Category: Justice

MIL-OSI Global: Police in England and Wales to get more money – but increasing funding won’t necessarily mean less crime

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Graham Farrell, Professor of Crime Science, University of Leeds

Ian Dewar Photography/Shutterstock

Police spending will rise by a real-terms 2.3% per year between now and 2028-29, the government announced in its latest spending review, drawn from local council tax. The government says this will help its mission to put 13,000 neighbourhood police on the streets, and “keep communities safe”.

Police say this is far from enough to meet the government’s ambitions, particularly on cutting knife crime and violence against women, and that it is likely to be “swallowed up” by pay rises for police.

The awkward truth, however, is that marginal changes to police funding and hiring make little difference to crime either way. Austerity cuts of around 20% to policing budgets in the 2010s were accompanied by declining crime, including domestic violence and antisocial behaviour.

Widespread security improvements were responsible for the close to 90% reductions in many crime types. For example, engine immobilisers prevent car theft, and secure household doors and windows prevent burglary.

Crime has been declining across developed countries for decades. But those countries vary greatly in policing practices and funding, so it is clear more policing was not the cause.

American policing researcher pioneer David Bayley wrote in 1994:

The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it. Yet the police pretend they are society’s best defense against crime and continually argue that if they are given more resources, especially personnel, they will be able to protect communities against crime. This is a myth.

This does not mean we don’t need police – we do. If there were no police, crime rates would soar. The issue here is diminishing marginal returns (we’re at the level where more funding doesn’t have the same effect).

But it means the spending review debate had little to do with crime prevention. Rather, it was about how senior staff in public services routinely seek more for their departments. And following the spending review, police chiefs gave themselves an escape clause by claiming the increase is insufficient.

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In recent years, we’ve learned problem-solving policing can reduce some crimes in some contexts. For example, burglary at construction sites can often be theft of building materials and tools, so the crime problem can be reduced through improved site management (rather than just more arrests).

However, problem-solving is not easy and so is not widely applied. Simply patrolling hotspots does not affect the crime opportunity structure (factors that tempt, facilitate or precipitate a particular cluster of crimes).

Additionally, all types of crime, except homicide, are more likely to recur, and relatively soon, after prior victimisation. And while policing to prevent repeat victimisation can reduce crime, it has fallen by the wayside in recent years.

A recent review by crime scientist Shannon Linning and colleagues examined the effect of more police hiring and more arrests on crime, concluding: “When a sensational crime happens, residents demand action. Often someone will cry for more police and more arrests … neither approach is likely to be helpful.”

This makes it rather awkward that the government has recently committed to recruiting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police.

Since most people don’t know the limitations of policing, both the government and the police have been able to maintain the illusion that more police means less crime. Academic police researchers will rarely admit it in case it risks their funding, and the media enjoy a perennially newsworthy topic. Taxpayers foot the bill as well as the emotional, financial and other costs of crime.

How to stop crime

There is, however, some room for optimism. What we have learned from the long-term international crime drop and dozens of small-scale successes against different crime types is that reducing crime opportunities is the best approach. With some strategic adjustment, there is much that police and government can do.

A particular focus for the government and police should be encouraging businesses to take more responsibility for crime. Knife manufacturers and retailers should be involved in introducing a ban on pointed kitchen knives, the most common homicide weapon in England and Wales. The gradual approach over many years that research (in which I was involved) recommended is too long: it should be done within this government’s term.

A lot of other crimes, including computer-enabled crimes, are generated, facilitated or hosted by businesses. Internet service providers and network providers benefit from advertising and payments, including when they are being used for crime (from stalking and sexual victimisation to fraud and terrorism).

Manufacturers benefit from theft of phones and other products that need replacing. Online marketplaces profit from usage and advertising when stolen goods are sold, which inadvertently encourages shoplifting, theft and robbery. Online banking and financial services also host significant amounts of fraud, and are now sometimes required to pay up to £85,000 compensation to victims.

Read more:
Child sexual exploitation and abuse is a multibillion-dollar industry – new report shows who benefits

Government and police should develop a portfolio of incentives and disincentives to promote private sector crime prevention, to include regulation and market-based incentives. When businesses have an economic incentive they are tremendously efficient at preventing crime, as car manufacturers showed by improving security that brought 90% reductions in car crime.

Reducing crime opportunities is also the best way to stop criminality. When young people do not get involved in easy crimes like shoplifting, they do not progress to further crime, including violence against women and girls.

In short, extra police funding will not reduce crime. A shift in strategy is what is really needed.

Graham Farrell receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. Police in England and Wales to get more money – but increasing funding won’t necessarily mean less crime – https://theconversation.com/police-in-england-and-wales-to-get-more-money-but-increasing-funding-wont-necessarily-mean-less-crime-258977

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: ICE, law enforcement partners arrest more than 80 illegal aliens during worksite enforcement operation at Louisiana racetrack

Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

LAKE CHARLES, La. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Louisiana State Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the FBI arrested approximately 84 illegal aliens June 17 during a worksite enforcement operation at the Delta Downs Racetrack in Calcasieu Parish, near Vinton, Louisiana.

The operation focused on the businesses that own and race thoroughbred and quarter horses out of the stables at the racetrack and the employees who work for them and take care of the horses.

All of the aliens taken into custody during the operation were processed for administrative immigration violations and transported to the Lake Charles Border Patrol Station in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

An investigation into potential criminal conduct related to the hiring of the illegal aliens remains ongoing and an assessment of whether any civil penalties are appropriate is being conducted.

Authorities continue to process the aliens, but at least two criminal aliens have been identified. ICE arrested Enrique Gonzalez Moreno, a 36-year-old criminal alien from Mexico who has illegally entered the U.S. four times. While in the U.S. illegally, Gonzalez has been convicted twice for driving under the influence, and once for cocaine possession and illegal reentry. ICE also arrested a 40-year-old illegal alien from Mexico who has been arrested for criminal conspiracy, aggravated battery with a dangerous weapon, sexual battery, and video voyeurism. ICE is working to verify the disposition of those criminal charges and will provide additional details once in-processing is complete.

“ICE Homeland Security Investigations is working closely with our federal and state partners to review each case of unauthorized employment at the racetrack to identify any other criminal activities that were taking place in addition labor exploitation and immigration violations,” said ICE HSI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Eric DeLaune. “Oftentimes, when we’re conducting these worksite enforcement operations, we uncover other forms of criminal conduct such as document and benefit fraud, money laundering and human trafficking. As a result, we’re able to bolster public safety in the local community by eliminating that criminal activity and removing any dangerous criminal aliens, transnational gang members or other egregious immigration offenders who illegally entered the country and are working at the business without authorization.”

The operation was conducted after authorities received intelligence indicating that the businesses operating out of the stables at the racetrack were employing unauthorized workers. Those suspicions were further confirmed during a subsequent site visit.

“These enforcement operations aim to disrupt illegal employment networks that threaten the integrity of our labor systems, put American jobs at risk and create pathways for exploitation within critical sectors of our economy,” said U.S. Custom and Border Protection Director of Field Operations New Orleans Steven Stavinoha. “CBP New Orleans is assisting ICE with multiple operations across the country to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability. Along the Gulf Coast, CBP remains committed to facilitating legitimate trade and travel while maintaining a strong enforcement environment.”

“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our local, state, and federal partners in operations like this one with the common goal to remove criminal threats from every community across the State of Louisiana,” said Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp of the FBI New Orleans Field Office.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires employers to verify the identity and work eligibility of all individuals they hire and sets forth criminal and civil sanctions for employment-related violations. Employers are required to document information on those that they hire using the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9. ICE HSI uses a comprehensive inspection program to promote compliance with the law and deter illegal employment and illegal immigration.

The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office and Lake Charles Police Department also assisted with the operation.

For more news and information on how ICE HSI combats illegal immigration and other transnational criminal activity in Louisiana follow us on X at @HSINewOrleans.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Colorado Dentist Sentenced for Tax Evasion

Source: United States Attorneys General

A Colorado dentist was sentenced yesterday to 41 months in prison for tax evasion related to his use of an illegal tax shelter.

The following is according to court documents and statements made in court: since 2014, Ryan Ulibarri owned and operated Ulibarri Family Dentistry in Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2016, Ulibarri purchased an abusive-trust tax shelter for $50,000. The tax shelter involved concealing income and creating false tax deductions through the use of a so-called business trust, family trust, charitable trust and a private family foundation, all of which Ulibarri created and controlled. From 2016 through 2023, Ulibarri used this tax shelter to conceal from the IRS over $5 million in income he earned from his dental practice and evade more than $1.6 million in federal and state income taxes owed on that income.

To set up the tax shelter, Ulibarri signed trust instruments that named him as trustee of the three trusts and foundation, and he opened bank accounts in the name of each entity. He further recruited friends to falsely sign his trust instruments as the purported creators of the trusts to make it seem as if Ulibarri himself was not the real creator. Ulibarri then transferred majority ownership of his dental practice to his business trust. He did this despite having been warned by attorneys and CPAs that, in Colorado, a trust could not own a dental practice.

Ulibarri then transferred over $5 million in income he earned from his dental practice into the bank accounts of the various trusts and foundation to create the illusion that the funds belonged to those entities, not him. In reality, Ulibarri retained complete control over those funds and used the funds to pay for personal expenses including his home mortgage, credit card bills, boats, luxury vacations, and professional baseball season tickets. Ulibarri also filed false tax returns for himself, his dental practice, the trusts, and his foundation that falsely reported the income he earned from his dental practice as income of the trusts. On those tax returns, Ulibarri also claimed fraudulent deductions for his personal living expenses which he disguised as trust expenses and charitable donations.

In total, Ulibarri caused a tax loss to the United States of $1.6 million.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang ordered Ulibarri to serve 3 years of supervised release, to pay a $150,000 fine and to pay $1,449,121 in restitution to the IRS and $166,966 in restitution to the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Karen E. Kelly of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Special Agent in Charge Amanda Prestegard of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Denver Field Office made the announcement.

IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Amanda R. Scott and Lauren K. Pope and Assistant Chief Andrew J. Kameros of the Tax Division prosecuted the case.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Murphy, Blumenthal, Bicameral Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Let Every American Choose Medicare

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for Connecticut – Chris Murphy

June 17, 2025

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and U.S. Representatives Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.-34) and Donald Beyer (D-Va.-08) in leading a group of bicameral colleagues in reintroducing the?Choose Medicare Act. This revolutionary proposal opens Medicare to all Americans with a new ‘Part E’ and builds on the system we have today by allowing Medicare to compete with private health insurance.

“Instead of shielding big insurance companies from competition, we should give Americans the option to choose Medicare’s high-quality, low-cost coverage if it’s right for them and their families,” said Murphy. “While Republicans spike the cost of living and cut health care for millions of Americans, we’ll keep fighting to expand access and affordability.”

“I’m proud to support the Choose Medicare Act which expands access to Medicare, making quality and affordable health care more attainable for all Americans,” said Blumenthal. “Every day, Americans across the country must choose between critical health care and other basic necessities. Our health care system needs updating and upgrading so that it works for everyone – not just giant private health insurers.”

“In the richest country in the world, no person should have to worry about whether they’ll be able to afford care if they become sick or get into an accident.?At a time when?proposed cuts?from Republicans?threaten the health and financial security of millions, it’s more important than ever to expand access to high-quality, affordable?health?care,”?said Merkley.?“The?Choose Medicare Act?does just that by allowing every American to buy into Medicare, protecting and expanding this effective, popular system, and?putting consumers and businesses in the driver’s seat on the road to universal health care.”

“I got pneumonia when I was seven years old, and my family almost went bankrupt because we were uninsured. Today too many families are still one medical emergency away from financial crisis,” said Gomez. “Our bicameral legislation lets every American opt into Medicare — which is affordable, effective, and trusted — and we’re going to keep fighting until everyone has access to the care they need.

The Choose Medicare Act is co-sponsored by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Jack Reed (D-RI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Representatives Jared Huffman (D-CA-02), LaMonica McIver (D-NJ-10), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC-AL). The bill is supported by Families USA, MoveOn, American Federation of Teachers, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the Center for Health and Democracy.

