highlighting policy approaches to increasing housing supply in America. Heinrich also chaired a JEC hearing on the report. His full opening statement can be found here. 

    Luján introduced the bipartisan Homes for Every Local Protector, Educator, and Responder Act of 2023 or the HELPER Act of 2023, legislation that would establish a new home loan program under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to make homeownership more accessible to teachers and first responders. 

    Luján also introduced the bipartisan Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, legislation that would establish a community disaster assistance fund for housing. 

    Additionally, Luján introduced bipartisan legislation to expand Native American housing programs that builds on successful Native American housing programs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) authorized by the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). 

    Luján and Heinrich introduced the bipartisan Native American Rural Homeownership Improvement Act of 2021, legislation that would expand an existing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pilot program and deploy loans to eligible Native borrowers.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Vandalism of Orthodox sacred religious sites in Greece – E-002046/2024

    Source: European Parliament

    14.10.2024

    Question for written answer  E-002046/2024
    to the Commission
    Rule 144
    Nikolaos Anadiotis (NI)

    In 2014, the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports issued its first report on the 3 390 cases of vandalism against religious sites in Greece[1], a trend that is rapidly rising. Indeed, cases of vandalism in 2022 quadrupled compared to 2015. What is even more striking is the spike in recorded acts of violence against the Orthodox Church and the desecration of Greek Orthodox churches. As many as 95.72 % of these attacks were targeted against the Orthodox Church, 1.74 % against Judaism, 1.18 % against Islam and less than 0.5 % against other religions.

    The acts of violence in question include vandalism, break-ins, theft, burglaries, sacrilege, grave robbing, arson and other forms of desecration.

    Given that the spike in religious intolerance was discussed during the Plenary debate on 10 October 2024, can the Commission answer the following:

    How does it plan to help Member States tackle hate crimes and acts of vandalism against places of religious worship, ensuring that the EU’s values of religious freedom and safety are respected?

    Submitted: 14.10.2024

    • [1] https://www.minedu.gov.gr/publications/docs2023/gen_gram_thrisk/%CE%88%CE%BA%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%B7%202022.pdf
    Last updated: 28 October 2024

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Where’s the harm in that? How we think about workplace hazards hampers the application of health and safety law

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Deacon, PhD Graduand, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

    Current thinking about workplace problems, mental health and the law is hindering New Zealand’s ability to prevent job-related mental harm.

    The inclusion of mental health in New Zealand’s Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) is meant to protect workers from the risk of harm arising from exposure to workplace psychosocial hazards.

    These arise from the way work is designed, managed and led, and the context in which work is carried out. They can cause psychological, social or physical harm. Common examples include long work hours, role ambiguity, emotional demands, job insecurity and bullying.

    Our research examined how the most senior company decision-makers understood their legal duties as they relate to mental health.

    Under the HSWA, these officers – including company directors and chief executives – must exercise due diligence to ensure their company is compliant with the law.

    But most of the 24 research participants, who were officers of large companies, expressed uncertainty and ambiguity about the meaning of “mental health” within the HSWA.

    The harms of work

    Exposure to psychosocial hazards is commonly reported by New Zealand workers.

    Those working in jobs such as policing, nursing and teaching, for example, report high levels of emotional demands.

    Māori and Pacific workers, workers in retail, and workers in their 30s report higher than average levels of job insecurity.

    The harm caused by exposure to these these hazards typically presents as psychological. But it has also been strongly linked to cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal disorders.

    Lack of expertise

    Managerial decisions relating to how work is designed, organised and managed influence how people experience work and the psychosocial hazards they may face.

    Psychosocial risk often stems from operational and performance decisions relating to things like intensification, staffing, production and market demands.

    In many organisations, these decisions are made in the boardroom – far removed from where the core work of the business is carried out.

    Many of the research participants felt the uncertainty about the meaning of mental health within the HSWA arose from a lack of expertise in New Zealand’s health and safety workforce, a lack of clear regulatory guidance, and the complexity of psychosocial risk.

    As one participant said:

    There’s no boundaries, there’s no playbook, there’s no formula they can follow, it’s hard and it’s complex and it’s different for each person, and there’s nobody who you can point to and go, “They’ve absolutely nailed it”.

    But our analysis also found that uncertainty and ambiguity arose from other factors.

    These included a belief that the risk of exposure was often rooted in the personal characteristics and behaviours of workers rather than in their work. There was also a focus on fixing harm rather than preventing it and the conflation of psychosocial risks with other risks.

    Unfortunately, these beliefs also limited the application of the HSWA.

    Instead of addressing work-related risk, senior managers became distracted by workers’ personal lives and focused on reactive management strategies rather than preventative ones. They adopted an approach to risk management that emphasised “risks to the organisation” rather than “risks to workers”.

    Bullying in the workplace

    These limits were most clearly evident when participants described their oversight of organisational responses to bullying and harassment.

    Many of the causes of bullying and harassment lie in the way work is organised, managed and led.

    However, in detailing their performance of due diligence, participants described ensuring such risks were managed by recounting conflict reporting and resolution systems, support for victims, and organisational policy stressing “zero tolerance” for poor workplace behaviour.

    While these responses might form part of a comprehensive approach to bullying and harassment (although in practice these could be unjust, ineffective or even counterproductive), on their own they may also be inadequate when the problem is considered under work health and safety law.

    The risk-based, preventative nature of the HSWA requires that harm is prevented through understanding, anticipating and intervening in the contributing factors within the work environment.

    Research has firmly established that bullying is more likely in organisations where there are unreasonable workloads, high job demands and job insecurity, along with laissez-faire or “hands off” management, or management strategies that relentlessly require workers do more with less.

    Consideration of these risks may be relevant in the current context of job insecurity and job cuts across the public sector which could result in increased demands on remaining workers.

    The link between hazards and harm

    Risk assessment must focus on what can, and ought to be, known about the relationship between these psychosocial hazards and potential harm. Risk management must aim to eliminate or minimise risks as far as reasonably practicable.

    Importantly, acting on risk does not require evidence of harm. Responding to harm once it has happened is contrary to the overall purpose of the HSWA.

    But addressing deeper organisational factors is much more difficult and uncomfortable for those in charge.

    Preventing bullying and harassment requires considering how decisions about the design, organisation and management of work may contribute to the risk of harm.

    Prevention can therefore explicitly question the decisions and practices of company directors, executives and managers – not traditionally considered within the remit of work health and safety.

    As a result, bullying and harassment tend to be framed as an interpersonal problem between workers and their managers. This is less challenging than bringing the decisions relating to the management and governance of a company into question.

    The preventative focus is then placed on correcting and improving behaviour rather than managing or changing the conditions of work which give rise to bullying and harassment.

    Louise Deacon received a grant from Health and Safety Association of New Zealand and a Massey University Doctoral Scholarship for this research.

    Bevan Catley has recieved funding in the past from The Health Research Council of New Zealand and WorkSafe New Zealand concerning work-related psychosocial risks.

    David Tappin has received research funding in the past from The Health Research Council of New Zealand and WorkSafe New Zealand concerning work-related psychosocial risks.

    – ref. Where’s the harm in that? How we think about workplace hazards hampers the application of health and safety law – https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-harm-in-that-how-we-think-about-workplace-hazards-hampers-the-application-of-health-and-safety-law-240794

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘Sexual precarity’: how insecure work puts migrants at risk of being sexually harassed, assaulted or trafficked

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Boucher, Associate Professor in Public Policy and Political Science, University of Sydney

    wiratho/Shutterstock

    Some of the ways migrants are exploited in the workforce get a lot of public attention. We hear tragic stories about wage theft, forced unpaid overtime, unsafe work conditions or discrimination. And we are likely to hear more such grim stories revealed at a NSW parliamentary inquiry that will examine modern slavery in Australia.

    These vulnerabilities all relate to what researchers call workplace precarity – insecurity or uncertainty at work. But too often, a major piece of this picture gets overlooked.

    My recent analysis of more than 900 court cases brought by migrant workers shines a light on migrants being sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or trafficked for sexual reasons in their workplaces.

    Yet, with the exception of a recent landmark research report on sexual harassment experienced by migrant women, this issue has not received the attention it deserves.

    The taboo nature of sexual crimes likely plays a role in this neglect. When it is covered, there is often a somewhat sensationalist focus by the media on the sex work industry.

    In the process, we may overfocus on sex work and neglect many other workplaces in which migrant workers can face forms of sexual violence. Any reckoning with workplace precarity more broadly cannot afford to ignore the risk of sexual exploitation.



    Read more:
    Migrant workers have long been too scared to report employer misconduct. A new visa could change this

    What is ‘precarity’?

    Workplace “precarity” – insecurity or uncertainty at work – can affect us all.

    It can encompass a wide range of aspects, including a lack of workplace protections, job insecurity and social or economic instability at work.

    Visa status, a lack of knowledge of local laws and language barriers can all make migrants more vulnerable to workplace precarity.

    Unscrupulous employers may exploit these known vulnerabilities to extract favours and take advantage.

    Many theories of economic precarity do not consider sexual risk at all.

    Migrants can face unique vulnerabilities in the workforce.
    Chiarascura/Shutterstock

    What my research uncovered

    My research, drawn from more than 900 court cases brought by migrant workers, uncovered some harrowing examples.