“Now, more than ever, millions of people are grappling with skyrocketing health care costs and rising concerns that they won’t be able to access affordable health insurance and the care they need to keep their families healthy. Lawmakers should be doing all they can to ensure people across the country have more options for affordable health care, not less. The Choose Medicare Act is an important effort that creates a new pathway to make Medicare accessible to more consumers and employers, and makes important improvements to the current program like coverage of all reproductive health and essential health benefits,” said Jane Sheehan, Deputy Senior Director of Government Relations for Families USA.

“The Choose Medicare Act would improve the existing Medicare program by creating a critically needed out-of-pocket cap in traditional Medicare,” said David Lipschutz, Co-Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “The bill would also enable people currently not yet eligible for Medicare to enjoy the benefits of traditional Medicare, without the restrictions of limited provider networks found in many Medicare Advantage plans.”

“Big Insurance’s monopoly control over health care in this country has led to higher health care costs and a growing medical debt crisis, all while making health care unaffordable and inaccessible to a majority of Americans. It is a system designed to put profits over patients. This bill is a vital step towards breaking Big Insurance’s strangle hold over health care in this country and will open up the most successful health care program in our country’s history, Medicare, to even more people. I applaud Senator Merkley for introducing it,” said Wendell Potter, President, Center for Health and Democracy.

Medicare ‘Part E’ aims to be self-sustaining and fully paid for by premiums. Plans would be offered on all state and federal exchanges, giving people the ability to use existing Affordable Care Act?subsidies to help cover their premiums. Additionally, employers could choose to select Medicare ‘Part E’ rather than private insurance to provide affordable and reliable health care to their employees.

The?Choose Medicare Act

Increases Access, Competition, and Choice ?

1.      Opens Medicare to employers of all sizes and allows them to purchase high-quality, affordable health care for their employees without requiring replacement of employment-based health insurance.?

2.      Addresses the discrepancy between consumer protections in the individual and group markets by extending the ACA’s rating requirements to all markets, to end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions once and for all.?

?

Provides Comprehensive Coverage

1.      Includes the ACA’s 10 essential health benefits and all items and services covered by Medicare.

2.      Provides high-quality, gold-level coverage and cost-sharing.??

3.      Ensures coverage for a wide range of reproductive services, including abortion.

?

Improves Affordability

1.      Establishes an out-of-pocket maximum in traditional Medicare.

2.      Increases the generosity of premium tax credits and extends eligibility to all earners.??

3.      Directs Medicare to negotiate fair prices for prescription drugs by incorporating in the program the drug price negotiation section of the Inflation Reduction Act.?

4.      Drives down private insurance premiums through competition from Medicare by allowing the HHS Secretary to block excessive private insurance rates.?

5.      Extends traditional Medicare protections on balance billing or surprise bills to ‘Part E’ plans.

?

Full text of the bill is available HERE.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI China: Foreign Minister Lin presents Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator Gattolin
Source: Republic of Taiwan – Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Minister Lin presents Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator Gattolin
- Date：2025-06-16
- Data Source：Department of European Affairs
June 16, 2025

No. 211

Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung presented the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator André Gattolin at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on the morning of June 16 in recognition of his long-standing efforts to promote Taiwan-France relations and his staunch support of Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.

In his speech, Minister Lin stated that Mr. Gattolin had long been a good friend of Taiwan in the French Senate, sparing no effort to speak up for Taiwan over the years. He pointed out that during the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020, Mr. Gattolin had taken the lead in bringing together a total of 110 members from both chambers of the French Parliament to sign an open letter calling for Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization, helping Taiwan gain widespread recognition in France and paving the way for the first passage of resolutions supportive of Taiwan in 2021 by both chambers.

He also mentioned that Mr. Gattolin had worked with French parliamentarians friendly to Taiwan to facilitate the adoption of the seven-year Military Programming Law in 2023, reiterating France’s continued defense of freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait. He added that during Mr. Gattolin’s tenure as French cochair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in 2020, he had enthusiastically encouraged French parliamentarians to participate in various IPAC initiatives. On behalf of MOFA, Minister Lin extended sincere appreciation to Mr. Gattolin for having actively deepened Taiwan-France relations and expressed hope that he would continue to leverage his influence to further this bilateral friendship.

Mr. Gattolin said in his remarks that the honor of receiving the medal was not only a recognition of him personally but also a commendation of the French Senate’s Taiwan Friendship Group. He observed that the French Parliament’s support for Taiwan had continued to expand, noting that the Senate’s Taiwan Friendship Group had grown to over 60 members and that they continued to exhort the French government to attach greater importance to Taiwan. He stated that he was profoundly pleased to have been able to facilitate the training of Taiwan’s Olympic and Paralympic teams in his electoral district of Levallois-Perret last year. And as current vice chair of the IPAC Alumni Council, Mr. Gattolin affirmed that he continued to pay close attention to the situation across the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.

Deputy Director of the French Office in Taipei Cléa Le Cardeur, former Minister of Taiwan’s Council for Cultural Affairs Tchen Yu-chiou, and Chair of the Egret Cultural and Educational Foundation Lu Chia-hui attended the award ceremony and offered their congratulations. The atmosphere was heartfelt and earnest. (E)

MIL OSI China News –
June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Xia Baolong arrives in HK

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

CPC Central Committee Hong Kong & Macao Work Office Director and State Council Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office Director Xia Baolong arrived in Hong Kong this evening.

Mr Xia will attend the 5th Anniversary of Promulgation & Implementation of Hong Kong National Security Law Forum organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government on June 21. He will also take the opportunity to inspect the latest economic and social developments of Hong Kong.

Upon arrival in Hong Kong, Mr Xia went to Government House to meet Chief Executive John Lee and heads of the executive authorities, the legislature and the judiciary, and had exchanges with senior officials of the Hong Kong SAR Government.

Mr Lee expressed gratitude to Mr Xia for his continued concern and support for Hong Kong. He also extended his warmest welcome to Mr Xia on his visit to Hong Kong for the forum and inspection.

MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Rosanna Law ends Shanghai visit

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

Secretary for Culture, Sports & Tourism Rosanna Law today visited the Shanghai Museum on People’s Square and a CPC memorial hall, met Shanghai Administration of Sports Director Xu Bin, and attended the WestK Shanghai Week 2025 opening ceremony and dinner.

At the Shanghai Museum on People’s Square, Miss Law was given a guided tour of the exhibition, “On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt”, and met Shanghai Museum Deputy Director Huang He who shared his experiences in developing and designing creative products.

At a working lunch with Mr Xu, Miss Law shared Hong Kong’s progress and achievements in promoting sports development.

Miss Law hoped through today’s exchange to learn from Shanghai’s experiences in hosting the same events and further improve the preparatory work for the 15th National Games, and the 12th National Games for Persons with Disabilities & the 9th National Special Olympic Games.

In the afternoon, she visited the Memorial Hall of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China and met the memorial’s Party Committee Secretary and Director Xue Feng.

Noting that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is setting up a museum on the country’s developments and achievements, and preparing shows related to the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Miss Law said she intended to seek guidance through the visit.

In the evening, the culture chief attended the WestK Shanghai Week 2025 opening ceremony and dinner.

Addressing the event, she said the WestK Shanghai Week, kick-started today by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA), is the first time a series of exhibitions and performing arts programmes and cultural exchange activities have been brought outside Hong Kong.

This is not only an important milestone of the Hong Kong SAR Government driving top-notch arts, cultural and creative programmes to go global, but also attracts local and overseas visitors to Hong Kong, she added.

In the morning, Miss Law visited the “WestK x MANNER” limited-edition art collaboration themed store, jointly rolled out by the WKCDA and Shanghai’s beloved coffee brand MANNER COFFEE.

On Tuesday, upon arrival, she had a working lunch with representatives of the Shanghai Shendi Group management to exchange information on the latest tourism situation in Shanghai and Hong Kong as well as toured the Shanghai Disney Resort to learn about its operation and development.

Miss Law returned to Hong Kong this evening.

MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Foreign Minister Lin presents Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator Gattolin

Source: Republic of China Taiwan

Foreign Minister Lin presents Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator Gattolin

Date：2025-06-16
Data Source：Department of European Affairs

June 16, 2025
No. 211

Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung presented the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy to former French Senator André Gattolin at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on the morning of June 16 in recognition of his long-standing efforts to promote Taiwan-France relations and his staunch support of Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.

In his speech, Minister Lin stated that Mr. Gattolin had long been a good friend of Taiwan in the French Senate, sparing no effort to speak up for Taiwan over the years. He pointed out that during the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020, Mr. Gattolin had taken the lead in bringing together a total of 110 members from both chambers of the French Parliament to sign an open letter calling for Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization, helping Taiwan gain widespread recognition in France and paving the way for the first passage of resolutions supportive of Taiwan in 2021 by both chambers.

He also mentioned that Mr. Gattolin had worked with French parliamentarians friendly to Taiwan to facilitate the adoption of the seven-year Military Programming Law in 2023, reiterating France’s continued defense of freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait. He added that during Mr. Gattolin’s tenure as French cochair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in 2020, he had enthusiastically encouraged French parliamentarians to participate in various IPAC initiatives. On behalf of MOFA, Minister Lin extended sincere appreciation to Mr. Gattolin for having actively deepened Taiwan-France relations and expressed hope that he would continue to leverage his influence to further this bilateral friendship.

Mr. Gattolin said in his remarks that the honor of receiving the medal was not only a recognition of him personally but also a commendation of the French Senate’s Taiwan Friendship Group. He observed that the French Parliament’s support for Taiwan had continued to expand, noting that the Senate’s Taiwan Friendship Group had grown to over 60 members and that they continued to exhort the French government to attach greater importance to Taiwan. He stated that he was profoundly pleased to have been able to facilitate the training of Taiwan’s Olympic and Paralympic teams in his electoral district of Levallois-Perret last year. And as current vice chair of the IPAC Alumni Council, Mr. Gattolin affirmed that he continued to pay close attention to the situation across the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.

Deputy Director of the French Office in Taipei Cléa Le Cardeur, former Minister of Taiwan’s Council for Cultural Affairs Tchen Yu-chiou, and Chair of the Egret Cultural and Educational Foundation Lu Chia-hui attended the award ceremony and offered their congratulations. The atmosphere was heartfelt and earnest. (E)

MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: United States Files Civil Forfeiture Complaint Against $225M in Funds Involved in Cryptocurrency Investment Fraud Money Laundering

Source: US State of Vermont

The Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency. According to the complaint, law enforcement used blockchain analysis and other investigative techniques to determine that the cryptocurrency is connected to the theft and laundering of funds from victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, commonly referred to as “cryptocurrency confidence scams.”

The complaint alleges that the cryptocurrency addresses that held the over $225.3 million in cryptocurrency were part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network that executed hundreds of thousands of transactions and was used to disperse proceeds of cryptocurrency investment fraud across many cryptocurrency addresses and accounts on the blockchain to conceal the source of the illegally obtained funds.

“Today’s civil forfeiture complaint is the latest action taken by the Department to protect the American public from fraudsters specializing in cryptocurrency-based scams, and it will not be the last,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These schemes harm American victims, costing them billions of dollars every year, and undermine faith in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Our investigators and prosecutors are relentlessly pursuing these scammers and their ill-gotten gains, and we will relentlessly pursue recovery of victim funds.”

“Under my leadership, with the support of President Trump and Attorney General Bondi, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is taking a leading role in the fight against crypto-confidence scams, partnering with law enforcement throughout the country to seize and forfeit stolen funds and rip them from the hands of foreign criminals, all with the eye toward making victims whole,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia.

“The forfeiture of these illicit funds is a powerful tool in the FBI’s toolbox to stop the fraudsters who are operating online from stealing from the American people,” said Assistant Director Jose A. Perez of the FBI Criminal Division. “The FBI will not standby while these criminals target unsuspecting victims who believe they are making legitimate investments. The hard work of the FBI and our partners continues as we work with victims and potential victims across the country to put an end to these scams and warn others about their devastating effects.”

“This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service (USSS) history,” said Special Agent in Charge Shawn Bradstreet of the USSS San Francisco Field Office. “These scams prey on trust, often resulting in extreme financial hardship for the victims. The USSS, FBI, and our private partners worked diligently to trace these illicit transactions, identify victims and seize these funds so that they can eventually be returned to their rightful owners.”

As part of the investigation of the laundering network, over 400 suspected victims are believed to have lost funds after being duped into believing that they were making legitimate cryptocurrency investments. The complaint recounts millions of dollars in victim losses. According to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2024 Internet Crime Report, cryptocurrency investment fraud caused more than $5.8 billion in reported losses in 2024 alone. The USSS San Francisco Field Office and FBI San Francisco Field Offices investigated the case. The Department of Justice thanks Tether for its proactive assistance in this investigation.

Trial Attorneys Stefanie Schwartz and Ethan Cantor of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Rosenberg and Rick Blaylock Jr. for the District of Columbia are handling the matter.

Members of the public who believe they are victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud and other cyber-enabled crime should contact the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. If you believe you may be a victim of one of the scams alleged in the government’s complaint, add the code “BT06182025” in the narrative of your complaint, and if you have previously filed a related complaint, make note of the prior complaint in the narrative.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: United States Files Civil Forfeiture Complaint Against $225M in Funds Involved in Cryptocurrency Investment Fraud Money Laundering

Source: United States Attorneys General

The Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency. According to the complaint, law enforcement used blockchain analysis and other investigative techniques to determine that the cryptocurrency is connected to the theft and laundering of funds from victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, commonly referred to as “cryptocurrency confidence scams.”

The complaint alleges that the cryptocurrency addresses that held the over $225.3 million in cryptocurrency were part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network that executed hundreds of thousands of transactions and was used to disperse proceeds of cryptocurrency investment fraud across many cryptocurrency addresses and accounts on the blockchain to conceal the source of the illegally obtained funds.

“Today’s civil forfeiture complaint is the latest action taken by the Department to protect the American public from fraudsters specializing in cryptocurrency-based scams, and it will not be the last,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These schemes harm American victims, costing them billions of dollars every year, and undermine faith in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Our investigators and prosecutors are relentlessly pursuing these scammers and their ill-gotten gains, and we will relentlessly pursue recovery of victim funds.”

“Under my leadership, with the support of President Trump and Attorney General Bondi, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is taking a leading role in the fight against crypto-confidence scams, partnering with law enforcement throughout the country to seize and forfeit stolen funds and rip them from the hands of foreign criminals, all with the eye toward making victims whole,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia.

“The forfeiture of these illicit funds is a powerful tool in the FBI’s toolbox to stop the fraudsters who are operating online from stealing from the American people,” said Assistant Director Jose A. Perez of the FBI Criminal Division. “The FBI will not standby while these criminals target unsuspecting victims who believe they are making legitimate investments. The hard work of the FBI and our partners continues as we work with victims and potential victims across the country to put an end to these scams and warn others about their devastating effects.”

“This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service (USSS) history,” said Special Agent in Charge Shawn Bradstreet of the USSS San Francisco Field Office. “These scams prey on trust, often resulting in extreme financial hardship for the victims. The USSS, FBI, and our private partners worked diligently to trace these illicit transactions, identify victims and seize these funds so that they can eventually be returned to their rightful owners.”

As part of the investigation of the laundering network, over 400 suspected victims are believed to have lost funds after being duped into believing that they were making legitimate cryptocurrency investments. The complaint recounts millions of dollars in victim losses. According to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2024 Internet Crime Report, cryptocurrency investment fraud caused more than $5.8 billion in reported losses in 2024 alone. The USSS San Francisco Field Office and FBI San Francisco Field Offices investigated the case. The Department of Justice thanks Tether for its proactive assistance in this investigation.

Trial Attorneys Stefanie Schwartz and Ethan Cantor of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Rosenberg and Rick Blaylock Jr. for the District of Columbia are handling the matter.

Members of the public who believe they are victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud and other cyber-enabled crime should contact the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. If you believe you may be a victim of one of the scams alleged in the government’s complaint, add the code “BT06182025” in the narrative of your complaint, and if you have previously filed a related complaint, make note of the prior complaint in the narrative.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Texas Man Charged Federally for Receipt and Transport of Explosives Intended for Use Against Law Enforcement

Source: US State of North Dakota

A Texas man is facing federal charges after allegedly purchasing powerful explosives in New Mexico and expressing plans to use them to harm law enforcement officers and government officials during riots in California.

According to court documents, on June 12, 2025, Grzegorz Vandenberg, 48, visited a travel center in Lordsburg, New Mexico, to purchase fireworks. During the transaction, Vandenberg requested assistance in selecting fireworks that could be thrown directly at people to cause harm. He told store employees that he was prior special forces military and claimed he could make pipe bombs. Vandenberg further stated that he was traveling to Los Angeles, California, for the riots, with the intent to kill law enforcement officers or government officials.

“This man allegedly intended to use the chaotic riots in Los Angeles as an opportunity to commit deadly violence against law enforcement officers,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Threats like these strike at the heart of law and order — we will not hesitate to bring federal charges against anyone who seeks to harm law enforcement or endanger the safety of our communities.”

“Our message is clear: If you come after law enforcement officers, the FBI will spare no effort to find you and bring you to justice,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “This defendant allegedly intended to use explosives to attack police officers currently conducting law enforcement operations in Los Angeles and – with the help of a store cashier who took down his license plate information – we were able to put a stop to that plan. Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to serve the American people and the FBI will always do our part to protect them.”

“Targeting law enforcement with violence is not protest – it’s a crime,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison for the District of New Mexico. “Anyone who attempts to harm officers or undermine public safety will be held accountable. Protecting the safety of our communities and upholding the integrity of lawful demonstrations are priorities, and those who cross the line into violence will be prosecuted swiftly and to the fullest extent of the law.”

Store staff reported that Vandenberg asked for the largest explosives available and invited an employee to join him and his platoon in California. He also claimed to have mortar explosives in his possession and reiterated his plan to use them at the riots to kill officers. Vandenberg purchased six mortars, each containing 60 grams of gunpowder, and 36 large fireworks before leaving the store in a vehicle with Montana license plates, heading west on Interstate 10.

Vandenberg is charged with transporting explosives in interstate commerce with the knowledge and intent that they would be used to kill, injure, or intimidate individuals. He will remain in custody pending trial, which has not yet been scheduled. If convicted of the current charges, Vandenberg faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

The Las Cruces Resident Agency of the FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office investigated this case with assistance from the Tucson Resident Agency of the FBI’s Phoenix Field Office, Tucson Police Department, U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Paso.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joni Stahl and Grant Gardner for the District of New Mexico are prosecuting the case, with valuable assistance provided by Trial Attorney Patrick Cashman of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Australia: Video highlights risks of cassowary feeding
Source: Tasmania Police

Issued: 18 Jun 2025

Open larger image

A “Be cass-o-wary” sign

Authorities are urging people to avoid unlawfully feeding wildlife after a close encounter with a cassowary.

Security video from south Mission Beach on May 09 shows a habituated male cassowary and his chick approaching a home in the hopes of being fed.

The Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation is urging people in cassowary habitat to stop feeding them.

Wildlife Ranger Jeff Lewis said feeding cassowaries changes their behaviour, creating significant risks for people and our iconic endangered birds.

“This incident is one of several cassowary interactions in the area which are linked to unlawful feeding,” Mr Lewis said.

“Thankfully the mother and child were able to get inside to safety, but it’s an important reminder to not interfere with wildlife.

“In April, a man in his seventies was kicked in the leg by a cassowary which approached him expecting food. He was treated for a cut to his leg and was lucky the injuries weren’t worse.

“These incidents are stark examples of the dangers of feeding cassowaries.

“Local wildlife rangers have been warning people of the risks, installing signage and providing education, but the unlawful feeding persists.

“When cassowaries associate humans with food, they can become impatient and aggressive, particularly when accompanied by chicks.

“We encourage anyone with information in relation to unlawful feeding to report it to the Department.”

If you encounter a cassowary displaying concerning behaviour or see one injured, contact 1300 130 372. For general sightings.

Cassowaries can inflict serious injuries to people and pets by kicking out with their large, clawed feet. People are asked to Be cass-o-wary at all times in the Wet Tropics.
- Never approach cassowaries.
- Never approach chicks – male cassowaries will defend them.
- Never feed cassowaries – it is illegal, dangerous and has caused cassowary deaths.
- Always discard food scraps in closed bins and ensure compost bins have secure lids.
- Slow down when driving in cassowary habitat.
- Never stop your vehicle to look at cassowaries on the road.
- Keep dogs behind fences or on a leash.
MIL OSI News –
June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Texas Man Charged Federally for Receipt and Transport of Explosives Intended for Use Against Law Enforcement

Source: United States Attorneys General

A Texas man is facing federal charges after allegedly purchasing powerful explosives in New Mexico and expressing plans to use them to harm law enforcement officers and government officials during riots in California.

According to court documents, on June 12, 2025, Grzegorz Vandenberg, 48, visited a travel center in Lordsburg, New Mexico, to purchase fireworks. During the transaction, Vandenberg requested assistance in selecting fireworks that could be thrown directly at people to cause harm. He told store employees that he was prior special forces military and claimed he could make pipe bombs. Vandenberg further stated that he was traveling to Los Angeles, California, for the riots, with the intent to kill law enforcement officers or government officials.

“This man allegedly intended to use the chaotic riots in Los Angeles as an opportunity to commit deadly violence against law enforcement officers,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Threats like these strike at the heart of law and order — we will not hesitate to bring federal charges against anyone who seeks to harm law enforcement or endanger the safety of our communities.”

“Our message is clear: If you come after law enforcement officers, the FBI will spare no effort to find you and bring you to justice,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “This defendant allegedly intended to use explosives to attack police officers currently conducting law enforcement operations in Los Angeles and – with the help of a store cashier who took down his license plate information – we were able to put a stop to that plan. Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to serve the American people and the FBI will always do our part to protect them.”

“Targeting law enforcement with violence is not protest – it’s a crime,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison for the District of New Mexico. “Anyone who attempts to harm officers or undermine public safety will be held accountable. Protecting the safety of our communities and upholding the integrity of lawful demonstrations are priorities, and those who cross the line into violence will be prosecuted swiftly and to the fullest extent of the law.”

Store staff reported that Vandenberg asked for the largest explosives available and invited an employee to join him and his platoon in California. He also claimed to have mortar explosives in his possession and reiterated his plan to use them at the riots to kill officers. Vandenberg purchased six mortars, each containing 60 grams of gunpowder, and 36 large fireworks before leaving the store in a vehicle with Montana license plates, heading west on Interstate 10.

Vandenberg is charged with transporting explosives in interstate commerce with the knowledge and intent that they would be used to kill, injure, or intimidate individuals. He will remain in custody pending trial, which has not yet been scheduled. If convicted of the current charges, Vandenberg faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

The Las Cruces Resident Agency of the FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office investigated this case with assistance from the Tucson Resident Agency of the FBI’s Phoenix Field Office, Tucson Police Department, U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Paso.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joni Stahl and Grant Gardner for the District of New Mexico are prosecuting the case, with valuable assistance provided by Trial Attorney Patrick Cashman of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: New Report on Indonesia’s Civic Space Legal Framework Published

Source: US Global Legal Monitor

Earlier this year, in March 2025, public protests broke out in several cities in Indonesia. The focus of the protests was changes to the law that governs the country’s military. Last year, in August, the were mass protests over proposals to amend the local election laws, which were subsequently scrapped. Other government actions have also seen people take to the streets over the past few months. Civil society groups have been involved in supporting and organizing different protests, with the bulk of protesters being university students. Academics have also raised concerns about government transparency and approaches to dissent.