    In one case in Canada, an employer sexually harassed and in one case raped two migrant women who worked in his business as fish filleters. One of the women felt she had to comply with demands for fellatio to avoid deportation back to Mexico.

    Following a ruling, the women were awarded damages under Ontario human rights law.

    In another highly publicised case in Australia, a farmer was found guilty of raping a young British backpacker, threatening refusal to sign off on her farm work if she did not comply.

    Such a “sign off” is required for a working holiday maker to be able to extend their visa for an additional year.

    Sex slavery

    A further case concerned sex slavery. Two Thai women entered Australia fraudulently on tourist visas with the intention of undertaking sex work. The sex work began, with their consent.

    However, they came to be subjected to work that went beyond what had been contracted in terms of the number of clients, the nature of sexual services provided, frequency and rest periods.

    One woman suffered damage to her sexual organs. They also had their mobile phones removed. After several legal appeals, this behaviour was found to amount to sex trafficking and the defendant employer was imprisoned.

    An attempt to overturn the conviction was refused.

    Recent research by the NSW Anti Slavery Commissioner’s Office with migrant workers on NSW farms also suggests allegations of sexual violence could be unreported due to a perceived risk of retaliation.

    Interwoven risks

    These cases, and many others, all demonstrate that economic and sexual exploitation can commingle for migrant workers.

    In such cases, employers may use economic and visa vulnerability to extract sexual favours. At times in these cases, there are also egregious examples of underpayment or even non-payment.

    To capture this relationship in migration systems, I developed the term sexual precarity. This has five core components:

    1. restrictive visa conditions
    2. debt bondage
    3. live-in arrangements that heighten exposure to employers during non-working hours
    4. entrapment and slavery
    5. the combination of sexual violence with economic exploitation or other forms of physical injury.

    What needs to be done?

    First, as with broader migrant worker rights, education campaigns for migrants are required.

    These would extend beyond making them better informed about their rights on economic exploitation to issues of discrimination and protection from sexual exploitation.

    Second, practical safeguards can be put in place to protect migrant women in isolated workplaces.

    This might include female-only sleeping dorms, female-only agriculture workforces, support person rules for meetings with male employers and general advice on sexual consent laws for both employers and employees.

    Third, policymakers could consider whether sexual offences that are accompanied by a visa threat should suffer additional penalties under criminal or immigration law.

    This has already been made the case with recent changes to visa sponsorship where employers who coerce migrants into breaching their visa conditions are subjected to certain penalties.

    Anna Boucher received funding from the Australian Research Council and the University of Sydney that funded this prior research. She is Vice President (Independent) on the Australian Institute of Employment Rights. 2023-4 she was on the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Advisory Panel.

    – ref. ‘Sexual precarity’: how insecure work puts migrants at risk of being sexually harassed, assaulted or trafficked – https://theconversation.com/sexual-precarity-how-insecure-work-puts-migrants-at-risk-of-being-sexually-harassed-assaulted-or-trafficked-238880

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Is Donald Trump a fascist? No – he’s a new brand of authoritarian

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff M Boucher, Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Deakin University

    Is Donald Trump a fascist? General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, thinks so. Trump is “fascist to the core,” he warns.

    John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, agrees. So does Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in this year’s presidential election.

    But political commentators who have a grounding in history are not so sure. Writing in The Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal calls Trump “Hitlerian” and his rallies “Naziesque”, but stops short of calling him a fascist.

    Michael Tomasky of The New Republic understands the reservations, but he is tired spending time debating the difference between “fascistic” and just plain “fascist”. “He’s damn close enough,” Tomasky writes, “and we’d better fight”.

    I understand this logic. It’s the reason Harris uses the term “fascist” to describe Trump – to send “a 911 call to the American people”. But there’s a problem.

    I have spent the past six years researching right-wing, authoritarian political communication in America. I can say with confidence how these kinds of labels can misfire. They can very easily be made to look like liberal hysteria, playing straight into the hands of the far right.

    Here are the two reasons why it is crucial to call Trump exactly what he is.

    1. Calling Trump a fascist, and then instantly adding, “or close enough,” plays directly into the hands of the far right. “See?” they might say. “Anytime anyone steps outside the liberal consensus, they get labelled a fascist. This is how political correctness silences dissent.”

    2. Trump’s kind of authoritarianism thrives on ambiguity about what sort of right-wing populist figure he is. Its success depends on the fact that “fascist” is the only name we have right now for authoritarian politics.

    In my view, Trump is not a fascist. Rather, he is part of a “new authoritarianism” that subverts democracy from within and solidifies power through administrative, rather than paramilitary, means.

    Why the ‘fascism’ label is unhelpful

    This brand of new authoritarianism hides in plain sight because there is no name for it yet. It looks like something else – for example, right-wing populism that is anti-liberal, but not yet anti-democratic. And then suddenly, it shows itself as anti-democratic extremism, as Trump did in refusing to accept the 2020 election result and encouraging the storming of the Capitol.

    This moment starkly revealed Trump as a new authoritarian. Supplementary debate about whether Trump is like Adolf Hitler risks being pointless. But the problem is that fascism is the only name we have now for anti-democratic extremism.

    All fascists are authoritarians. But not all authoritarians are fascists. It’s crucial to understand there are other types of authoritarianism – and how they differ.

    This is not just important for preventing Trump from seeking to subvert American democracy. It is also vital for stopping Trump imitators, who will now spring forth in other democracies. If there is still no name for what they are other than “fascist,” then they, too, will thrive on ambiguity.

    What is ‘new authoritarianism’?

    I suggest we focus on what Trump actually is – an anti-democratic, “new authoritarian” – and understand what this means and how he is gaining wider support using right-wing populism.

    The new authoritarians don’t necessarily take a sledgehammer to a nation’s institutions, for example, by doing away with elections. Rather, they hollow out democracy from within, so it becomes a façade draped over a one-party state.

    We have many examples of this kind of ruler today: Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko, Tunisia’s Kais Saied and, of course, the poster-figure for the new authoritarians, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

    Trump’s admiration for Putin is a matter of public record. For alt-right thinkers who are influential with Trump, such as Steve Bannon, Putin provides a blueprint for how new authoritarianism works.

    Authoritarians like Putin must govern through the state, not the people, because, as social psychologist Bob Altemeyer explains, they ultimately represent a tiny minority of the population.

    Military dictatorships rule through the armed forces. The fascist regimes of 20th century Europe were ultimately police states. They relied on converting paramilitary death squads into secret police (like the Gestapo) and state security (the SS in Nazi Germany).

    The new authoritarians, however, govern through the transformation of the civil service into their own personal political machines.

    That is why Trump is obsessed with the “deep state”, by which he means the way in which democratic institutions have built-in legal safeguards defended by civil servants, who can potentially frustrate executive orders. The new authoritarian strategy is to appoint a stratum of political loyalists to key positions in their administrations, who can circumvent institutional checks. But that is no easy matter.

    If Trump is elected, he has vowed to “crush the deep state”, for example, by purging thousands of nonpolitical civil service employees. As part of this, he has pledged to establish a “truth and reconciliation commission” oriented to punishing those he thinks opposed him the past.

    Trump has been following this new authoritarian playbook for nearly his entire political career. These are the three steps he is taking to lay the groundwork for authoritarian rule:

    1) Undermine electoral integrity

    The first key to new authoritarianism: subvert democracy by undermining electoral integrity. The acid test here? Authoritarians do not accept election results when the opposition has won. As Trump has very bluntly put it, “I am a very proud election denier”.

    Trump’s opening move in this regard was to take over the Republican Party. He used election denialism to do this, while also marginalising any moderates who opposed him.

    The Trump Republican Party is now a minority party, oriented to white grievance, resentment of immigrants and the anti-democratic idea that a country should be run like a company.

    Its only hope for winning government as a minority party is by trying to suppress the vote of its opponents. To do this, pro-Trump Republican states have passed a number of laws since 2020 to make voting more difficult.

    These states have also aggressively removed people from the voting rolls. Texas alone has stricken one million voters off its rolls since 2021, only 6,500 of whom were deemed non-citizens.

    If Trump wins, he will likely make it even harder for people to vote. Civil rights groups fear he may introduce a citizenship question to the census, use the Department of Justice to conduct a massive purge of voter rolls, and launch criminal investigations of electoral officials.

    As a backup, Trump will likely resurrect the “election integrity commission” he established in 2017 to justify his claims of alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election and support his election denialism narrative.

    2) Weaken the legislative and judicial branches

    The second key to new authoritarianism: circumventing the checks-and-balances function of the legislative branch of government. The goal here is to rule by executive fiat or govern through a stacked legislative majority.

    The new authoritarians often govern through executive orders, including the use of emergency powers. For instance, Trump has envisaged a scenario in which a Republican Congress could enact emergency powers to empower the president to overturn the authority of state governors to fire their prosecutors and use the National Guard for law enforcement.

    Such a development would depend on a number of factors, including the complicity of the judiciary. This is why new authoritarians also attempt to stack the judiciary with loyalists.

    In his first term, Trump not only appointed three Supreme Court justices, he also placed judges to the federal appeals courts, district courts and circuit courts.

    3) Attack their enemies

    This leads to the third pillar of new authoritarianism: decapitating the political opposition and suppressing dissent.