Indonesia is a country that has experienced significant upheavals in the form and structures of its government over the past century, including colonial governance under Dutch rule, Japanese occupation during World War II, a successful fight for independence following the war, a failed coup and subsequent mass killings in the mid-1960s, a military dictatorship that lasted from 1967 to 1998, a period of major reforms starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s as part of a shift to democracy (reformasi period), and concerns in more recent years about changes to laws and structures that some feel impinge on democratic values.

A recently published report on the Law Library’s website, Indonesia: Civil Space Legal Framework, provides information on the rights and freedoms protected in the 1945 Constitution of Indonesia following its amendment during the reformasi period and on protections in several other laws enacted during that period, including laws on human rights, the press and broadcasting, expressing opinions in public, and trade or labor unions. It also provides information on the 1946 Criminal Code and the new 2023 Criminal Code, as well as provisions in the 2008 Law on Electronic Information and Transactions, that can be used to restrict certain rights, such as the freedom of expression. Various court challenges to these and other laws are also noted in the report. In addition, the report provides an overview of the laws that regulate civil society organizations.

Read the report here.

The report on the civic space legal framework in Indonesia is part of a series of Law Library reports covering the frameworks in several other countries, including Peru, Finland, Romania, Thailand, Spain, and Morocco. These reports are contained in the Law Library’s Legal Reports (Publications of the Law Library of Congress) collection, which includes over 4,000 historical and contemporary legal reports covering a variety of jurisdictions, researched and written by foreign law specialists with expertise in each area. To receive alerts when new reports are published, you can subscribe to email updates and the RSS feed for Law Library Reports (click the “subscribe” button on the Law Library’s website). The Law Library also publishes articles related to Indonesia[add link to search results] in the Global Legal Monitor.

Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 19, 2025
Top Maoist leaders surrender after 25 years, major blow to LWE in Chhattisgarh

Source: Government of India

Source: Government of India (4)

In a significant setback to the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) movement, two senior Maoist leaders, including the commander of the Mobile Political School (MOPOS), surrendered to security forces on Monday. The surrender, which took place before senior police and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) officials, marks a crucial breakthrough in anti-Naxal operations in the region.

Jeevan Tulavi (45), also known as Ram Tulavi, and his wife Agasha (35), alias Aarti Korram, gave up arms before Inspector General of Rajnandgaon Range Abhishek Shandilya, Superintendent of Police Y.P. Singh, and Commandant of the 27th Battalion ITBP Vivek Kumar Pandey. Officers from the 44th Battalion ITBP were also present.

Jeevan, a resident of Parvidih village under Mohla police station in Mohla Manpur Ambagarh Chowki (MMAC) district, has been active in Maoist operations for over 25 years. Currently serving as a Divisional Committee Member (DVCM) and Education Unit Commander of the Maad Division, he carried a bounty of ₹8 lakh. He joined the LWE movement in 2008 and initially served in the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in the South Rajnandgaon-based division.

Since 2012-13, Jeevan transitioned into an ideological role, teaching Maoist philosophy through the Mobile Political School (MOPOS) in the Maad Division. He is known to have travelled extensively across Abujhmad, spreading LWE ideology through the Mobile Academic School (MAS) and heading the education wing until his surrender.

Agasha, his wife and a resident of Telitola village in the same district, was serving as an Area Committee Member (ACM). She played a key role in the Press Team of the Maad Division and was also the commander of the Maoist cultural wing, Chetna Natya Mandali (CNM). Active since the early 2000s, Agasha contributed as a singer, dancer, poet, orator, and composer for the LWE propaganda machinery. She was also responsible for handling digital communication, including drafting press releases and managing computers.

The surrender is seen as part of the growing impact of sustained operations led by police and ITBP in the MMAC district and the former Rajnandgaon region. In the past three months alone, five senior Maoist cadres from the district have surrendered, weakening the organizational structure of the LWE in this strategically critical area bordering the heavily affected regions of Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) and Kanker (Chhattisgarh).

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Overseas officials conclude HK trip

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

A delegation of 10 overseas government officials today completed their three-day visit to Hong Kong, having met senior officials of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and toured the city’s major cultural and innovation and technology facilities to deepen their understanding of the city’s advantages and development opportunities.

The visit was arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which invited officials from 10 countries across Africa and Asia. These countries comprise Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Mauritania, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.

During the trip, the delegation met Acting Financial Secretary Michael Wong, Deputy Chief Secretary Cheuk Wing-hing and Deputy Secretary for Justice Cheung Kwok-kwan to obtain a better understanding of Hong Kong’s distinctive advantage of enjoying the strong support of the motherland while being closely connected to the world under the “one country, two systems” principle.

The delegation learnt of Hong Kong’s important roles as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder”, serving as a bridge between the Mainland and the rest of the world.

They also met Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury Christopher Hui, Under Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Bernard Chan and Under Secretary for Innovation, Technology & Industry Lillian Cheong as well as representatives of a number of relevant institutions.

Additionally, they toured the Science Park and West Kowloon Cultural District to find out about the city’s latest developments and opportunities in finance, trade, innovation and technology, and arts and culture.

MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Social Justice Secretary: “Scrap damaging welfare reforms”

Source: Scottish Government

Call for UK Government to follow Scottish Government lead on social security.

Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has urged the UK Government to protect and enhance social security rather than making cuts.

The UK Government’s Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has been published today, which includes the details of the first set of changes to ill-health and disability benefits. The Scottish Government will not mirror the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) changes in Adult Disability Payment in Scotland.

Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said:

“The UK Government’s proposed reforms will be hugely damaging to those who rely on social security support, particularly during the ongoing cost of living crisis. These plans have yet to be passed at Westminster, so there is still time for the UK Government to step back from this damaging policy and I strongly urge them to scrap their harmful proposals.

“The UK Government’s own analysis highlights how the proposals will push 250,000 more people across the UK into poverty – including 50,000 children. With around half of all children in poverty in Scotland living in a household with a disabled person, the changes threaten to undermine the progress that we are making to reduce child poverty, and the work of the UK Government’s Child Poverty Taskforce.

“That the UK Government is prioritising deep cuts to disabled people’s support is made even worse by their failure to abolish the two-child limit, which is estimated to have pushed more than 35,000 children into poverty since July last year.

“The reforms do not reflect the Scottish Government’s values. We will not let disabled people down or cast them aside as the UK Government has done. We will not cut Scotland’s Adult Disability Payment.

“The UK Government should follow our lead and protect the social security safety system, rather than dismantling it. If they do not, then disabled people can draw no other conclusion than the UK Government remain content to balance the books on the backs of the most vulnerable.”

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: MOU signed with Homes England to help deliver city centre vision
Source: City of Plymouth

Plymouth’s ambitions to provide thousands of homes in the city centre have taken a step closer with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Homes England.

Neil Hook, Director – Homes England South and London
Tracey Lee, Chief Executive – Plymouth City Council
Council Leader Tudor Evans – Plymouth City Council
Eamonn Boylan, Interim CEO – Homes England

Council leader Tudor Evans and Homes England CEO Eamonn Boylan signed the partnership document which is the next step in strengthening the working relationship between the two organisations.

A new strategic partnership will accelerate the delivery of high-quality homes in Plymouth, supporting a transformational regeneration of the city centre and surrounding areas. These homes will play a key role in unlocking the economic potential of recent dockyard investments and help create a vibrant city where people can live, work, eat, shop, and socialise.

This initiative aligns with the UK Government’s Strategic Defence Review, which identifies defence as a new engine for national growth. The Continuous At Sea Deterrent programme represents a generational investment in national security—and Plymouth is set to benefit directly.

“Plymouth is at the forefront of a new era of economic opportunity,” said Tudor Evans. “By investing in affordable, high-quality housing, we’re not only supporting our defence capabilities but also creating a thriving, inclusive city for future generations.”

The provision of affordable homes is central to retaining local talent, attracting new families, and ensuring that all communities benefit from this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Our city centre currently has around 800 homes in it. The top 20 English cities have an average of 8,000 homes, and regeneration over the last 20 years in Newcastle, Manchester, Salford, Sheffield and Leeds has shown that more housing in city centres plays a key part in rejuvenating them.

City centres need to be more than shops, they need to be about culture, leisure, events and festivals, and places to live. There are also 8,000 people on the housing list and while the city centre was built for retail after the war, now is the time to bring people to live in the city centre again.

The proposal is for a shared delivery plan to work together over five years to deliver a strategy for a series of transformative investments, acquisitions and developments which are rooted in the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan.

Interventions are designed to act a catalyst and market-making investments, that will allow the public sector to create the right conditions and confidence for the private sector to invest and deliver the wider regeneration of the city centre.

Councillor Evans added: “We have been working with Homes England on our vision for the city centre and this is another important step along the road to making a vision a reality.

“With change of this scale in the pipeline, we need to set out and confirm common goals, get clarity of what we are working towards and be clear about how we are going to bring others along on the journey.”

Eamonn Boylan, Chief Executive of Homes England, said: “Our new Memorandum of Understanding with Plymouth City Council is an important step in strengthening our commitment to the area.

“We’ll work side-by-side with the council to help achieve their vision for the city centre and support them to deliver 10,000 new homes for the people of Plymouth.”

Extensive work is underway to develop shared ambitions with the agreed shared outcomes. They are:
- Pioneering Urban Regeneration: Redefining the city centre as a dynamic hub of activity, focusing on homes and culture and diversification.
- Delivering Nationally Significant Urban Regeneration: The city centre is nationally significant as a post war response to planning and urban design. Options will be considered to unlock a nationally significant urban extension in the heart of the city centre and look at how models can be pioneered that can be replicated elsewhere
- Fostering Sustainable Development: The partners will consider ways to create a model of urban development that minimises environmental impact while maximising community benefits.
- Empowering Local Businesses and Unlocking Private Investment: By strategically deploying government funding and leveraging private sector expertise, the vision is for a city centre that encourages market-led private sector investment and development. This includes working with landowners, leaseholders and occupiers to identify opportunities for joint investment.
- Championing Social Justice via the Growth Alliance Plymouth (GAP) Through targeted initiatives and inclusive policies, there is potential to improve access to quality housing, education, healthcare, and employment opportunities.
- Catalysing Private Sector-Led Development: Strategically deploying government funding and leveraging private sector expertise to encourage market led private sector investment and development.
- Linking delivery to future planning policy: Homes England will work with the Council, Department for Transport, and MHCLG to shape a masterplan for Plymouth that delivers sustainable growth across all housing types and tenures. This will require an ambitious planning framework and a supply chain capable of delivering high quality homes and a population that can afford to live and work in Plymouth. The GAP work will continue to focus on skills, training and education that underpin these broader themes.
- Embedding long term delivery goals into ways of working. The GAP programme will be the framework from which resourcing, delivery outcomes and ambition are embedded into the Council.
This ambitious work programme will be overseen by a Strategic Investment and Regeneration Board attended by senior representatives from the Council and Homes England.

The Council has embarked on a number of transformational projects designed to inject life, new uses and new visitors into the city centre. As well as the transforming the public realm of Old Town Street and New George Street, Armada Way, other projects in the pipeline include the former Civic Centre which is destined to be a city centre campus with a focus on blue/green skills as well as homes.
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 19, 2025

MIL-OSI Security: Four Leaders Of Notorious Nuestra Familia Prison Gang Sentenced For Racketeering Conspiracy

Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

Sentencings Conclude the Northern District of California’s Successful Prosecution of 40 Members and Associates of the Violent Prison Gang

OAKLAND – Four top leaders of the Nuestra Familia (NF) prison gang were sentenced today to federal prison terms ranging from 120 months to 175 months following their convictions at trial for racketeering conspiracy. David Cervantes, aka “DC,” was sentenced to 120 months; James Perez, aka “Conejo,” was sentenced to 120 months; Guillermo Solorio, aka “Capone,” aka “Caps,” was sentenced to 175 months; and George Franco, aka “Puppet,” was sentenced to 175 months. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers handed down the sentences.

The sentences follow a three-month trial in 2024, which established that the four defendants—Cervantes, 76; Perez, 70; Solorio, 45; and Franco, 59—were senior members of the NF prison gang, serving on the General Council, the primary decision-making body for the gang. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, all four defendants held a leadership role in a lucrative and violent criminal enterprise that engaged in murder conspiracies, attempted murder, drug distribution, and money laundering:

Cervantes was one of three “Generals” who sat atop the NF organizational structure, specifically the “General Advocates Office,” and made final decisions on serious matters involving governance of the enterprise. As the sole member of the General Advocates Office, Cervantes oversaw member discipline, a role that included deciding when members should be attacked or killed for violating gang rules.
Perez was another General of the prison gang, specifically, the “General of Prisons.” In this role, Perez was responsible for maintaining authority over all NF regiments and NF criminal activity within the California prison system.
Franco was a member of the NF’s “Inner Council” and was Regimental Commander of San Joaquin County. As a member of the Inner Council, Franco was an advisor to the three NF Generals (two of whom were Cervantes and Perez) and was part of the General Council that, in addition to member discipline, made other significant decisions in conducting the affairs of the NF.
Solorio was likewise part of the NF “Inner Council” and was an advisor to the NF Generals. Solorio also was the Regimental Commander over the Monterey County Street Regiment, overseeing criminal activity, including largescale drug trafficking, by subservient Norteno street gangs.

“The brutal violence and drug trafficking that this criminal enterprise ran from within state prisons touched every county in the Bay Area. With these sentences, 40 gang leaders and associates have now been convicted and brought to justice for the violence they caused inside and outside prison walls, and the community is now safer as a result,” said United States Attorney Craig H. Missakian. “These convictions would not have been possible without the dedicated work of our law enforcement partners across multiple agencies and jurisdictions and the talented lawyers and staff from within our office.”

“The sentencing of these four top Nuestra Familia gang leaders marks the final chapter in the successful dismantling of one of the most violent and entrenched prison gangs operating in California. Through sustained, coordinated efforts with our law enforcement partners, we have brought to justice 40 members and associates of this dangerous gang who spread violence and fear inside prison walls and outside throughout our communities,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani. “This case demonstrates the FBI’s unwavering commitment to rooting out organized criminal enterprises and protecting the public from those who use intimidation and brutality to maintain power.”

The sentencings of these four defendants mark the successful completion of the prosecution of NF leadership in the Northern District of California. Forty Nuestra Familia members and associates, including defendants both on the streets and in California state prisons, have now been convicted and sentenced. This includes all seven members of the NF’s General Council, its entire senior leadership team, as detailed in the table below:

Defendant	Convictions	Sentence Imposed
David Cervantes aka “DC”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for three attempted murders and two murder conspiracies	120 months
James Perez aka “Conejo”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for two attempted murders and two murder conspiracies	120 months
Antonio Guillen aka “Chuco”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for two murder conspiracies and one attempted murder	175 months
George Franco aka “Puppet”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for one attempted murder and one murder conspiracy	175 months
Guillermo Solorio aka “Capone”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with a special finding for attempted murder	175 months
Trinidad Martinez aka “Trino”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for one attempted murder	144 months
Samuel Luna aka “Sammy”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for four murder conspiracies and one attempted murder	175 months

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mari Overbeck, Leif Dautch, and Aseem Padukone of the Violent Crime Strike Force prosecuted this case, with the assistance of Veronica Hernandez and Kevin Costello. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI (San Francisco, Sacramento, and Phoenix Divisions, and Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit), the DEA, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshal Service, with the assistance of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, and the San Jose Police Department, and with support from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Antioch Police Department, Campbell Police Department, Fremont Police Department, King’s County Sheriff’s Office, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, Mountain View Police Department, Sacramento Police Department, Salinas Police Department, Menlo Park Police Department, Santa Clara County Parole Department, Santa Clara County Probation Department, Santa Clara Police Department, Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, Modesto Police Department, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Francisco Police Department, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, and Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety.

This investigation and prosecution was part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, which identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025

MIL-OSI Security: Four Leaders Of Notorious Nuestra Familia Prison Gang Sentenced For Racketeering Conspiracy

Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

Sentencings Conclude the Northern District of California’s Successful Prosecution of 40 Members and Associates of the Violent Prison Gang

Cervantes was one of three “Generals” who sat atop the NF organizational structure, specifically the “General Advocates Office,” and made final decisions on serious matters involving governance of the enterprise. As the sole member of the General Advocates Office, Cervantes oversaw member discipline, a role that included deciding when members should be attacked or killed for violating gang rules.
Perez was another General of the prison gang, specifically, the “General of Prisons.” In this role, Perez was responsible for maintaining authority over all NF regiments and NF criminal activity within the California prison system.
Franco was a member of the NF’s “Inner Council” and was Regimental Commander of San Joaquin County. As a member of the Inner Council, Franco was an advisor to the three NF Generals (two of whom were Cervantes and Perez) and was part of the General Council that, in addition to member discipline, made other significant decisions in conducting the affairs of the NF.
Solorio was likewise part of the NF “Inner Council” and was an advisor to the NF Generals. Solorio also was the Regimental Commander over the Monterey County Street Regiment, overseeing criminal activity, including largescale drug trafficking, by subservient Norteno street gangs.

Defendant	Convictions	Sentence Imposed
David Cervantes aka “DC”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for three attempted murders and two murder conspiracies	120 months
James Perez aka “Conejo”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for two attempted murders and two murder conspiracies	120 months
Antonio Guillen aka “Chuco”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for two murder conspiracies and one attempted murder	175 months
George Franco aka “Puppet”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for one attempted murder and one murder conspiracy	175 months
Guillermo Solorio aka “Capone”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with a special finding for attempted murder	175 months
Trinidad Martinez aka “Trino”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for one attempted murder	144 months
Samuel Luna aka “Sammy”	18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) – Racketeering conspiracy, with special findings for four murder conspiracies and one attempted murder	175 months

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025

MIL-OSI Security: Member Of Marion Gardens Jersey City Street Gang Sentenced to Two Consecutive Life Sentences for Murders and Drug Trafficking

Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

NEWARK, N.J. – Today, Myron Williams, a/k/a “Money,” a/k/a “Tunchi,” 31, of Newark was sentenced before the Honorable Michael E. Farbiarz to life imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy, life imprisonment for murder in aid of racketeering, 240 months’ imprisonment for possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, and 120 months’ imprisonment for discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, with all sentences to run consecutively.

Williams’s co-defendant Khalil Kelley, a/k/a “Billski,” 26, of Jersey City, was previously sentenced on June 5, 2025, to life imprisonment, plus a consecutive ten-year term of imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy, for his role in the Marion Gardens street gang and a gang-related murder.

Also today, Jawaad Davis, 23, of Jersey City, was sentenced to 170 months’ imprisonment for his role in the Marion Gardens street gang, which included orchestrating a robbery that resulted in murder.

Eight other individuals are pending sentencing. Roger Pickett, a/k/a “Zy G,” 24, of Jersey City was convicted at trial along with Williams and Kelley. The remaining defendants—Herbert Thomas, 49, of Jersey City; Andre Alomar, a/k/a “Dre8,” 24, of Newark; Naim Richardson, a/k/a “Ninicks,” 32, of Jersey City; Anthony Rogers, a/k/a “MG,” 25, of Jersey City; Quaseame Wilson, a/k/a “Qua Gz,” 28, of Jersey City; Javon Williams, a/k/a “J45,” 28, of Jersey City; and Keith Anderson, a/k/a “Beef3,” 23, of Jersey City—all pled guilty before trial. Each defendant will be sentenced before Judge Farbiarz in Newark as follows:

Anthony Rogers, a/k/a “MG”	June 26, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.
Quaseame Wilson, a/k/a “Qua Gz”	July 1, 2025, at 11:30 a.m.
Andre Alomar, a/k/a “Dre8”	July 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.
Roger Pickett, a/k/a “Zy G”	July 2, 2025, at 10:00 a.m.
Keith Anderson, a/k/a “Beef3”	July 2, 2025, at 11:30 a.m.
Javon Williams, a/k/a “J45”	July 2, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.
Naim Richardson, a/k/a “Ninicks”	July 16, 2025, at 11:00 a.m.
Herbert Thomas	October 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Myron Williams, Khalil Kelley, Roger Pickett, Jawaad Davis, Anthony Rogers, Quaseame Wilson, Andre Alomar, Keith Anderson, Javon Williams, and Naim Richardson are all members and associates of the neighborhood street gang associated with the Marion Gardens Housing Complex. Since 2013, they and their fellow gang members have committed numerous acts of violence, including three separate murders, on March 29, 2021, Nov. 20, 2021, and Nov. 1, 2022.

On March 29, 2021, Kelley and other gang members lured a rival gang member outside by sending him Instagram messages pretending to be the victim’s fellow gang member. When the victim opened the door to his residence, Kelley and another gang member brandished firearms, and the victim was shot multiple times in the chest, killing him. Pickett and Myron Williams then picked up Kelley and other gang members after they abandoned the murder vehicle in Newark.

On Nov. 20, 2021, Myron Williams, Pickett, and Richardson lured a rival gang member outside by sending him Instagram messages pretending to be the second victim’s fellow gang member. Williams and another gang member shot the victim when he opened the door to his residence.

On Nov. 1, 2022, Davis facilitated the murder of the third victim by coordinating a narcotics transaction with the victim and the victim’s associate. When the victim and his associate arrived at the Marion Gardens Housing Complex to complete the narcotics transaction, they were robbed of their narcotics supply. During the robbery, Pickett and Wilson held the victim and his associate at gunpoint. After a struggle ensued, Pickett shot and killed the victim while his associate fled. Pickett then fled the Marion Gardens Housing Complex with Wilson.

For months, investigators observed and documented hundreds of narcotics transactions in and around the Marion Gardens Housing Complex. The investigation likewise revealed that Herbert Thomas was a primary supplier of narcotics to the Marion Gardens street gang.

When each defendant was arrested on March 17, 2023, law enforcement seized contraband at several different locations, including heroin, fentanyl, crack cocaine, narcotics packaging materials, ammunition, bulletproof vests, and a loaded handgun.

U.S. Attorney Habba credited investigators of the Gang Intelligence Unit and the Homicide Unit of the Major Case Division of Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor Esther Suarez, and special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), under the direction of Special Agent in Charge L.C. Cheeks Jr., and investigators of the Jersey City Police Department, under the direction of Director James Shea, with the investigation leading to the convictions. He also thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Stefanie Roddy, and the U.S. Marshals, under the direction of U.S. Marshal Juan Mattos, for their assistance.

This investigation was conducted as part of the Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI). The VCI was formed in 2018 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Jersey City Police Department, for the sole purpose of combatting violent crime in and around Jersey City. As part of this partnership, federal, state, county, and city agencies collaborate to strategize and prioritize the prosecution of violent offenders who endanger the safety of the community. The VCI is composed of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New Jersey Division, the U.S. Marshals, the Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), the Jersey City Police Department, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, New Jersey State Parole, the Hudson County Jail, and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center/Real Time Crime Center.

The government is represented by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Maloy and Javon Henry, of the Organized Crime and Gangs Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Newark.

###

Defense counsel:

Myron Williams – William Strazza, Esq.
Jawaad Davis – Jason Orlando, Esq. and Tyler Newman, Esq.

Khalil Kelley – Kevin Buchan, Esq. and James Seplowitz, Esq.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025

MIL-OSI Security: Member Of Marion Gardens Jersey City Street Gang Sentenced to Two Consecutive Life Sentences for Murders and Drug Trafficking

Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

Anthony Rogers, a/k/a “MG”	June 26, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.
Quaseame Wilson, a/k/a “Qua Gz”	July 1, 2025, at 11:30 a.m.
Andre Alomar, a/k/a “Dre8”	July 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.
Roger Pickett, a/k/a “Zy G”	July 2, 2025, at 10:00 a.m.
Keith Anderson, a/k/a “Beef3”	July 2, 2025, at 11:30 a.m.
Javon Williams, a/k/a “J45”	July 2, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.
Naim Richardson, a/k/a “Ninicks”	July 16, 2025, at 11:00 a.m.
Herbert Thomas	October 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

###

Defense counsel:

Myron Williams – William Strazza, Esq.
Jawaad Davis – Jason Orlando, Esq. and Tyler Newman, Esq.