    Trump’s threats to investigate and prosecute his enemies, including leading figures in the Democratic Party, should be taken very seriously. His calls to target the “enemy from within” were pointedly directed at what he deemed “radical left lunatics”.

    Journalists and the news media would also likely be targeted. Trump’s statement that the broadcast licenses of national networks should be revoked, for example, needs to be understood in the context of his pledges to dismantle federal regulatory agencies if elected.

    That matters, because the next step for new authoritarians to solidify their power is through suppressing dissent. Trump has proposed using the military in civil contexts to target criminals and prevent illegal immigration. He has reportedly even questioned why the military couldn’t “just shoot” protesters.

    It is important to understand how this differs from fascism, because it is central to Trump’s ability to retain electoral support.

    Classical fascism under dictators like Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini was based on street-fighting, paramilitary movements, which used violence to intimidate and crush the opposition. The equivalents of this today are right-wing militias such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

    Trump keeps one foot on the edge of this camp. But alt-right figures like Bannon understand that swastika flags and paramilitary uniforms are a political liability. Their preference is for new authoritarianism, which is able to push
    a right-wing extremist agenda by reducing democracy to sham elections, rather than openly setting up a totalitarian regime.

    As such, Trump can dodge accusations of being a “fascist” by telling the Proud Boys to “stand by”, while throwing up a smokescreen of equivocations about the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He can distance himself from kind of paramilitary violence that is reminiscent of classical fascism.

    It is about time to call things by their true names. Trump has the anti-democratic tendencies of a new authoritarian – and, as his opponents point out, he seems likely to put his words into actions if elected a second time.

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

    – ref. Is Donald Trump a fascist? No – he’s a new brand of authoritarian – https://theconversation.com/is-donald-trump-a-fascist-no-hes-a-new-brand-of-authoritarian-241586

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What to do if your vote is challenged: Practical advice from a civil rights attorney for Election Day

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Karen Figueroa-Clewett, Lecturer, Agents of Change program, Department of Political Science and International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

    Stickers on a table on the first day of Virginia’s in-person early voting, Sept. 20, 2024, in Arlington. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    With the general election drawing close, it’s important to know your rights in case your vote is challenged.

    The best way to ensure that your vote is counted is to advocate for yourself. I’m a civil rights attorney and lecturer for the University of Southern California’s undergraduate civil rights advocacy initiative, Agents of Change. Here are several straightforward ways to ensure your vote is counted and two practical remedies for you to consider if your vote remains challenged.

    A major part of ensuring that you are able to vote is doing the necessary preparation before you even get to the polling place. Read on to find out how and where to register, where and when you can cast your ballot, and what numbers to call for any information you can’t find online.

    Are you registered to vote? Check it out

    Before you vote, you need to ensure that you’re registered to vote. You can verify your registration status using this tool. If you can’t use an online tool, then call your local election office or a voter help line like the ones listed in the hotline section below.

    If you find you’re not registered, you can use this tool from the National Conference of State Legislatures to find your state’s online registration application. If you need to do this in person, then call your local election office for instructions.

    At this point, you may have missed your state’s deadline for voter registration. But it may not be too late to register.

    Many states allow same-day registration at the polling site. You can find your state’s same-day voter laws detailed here. Ask the poll worker, at the correct polling location, for a same-day registration form; complete the form and then ask for a “conditional ballot.” A conditional ballot allows election officials to count your vote after verifying your voter eligibility. If you can’t research online, you can call your local election office to find out if you can register on Election Day.

    Marchellos Scott, right, helps Morehouse College students fill out a voter registration form at a college registration booth on Aug. 19, 2024, in Atlanta.
    Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty Images

    Gather documents to verify your identity

    If you live in a state that requires identity verification to vote in person, gather the required documents – which may range from a driver’s license to bank statements with identifying information – before traveling to the correct polling place. You can find your county election office’s contact information here. This webpage includes a table listing each state’s acceptable ID documents and possible exceptions for some people. You may also call your local election office to find out what’s required.

    Absentee voters: Locate your state’s identity verification rules here.

    Find the correct polling location

    You can ensure that you’re headed to the right polling place with this tool. Or call your county election office to find your polling place and its hours of operation; you can look up your county’s election office contact information here.

    Once you know your polling place and its hours, you can go there and check in. In most cases, you’ll be handed a ballot, shown where to vote and asked to put your ballot in a machine or a box, and then you can go merrily along your way.

    But the moment of check-in is where things might go wrong.

    Problems at your polling place

    Here are potential vote challenges and ways to overcome them.

    Possibility No. 1: Out-of-order polling machines.

    If you’re asked to leave because of malfunctioning machines, don’t. Instead, ask for a paper ballot.

    Possibility No. 2: You’re in line and officials announce the polls have closed.

    If you’re in line at the polling location before it closes, don’t let them turn you away at closing time if you haven’t voted. You have the legal right to vote under those circumstances, so stay in line and wait to cast your ballot.

    Possibility No. 3: You’re not on the registered voters list.

    If you’re told you can’t vote because your name is not on the voter roster, ask the poll site worker to check again and to check what’s called the list of supplemental voters. If they still can’t find your name, ask the poll worker to verify that you’re at the right location.

    Poll workers want you to vote. But sometimes there are problems.
    Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

    Possibility No. 4: Someone claims you shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

    If your voting eligibility remains challenged after ensuring you’re at the right polling location, ask to cast a provisional ballot, which is available in every state except Idaho and Minnesota. You can find details about your particular state’s provisional ballot rules here.

    Track your provisional ballot here.

    Call a hotline

    If you are not given a provisional ballot, call an election hotline for help. Here are four hotlines, run by members of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, that can help you:

    English: 866-OUR-VOTE/866-687-8683, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

    Spanish: 888-VE-Y-VOTA/888-839-8682, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund

    Asian Languages: 888-API-VOTE/888-274-8683, Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote

    Arabic: 844-YALLA-US/844-925-5287, Arab American Institute

    Report voter intimidation

    If someone tries to scare you into voting or not voting for a candidate, stand your ground and demand a ballot from the poll site, call one of the hotlines above to report the intimidation, and file a claim with the FBI later by phone at 800-CALL-FBI – 800-225-5324 – or online at tips.fbi.gov.

    File a lawsuit

    If you are still blocked from voting, consider legal action – but get advice on your exact situation from one of the hotlines, which have free lawyers on hand. It’s a good idea to write down the names of people who prevented you from voting and to ask people who witnessed the incident for their contact information.

    Leer in español

    This is an updated version of a story that was originally published on Nov. 2, 2022.

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

    – ref. What to do if your vote is challenged: Practical advice from a civil rights attorney for Election Day – https://theconversation.com/what-to-do-if-your-vote-is-challenged-practical-advice-from-a-civil-rights-attorney-for-election-day-239066

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: CGST Faridabad Commissionerate, CBIC, installs solar light in Village Athletics Stadium at Ratta Kalan, Mahendergarh, Haryana, as part of Special Campaign 4

    Source: Government of India

    CGST Faridabad Commissionerate, CBIC, installs solar light in Village Athletics Stadium at Ratta Kalan, Mahendergarh, Haryana, as part of Special Campaign 4

    Sensor based solar lights will enable athletes to practice beyond the light of the day with battery backup upto 16 hours

    CGST Faridabad Commissionerate also renovated girl’s toilet, installed a water cooler with RO facility and ceiling fans, and provided daris (rugs) for students at Government Senior Secondary School, Ratta Kalan under the Swachhta Hi Sewa campaign

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 8:28PM by PIB Delhi

    The CGST Faridabad Commissionerate under CGST & CX Panchkula Zone, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) with a focus on Citizen Centric initiatives under Special Campaign 4.0 has installed ten solar lights in an athletics stadium at Village Athletics Stadium, Ratta Kalan, Mahendergarh, Haryana.

    The newly-installed sensor-based solar lights at the Village Athletics Stadium, Rattan Kalan

     

    The project is funded out of Swachhta Funds provided to the Commissionerate. The sensor-based solar lights lit up only in dark to save energy and provide 16 hours back up. The illumination from solar lights would facilitate late evening/night practice by the athletes. The project is made possible with convergence of Swachh Bharat, Khelo India and Prime Minister’s vision of promoting Saur Urja.

    The project was virtually inaugurated by Shri Manoj Kumar Shrivastava, Chief Commissioner CGST & CX Panchkula Zone, in presence of Shri Reyaz Ahmad, Commissioner CGST, Faridabad, and senior officers of the Commissionerate. The sarpanch of the village Smt. Rajni Devi, Shri Mehtab Singh, Nambardar and other Panchayat members were also present during the inauguration.

    The CGST Faridabad Commissionerate team with members of Panchayat and other stakeholders at the Government Senior Secondary School

    In his virtual address on the occasion, Shri Shrivastava commended the efforts of CGST Faridabad Commissionerate and also appreciated the Panchayat and stakeholders for support provided to make this project possible.

     

     

    Also, in order to create healthy environment conducive for education, CGST Faridabad Commissionerate renovated girl’s toilet, installed a water cooler with RO facility and ceiling fans, and provision of daris (rugs) for students at Government Senior Secondary School, Ratta Kalan, under the Swachhta Hi Sewa campaign.

    Newly-installed water cooler (left) and renovated girl’s toilet (right) at Government Senior Secondary School, Rattan Kalan

     

    ****

    NB/KMN

    (Release ID: 2069017) Visitor Counter : 42

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi lays foundation stone and inaugurates various development projects worth over Rs 4,900 crore in Amreli, Gujarat

    Source: Government of India

    Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi lays foundation stone and inaugurates various development projects worth over Rs 4,900 crore in Amreli, Gujarat

    These projects will significantly improve the ease of living for the people and accelerate the region’s growth : PM

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 7:45PM by PIB Delhi

    The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone and inaugurated various development projects worth over Rs 4,900 crores in Amreli, Gujarat today. Today’s development projects comprise rail, road, water development and tourism sectors. They will benefit the citizens of Amreli, Jamnagar, Morbi, Devbhoomi Dwarka, Junagadh, Porbandar, Kachchh and Botad districts of the state.

    Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister highlighted the festive spirit of Dhanteras and Diwali noting that while these festivals celebrate culture, the ongoing progress in development is equally significant. He shared updates on several major projects across Gujarat mentioning his visit to Vadodara where he inaugurated India’s first factory dedicated to manufacturing Made in India aircraft for the Indian Air Force. The Prime Minister mentioned inaugurating Bharat Mata Sarovar in Amreli earlier today and said that several large projects related to water, roads and railways have been inaugurated and the foundation laid here. He said that these projects would ease the lives of people in Saurashtra and Kutch, accelerate regional development, enrich local farmers and create new employment opportunities for the youth. He congratulated everyone on the development projects of today.

    Remarking that the land of Amreli in Saurashtra had given many gems to India, the Prime Minister said that Amreli has a glorious past in every way, historically, culturally, literary- related and politically. He added that Amreli is the karmabhoomi of Shri Yogiji Maharaj and Bhoja Bhagat as well as folk singer and poet Dulabhayya Kag, poets like Kalapi, world-famous magician, K Lal and the leader of modern poetry, Ramesh Parekh. He further added that Amreli has also given Gujarat its first Chief Minister, Shri Jivraj Mehta ji. Shri Modi noted that the children of Amreli have also earned a big name in the business world with huge contributions to the society. He added that this tradition has been strengthened by the Dholkaiya Family, which was associated with the 80/20 schemes related to water conservation of the Gujarat government. The Prime Minister also noted that the changes were evident due to the continuous efforts in the last two and a half decades.

    The Prime Minister emphasized the importance of water, particularly for the people of Gujarat and Saurashtra who have long faced water-related challenges. He reflected on the past when Saurashtra was known for migration due to water scarcity and said, “Today, the situation has transformed. Now, Narmada water reaches villages” as he lauded government initiatives like Jalsanchay and the Sauni scheme that have significantly raised groundwater levels. He said that the issue of floods can be mitigated and rainwater can also be stored effectively with river deepening and the construction of check dams. He further added that issues related to drinking water in surrounding areas would also be addressed benefitting millions of people.

    The Prime Minister highlighted Gujarat’s remarkable progress over the past two decades in ensuring water reaches every household and farm, setting an example for the entire nation. He said that the state’s continuous efforts to provide water to every corner are ongoing and today’s projects will further benefit millions of people in the region. Shri Modi informed that the Navda-Chavand Bulk Pipeline project would benefit nearly 1,300 villages and over 35 cities impacting districts like Amreli, Botad, Junagadh, Rajkot, and Porbandar.  He said that the initiative would supply an additional 30 crore liters of water every day to these regions. Referring to the foundation stone laying for the second phase of the Pasvi Group Saurashtra Regional Water Supply Scheme, the Prime Minister said that it would address the needs of Talaja, Mahuva, and Palitana talukas. “Once completed, around 100 villages will directly benefit from this project”, he informed.

    The Prime Minister said that the water projects of today exemplify the collaborative power of government and society with public participation at the core. He highlighted the success of linking India’s 75th year of independence with water conservation initiatives through the creation of at least 75 Amrit Sarovars in each district. Shri Modi expressed happiness over 60,000 Amrit Sarovars constructed across villages leaving behind a legacy for future generations. He praised the Catch the Rain campaign, which is gaining momentum under the leadership of Shri C R Patil. The Prime Minister informed that the campaign is making significant strides in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar with thousands of recharge wells being constructed through community participation. Shri Modi also acknowledged the enthusiasm of people coming forward to build recharge wells in their ancestral villages, stressing how the initiative ensures local water retention in villages and fields. He noted the commencement of hundreds of projects today, aimed at promoting agriculture and livestock through water conservation.

    The Prime Minister underscored that now due to the availability of more water, farming had become easier and with the water of Narmada, three-season farming was now possible in Amreli. “Today, Amreli district has emerged as a leader in the field of farming”, exclaimed the PM. He noted that cultivation of crops like cotton, groundnut, sesame and millet was getting a boost and Amreli’s pride, Kesar mango, had received a GI tag. He added that GI tag status meant Amreli’s identity was associated with Kesar mango, wherever it was sold in the world. The Prime Minister also emphasized that Amreli was rapidly emerging as a major center of natural farming and the country’s first Natural Farming University was being built in Halol. He added that under this university, Amreli had got Gujarat’s first Natural Farming College. Shri Modi said that the effort was to ensure more and more farmers can engage in animal husbandry and also be benefitted from natural farming. Highlighting that Amreli’s dairy industry has grown tremendously in recent years, Shri Modi said it was possible only due to the joint efforts of the government and cooperatives. Reminiscing the inception of Amar Dairy in 2007 when government committees of 25 villages were associated with it, Shri Modi said “Today more than 700 cooperative societies were associated with Amar Dairy and about 1.25 lakh liters of milk was being collected every day”.

    Touching upon Amreli’s rise to fame in the sweet revolution, Shri Modi said honey production had given the farmers an additional source of income. He noted that hundreds of farmers of Amreli had started businesses related to honey after being trained in beekeeping.

    Speaking about the PM Surya Garh Yojana to eliminate electricity bills and generate income from electricity ensuring an annual savings of ₹25,000 to ₹30,000 for each family, the Prime Minister informed that approximately 200,000 solar panels have been installed on rooftops across Gujarat in just a few months since its implementation. He highlighted that Amreli district is rapidly advancing in solar energy exemplified by Dudhala village, where hundreds of households have solar panels installed. As a result, the Prime Minister said, the village is saving around Rs 75,000 per month in electricity bills with each home benefiting from an annual saving of ₹4,000. “Dudhala is quickly becoming Amreli’s first solar village”, he added.

    Noting that Saurashtra is a significant hub for tourism hosting numerous sacred sites and places of faith, the Prime Minister emphasized the importance of Sardar Sarovar Dam as a major tourist attraction. He informed that over 50 lakh visitors came to see the world’s tallest statue of Sardar Patel last year. He spoke about visiting the site in two days for Sardar Saheb’s Jayanti and witnessing the Rashtriya Ekta Parade.

    The Prime Minister emphasized that Kerly Recharge Reservoir would become a major centre of eco-tourism in the times to come and Adventure tourism will get a big boost. He further added that it would also give a new identity to Kerly Bird Sanctuary in the world.

    Highlighting the long coastline of Gujarat, Shri Modi remarked that the development along with preservation of  heritage was the priority of the Government. Therefore, he added, that the centuries-old heritage related to fisheries and ports was being revived. The Prime Minister noted the approval of the construction of the National Maritime Heritage Complex in Lothal by the Government and said that the move would introduce and inspire the country and the world to India’s glorious maritime heritage.

    “Our endeavor is that the blue water of the ocean should give impetus to the blue revolution”, stated Shri Modi. He added that Port-led development should strengthen the resolve of a developed India. The Prime Minister informed that better infrastructure was being expanded for fishermen in Jafrabad, Shiyalbet; while the modernisation of the Pipavav port in Amreli had created new employment opportunities for thousands of people today along with the capacity to handle more than 10 lakh containers and thousands of vehicles. Shri Modi emphasized the Government’s endeavor to modernize the connectivity of Pipavav port and every such port in Gujarat with other parts of the country.

    The Prime Minister reiterated that infrastructure such as pucca homes for the poor, electricity, roads, railways, airports and gas pipelines is essential for building a Viksit Bharat. He affirmed that the government in its third term is working swiftly on infrastructure development. He highlighted that the benefits of improved infrastructure connectivity in Saurashtra have significantly boosted industrial growth. “Launch of the ro-ro ferry service has simplified connectivity between Saurashtra and Surat with over 7 lakh people benefiting from it in recent years. More than 1 lakh cars and over 75,000 trucks and buses have been transported, saving both time and money”, he added.

    The Prime Minister also mentioned the rapid progress in constructing the economic corridor from Jamnagar to Amritsar-Bhatinda, stating, “This project will benefit all states from Gujarat to Punjab. Today’s inaugurations and foundation-laying of road projects will improve connectivity for major industrial centers like Jamnagar and Morbi, enhancing access to cement factories as well as facilitating easier pilgrimages to Somnath and Dwarka.” He further added that the expansion of railway connectivity in Kutch will further strengthen tourism and industrialization in Saurashtra and Kutch.