Khalil Kelley – Kevin Buchan, Esq. and James Seplowitz, Esq.

MIL Security OSI –

June 19, 2025

MIL-OSI Global: Ticks carry decades of history in each troublesome bite

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sean Lawrence, Assistant Professor of History, West Virginia University

The black-legged tick, or deer tick, _Ixodes scapularis_, can transmit Lyme disease and other health hazards. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

When you think about ticks, you might picture nightmarish little parasites, stalking you on weekend hikes or afternoons in the park.

Your fear is well-founded. Tick-borne diseases are the most prevalent vector-borne diseases – those transmitted by living organisms – in the United States. Each tick feeds on multiple animals throughout its life, absorbing viruses and bacteria along the way and passing them on with its next bite. Some of those viruses and bacteria are harmful to humans, causing diseases that can be debilitating and sometimes lethal without treatment, such as Lyme, babesiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

But contained in every bite of this infuriating, insatiable pest is also a trove of social, environmental and epidemiological history.

In many cases, human actions long ago are the reason ticks carry these diseases so widely today. And that’s what makes ticks fascinating for environmental historians like me.

Ticks can be tiny and hard to spot. This is an adult and nymph Ixodes scapularis on an adult’s index finger.
CDC

Changing forests fueled tick risks

During the 18th and 19th centuries, settlers cleared more than half the forested land across the northeastern U.S., cutting down forests for timber and to make way for farms, towns and mining operations. With large-scale land clearing came a sharp decline in wildlife of all kinds. Predators such as bears and wolves were driven out, as were deer.

As farming moved westward, Northeasterners began to recognize the ecological and economic value of trees, and they returned millions of acres to forest.

The woods regrew. Plant-eaters such as deer returned, but the apex predators that once kept their populations in check did not.

As a result, deer populations carrying borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, grew rapidly. And with the deer came deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis). When a tick feeds on an infected deer, it can take up the bacteria. The tick isn’t harmed, but it can pass the bacteria to its next victim. In humans, Lyme disease can cause fever and fatigue, and if left untreated it can affect the nervous system.

The eastern U.S. became a global hot spot for tick-borne Lyme disease starting around the 1970s. Lyme disease affected over 89,000 Americans in 2023, and possibly many more.

Californians move into tick territory

For centuries, changing patterns of human settlements and the politics of land use have shaped the role of ticks and tick-borne illnesses within their environments.

In short, humans have made it easier for ticks to thrive and spread disease in our midst.

In California, the Northern Inner Coast and Santa Cruz mountain ranges that converge on San Francisco from the north and south were never clear-cut, and predators such as mountain lions and coyotes still exist there. But competition for housing has pushed human settlement deeper into wildland areas to the north, south and east of the city, reshaping tick ecology there.

A range map for the western black-legged tick.
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases

While western black-legged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) tend to swarm in large forest preserves, the Lyme-causing bacterium is actually more prevalent in small, isolated patches of greenery. In these isolated patches, rodents and other tick hosts can thrive, safe from large predators, which need more habitat to move freely. But isolation and lower diversity also means infections are spread more easily within the tick’s host populations.

People tend to build isolated houses in the hills, rather than large, connected developments. As the Silicon Valley area south of San Francisco sprawls outward, this checkerboard pattern of settlement has fragmented the natural landscape, creating a hard-to-manage public health threat.

Fewer hosts, more tightly packed, often means more infected hosts, proportionally, and thus more dangerous ticks.

A tick’s mouth is barbed so it can hold on as it draws blood over hours.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Six counties across these ranges, all surrounding and including San Francisco, account for 44% of recorded tick-borne illnesses in California.

A lesson from Texas cattle ranches

Domesticated livestock have also shaped the disease threat posed by ticks.

In 1892, at a meeting of cattle ranchers at the Stock Raiser’s Convention in Austin, Texas, Dr. B.A. Rogers introduced a novel theory that ticks were behind recent devastating plagues of Texas cattle fever. The disease had arrived with cattle imported from the West Indies and Mexico in the 1600s, and it was taking huge tolls on cattle herds. But how the disease spread to new victims had been a mystery.

A 1905 illustration of Rhipicephalus annulatus, a hard tick that causes cattle fever.
Nathan Banks, A treatise on the Acarina, or mites. Proceedings of the United States National Museum

Editors of Daniel’s Texas Medical Journal found the idea of ticks spreading disease laughable and lampooned the hypothesis, publishing a satire of what they described as an “early copy” of a forthcoming report on the subject.

The tick’s “fluid secretion, it is believed, is the poison which causes the fever … [and the tick] having been known to chew tobacco, as all other Texans do, the secretion is most probably tobacco juice,” they wrote.

Fortunately for the ranchers, not to mention the cows, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sided with Rogers. Its cattle fever tick program, started in 1906, curbed cattle fever outbreaks by limiting where and when cattle should cross tick-dense areas.

Engorged ticks feed on a calf’s ear.
Alan R Walker, CC BY-NC-SA

By 1938, the government had established a quarantine zone that extended 580 miles by 10 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas Brush Country, a region favored by the cattle tick.

This innovative use of natural space as a public health tool helped to functionally eradicate cattle fever from 14 Southern states by 1943.

Ticks are products of their environment

When it comes to tick-borne diseases the world over, location matters.

Take the hunter tick (Hyalomma spp.) of the Mediterranean and Asia. As a juvenile, or nymph, these ticks feed on small forest animals such as mice, hares and voles, but as an adult they prefer domesticated livestock.

For centuries, this tick was an occasional nuisance to nomadic shepherds of the Middle East. But in the 1850s, the Ottoman Empire passed laws to force nomadic tribes to become settled farmers instead. Unclaimed lands, especially on the forested edges of the steppe, were offered to settlers, creating ideal conditions for hunter ticks.

As a result, farmers in what today is Turkey saw spikes in tick-borne diseases, including a virus that causes Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a potentially fatal condition.

Where to check for ticks and how to remove them.

It’s probably too much to ask for sympathy for any ticks you meet this summer. They are bloodsucking parasites, after all.

Still, it’s worth remembering that the tick’s malevolence isn’t its own fault. Ticks are products of their environment, and humans have played many roles in turning them into the harmful parasites that seek us out today.

Sean Lawrence has nothing to disclose.

– ref. Ticks carry decades of history in each troublesome bite – https://theconversation.com/ticks-carry-decades-of-history-in-each-troublesome-bite-257110

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: ECHR “must evolve” to restore public confidence in rule of law, says Lord Chancellor
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

Press release

ECHR “must evolve” to restore public confidence in rule of law, says Lord Chancellor

The European Convention of Human Rights “must evolve” to restore public confidence in the rule of law, the Lord Chancellor told European ambassadors in a speech today (Wednesday 18 June).
Speaking to the Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg, the Lord Chancellor said that while the UK is resolutely committed to the ECHR, the trust of the public is beginning to erode as the application of rights “feels out of step with common sense.”

Making her argument for reform, she said that “the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law – once widely assumed – now face distortion, doubt, even hostility.”

Speaking at the meeting, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, said:

Across Europe, public confidence in the rule of law is fraying.

There is a growing perception – sometimes mistaken, sometimes grounded in reality – that human rights are no longer a shield for the vulnerable, but a tool for criminals to avoid responsibility. That the law too often protects those who break the rules, rather than those who follow them.

This tension is not new. The Convention was written to protect individuals from the arbitrary power of the state. But in today’s world, the threats to justice and liberty are more complex. They can come from technology, transnational crime, uncontrolled migration, or legal systems that drift away from public consent.

This comes as the Government commits to legislation to clarify the law around Article 8, the right to private and family life, which many foreign offenders have exploited in order to avoid deportation. In her speech, the Lord Chancellor said that “if a foreign national commits a serious crime, they should expect to be removed from the country.”

While this Government has ramped up removals of foreign national offenders with more than 4,400 removed since the election – up 14% compared to the same period 12 months ago – further action is being taken forward to increase removals even further.

The Lord Chancellor went on to highlight the changes being made in the UK to tackle immigration – including tightening the application of Article 8 to give courts the clarity they need so our immigration rules are no longer abused. This is particularly important as the Government introduces sentencing reforms to tackle a prison system at breaking point.

The Lord Chancellor set out that:

In the UK, we are restoring the balance we pledged at the birth of our Convention: liberty with responsibility, individual rights with the public interest. There must be consequences for breaking the rules.

Which is why we are clarifying how Convention rights – particularly Article 8 – operate in relation to immigration rules. The right to family life is fundamental. But it has too often been used in ways that frustrate deportation, even where there are serious concerns about credibility, fairness, and risk to the public.

We’re bringing clarity back to the distinction between what the law protects and what policy permits. Prisoners claiming a right to socialise – under Article 8 – is not just a legal stretch. It damages the public perception of human rights altogether.

Legislation brought forward by the Home Office will strengthen the public interest test to make it clear that Parliament needs to be able to control the country’s borders and make decisions over who comes to, and stays in the UK, striking the right balance between individual family rights and the wider public interest.

It will clarify Article 8 rules and set out how they should apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as “exceptional”.

She went on to say that:

These are the reforms we are pursuing at home. The question for all of us now is whether the Convention system, as it stands, has the tools to resolve these tensions in a way that keeps the public with us.

As I have said, our Convention has evolved before, through new protocols, new rights, and new interpretations. Always to reflect changing times, while staying true to its purpose.

However, reform of the ECHR must be “a shared political endeavour among us as member States”, the Lord Chancellor told the Council of Europe.

The Lord Chancellor concluded by saying:

The European Convention on Human Rights is one of the great achievements of post-war politics. It has endured because it has evolved. Now, it must do so again.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The full speech can be found here.

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Published 18 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Southeast Asian nations look to hedge their way out of troubled waters in the South China Sea

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By John Rennie Short, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A Philippine coast guard vessel patrols near Pagasa, part of the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea. Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images

The South China Sea has long been a bubbling geopolitical hot spot. Recently, a series of moves by the various nations claiming a stake in the waters has stirred up yet more trouble.

Malaysia has of late reaffirmed its commitment to oil and gas exploration in waters claimed by China while quietly building up its military on the islands off Borneo.

Meanwhile, Chinese coast guard vessels have deployed water cannons against Filipino fishing boats. And the accidental grounding of a Chinese boat in shallow waters around the Philippines’ Thitu Island on June 8, 2025, was enough to put Filipino forces on alert.

Vietnam, too, has been active in the disputed waters. A Beijing-based think tank on June 7 flagged that Vietnamese engineers had been busy reclaiming land and installing military-related ports and airstrips around the Spratly Islands.

What the three Southeast Asian nations of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have in common is that they, along with others in the region, are trying to navigate a more assertive China at a time when the U.S. policy intentions under the second Trump Administration are fluid and hard to read. And in lieu of a coordinated response from the regional body Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, each member nation has been busy charting its course in these choppy waters.

US-China relations all at sea

Why is China trying to assert control in the South China Sea? In a 2023 speech, President Xi Jinping noted that “Western countries led by the United States have implemented all round containment, encirclement and suppression of China.”

This fear has been long held in Beijing and was reinforced by a U.S. Indo-Pacific policy announced in 2011 of rebalancing military forces away from Europe and toward Asia to confront China.

In response, China has in recent years embarked on an ambitious policy of attempting to outmuscle U.S. naval power in the South China Sea.

China is now the world’s leading builder of naval vessels and is estimated to have 440 battleships by 2030, compared with the United States’ 300.

And it comes at a time when U.S. naval power is spread around the world. China’s, meanwhile, is concentrated around the South China Sea where, since 2013, Chinese vessels have pumped sand onto reefs, turning them into islands and then weaponizing them.

Satellite imagery shows the Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea, part of the Spratly Islands group, being built by Chinese dredges.
Maxar via Getty Images

Then there is the activity of China’s maritime militia of approximately 300 nominally fishing boats equipped with water cannons and reinforced hulls for ramming. This so-called gray zone fleet is increasingly active in confronting Southeast Asia nations at sea.