    “As India is developing rapidly, India’s pride in the world is also increasing continuously”, said the Prime Minister. He added that today the world was looking at India with a new perspective and recognizing India’s potential and listening to India seriously. Noting that everyone was discussing India’s possibilities these days, Shri Modi emphasized that Gujarat had a huge role in it. He remarked that Gujarat had shown the world about the potential India has in every city and village. Mentioning his recent visit to the BRICS conference in Russia, Shri Modi emphasized that everyone wanted to connect and invest in India. The Prime Minister also mentioned the recent visit of the Chancellor of Germany and the signing of many agreements with him. He added that Germany had now increased the annual visa quota to 90 thousand as against the current 20 thousand which would benefit the Indian youth. Shri Modi also highlighted today’s visit of the President of Spain to Gujarat and the huge investment of Spain in the form of a transport aircraft manufacturing factory in Vadodara. He added that it would give a boost to thousands of small and micro industries in Gujarat along with the development of a complete ecosystem for aircraft manufacturing leading to creation of lakhs of new employment opportunities.

    Concluding the address, the Prime Minister said, “When I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, I used to say that the country develops through the development of Gujarat. A Viksit Gujarat will strengthen the path to a Viksit India”, as he congratulated everyone for the development projects of today.

    Governor of Gujarat, Shri Acharya Devvrat, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Bhupendra Patel, Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri C R Patil and Member of Parliament, Shri Parshottam Rupala were present on the occasion among others.

     

    Background

    The Prime Minister inaugurated the Bharat Mata Sarovar in Dudhala, Amreli. This project was developed through a collaboration between the Government of Gujarat and the Dholkaiya Foundation under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. Dholkaiya Foundation improved a check dam, which originally, the dam could hold 4.5 crore litres of water but after deepening, widening, and reinforcing it, the capacity has increased to 24.5 crore litres. This improvement has raised water levels in nearby wells and bores which will help local villages and farmers by providing better irrigation.

    Further, the Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of projects worth around Rs 4,900 Crore at Amreli, Gujarat. These projects will benefit the citizens of Amreli, Jamnagar, Morbi, Devbhoomi Dwarka, Junagadh, Porbandar, Kachchh, and Botad districts of the state.

    The Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for various road projects worth more than Rs 2,800 crores. The projects include four-laning of various sections of NH 151, NH 151A and NH 51 and the Junagadh bypass. The foundation stone for the four-laning project of the remaining section from the Dhrol bypass in Jamnagar district to Amran in Morbi district, will also be laid.

    The Prime Minister dedicated to the nation Bhuj-Naliya Rail Gauge Conversion Project, completed at a cost of around Rs 1,100 crores. This extensive project features 24 major bridges, 254 minor bridges, 3 road overbridges and 30 road underbridges, and will play a crucial role in enhancing the socio-economic development of Kachchh district.

    The Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for various development projects worth over Rs 700 crore of the water supply department from Amreli district. Projects inaugurated include Navda to Chavand bulk pipeline which will provide an additional 28 crore litres of water to approximately 67 lakh beneficiaries across 36 cities and 1,298 villages of Botad, Amreli, Junagadh, Rajkot, and Porbandar districts. The foundation stone of Pasavi Group Augmentation Water Supply Scheme Phase 2 in Bhavnagar district will also be laid which will benefit 95 villages in the Mahuva, Talaja, and Palitana talukas, in Bhavnagar district.

    The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for tourism-related development initiatives which includes transforming the Karli Recharge Reservoir at Mokarsagar in Porbandar district into a world-class sustainable eco-tourism destination, among others.

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    MJPS/SR/TS

     

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: India-Spain Joint Statement during the visit of President of Government of Spain to India (October 28-29, 2024)

    Source: Government of India

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 6:32PM by PIB Delhi

    At the invitation of the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, President of the Government of Spain, Mr. Pedro Sanchez paid an official visit to India on 28 -29 October, 2024. This was President Sanchez’s first visit to India and the first visit by a President of the Government of Spain to India after 18 years. He was accompanied by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility and the Minister of Industry and Tourism, and a high-level official and business delegation.

    The two leaders noted that this visit has renewed the bilateral relationship, infusing it with fresh momentum and setting the stage for a new era of enhanced cooperation between the two countries across various sectors. They also expressed satisfaction at the progress of bilateral relations since Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Spain in 2017. Both leaders instructed their teams to continue upgrading the bilateral agenda further and forging cooperation in all dimensions of political, economic, security, defence, people-to-people and cultural cooperation.

    President Sanchez was granted a cultural welcome, and held delegation level talks with Prime Minister Modi at Vadodara.He also visited Mumbai where he interacted with prominent business leaders, cultural figures and representatives of the Indian film industry.

    President Sanchez and Prime Minister Modi jointly inaugurated the Final Assembly Line Plant of C-295 aircraft co-produced by Airbus Spain and Tata Advanced Systems Ltd. at Vadodara. This plant will roll out the first ‘Made in India’ C295 aircraft in 2026, out of a total of 40 aircrafts to be manufactured in India. Airbus Spain is also delivering 16 aircrafts in ‘fly-away’ condition to India, out of which 6have already been delivered to the Indian Air Force.

    Political, Defence, and Security Cooperation

    1. The two leaders reviewed the warm and cordial bilateral ties between the two countries and highlighted that the foundation of the growing partnership lies in the shared commitment to democracy, freedom, rule of law, a fair and equitable global economy, a more sustainable and resilient planet, a rules-based international order and enhanced and reformed multilateralism. They also highlighted the enduring historical ties and long-standing friendship between the two nations as central to this cooperation.

    2. Both leaders emphasised that regular high-level interaction is giving momentum to the partnership. They noted that the ongoing bilateral cooperation between the foreign, economy and commerce and defence ministries is working well, and stressed the importance of holding regular dialogues between the concerned ministries/agencies of the two sides with a view to strengthening and diversifying bilateral cooperation in key areas of defence, security including cyber security, trade and economic issues, culture, tourism, education and people-to-people ties.

    3. Both leaders expressed satisfaction on the progress made in the C-295 aircraft project as a symbol of the growing defence industrial cooperation between the two countries. In line with this growing partnership, and in recognition of the advanced capabilities and competitiveness of the Spanish defence industry and its contribution to the goals of the ‘Make in India’ initiative, they encouraged their respective defence industries in other sectors to set up similar joint projects in India.

    Economic and Commercial Cooperation

    4. President Sanchez and Prime Minister Modi welcomed the recent positive developments in bilateral trade and investment partnership, buoyed by the positive economic outlook in both countries and called for stronger ties between the businesses of the two countries.

    5. Prime Minister Modi congratulated President Sanchez on the growth and the resilience of the Spanish economy. President Sanchez complimented Prime Minister Modi on India’s fast economic growth and lauded the various government initiatives to promote a business-friendly environment. President Sanchez highlighted Spain’s commitment to the ‘Make in India’ initiative through the activities of about 230 Spanish companies present in India. Both leaders reiterated their strong support for an open rules-based multilateral trading system, and a business-friendly investment scenario in both countries.

    6. Recognizing the expertise of Spanish companies in areas such as energy, including renewables, nuclear, and smart grids, food processing, healthcare and health services, automotive and transport infrastructure, including trains, roads, ports and transport network management, the two leaders welcomed further collaboration in these areas. President Sanchez welcomed the positive contributions being made by Indian companies to the Spanish economy in fields such as information technology, pharmaceuticals and automobile and auto components. Both leaders welcomed the establishment of a ‘Fast Track Mechanism’ to facilitate mutual investments in India and Spain.

    7. The two leaders took note of the progress made by the 12th session of the India-Spain ‘Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation’ (JCEC) held in 2023 and agreed to convene the next session of the JCEC in Spain in early 2025. In this context, they also agreed on the importance of deepening economic ties and exploring strategic cooperation in key sectors such as renewable energy, technology, and sustainable infrastructure. The two leaders looked forward to an early conclusion of Memorandum of Understanding on Urban Sustainable Development.

    8. Both leaders welcomed the Second meeting of the India-Spain CEOs Forum as well as India-Spain Business Summit in Mumbai on October 29, 2024,to promote trade and investment cooperation between the two countries.

    9. Both leaders recognized the vital importance of innovation and the startup ecosystems in driving forward the bilateral partnership and called for all such opportunities to be explored in mutual interest. They encouraged relevant agencies of both countries to work to deepen any such exchanges in the future, including through frameworks such as Rising Up in Spain and the Startup India initiative.

    10. The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of rail transport and the agreement of cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matter.

    11. The leaders acknowledged the role of tourism in driving economic and business opportunities and enhancing understanding between the people of both countries and agreed that it should be further promoted. Both leaders welcomed the interest shown by airlines to establish direct flights between Spain and India.

    The Year 2026 as India-Spain Year of Culture, Tourism and AI

    12. Taking into account the deep relationship between India and Spain and the long lasting friendship between the two peoples, Prime Minister Modi, and President Pedro Sanchez, have agreed to make 2026 as the Year of India and Spain in Culture, Tourism and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

    13. During the year, both sides will make the maximum effort to boost the cultural presence of the other in their museums, art, fairs, film, festivals, literature, meetings of architects and circles of debate and thought.

    14. Likewise, special attention will be paid to ways of increasing tourist flows, promote reciprocal investments and share experiences in the many areas of hospitality, architecture, cuisine, marketing, both in urban and rural tourism, which benefits harmonious development and improvement for both countries.

    15. In accordance with the G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration, India and Spain can play a very important role for the use of AI for good and its positive implementation in many fields. Both countries commit to hold during the year, events to foster positive use of AI and will work for the practical implementation of new advances in the field of AI in the productive economy.

    16. To mark the importance of this initiative, both leaders directed the concerned stakeholders to celebrate the year in the respective countries in the most befitting manner.

    Cultural and People-to-People Ties

    17. The two leaders acknowledged the role of cultural ties in bringing nations closer and lauded the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India and Spain. They appreciated the long-standing cultural exchanges and enrichment between India and Spain, particularly the role of Spanish Indologists and Indian Hispanists. They welcomed the signing of a Cultural Exchange Program to promote bilateral exchanges in music, dance, theatre, literature, museums and festivals.

    18.The two leaders applauded the growing interest in the study of the cultures and languages of both countries. Spanish is among popular foreign languages in India. They stressed the mutual interest in further strengthening India – Spain cultural cooperation and the reinforcement of cooperation among cultural institutions of both countries such as Instituto Cervantes in New Delhi and Casa de la India in Valladolid.

    19. The two leaders welcomed the establishment of the ICCR Chairs on Hindi and on Indian Studies at the University of Valladolid. India is bringing transformational changes in education sector in India under National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. In this context, Prime Minister Modi encouraged leading Spanish universities to strengthen academic and research partnership with Indian institutions; build institutional linkages through joint/dual degree and twinning arrangements and explore the possibility of setting up branch campuses in India.

    20. President Sanchez is also giving the keynote address at the 4th Spain-India Forum, co-organized by Spain-India Council Foundation and Observer Research Foundation, in Mumbai. The leaders recognized the valuable contributions of this institution, which has a complementary role to that of governments in strengthening the links between Indian and Spanish civil societies, companies, think tanks, administrations and universities, helping to enhance bilateral ties by fostering a strong partnership between their members and its activities and bringing the two countries together in order to increase their mutual knowledge.

    21. The two leaders welcomed the installation at Valladolid of the bust of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore gifted to the people of Spain by ICCR and the placing of the translated works of Tagore in the vaults of Instituto Cervantes in Madrid which is a testament to increasing cultural connect between peoples of the two countries.

    22. The two sides noted with satisfaction the growing cooperation in the field of film and audio-visuals, with India being the Guest Country at the SEMINCI International Film Festival in 2023, and the award of the IFFI Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement to the legendary Spanish director Carlos Saura. Acknowledging the large film and audio-visual industries in India and Spain, both leaders agreed that the scope of collaboration between the two countries under the Audio-Visual Co-Production Agreement can be enhanced and welcomed the creation of a Joint Commission to improve cooperation between the two countries in the audiovisual field and promote and facilitate the co-production of films.

    23. To enhance people-to-people ties and consular services in two countries, the two leaders welcome the operationalisation of India’s first Consulate General in Spain at Barcelona and the decision to open Spain’s Consulate General in Bengaluru.

    EU and India relations

    24. Prime Minister Modi and President Sanchez reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the India-EU Strategic Partnership and to advancing the EU-India triple negotiations of comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, Investment Protection Agreement and Geographical Indications Agreement.

    25. They agreed to enhance their collaboration to fully realize the objectives of the EU-India Connectivity Partnership, and recognized the potential of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor Project (IMEEC) to boost connectivity between India and Europe. They explored avenues for cooperation among regional countries in areas such as trade, investment, technology, energy, logistics, ports, and infrastructure development.

    Global Issues

    26. The leaders expressed their deepest concern over the war in Ukraine and reiterated the need for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in line with international law, and consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. They underlined the importance of dialogue and diplomacy as well as earnest engagement between all stakeholders to achieve a sustainable and peaceful resolution of the conflict. Both sides agreed to remain in touch to support efforts aimed at negotiated settlement of the conflict.

    27.They shared their firm commitment to achieving peace and stability in the Middle East, and expressed their deep concern at the escalation of security situation in West Asia and called for restraint by all concerned. They urged that all issues be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy. The two leaders unequivocally condemned the terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and agreed that the large-scale loss of civilian lives and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unacceptable and must end as soon as possible. They called for the immediaterelease of all hostages, immediate ceasefire and safe, sustained entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. They emphasized the urgent need to protect the lives of civilians and urged all parties to comply with international law. They reiterated their commitment to the implementation of the two State solution,leading to the establishment of a sovereign, viable and independent state of Palestine, living within secure and mutually recognized borders, side by side in peace and security with Israel as well as their support for Palestine membership at the United Nations.

    28. Both sides reiterated their concern on escalation and violence in Lebanon, and the security situation along the Blue Line and reaffirmed their commitment to the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701. As major troop contributing countries, they condemned the attacks on UNIFIL and highlighted that the safety and security of peacekeepers are of paramount importance and must be ensured by all. Inviolability of UN premises and the sanctity of their mandate must be respected by all.

    29. Both sides emphasized the promotion of a free, open, inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific, anchored in a rules-based international order, mutual respect for sovereignty, and the peaceful resolution of disputes, supported by effective regional institutions. They highlighted the importance of unimpeded commerce and freedom of navigation, in compliance with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. Both sides acknowledged India’s invitation to Spain to participate in the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) for collaborative efforts aimed at the management, conservation, sustainability, security, and development of the maritime domain in the Indo-Pacific. They also recognized the complementarity between India’s Indo-Pacific Vision and the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

    30. Noting the growing political and commercial relations between India and Latin American region and the historical, economic and cultural links it shares with Spain, both leaders recognized the immense potential of triangular cooperation for investments and development in the region. Spain welcomed India’s application to join the Ibero-American Conference as an Associate Observer, which will offer a platform to strengthen the ties with Latin American countries. Both sides committed to finalise the process by the Ibero-American Summit, to be held in Spain in 2026, so that India may actively participate in the activities of Spain´s Pro Tempore Secretariat.

    International and Multilateral Cooperation

    31. Both leaders agreed to enhance cooperation and coordination within the United Nations, including the UN Security Council (UNSC), and other multilateral forums. They emphasized the importance of a rules-based international order for ensuring global peace and development. Both sides committed to advancing multilateralism that reflects present-day realities, making international organizations, including the UNSC, more representative, effective, democratic, accountable and transparent. India expressed its support for Spain’s UNSC candidature for the term 2031-32, while Spain expressed its support for India’s candidature for the period 2028-29.

    32. Both leaders look forward to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development to take place in 2025 in Sevilla (Spain) as a critical opportunity to identify priority actions to help close the resource gap needed to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.

    33. President Sanchez congratulated Prime Minister Modi on the exemplary chairmanship of G20, which successfully and inclusively addressed important and complex Global South issues. Prime Minister Modi appreciated the valuable contributions made by Spain to the discussions as a Permanent Invitee to the G20.

    34. The two leaders agreed to strengthen cooperation in promoting sustainable energy and adapting to climate change. They recognize the urgency of accelerating global actions to combat climate change and commit to collaborating in the context of the upcoming Climate Summit in Baku (COP29) to achieve an ambitious outcome including on a New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance that helps achieve the temperature goal of Paris Agreement. They also highlighted the need topromote actions to strengthen countries’ resilience and adaptation capacities in the face of the increasing impacts of climate change worldwide. The two leaders looked forward to the early conclusion of Memorandum of Understanding in the field of Renewable Energy. Prime Minister Modi appreciated Spain’s commitment towards a green transition and welcomed Spain to the International Solar Alliance. President Sanchez appreciated advances made by India in achieving the renewable energy goals much ahead of the target year. Both leaders also agreed that a concerted global effort would be needed in order to address climate change concerns. Both sides will respond positively to the outcomes of COP28, including the first Global Stocktake in light of national circumstances.

    35. Spain has invited India to join IDRA, the International Drought Resilience Alliance, which was launched in 2022, a platform to promote concrete actions to reduce the vulnerability of countries, cities and communities to drought through preparedness and adaptation measures.

    36.Both leaders unequivocally condemned terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including the use of terrorist proxies and cross-border terrorism. Both sides agreed that terrorism remains a serious threat to international peace and stability, and called for bringing the perpetrators of all terrorist attacks to justice without delay. They urged all countries to take immediate, sustained and irreversible action to prevent territory under their control from being used for terrorist purposes, and stressed the need for firm implementation of relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, as well as the implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. They also called for concerted action against all terrorist groups proscribed by the UNSC including Al Qa’ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and their proxy groups. Prime Minister Modi appreciated Spain’s multilateral initiatives in support of the Victims of Terrorism and their empowerment.

    37. President Sanchez thanked Prime Minister Modi for the warm reception and hospitality extended to him and his delegation during the visit, and invited him to undertake a visit to Spain in the near future.

     

    ***

    MJPS/SR

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: DDWS Hosts the National Visioning Workshop for WASH, Engages States/UTs Across Rural India

    Source: Government of India (2)

    DDWS Hosts the National Visioning Workshop for WASH, Engages States/UTs Across Rural India

    Unveiling of ‘Drinking Waterscape, Rural India – October 2024’

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 6:18PM by PIB Delhi

     

     (Group photo of participants of the National Visioning Workshop for WASH held in Delhi on October 28, 2024)

     

    The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) today organized a transformative workshop at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi for the National Visioning Workshop on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). This workshop, marking a pivotal moment in a decade of Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen (SBMG) and five years of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), assessed achievements and forged plans for sustainable community engagement.