The U.S. response to China’s militarization in the sea has been through so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises that often deploy carrier groups in a show of force. But these episodic displays are more performative than effective, doing little to deter China’s claims.

The U.S. has also strengthened military alliances with Australia, India, Japan and the Philippines, and has increased coast guard cooperation with the Philippines and Japan.

A fleet from the U.S. Navy patrolling the Pacific Ocean.
Sean M. Castellano US Navy via Getty Images

The sea is a valuable resource

Yet the battle over control of the South China Seas is more than just geopolitical posturing between the two superpowers.

For adjoining countries, the sea is a valuable biological resource with rich fishing grounds that provide a staple of fish protein for close to 2 billion people. There are estimates of 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, guarantees a nation an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles from around its coastline.

China is a signatory of the UNCLOS. Yet it views ownership of the South China Sea through the lens of its nine-dash line, a reference to the boundary line that Beijing has invoked since 1948. While the claim has no legal or historical basis, the delineation makes major incursions into waters around Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia and, to a lesser extent, Brunei and Indonesia as well.

Despite China’s expansive claim to the South China Sea being dismissed in 2016 by the international Permanent Court of Arbitration, Beijing continues to assert its claim.

Hedging positions

As I explore in my recent book “Hedging and Conflict in the South China Sea,” part of the problem Southeast Asian nations face is that they have failed to forge a unified position.

ASEAN, the regional bloc representing 10 nations in Southeast Asia, has long been governed by the principle that major decisions need unanimous agreement. China is a major trading partner to ASEAN nations, so any regional country aligning too close to the U.S. comes with the real risk of economic consequences. And two ASEAN members, Cambodia and Laos, are especially close to China, making it difficult to generate a unified ASEAN policy that confronts China’s maritime claim.

Instead, ASEAN has promoted a regional code of conduct that effectively legitimizes China’s maritime claims, fails to mention the 2016 ruling and ignores the issue of conflicting claims.

Further complicating a united front against China is the competing claims among ASEAN nations themselves to disputed islands in the South China Sea.

In lieu of a coordinated response, Southeast Asian nations have instead turned to hedging — that is, maintaining good relationships with both China and the U.S. without fully committing to one or other.

A balancing act for Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines

Malaysia’s approach sees its government partition off the South China Sea dispute from its overall bilateral ties with China while continuing to promote an ASEAN code of conduct.

Until recently, Malaysia’s oil and gas activities were well within Malaysia’s EEZ and not far enough out to fall into China’s nine-dash claim.

But as these close-to-shore fields become exhausted, subsequent exploration will need to extend outward and into China’s nine-dash claim, putting Malaysia’s dealings with China under pressure.

China’s nine-dash line claims a significant amount of Vietnam’s EEZ, and the contested maritime area is a source of friction between the two countries; China’s maritime militia regularly harasses Vietnamese fishermen and disrupts drilling operations in Vietnam’s EEZ .

But Vietnam has to tread carefully. China plays a significant role in the Vietnamese economy as a major destination of exports and an important provider of foreign investment. China also has the ability to dam the Mekong River upstream of Vietnam — something that would disrupt agricultural production.

As a result, Vietnam’s hedging involves a careful calibration to avoid angering China. However, part of Vietnam’s heavy hedging involves the promotion of the South China Sea dispute as a core issue for domestic public opinion, which limits the Vietnamese government’s ability to offer concessions to China.

A Philippine coast guard ship and fishing boats are seen in El Nido, Palawan, Philippines, on May 26, 2025.
Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty ImagesDaniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images

China’s nine-dash claim also includes a wide swath of the Philippines’ EEZ.

The Philippines has zigzagged in its dealings with China. The presidencies of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001–2010) and Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022) pursued a pro-China tack that downplayed Filipino claims in the South China Sea. Presidents Benigno Aquino (2010-2016) and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (2022-present), in contrast, have given U.S. forces greater access to its maritime bases and mobilized national and international opinion in favor of its claims.

Since coming to power, Marcos has also pursued even closer naval ties with the U.S.. But this has come at a cost: China now views the Philippines as a U.S. ally. As such, Beijing sees little to be gained by pulling back from its assertive activity in and around its waters.

The future

In the shadow of two major powers battling for power in the South China Sea, Southeast Asian nations are making the best of their position along a geopolitical fracture line by advancing their claims and interests while not overly antagonizing a more assertive China or losing the support of the U.S.

This may work to tamp down tensions in the South China Sea. But it is a fluid approach not without risk, and it could yet prove to be another source of instability in a geopolitically contested and dangerous region.

John Rennie Short received funding from Fulbright Foundation

– ref. Southeast Asian nations look to hedge their way out of troubled waters in the South China Sea – https://theconversation.com/southeast-asian-nations-look-to-hedge-their-way-out-of-troubled-waters-in-the-south-china-sea-257092

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: The Sciences Po Summer School has officially begun!

Source: Universities – Science Po in English

The Sciences Po Summer School opened its doors for its 14th edition on our Paris campus! This summer, Sciences Po is welcoming over 900 students from around the world, with a session in June and a second session in July.

The University Programme

Credits: Annie for the Summer School

The University Programme began on 2 June with a sunny orientation day. Just over 150 students have joined for the June session. Participants will study an intensive course for 4 weeks, in either social sciences or French as a foreign language. Courses in social sciences are offered by faculty members of Sciences Po, researchers and experts in their respective fields. The topics range from global challenges on inequality, through the course Tackling Inequality and Social Risks: A Global Perspective, diplomacy, with the course Diplomacy in Times of Global Crises: Theory & Practice, digital challenges on politicisation, with the course Internet & Politics, and major international challenges, through the course World Politics.

42 nationalities are represented in the June cohort, and 35 students are supported by programmes with partner universities, namely the organisation Pour le Brésil, the Mastercard Foundation, and the Professional Certificate for Young Refugees.

A Custom Programme

Credits: Annie for the Summer School

On 10 June, we welcomed 200 students from ESADE Business and Law School for our annual custom programme. These students, with an average age of 19, will spend 2 weeks on our Paris campus studying public international law and European law, with members of Sciences Po’s faculty and a team of young researchers specialized in these areas.

Like each programme held at the Summer School, before embarking on a programme of intensive study, the students were able to enjoy a river cruise on the Seine, under a bright blue and sunny sky!

Pre-College Programmes

Finally, the Pre-College Programmes kicked off on 16 June with an online programme centred on the risks and regulations of artificial intelligence and new technologies. This innovative programme has welcomed 14 high school students from 11 countries, with an average age of 16, to explore global questions and the regulatory challenges related to new technologies as well as the corresponding law and policy development processes, both from a practical and theoretical perspective.

The theoretical teachings within the framework of these programmes are supplemented by simulation sessions which allow students to develop their analytical comprehension of the issues, while also gaining practical negotiation skills.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: SCST visits Shanghai (with photos)

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

     The Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Miss Rosanna Law, visited Shanghai today (June 18). In the morning, she went to the Shanghai Museum on People’s Square and was given a guided tour of a well-received exhibition, “On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt”. During her visit, Miss Law met with Deputy Director of the Shanghai Museum Mr Huang He. She thanked the Shanghai Museum for its support of Hong Kong over the years, while Mr Huang shared experiences in developing and designing creative products. Miss Law said Hong Kong could learn a lot from the Shanghai Museum in developing cultural and creative industries. Miss Law expressed hope that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) and the Shanghai Museum will strengthen their cultural co-operation in the future, contributing cultural content to the country’s modernisation and promoting cultural prosperity.

     After that, Miss Law called on the Director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, Mr Xu Bin, and had a working lunch together, during which she shared with him Hong Kong’s progress and achievements in promoting sports development. Mr Xu said there is huge room for developing culture, sports and tourism, while sports exchanges serve as a bridge between the two places and can also boost economic and social developments. Miss Law said that Hong Kong, China athletes achieved excellent results in international competitions in recent years, which helps lift citizens’ interests in sports and support for athletes. Miss Law added that Hong Kong is preparing at full steam for the 15th National Games and the 12th National Games for Persons with Disabilities and the 9th National Special Olympic Games to be cohosted with Guangdong and Macao this November and December. Through today’s exchange, Miss Law said she hopes to learn from Shanghai’s experiences in hosting same events and further improve the preparatory work.

     In the afternoon, Miss Law visited the Memorial Hall of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China and met with the Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Memorial, Mr Xue Feng. The Memorial is the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in 1921, in which the founding of the CPC was announced, bearing great significance. Noting that the HKSARG is setting up a museum to introduce the country’s developments and achievements and preparing exhibitions related to the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Miss Law said the visit was arranged intentionally to seek guidance, with an aim to make better preparations for the relevant projects in the future.

     In the evening, Miss Law attended the opening ceremony and dinner of WestK Shanghai Week 2025. Speaking at the event, she said that Hong Kong and Shanghai are connected by blood and share common traits, as they are both exemplars of the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures and dazzling Pearls of the Orient. The two places actively deepen international exchanges and co-operations in areas of economy, culture and globalisation, serving as pioneers in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

     Miss Law also said, “The West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) is an important cultural infrastructure investment of the HKSARG. After many years of development, the WKCD has transformed from a blueprint into reality today and become one of the largest cultural hubs in the world, featuring performing arts venues with our country’s staunch support. The Hong Kong Palace Museum, which opened in 2022, and the M+ museum, which commenced operation in 2021, have become world-class museums blending traditional and contemporary arts and cultures.”

     “The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) kick-started WestK Shanghai Week today. It is the first time a series of exhibitions and performing arts programmes and cultural exchange activities have been brought outside Hong Kong. It is not only an important milestone of the HKSARG driving top-notch arts, cultural and creative programmes to go global, but also showcases Hong Kong’s diverse arts achievements and further attracts local and overseas visitors to experience Hong Kong’s vibrancy and appeal firsthand,” Miss Law added.

   Supporting organisations of WestK Shanghai Week 2025 include the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of the HKSARG, and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Shanghai of the HKSARG.

     This morning, Miss Law visited the “WestK x MANNER” limited-edition art collaboration themed store, jointly rolled out by the WKCDA and Shanghai’s beloved coffee brand MANNER COFFEE. The store invited Hong Kong’s renowned illustrator Don Mak to craft exclusive designs inspired by the Victoria Harbour skyline, WKCD panoramas and iconic Hong Kong urban motifs, demonstrating the creative charm of integrating culture, creative industry and tourism.

     Upon arrival yesterday (June 17), Miss Law had a working lunch with representatives of the management of Shanghai Shendi Group to exchange information on the latest tourism situation in Shanghai and Hong Kong. She also visited the Shanghai Disney Resort to learn about its operation and development. Miss Law said that the Shanghai Disney Resort and the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort are iconic attractions in the two places, which play vital roles in driving regional tourism and economic development.

     Miss Law will depart from Shanghai for Hong Kong tonight.



MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Attorney General James Applauds Passage of Legislation to Protect Consumers and Small Businesses
Source: US State of New York

EW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today applauded the passage of legislation to protect consumers and small businesses. The Fostering Affordability and Integrity through Reasonable Business Practices Act, or FAIR Business Practices Act, sponsored by Senator Leroy Comrie and Assemblymember Micah Lasher, and advanced by Attorney General James in March 2025, updates New York’s consumer protection law, GBL §349, for the first time in 45 years. The bill protects New Yorkers from a wide array of common schemes and scams, including artificial intelligence (AI)-based schemes, deed theft, predatory lending, data breaches, and more.

“Too many New Yorkers are being taken advantage of by mortgage servicers charging unnecessary high fees, debt collectors stealing Social Security benefits, and health insurance companies with unfair billing practices,” said Attorney General James. “The FAIR Business Practices Act will close loopholes that make it easy for New Yorkers to be cheated out of their time and hard-earned money. This legislation advanced by Senator Comrie and Assemblymember Lasher will help us protect working families and their wallets from predatory lenders, abusive debt collectors, scammers, and more. I applaud Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for their support in passing this legislation at a time when the federal government is abandoning its responsibility to protect consumers and small businesses.”