    The event saw participation from key dignitaries and senior officials, including Smt. Vini Mahajan, Secretary, DDWS; Shri Ashok K.K. Meena, Officer on Special Duty (OSD), DDWS; Dr. Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Additional Secretary & Mission Director, NJJM; Smt. Richa Misra, Joint Secretary & Financial Advisor, DDWS; Shri Jitendra Shrivastava, Mission Director & Joint Secretary, SMBG; and Smt. Swati Meena Naik, Joint Secretary, NJJM. Officials from various states and Union Territories, including Secretaries, Mission Directors, Engineer-in-Chiefs actively participated in the workshop, emphasizing their commitment to advancing WASH goals across the country.

    The dual goals of the workshop were to assess progress and refine strategies for the future, with a focus on effective and sustainable community engagement. The assembly also expressed gratitude to Smt. Vini Mahajan. Officials acknowledged her pivotal role in shaping India’s WASH landscape and the seamless alignment of SBM and JJM with national development goals.

     

     

     (Left to right: Shri K. S. Ngangbam, Director (SBM-V); Shri Jitendra Shrivastava, Mission Director & Joint Secretary; SMBG, Shri Ashok K.K. Meena, Officer on Special Duty (OSD); DDWS, Smt. Vini Mahajan, Secretary, DDWS; Dr. Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Additional Secretary & Mission Director, NJJM; Smt. Richa Misra, Joint Secretary & Financial Advisor, DDWS; Smt. Swati Meena Naik, Joint Secretary, NJJM )

    Smt. Vini Mahajan reflected on the progress and challenges faced by JJM and SBM. Acknowledging the need for extension in both time and funding, she advocated for rigorous community engagement and accountability to ensure WASH initiatives resonate deeply with rural citizens. Smt. Mahajan called on state leaders to strengthen local outreach through Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) and Behavior Change Communication (BCC) to secure ownership and sustainability of WASH facilities among communities.

    Reflecting on the tangible successes of SBM and JJM, Sh. Ashok Meena emphasized the importance of a community-centered approach for sustainable impact. He expressed optimism about the continued evolution of WASH efforts under the stewardship of Secretary Mahajan, highlighting ongoing initiatives like ODF Plus Model Villages and calling for fresh, people-centric solutions under SBM-G 3.0.

    Dr. Chandra Bhushan Kumar underscored the achievements of SBM and JJM, celebrating the programs’ substantial impact over the past decade. He introduced a pilot initiative in collaboration with NITI Aayog to implement WASH solutions in select aspirational districts. State representatives were encouraged to share insights that could further enhance the effectiveness of these programs. Dr. Kumar gave an insightful presentation on ‘JJM: Functionality, IEC, Future’, highlighting the significant expansion of piped water supply across rural India, facilitated by JJM’s shift from a habitation-based to a household-based approach. He emphasized the role of IEC and BCC for the effectiveness of the mission in the rural landscape. He further applauded states like Gujarat and Manipur for their exemplary progress, while stressing the importance of robust financial planning for the upcoming 16th Grants Commission.

    Sh. Jitendra Srivastava emphasized the importance of collaboration and convergence across departments to drive WASH progress. He noted the strides made under Smt. Mahajan’s leadership, expressing hope that camaraderie and convergence among MDs and Secretaries would continue to strengthen WASH outcomes. Reporting on the status of SBM-G, Sh. Srivastava cited the substantial increase in ODF Plus Model Villages and advancements in Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) and plastic waste management. He encouraged states to adopt innovative revenue models for sustainable waste management and increase the usage of SBM funds to enhance toilet access and utilization across rural areas.

    The workshop witnessed the launch of “Drinking Waterscape in Rural India – Jal Jeevan Mission,” a comprehensive resource documenting JJM’s contributions to the rural water supply landscape.

    The workshop concluded with a call to action for state representatives to leverage community leadership and prioritize maintenance of WASH assets. With renewed dedication to sustainable solutions, the Ministry reaffirmed its commitment to achieving universal access to safe water and sanitation for all by 2027. The assembly was further encouraged by the anticipated appointment of Sh. Ashok K.K. Meena as the next Secretary, with hopes that his leadership will elevate the WASH sector to new heights.

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: English rendering of Prime Minister’s Speech at the Inauguration Ceremony of the C-295 Aircraft Factory

    Source: Government of India (2)

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 4:58PM by PIB Delhi

    Excellency Pedro Sanchez, Governor of Gujarat Acharya Devvrat ji, Bharat’s Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh ji, Foreign Minister Shri S. Jaishankar ji, the popular Chief Minister of Gujarat Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel, Ministers from Spain and the State Government, all members of the Airbus and Tata teams, ladies and gentlemen!

    Namaskar!

    Buenos Días!

    My friend, Mr. Pedro Sanchez, is visiting Bharat for the first time. From today, we are giving a new direction to the partnership between Bharat and Spain. We are inaugurating the factory for the production of the C-295 Transport Aircraft. This factory will not only strengthen Bharat-Spain relations but also empower our mission, ‘Make in India, Make for the World’. My best wishes to the entire Airbus and Tata teams. Recently, we lost the great son of the nation, Ratan Tata ji. Had Ratan Tata ji been with us today, he would have been the happiest among us. Wherever his soul may be, I am sure he would be feeling immense joy today.

    Friends,

    The C-295 aircraft factory reflects the new work culture of New Bharat. From idea to execution, the speed with which Bharat operates today is evident here. The construction of this factory began two years ago in October. And this factory is ready for aircraft production in October itself. I have always focused on avoiding unnecessary delays in planning and execution. When I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, a decision was taken to set up a factory to manufacture Bombardier train coaches in Vadodara. That factory was also set up for production within a record time. Today, we are exporting metro coaches made in that factory to other countries. I am confident that aircraft produced in this factory will also be exported worldwide in the future.

    Friends,

    The famous Spanish poet Antonio Machado once wrote: 

    “Traveler, there is no path… The path is made by walking.” 

    It implies that the moment we take the first step towards our goal, paths begin to form. Today, Bharat’s defence manufacturing ecosystem is reaching new heights. Had we not taken solid steps a decade ago, it would have been impossible to reach this milestone today. At that time, no one could imagine large-scale defence manufacturing in Bharat. Priorities and identity then were centred on imports. But we chose to tread a new path, setting new goals, and today we can see the results.

    Friends,

    To transform any possibility into prosperity, the right plan and the right partnership are essential. The transformation of Bharat’s defence sector is an example of the right plan and the right partnership. In the past decade, the country has made decisions that fostered a vibrant defence industry in Bharat. We expanded private sector participation in defence manufacturing, made public sector units efficient, converted ordnance factories into seven large companies, empowered DRDO and HAL, and developed two major defence corridors in UP and Tamil Nadu. These initiatives have infused the defence sector with new energy. Schemes like iDEX (Innovation for Defence Excellence) have fuelled start-ups, and in the last 5-6 years, nearly 1,000 new defence start-ups have emerged in Bharat. In the past 10 years, Bharat’s defence exports have increased by 30 times. Today, we are exporting defence equipment to over 100 countries in the world.

    Friends,

    Today, we are highly focused on skills and job creation in Bharat. This factory by Airbus and Tata will also generate thousands of jobs in Bharat. The indigenous manufacturing of 18,000 aircraft parts is set to begin due to this project. One part may be manufactured in one part of the country, while another part may be produced elsewhere, and who will manufacture these parts? Our micro and small enterprises (MSMEs) are going to lead this work. We are already one of the largest suppliers of parts to major aircraft companies worldwide. This new aircraft factory will give a boost to new skills and new industries in Bharat.

    Friends,

    I see this event as going beyond just manufacturing transport aircraft. Over the past decade, you have seen unprecedented growth and transformation in Bharat’s aviation sector. We are expanding air connectivity to hundreds of smaller cities across the country. We are working to make Bharat a hub for aviation and MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul). This ecosystem will pave the way for ‘Made in India’ civil aircraft in the future. You must be aware that various Indian airlines have placed orders for 1,200 new aircraft. This means that in the future, this factory will play a crucial role in the design and manufacturing of civil aircraft to meet the needs of both Bharat and the world.

    Friends,

    Vadodara city will act as a catalyst in these efforts of Bharat. This city is already a strong centre for MSMEs, and we also have the Gati Shakti University here. This university is preparing professionals for various sectors. Vadodara has numerous companies related to the pharma sector, engineering and heavy machinery, chemicals and petrochemicals, and power and energy equipment. Now, this entire region is set to become a major hub for aviation manufacturing in Bharat. I congratulate the Gujarat government, Chief Minister Bhupendra Bhai, and his entire team for their modern industrial policies and decisions.

    Friends,

    Vadodara has another special characteristic. It is an important cultural city in Bharat, a city of heritage. Hence, I am especially pleased to welcome all of you from Spain here. Cultural connections hold a special significance between Bharat and Spain. I recall Father Carlos Valles, who came from Spain and settled in Gujarat, dedicating fifty years of his life here and enriching our culture through his thoughts and writings. I was fortunate to meet him several times. We honoured him with the Padma Shri for his remarkable contributions. In Gujarat, we lovingly called him Father Valles, and he used to write in Gujarati. His books have enriched Gujarati literature and our cultural heritage.