“For too long, New York’s consumer protection laws have lagged behind the fast-moving tactics used to exploit our communities,” said Senator Leroy Comrie. “By updating General Business Law §349, we are giving consumers and small businesses the tools they need to fight back against predatory practices and modern-day scams. I’m proud to have sponsored the FAIR Business Practices Act alongside Attorney General James and Assemblymember Lasher, and I thank my colleagues for recognizing the urgency of protecting New Yorkers in this evolving digital and economic landscape.”

“Since the general business law was enacted in 1970, our entire society has grown dramatically more complicated, and we have seen the complete revolution of commerce,” said Assemblymember Micah Lasher. “In all that time, we have done nothing to modernize our laws to protect New Yorkers from being taken advantage of. That stasis comes to a welcome end with the passage of the FAIR Business Practices Act, a critical step forward to protect New Yorkers, their pocketbooks, and affordability in our great state. I am grateful to Attorney General James and her team for their leadership, and to Senator Comrie for his partnership in passing this long overdue legislation.”

The FAIR Business Practices Act would help stop lenders, including auto lenders, mortgage servicers, and student loan servicers, from deceptively steering people into higher cost loans. It would reduce unnecessary and hidden fees, stop unfair billing practices by health care companies, and prevent companies from taking advantage of New Yorkers with limited English proficiency. New York’s current consumer protection law, GBL §349, was passed in 1970 and only prohibits deceptive business acts and practices, leaving consumers vulnerable to unfair or abusive acts by companies. The FAIR Business Practices Act will protect New Yorkers from unfair and abusive business acts, such as:
- Student loan servicers that steer borrowers into the most expensive repayment plans;
- Car dealers that refuse to return a customer’s photo ID until a deal is finalized and charge for add-on warranties that the customer did not actually purchase;
- Nursing homes that routinely sue relatives of deceased residents for their unpaid bills despite not having any basis for liability;
- Companies that take advantage of consumers with limited English proficiency and obscure pricing information and fees;
- Debt collectors that collect and refuse to return a senior’s Social Security benefits, even though they are exempt from debt collection; and
- Health insurance companies that use long lists of in-network doctors who turn out not to accept the insurance.
With the federal government rolling back protections for consumers and small businesses, the FAIR Business Practices Act authorizes OAG to take action to protect vulnerable New Yorkers.

MIL OSI USA News –
June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Another public inquiry into institutional abuses – why they so often fail to deliver justice for victims

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anne Marie McAlinden, Professor, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast

House of Commons/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Public inquiries have become the standard political response to scandals and public crises, including allegations of institutional abuses.

At the time of writing, there are multiple ongoing inquiries (or calls for them) into forms of abuse throughout the UK and elsewhere. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Ireland have ongoing institutional abuse inquiries or commissions of investigation. Victims of the late Mohamed Al Fayed are calling for an inquiry into abuses suffered while they were employed at Harrods.

And the government has just announced a further national inquiry into grooming gangs in England and Wales. There has also been a concentration of institutional abuse inquiries globally over the last 30 years.

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Ireland in particular has had a lengthy history of such official investigations. Over the last two decades, it has had at least eight. In England and Wales, the issues of grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation have already been examined as part of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse led by child protection expert Alexis Jay. With 19 reports and evidence from over 6,000 victims within its Truth Project alone, it was the largest ever public inquiry in the UK.

Frequently demanded by victims and the public, inquiries have symbolic value in signifying official acknowledgement of wrongdoing and abuses. However, they arguably fail to deliver truth, justice, accountability and healing for victims in several ways.

The failures of abuse inquiries

Inquiries are inevitably constrained by their narrow terms of reference. This sets the parameters of the inquiry and shapes the scope and scale of their investigations and any eventual outcomes.

Terms of reference are frequently focused on how authorities responded to emerging allegations of abuses – whether churches, police or social services. A fuller examination of the systemic and structural issues that made abuses possible or allowed them to go unchecked for so long would be more useful.

The investigations are also usually focused on fact-finding at an institutional level. As a result, they often fail to deliver the comprehensive truth of specific cases or hold individual perpetrators to account, which is what many victims seek.

In older cases of abuse, things are even more difficult because so much time has passed and there may be no witnesses or records left to help prove what happened.

Read more:
How to make sure the new grooming gangs inquiry is the last

Previous research shows that the inquiry process is often deeply traumatising for victims. Even if the emphasis is purportedly non-adversarial, the presence of lawyers and the dominance of legal culture and cross-examination effectively requires them to prove or justify their experiences. The basic effect becomes one of disbelief of victims or dismissal of their experiences of abuse.

Added to this are the significant costs of inquiries – in terms of money and time. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is said to have cost more than £180 million. As with many large investigations, it took seven years to produce its final report.

Inevitably, victims are left waiting years for outcomes and any sense of justice. Monetary redress (or compensation), if it comes at all, only usually happens once the inquiry has concluded.

Above all, public inquiries are severely limited in their capacity to produce meaningful, systemic and lasting change. Research shows that successive child abuse inquiries, decades apart, continue to make the same or similar recommendations. The lack of action by governments and institutions on recommendations means the issues remain unaddressed.

Over two and a half years later, many of the Jay report’s 20 recommendations remain unimplemented.

The collective failures of past abuse inquiries should prompt the government to pause and consider whether another is truly needed – or whether a different approach is required.

Rethinking public inquiries

With colleagues at the Transforming Justice Project, I’ve researched justice responses to historical institutional abuses over many years. Our work, based on extensive primary research with victims, as well as advocates and church and state representatives on the island of Ireland, has highlighted some of the failings of inquiries. We have also uncovered an appetite for doing things differently.

On one level, it is possible to reform inquiries by focusing more centrally on victims and the trauma they have experienced. This could include, for example, adopting themed approaches to inquiries, perhaps related to particular contexts or abuses, which report sooner as standard.

It might also mean specialist support services for victims running in parallel to inquiries. Or, it might mean involving victims in the design of the inquiry process from the outset.

It is also worth exploring alternative models of truth recovery, such as non-statutory independent panel in Northern Ireland. This panel focuses specifically on mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries, and workhouses. Here, the accumulated testimony of victims and their experiences will feed into the full statutory public inquiry on these forms of institutional abuse.

More broadly, rather than commissioning yet another inquiry, the government needs to follow up on existing recommendations from previous inquiries, including on child abuse. It is only by addressing the systemic issues underlying institutional abuse – including cultural attitudes and responses to victims – that we will prevent a recurrence of abuse in the longer term.

Anne Marie McAlinden received funding from the AHRC and, with colleagues on the Transforming Justice Project, from the British Academy and the Higher Education Authority.

– ref. Another public inquiry into institutional abuses – why they so often fail to deliver justice for victims – https://theconversation.com/another-public-inquiry-into-institutional-abuses-why-they-so-often-fail-to-deliver-justice-for-victims-259103

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 19, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Smartphones are once again setting the agenda for justice as the Latino community documents ICE actions

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Allissa V. Richardson, Associate Professor of Journalism, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Smartphone witnessing helped spur the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Ethan Swope

It has been five years since May 25, 2020, when George Floyd gasped for air beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue. Five years since 17-year-old Darnella Frazier stood outside Cup Foods, raised her phone and bore witness to nine minutes and 29 seconds that would galvanize a global movement against racial injustice.

Frazier’s video didn’t just show what happened. It insisted the world stop and see.

Today, that legacy continues in the hands of a different community, facing different threats but wielding the same tools. Across the United States, Latino organizers are raising their phones, not to go viral but to go on record. They livestream Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, film family separations and document protests outside detention centers. Their footage is not merely content. It is evidence, warning – and resistance.

Here in Los Angeles where I teach journalism, for example, several images have seared themselves into public memory. One viral video shows a shackled father stepping into a white, unmarked van as his daughter sobs behind the camera, pleading with him not to sign any official documents. He turns, gestures for her to calm down, and blows her a kiss. In another video, filmed across town, Los Angeles Police Department officers on horseback charge into crowds of peaceful protesters, swinging wooden batons with chilling precision.

In Spokane, Washington, residents form a spontaneous human chain around their neighbors mid-raid, their bodies and cameras erecting a barricade of defiance. In San Diego, a video shows white allies yelling “Shame!” as they chase a car full of National Guard troops from their neighborhood.

The impact of smartphone witnessing has been immediate and unmistakable – visceral at street level, seismic in statehouses. On the ground, the videos helped inspire a “No Kings” movement, which organized protests in all 50 states on June 14, 2025.

Lawmakers are intensifying their focus on immigration policy as well. As the Trump administration escalates enforcement, Democratic-led states are expanding laws that limit cooperation with federal agents. On June 12, the House Oversight Committee questioned Democratic governors about these measures, with Republican lawmakers citing public safety concerns. The hearing underscored deep divisions between federal and state approaches to immigration enforcement.

The legacy of Black witnessing

What’s unfolding now is not new – it is newly visible. As my research shows, Latino organizers are drawing from a playbook that was sharpened in 2020 and rooted in a much older lineage of Black media survival strategies that were forged under extreme oppression.

In my 2020 book “Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest Journalism,” I document how Black Americans have used media – slave narratives, pamphlets, newspapers, radio and now smartphones – to fight for justice. From Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells to Darnella Frazier, Black witnesses have long used journalism as a tool for survival and transformation.

Latino mobile journalists are building on that blueprint in 2025, filming state power in moments of overreach, archiving injustice in real time, and expanding the impact of this radical tradition.

Their work also echoes the spatial tactics of Black resistance. Just as enslaved Black people once mapped escape routes during slavery and Jim Crow, Latino communities today are engaging in digital cartography to chart ICE-free zones, mutual aid hubs and sanctuary spaces. The People Over Papers map channels the logic of the Black maroons – communities of self-liberated Africans who escaped plantations to track patrols, share intelligence and build networks of survival. Now, the hideouts are digital. The maps are crowdsourced. The danger remains.

Likewise, the Stop ICE Raids Alerts Network revives a civil rights-era tactic. In the 1960s, organizers used wide area telephone service lines and radio to circulate safety updates. Black DJs cloaked dispatches in traffic and weather reports – “congestion on the south side” signaled police blockades; “storm warnings” meant violence ahead. Today, the medium is WhatsApp. The signal is encrypted. But the message – protect each other – has not changed.

Layered across both systems is the DNA of the “Negro Motorist Green Book,” the guide that once helped Black travelers navigate Jim Crow America by identifying safe towns, gas stations and lodging. People Over Papers and Stop ICE Raids are digital descendants of that legacy. Where the Green Book used printed pages, today’s tools use digital pins. But the mission remains: survival through shared knowledge, protection through mapped resistance.

The People Over Papers map is a crowdsourced collection of reports of ICE activity across the U.S.
Screenshot by The Conversation U.S.

Dangerous necessity

Five years after George Floyd’s death, the power of visual evidence remains undeniable. Black witnessing laid the groundwork. In 2025, that tradition continues through the lens of Latino mobile journalists, who draw clear parallels between their own community’s experiences and those of Black Americans. Their footage exposes powerful echoes: ICE raids and overpolicing, border cages and city jails, a door kicked in at dawn and a knee on a neck.

Like Black Americans before them, Latino communities are using smartphones to protect, to document and to respond. In cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and El Paso, whispers of “ICE is in the neighborhood” now flash across Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram. For undocumented families, pressing record can mean risking retaliation or arrest. But many keep filming – because what goes unrecorded can be erased.

What they capture are not isolated incidents. They are part of a broader, shared struggle against state violence. And as long as the cameras keep rolling, the stories keep surfacing – illuminated by the glow of smartphone screens that refuse to look away.

Allissa V. Richardson receives funding from the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

– ref. Smartphones are once again setting the agenda for justice as the Latino community documents ICE actions – https://theconversation.com/smartphones-are-once-again-setting-the-agenda-for-justice-as-the-latino-community-documents-ice-actions-258980

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 19, 2025

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