    Friends,

    I have heard that yoga is very popular in Spain. Indian fans also admire Spain’s football. Yesterday’s match between Real Madrid and Barcelona was widely discussed in Bharat, and Barcelona’s stunning victory became a topic of discussion here too. I guarantee that fans of both clubs in Bharat engage in banter just as passionately as those in Spain.

    Friends,

    Food, films, and football—all these elements are part of a strong people-to-people connection between our nations. I am delighted that Bharat and Spain have decided to celebrate 2026 as the India-Spain Year of Culture, Tourism, and AI.

    Friends,

    The partnership between Bharat and Spain is like a prism, which is multidimensional, vibrant, and ever-evolving. I am confident that today’s event will inspire many new joint collaboration projects between Bharat and Spain. I also invite the Spanish industry and innovators to come to Bharat and become part of our development journey. Once again, my best wishes to the Airbus and Tata teams for this project.

    Thank you. 

     

    ***

    MJPS/VJ/VK

    (Release ID: 2068891) Visitor Counter : 55

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Rashtrapati Bhawan, among other key buildings and monuments across India, illuminated in Red as part of ‘Act4Dyslexia’ campaign

    Source: Government of India

    Rashtrapati Bhawan, among other key buildings and monuments across India, illuminated in Red as part of ‘Act4Dyslexia’ campaign 

    Secretary DEPwD, Shri Rajesh Aggarwal flags off the ‘Walk4Dyslexia’, to raise awareness about dyslexia and other learning disabilities

    Posted On: 28 OCT 2024 4:41PM by PIB Delhi

    In a significant initiative as part of the nation-wide ‘Act4Dyslexia’ campaign, the highest offices of the Government and key monuments in Delhi, including Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parliament House, North and South Blocks, and India Gate, have been illuminated in red, the colour for Dyslexia Awareness.

    The event aligns with similar illuminations across major cities, including Patna, Ranchi, Jaipur, Kohima, Shimla, and Mumbai, spotlighting the need to remove stigma and foster greater understanding of dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

    This initiative aims at raising awareness about learning disabilities, which are estimated to affect 20% of India’s population, including 35 million students. It is being organized in collaboration with UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP)  & ChangeInkk Foundation.

    To amplify the message of inclusion, the ‘Walk4Dyslexia’ was flagged off by Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), alongside Mr. Shombi Sharp, UN Resident Coordinator in India. This walk symbolizes collective action to act for Dyslexia, emphasizing the need for equal opportunities and support for individuals with learning disabilities. The walk, that saw the participation of over 300 supporters, was co-organized by ChangeInkk Foundation, UNESCO MGIEP, Orkids Foundation, and Soch Foundation, commenced on the morning of 27th October from Vijay Chowk to India Gate.

    Expressing his enthusiasm for the campaign, Shri Rajesh Aggarwal said, “The ‘Act4Dyslexia’ is a well-thought campaign, as we need to take action to make progress. I’m happy to see the growth from last year’s campaign, with over 1,600 walks across the country and over 4 lakh people participating this year. I’m also happy to learn about the introduction of the Purple Flame Chatbot, which will help schools, teachers, doctors, and other stakeholders to diagnose and support people with learning disabilities. The Government looks forward to working with like-minded organizations that support people with  disabilities and ensure access to equal opportunities for growth and development.”

    Sharing his perspective on the occasion, Mr. Shombi Sharp said, “On behalf of the UN in India and representing the UN Secretary-General, it’s my great honor to support Dyslexia Awareness Month and the ‘Act4Dyslexia’ campaign with ChangeInkk, supported by UNESCO MGIEP and other organizations. We walked across the Kartavya Path to India Gate to raise awareness on the importance of the rights of people with learning disabilities. It is incredible to see that when given equal opportunities, individuals with learning disabilities have achieved great success, including becoming inventors, Nobel laureates, and entrepreneurs. We need to truly unleash the potential of this talent for societal development, and if India can achieve this, it can deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals at a global level.”

    In a nationwide movement for Dyslexia awareness, this year the campaign has expanded significantly, with over 1,600 walks organized across the country—spanning State capitals, Districts, Blocks, Villages, and schools. The initiative engaged over 4 lakh participants, who collectively took over 2 billion steps toward driving awareness for ‘Act4Dyslexia’. These walks were led by State Education Departments, parent groups, and educational institutions, in collaboration with over 150 organizations, demonstrating a united effort by government bodies, parents, educators, civil society organizations, and the private sector.

    Why Dyslexia Awareness Matters

    Dyslexia is often misunderstood as the ‘slow-learner syndrome’. Though individuals with learning disabilities struggle to comprehend, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, yet they are associated with skills vital for higher-order thinking, including logical reasoning, critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation. Notably, 40% of self-made millionaires have dyslexia, and many renowned inventors, like Albert Einstein, were dyslexic.

    Specific Learning Disabilities, including dyslexia, were officially recognized under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016, which mandates equal opportunities in education, employment, and other aspects of life. The National Education Policy 2020 reinforces this mandate, emphasizing inclusive education from foundational to higher education levels. NEP 2020 reforms focus on early identification, teacher capacity building, and providing necessary support and accommodations to students.

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    VM

    (Release ID: 2068879) Visitor Counter : 44

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Murphy Announces Promotion of CeCe Doherty to Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

    Source: US State of New Jersey

    Kate Barry Named Aide to the Governor, Intergovernmental Affairs

     

    TRENTON – Governor Phil Murphy today announced one new promotion and one new hire within his department of Intergovernmental Affairs. CeCe Doherty will serve in her newly promoted role as the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, with Kate Barry joining the office as an Aide to the Governor. The Intergovernmental Affairs team will continue to be led by Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Field.

    “CeCe has been an incredible asset to the Governor’s Office over the last two years and I look forward to seeing all that she accomplishes as the Director of our Intergovernmental Affairs team,” said Governor Murphy. “CeCe’s impressive professional background and her meticulous knowledge of New Jersey’s southern counties will continue to serve our Intergovernmental Affairs team well. I am also thrilled to welcome Kate Barry to the Governor’s Office, and I am confident that under Rob Field’s leadership, this team will continue to succeed and advance the goals of our Administration.”

    “Since joining the Governor’s Office in 2022, CeCe has been an invaluable member of our team. She has excelled in outreach to elected officials and communities across South Jersey while demonstrating strong leadership abilities and clear communication skills vital for the role of Director,” said Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Field. “We are also excited to have Kate Barry join our team. Her strong experience in Morris and Somerset Counties will be a huge benefit for the northwest region of New Jersey, and I’m looking forward to working with CeCe, Kate, and the rest of the Intergovernmental Affairs team to continue to fulfill the Governor’s vision to make our state stronger and fairer.”

    Prior to her promotion, CeCe Doherty held the title of Senior Aide. She has served Governor Phil Murphy in the Department of Intergovernmental Affairs since 2022, working directly with elected officials in the southernmost counties of the state. Previously, she worked for the US House of Representatives, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, numerous campaign finance roles, as well as fundraising and event coordination for various nonprofits in the state. After graduating from Brigham Young University in 2015, CeCe began her career as an admin for Egg Harbor Township, where she was raised, kickstarting her advocacy and support for constituents of Southern New Jersey. She currently resides in Sicklerville, NJ with her husband Scott and German Shepherd Max. In addition to being Director, CeCe will continue to be the main point of contact in the Governor’s Office for the following counties: Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem. 

    Kate Barry recently joined the Governor’s Office Intergovernmental Affairs team as an Aide to the Governor in July of 2024. She graduated with a master’s degree in Environment and Sustainable Development from University College London and worked with environmental non-profits and an economic and development firm before starting her own animal care business in Morris County. Prior to joining the Governor’s Office, she served as the Constituent Aide to the Somerset County Commissioners. Kate is a proud board member of the Great Swamp Watershed Association and her hometown’s Environmental Commission. She resides in northern New Jersey with her family and her beloved horse and donkey. Kate’s portfolio for the Governor’s Office will include outreach to Hunterdon, Sussex, and Warren Counties.

    For a photo of CeCe Doherty, click here.

    For a photo of Kate Barry, click here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: New Permanent Representative of Hungary Presents Credentials to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

    Source: United Nations – Geneva

    Zsófia Havasi, the new Permanent Representative of Hungary to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

    Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Havasi had been serving as an Advisor in the Office of the seventy-eighth President of the United Nations General Assembly for General Assembly affairs, the budget and the United Nations reform team.  She also served as an Advisor in the Office of the seventy-seventh President of the General Assembly for political affairs, peace and the security team at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

    Ms. Havasi was posted at the Permanent Mission of Hungary to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels from 2018 to 2022. Before that, she served as head of the secretariat of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary from 2017 to 2018.  She was Cabinet Secretary of the Hungarian National Assembly from 2014 to 2016.  At the beginning of her career, she also held posts in the Ministry of Human Resources and the Ministry of Defence of Hungary. 

    Ms. Havasi studied from 2004 to 2009, security and defence policy expert at Zrínyi Miklós National Defense University, Budapest, and from 2009 to 2012, international affairs and studies expert at Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences, Budapest.  She was born on 31 October 1984. 

     

    Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the media; 
    not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently.

     

     

    CR24.040E

    MIL OSI United Nations News –